"The nine Transcendent stages are this world's limit — so what am I, standing just shy of a thousand?"
Su Yan left seclusion, bewildered.
His cultivation seemed to defy all reason.
But it was time to settle his scores.
He walked out, murmuring: "By the proper script, I should bide my time. Let the eldest young master push me around, then I counterattack, wound him, humiliate him a hundred ways. Jin Peng comes to avenge him, and I strike him down. Then the Grand Mentor's disciples swarm after me. I beat them bloody, amaze the world, and the Grand Mentor himself descends. I duel him and win the hearts of four or five beauties besides. And my mother's history — surely it hides a dramatic backstory... wait. This plot looks familiar. I've read it in a book from Seven Lord's collection!"
He stopped, startled: "Wait — who is Seven Lord?"
A bell tolled faintly at the edge of his mind. He felt dazed, muttering: "Bell Lord, do you remember — we had a serpent yao with us..."
A chill ran down his spine. He looked around wildly, certain something was wrong: "Who is Bell Lord?"
He halted, surveying his surroundings. Everything felt strangely familiar.
Then his thousand-stage Transcendent aura erupted, and his face hardened. "But I am already a thousand stages into Transcendence. Why stoop to such schemes? Find the eldest young master, kill him. Then kill Jin Peng. If the Grand Mentor blocks me, kill him too!"
He strode out. A flaming bird flew across the sky and landed on a branch in his courtyard, studying him curiously.
The bird had three legs. It felt familiar.
Su Yan stopped, his aura rippling as he gazed at it, certain he had seen it before.
The bird beat its wings and flew to him, becoming a ball of fire that dove into his brow.
Su Yan recoiled, but could not dodge. The flame vanished into his mind, and a bright thunder-mark blazed to life on his forehead.
Twenty thousand years of memory flooded over him like fire.
He was drowning in images.
"Jin Buyi. Lord Jin."
Su Yan looked around as if waking from a dream, astonished. *Wasn't I polishing my martial arts in Haojing? Why am I here?*
He remembered wanting to seek the root of nuo arts and divine arts, so he had started from the martial path, shedding every technique, grinding his martial essence in the city.
"Then — I saw stone idols appear in the tree in the courtyard, and I remember nothing more. When I woke, I was fourth young master Xu Ying."
He steadied himself and turned inward, trying to recover his cultivation.
But before his mind's eye flooded an array of Heavenly Dao brands — a dense net of divine-consciousness seals.
The brands flickered and vanished!
Every time he reached for his divine consciousness, the Heavenly Dao interfered!
"The seal is different from before! This is a Heavenly Dao seal! But these brands — no one knows them better than I."
Even in that flash, Su Yan had read the brands clearly, spotting misshapen strokes and outright errors. *Deciphering these Heavenly Dao runes is simpler than immortal runes. I'll break this seal soon enough.*
He tried to sense his golden core — nothing. He tried to stir his mana — gone. He could not see his soul, could not open his Xiyi Domain!
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. The only power he had left was the Transcendent True Qi he had cultivated in these three days.
Three days of True Qi, to crack Heavenly Dao runes. That was hardly enough.
"So I'm not a soul lodged in this body. No eldest young master ambush. No Jin Peng slaying me."
Relief washed over him as he reviewed the three days — and absurdity dawned. "Even the memories of the eldest young master and Jin Peng were probably rewritten by Beichenzi and the others."
A voice spoke: "You've sensed it too — that there's something wrong with the Transcendent stage, haven't you?"
Su Yan turned. A stranger had appeared in the manor, a handsome youth of seventeen or eighteen, about Su Yan's height. He carried himself like a supreme Grand Master, with an air that made men look up to him.
The youth approached. "How many stages of Transcendence have you reached?"
"Nine hundred ninety-nine," Su Yan said. "And you?"
"One hundred thousand."
Su Yan was awed. To reach such heights in a world of desperately thin energy — extraordinary!
"May I ask who the senior is?"
"No need for 'senior.' Two hundred years ago, they called me Zhai Wuxian, the Martial Immortal. I've come to ferry you across."
The youth plucked a branch, his expression calm. "Two hundred years ago, I reached the Ninth Transcendent Stage. I stood at the summit of this world's martial path — and I despaired. The road ahead was cut off. Until one day, condensing my qi and blood, I realized there were stages beyond the ninth."
He looked at the branch in his hand, and Su Yan saw his Transcendent True Qi flow into it. Twigs sprouted, blossoms opened, and soon the branch was covered in flowers.
Zhai Wuxian planted it in the ground. "I challenged the Transcendent experts of the world and defeated five hundred forty-two who had reached the Transcendent Extreme. In the final battle, I broke through to the Tenth Stage. From that step, I seemed to be enlightened — my cultivation raced forward day by day."
