Night had fallen by the time Xu Ying and the snake demon Yuan Qi found shelter in an abandoned temple on Stone Mountain. Xu Ying built a fire, and Yuan Qi pressed close to the flames, seeking warmth. Cold was dangerous for serpents—when their blood cooled, circulation slowed until they fell into hibernation. Xu Ying gave him the remaining half-duck from his pack and made do with dry rations.
Qinyan Cave on Wu Wang Mountain was not far. At their pace, they should have reached it within a day, but the constant pursuit by gods and Nuo shamans had slowed them to a crawl. Xu Ying took advantage of the lingering twilight to explore. The temple was small, consisting of a front hall and a rear courtyard. The main hall had once housed a deity of some sort, but not even a shrine remained—whatever god had dwelled here was long gone. In the rear courtyard stood a pavilion, and within it hung a bronze bell taller than a man, its surface green with age. Beneath the bell, a hexagonal well descended into darkness. Thick black iron chains, each as thick as a man's calf, hung from the well's walls and plunged into the depths below.
Xu Ying tugged on one of the chains. It was impossibly heavy, and his pull sent a chorus of clanking echoes rising from the shaft. Whatever lay at the bottom, it was substantial.
Returning to the fire, he settled his breathing and began circulating his blood and qi, slowly practicing the Elephant-Force Ox-Demon Fist. "Yuan Qi, I'll teach you the fist technique now. Watch how I move and compare it against the scripture."
Yuan Qi raised his head, studying Xu Ying's movements while glancing at the scroll in the firelight. Where Xu Ying's qi circulated, light glowed beneath his skin, as if a miniature sun blazed within his body, illuminating organs, flesh, and bone. Through his skin, the flow was visible—a river of light coursing through his frame.
"This isn't right," Yuan Qi muttered. "He's doing it wrong." The scripture made no mention of qi transforming into a blazing sun. The Niu family—three generations of snake demons, all practicing the Great Sun Guiding Art and Elephant-Force Ox-Demon Fist—had never produced anything like this.
Xu Ying continued his practice. The qi-sun within him grew steadily stronger, and white steam rose from his scalp. A faint, rank odor mixed with the vapor—impurities being expelled from his body. The Primordial Unity Guiding Art had already refined him through thunder-resonance tempering years ago, but this new sun-based tempering was reaching places the thunder could not touch. The Great Sun Guiding Art had its own merits.
"Don't bother searching the scripture," Xu Ying said, noticing Yuan Qi flipping desperately through the scroll. "I developed the Sun Body Tempering method during my fight with Ding Quan. It fills a gap I noticed in the combined arts. It wasn't difficult to figure out."
Yuan Qi was indignant. "You're telling me you comprehended a missing technique mid-battle? Are you mocking me? Why couldn't three generations of my family figure this out? Are we all simpletons?"
Xu Ying said nothing. He was a kind boy.
He pushed his qi circulation to its maximum. As his blood and qi reached full surge, his skin felt as though it might tear apart from within—the power of his fist technique was exceeding his body's tolerance. Martial cultivation demanded a vessel strong enough to contain its force. Without sufficient physical conditioning, continued practice would inflict devastating internal damage, leaving hidden injuries that accumulated over time. Xu Ying was about to stop when he noticed something extraordinary: beneath the sun-tempering effect, his five major organs were radiating light in five distinct colors. His organ strength was increasing dramatically, his blood and qi surging even higher. Every pore on his body opened simultaneously, releasing qi like steam from countless valves, while his heart pounded like a war drum, generating fresh blood and qi to maintain peak condition.
He pressed on. The qi mist seeping from his pores coagulated behind him, forming the Elephant God manifestation—visible, tangible. Yuan Qi's mind reeled. Xu Ying had only acquired the Elephant-Force Ox-Demon Fist this morning. He had broken through to the fifth level while killing the green-robed deity. Now, while casually teaching the technique, he had reached the sixth level. The Niu family's brains were, apparently, not their strongest asset. But that was fine—Yuan Qi could simply follow Xu Ying's example and save himself the trouble of thinking.
