The constants of heaven continue without rest, day and night. This is the law of nature.
In the known history of the cultivation world, this was the most formidable battle between the highest powers.
Intangible light and shadow spread across the sea’s surface, resembling a blue mirror. Half was starlight embracing the moon in the night sky, half was the bright sun hanging in the clear daytime sky.
“I never enjoyed fighting,” Ying Zeyou mused. He had long anticipated this day. When Nan Yi and Ao Guanghan came seeking revenge, he offered little resistance. After proving his immortality with the Red Emperor’s demon heart, he no longer engaged in prolonged battles.
His aversion to combat stemmed from his certainty that no one could defeat him. The outcome was predetermined; there was no need to prove it through conflict.
Except for Jiming—the Buddhist cultivator considered a great enemy even in the era of the Dao Venerable.
“They came to kill me for righteousness. Lord of Buddhist Repentance, what’s your reason?” Ying Zeyou asked.
Jiming’s gaze pierced through his snow-white hair, moving from the daylight to the source of darkness. “For personal vengeance,” he replied simply.
It was just an old grudge. A life for a life—the most basic of principles.
Ying Zeyou chuckled softly. “I thought our conflict would be a debate of ideologies for all living beings. Too many seek battle driven by personal grudges. Due to their limited perspectives, even if I engage, there’s no suspense in the outcome.”
“There is,” Jiming countered calmly. “While you live, I can’t rest easy to join her.”
A subtle pain spread from the depths of Ying Zeyou’s heart, quickly suppressed by an indescribable anger.
“Are you upset? Because you have him in your heart?” he asked the sealed demon heart within him—the one that should have belonged to Nan Rao. Then he mocked himself for the absurdity of it all.
What did their potential promise have to do with him anyway?
What did it matter… at all?
The master of Daosheng Tian said, “Please, enlighten me.”
The clash between two cultivators in the Fifth Tribulation of the Celestial State didn’t begin with the legendary world-destroying spectacle. As both closed their eyes, years of schemes and grievances were settled.
“It has begun.” Only a handful in the human realm could penetrate the tightly sealed space to witness this final battle.
Outsiders saw only night and day devouring each other at the zenith of the sky, incompatible with fire and water. On one side, clouds rolled; on the other, stars spun in reverse.
Below the sky, a gray chaos expanded across the sea. Wind, thunder, rain, and lightning; metal, wood, fire, and earth—along with countless fragments of void—condensed into a spherical storm, engulfing everything nearby.
“I learned a word from the Dao Venerable: jealousy,” Ying Zeyou said. “That year, when the Dao Venerable was still one among many in the cultivation world, he said Qielan Ancient Buddha had a disciple born without knowledge of the seven emotions and six desires, cultivating without heart demons. His ascension was imminent.”
“How many mortals wish to be like you, unaware of emotions, hearts free of dust?”
“The Dao Venerable couldn’t kill you because he couldn’t let go of his jealousy.”
As he spoke, four Dao seals appeared beneath Ying Zeyou’s feet: alchemy, artifacts, formations, and talismans.
Daoist techniques sought balance: alchemy to focus the spirit, artifacts as weapons, formations for defense, and talismans for transformation. This most orthodox approach to attack and defense turned the battle between two individuals into a war.
“Ascension, becoming immortal or divine—those are your desires, not mine,” Jiming said, raising his eyes. Above the void storm, the dazzling sun took on a blood-red hue.
“Is this how the Dao Venerable taught you to speak to your elders?”
As he finished speaking, chains forged from countless netherworld sins shot out from the blood-red sun, effortlessly shattering the four Dao seals and entangling themselves three feet from his body.
The sound of collapse was particularly clear amidst this onslaught. He had forgotten that even the youngest of the Six State-Breaking Venerables was once a peak he couldn’t hope to reach.
“The Dao Venerable taught me that only those who sever the seven emotions can achieve the Fifth Tribulation,” Ying Zeyou said. Black and white ink dispersed from beneath his feet. He withdrew his spiritual defense, allowing three or five chains of sin to pierce his shoulders, a strange smile appearing on his face.
“After all these years, I’m still curious. When you entered the Fifth Tribulation, did you truly understand the seven emotions?”
In an instant, the ink outlined a circular sea area. Suddenly, the ocean and sky reversed. The entire sky of seawater crashed down. Amidst the chaotic tides, the shadow beneath Ying Zeyou’s feet split into three.
“The Three-Body Image of Divine Essence,” Jiming murmured, his brow furrowing slightly. He pressed his palm downward, condensing the chains of sin into an iron-cast, blood-dripping peacock that charged towards the forming three-body image.
As he attempted to seal Ying Zeyou’s three avatars with one body, a female figure parted the curtain of rain behind him.
Without turning, Jiming’s mind stirred, about to unleash a karma-breaking Buddhist incantation to slay the intruder. Suddenly, the woman let out a laugh.
“Jiming, long time no see.”
