A Pawn's Passage

Generally, there were two sources of reference for one to construct a divine kingdom.

One reference was from myths and legends. Since divine power was fundamentally built upon incense power, ancient tales that circulated for centuries accumulated the faith of countless people. Thus, Godly Immortals built their divine kingdoms by borrowing these legends, essentially harvesting free incense power for themselves.

The most famous example was the Moon Palace. Since the dawn of mankind, people have looked up at the moon, and stories about the Moon Palace have existed for ages.

True Lord Taiyin used these legends to forge her divine kingdom, the Palace of Cold Light. This was akin to bestowing a proper name upon the once-nameless Moon Palace. From then on, all incense power related to the moon flowed naturally into True Lord Taiyin’s divine kingdom.

Even today, tales of the Moon Palace continued among mortals. This was why the Palace of Cold Light still exists even after True Lord Taiyin ascended. The legends kept generating divine power for it.

Another source was a real-world reference. No person—Immortal or mortal—could create something purely beyond imagination. One needed a model to construct a divine kingdom. Many netherworld-type divine kingdoms resembled mortal offices for this reason.

The clearest example was Wu Luo. Her divine kingdom mirrored the Ancient Wuist Lingshan Paradise.

Qi Xuansu abandoned the first approach and chose the latter. His reference was the Ghost Kingdom.

True Lord Siming stepped into Qi Xuansu’s divine domain and recognized the prototype at once.

If True Lord Siming were given a choice between claiming Jinling Prefecture or the Ghost Kingdom, he would choose the latter without hesitation. If he could devour the Ghost Kingdom whole, he might ascend as True Lord Taiyin once did.

However, the Ghost Kingdom was in a special location, deep within the core of the Daoist Order, neighboring the Zhongzhou Daoist Mansion and close to Wuxu Palace and the Chongyang Palace of Immortality. Its defenses were airtight, so the Cult of Fates could never infiltrate it.

Even if they did manage to sneak in, they could not do anything because the Three Yin Beings and a first-rank Spirit Guard were stationed there. When combined, the Three Yin Beings equaled an Immortal. Adding the Spirit Guard at the Pseudo-Immortal level, even True Lord Siming’s true form might not win against them. As long as they could delay the Ancient Immortals for a moment, Daoist reinforcements would arrive, and he would immediately face his first death.

In short, the Ghost Kingdom was a place True Lord Siming had dreamed of yet never obtained. It was a treasure denied even to an Ancient Immortal, yet Qi Xuansu held it in his grasp so easily.

True Lord Siming glanced at Qi Xuansu’s Pingtian Crown and spoke for the first time. “Are you also the King of the Netherworld?”

This Ancient Immortal’s voice was not sinister, yet it instinctively inspired fear, which came from his dominion over death itself.

Beyond that, the words carried faint ridicule, as if he was questioning whether Qi Xuansu was worthy of being a king.

Qi Xuansu did not respond. He retreated step by step, passing through the ghostly city until he reached the blood lake at its center.

A thick white mist blanketed the lake’s surface, so dense that nothing beneath could be seen clearly. At the very center of the lake was an island piled entirely from corpses—a literal mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

At the island’s heart stood a colossal willow tree that pierced the heavens. Its vast canopy nearly blanketed the entire lake, and its drooping branches were as thick as a grown man’s waist.

Peachwood symbolized yang, repelling evil spirits, while willow symbolized yin, allowing spirits to reside within it.

Such a yin tree, growing in the midst of the Ghost Kingdom, was rooted atop a mountain of corpses and blood.

In the past, the Gezao Sect used endless corpse qi to erode a tear in the yin-yang barrier that led straight to the netherworld. This allowed yin energy to spill out and saturate all of Beimang Mountain, nearly turning it into a full ghostly domain.

To seal this rift, the Quanzhen Sect planted this Emperor Willow, which fed on yin energy, blood, and bones. Thus, the tree flourished due to the abundance of resources, growing to 600 meters in just two centuries.

Little Yin was born because of this Emperor Willow.

Qi Xuansu likewise manifested this Emperor Willow within his divine domain.

Wu Luo was able to manifest Lingshan within her divine kingdom because she was one of the Ten Great Witches of Lingshan, so she bore deep karmic bonds with it. For any other Immortal—even one stronger than Wu Luo, like Izanami—manifesting Lingshan would be impossible.

Likewise, Qi Xuansu could manifest the Emperor Willow because he shared a link with it. His Pingtian Crown originated from that colossal tree. Though the crown retained little divine power, it was still an ideal medium.

This Emperor Willow was the true core of his divine domain.

A divine kingdom’s essence was turning falsehood into truth. Thus, even this manifested willow tree retained part of the real Emperor Willow’s supernatural qualities.

Qi Xuansu injected 1,000 marks of divine power into the Emperor Willow, which transformed all that divine power into pure yin energy.

With this familiar aura, Qi Xuansu swept his hand, stirring vast waves of yin energy

Countless strands of black fog spiraled toward him, whirling until they condensed into a single gate.

This was a gift from the Three Yin Beings of the Ghost Kingdom.

The descent of the Three Yin Beings required a very specific environment. In the yin-abundant Fenglin, such conditions were easily met everywhere, so Qi Xuansu could summon them freely.

However, Poluo lacked such conditions, especially Thanglong Prefecture, where yang energy flourished, leaving no room for even the faintest yin energy to linger. If there was no suitable environment, then he would create one himself.

