A Pawn's Passage

This beam of sword light was unimaginably tall, reaching the heavens. It was also razor-thin, only slightly thicker than a sheet of paper.

Due to this, the strike split Thanglong Prefecture cleanly into two, but the actual damage was only a single line, as if a curtain had been drawn down the middle, separating the eastern and western halves of the city from each other.

Some unlucky people who happened to stand directly along that line were cleaved in half instantly. Their wounds were smooth as a mirror. Not even a drop of blood spilled out.

Others were lucky, being a hair’s breadth from the sword light. It grazed the tip of their shoe, just shy of slicing off their toes.

This line of sword light was nearly unstoppable. Even the Sheji Palace could not escape unscathed.

The sword light pierced through the palace’s protective formation and sliced off one corner of the structure, causing the entire Sheji Palace to tremble violently.

Chen Shuhua did not intend to target the Sheji Palace, which was formerly a Confucian Temple. Her true target was the giant palm in the sky.

That was her greatest threat.

Chen Shuhua’s only real advantage now was the immortal object in her hand. Although the Fenglin campaign had seen many immortal objects appear, the total number of such artifacts was few. After all, the campaign was an all-out war for the Fenglin royal family, so they had emptied their treasury. The Daoist Order and the Great Xuan Dynasty had dispatched Pseudo-Immortals and Immortals to the battlefield and in countering Izanagi’s schemes. Thus, only under such extreme circumstances did so many immortal objects gather in one place.

But this time was different. Poluo was not rebelling as a whole, nor was the entire Yu Kingdom rising in revolt. This was merely Chen Shuhua’s personal act, which was at best a coup. That was why only one immortal artifact was present in this fight.

Among Immortals, those with immortal objects held an immediate and overwhelming advantage over those without.

A fine line appeared across the radiant palm print as the sword light pierced straight through it. The massive palm print dimmed rapidly and soon dissolved into nothingness.

As the sword light withdrew, Chen Shuhua’s figure reappeared. Though the strike had been immeasurably powerful, the exertion on her was equally great, made worse by the lingering weakness of her ongoing rebirth.

Almost at the same time, three clones of Madam Qi materialized around Chen Shuhua, encircling her in a formation.

This was the advantage of a Banished Immortal. No matter how fast an Earthly Immortal might travel, they could never outpace a Heavenly Immortal who roamed the vast universe.

The three Madam Qis struck simultaneously, not aiming to injure Chen Shuhua, only to delay her.

“Get away from me!” Chen Shuhua no longer held her earlier calm composure. She was nearly frantic, unleashing sword strikes in a fury.

In an instant, countless thin threads of sword light fell like misty rain. It was silent but terrifying in power. Two of Madam Qi’s clones were pierced through immediately.

The remaining Madam Qi revealed her Great Shaman True Form, stretching out one arm. Her hand expanded rapidly until it blotted out the heavens, blocking Chen Shuhua’s entire field of vision and leaving her with nowhere to dodge.

Then her five fingers closed, trapping Chen Shuhua in her palm.

Madam Qi forcibly stripped Chen Shuhua out of the present realm, imprisoning her within a small world she had temporarily created.

But Chen Shuhua was an Immortal. Unlike The Inn’s Owner back then, she was far from helpless. She immediately used her immortal sword to stir the might of heaven and earth.

The heavens above began to descend once more.

It was as though the heavens and earth were closing in, compressing the thin strip of mortal world that remained between them.

The first to suffer was naturally Madam Qi’s towering Great Shaman True Form. Under the crushing weight of the sinking sky, her form twisted violently, as if it could collapse at any moment.

Madam Qi had no choice but to use all her strength to resist the pressure.

Seizing this opening, Chen Shuhua shattered Madam Qi’s small world with her immortal sword and broke free.

But Madam Qi’s objective was to buy time, which she had already succeeded in. The two first-rank Spirit Guards arrived, each holding a long crystalline spear made of pure condensed divine power.

Both Spirit Guards understood perfectly that they could not miss this chance created jointly by Madam Qi and the Golden Patriarch. So they poured in everything they had. With their link to the Thirty-Three Heavens, divine power flooded into the two spears as if it cost nothing at all.

With so much divine power invested that was easily worth over 100,000 Taiping coins, the result was unmistakable. The spears seemed sharp enough to pierce heaven and earth.

In Chen Shuhua’s perception, their tips spun madly, forming a massive vortex. If she were drawn into it, she would likely lose an arm.

Chen Shuhua could only swing her sword with full strength, meeting the two spears forged entirely from divine power head-on.

Countless resplendent sword lights wrapped tightly around her, flowing and shimmering like a radiant sphere and a blazing sun. The two spears stabbed against this sphere, advancing only with great difficulty. Their tips clashed violently against the sword light, sending sprays of divine radiance scattering in all directions. From afar, it looked like shooting stars.