That voice…
Hesitating for a moment, Jiming whirled around, coming face to face with the visage he had longed for all these years.
But as “Nan Rao” drew near, a vicious smile spread across her face.
“Father, don’t believe her!” Nan Yan’s voice rang out as space shattered in the distance.
Jiming instinctively dodged, but a black sword imbued with demonic energy pierced his heart.
The Heart Demon Woman laughed triumphantly. “Too late!”
The heart-piercing sword dissolved instantly, transforming into countless black vines that trapped Jiming in a cage.
“So you do understand the seven emotions,” Ying Zeyou remarked, severing one of the peacock’s wings. Witnessing the scene, he raised a finger to the sky, summoning the Dao Sky Sword Array, intending to annihilate Jiming in one strike.
“How many years do you think I prepared to welcome your emergence?” the Heart Demon Woman asked, slowly floating behind Ying Zeyou. Eager to see him kill a Fifth Tribulation cultivator as fodder for her, she sneered, “No wonder you insisted on shaping the heart demon into Nan Rao’s image. It seems you’re not the only one with a weakness in your mental state—”
“You’re mistaken,” Ying Zeyou interrupted.
The Heart Demon Woman froze, then widened her eyes in disbelief as she saw the tip of a blade formed from demonic energy protruding from her chest.
The Three-Body Image of Divine Essence comprised three forms: Dao, Confucian, and Demonic, symbolizing the three paths of cultivation. The Demonic Body Image had formed first, immediately slashing at the Heart Demon Woman and destroying her demonic core without hesitation.
Ying Zeyou caught Nan Rao’s remains and addressed the dissipating Heart Demon Woman: “The mental weakness is his, not mine. I… have no heart demons.”
“You…” The Heart Demon Woman seemed to realize something and burst into laughter. “But you’re still deceiving yourself. Remember, I am the inescapable demon in your heart. We will meet again in the eighteen layers of hell!”
After long fatigue and endless waiting, this face—he would finally forget it.
“You probably disdain my reminiscence,” Ying Zeyou said softly, closing Nan Rao’s eyes. “But now, you can rest in peace.”
As the heart demon dissipated, his mental state finally reached perfection. His cultivation power flowed into the Zhoutian Xingyin Sword Array above him. Suddenly, a blinding flash of fire burst into the battlefield.
“Give my mother back to me!”
The figure appeared so swiftly that a face, similar yet vibrantly alive, was before him in an instant. The newcomer snatched Nan Rao from his arms. Taking advantage of Ying Zeyou’s momentary immobility due to the sword array and three-body image, they unleashed a sword strike at his face.
Every part of this area had been sealed off by the two powerful combatants. No one should have been able to break in before his duel with Jiming ended.
Unless this child had been here all along.
“Pull me back!” Nan Yan, recognizing the situation, tossed a handful of golden bodhi leaves from the Buddha-bone Chan heart towards the demonic cage trapping Jiming. Without hesitation, she stepped into a purple demonic light.
His sword array disrupted, Ying Zeyou wiped away a trickle of blood from the sword cut on his cheek and pointed towards Nan Yan.
“Lock.”
Just as Nan Yan’s form was half-engulfed, the purple light seemed compressed by an immense force and instantly dissipated.
“Reckless,” Ying Zeyou muttered, about to move in and extract her heart. Unexpectedly, the demonic cage below exploded, and a blood-red Buddhist mantra chain locked around his neck, yanking him down.
“Lord of Buddhist Repentance, do you know that until the nine hells open, I cannot enter—”
“Then enter paradise.”
Nan Yan looked back to see Ying Zeyou dragged into the deep sea by Jiming. Just as she began to relax, a dark figure rushed towards her.
Ying Zeyou?
Nan Yan quickly realized that while the figure resembled Ying Zeyou, it wore armor and wielded a blade, emanating demonic energy. It was just one of the body images.
She didn’t rush to leave. After quickly storing Nan Rao’s remains in a spatial realm, she unleashed her full power, pushing her Two-Faced Buddha technique to its peak as she raised her hand to block.
In that instant, Buddhist and demonic energies clashed violently. The blow drove into Nan Yan’s hand bone, but with the Seven Buddha Karma Book’s power surging, she managed to block the strike after retreating several hundred zhang.
“Nan Yan!”
Two figures, wrapped in purple and red spiritual energy, charged in, forcing the demonic body image to retreat before returning to Nan Yan’s side. They gave her time to take a medicinal pill while keeping an eye on the demonic image.
“Are you alright?”
“Just a flesh wound. But this thing’s cultivation… it’s probably between the third and fourth tribulation of the Nascent Soul stage.”
At that moment, a paper crane flew through the storm to their side, carrying Mo Xingzheng’s voice.
“To make a long story short, these are my master’s Three-Body Images of Divine Essence, representing demonic, Confucian, and Daoist cultivation. Each is at the master level, with the demonic image being the weakest. Don’t underestimate them.”
