Su Yan gazed up at the radiant light, his heart whispering a silent tribute. *Some men become beacons for all.*
He looked toward the towering mountain beside him. The Martial Heavenly Sovereign's light burned fiercely, yet in the shadow of that colossal peak, it seemed no larger than a candle.
Across the mountain's surface, immortal corpses drifted through the air like drowned souls floating motionless beneath water.
Something terrible had happened here—something that had brought immortals low.
Su Yan studied the mountain. Those floating corpses gave him a familiar feeling. He had seen something similar during a moment of Heaven-Man Resonance.
He remembered then—corpses drifting within a vast eye, an eye that filled an abyss.
*Perhaps the secret of why the Primal World has no Heaven-Earth energy lies upon this Five-Colored Mountain,* he thought.
Suddenly, rays of rosy light erupted from within the mountain. A roar like dragons and tigers shook the earth and rattled his skull. The ambient Heaven-Earth energy surged to a fever pitch.
Su Yan turned quickly. One by one, the floating immortal corpses stirred, awakening from death as though reborn.
They stood in the air, exuding overwhelming auras that suppressed the rosy light pouring from the mountain.
Su Yan gazed upward. Within the radiance, enormous characters formed—ancient bird-seal and worm-script, runes of immortal Dao, stimulated by the auras of the assembled corpses, blazing ever brighter.
The positions of the corpses were not random. They were arranged with meticulous precision.
Over the past days, Su Yan had studied the Demon-Suppression Runes that once sealed him, gaining considerable insight. He squinted at the mountain. The immortal runes looked somewhat familiar—but his vantage was too low to make them out clearly.
The Five-Colored Mountain continued to tremble. The dragon-and-tiger roar echoed without cease, and the rosy light grew ever more intense, surging outward. The Heaven-Earth energy thickened further still.
The energy was visible to the naked eye—a torrent of five-colored qi flowing down the mountainside.
Wherever the five-colored qi passed, life erupted. On the Five-Colored Mountain, countless saplings burst from the soil and bloomed into radiant flowers.
Su Yan even saw exotic flora bearing fruit. The fruit, grown from concentrated Heaven-Earth spiritual energy, was a deep red, its surface marked by natural Dao-patterns.
"Martial Heavenly Sovereign, look! Fruit containing Dao-imagery—confering divine power when consumed!"
He pointed toward the mountain, then remembered the old man was gone. A shadow passed over his face.
The five-colored qi continued its descent. At the mountain's base, it met the wind wall that enclosed the entire peak. But even the thinnest trickle that seeped through was enough to cause the bleached bones beneath to sprout flesh and stagger to their feet.
Su Yan saw the finger of the dead Martial Heavenly Sovereign twitch. His heart jolted.
The five-colored qi erupting from the mountain carried a power to restore the dead. It was similar to the power of the Six Secrets—it could return vitality to the Martial Heavenly Sovereign's corpse.
*If I could obtain some of this Heaven-Earth energy, could I bring the Martial Heavenly Sovereign back to life?*
Even if that energy was not enough, the mountain held immortal plants. They had already borne fruit within the energy's embrace.
Perhaps fruit that had absorbed this miraculous energy could restore the dead.
Su Yan's gaze burned as he looked at the immortal corpses above. Even they had been revived by the Five-Colored Mountain's energy. If he could reach the summit, perhaps the Martial Heavenly Sovereign truly could be resurrected.
But the wind wall blocked his path.
From a distance, a voice reached him. "At last! The Grand Tomb of Mount Jiuyi has opened once more!"
Su Yan turned toward the sound. In the distance, the River Naihe surged forward—a great underworld river that had never flowed through this region. Now, for reasons unknown, it had rerouted itself and was bearing down upon them.
Banners flew from the river's surface. A tower-ship cut through the waves, and from its upper deck a great coffin could be seen at a distance.
The deck swarmed with ghosts and spirits of every description—some enormous, some tiny, some monstrous, some barely human. Judges and Ghost Kings moved among them, grim and terrifying.
The Underworld Emperor sat enthroned within the tower-ship's pavilion, his divine form vast. He laughed from afar. "Brother Xiaoke, as my guest, I must treat you well. This opening of the Grand Tomb offers you an opportunity as well."
Li Xiaoke's voice carried across the water, thin and strained. "Had I not carried you out of the Grand Tomb back then, you would still be drifting on that mountain."
