A Pawn's Passage

The battle between the Three Yin Beings and Izanagi raged into its fiercest stage. The two titans grappled like giant wrestlers, rolling around while Izanagi’s golden body was corroded into a pitted, uneven shell, stripped of all luster and leaking flames from every crack.

The bone armor of the Three Yin Beings shattered. Half of its countless eyes were blinded and reduced to hollow sockets, while the remaining intact ones shone with an eerie light, casting upon Izanagi and burdening him with the weight of a mountain, slowing his every move.

The fusion of the Three Yin Beings was time-limited, as was the false power bestowed by the Scripture of Zuriel.

Both sides were pushing their limits. The more exhausted they became, the more ferocious the struggle.

This was only half a divine kingdom to begin with. After such a clash, the divine kingdom began to crumble, gradually revealing glimpses of the real world beyond.

Now, the divine kingdom resembled a house with walls torn apart, wind blowing in from all sides. The verdant grass and flourishing trees that had blossomed for a moment were already gone.

Suddenly, a divine whip appeared, striking left and right, lashing both Izanagi and the Three Yin Beings.

Izanagi’s golden body shattered with a thunderous roar, while the fused Three Yin Beings split back into three separate entities.

A figure appeared within the divine kingdom—it was Sage Qingwei.

Earlier, he had fallen into the endless starry nebula and was banished by Izanagi using Vairocana’s power. Thus, when that divine power dissipated, he climbed back from the depths of the abyss once more.

Whatever the case, Sage Qingwei was a Banished Immortal. To him, there was nowhere in this world that was off-limits. Exile was an excellent method against Earthly and Manly Immortals, but against a Heavenly Immortal, its effect was negligible.

At this moment, Sage Qingwei held a rigid metal whip that was over a meter long, resembling a segmented bamboo riding crop. There were 21 segments, and each joint had 4 seals, totaling 84 seals.

This was one of the four immortal objects held by the Great Xuan Emperor, the Mountain Whip.

Legend says there was a mountain so steep in ancient times that its summit blotted out the sun. Barren rock and tangled weeds made for treacherous terrain, so the people starved and suffered in misery. To turn the mountain into fertile fields, the Primordial Daoist Ancestor smelted a meteor for 7 days and nights into iron, then refined it for 49 more days to forge a metal whip. He then lashed the mountain thrice with the whip. Each stroke blazed with golden light, followed by a thunderous roar. The mountain then tore free and flew away with the wind, leaving behind the vast plains. Apparently, the Primordial Daoist Ancestor used such great force that the whip snapped into two, the front half landing at the Laojun Platform, and the rear was left behind in the Zixiao Palace, becoming the Mountain Whip.

The First Emperor built a stone bridge, seeking to cross the sea and behold the rising sun. At that time, a divine being reforged the Mountain Whip, using it to move stones into the sea. When the stones did not move quickly enough, the divine being lashed them with the whip.

Later records noted that the First Emperor summoned the stones with spells, and they moved of their own accord. To this day, all those stones face east, with faint grooves resembling lash marks upon them.

Now, the Mountain Whip belonged to the Great Xuan Emperor, who had close ties to the Taiping Sect. Since the Imperial Preceptor did not lend Sage Qingwei the Skycaller, the Emperor entrusted the Sage Commander with the Mountain Whip.

This whip possessed three great divine powers—summon mountains, shift space, and break through all manner of spells.

Though Sage Qingwei was not the whip’s true master and could not wield its full might, it still surpassed the Blood-Garbed Immortal Severing Sword.

This was precisely why the Imperial Preceptor believed Sage Qingwei could venture alone into the divine kingdom. With two immortal objects in hand, even if the Zhengyi Sect intervened, the battle’s outcome would still be evenly matched.

But now that the Three Yin Beings and Izanagi clashed, it was Sage Qingwei’s turn to reap the benefits.

After shattering Izanagi’s golden body, Sage Qingwei turned toward where Qi Xuansu stood, hesitating slightly, thinking if he should, as the Imperial Preceptor had suggested, dispose of this obstacle.

At that moment, Izanagi flared like a dying ember rekindled, his golden body restored once more as he charged at Sage Qingwei.

However, the Three Yin Beings did not strike at Sage Qingwei. Instead, they withdrew one by one to stand near Qi Xuansu, as though they were his protectors.

Sage Qingwei had no choice but to set Qi Xuansu aside for now and face Izanagi head-on.

With a wave of the Mountain Whip, Sage Qingwei conjured three boulders, each the size of a mountain peak, hurling them like meteors from beyond the heavens toward Izanagi.

The three meteors struck Izanagi squarely, like three colossal fists pounding into him, forcing him back three steps.

Sage Qingwei lashed the whip again, manifesting more meteors out of thin air, which fell from the sky.

They seemed to be piling up into a true mountain.

The sight resembled the Buddha’s power of transforming five fingers into a mountain.

Izanagi shattered boulder after falling boulder, yet no matter how many he broke, new ones immediately formed to replace them, as though they were endless and inexhaustible.

Gradually, Izanagi could no longer shatter the meteors as quickly as they fell. A mountain grew at astonishing speed, and soon, Izanagi vanished from Sage Qingwei’s sight. Nothing remained but boulders stacked among each other. This was the divine power of an Immortal who could move mountains and overturn seas.

In the end, only a vast and towering mountain remained standing.

Exhausted and at the end of his strength, Izanagi was finally defeated.

Sage Qingwei once again turned his gaze toward Qi Xuansu.

