Zhou Qingmu stared at those two lines of titles across the vault of heaven, her mind running the full three-step leap from "?" to "??" to "???", finally giving up on thought entirely at the third question mark.
After the mirror-surface of the heavens had revealed the identities of every Dharma-Station holder, it did not disperse at once but hung there, letting the cultivators throughout Tianque confirm it again and again.
Deep within Tianque, the mood before that chessboard dropped to freezing.
The old man holding the white stone slowly set down the piece in his hand.
A Third Realm cultivator had command of two Dharma-Station wonders.
In the ordinary understanding of cultivation, that statement was roughly equivalent to "an infant who had just learned to walk casually hoisting up two mountains."
The cloaked figure straightened up from the rock, the half of a jaw visible beneath the hood tilting up slightly.
"Do you truly believe that's a Third Realm?"
The same guess had surfaced in everyone present—this could not possibly be some Third Realm youth.
It had to be some old monster who had lived through untold ages, suppressing his outward cultivation by some means, wearing a young man's skin to play the fool and prey on the unwary in Tianque.
Such things were hardly rare in the cultivation world, but to disguise oneself so thoroughly that even the Dharma-Station rules displayed only "Third Realm"—the true cultivation behind that was likely high to a degree no one dared dwell on.
"Great Qian's arrangement this time... runs deeper than we anticipated."
The old man finally returned the white stone to its box, with the faintest click.
"The board has spun completely out of control."
The burly body-refiner rose to his feet, the stone stool scraping dully behind him. "So?"
"We join forces first." The old man's answer was short and clean. "Deal with Great Qian's people first; the rest, everyone by their own means."
The cloaked figure was silent a moment, then gave a slight nod. The hairpin-wearing woman cultivator lifted her teacup and took a shallow sip, offering no comment, while the burly body-refiner simply turned and walked away from the stone table.
"Then be quick about it."
He tossed out those words, his form already turned to a streak of light, vanishing into the depths of Tianque.
About half a day after the upheaval in the heavens.
Gu Chengming and Xu Huayi were pressing toward the central region of the Secret Realm.
Along the way the two met almost no resistance worth the name.
It wasn't that the rogue cultivators in Tianque had all died off; rather, after the mirror-heavens announced the list of Dharma-Station holders, everyone who saw two Dharma-Station wonders hanging beside the name "Gu Chengming" fled as if from a plague.
At first a few bold bandit cultivators trailed along from a distance, seemingly weighing whether the risk was worth it, but the moment Gu Chengming, without a flicker of expression, lowered the Sword Burial Tomb just a hair out of the clouds, those trailing presences scattered like startled birds and beasts, vanishing faster than they had come.
Watching from the side, Xu Huayi clicked his tongue in wonder. "Fellow Daoist Gu, this method of intimidation certainly saves effort—you don't even have to lift a hand."
"The mountain's sitting right there. If I can avoid raising a hand, I will," Gu Chengming replied offhandedly.
It sounded like he was speaking in principle, but Xu Huayi kept feeling something was off, and only after thinking it over did he realize the "mountain" Gu Chengming meant was literal.
Just as the two were about to pass through a jagged forest of black stone, the void ahead suddenly rippled.
The source of the ripple carried an aura fierce and utterly unconcealed, laced with an overwhelmingly sharp Blade Intent.
A moment later, a figure stepped out from the far end of the stone forest.
The dark-black brocade robes of the Night-Watch Bureau, the horizontal saber named "Night-Sever" at her waist, long hair unbound and loose about her shoulders, her expression cold and clear.
—Zhou Qingmu.
She came striding over just like that, her pace neither hurried nor faltering, her aura making no effort to restrain itself; the pressure of a Fifth Realm cultivator spread outward in every direction as if made solid, pressing the dark stone ground underfoot until it cracked with a fine crackling sound.
This was the real Zhou Qingmu.
Chief Commander of the Great Qian Night-Watch Bureau, wielder of the Night-Severing horizontal saber, a great Fifth Realm cultivator.
"Chief Commander." Gu Chengming cupped his hands in salute.
Zhou Qingmu came up before the two, her eyes sweeping over Gu Chengming, then glancing once at the heavens—though the mirror had dispersed, she remembered those two lines of titles perfectly.
"Out with it." Zhou Qingmu folded her arms, her tone carrying a note of helplessness. "Master of the Sword Burial Tomb, fine—but what in the world is this 'Flesh-Host of the Eternal Life Heaven-Devouring Dao-Trapping'?"
A dignified Deputy Commander of the Night-Watch Bureau wearing a title like that—anyone who didn't know better would think he'd gone undercover and climbed into the upper ranks of the Eternal Life Sect.
Gu Chengming fell silent.