The Underworld Emperor replied coolly. "Had I not guided you, you would have died on that mountain as well. You are gravely wounded now, hunted by Qingbi, barely surviving yourself. Why not show me a little courtesy?"
"You are right, Your Majesty," Li Xiaoke said. "This humble one understands."
The Emperor laughed heartily. "Xiaoke is like a divine dragon—flexible, capable of great and small, hidden and manifest. A true dragon among men. Why should we stand on ceremony between ourselves? Help me harvest the Immortality Herb, and I will gladly join forces with you against Qingbi..."
Their voices faded.
"Li Xiaoke and the Underworld Emperor have allied to seek the Immortality Herb on this mountain?" Su Yan muttered, stunned. "That is a fox paying respects to a fox!"
"The wound on the Underworld Emperor's forehead—an eight-sided sword strike from Li Xiaoke's blade. They should be mortal enemies!" He shook his head in disbelief. "Listening to them, the Underworld Emperor was once an immortal corpse on this very mountain, carried down by Li Xiaoke himself. They are not enemies at all—they are partners in crime."
Su Yan steadied himself.
The Naihe crashed against the Five-Colored Mountain. The tower-ship moved toward it along the river's current—but they were still far off.
As soon as they anchored, a voice called out: "There's a light over there. Figures, I think. Go take a look."
"That is the ancient battlefield—nothing but demons. What could possibly be there?"
"Better safe than sorry."
Su Yan looked up. The Martial Heavenly Sovereign's spirit blazed like a beacon, drawing the attention of the ghosts and spirits aboard the tower-ship.
One of them drifted toward them at speed—a Ghost King with a blue face and tusks, bare-chested and barefoot, wearing nothing but a loincloth. A fleshy tumor crowned its pointed skull, and its features were grotesque.
"Oh—just a dead man. Nearly startled me," the Ghost King muttered in human speech. "I thought I saw a ghost."
It was about to turn away when a fist emerged from the shadows, heading straight for its face. Behind the fist, Su Yan blazed like a sovereign god ruling over all heaven.
The next instant the punch filled its entire field of vision.
The strike created a thunderclap out of thin air. It never touched the Ghost King's body—merely hovered before its face and pulsed once, shattering the Ghost King's spirit without leaving a mark on its flesh.
No sound escaped. No aura leaked.
This was the fifth form of the Eight Forms of the War God—the Form of the Dao Hammer.
Despite the destruction of its spirit, the Ghost King's body remained intact. Its incense-offering energy showed no change. Its heart still beat.
It was an underworld creature, different from other enfeoffed spirits. Those had no physical bodies. This one did.
Su Yan sat down beside the Martial Heavenly Sovereign's feet. His martial spirit and soul left his body, entered the Ghost King, and sealed his own golden core within his flesh to guard it.
The Ghost King flexed its limbs, familiarizing itself with the new host, and strode toward the tower-ship.
It glanced back at the Martial Heavenly Sovereign's corpse. "Rest easy," it whispered. "I will return with an Immortality Herb if it is the last thing I do."
*Those who carry fire for others must not be left to freeze in the snow.*
He wanted nothing more than to find the Immortality Herb on the mountain—even if Li Xiaoke and the Underworld Emperor stood in his way.
He covered the distance in a few swift strides, then launched himself into the air and arrived beneath the tower-ship. Ghosts and spirits were disembarking everywhere. Only the judges maintained any semblance of human form; the rest were monstrous.
Li Xiaoke and the Underworld Emperor had already come ashore. Both carried themselves with the poise of men of the world, each exuding the bearing of a hidden master.
The Underworld Emperor was the ruler of the underworld, commanding all spirits within the Divine Land—though his authority did not extend beyond its borders. Even so, he had cultivated an air of majesty that proclaimed his imperial status at a glance.
Li Xiaoke looked pale, but the presence of an otherworldly swordsman remained. He appeared young and carried himself with the scholarly grace of a scholar from the Han era.
To climb the mountain, they first had to breach the wind wall encircling it.
Li Xiaoke and the Underworld Emperor had clearly prepared. The Emperor produced an old doorframe from somewhere, weathered and riddled with worm-holes and footprints.
Li Xiaoke drew a door from his Xiyi Domain. It matched the frame perfectly.