Thus, Qi Xuansu abandoned the idea of forming the Palace of Cold Light and chose to construct a replica of the Ghost Kingdom instead. He then used the Emperor Willow to convert divine power into yin energy, then used that yin energy to construct a portal linked directly to the actual Ghost Kingdom.

Although the Earthly Preceptor had reclaimed Qi Xuansu’s Class-A access, Qi Xuansu never needed permission to summon the Three Yin Beings individually.

The ever-composed True Lord Siming finally sensed that something was amiss.

The Ancient Immortal stopped strolling leisurely. Instead, he unfurled his own divine domain and used his superior cultivation to smother Qi Xuansu’s domain beneath it.

From above, a gray-black aura spread rapidly. Wherever it passed, Qi Xuansu’s black city blurred, then warped, and finally dissolved entirely into the encroaching murk.

In its place rose another city.

The Ghost Kingdom was modeled after an older form of the Imperial Capital that predated the Great Xuan Dynasty. Thus, it had an upside-down “T” configuration and not the fully extended version that was common today.

True Lord Siming’s city was far more unusual. It was built partly from real earthly structures and partly from ancient myth. Both were combined to shape his divine kingdom.

Its earthly prototype was Pingdu Mountain, one of the Daoist Order’s 72 Blessed Lands. After the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor defeated the Great Witches, his descendants established the Pingdu Heavenly Preceptor’s Administration on this mountain. Thus, the Heavenly Preceptor Seal was also called the Pingdu Administrative Seal.

The famed Fengdu Ghost City was located on Pingdu Mountain, and True Lord Siming’s divine kingdom was modeled after it.

The myth part came from Buddhism, the Ten Yamas and the netherworld. Like the Moon Palace, the underworld also originated from ancient folklore, bearing immense incense power, rivaling even the sun. Multiple deities in the Eastern Continent competed for the sun, including the Vairocana, True Lord Taiyang, Sunlight Bodhisattva, Himiko, and Izanagi-no-Mikoto. The netherworld was not something True Lord Siming could monopolize, so he chose to draw from both traditions.

True Lord Siming claimed to be the King of the Netherworld, asserting dominion over life and death. He shaped his divine domain like a Buddhist-Daoist underworld. Faint outlines of ten great halls could be seen, and from those halls, countless temples and shrines continued sprouting, devouring Qi Xuansu’s domain unceasingly.

But before True Lord Siming’s domain could overrun Qi Xuansu’s completely, the portal had fully materialized. The black mist churned violently inside it, as if it were an entrance to the deepest parts of the netherworld.

The next instant, a massive fist thrust out from the portal.

Behind the fist was an arm constructed from countless corpses that seemed to stretch endlessly.

That punch tore across half the Ghost Kingdom Domain and plunged straight into True Lord Siming’s domain.

Though True Lord Siming’s domain was saturated with deathly qi that could kill any living being instantly, it held no threat whatsoever to a body made of corpses.

The massive fist crushed through everything and arrived before True Lord Siming without losing momentum.

True Lord Siming immediately recognized that it belonged to one of the Three Yin Beings, more specifically, the Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses.

This was a creation he had coveted for ages. Had his true body descended, he would surely devour the Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses whole. But the vessel capable of bearing his true form’s descent had been destroyed by Lan Hexu. Thus, he was now forced to rely on this current vessel, which was at the Pseudo-Immortal level. As such, he could at best gain a slight advantage but could not devour the Yin Being whole.

Left with no choice, True Lord Siming transformed death into life, reviving the corpses on the colossal arm. They flailed wildly like living corpses, looking like countless tiny tendrils sprouting from the massive arm’s surface.

With this, the corpses were no longer piled atop one another. Instead, they scattered outward in chaos, destabilizing the entire arm and forcing it to recoil.

The Mighty Lord of Ten Thousand Corpses had merely thrown a single punch and had not descended in this domain because it was more akin to a Martial Arts Practitioner, unsuited for prolonged fights within such divine domains.

Another Yin Being was far better suited for this battleground.

Soon, rolling black mist surged again from the portal, and an old man drifted out. It was Master Yin.

Among the Three Yin Beings, Madam Bai was a powerful second-generation newcomer, and Master Wan had once suffered grievous injuries. Only Master Yin had remained at full strength throughout. Thus, within the trio, Master Yin was the strongest.

Upon appearing, Master Yin wasted no time on polite gestures toward Qi Xuansu. After all, there was no room for distraction in front of a mighty Ancient Immortal.

Master Yin simply extended his right hand and gave a steady forward push.

The expansion of True Lord Siming’s domain halted instantly.

The distorted, fading cityscape modeled after the Ghost Kingdom regained clarity and solidity. The two domains now stood locked in opposition.

True Lord Siming’s expression remained hidden behind the bead curtain of his crown, but he was no longer as relaxed as before.

Alone, the Nine-Yin Lord of the Netherworld was no match for him, just as the ancestor eunuch of the Xuanhui Court had been no match for True Lord Ziguang. But with Qi Xuansu at the Zaohua stage added to the equation, the outcome was uncertain, not unless True Lord Siming sucked the life force from the entire Thanglong Prefecture.

However, Thanglong Prefecture was unlike the undefended Jinling Prefecture back then. There were two first-rank Spirit Guards and even a Yinglong warship. Moreover, there were no Gifts distributed in advance throughout the city as in Jinling Prefecture, so he could not devour Thanglong Prefecture at will.