To explain the matter, he'd have to start from Jiang Yun laying down the formation, his own use of karmic teleportation, then stacking a whole wall of bonus-harm lines to blast an Eternal Life Sect elder into pulp with a single punch.
"Chief Commander..." Gu Chengming weighed his words and answered earnestly. "It's a long story."
"Never mind, then. Don't tell it."
Zhou Qingmu sighed and waved a decisive hand, plainly with no intention of dwelling on the question.
Gu Chengming she trusted, of course; the situation was urgent, and if she wanted the reasons she could have him give a full report once this was over.
What Zhou Qingmu cared about more now was the state of Great Qian's people; hearing from Gu Chengming that everyone was unharmed and the mole had been removed, she breathed easier—though she was also a little vexed.
She had in fact vaguely sensed something off about that Jiang Yun, but she hadn't acted decisively enough—luckily Gu Chengming had been there.
Gu Chengming really was the finest deputy she'd come across in all these years; she hardly dared imagine how long it would take her to adjust if she ever lost him.
She really did want Little Gu to be her deputy for the rest of her life.
—She'd figure out a way once this was over and they were back in the Capital.
Unaware of the somewhat dangerous notion in his superior's head, Gu Chengming steered the conversation toward the question that had been on his mind.
"Chief Commander, before that, there's one thing your subordinate would like to verify with you."
Zhou Qingmu raised an eyebrow. "What?"
He looked at her. "Your subordinate suspects the Filth Tide is not a natural disaster, but man-made."
Zhou Qingmu was silent for a few breaths, then said, "Your guess is right. The Filth Tide is not a natural disaster."
"The cultivation technique I practice descends from the Zhou Shrine lineage—you've probably guessed that already."
Gu Chengming nodded.
Seeing this, Zhou Qingmu went on. "The Zhou Shrine records the orthodoxy of the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli, and in the True Lord's biography, that passage about the Filth Tide—the sudden change in character, the seclusion, the compiling of ritual codes—all of it has been tampered with."
"The true history is that the True Lord, after discovering the truth of the Filth Tide, once tried to drag out the ones behind its making. But he failed—not only failed; even his orthodoxy and his memories were meddled with."
"The Eternal Life Sect, and the things behind them, never merely wanted to manufacture a disaster."
"What they want is to pollute the Dharma-Stations."
"A Dharma-Station is the brand of the Heavenly Dao, the most essential bond between a cultivator and the world. Once a Dharma-Station is polluted, is altered, it is the same as history itself being rewritten. And once history is rewritten, every cultivation inheritance, orthodoxy, and law built upon that history will be twisted along with it."
"And one of my chief purposes in coming to Tianque is to anchor the true history within the Dharma-Station."
At this Gu Chengming's expression grew grave.
If the Eternal Life Sect were truly allowed to pollute the Dharma-Stations and rewrite history, the underlying orthodoxy of the entire cultivation world would face an overthrow.
Gu Chengming pondered a moment, then analyzed the situation coolly. "Right now the Eternal Life Sect has at least four great Fifth Realm cultivators holding station, and you, Chief Commander, still carry unhealed old wounds. If we few try to force our way in on our own strength alone, it will likely be extremely hard going."
He explained the situation of the Wenjian Sect within Tianque.
In fact, on the way toward the core of the Zhou Shrine, Gu Chengming had already used the law-bond of the Sword Burial Tomb to make contact with Shen Qianqiu, the Wenjian Sect Master, who was in secluded healing far away inside a cavern.
Upon learning that the Eternal Life Sect schemed to rewrite history, and that the several Fifth Realm dark cultivators who had once ambushed him with the Filth Tide were among those contending here, Shen Qianqiu made his decision on the spot: he would leave seclusion now and lend aid.
Drawing on the endless supreme sword qi reserves within the Sword-Burial Clan, Shen Qianqiu, though not fully restored to the Fifth Realm Great Perfection of his prime, was nonetheless able to erupt at the critical moment and forcibly pin down one of the Fifth Realm cultivators for Zhou Qingmu.
This was both to back up the younger generation of his sect and, still more, to avenge the blood-deep grudge of that year when the Filth Tide had possessed him and nearly destroyed him body and Dao.
"Sect Leader Shen is willing to lend a hand?" A gleam crossed Zhou Qingmu's eyes at the words.
Once the few of them had quickly settled on a plan, they wasted no more time.
Guided by the ever-stronger pull of the law from deep within the heavens, they quickened their pace and headed straight for the altar at the deepest heart of the Secret Realm.
The final deadline of Tianque's third phase drew quietly nearer as they pressed on.
The spatial structure at the deepest part of the Secret Realm began to shift violently; the once-chaotic heavens split open in a vast fissure, and a mighty light of law poured down through it, illuminating the region below that no cultivator had ever set foot upon.