Even so, the two spears were not without effect. They forced the once-perfect sphere of sword light to collapse inward, its surface rippling like disturbed waves.

At that moment, the Golden Patriarch, who had remained hidden and unseen, struck again with a single descending palm.

But this palm strike differed from the last. The first had shone brighter than the moon and stars. However, this palm print was utterly dark, like a bottomless abyss.

Anything—moonlight, starlight, sword light—that touched it was immediately pulled in, absorbed, and swallowed whole.

The palm descended with a force great enough to grind mountains and cities into dust. Though the affected area was not as vast as the sky-crushing might of the Heaven’s Will immortal sword, its power was far more concentrated.

The tremendous suction inverted gravity itself. Stones and rubble on the ground rose upward and were swallowed into the abyss above, vanishing without a trace.

The two first-rank Spirit Guards also sensed grave danger because they were within the palm’s range. If they failed to evade in time, Golden Patriarch showed no intention of sparing them from being crushed along with Chen Shuhua.

The two Spirit Guards simultaneously poured divine power into their spears at maximum output, so lavishly that even Ancient Immortals would wince at the expense. The spears pierced straight through the void, their tips vanishing into it, pinning Chen Shuhua in place within the narrow space between the two weapons.

Then, they retreated at full speed without hesitation, escaping the range of the descending palm.

In that instant, Chen Shuhua’s eyes turned blood red, her breath chaotic. She rose with her sword, transforming into a soaring pillar of sword light.

This time, the sword light was no longer a thin line. It became a colossal beam that rose higher and expanded outward in all directions.

In this moment, Chen Shuhua abandoned all sword forms and variations, striking directly with her full, unreserved power.

But at this moment, Chen Shuhua was weakened by her rebirth and besieged by three Pseudo-Immortals. Even with an immortal sword in hand, she could only respond hastily.

By contrast, the Golden Patriarch had three Pseudo-Immortals buying him time, allowing him to remain hidden and gather strength at his own pace. Thus, his two palm strikes were at full force, perfectly prepared.

All things considered, a single immortal object could not outweigh the strength of three Pseudo-Immortals.

In an instant, the outcome was already decided.

The beam of sword light failed to break through that abyss-like palm. At first, it held its ground evenly, but soon, its strength waned. The abyss gnawed away at it bit by bit, as though a colossal maw were feasting ravenously.

Chen Shuhua felt like the weight of five sacred mountains was crashing down upon her. She braced with everything she had, yet still could not withstand it. Layer after layer of sword light collapsed, and the backlash triggered her “illness.” Her arms trembled uncontrollably, and she nearly lost hold of her immortal sword.

In the next moment, the sword light shattered completely. Chen Shuhua was engulfed by the Golden Patriarch’s palm strike.

Seeing this, the two Spirit Guards brightened in spirit. Is she dead?

If Chen Shuhua had fallen, this entire upheaval would finally come to an end.

But Madam Qi was far less optimistic. Instead of relaxing, she retrieved various components from her magical receptacle and swiftly assembled her Star Plucker.

Sure enough, once the aftershock of the Golden Patriarch’s palm dispersed, Chen Shuhua’s silhouette slowly emerged again.

Her condition was nothing short of horrific. Her skin draped loosely over a skeleton, as if some unknown force had devoured all her flesh. Her once-beautiful face was completely sunken, and her eyes nearly vanished—a terrifying sight to behold.

However, as an Immortal, Chen Shuhua was far from dead. She continued to clutch the immortal sword. Two crimson dots still burned deep within her hollow eye sockets.

An Earthly Immortal did not have the Manly Immortal True Form, a Yang Spirit, or a divine kingdom, yet they were second only to Heavenly Immortals. Their strength came from the Five Innate Tais—Taiyi, Taichu, Taishi, Taisu, Taiji.

Great Sage Lan had used the Taiyi Supreme Technique to fight two Ancient Immortals single-handedly.

Chen Shuhua’s Five Innate Tais was the Taisu Mystical Arts.

Before their eyes, Chen Shuhua’s appearance shifted from a middle-aged woman

into a white-haired crone before rejuvenating into a young girl.

In mere moments, Chen Shuhua managed to traverse all four stages of life by employing the Taisu Mystical Arts.

In the form of a young girl, Chen Shuhua not only discarded her earlier wounds, but she also restored her depleted innate qi.

But at that very moment, Qi Xuansu finally arrived after defeating True Lord Siming.

With a shared intuition, both Qi Xuansu and Madam Qi simultaneously aimed their Star Plucker cannons at Chen Shuhua.

Taking advantage of Chen Shuhua’s brief vulnerability mid-transformation, they each fired one round of Grade-A Series Three Dragon Eye Bullet at her without exchanging even a word.

At almost the same time, the Yinglong Warship also found its opening and fired a Grade-A Series Two Dragon Eye Bullet from the Star Crusher cannon.