Su Yan grunted in exasperation. The two yao had completely lost their minds.
"You'll be our king!" Yuan Qi and Xiong Qianli shouted. "We'll serve you faithfully!"
They wanted him to lead a rebellion against humanity and build a kingdom of yao on land. Su Yan ignored them and stepped outside the cave. The rain had stopped, but a fine drizzle still drifted through the darkness. Dawn felt far away.
He stood there, thinking.
Nuo masters used dragon-seeking techniques to locate the Six Secrets hidden within the human body, opening those secret vaults to cultivate internal landscapes. Qi refiners, on the other hand, gathered and refined qi to assault the body's gates.
Two completely different systems. Not a single point of overlap.
"If qi refining is a human cultivation method," Su Yan wondered, "why doesn't it share anything with nuo techniques?"
Behind him, the two yao whispered conspiratorially. "Our yao race must have built a glorious civilization before humans existed. We even divided the underworld from the living world! Then the humans betrayed us with treachery."
"Humans are despicable!"
"But King Su Yan will restore our glory!"
"Long live King Su Yan!"
Su Yan rolled his eyes. Their imagination put his own to shame.
He tested his left shoulder. The sword wound from the giant god's blade had healed remarkably fast. Before his breakthrough, an injury like this would have required half a year of rest. The Five Qi Returning to Origin transformation had accelerated his recovery beyond belief.
Still, it paled beside the Zhou family's Mud Pill Secret. Zhou Yihang's regenerative ability was simply monstrous.
Su Yan sighed. He still didn't know how to locate his own Mud Pill Secret. And even if he found it, without a great nuo to open it, the knowledge was useless.
More troubling was the question that haunted him.
"Am I human or yao?"
He stared at the lightening horizon. "I'm human. I have to be. I lived in Sujiaping. I had a father and mother. My father was Xu Shaoping, my mother Miao Yuemei from Miaotian Village. I remember the road home..."
Behind him, Yuan Qi suddenly stopped his antics and stared at Su Yan's back with confusion.
"What's wrong, Seventh Brother?" Xiong Qianli asked.
Yuan Qi lowered his voice. "Something's off. A-Yan told me his father was Xu An and his mother Tian Ruijun, from Tianjia Village. Now he's saying his father was Xu Shaoping and his mother Miao Yuemei. And the village changed too."
Xiong Qianli laughed. "He must have hit his head when he fainted! If his brain's damaged, maybe we can rule the kingdom ourselves as treacherous ministers!"
The two yao exchanged gleeful looks and resumed their celebration.
Finally the rain ceased. As the sky brightened, Su Yan tensed and looked toward the distance. In the darkness and rain, he had failed to notice what lay ahead.
The Naihe River surged past, cutting between Mount Wuwang and Mount Xiao.
But the Naihe had changed course. Would it never return to its old bed?
Su Yan squinted into the distance. Ghost fires drifted through the forest. Further away, a graveyard blazed with light as skeletons crawled from their tombs, hanging lanterns and setting up banquet tables in macabre celebration. Some wore silk robes, dancing with their chests bare.
A deep rumbling shook the earth. The cave trembled.
"Is the Naihe returning to its course?" Su Yan whispered.
One man and two yao looked toward the sound. Their faces went pale.
The Naihe's banks, previously formless, were solidifying. Becoming real. Invading the living world from some impossible realm.
Mountains materialized along the riverbanks, crushing Lingling's original peaks. The earth groaned and trembled. Mount Xiao, once only a few li from Qinyan Cave on Mount Wuwang, was now pushed back more than thirty li. In that newly created space stood mountains and riverbanks from the underworld.
"The underworld is invading and nobody stops it?" Yuan Qi cried in despair. "Where are all the human experts? Where are the nuo masters? Where is the law?"
"My Qinyan Cave is gone!" he wailed. "When can I ever go home?"
What had been a short walk of four or five li was now a journey of thirty li through underworld mountains and across the Naihe.
Su Yan felt a chill. The living world's mountains held yao and mountain gods. Who knew what lurked in the underworld's peaks?
A light glowed below. The eyes of a god, shining with ghostly luminescence that pierced more than a hundred feet through the darkness.
