A Pawn's Passage

A jade-like skeletal hand grasped the invisible doorframe. It had no skin, tendons, or flesh—just pure white bone that was unstained by dust.

Around the bony wrist was a string of skull beads, each the size of a fingertip. The eye sockets of each skull flickered with eerie blue flames—a sight enough to unsettle anyone at first glance.

A woman stepped out from the Yin-Yang Gate, supporting herself against the frame. Her figure was slender and graceful, dressed entirely in white. The left half of her face was pale, almost translucent, while the right half was just gleaming bone and teeth, with wisps of strange black vapors drifting continuously from her mouth.

This was Madam Bai.

“Oh my, who might this be? Little girl, you’ve learned how to open doors for others now?” Madam Bai teased.

Little Yin immediately put on her cutesy act and said sweetly, “Hello, Auntie Bai!”

“Go on then. What does Sage Qi want this time?” Madam Bai spoke casually, though her gaze had already shifted toward Dragon Scale Island. She was not blind, and she could naturally sense the fierce battle happening over there.

Little Yin did not answer immediately. Instead, she asked, “Auntie Bai, how did you know Old Qi got promoted to the second rank?”

“The Daoist Order’s official bulletins. The Ghost Pass receives copies too,” Madam Bai replied casually as she stared toward Dragon Scale Island.

“I see...” Little Yin nodded and explained, “Old Qi and Second Deputy Zhang are trying to kill a Pseudo-Immortal named Wu Guangbi. They’re not entirely confident, so they want you to lend a hand.”

“Alright then.” Madam Bai vanished in a flicker.

On Dragon Scale Island, the entire luxurious villa had already shattered, reduced to a field of tiny fragments.

Wu Guangbi did not wish to get entangled any further. Seeing that Li Tianzhen had escaped, he hoped to lure Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu away, then regroup with Li Tianzhen later.

However, Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu were unwilling to let him go.

At this time, Qi Xuansu’s true body had already completed the Heaven-Earth Formula, where heaven sank, and earth rose.

Within the bounds of what had once been the villa, the sky began descending in crushing pressure, while the ground surged upward. The two were closing in relentlessly.

Since Qi Xuansu was only temporarily at the Zaohua stage, and Wu Guangbi was only a step away from becoming an Immortal, his spell could not kill Wu Guangbi. It might not even injure him, but it could stop him from leaving.

Blocked in his attempt to escape, Wu Guangbi grew furious. With his free left hand, he propped up the falling sky, halting its descent. Then, he slashed his sword toward Qi Xuansu’s true body from a distance.

This strike was not just sword qi. He launched the Daozi Sword, which was a weapon condensed entirely from innate qi.

The force of this sword was immense. Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu could block it together, but Qi Xuansu’s true body alone could not. If Zhang Yuelu and Qi Xuansu’s yang spirit returned to defend his true body, Wu Guangbi would seize that instant to tear through the Heaven-Earth Formula and escape.

Qi Xuansu still did not know that Little Yin had already captured Li Tianzhen. Having gone through such great effort, he would not allow Wu Guangbi to walk away unharmed. Qi Xuansu wanted to show Wu Guangbi that he was no longer a weakling. If they dared provoke and undermine him, they would pay the price. That way, Wu Guangbi would have to think twice about offending Qi Xuansu.

Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu did not retreat to defend. Instead, they pressed the attack.

At the same time, another Zhang Yuelu appeared beside Qi Xuansu’s true body.

For a Banished Immortal, the Zaohua stage corresponded to the Three Corpses Severance Realm, in which one could initially manifest the first Three Corpse incarnation. At the Pseudo-Immortal stage, they could produce two such incarnations, and as a Heavenly Immortal, three incarnations.

Zhang Yuelu’s Three Corpse incarnation was dressed as a man. It was Tantai Chu.

Tantai Chu hurled the Amorphous Paper, which transformed into a giant shield, to block the strike aimed at Qi Xuansu’s true body.

The Amorphous Paper could not fully withstand the strike. It only stalled it momentarily. But that moment was all Qi Xuansu’s true body needed to cast his second spell—the Shadowless Spell.

Diviners had three casting speeds. A pure yang spirit that was detached from the body could cast the fastest, almost instantly. A merged yang spirit and physical body cast at normal speed, while a physical body without the yang spirit cast the slowest, which was the state of Qi Xuansu’s true body now.

Under normal circumstances, it would not be so troublesome.

Qi Xuansu’s true body began to turn translucent, his outline blurring before he vanished completely.

In this Shadowless state, he became formless, without constancy or a fixed shape, not leaving a shadow behind.

Each of the Five Immortal Lineages has its strengths and weaknesses. Setting aside Banished Immortals, Qi Refiners were the most well-rounded, with no glaring weaknesses, but also no overwhelming strengths.

If a Pseudo-Immortal Martial Arts Practitioner were to go against Qi Xuansu, he could simply shake the void, distort space, and break the Shadowless Spell.