The branch rooted, grew, and bore fruit. In moments, fragrant pears hung from the tree.
Zhai Wuxian picked one and handed it to Su Yan. "When I reached the nine hundred ninety-ninth stage, a single breath could crush a peerless strongman. I swept the world undefeated and was honored as Martial Immortal. But I knew a thousand stages of Transcendence was far from the end of the martial path. I thought of the others, down the ages, who had been honored as Martial Immortal — and a notion came to me. Perhaps they, too, felt as I did?"
Su Yan bit into the pear. The juice was sweet.
Zhai Wuxian raised a hand and pulled the pear tree from the earth. The tree seemed to flow backward in time: the pears turned green and shrank, the new twigs grew tender and short. Its roots retracted, and in a blink it was a single flowering branch — then the flower, too, withdrew into the twig.
Zhai Wuxian set the twig back into the tree. Su Yan chewed his pear, walked over, and studied it closely. The branch looked as if it had never been snapped!
"This is martial arts?" Su Yan was stunned. This sort of art should be nuo sorcery!
The earlier conjuring had not surprised him. He had opened the Mud Pill secret realm and commanded life force; such a trick was easy.
But to make the tree withdraw every branch, turn ripe pears back into buds and twigs, and replant the twig in the tree — that he could not do!
This could no longer be called a technique. It was a Dao.
"This is martial arts," Zhai Wuxian said. "That which deserves the name of Dao begets all things, shaping creation itself. Plucking a branch and planting a pear is only following the principle of creation — nothing remarkable. You and I, cultivating the martial path, our very selves are great treasuries. When you reach my step, you can do all this too."
His aura surged — martial essence soaring to the heavens like a vast Mud Pill grotto-heaven, breathing out surging life force!
In the manor, flowers bloomed and fell, fragrance flooding the garden!
His aura changed again. His heartbeat drummed, killing intent blasted forth — a war god fresh from the battlefield, mountains of corpses and seas of blood behind him!
His aura changed once more, showing the iron strength of the martial spirit, unbreakable as walls!
His will rivaled the Yellow Court grotto-heaven — purer than even its divine-consciousness medicine!
He blossomed his soul fully — a soul mighty and bound fast to the body. Body undying, soul undying!
The sight shook Su Yan to his core!
Zhai Wuxian had shown him, one after another: the vitality of martial arts, its strength, its divine consciousness, its soul, its mana — corresponding to the Mud Pill, Crimson Palace, Yellow Court, Bubbling Spring, and Jade Pool secrets — all five of the six secrets, leaving only the yin-yang energies of the Jade Capital!
His aura was mighty, yet tightly internal, spreading only within arm's reach, not even disturbing the manor's other residents.
This was unlike the Six Secrets' grotto-heavens. To rouse those was to blaze with light, aura shaking heaven and earth!
"To cultivate martial arts to this degree..."
Su Yan marveled, then steadied himself: "Martial Immortal Zhai, you must be close to Ascension, aren't you?"
Zhai Wuxian said, "I tempered my soul's true yang with martial essence, forged martial true fire, and used my flesh as a furnace to refine a martial golden core. At one hundred thousand stages, I finally opened the second mysterious gate. As for how far I am from Ascension — I cannot say."
Su Yan mused: "Then you are in the second Gate-Breaking stage, having opened the Jiaji gate. The Heavenly Mountain corresponds to the thirty-three vertebrae. From the first Gate-Breaking stage to the peak of the second runs twenty-one vertebrae. The remaining twelve correspond to the twelve towers of the throat."
Zhai Wuxian stared at him, not understanding his muttering.
Su Yan smiled. "I speak of the legendary stages. Nine hundred ninety stages of Transcendence is the Qi-Gathering realm; a thousand reaches the Gate-Breaking stage. Ten thousand reaches Dual Refinement, with a martial golden core. One hundred thousand reaches the second Gate-Breaking stage — the Jiaji stage. Your next step is the Tower-Scaling stage, where the golden core becomes a Primordial Spirit."
Zhai Wuxian was staggered. "You know the stages beyond?!"
Su Yan nodded, smiling. "The stages beyond, in martial terms, should be called the Martial Primordial Spirit."
Zhai Wuxian burst out laughing. "Then I've come to ferry the right man! By our rules, you must break through to a thousand stages of Transcendence before we may receive you. But since you know the stages beyond, we can make an exception!"
"We?" Su Yan was puzzled.
Zhai Wuxian's aura enveloped him. He tapped his foot — and the next moment they were aloft.