The Heavenly Ritual Altar.
It was far plainer than Gu Chengming had imagined.
No resplendent golden halls, no layer upon layer of formations—only a square altar of stacked bluestone, no more than a rod high, with a stone pillar standing at each of its four corners, each pillar carved full of ancient seal-script of the same origin as the murals of the Zhou Shrine.
And at the very center of the altar, a warm golden light hovered quietly.
That was the Dharma-Station inheritance of the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli.
The chess-playing old man hovered in the void due north of the altar, the white stone in his hand turning soundlessly between his fingers.
Behind him, the Dharma-Station wonder formed of black and white stones, [Eternal Life Dao-Choking Chessboard], slowly unfolded, and behind him stood three great Fifth Realm cultivators.
Zhou Qingmu watched those four figures from afar, weighing her odds—wounded as she still was, facing four Fifth Realm cultivators alone in an encirclement.
The worst-case plan was to risk worsening her wounds, use a full-force strike of "Night-Sever" to tear open a breach, and force her way into the altar's core; as for whether she could come out alive... that was a matter for later.
At that same moment, from the southern side of the altar came a sudden, deeply resonant sword-hum.
The sword-hum drew nearer from afar, carrying the familiar orthodox sword intent of the Wenjian Sect, piercing through layer upon layer of the void's barriers and cleaving apart the heavy aura that shrouded the sky above the altar.
A streak of escape-light shot in rapidly from deep within Tianque, decelerating abruptly as it neared the altar to resolve into a steady figure.
Shen Qianqiu.
Though this Wenjian Sect Master's face was still somewhat pale and his aura far from restored to its peak, his gaze swept across, and the instant he saw the [Master of the Thousand-Face World-Mirror] and the [Master of the Eternal Life Dao-Choking Chessboard], a flash of killing intent crossed his eyes.
"We meet again." Shen Qianqiu's tone was utterly flat.
It was these two who had ambushed him back then; he had forced them back at the cost of detonating a Fifth Realm Dharma Sword, but had thereby been polluted by the Filth Tide and nearly lost his life.
Now the time had come to settle the old debt anew.
"Shen Qianqiu." The cloaked figure's voice came from beneath the hood, betraying no emotion. "Your wounds have healed?"
"Healed or not." Shen Qianqiu stood with his hands behind his back, his tone as casual as if discussing the weather. "Give it a try and you'll find out, won't you?"
The instant his words fell, a thought stirred in Gu Chengming's mind.
From deep within the clouds came a hum so low it was nearly inaudible.
That colossal iron-grey mountain, hidden high in the skies of Tianque, began to slowly descend.
The sword qi of countless Dharma Swords seeped out from within the mountain, gathering around Shen Qianqiu into an airtight storm of sword qi. The lingering sword intent of the Fourth and Fifth Realms wove and tangled together, arming this Wenjian Sect Master to the teeth.
Though Shen Qianqiu's grave wounds had not healed, with the endless supply of sword qi from the Sword-Burial Clan, his combat strength was now enough to spar head-on with a Fifth Realm cultivator.
"Hmph!" Shen Qianqiu looked at the cloaked figure, and the moment that single syllable landed he turned into a streak of sword-light, hurtling straight at the [Master of the Thousand-Face World-Mirror].
The cloaked figure gave a cold snort of his own, and the countless bronze mirrors behind him turned all at once to meet the charge.
And in the very moment Shen Qianqiu tied down the cloaked figure, the ground all across Tianque suddenly lit up at once with an eerie dark-red glow.
The light seeped up from deep within the dark stone ground underfoot, spreading and diffusing, linking into a network of patterns that covered an immense area.
—This was the Eternal Life Sect's doing.
Dozens, then hundreds of figures swarmed in from every corner of Tianque; these cultivators wore all manner of garb and were of uneven cultivation, ranging from First to Third Realm, but their faces all shared one common trait—hollow, dazed, an unnatural dark red glimmering deep in their pupils.
Groundwork the Eternal Life Sect had laid over many years.
These cultivators had not come of their own will; their minds had, at some unknown point, been seized by the Heart Gu the Eternal Life Sect had planted. Now the Gu was activated, and like puppets on strings they charged toward the altar, tireless and heedless of life or death.
Their purpose was to hold up Zhou Qingmu's advance, buying the four Fifth Realm cultivators time to close in for the kill.
"Perfect timing!"
Gu Chengming raised his right hand, fingers splayed, and dark-red formation patterns spread out from his palm, expanding rapidly across the dark stone ground with him at the center.
[Eternal Life Heaven-Devouring Dao-Trapping Grand Formation].
