Su Yan seized control of Heaven's Punishment before the thunder vortex could collapse. The passage through chaotic spacetime snapped shut behind them, and the dragon-headed god bearing their group emerged above a gas giant streaked with bands of red, yellow, and white.
They had passed this world before aboard the stone city. Su Yan remembered the continent-sized fish swimming through its upper atmosphere, their fins spread like wings.
"Wake the preceptor," Su Yan said. "Without him, we wander forever."
Yuan Qi summoned the healing energy of his Mud Pill secret chamber and poured it into Jiang Qi's broken body. The bell entered the man's Inner Realm to stabilize his scattered consciousness. Without ordered thought, a cultivator could not wake.
Su Yan studied the severed divine hand he had collected. Longyuan's palm bore no ordinary lines. Instead, bird-seal script textured the skin — the language of the Heavenly Dao itself.
"Wrong," Su Yan muttered. He counted eight errors in the characters. "Natural creations don't make typos."
The implication struck him like a physical blow. The Celestials were not born of Heaven. They were manufactured. Built by hands that barely understood the Dao they claimed to enforce.
Yuan Qi crawled over, still wobbling between forms — bug, fish, worm — from the vortex's distortion. "What's wrong?"
"The gods are fake," Su Yan said. "And their makers were barely literate."
A school of titanic fish noticed the dragon-headed god floating at the edge of their world. They swam closer, eyes like lakes, hungry curiosity in every movement. They could not escape their planet's grip, but they dearly wanted to taste the tiny creatures hovering just out of reach.
Su Yan shoved the divine hand into Yuan Qi's mouth. "Swallow this. We need to hide."
He plunged Heaven's Punishment downward, straight into the largest fish's open jaws. The monster snapped shut, tasted nothing, and sulked into the lower clouds while its companions drifted away, disappointed.
Inside the fish's throat, Su Yan navigated eight hundred li of gullet before the space opened into something impossible. The creature's belly contained a world. Mountains. Rivers. A sky of flesh-colored light radiating from a massive luminous pearl. Villages and fields of grain.
People. Living inside a fish.
Su Yan descended with his companions. The villagers, descendants of refugees from the Shang era who had fled taxes and corvée labor, welcomed them with cautious wonder.
"No levies here," an elder explained. "No collectors. We fish, we farm, we die in peace."
Yuan Qi looked around, sorrow in his serpentine eyes. "First the fish belly. Then the snake catchers. Nothing ever changes."
They made camp and tended to Jiang Qi. When the preceptor finally stirred, his wounds remained grave — his Dao manifestations shattered, his Primordial Spirit crippled, his cultivation foundation torn apart.
"How did you reach the Minor Mysterious Heaven?" Su Yan asked. "Heaven's Punishment shouldn't carry someone as powerful as you."
Jiang Qi managed a pained smile. "Who says I arrived powerful? When I entered the stone city, I had just formed my golden core. Last night."
Su Yan stared at him.
"One night," Jiang Qi whispered. "From Dual Refinement to Ascension stage. Primal Dao Essence makes anything possible."
He had planned every step before setting foot inside — harvest spirit roots, drink the essence, seize the divine sword, restore the Primordial Yin-Yang Vine, threaten the myriad worlds into submission. Ruthless. Precise. Terrifying.
Yuan Qi sighed. "I feel like I've wasted my entire life."
"You have," the bell agreed.
Jiang Qi coughed blood and smiled. "I merely prepare before I act."
Before Su Yan could respond, the sky above the fish-world tore open. Longyuan's maple-lit face filled the breach.
"Found you."