Su Yan stared up at the golden giant, his mind reeling. The statue looked almost exactly like him—nine-tenths identical, at least.
Had he done something else in that ancient era, four thousand years ago? Something beyond sailing the seas to seek the immortal mountains? Something so significant that the Twelve Golden Men had been cast in his likeness?
Xu Fu looked surprised too. He clearly hadn't expected the First Emperor to value Su Yan so highly.
The golden man's aura grew stronger. Behind it, the celestial river in its manifestation had stopped flowing, but now it slowly resumed. Water and fire churned. Radiance steamed from the furnace. The divine bridge coiled like a sleeping dragon. The Jade Pool rippled. The three passes opened one after another. Even the incense aura surrounding the golden man intensified, filling everyone's minds with a deafening roar—the voices of millions chanting in unison.
The golden man was waking up.
Everyone tensed. Then Xu Fu stepped forward, his foot on Mount Fangzhang, and lightly pressed his palm against the giant's forehead. A single ancient seal-script character—*prison*—glowed in the palm-print.
The golden man rang like a struck bell. The celestial river halted. Water and fire stopped their dance. The radiance withdrew into the furnace. The three passes sealed shut.
The mercury river resumed its gentle flow, carrying the statue away.
Hearts hammered in chests. Only when the golden man had drifted into the distance did anyone dare to breathe.
Su Yan raised an eyebrow. The sixteen characters in that golden book had given Xu Fu plenty of useful techniques. That *prison* character was one of them.
Big Bell whispered, "A-Yan, he's mastered the golden book. He hasn't handed it to you because he wants to digest it first. He plans to use it to control you after you escape the suppression seal. You'd become his puppet."
Su Yan nodded silently. He'd suspected as much.
"The Twelve Golden Men are scattered throughout the mercury rivers," Xu Fu commanded. "The next one won't be far. Move, now!"
Everyone leaped into action. Some summoned small boats. Others rode giant leaves. Some stood on lotus flowers. One balanced on a bamboo staff.
Su Yan tried to toss Big Bell into the mercury river. The bell refused flatly. "I've already been a cooking pot. I won't be a boat too."
Su Yan spotted Avia throwing out a phoenix feather. It landed on the mercury and expanded into a craft thirty feet long, soft and warm. He swallowed his pride and approached.
Avia glanced at him but said nothing.
"Nice boat," Su Yan mumbled. "Very... soft."
Avia sighed, her expression sorrowful. She was still agonizing over whether to steal Xu Fu's golden book.
A young cultivator asked, "Why don't we just fly over on swords?"
Elder Zhushou chuckled and produced a copper coin. "Watch."
He tossed it into the air. The coin expanded to ten feet across, spinning and whistling as it flew toward the mountains. Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked. In moments, the coin was riddled with holes.
Everyone froze.
"See?" Elder Zhushou said. "The seals and restrictions in this tomb are enough to make your scalp crawl. Flying through unharmed would take an immortal."
He reached to retrieve the coin, but water and fire erupted from the mountains—yin water and yang fire. They swallowed the coin and reduced it to slag.
Elder Zhushou winced, feeling the brand mark in his magic item burn away. Before he could recover, a massive claw descended from the sky and smashed the slag to dust.
He shuddered. That coin had been a magical treasure forged in his prime. Now, with his aging body, the coin had actually been stronger than he was. If he'd entered those mountains himself, he'd have suffered the same fate.
"Good thing I'm old enough to have plenty of treasures," he thought.
The mercury river carried them deeper into the mountains. The landscape looked strangely familiar.
"That's Yandang! Four thousand years ago, before the world was sealed!"
"Look—Kunlun Ruins! They haven't fully emerged yet!"
"And Wangwu Mountain, the one that fool Yugong tried to move!"
The terrain matched the ancient divine land, before the great sealing. It was as if the First Emperor had shrunk the empire's mountains and rivers and hidden them here.
* * *
They drifted deeper, marveling at the grandeur. Around every bend, a new mythical peak appeared—Kunlun's main summit, Spirit Mountain, Mount Fengshan with its nine divine bells, the broken Buzhou Mountain, and the legendary isles of Yingzhou, Penglai, and Fangzhang.
Though judging by Xu Fu's mount, the First Emperor had never seen the real Fangzhang. The true island dwarfed this one.
Su Yan drank in the sights, awestruck.
No wonder the First Emperor had wanted to rule even in death. With a realm this magnificent, who wouldn't want to keep it close?
Then a violent tremor shook the air ahead. Nuo masters had triggered a seal.
Su Yan looked toward the disturbance. Bright cave-heavens illuminated the sky—hundreds of nuo masters pushing their cultivation to the limit, fighting the restrictions.
Then the cave-heavens winked out, one by one, until only eight remained. A moment later, those too went dark.
"An eight-cavern great nuo died," Su Yan thought, cold spreading through his chest. "And he died fast."