Su Yan's heart sank. The rain had barely stopped, dawn had not yet broken, and already the gods were hunting.
"Yuan Qi, we need to move!"
As the eastern sky brightened, the sun prepared to rise. The underworld continued its invasion, thundering where the two realms collided. But as the sun climbed, the Naihe gradually faded. Everything seemed normal again, except the mountains on both banks remained, refusing to retreat.
In the lingering gloom, a god spread his five fingers, using the eyes in his palms to illuminate the surroundings.
A shadow flashed silently to him.
A young man, one hand effortlessly carrying a bell taller than himself.
The palm-eyed god had no eyes on his head, only in his hands. He sensed danger and immediately turned both palms toward the threat.
Too late.
The young man's other fist struck with the weight of thunder, slamming into the god's chest. The impact shattered the divine body, pulverizing everything the force touched. The thunderous energy penetrated deep, dispersing the god's soul before his body even hit the ground.
Su Yan had killed the palm-eyed god in a single blow. He was far stronger than during yesterday's battle with the giant god, though his left arm still felt stiff.
To prevent the bell from dragging and ringing, he had to carry it on his left hand. Fortunately, his Titan-Ox Demon Fist training gave him the strength to manage it.
He did not pause. He leaped, kicked off a tree trunk, and changed direction mid-air toward the Yong'an Town god flying overhead.
This god had wings and aerial advantage. If Su Yan couldn't bring him down immediately, escape would be impossible.
But the winged god had already detected the commotion. His divine light locked onto Su Yan.
Su Yan was mid-leap, several zhang away and losing momentum. The god relaxed and laughed. "Little devil, carrying that giant bell..."
A long serpentine shape shot up from below. A giant snake sprang into the air, landing beneath Su Yan's feet.
Su Yan stepped on the snake's back and launched himself upward. His fist came roaring.
The Yong'an Town god had absorbed two centuries of incense offerings. Though weaker than the giant god, he was still formidable. He formed incense into flying swords and beat his wings to retreat.
With his wings, he was swift and agile. Su Yan had no footing in the air. One missed strike, and the god could kill him at leisure.
But as Su Yan's fist extended, an Elephant King divine manifestation appeared behind him. Divine light blazed. The surrounding air became a vacuum, leaving the winged god with no purchase for his wings.
A thunderous explosion rocked the sky. Su Yan's punch shattered the incense swords, pierced through two centuries of accumulated divine power, and obliterated the god's head.
Su Yan rode the headless corpse down, sliding off as it crashed.
"Su Yan is there!" a distant god shouted.
Su Yan dove into the forest, rolling to break his fall, then sprang up and raced downhill. Yuan Qi slithered beside him as backup.
Whenever they encountered gods blocking their path, they attacked without hesitation, ending each fight in seconds.
Even Yuan Qi had reached the peak of the fifth level in Titan-Ox Demon Fist. His White Elephant Trunk Sweep, delivered with his tail, broke the sound barrier and often finished opponents in one strike. If he missed, Su Yan's follow-up attack finished the job.
The sun rose. The Naihe faded completely. Xiong Qianli watched from the cave as gods converged on one direction.
In that direction, solar essence swirled violently, forming two vortexes in the air.
Su Yan and Yuan Qi were running, fighting, and breathing all at once, refining impurities and accelerating their recovery.
"King Su Yan, Seventh Brother, may you travel safely!" Xiong Qianli murmured.
They ran more than ten li, deep into the underworld mountains on the Naihe's left bank. It had been ten li of constant fighting before they finally shook their pursuers.
Both bore fresh wounds. They stopped cultivating their Daoyin art here. Even sunlight felt cold and weak. Drawing energy in this place pulled in freezing qi that threatened to freeze their blood solid. Such chaotic power would harm rather than help.
The underworld mountains were sinister and terrifying. Black peaks loomed. Some cliffs oozed a thick black liquid of unknown origin.
Su Yan carried the bell in his right hand and walked forward. Beneath one cliff, bones were stacked into a path. Following it, he saw a dwelling in the distance.
A house built from bones, hung with human-skin banners and decorated with skulls. The wind stirred the banners, revealing the characters for a tavern.