Even with the Three Yin Beings guarding him, Qi Xuansu still felt uneasy. He longed to ask the Heavenly Preceptor or the Earthly Preceptor what to do. Surely, none of them expected him to fight Sage Qingwei, right? He might do so in the future, but certainly not now.

However, the Earthly Preceptor seemed to have vanished, no longer monitoring the situation.

So Qi Xuansu had no choice but to bite the bullet. “Sage Commander, I was afraid that something might befall you, so I came to your aid.”

Sage Qingwei glanced at the Three Yin Beings beside Qi Xuansu and snickered. “Is this the Earthly Preceptor’s doing? Only he could command the Three Yin Beings.”

Qi Xuansu said nothing. He certainly could not expose the Earthly Preceptor, but he had no other excuse. At least silence left more room to maneuver than outright admission.

The Nine-Yin Lord of the Netherworld shifted back into Master Yin’s form and interjected, “It takes divine might to subdue a foreign god. After all, you are not yet a true Immortal, so relying on external objects has its limits. How much strength do you have left now, Sage? If you could truly suppress us, would you bother with all this talk?”

These words reminded Qi Xuansu that after such a great battle, both Izanagi and the Three Yin Beings were spent. Sage Qingwei might have wanted to reap the benefits while the two giants fought, but he was not the Imperial Preceptor. He could not be much better off either.

Given the Taiping Sect’s ruthless decisiveness, if Sage Qingwei truly could have slain the Three Yin Beings and Qi Xuansu, why would he hesitate? This was, after all, Izanagi’s divine kingdom. Even if Sage Qingwei killed all of them here, he would leave no trace behind. Would the Heavenly Preceptor or the Earthly Preceptor stand up and accuse Sage Qingwei of silencing fellow Daoists?

Sage Qingwei merely smiled, offering no denial.

By now, Izanagi’s divine kingdom had shattered, and through its rifts, parts of the real world outside could be glimpsed.

These seams were too narrow for mighty Immortals to pass through, and forcibly tearing the gap apart would create turbulence.

The notion of size in a divine kingdom was unlike that of the real world. In this realm, one’s cultivation defined its size. Someone of a high cultivation would be massive, while those of low cultivation would remain small.

For example, the rifts of a divine kingdom were like ramps between ships. They bore only limited weight. The plank could not carry the weight of a Longevity-stage Immortal, so if one attempted to cross, the plank would break, and the Immortal would fall into the sea between the ships.

Sage Qingwei looked out, toward a place farther away.

There, the Donghai Navy could be seen.

The Donghai Navy’s Chief Admiral stepped out from the bridge onto the deck, holding a brocade box in his hands.

The lid of the box was open, revealing a jade seal inside.

This was the second immortal object that the Great Xuan Emperor held—the Imperial Succession Seal.

It was a relic from the First Emperor, carved from a jade disc discovered by a man named Bian He. Successive emperors treated possession of the Imperial Succession Seal as the sign of Heaven’s mandate, revering it as a national treasure.

To hold it symbolized having received the mandate from Heaven, and to lose it signified that one’s destiny had run out. Any usurper who ascended to the throne without the seal lacked legitimacy and was scorned by the world.

Thus, many fought over this jade seal, which had changed hands repeatedly, vanishing and reappearing over a millennium. By the time the Wei Dynasty’s Founding Emperor drove back the Golden Horde, the jade seal’s whereabouts had already become unknown.

There were rumors that during the fire at the Xuanwu Tower, the seal vanished. Some said that the young emperor of the Jin Dynasty leaped into the sea clutching the seal when he was pursued by the Golden Horde to the South Sea. There were also rumors of the Golden Horde carrying the seal back to the Grasslands. Much of the Wei Dynasty’s successive northern campaigns were said to be aimed at reclaiming the seal.

In fact, the Imperial Succession Seal had fallen into the hands of the Confucian School. According to the National Academy’s records, after the fallen emperor leaped into an inferno clutching the seal, it came into Confucian possession. Subsequent seals were merely counterfeits. But the Wei Dynasty did not bother to imitate the Imperial Succession Seal and kept only the ordinary six imperial seals.

When the Daoist Order defeated the Confucian School, the Imperial Succession Seal was passed into Daoist hands, becoming one of the Great Xuan Emperor’s four immortal objects. After all, the Great Xuan Emperor was one of only two superlative Daoists aside from the Grand Master, ranked above the first-rank Tianzhen Daoist masters.

No one had expected that the Great Xuan Emperor would not only lend Sage Qingwei the Mountain Whip but also send the Chief Admiral of the Donghai Navy to deliver the Imperial Succession Seal, all just to ensure victory.

The first-rank military officer raised the jade seal high in his hands.

The seal was a 13-centimeter square block with nine dragons entwined.

Just as the Heavenly Preceptor’s Twin Swords corresponded to the Punishment Pillar, the Imperial Succession Seal corresponded to the Northern Dragon.

The Northern Dragon was half-dead, yet unextinguished.

A dragon-shaped radiance pierced through the rift in the divine kingdom, entering its interior and coiling above Sage Qingwei’s head.

The miniature Northern Dragon exhaled a yellow-brown breath, which descended.

In an instant, nine dragons spiraled about Sage Qingwei’s body.

Sage Qingwei murmured, “Mandated by Heaven, may he enjoy long life and everlasting prosperity.”

Then he looked toward Qi Xuansu and Master Yin. “Now, shall I kill you two?”