The three looked up to see two stone statues rising from the sea behind the demonic image. The stone skin soon fell away, revealing the remaining two divine essence images.
The Daoist image, the Confucian image, and the demonic image.
The demonic image wore armor and a mask, wielding a long blade dripping with fresh blood.
The Confucian image wore a tall hat and a long robe, its face solemn, fingers twirling a bamboo brush.
The Daoist image, forming last, stood behind the others, nearly identical to Ying Zeyou himself. When its heterochromatic eyes—one black, one white—met Nan Yan’s gaze, she felt unprecedented pressure.
Yin Ya exclaimed, “Isn’t he a Daoist cultivator? How can he have such high attainment in Confucianism and demonism?”
Mo Xingzheng’s bitter laugh came from the paper crane: “In a thousand years, Daosheng Tian has only produced two individuals capable of multi-path cultivation. If Senior Brother were here, we might fare better. Especially that Daoist image—though half-suppressed by the Lord of Buddhist Repentance and not fully formed, it possesses one of my master’s soul fragments, equivalent to half his being.”
The three divine essence images hadn’t moved yet, apparently interrupted earlier by Jiming and still waiting for their spiritual energy to coalesce. Once fully formed, they would be formidable opponents.
As the three retreated, they observed the spot where Jiming had dragged Ying Zeyou into the deep sea. A terrifying whirlpool had formed there, chilling their hearts.
Nan Yan, grasping the situation, said, “Father must have avoided the heart demon’s critical strike. In terms of pure cultivation, I believe he can suppress his opponent. The problem is that Ying Zeyou sent these three images up before going down. Now this area is sealed off. If these divine essence images obtain the Buddha-bone Chan heart before the underwater battle concludes…”
Without a doubt, if the three hearts merged, Ying Zeyou would be nearly invincible.
“Then we have no choice but to buy time,” Yin Ya said. “I guess the Dragon Lord and others are working on breaking the spatial seal around us, but with ghost creatures causing havoc everywhere, we can’t rely on them too much. We need to find a place to hide.”
The sealed sea area between Zizhou and Yinzhou, even encompassing a small part of Yinzhou’s coast, was vast but finite. They couldn’t run forever.
“I’ve got it,” Yin Ya said, struck by inspiration. He pointed towards where Sumiyan had been. “Let’s hide inside Sumiyan’s shell. It contains the Sumeru Infinite State, preserving the demon race’s bloodline crystals. You can hide inside it. As a fellow demon, it… Huh?”
Seeing Yin Ya’s expression change dramatically, Nan Yan extended her divine sense and exclaimed, “It’s trying to crash into Yinzhou’s coast!”
Yin Ya unfurled a large banner, shouting angrily, “Ancestral Spirit of Sumeru, we’re already locked in a fierce battle with Daosheng Tian. You should be sending demon armies to assist us against the enemy. Why are you still trying to sink Yinzhou?!”
Sumiyan’s aged voice replied, “The Red Emperor is also an enemy of our race. Yinzhou should rightfully return to us demons.”
“To hell with your ancestors! You’re just bullying the weak and fearing the strong!” Yin Ya fumed, turning to the others. “Better to rely on ourselves than on demons. There’s a life core inside Sumiyan’s infinite realm—it’s the old turtle’s lifeline. If you can get that core, you can kill it and stop its rampage. You’ll also be able to control the Sumeru Infinite State inside. Even if we can’t hold off those three body images, they won’t be able to find you.”
At that moment, the demonic image seemed to realize their intentions. It turned and slashed open the stone seal on the Confucian image, then looked back at the Daoist image, which nodded slightly. The demonic and Confucian images then began to pursue them.
“Here they come.”
The Confucian image, clearly stronger than the demonic one, flashed with a green light, closing the distance to within five li in an instant.
Yin Ya, sensing the Confucian image’s extraordinary power, said to Mu Zhanting, “Two of them—you take one, I’ll take the other. Got it?”
Normally, ranged attackers would face ranged attackers, and close combatants would face close combatants. Mu Zhanting was more suited to deal with the demonic image.
Mu Zhanting glanced over and said, “Got it, got it.”
Yin Ya, believing he understood the gravity of the situation, nodded. He had just spent a breath transforming into his fox form when he saw Mu Zhanting turn around, pull out a dimly glowing screen, and fly toward the Confucian image.
Mu Zhanting shouted, “Hey, old chap! Let’s have a poetry duel!”
Yin Ya’s mouth twitched. He turned to Nan Yan and asked, “Do you think he’s fighting according to our plan?”
Nan Yan replied, “…He’s fighting according to his understanding. By the way, that thing in his hand—if I’m not mistaken, is that the Myriad Poem Screen, the treasure guarding Shenzhou?”
Yin Ya said, “I regret encouraging him to claim that treasure.”
Nan Yan urged, “No wonder that screen is covered in vulgar language… Hey, go help him quickly! This is no ordinary Confucian cultivator! He’ll be killed!”
“Oh, right…” Yin Ya responded, snapping back to attention.