A Pawn's Passage

The Owner stared intently at the Face Wrecker in Madam Qi’s hand, clearly surprised by the smoking pipe’s resilience, but even more so by Madam Qi’s true essence. If it were only the rod itself, the Owner’s overwhelming force might have snapped it without issue, yet with Madam Qi’s infused true essence, it was no longer that simple. As the saying goes, even grass, wood, bamboo, or stone could be used as a sword. What made it a sword was the wielder’s sword intention.

At this moment, Madam Qi began to voraciously absorb the elemental energy surrounding her, converting it into her own true essence to create an unceasing and inexhaustible flow.

Manly Immortals had the advantage of having an incomparably powerful body and overflowing blood qi. Yet Earthly Immortals, ranked above Manly Immortals in the hierarchy of Heavenly, Earthly, Godly, Manly, and Ghostly Immortals, possessed their own strengths. They could draw on and transform elemental energy into their own, which was the core of the Fusion Realm. When two Earthly Immortals clashed, the difference was less obvious, but against a Manly Immortal, the absence of competition for energy allowed the Earthly Immortal to fully exploit their strengths.

Though Madam Qi was a Banished Immortal, the Heavenly and Earthly Immortal lineages shared much in common.

Moments later, Madam Qi shifted from defense to offense, wielding her smoking pipe like a sword and cleaving down at the Owner.

A surge of mighty sword qi howled forward. The Owner had no choice but to raise his palm and block it. Where sword qi met his hand, sparks shot outward, peppering the ground like raindrops on sand and leaving behind countless pits of varying sizes and depths.

With his blood qi surging, the Owner not only awakened the body spirit within his many acupoints but also hardened his skin, flesh, and bones to be as tough as diamond. If Madam Qi’s sword qi was a cluster of sharp blades, then the Owner’s body was an ironclad shield. Piercing it would be no easy feat.

After her sword qi was blocked, Madam Qi shifted her stance once more. Countless beams of sword light emerged from the Face Wrecker, interwoven with mist, cascading down upon the Owner.

The Owner threw a punch, unleashing a hurricane-like blast and thunderous rumble, breaking through layer upon layer of Madam Qi’s sword light and driving straight toward her. Though it seemed like a simple and direct strike, the punch embodied his ultimate mastery of fist intention. Its spiraling force formed a vortex around his fist, and if Madam Qi failed to brace herself, she would be pulled in, making it seem as if she were charging into his blow of her own accord.

At the same time, the Owner unleashed a palm strike. In stark contrast to his fierce and forceful punch, this palm strike was the epitome of softness. It was as delicate as a woman’s slender hand, carrying not a trace of weight.

At the Owner’s cultivation level, his control over strength had reached the pinnacle of mastery. He could wield the utmost hardness, vastness, and yang, or the utmost softness, minuteness, and yin—all at his whim. If a Xiaoyao-stage Heavenly Being were struck by this palm, their bones would shatter to dust internally, yet not a single hair would be out of place on the surface.

The version of Madam Qi who was in the guise of Mogul Yao focused solely on countering the punch, while another Madam Qi appeared out of thin air. This new Madam Qi, who wore a lotus crown and a black hechang, lifted a horsetail whisk to meet the oncoming palm strike.

This was the Banished Immortal’s Three Corpses Severance Realm.

Another figure, the true form of Madam Qi herself, appeared, dressed in a long copper-coin-patterned robe, holding a small golden abacus in her hand. The beads on the abacus clicked softly as she worked the calculations.

A Nandou Star Chart materialized out of thin air above the two of them.

The Nandou, or the Southern Dipper, governed life. Thus, the Nandou 28 Formation Diagram was used to set up formations, break formations, and perform divination.

As Madam Qi flicked her abacus, the 28 beads shifted according to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

The star chart abruptly shifted.

The seven mansions of the east, south, west, and north transformed into the Nine Wilds and Nine Heavens, corresponding to the stars above, drawing forth the power of the constellations.

The Eastern Azure Dragon, Western White Tiger, Southern Vermilion Bird, and Northern Black Tortoise all shone brightly at once. Then, a torrent of tangible starlight cascaded down like a meteor shower, roaring with unstoppable might.

At the same moment, the Owner disengaged from the two Madam Qis and pulled back. Facing the oncoming flood of starlight, his entire body erupted with countless bursts of thunder, like war drums echoing across the heavens. Then, he punched upward. His slightly bent arm extended abruptly, crackling from the chest, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fist in a rapid chain of explosive bursts like a storm.

This punch carried not a hint of softness, only pure, unrelenting yang energy. Yet it had reached such an extreme of pure yang that it inverted into birthing yin, as yin arose at the peak of yang.

The intense shockwave from his punch rippled across the entire void, reaching everywhere and permeating all space. In that moment, everything under the heavens blurred.

The void was the foundation upon which all things were encompassed. It was more elusive and unfathomable than the concept of qi.

The Manly Immortal lineage lay in taking brute force to its ultimate extreme. Since the void bore all things, they could shatter the void with one punch, and all things that depended on it would naturally vanish into oblivion. This was the Manly Immortal lineage’s Shattered Void Realm.

Though the Owner had yet to reach the Manly Immortal level and could not truly break the void, he was more than capable of shaking it.

