A Pawn's Passage

With Spirit Guard Jia Chen personally leading the way, they did not encounter any dangers. Even when they came across some yet-to-be-taken strongholds, Spirit Guard Jia Chen did not mind taking action himself.

The first line of defense at Wuxing Mountain had already begun to collapse as the Divine Central Guards were being annihilated.

The one who felt this most directly was none other than Madam Qi.

The formation on the mountain’s outer perimeter that restricted her was rapidly weakening. It was not set up specifically to counter Madam Qi but rather to block all kinds of teleportation techniques, such as the Yin-Yang Gate or the Five Elements Escape Methods. This would prevent the enemy from bypassing defenses and directly entering the mountain’s interior.

Now that the formation was on the verge of collapse, this was undoubtedly good news for Madam Qi. Forcing a Banished Immortal to engage in close-quarters combat against a Martial Arts Practitioner was clearly a matter of using one’s weakness to challenge another’s strength. Although there were many growth paths for Banished Immortals, and some, like Zhang Yuelu, specialized in close combat, Madam Qi’s strengths lay in spells.

Soon, the Owner sensed it too. He recalled the last time Madam Qi had banished him thousands of kilometers away, and his expression darkened noticeably.

For the Owner, being banished did not harm his life. But it was certainly unpleasant. By the time he struggled back, everything would likely already be settled.

Of course, he could theoretically use his void-shattering punch to break apart the small world in which he was trapped in during the banishment, but that was not something he could just unleash at will. It required a charging process, and before he could complete it, Madam Qi would have finished her sequence of steps to banish him. By the time he finally smashed the small world, he would have already been sent hundreds of kilometers away. In fact, the small world would often collapse on its own after a short time.

Charging in advance was possible, but it came with difficulties. The buildup was not subtle, and Madam Qi could have easily spotted it. So by the time the charge reached its peak and he had no choice but to release the punch, Madam Qi would have been prepared to banish him, and he would not be able to resist it.

Unless he became a Manly Immortal, capable of shaking the void at any moment.

This was the awkward truth when Manly Immortals faced off against Heavenly Immortals. Theoretically, a Manly Immortal could indeed kill a Heavenly Immortal, as the destructive power of shattering the void was immense. But the problem was actually landing the hit. How could a crawling insect threaten a gracefully flitting butterfly? Thus, Manly Immortals often found themselves in the embarrassing position of having tremendous strength but no way to use it. All it took was a single misstep for them to be toyed with in the Heavenly Immortal’s palm.

At this moment, the Owner honestly felt he would rather face the famously lethal Qi Refiners than deal with these unreasonable Banished Immortals.

Fortunately, the Cook was by his side.

The Cook was a Zaohua-stage Heavenly Being, so he was not to be underestimated. Banished Immortals were never known for their physical toughness. As long as there was an opening, they, too, could be severely wounded. Even if the Three Flowers Gathering Realm could instantly repair physical injuries, the depletion of true essence was something much harder to replenish.

At this thought, the Owner no longer dodged or defended, letting one comet after another strike his body as he launched an all-out assault to create an opening for the Cook.

Madam Qi, of course, focused solely on defense, doing everything she could to hold her ground until the outer formation of Wuxing Mountain completely collapsed.

But even the strongest defense could not hold forever. After all, the Owner was a Pseudo-Immortal. Eventually, there was a gap in Madam Qi’s defense.

A slash of blade light seemed to appear from nowhere, its sharp edge tinged with a ghostly blue as it shot straight toward Yao Qi, the version of Madam Qi wearing the lotus crown.

The Cook had been hiding in the shadows, observing carefully for quite some time. He eventually concluded that the one who looked least like the usual Madam Qi was actually her true body. The three versions of her shared the same cultivation level, allowing one of them to momentarily draw upon the power of the other two. That was why it had been the businesswoman Madam Qi confronting Zhang Wuhen head-on earlier, tricking him into thinking she was the original body.

Facing the Cook’s Nether Blade, Yao Qi suddenly became hazy and then disappeared entirely.

Just as the Immortal Eye of Providence could evolve into strange heretical techniques, the Five Elements Qi Shield at the Pseudo-Immortal level was similarly unrecognizable from its original form.

At that moment, Madam Qi had dissolved her physical body into the primordial five qi—formless, colorless, shapeless, and ever-shifting like an invisible mist. Such a defense mechanism was extreme, effectively evading all swords, fists, and blades.

Thus, the Cook’s blade fell harmlessly through thin air.

Not far away, a five-colored qi gathered again into the form of Yao Qi, who swept her horsetail whisk. The silver hairs on her whisk suddenly extended, leaving dozens of fine red cuts across the Cook’s face.

The Owner seized the moment, punching forward.

But with a flash of movement, the lotus-crowned Yao Qi vanished, replaced by the Mogul Yao wielding the Face Wrecker to meet the Owner’s punch head-on.

With another thunderous boom, the Owner remained rooted in place while Mogul Yao floated back gracefully.

Just now, the two Madam Qis had switched places in an instant.

The lotus-crowned Yao Qi reappeared, seemingly infuriated. She reached into her magical receptacle and pulled out a large handful of talismans, flinging them like they cost nothing. These talismans transformed into wind, thunder, fire, water, and all sorts of mixed spells, sweeping furiously toward the Cook.