However, a Qi Refiner could not.

The Daozi Sword shot through the air, passing harmlessly as though through empty space, failing to touch Qi Xuansu at all.

Had Wu Guangbi followed up by controlling the Daozi Sword remotely with the Thousand Swords Technique, forming a sword formation that sealed the area while waiting for Qi Xuansu’s Shadowless Spell to end, Qi Xuansu’s true body would have been dead.

However, Qi Xuansu’s yang spirit and Zhang Yuelu were already bombarding Wu Guangbi.

Wu Guangbi braced with his left hand, using all his might, finally forcefully tearing apart the Heaven-Earth Formula. It was as if he had lifted away a collapsing roof. Light flooded in, and a massive palm imprint lingered in the sky, refusing to fade.

Then Wu Guangbi swung his sword to meet the two Daoist prodigies.

It was clear that this palm technique was exactly the same as the one Golden Patriarch had used against Chen Shuhua.

The three clashed again. Wu Guangbi wielded his sword with his right hand, while he used palm strikes with his left hand, fully displaying the might of a Grand Leader and even faintly gaining the upper hand. However, he could never break through the couple’s Dragon Tiger Sword Technique.

The difficulty of the Dragon Tiger Sword Technique lay in wielding two opposing forces at once while both dragon and tiger moved as one. This was not a mere mental division like that of a Diviner. It required extremely delicate control.

But now, Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu each wielded one aspect of the technique, focusing entirely on their respective roles, thus bypassing the main difficulty of this technique.

Thus, the Dragon Tiger Sword Technique reached its full power, even stronger than when a single Zaohua-stage Heavenly Being was to use it alone. It was not to be underestimated.

The Dragon Tiger Sword Technique could only reach full power when paired with the Heavenly Preceptor’s Twin Swords. However, throughout history, each Zhang Heavenly Preceptor wielded both swords alone and had never divided them. Thus, the notion of two people combining the swords simply never arose.

Though Wu Guangbi’s cultivation was higher, breaking the Dragon Tiger Sword Technique under these conditions was extremely difficult. At some point, frustration began to creep in.

The three moved as they fought, gradually leaving Dragon Scale Island and arriving over the open sea.

“Qi Xuansu! Zhang Yuelu! Since you insist on forcing my hand, don’t blame me for showing no mercy!” Wu Guangbi roared. Without regard for the cost, he unleashed a strike using 120% of his strength with the Four Seasons Sword’s Frost Descent Technique.

A white surge of frost spread instantly, rime forming in dense crystalline sheets. The seawater thickened like trembling jelly, then rapidly froze. Within moments, the once-rippling waves became a vast, snow-white field of ice.

Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu bore the brunt of the attack. In an instant, a layer of white frost enveloped them both, turning them into snowmen.

As such, the Dragon Tiger Sword Technique inevitably stagnated.

Wu Guangbi’s full attention was locked on the Dragon Tiger Sword Technique, so he completely failed to notice a white silhouette gliding silently across the frozen surface of the sea. It had blended in perfectly in the frost-covered expanse that it was nearly indistinguishable.

Just as Wu Guangbi was about to break the Dragon Tiger Sword Technique, the white silhouette had already arrived at their location, standing beneath the three of them. Then, the figure shot upward in a sudden leap.

Those experienced in fights would never choose a head-on clash when a strike from behind was possible.

Madam Bai tore through the frosty scape and appeared behind Wu Guangbi in an instant, her speed rivaling the Diviner’s Golden Light Leap.

Finally, Wu Guangbi noticed Madam Bai and was forced to abandon his offensive on Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu. He turned to face Madam Bai and unleashed the Offensive Heat Technique of the Four Seasons Sword.

In the blink of an eye, Wu Guangbi seemed to transform into a blazing sun. A sweltering midsummer heat magnified a hundredfold until everything within 30 meters of him became nothing but pure radiance. Wherever the sunlight reached, there was a Taiyang Sword Qi, which was the polar opposite of the Taiyin Sword Qi in the Taiyin 13 Swords.

In response, Madam Bai shook the skull beads on her wrist. Ghostly blue flames rose from the surging deathly qi. Compared to the scorching Taiyang Sword Qi, these flames bore no heat at all. They were cold enough to pierce the bone.

When the two collided, red and blue flames intertwined, creating countless dazzling sparks that scattered like a grand display of fireworks.

Madam Bai struck with a single claw. Crackling explosions like rolling thunder erupted one after another from her fingers, wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints. Her jade-like finger bones trembled at an impossibly rapid and minute amplitude, producing layers of afterimages before suddenly uniting again as one.

Everything her claw passed through, like the lingering sparks, was snuffed out instantly. Even the sunlight itself shattered and vanished. The very fabric of space showed faint fissures.

The next moment, Madam Bai’s skeletal claw closed around the blade of Wu Guangbi’s long sword.

Almost at the same time, Wu Guangbi distinctly felt the Six Tribulations and the demonic fire within his body grow restless and violent.