It was barely the end of the first month, and the north wind off the Chiyang Pass was howling, whipping flurries of snow along with it — razor-cold, cutting straight to the bone.

Atop the city wall, Lang Jiuchuan and Gong Qi stood as the energy field around them twisted and churned. Without exchanging a word, both formed sealing gestures at the same moment to protect their bodies, and then looked around at their surroundings before turning to face each other.

The formation was operating. The Eight Trigrams had shifted. Yin and yang had reversed.

While daylight still held, the formation had been a yang formation — calm and unrestrained, neither trapping enemies nor posing any threat. But the moment the sun set and night descended, the energy field transformed utterly. The nine palaces reversed; it became a yin formation. Heaven and earth lost their light, yin winds rose in gust after gust, and spirits trembled.

Lang Jiuchuan turned to look back at Eight Trigrams City behind them. Within the low buildings, only the faint warm glow of lamplight indicated that life remained inside — yet the city was so silent it might have been uninhabited, as though in this entire stretch of heaven and earth, only the two of them existed.

Gong Qi stared in astonishment. “Do you feel as though we’ve stepped into a completely different world?”

Boom. Boom.

Both of them went rigid. That drumbeat — they recognized it. It was the same scene they had witnessed before: Fuqi leading the Fuji Army, setting themselves ablaze. The two rushed to the city wall and looked out beyond the gates.

One wall. Two worlds.

Again they witnessed that sight that made their eyes want to split with grief.

“Watch carefully.” Lang Jiuchuan bit the tip of her tongue and fixed her gaze on the area near the pillar.

There, as though time and space had fractured, layers of phantoms swirled, suffused with a rosy light.

Lang Jiuchuan watched as the Fuji Army set themselves alight and charged into the enemy forces. That magnificent, burning devotion — willing to shed blood and give their lives for their people and their nation — became a crimson flame, burning through their souls. Their loyalty transformed into the most sincere golden vow-power, intertwining with the violet energy pouring from the pillar, then rushing toward the mountain to the north.

“This is…” Gong Qi’s shock was boundless.

This was different from what he had seen before.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes had gone red. She watched those heroic spirits grow pale and faint as their vow-power burned away, the golden light weakening with every moment — and her heart seized with a blow that shook her to her core.

“It’s heroic spirit vow-power.” She forced the words out through nearly clenched teeth, then looked toward the distant mountain, drawing on her memory and rapidly working through calculations with her hands.

Gong Qi followed her gaze. That mountain — in the darkness and mist of night — was coiled like a serpentine dragon in repose, its head slightly raised, gazing down upon all beneath the heavens. And the direction in which that dragon’s head was looking…

Was the pillar.

The violet and golden vow-power intertwined, becoming a dazzling violet-gold, and surged into the dragon’s body — as though the dragon had been plated in a layer of violet gold.

Gong Qi’s face went white. That is the nation’s vital fortune.

No — something was wrong. Something was not right.

His mind was in turmoil. He felt that something was deeply wrong, but he did not dare to think it through.

Lang Jiuchuan looked at the dragon vein once more, then turned back to look inside the city. As the hours shifted, the eight gates reversed as well — like heaven and earth turning upside down. Everything was red, as though they were looking upon a sea of purgatorial fire, and fire birds soared through the sky, giving those heroic souls no avenue of escape.

The Vermilion Bird burns the heavens. Karmic fire refines the soul.

“Who is there?”

Without warning, a sharp shout rang out from behind them.

Immediately following it, a wind blade charged with fierce vital energy slashed toward Lang Jiuchuan and Gong Qi, carrying a cutting, piercing force.

Not good.

Lang Jiuchuan abruptly restrained her power. A surge of bloody heat rose in her throat — she swallowed it back down — and reacted with extraordinary speed, evading the cutting wind blade. At the same moment, her hands formed a seal, and a surge of vital energy even sharper than that wind blade was sent hurtling toward her attacker.

Gong Qi had already recovered his wits. Without knowing whether it was a human or a ghost, he tore the soul-binding chain from his waist and swung it outward.

The attacker seemed not to have anticipated such a swift counterattack. He twisted his body and leapt airborne, avoiding Gong Qi’s soul-binding chain, and then held up a bronze bell and rang it: “Ring forth, bell’s resonance — seize the soul unseen — by my decree.”