When they reached the battle site, corpses floated in the mercury river, piled on the shore in pieces. Whatever had killed them had left few whole bodies.
"Look—a sword!"
Someone pointed ahead. The mercury river flowed between two towering peaks, forming a natural gateway. Beneath that gateway hung a sword, still dripping blood.
It glowed red, swaying gently in the breeze, radiating murderous intent.
"Dragon-Slaying Sword," Yuan Qi said to Su Yan. "Nuo masters hang them under bridges to kill flood dragons that stir up storms. That's why I don't like water."
The sword erupted. Invisible sword-qi slashed the mercury into white spray. Big Bell manifested, shielding Su Yan and Avia. The impacts rang against the bell like hammer blows.
"Strong sword!" Big Bell shouted, spinning to deflect the force.
Around them, a dozen cultivators were caught off guard. Heads separated from bodies. Corpses tumbled into the river.
Everyone activated their techniques to defend. Dong Meiqing rose into the air, pressing against the sword-qi, climbing higher where the attacks grew fiercer. Even at his ascension-stage power, he had to focus entirely on resisting.
The sword-qi formed a torrent, attacking from every direction, growing stronger by the moment.
Dong Meiqing was driven back step by step. Finally he summoned his Primordial Spirit, shattering the onslaught, and seized the sword.
It was a bronze blade over ten feet long, thin and light. A slight movement sent flowers of sword-light blooming across its surface. Dong Meiqing suppressed its restless energy and began refining it.
The others watched with envy.
"This isn't a Qin sword," Xu Fu said, his expression shifting. "It's older. Zhou dynasty. It has an owner. Dong Meiqing—drop it!"
Before Dong Meiqing could release it, the bronze sword coiled around his arm like a serpent. It twisted once, and his arm came off at the shoulder.
He screamed. The sword whipped toward his throat.
A hand shot out, fingers striking the sword's tip. The bronze blade shuddered and uncoiled.
Xu Fu pushed forward. All the sword-qi converged on his palm. The blade's tip pressed against his skin, trembling, unable to advance.
He pushed harder. The bronze sword shattered inch by inch, exploding from tip to hilt. Then his palm thrust forward, unleashing a devastating wave that raced along the sword master's brand mark.
A mushroom cloud rose from the mountains miles away.
The river surface erupted. Mercury sprayed. A figure in ancient robes flickered through the spray, feet touching the water again and again to disperse the force. Still, he coughed blood, his aura in chaos.
He swallowed the blood. It carried the fragrance of immortal medicine.
Then another golden man stirred nearby, its terrifying aura suppressing the whole region. The ancient man immediately concealed his presence and fled.
Not long after, Su Yan and the others reached the spot. Xu Fu lifted a hand, and a single droplet of blood rose from the river to his fingertip.
He sniffed it and smiled at Su Yan. "Pure immortal medicine. I was worried there wouldn't be enough to revive the First Emperor. Now I'm certain. With this, he will return."
Big Bell and Yuan Qi were baffled. "What immortal medicine?"
Su Yan felt a chill. He understood Xu Fu's plan.
The nuo masters Xu Fu had lured here—they were the immortal medicine.
Nuo masters who opened their secret repositories accumulated the medicine within their bodies without being able to refine it. Each one was a different type of medicine—some strengthening spirit, some vital energy, some physical vitality.
Sacrificing them was the key to resurrection.
"And the man who hung that sword," Su Yan told Yuan Qi and Big Bell, "he must have returned from the other shore. His blood contains especially pure medicine. It seems besides Chan Chan's ancestor, others have come back too."
"A true ancient cultivator?" Yuan Qi and Big Bell exchanged alarmed looks.
"Could it be that Pei Du and Guo Tianxiong spread word of Chan Chan's ancestor?" Big Bell speculated. "Other nuo families entered the other shore through their cave-heavens and rescued more ancient cultivators?"
Su Yan considered. "Maybe. I thought something had gone wrong on the other shore, letting them escape. Your theory makes more sense."
Ahead, nuo immortals clashed with tomb seals, shaking heaven and earth. Su Yan saw nine cave-heavens blazing like suns, plus a master's Inner Realm manifesting with overwhelming power.
"That aura... it's a Yuan family expert!" Su Yan realized. Those nine Yellow Court cave-heavens, the terrifying spirit force disrupting nearby cultivators' concentration—that was the Yuan family's signature.
Su Yan had cultivated the Yuan family's Primordial Dao Heavenly Sensing. He recognized it immediately.
"Could it be Yuan Wuji?" His heart pounded. "If he's here, did Veyon come too?"
Yuan Qi glanced at Big Bell, worried. "A-Yan's memory still hasn't fully recovered. He thinks Veyon is Yuan Rusi."
Big Bell chuckled. "It'll get better."
"Should we tell him the truth?"
Big Bell's smile turned dangerous. "You tell him, and I'll smash you. For real."