A Pawn's Passage

Qi Xuansu had been puzzled at first. Even if these people truly managed to kill him, the two first-rank Spirit Guards would never let them live, nor would Wang Jiaohe or Chen Shuhua.

Their fate would be certain death, silenced to erase all traces.

But Qi Xuansu soon understood.

The Green Phoenix Guards he had slain began to rise again. Their bodies were angled beyond recognition, yet they were animated. This was not the Martial Arts Practitioner’s body regenerative abilities. Their skulls remained crushed, their chests caved in, and their arms twisted off, remaining grotesquely broken. Black mist seeped from their orifices. Veins swelled under their skin, writhing like a nest of serpents. Worse still, on each man’s back, a hump began to grow, its surface faintly showing the contours of a human face.

The sight was all too familiar to Qi Xuansu. At the Kunlun Pass before Wu Luo wrecked the flying ship, the old Daoist had borne this same deformity. Had it not been for that man, Qi Xuansu might never have made his jaw-dropping leap.

The truth was clear now. These Green Phoenix Guards had been granted divine power from True Lord Siming and perhaps even a trace from Wu Luo. They were no longer mere guards but devout cultists.

Wu Luo excelled at enslaving her followers’ minds. She could make an old Daoist throw away his life, drive the people of Yishan City to march willingly to their deaths, and now, compel these men to die killing Qi Xuansu, heedless of consequence or fear.

These followers of the Ancient Immortals still acted human. They reasoned, schemed, and spoke like ordinary people. Yet beneath that facade was Wu Luo’s mental imprint, a seed buried deep in their soul. In their subconscious, dying for their Ancient Immortal was their duty, as natural as a vassal obeying the emperor’s decree.

Perhaps Wu Luo had never directly ordered Qi Xuansu’s death. Her followers could have plotted it on their own and deemed this course most beneficial to her will.

Their own lives, in comparison to Wu Luo’s gain, were worth nothing.

However, that was only possible when they were alive. In death, Wu Luo’s grasp faded.

Now that they were resurrected, they became puppets of True Lord Siming, who fully controlled their minds and bodies, a pitiful state.

Not all divine power was the same, nor did it have the same effect.

True Lord Siming’s divine power granted an undying body, unlike the eternal existence of Izanagi. Even Izanagi had perished under a heavenly tribulation.

Only divine power could counter divine power.

Qi Xuansu unleashed his Spiritual Body, manifesting the goddess Himiko. His fingers spread. True Solar Flames ignited from his palms, falling upon the resurrected guards, incinerating them to white ash.

However, True Lord Siming’s divine power stirred again. The guards rose once more, their humps growing higher, only to be consumed by the flames again. This cycle repeated over and over until at last, their borrowed divine power waned, and Qi Xuansu’s Solar Flames reduced them to nothing but dust.

Yet even in death, their bodies refused to stay still. The hump-like growths on their backs burst open, spewing forth countless tentacle-like appendages,slick and writhing like the arms of a squid.

Qi Xuansu recognized them immediately. He had seen these abominations in Jinling Prefecture. They were the so-called “gifts” that resembled catfish yet had the tentacles of a squid.

Though Himiko was a foreign goddess, her divinity was genuine. The True Solar Flames were the purest yang, a natural counter to such malicious yin creatures. A single sweep of that fire reduced the entire swarm of odd creatures to ash.

When Qi Xuansu had returned from Fenglin, he still possessed 2,000 marks of divine power.

To cleanse this infestation, he had spent no more than 50 marks.

One of the defining traits of the Shaman lineage was that the higher one’s cultivation, the more efficiently one could wield divine power.

Had Qi Xuansu still been a Xiantian Being, it might have cost him 100 marks to eradicate these undying Green Phoenix Guards. But his current cultivation halved that cost. Should he advance to become a Pseudo-Immortal one day, even 10 marks would suffice.

Qi Xuansu looked around. He noticed that Yang E was gone. The once-exquisite Emerald Pavilion was engulfed in flames, the fire spreading across collapsing beams.

As the illusions burned away, they revealed a hidden trapdoor leading downward.

Qi Xuansu turned to Chen Jianqiu and said, “Notify the Spirit Guards to put out the fire. Lock down the entire royal palace so that no one can leave or move freely.”

Chen Jianqiu quickly obliged.

Qi Xuansu then dismissed Himiko’s Spiritual Statue and manifested True Lord Taiyin’s Spiritual Body instead. His form dissolved into a beam of silvery moonlight, which slipped silently through the trapdoor and down the passage below.

Beneath Changning Palace lay another world entirely.

The moonlight sped downward like a streak of silver. Though Qi Xuansu had yet to reach Zhang Wuhen’s mastery of the Taiyin Spiritual Statue in manifesting a full moon, the light he conjured could ignore every seal and trap along the way. He then emerged at the end of the tunnel, within a vast underground chamber beneath Changning Palace.

The beam coalesced back into Qi Xuansu’s human form.

The hall was barren. Only a single altar stood at its center.

Upon it was Yang E, sprawled in a suggestive posture, with her knees bent beneath her in an obscene ritual of desire.