The whispering incantation seemed to descend from the nine heavens, rolling in from all four directions, pressing in on the two of them. The bell’s tone mesmerized the mind; its sound cut like blades of wind, as though their souls were being forcibly stripped from their bodies.

“That’s a soul-seizing incantation.”

Whatever object the attacker held — that one bell was like a cluster of countless wind chimes, every single chime engraved with a soul-seizing incantation, intending to capture and bind their spirits.

This person struck without stopping to ask questions, regardless of guilt or innocence — better to err on the side of killing, rather than let anyone go free.

Very well then. A visitor who fails to reciprocate is hardly showing proper courtesy.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes went cold and still. She unhooked the Dizhong Bell from her waist and poured her Daoist intent through her palm and into it.

Boom.

The magnificent bell tone carried a force of a thousand jun and drove hard into the attacker — like thunder and war drums shaking the heavens, its momentum sweeping all before it. The sheer ferocity of that power was enough to shatter a soul and crack a spirit.

“Ah—!”

Crash.

The attacker cried out in agony and slammed heavily into the ground. He tilted his head to one side and coughed up a mouthful of dark blood, then, with a look of alarm, used both elbows to prop himself up and stared at the two figures who had now revealed their forms: “Who are you people?”

Such young ages — and yet such formidable cultivation.

When had such figures appeared within the borders of Great Dan?

In a battle of techniques, it was always a matter of which wind overpowered which. The attacker had struck without any regard whatsoever, using a soul-seizing incantation — so naturally, Lang Jiuchuan had shown no restraint in return. That one strike had consumed five-tenths of her spiritual power, and her complexion had turned ghastly pale.

But now, they could see their attacker clearly.

He wore violet Daoist robes, his hair entirely white, his face lined with wrinkles — he had to be well past seventy. Beside his hand lay a bronze bell: a proper Daoist ritual bell.

Gong Qi eyed the old man on the ground with wariness, thinking to himself that Lang Jiuchuan had been right again — this had to be the legendary guardian of the formation.

Well. They’d spent the day dodging and keeping concealed, and still couldn’t avoid a confrontation come nightfall. What terrible luck.

The old man looked at the ancient Dizhong Bell that Lang Jiuchuan held in her hand, and something flickered in his eyes. That ritual object — could it be an immortal artifact?

Who were these two little miscreants? Were they from the Xuan Clan? But he hadn’t heard of any family within the clan possessing an immortal artifact — not even the Tantai lineage.

He looked around — there were only the two of them. Which meant…

Lang Jiuchuan had not missed the flash of greed in his eyes. Out of the corner of her gaze she could still see the violet-gold vow-power surging northward. She looked back at the old man, and a killing intent flared in her, vicious and cold.

They deserved to die.

The old man got to his feet, produced a medicinal pill and swallowed it, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and said: “Who are you people, and how did you come to be here? Declare your names at once, and I will spare your lives.”

“Are you the guardian of this formation?” Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes flashed gold in an instant, and she drew a fingernail across the Dizhong Bell, sending a piercing shriek hurtling toward the old man.

The old man’s soul was wrenched again; his body swayed. He fixed Lang Jiuchuan with a grim, venomous stare and said: “Since you already know I am the formation’s guardian, do you not know the name of this old Daoist? I am Zixiaozi.”

His words were barely out before he flickered — his body blurred into motion. His hand shot out, fingers spread like a claw, long nails gleaming with a cold light, swiping straight for Lang Jiuchuan.

As long as he could seize this wretched girl, the blond brat beside her would be no threat at all.

Lang Jiuchuan had been guarding against this. Her hands, held behind her back, had already formed a seal — and she brought it slashing down across his outstretched hand like a blade.

Seal transformed into a vital-energy blade — cleaving through evil, cutting to the bone!

“Ahhh—!”

You despicable little wretch!

Zixiaozi clasped his severed wrist and fell from mid-air, screaming, and before he could even hit the ground, Gong Qi’s soul-binding chain whipped toward him, coiling around him — body and soul alike — and with a surge of focused intent, the soul-binding chain ignited with fierce fire, searing flames engulfing him.

Two against one. Nothing wrong with that.