Ever since taking control of this formation from Jiang Yun's hands, Gu Chengming had been feeling out how to use it.
And now was exactly the time to turn their own way back upon them!
Those mind-addled cultivators were pinned fast within the [Eternal Life Heaven-Devouring Dao-Trapping Grand Formation], unable to move.
He lifted his head toward the altar—the rabble cleared, the path opened.
Zhou Qingmu understood at once. "Night-Sever" left its sheath, and for one instant the heavens of Tianque dimmed for half a breath, then were once more cleaved through the middle by that pure-black horizontal saber.
The leading [Master of the Ten-Thousand-Fathom Unyielding Arena] crossed both arms to block, driving his body-refining force to its utmost, saber meeting arm.
With a crisp crack, the burly body-refiner's arms fissured inch by inch under the erosion of the Blade Intent, his once-indestructible body-protecting force flaking away like thin ice.
The residual force of that single cut sent his body hurtling backward, tumbling dozens of rods through the void before he barely steadied himself, a mouthful of blood spraying out.
One cut, and Zhou Qingmu did not linger; her second cut already swept toward the hairpin-wearing woman cultivator to the west.
The [Master of the Hundred Herbs Life-and-Death Medicine Hut]'s face changed drastically as a jet-black saber-gleam carved a dead-straight trajectory through the void toward her. The woman cultivator hastily retreated, but the Blade Intent had already sliced into her Dharma-Station wonder, and that white-jade medicine hut let out a piercing wail under the impact.
Between the two cuts, no more than three breaths.
The remaining burly body-refiner and the hairpin woman had not lost their fighting strength on the spot, but Zhou Qingmu had no interest whatsoever in tangling with them.
Meanwhile these two Fifth Realm cultivators were already awash with shock.
They had assumed that with the four of them combined, even the Chief Commander of the Night-Watch Bureau would get nowhere—yet they had never expected this Great Qian madwoman to play by no rules at all, abandoning defense and melee entirely, seeking only to tear open the line in the shortest possible time.
And farther off in the void, Shen Qianqiu, drawing on the endless sword qi of the Sword-Burial Clan, had forcibly gained the upper hand in his duel with the Master of the Thousand-Face World-Mirror.
Zhou Qingmu sheathed her saber, flickered forward, and stepped into the core of the Heavenly Ritual Altar.
And waiting for her there was the last one.
The [Master of the Eternal Life Dao-Choking Chessboard].
The old man wore still that air of an idle cloud and wild crane, a white stone having appeared in his hand at some unknown moment.
He watched Zhou Qingmu step into the altar, and at last a trace of seriousness surfaced in his murky eyes.
"Zhou Qingmu, do you truly believe you can claim that thing?"
Zhou Qingmu did not answer his question.
She simply raised her saber and advanced. The old man's cultivation was profound to begin with, and his Dharma-Station wonder, the [Eternal Life Dao-Choking Chessboard], was equally suited to attack and defense.
The black and white stones turned into ten thousand killing moves, each one falling with the rule-force of Dharma-Station rank, laying a miniature heaven-and-earth net across the narrow space of the altar.
But Zhou Qingmu was stronger. When the Great Qian Night-Watch Bureau acts, it cares for only one word—sever.
The old man was struck back by a single cut, a large mouthful of blood spurting from his mouth.
"Fine saber." The old man staggered back two steps, a thread of blood at the corner of his mouth, yet he began to laugh.
Zhou Qingmu paid him no mind; she already stood at the very center of the altar, the golden light representing the Dharma-Station inheritance within arm's reach.
Reach out, and she could touch it.
Zhou Qingmu drew a deep breath, raised her left hand, splayed her fingers, and reached toward that light.
The instant her fingertips touched the light, the entire Heavenly Ritual Altar erupted in a deafening roar.
The Dharma-Station inheritance of the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli surged into Zhou Qingmu's body like a hundred rivers pouring into the sea.
The golden seal-script peeled from the stone pillars at the four corners of the altar and flew dancing about her, forming a pillar of dazzling light.
The Dharma-Station's acknowledgment had begun.
And yet—
At this most crucial moment, the old man suddenly laughed, and a dark-red light surged out from beneath his palm—the Dharma-Station force of the [Eternal Life Dao-Choking Chessboard].
He was sacrificing his own Dharma-Station wonder; the whole chessboard shattered in the void, the black and white stones dissolving into ten thousand points of light. But those points did not disperse—drawn by something deeper, hidden within the Dharma-Station inheritance, they surged like a hundred converging rivers toward the core of the Heavenly Ritual Altar.
Surged toward Zhou Qingmu, who was in the midst of receiving the Dharma-Station inheritance.
"The Eternal Life Sect has waited a thousand years."