However, she was alone on the altar.

Clearly, this was not intended to seduce Qi Xuansu, as such behavior would be beneath even her debased dignity.

Qi Xuansu’s expression was calm. He gathered moonlight into his palm and condensed it into a long, pale blade, gleaming like frozen moonlight.

Just as Qi Xuansu prepared to strike, Yang E’s body convulsed, and an odd sound escaped her lips, sounding both like ecstasy and agony. “Oh! Great...Divine One! Your humble servant...begs for your grace...”

As she spoke, Yang E’s body continued to tremble uncontrollably like a patient suffering seizures.

Qi Xuansu froze mid-motion.

He did not see any divine power at work. All he could see was Yang E’s body jerking in violent spasms.

“True Lord...your humble servant thanks you—for your boundless grace...Oh, God...please forgive...your disciple...”

Still kneeling, Yang E suddenly threw back her head, her eyes wide as she stared toward some invisible divinity above, her body still shuddering.

What followed was a cascade of incoherent, breathless moans. Any ordinary man might have imagined something indecent, but Qi Xuansu merely frowned.

Following her gaze, Qi Xuansu looked upward. All he could see was the black dome of the underground hall.

He invoked the Banished Immortal’s Immortal Eye of Providence. Purple light flashed across his eyes. At last, a faint anomaly revealed itself.

A thin black thread, barely visible, hung straight down from above, one end piercing the ceiling, vanishing into some unknowable realm beyond sight. The other end was anchored to Yang E’s womb.

Qi Xuansu thought, What is this? A divine communion?

He hesitated whether to sever the thread, because it might be his only lead. Cutting it could kill Yang E outright. Perhaps he should wait and watch this unseemly ritual unfold to learn what Yang E was up to.

After a moment’s thought, he decided to act on it. It was better to strike first than risk disaster. Yet the instant he tried, he realized his earlier hesitation was meaningless.

The black thread could not be cut. It pulsed with the force of a divine descent, connected to a divine kingdom. With Qi Xuansu’s current cultivation, it was impossible to stop. Perhaps only Great Sage Lan could sever it.

He then turned his blade on Yang E. Similarly, it was futile. The altar shimmered with divine power beyond his capability, protecting her.

Qi Xuansu sighed softly. All he could do was watch this grotesque ritual to its end.

He had a sudden epiphany that Chen Jianqiu’s words had not been baseless. This youthful Queen Dowager was indeed hiding a lover. But no one could have guessed that her partner was so...abstract.

Suddenly, Yang E’s body convulsed violently, as if seized by a chill or caught in the peak of ecstasy. Her mouth fell open, from which a worm crawled out.

Then, countless more worms crawled out from beneath her skirts, squirming in a churning black tide, so many that the sight alone could make one’s scalp crawl.

Yang E’s eyes were glassy as she murmured, “God...Oh, God...Is this...your blessing?

I...I am filled with such joy...I am willing...to bear your offspring...Ah—it continues...I...I...Oh, Heavens! When will it end? I can’t hang on for much longer...”

“Oh, God! Forgive me...forgive your pitiful, lowly...disciple and servant...I never meant to offend you...I never meant to waver...”

“I feel...as though I’ll burst apart...torn in two...but...this only proves it—I am the Chosen One...the only one...”

The Queen Dowager had too many faiths. One moment, she called upon the True Lord, the next, she prayed to God. Sometimes, she was a disciple, and sometimes, a servant—an uneasy blend of Eastern and Western piety.

Qi Xuansu said nothing and simply watched.

The worms clustered tightly around the altar, yet none dared to approach Qi Xuansu.

This royal palace of the Yu Kingdom had too many strange incidents. Seven chief eunuchs died violently, their corpses drained dry as vessels for dragon qi. The Green Phoenix Guards had turned into the undead, resurrected by True Lord Siming’s divine power. The Yu King lay dying, dreaming night after night of Wu Luo’s red-robed Bodhisattva, the blood lakes, and the inverted Lingshan. The princess carried Western blood and was a secret member of the Ziguang Society.

Now, the Queen Dowager was enacting this obscene rite of divine communion, which was surely tied to the Ancient Immortals.

For once, Qi Xuansu found himself at a loss for words.

The Yu Court had been infiltrated, riddled with holes and heresies beyond counting.

At this rate, he would hardly be surprised if a few agents of the Holy Court or spies from the Heavenly Court were to crawl out from the shadows next.

Compared to this, the royal family of Fenglin was absurdly powerful. The Fengling Emperor himself served as the leader of the Tenmon Sect. Above him were the Three Great Kami, and below him were the Saio, the Great Tengu, and Tamamo-no-Mae. Even if an Ancient Immortal descended in the flesh, they would be driven out. Thus, none of the Ancient Immortals dared to spread their faith there.

But the Yu Kingdom was the opposite.

It was no wonder the Daoist Order had long deemed Fenglin the gravest threat to the Central Plains. If the Central Plains ever waned, Poluo’s Yu Kingdom could not rise to challenge it, but Fenglin would.

Looking at this sorry spectacle now, Qi Xuansu could finally see why.