Xu Ying stopped practicing, slightly embarrassed. He had intended to teach fist techniques and had accidentally achieved a breakthrough instead. The fifth level, Elephant God Manifestation, had been a mere illusion of blood mist. The sixth level, Blood-Mist Condensed Body, gave the projection substance—it could now deliver force independently, effectively doubling Xu Ying's striking power. A qualitative leap.
Seven years of primordial unity cultivation had built an immense reservoir of qi and blood. Xu Ying's pure focus, unburdened by distractions, allowed him to advance at terrifying speed. But the accumulated potential was now nearly spent; further progress would come much harder.
"Brother Niu, the key to the Ox-Demon Fist lies in balancing qi strength with body conditioning," Xu Ying explained. "Only when your body is strong enough can you reach the next level. I developed Sun Body Tempering to address this—and it suits you perfectly." He taught Yuan Qi the method in detail. The technique was indeed ideal for serpents. Being essentially a straight line, a snake's body required qi to circulate through a simple path without the complexities of limbs. Yuan Qi could complete three full cycles in the time it took Xu Ying to finish one—an enormous advantage.
Under Xu Ying's guidance, Yuan Qi practiced beside the fire. Soon, an elephant's cry rang from his serpentine throat—the unmistakable sign of mastering the fourth level, Divine Elephant Strength. Then, blood-mist coalesced behind him into the Elephant God Manifestation of the fifth level. Yuan Qi was stunned into silence, then exploded with joy. He slithered outside, wrapped his tail around a boulder weighing two or three thousand pounds, and hurled it into the sky. Then he wept. For nearly three hundred years, across three generations, no snake in his family had ever broken through to the fourth level. Under Xu Ying's instruction, he had reached the fifth in a single evening. He had never imagined cultivation could be this easy.
Of course, his progress rested on a foundation of one hundred and twenty years of accumulated qi. Xu Ying's guidance had merely shown him how to use what he already possessed.
Xu Ying extinguished the fire with a sweep of his palm. "Your breakthrough made enough noise to alert every god and Nuo shaman within miles. We need to leave."
Traveling at night through the Lingling mountains was extremely dangerous. Moonlight barely penetrated the dense canopy; one misstep could mean a fatal fall, and predators prowled in the darkness. But staying put meant certain death when pursuers surrounded the temple. Xu Ying and Yuan Qi crept downward through the dark, feeling their way.
Then came the sound of waves—a distant roaring that grew louder with impossible speed, swelling into a thunderous, earth-shaking roar. The ground beneath Xu Ying's feet trembled. He leaped into the branches of a great tree and climbed to the canopy for a better view. What he saw defied reason. In the moonlight, across the rolling mountains, a line of silver-white was rising—a river broader and more powerful than even the Xiao or Xiang, surging forward and swallowing everything in its path. Ghostly blue flames skittered across its surface.
"That river wasn't there before," Xu Ying whispered.
Yuan Qi scrambled up beside him. His body went rigid. "The Naihe!" His voice turned shrill. "The River of the Dead has changed course! Run—run back up the mountain!"
The serpent hurtled downward, and Xu Ying followed. The Naihe, the great river of the underworld that ferried the souls of the dead, was flowing through the mortal world. Every plant it touched withered; every bird and beast it claimed lost its vitality instantly. Strangely, the water rose over a hundred feet above the valley floor yet remained contained as if by invisible banks, flowing along a channel that existed only in some spectral dimension. Stone Mountain lay directly in its path.
By the time Xu Ying and Yuan Qi burst back into the ruined temple, the Naihe had already swallowed the base of the mountain. The water level climbed relentlessly, eroding everything it touched. The temperature plummeted. Yuan Qi, cold-blooded by nature, grew sluggish and nearly hibernated on the spot. Xu Ying shouted at him to circulate his qi, and they both fought the bone-deep chill with every technique they possessed. Xu Ying managed to relight the fire, but the flames burned a sickly green, and within them, faces of the dead surfaced and sank—old men with eyes rolled white, mouths stretched in silent screams.
"This temple was abandoned for good reason," Yuan Qi said through chattering teeth. "The feng shui here is abysmal."