The Emperor waved at Su Yan. He stepped forward, seized the frame, and planted it before the wind wall.
Li Xiaoke summoned one of his disciples. "Yan Liu, install this door."
Yan Liu bowed and pushed the door open. Behind it was no longer the soul-grinding wind wall—he stood simply on the other side.
Su Yan marveled inwardly.
The wind wall was a sealing restriction set by a being of immense power, infinitely dangerous. Yet pushing open this door allowed one to bypass it entirely. The door-and-frame were artifacts of inconceivable value.
With such an artifact, no seal in the world could bar his way. Every treasure vault in existence would lie open before him.
The thought had barely formed when a skeleton—infused with five-colored qi, flesh already grown back—lunged from beneath the wind wall, seized Yan Liu, and sank its teeth into the boy's neck. It dragged him into the mountain.
The skeleton's newly grown flesh granted it terrifying strength. Even though Yan Liu had forged a golden core, he could not resist. His screams rose into the air and grew distant, then fell silent.
"What in the—?"
Li Xiaoke's disciples were furious and terrified. They thrust their flying swords through the door, only to meet more revived skeletons.
The skeletons caught the swords bare-handed, sparks flying, yet suffered no damage.
Flesh rippled across their frames. They poured through the door. Everyone rushed to defend themselves; the judges and Ghost Kings raised their own artifacts and techniques.
Only Su Yan, standing beside the doorframe, went untargeted.
"The five-colored qi is wrong," Su Yan thought. "The Heaven-Earth energy that revived these skeletons has turned them into monsters—they attack on sight!"
He felt a chill. If the Martial Heavenly Sovereign's corpse were revived by this energy, it might become a soulless beast. Given the Sovereign's physical power, it could rampage across the underworld and devour everything.
The Underworld Emperor suddenly produced a bright mirror and aimed it at the flesh-growing skeletons. Where the light touched, their flesh dissolved at once. They toppled one after another, shattering on the ground.
Li Xiaoke smiled. "We are comrades in life and death. How could I abandon you? We enter together."
The Underworld Emperor understood his concern. He feared that once inside, the Emperor would remove the doorframe and leave him trapped on the mountain—a thought the Emperor had, in fact, entertained.
"Ha! Well said, Xiaoke. We enter together."
Arm in arm, the two walked through the portal.
Li Xiaoke's disciples and the Underworld Emperor's spirits filed through in turn, entering the Five-Colored Mountain.
Su Yan was about to follow when a judge blocked him with a palm on his chest. "Ba'en Hulu, Tiantian Bayin"—you stay outside and guard the door.
Su Yan stopped, scratched his head, and watched them ascend. *Guard the door? Or rob it blind?*
He shut the door, lifted the entire frame onto his shoulder, and walked away.
On the mountain, Li Xiaoke and the Underworld Emperor were reminiscing about their past exploits. The Underworld Emperor glanced back toward the wind wall and saw the plump, earnest-looking Ghost King shouldering their priceless doorframe and strolling off.
Their smiles froze, turned to shock, and then to rage.
Roaring, they charged down the mountain with their most ferocious spirits and qi-refiners in tow. "You with the tumor—put down our door!"
"Insolent wretch! Put it back!"
Another Ghost King and a magistrate remained aboard the tower-ship. Seeing the commotion, they charged.
Su Yan planted the doorframe with one hand and drove a fist forward. Before him, layers of air compressed into walls, stacking upon one another, then detonated.
The underworld sky shuddered. The charging Ghost King, still midair, was obliterated by the fist-wind alone.
The magistrate was far more powerful, channeling centuries of cultivation into a long whip that cracked across Su Yan's body. It failed to dislodge his soul—but it sent the Ghost King's corpse tumbling head over heels.
The magistrate froze, staring at Su Yan's soul with naked disbelief.
Su Yan's soul gleamed brilliantly. Its hand seized the whip, gave it a fierce snap, and launched the magistrate skyward.
*Crack!*
The whip lashed out, tearing the magistrate to shreds.
"So I have grown this strong," Su Yan said quietly.
He lifted the doorframe and strode toward the Martial Heavenly Sovereign.
He set the frame beside the old man's body, returned to his own flesh, and spoke. "Martial Heavenly Sovereign, we will wait for them to die—then go up and collect the spoils."
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