The old man's voice had already begun to blur; his flesh was withering at a visible rate under the backlash of sacrificing his Dharma-Station.
"Do you truly think you can reverse it by your strength alone?"
Before this near-sacrificial turn of events, the several Fifth Realm cultivators at the altar's periphery who had been trying to snatch the opportunity froze, all at once, for the briefest instant.
None of them were fools; almost the very moment the black-and-white chessboard collapsed and streamed as light into the altar's core, they understood they had been used as spears.
This was no contest over fortune at all—the Eternal Life Sect had never, from the very start, intended to "refine" the Dharma-Station!
They had racked their wits to lay this grand design spanning a thousand years, willing even to feed in outright a Fifth Realm elder's life and an entire Dharma-Station wonder, all so that at the moment the Dharma-Station manifested in the world, they could nail that thousand-year sediment of pollution into the Heavenly Dao!
In midair, the burly body-refiner, built like an iron tower, abruptly checked himself, and the hairpin woman's expression flickered between light and shadow. In the end the two exchanged a glance, decided that slipping away first was the wiser course, and in an instant turned into two streaks of light and fled.
At the same time, that pillar of light upon the Heavenly Ritual Altar slowly bled through with thread after thread of jet-black.
Those black veins wound out from within the Dharma-Station inheritance like venomous snakes, climbing up along the golden pillar of light and spreading down, invading the ancient seal-script that circled Zhou Qingmu.
The pollution of history had erupted.
Zhou Qingmu's expression turned grim in an instant.
Outside the altar, Gu Chengming watched it all, his face changing abruptly.
He wanted to rush forward, but the core zone of the Dharma-Station inheritance was already sealed off by the aftershock of that clash; even his Dao Conduit could find no seam of karma amid a law-conflict of this magnitude.
In the distance, the exchange between Shen Qianqiu and the cloaked figure was likewise checked by this earth-shattering upheaval; the two stopped their hands at once and looked toward the altar.
And that old man, by now, had withered away entirely.
"A thousand years of design... accomplished this day..."
As the ash scattered away, the old man's voice still echoed on the wind.
At the core of the Dharma-Station inheritance, the brilliant golden light that should have borne the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli's lifelong orthodoxy was being eroded, devoured, rewritten by the jet-black pollution at a visible rate.
And as the pollution spread, the "historical memory" stored within the Dharma-Station opened page by page, like a scroll whose cover had been torn off and rebound.
Zhou Qingmu saw it—she saw a Daoist temple of the utmost grandeur, flying eaves and bracket sets, halls stretching in unbroken ranks, immortal cranes calling in chorus amid drifting mist and cloud. That was Taiping Guan.
The master-sect of the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli, and the home to which half his life of cultivation belonged.
In the vision, the ten-thousand gates of Taiping Guan were slowly closing.
Not a blockade against outside foes, but an active, resolute "sealing of the mountain."
Countless disciples in Daoist robes stood ranked in formation, faces calm and reverent, gazing at a golden heavenly gate slowly opening across the vault of the sky. Immortal music drifted faint and far, numinous light shone over all, and beyond the heavenly gate lay endless jade towers and mansions—the two words "ascension" that cultivators pursued their whole lives long.
And at the very front of this scene of ten thousand kneeling in worship, one figure knelt prostrate on the ground together with the rest of the disciples, facing the heavenly gate—
That was the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli, Zhouli.
The history recorded within the Dharma-Station inheritance described it thus: the True Lord's merit fathomed creation, his Dao attained perfection, and he led the disciples of Taiping Guan to seal the mountain and ascend, troubling himself no more with the mortal world thereafter.
No Filth Tide, no calamity, no aberrant one who turned away alone and refused to ascend.
"Hmmmm—!"
The whole Heavenly Ritual Altar let out a deafening wail of grief.
Zhou Qingmu spat out a great mouthful of blood; where it fell on the bluestone of the altar, it hissed with a corrosive sizzle.
The tampered historical memories within the Dharma-Station inheritance began to take on substance.
Black filth of the same origin as the Filth Tide on Shen Qianqiu's body, giving off a rotten stench, gushed forth from the core of the Dharma-Station like a spring.
The black sludge, wrapped in twisted law-force, poured down the golden pillar of light straight at Zhou Qingmu, and the instant it touched her skin it bored greedily into her pores, meridians, and apertures.
Just as it had once assimilated that stretch of history, now it meant to assimilate Zhou Qingmu.
To make her part of the rewritten history, another footnote in that false ending of "ascending with the host of immortals."
