Zhu Chanchan dragged her Flying Peak toward the ruins of Haojing, muttering curses. "I really did skim too much from the Zhou treasury. This thing's a monster."
She shuddered, remembering the other project Xu Fu had commissioned from her — the Other Shore Divine Ship, meant to carry the court across the void to the immortal realm. If she'd cut corners there too...
"If that ship sinks, I'll have drowned the whole court."
She shook off the thought. Something else caught her eye — a figure standing on a stone pillar in the ruins, robes fluttering, dressed in the ancient style of the Xu Fu dynasty. Then the figure vanished.
Chanchan's blood ran cold. A cultivator from her own era? Had Xu Fu returned from the Other Shore? And if he had, did he know about the missing materials?
* * *
Su Yan stood on Mount Fangzhang, surrounded by hundreds of cultivators. Some rode flying boats. Others drove swords through the air. A few sat on giant leaves, chanting arts that made the foliage swell to impossible size.
They crossed mountains and rivers, heading toward Mount Li.
Su Yan spotted several ascension-stage cultivators, younger than Dong Meiqing but far more ancient in appearance. His sensitivity to tribulation — honed through the Azure Sky Scripture — detected their desperate situation. They hid from heavenly tribulation using secret techniques, but their lifespans had run dry. Even with those arts, they had mere years left.
Su Yan approached one of the old men. "Your lifespan is nearly spent. Why not rest in peace instead of rushing to Mount Li?"
The old man laughed, toothless. "Better to die fighting than rot in bed. Let this old bones burn one last time for the future of cultivation."
Su Yan asked others. They all answered the same — their time was short, but they wanted to do something real, something lasting, before the end. They wanted the cultivator's lineage to survive.
He found Xu Fu. "Nuo arts can extend life. Qi and nuo together could grant longevity without ascension. You could be earthly immortals. Does orthodoxy really matter so much?"
Xu Fu's voice was gentle. "Perhaps not to you. But to a tradition facing extinction, it matters very much."
Su Yan turned back to the struggling cultivators. They swam upstream against the current of history, fighting a world that had moved on without them. He felt something he hadn't expected — respect.
"Traditional cultivation methods are flawed," Su Yan said. "Combine them with nuo arts, and they become complete. Zhou Qiyun transcended that way. Why cling to the old path?"
Xu Fu's eyes blazed. "Zhou Qiyun's tribulation was not true tribulation. He kidnapped a god to survive. He couldn't withstand a single strike of real heavenly lightning. A side path, nothing more."
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "True tribulation means facing the heavens alone, defying the celestial mandate, fighting the will of the Dao itself! Obey heaven and perish. Defy heaven and thrive! Only by walking against the sky does one become immortal. Lord Xu — you taught me this."
Su Yan frowned. "I said that? I don't remember. You promised to break my seal, lured me here. Why not break it now and let me see if I ever spoke such words?"
Xu Fu smiled. "I've been waiting for you to ask." He produced a golden book. "I've already begun breaking it."
The book opened. Bird-seal script characters blazed in the air, ancient and terrible, following Mount Fangzhang's movement across the sky.
"This book contains the seal on your memory. I've spent years searching for its meaning. Once I decipher these characters, your seal will shatter."
Su Yan stared at the symbols. His mind reeled. These characters — they matched the paper seal that Beichenzi's trio had used to imprison him!
The characters burned into his consciousness:
*Mandate of Heaven. Eternal suppression in this life. Prison and cage. Seal and bind.*
Xu Fu snapped the book shut. The echo faded from Su Yan's mind.
Miles away, Beichenzi's chess piece exploded in his hand.
"That's it!" The white-robed elder shot to his feet, fury blazing in his eyes. "Yutang — call for reinforcements!"
The red-clad woman rose, her Primordial Spirit manifesting overhead. Three streams of azure qi transformed into great geese that shot toward the horizon.
The hunt was on.