The void twisted and warped under his blow, and all things that relied on it could not remain unaffected. Many intricate formations and talismans, thrown off their intended course by this distortion, unraveled and collapsed without needing to be attacked directly.

Martial Arts Practitioners always had some shortcomings. Under certain conditions, they could even be toyed with in the palm of a Banished Immortal, often falling into the awkward situation of having strength but no means to use it, just like how the Owner was easily banished by Madam Qi last time. But there was no doubt that given the right opportunity, a Martial Arts Practitioner could take down anything in their path with one punch, no matter what stood before them.

The starlight scattered with a single quake from the Owner.

The force of this punch did not stop. The rippling shockwaves in the void extended all the way to the star chart, causing even the diagram to twist and distort.

No one could tell which of the three Madam Qis—one dressed as a businesswoman, the ethereal white-robed Mogul Yao, and Yao Qi dressed as a second-rank Taiyi Daoist master—was her true body. All three fought with full force to keep the star chart from being shattered by that punch.

After all, Madam Qi was not a true Immortal. Just as the Owner could not shatter the void like a Manly Immortal, Madam Qi could not sever her Three Corpses like a Heavenly Immortal. She only had two external bodies. The third one remained within her body, gnawing away at her lifespan. This was why a Banished Immortal at the Pseudo-Immortal stage could never truly attain eternal life. At most, they only consumed less lifespan and could live a few years longer than ordinary people.

As such, the fourth Madam Qi did not appear.

The battling Spirit Guards and Black Robes suddenly noticed that the thunder had stopped at some point, and fluttering snowflakes were drifting down.

What was strange about this was that there were no clouds overhead despite the snowfall. Only a bright full moon hung high in the dark sky, illuminating the earth in a pale glow.

But the Spirit Guards did not dwell on it and quickly refocused on the battle before them.

A fourth-rank Spirit Guard shouted, “Bring up the A9 Tiger Crouch!”

Immediately, more than ten Spirit Guards pushed a heavy cannon forward.

This cannon had arrived with the Yinglong Warship, disassembled into pieces to be smuggled into the capital unnoticed, and then reassembled on site.

Early cannons were most famously called the Tiger Squat Cannons. After the Daoist Order improved the design, they renamed it the Tiger Crouch. A9 was classified as a heavy cannon model. The Spirit Guards could push it with their superior strength, but normal soldiers would require a team of animals to drag it on the battlefield.

If it were a super-heavy cannon, it could only be mounted on an ironclad ship or a flying ship.

The Divine Central Guards never expected the Spirit Guards to bring cannons into the fight.

When the black barrel of the cannon was pushed forward, the Black Robes hiding behind their earthworks were filled with despair.

They wished to surrender, but they knew that the situation did not allow it. Would they really be set free to reveal the truth of the Spirit Guards’ clash with the Black Robes to the world? Only the dead would stay silent.

Some Black Robes had tried to surrender, but they were instantly shot dead on the spot.

Whether the Spirit Guards or the Black Robes won, both sides would silence the opponent completely.

These Spirit Guards came from the Western Region battlefield, having just concluded their war with the Shamanistic Sect. They were true battle-hardened veterans, still carrying the killing aura of war. Thus, their combat ability was far superior to the Divine Central Guard’s Black Robes, who had been stationed in peaceful areas for too long.

The Spirit Guards silently adjusted the cannon, the sound of iron axles creaking as the barrel slowly lifted, its black muzzle glinting coldly under the moonlight.

A fourth-rank Spirit Guard gave the order. “No need for test shots. Fire directly!”

Moments later, a thunderous boom erupted as the cannon fired, the massive blast wave surging outward from its rear.

The sturdy fortifications across the field crumbled instantly before the heavy cannon. They were reduced to rubble, burying the Black Robes on the other side deep underground.

Only then did the Spirit Guards advance further.

Their mission was to completely seal off Wuxing Mountain, or rather, to take over control from the Divine Central Guard.

Unfortunately for the Divine Central Guard, no reinforcements would be coming unless the Imperial Court was prepared to completely forgo its relationship with the Daoist Order.

In terms of sheer numbers, the Imperial Court’s Black Robes far outnumbered the Daoist Order’s Spirit Guards, but in top-tier combat strength, the court could not compare. If open war broke out, the Daoists could easily capture the leaders of the Black Robes first.

If the court truly intended to break ties at this point, it would not be secretly refining the Monkey. It would have done so openly.

There was a temporary camp set up by the Spirit Guards on a nearby hill.

Qi Xuansu, Zhang Yuelu, and Yao Pei were all there.

Since it was not yet their turn to jump into battle, they simply stood in silence, gazing toward Wuxing Mountain.

Countless flashes of cannon fire flickered and vanished like a drizzling rain of sparks.

Falling meteors and the sprawling stars in the sky were clearly visible.

Zhang Yuelu did not use her Five Elements Qi Shield to dissolve the falling snow, allowing the white flakes to pile atop her shoulders. This was a sign of the unrest in her heart as she sighed over the fate of the ordinary Black Robes and Spirit Guards while reflecting on the awe-inspiring power of Pseudo-Immortals and Heavenly Beings.

Qi Xuansu silently reached out and gently brushed the snow off her shoulder.