Wind roared past Su Yan's ears. He looked down: the Great Xia capital had shrunk to a speck!
Zhai Wuxian bore him into the sky, then turned into a rainbow streaking away, saying calmly: "As I said — the ones honored as Martial Immortal down the ages, where did they go? I survived. What of the martial legends of old?"
He went on: "When I reached a thousand stages of Transcendence, I found this gate, which I named the Transcendent Gate. When I broke through it, a man came to me. He was my predecessor — the martial legend of five hundred years past, my guide. He told me the true martial path does not lie here. Those who seek the truth of the martial path have built a far shore of martial arts."
He smiled at Su Yan. "I've come to ferry you to that far shore."
"The far shore of martial arts?" Su Yan's heart clenched.
Zhai Wuxian tore through the sky with him, racing tens of thousands of li. Suddenly he gave a long cry — his golden core blazed, martial essence shot to the heavens, whipping up clouds and thunder across dozens of li!
He threw a punch, and the sky split with lightning.
Su Yan saw it: an ancient seal, ripped open by Zhai Wuxian's fist. Beyond it lay a forgotten battlefield of the Primal World — killing intent surging forth!
It was ferocious. Great weapons stood in the wilderness like mountains. Killing mist coiled and howled, and within it, fires gleamed like eyes.
Su Yan's heart hammered. "What place is this?"
Zhai Wuxian dove into it, his voice carrying ten thousand li: "Brothers — I've found a new Dao-companion! Receive him!"
The words had barely faded when a fist slammed out of the dense killing mist. Its wind blasted the surrounding haze aside, revealing a road paved with bone!
Zhai Wuxian led Su Yan onto that road, saying: "The one who threw that punch is the oldest martial legend of our far shore. He is nearly a million stages into Transcendence, yet has never forged a Martial Primordial Spirit."
Su Yan's heart raced. On either side of the road, the ancient battlefield's killing mist gave birth to hideous demon-spirits that hurled themselves at them — and were shattered by the sweeping fist-intent.
That strong — and still no Primordial Spirit?
He kept the thought to himself.
"The invasion of the underworld is weighing this place down with demonic influence!" Zhai Wuxian frowned.
"The underworld's invasion?" Su Yan's heart leaped. "The underworld invades here too?"
"This is the underworld," Zhai Wuxian said. "Sealed away in the ancient age. Our far shore of martial arts is built on the Primal World's ancient battlefield, and we try to purify it with the martial path."
Su Yan's thoughts churned. *The Primal World suffers the underworld's invasion. The Yuanshou World suffers it too. Are the two underworlds the same? If so — who is driving all this?*
In the Great Xia capital, the careworn old servant Fu Yi sipped tea and watched the chessboard. His addiction was milder than Beichenzi's and Yutang's — he could not sit a century over one game.
After five days he roused himself: "I'll go see Xu Ying."
Beichenzi and Yutang, deep in their game, ignored him.
Fu Yi walked the misty capital under a green paper umbrella, a smile on his face. *The Will of Heaven god made his move. We're back to the old days — Beichen and Yutang at chess, the Earth God in his temple enjoying incense. I can walk under a green umbrella through dusk or drizzle...*
He returned to the Prince of Xiang's manor. A moment later, the smile froze on his face and curdled into grief.
"What's this?"
He searched everywhere, but found no trace of Xu Ying. Veins pulsed on his forehead as he fought his fury: "Weren't you supposed to cultivate the Dragonfinch Art here? Reach Transcendence, avenge yourself on the eldest young master, kill Jin Peng of the Grand Mentor's school!"
His voice rose, grief and rage twisting it: "Offend the Grand Mentor, be hunted by him, and I reveal your mother's history — she was a holy maiden, and you her holy son, heir to a secret sect. You win a few kindred spirits, come back for the young master's seat, avenge yourself on the Grand Mentor, prop up your father's bid for the throne, then take the throne yourself..."
The eldest young master, Xu Hao, walked in, enraged by the shouting. "Old servant! What are you screeching about?"
Fu Yi turned to look at him — his gaze savage. He flicked a finger, and Xu Hao burst apart, a spray of blood mist!
Around him, the manor's servants and maids screamed and fled.
Fu Yi's face turned murderous. He loosed his aura once, and the servants dropped dead.
Transcendent experts of the manor came at him. Fu Yi, sick of their games, let his Primordial Spirit rise behind him, towering in the sky. One palm descended — and the entire Great Xia capital, a hundred li around, was ground to powder. Man and beast, all gone!
Prince or pauper, all extinct!
Fu Yi stamped his foot and roared at the heavens: "I arranged a hundred years for you — how dare you slip away without a word?! Do you think you can run?! The Will of Heaven god—"