Madam Qi was merely stingy, not poor. She had no shortage of treasures; she just usually chose not to use them.

The Cook dared not take the barrage head-on, so he kept retreating.

On the other side, with Spirit Guard Jia Chen personally striking, the regular Divine Central Guards were crushed like ants. As Spirit Guard Jia Chen shattered the final formation node with a single punch, two-thirds of the nodes had been cleared, and the outer formation of Wuxing Mountain finally collapsed, its power slowly dissipating.

Madam Qi immediately manifested a towering giant shadow behind her, haloed in swirling light, sprouting four massive arms.

This was the Ancestral Witch Spiritual Statue.

Without seeing any obvious movement from Madam Qi, the giant shadow stretched out one of its arms. The palm grew larger until it was vast enough to blot out the sky, filling the Owner’s vision with nothing but darkness and forcibly drawing his focus to hinder his escape.

The Owner had no choice but to begin charging his void-shattering punch.

Madam Qi did not close her five fingers just yet.

This was practically an open scheme. If he did not charge ahead of time, she would simply seize the chance to banish him. If he charged ahead of time, she would stop and wait for him to unleash the punch, then banish him right after.

The Owner understood this logic clearly, yet he had no good solution. If he were an Earthly Immortal, Ghostly Immortal, or Godly Immortal, he could quickly return to the battlefield. But as a Manly Immortal, he was bound to his physical body.

In fact, before encountering Madam Qi, the Owner had never faced such a tactic.

Moments later, the Owner reached his charging limit and was forced to unleash the punch.

The void trembled, twisted, and folded. The space between the two surged like waves.

Madam Qi’s arm could not withstand the void’s tremors and shattered, with cracks even spreading up to her shoulder and chest.

However, Madam Qi still had three more arms. She extended another arm and repeated the technique. This time, she closed her fingers, capturing the Owner within her palm.

In an instant, the inside and outside of the hand became two separate realms. Madam Qi had peeled the Owner away from this world, isolating him temporarily in a small spherical world she had created.

The Owner could only throw his head back and let out an earth-shaking howl, utterly helpless.

Next, Madam Qi raised her hand toward that small world and gently pushed it.

The small world vanished instantly, leaving only rippling waves in its wake.

Amidst the Owner’s exasperated roar, Madam Qi once again banished him.

Madam Qi did not provide an exact coordinate. She only had a general direction. So this time, the Owner was randomly flung to the bottom of Donghai.

As the small world enveloping the Owner gradually dissipated, he realized that the surrounding fish had become unnervingly strange. Some looked grotesque, like demonic creatures. Since sunlight never reached these depths, the seawater was unimaginably cold.

But that was nothing compared to what came next. As the depth increased, the water pressure grew heavier. At extreme depths, an ordinary person would be instantly crushed under the immense pressure. Such sheer force even surpassed that of a Heavenly Being.

At a few thousand meters beneath the sea, the all-encompassing pressure against every part of the body pressed in relentlessly, leaving no corner untouched. One could only imagine the severity.

There would be no chance of survival for an ordinary person. Even a Heavenly Being would feel the strain under such pressure.

However, the Owner was a Pseudo-Immortal Martial Arts Practitioner with an extraordinarily resilient body, so he would not be harmed by such crushing force. Even so, it was admittedly uncomfortable. Still, he understood that Wuxing Mountain was no longer any of his business.

After banishing the Owner, Madam Qi was significantly drained, but she did not delay further. She simply sent two of her Three Corpse incarnations to deal with the Cook while she withdrew the Ancestral Witch Spiritual Statue. She walked to the permanent Yin-Yang Gate at Wuxing Mountain and murmured, “Open the gate.”

Even if the opponent destroyed this permanent Yin-Yang Gate, she could still create a temporary passage using the residual aura left behind. Besides, a permanent gate capable of withstanding the Owner’s passage was not easily built, nor could it be easily destroyed, certainly not within a short time.

Amid the fierce fighting at the mountain’s base, Zhang Wuhen sensed the approach of Spirit Guard Jia Chen. She voluntarily withdrew her Spiritual Statue and retreated.

Xuanji’s mission was to pin down Zhang Wuhen, not to suppress the Monkey, so she also withdrew her Spiritual Statue and chased after Zhang Wuhen.

In doing so, they cleared the path to the mountain.

Spirit Guard Jia Chen had no intention of giving chase because his objective was crystal clear—to destroy the Monkey. He was not here to kill the Owner or Zhang Wuhen.

After all, the Monkey was rumored to be a manmade Immortal. Between that and a Pseudo-Immortal, the former was more crucial.

Spirit Guard Jia Chen led the three young Daoists up the mountain path, reaching the midpoint, where Madam Qi had already forced open the permanent Yin-Yang Gate. It was a shimmering portal leading to who knows where.

When the three saw the lotus-crowned Madam Qi, they assumed she was some unfamiliar Omniscient Sage sent to assist them. They never would have guessed she was actually Madam Qi. After all, the contrast was simply too great.

Only Qi Xuansu felt that her back looked oddly familiar.

Facing away from them, Madam Qi could not be bothered to acknowledge her son, future daughter-in-law, and grandniece. She deliberately altered her voice and instructed, “I will hold up the portal. Go and return quickly.”