Zhou Qingmu knelt on one knee, her horizontal saber braced before her, her right arm already mostly covered in black sludge; even the blade of "Night-Sever" had begun to take on a layer of eerie dark rust. This made plain to her that the scale of this pollution far exceeded expectation. The pollution the Eternal Life Sect had buried within this Dharma-Station inheritance was no work of a single day, but a continuous seepage measured in centuries; the pollution and the Dharma-Station itself had eroded into each other far too deeply.
She was clear, too, on her own state: the successive clashes with the four Fifth Realm cultivators had already burned through a great deal of true essence, and now she had at once to receive the Dharma-Station inheritance and resist the Filth Tide's incursion. Fighting on two fronts, her origin was draining away at a terrifying speed.
At last, she reckoned out one most crucial conclusion—
She could not purify pollution of this scale and remain alive.
To eliminate the danger entirely, the only way was to reverse her own cultivation technique, using her spirit-soul origin as the fuse, and burn away both the Filth Tide within her and the Dharma-Station inheritance together.
Body dead, Dao extinguished.
Those four words churned in Zhou Qingmu for one instant, and then she accepted them with utter decisiveness.
More than her own hesitation, what concerned her was two other people.
"Gu Chengming!" Zhou Qingmu jerked her head up, as if to wring the last shred of strength from her throat. "Go!"
Outside the altar.
Gu Chengming heard that voice.
He also saw that the black sludge had already covered most of Zhou Qingmu's body, the filth spreading at an unstoppable rate, while her aura climbed sharply—not recovery, but some near-self-destructive surge.
But he did not turn away; he stood at the altar's edge, watching that churning black and gold.
He understood now, at last, just how to break the deadlock of the Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method's bond event.
Without a doubt, this was the most dangerous time yet...
But without the slightest hesitation, he opened the system panel.
[Red Dust Phantom Body Formula—CG: Dao Conduit]
[Fellow Daoist Karma: According to the depth of your Fellow Daoist Karma, you may choose—]
[One: Gain a fortune that should have belonged to the other party.]
[Two: At any time and any place, withdraw to behind the fellow Daoist.]
Gu Chengming drew a deep breath.
[Activate.]
The laws of Tianque were, in this moment, forcibly wrenched aside by some more ancient, more fundamental power.
The "Fellow Daoist Karma" between Gu Chengming and Zhou Qingmu had been planted in that "Deputy Commander Gu" aboard the flying vessel, deepened when they fought shoulder to shoulder in the thunderstorm, and layered on again and again through their countless moments of seamless coordination in the Tianque Secret Realm.
This karma was, at this moment, deep enough.
Deep enough to pry loose the ownership of a Dharma-Station inheritance.
"Hmmmm—!"
The whole Heavenly Ritual Altar shuddered as never before, and in that instant the golden pillar of light abruptly veered off course.
The Dharma-Station inheritance-force that had been pouring into Zhou Qingmu's body was severed clean through the middle, as if by an unseen giant hand, and together with the black pollution tangled upon it, turned into a chaotic stream of light that slipped free of her control.
"Wha—!"
Zhou Qingmu's eyes flew wide.
She felt it—the force that had been eroding her Dao-foundation from within was, in an instant, drawn entirely away. That chaotic stream of light traced an uncanny arc through the air, then followed some karmic line invisible to the eye—and slammed into Gu Chengming's body.
Zhou Qingmu slumped down onto the ruined altar, staring blankly at the scene.
As a great Fifth Realm cultivator, she knew better than anyone that a Dharma-Station inheritance was irreversible—yet Gu Chengming, by some means she could not begin to comprehend, had forcibly severed her link to the Dharma-Station.
She had already braced herself to perish together with the Filth Tide, only to be hauled bodily back from that hopeless pass, in the most unreasonable way, by the very subordinate she had meant to shield with her life.
But what about him—what was he going to do?!
Unaware of Zhou Qingmu's thoughts, Gu Chengming's attention was, in that moment, fixed entirely upon the Dharma-Station.
The Dharma-Station inheritance, bearing the whole of its historical memory, the whole of its law-force, and the whole of its pollution, surged into his Sea of Consciousness like a flood bursting a dyke.
The sheer vastness, chaos, and contradiction of that power far surpassed anything he had experienced before.
The golden orthodoxy and the black pollution twisted and churned within him, every collision setting his meridians crackling with fine fractures.
But Gu Chengming was in no hurry to take possession of this Dharma-Station.
He knew well that the Dharma-Station was, at present, extremely unstable.
The orthodox historical memory and the tampered version were at war, the Filth Tide's pollution still active; were he to force a fusion now, he would either be assimilated by the pollution or torn apart alive by the collision of the two forces.
He could not fuse them, nor did he need to.
What he needed to do was something else.
—Find the truth.
Gu Chengming closed his eyes.
The two versions of historical memory within the Dharma-Station inheritance unfolded at once across his Sea of Consciousness. One was golden, fragmented, shards deliberately suppressed; the other black, complete, a carefully fabricated lie.
The Yin-Yang Creation Strategy turned, and a great deal of Red Dust Qi diffused about Gu Chengming.
Even with the support of two Dharma-Station wonders, Gu Chengming's body struggled to hold up.
In this moment the Red Dust Art became a bridge, and karma from untold years ago slowly overlapped, upon that bridge, with everything happening now on the Tianque altar.
Gu Chengming "saw" it—not with his eyes, but through the karmic resonance across the ages linked by the Red Dust Art.
A Daoist temple of the utmost grandeur.
Taiping Guan.
Atop the mountain, the heavenly gate stood open.
That heavenly gate hung high in the deepest reaches of the firmament, golden light streaming ten thousand feet, immortal music winding about it, and below it the tens of thousands of Taiping Guan's disciples knelt prostrate in perfect order.
Row upon row, column upon column.
The white Daoist robes were like a field of snow spread across the mountaintop; every one of them faced the heavenly gate, and they were bowing in worship.
Worshiping the heavenly gate, worshiping the immortal Dao, worshiping that "ascension" now within arm's reach.
The immortal music grew ever more resounding, the golden light of the heavenly gate ever more dazzling, spiritual qi pouring down from the gate like a tide to envelop the whole of Taiping Guan.
—Ten thousand souls facing heaven.
Those four words were enough to sum up the scene.
Amid that dense field of white Daoist robes, Gu Chengming "saw" one figure.
He knelt at the very front, in the spot nearest the heavenly gate, his back no different from the other disciples'—the same robe, the same posture of reverence, the same facing of that gate of ten-thousand-foot golden light.
That was Zhouli, the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli.
And at the same time, upon the Heavenly Ritual Altar in Tianque, the tampered will of the Dharma-Station sensed Gu Chengming drawing near the truth. That will turned into supreme pressure, like an unseen mountain, crashing down from the heavens to bear down hard upon Gu Chengming's spine.
Gu Chengming felt every bone in his body crackle densely in the same instant; within the karmic resonance, the vision of Taiping Guan overlapped with the reality of the Tianque altar.
He need only bow his head and join the worship, and he could be free of all the strife of this mortal world.
Everyone around was kneeling; everyone was worshiping.
Do not look back; worship heaven and earth together, and the Great Dao may be sought.
Gu Chengming clenched his teeth, his spine giving a sound that set the teeth on edge, blood seeping out through the seams of his trouser legs to drip onto the dark stone ground.
In this fervor of ten thousand souls facing heaven, in this splendor of winding immortal music, in the moment when all faced the heavenly gate in reverent worship—
He, alone, turned his head.
The karma resonated fully in this moment—
Across untold years of time, the two figures overlapped in this one motion, like two mirrors separated by the ages, at last reflecting each other in this moment.
So that was it.
Taiping Guan chose to seal the mountain and ascend; the heavenly gate opened wide, the immortal road lay ahead, tens of thousands of disciples bowed as one, of one heart and mind, with no lingering attachment left.
Everyone else was a turned back; only one man looked back.
Because he had heard—
—the weeping of the common folk at the foot of Taiping Guan's mountain.
From then on: looking back, he was struck by the suffering of the mortal world, and chose not to be an immortal, but to save the living.
At the same time, Gu Chengming's Red Dust Art at last sensed the enormous karma.
It was a great vow, a great vow the True Lord Zhou Gui Tianli had spent his whole life and still failed to fulfill.
After he came down the mountain, he traveled the whole world, and by his single strength deduced the ways of heaven and man, set order to the cosmos through ritual, and laid down the ritual codes and laws on which later cultivators would base their very standing. He sought to use rule and order to curb cultivators' harm against mortals, sought to build a framework in which immortal and mortal might coexist.
But he failed. One man's strength is, in the end, limited; before the seed he planted could grow into a towering tree, the Filth Tide swept in and tore everything up by the roots.
His orthodoxy was rewritten, his history twisted, his name bound to a false "ascension" tale, made into a "sage who ascended with the host of immortals" in the mouths of later generations.
No one knew his great vow.
Upon the Tianque altar, Gu Chengming slowly opened his eyes.
He drew a deep breath, cast out every stray thought from his Sea of Consciousness, and then, with the Red Dust Art as his medium—
Hmmmm—!
The Red Dust Art now revealed its most broken, overpowered facet.
Using karma as the fuse, crossing space and time, it drew forth the "great vow" that this True Lord had left unfulfilled all the way to his death, all the way to the tampering of his orthodoxy!
It was not cultivation, not magic power, not anything any cultivator could ever train into being—it was the most abstract of concepts, condensed from a True Lord's lifelong conviction, beyond the scope of arts and spells, near to the Dao itself.
But under the Red Dust Art's guidance it was immense beyond measure, immense enough to resonate even with the Dharma-Station.
Gu Chengming gritted his teeth; the Red Dust Art became the most perfect fuse, wholly igniting this True Lord Zhou Gui of Heavenly Principle's last obsession, unextinguished even to his death, even after his orthodoxy was tampered with.
That utterly unstable Dharma-Station could no longer hold its original form, and burst apart violently in midair.
—Lend me your great vow!
At the same time, the tampered will of the Dharma-Station began to twist violently before this power.
The Dharma-Station shattered.
The radiance sedimented over the ages was all released in this moment, turning into a visible golden ripple that spread out in every direction, with Gu Chengming at its center.
Wherever that ripple passed, the Filth Tide was like boiling water flung upon snow.
That churning, putrid, sky-blotting foul qi shrieked shrilly at the touch of the golden ripple, then, as if ignited by an unseen flame, began to melt away from its edges. Not dispersed, not suppressed, but dissolved utterly, from the root.
Not only the Heavenly Ritual Altar—the underlying laws of the entire Tianque Secret Realm underwent a violent tremor.
The burly body-refiner and the hairpin woman fleeing at the far edge of the battlefield, and the cloaked figure being pinned fast by Shen Qianqiu, all stared at the horizon with faces full of horror.
The Eternal Life Sect's thousand-year conspiracy, the lies painstakingly woven to rewrite history and the groundwork laid with countless corpses, were all torn to shreds, as easily as sweeping away withered leaves, before this True Lord's pure vow that spanned the ages.
The golden ripple washed through heaven and earth, grinding that thousand-year conspiracy and foul qi to dust inch by inch.
At the altar's edge, the old man who had already withered with the sacrifice of his Dharma-Station and was about to scatter into ash—his remnant spirit-soul, having witnessed this, wrenched its withered face into utter distortion, eyes glaring wide, blood even seeping from their corners: truly his eye-sockets seemed fit to split.
He had spent his whole life, staking even the Eternal Life Sect's thousand-year foundation and his own life, to at last wedge this pollution into the Heavenly Dao.
And now, all of it had been forcibly erased by a "great vow" that obeyed no logic at all!
"My sect's thousand-year design!!"
The old man's ruined body shook violently; though his flesh had already collapsed, that Fifth Realm aura still locked fast onto Gu Chengming, attempting one last counterstrike.
Gu Chengming slowly turned around, his gaze cold as he looked down upon this chief culprit who had tried to rewrite history.
In the space above his head, which had been churning from bearing the Dharma-Station, the bonus-harm lines belonging to the Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method scrolled out once more like a waterfall.
Only this time, those judgments of "disloyal, unjust, unkind, unwise," blessed by this True Lord's great vow made for all the living beneath heaven, lit up with a searing golden brilliance never seen before.
Every bonus-harm line, in this moment, seemed endowed with the true great righteousness of heaven and earth.
Gu Chengming raised his right fist, and the Righteous Noble Breath, the overbearing body-force of the Hundred Emperor, and the True Lord's vow spanning the ages resonated in perfect harmony in this moment, condensing into a fist-gleam of the utmost brilliance.
"Take your revolting dream of eternal life to the grave."
He threw the punch.
The fist-wind howled, like a dawn bell breaking the long night of the ages.
Under the old man's gaze—eye-sockets splitting, brimming with endless regret, disbelief, and terror—that fist smashed through the last of his condensed body-protecting aura as easily as snapping dry twigs, and drove straight through his ruined body.
There was no room for resistance whatsoever; even his last half-scream was crammed back down his throat by the raging fist-wind.
Boom—!!!
This arrogant, world-shaking Fifth Realm elder of the Eternal Life Sect, under this peerless strike woven of vow and righteousness, was blasted utterly into nothingness, together with his final rancor.
Not the faintest trace of his existence remained; all was forcibly erased from this world, leaving only the golden light above the altar gradually returning to clarity.
And at the same time, a rule forged from a True Lord's great vow, anchored at the cost of an ageless Dharma-Station, and from this moment on carved forever into this world.
—Peace under heaven!
[The Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method stared blankly at the scene, and, without knowing why, laughed and wept at once.]
[For some reason, it thought of the hope it had once placed in you—that a noble man should open an age of peace for ten thousand generations...]
[At this very moment, it was utterly certain that if anyone could truly do it, it could only be you.]
[And until then, it would go on, ever and always, walking this road at your side.]
[Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method favorability +10]
[Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method favorability: 100/Bound in Life and Death]
[Bond quest complete.]
[CG unlocked]
…
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