A Pawn's Passage

Great Sage Jiang supported the Tongzhen Palace with his left hand, fixing it firmly in place so it could not move. Otherwise, in the midst of battle, it might drift away from Nanyang into Nanhai, introducing unnecessary variables.

Great Sage Jiang’s right hand was still behind his back, his five fingers loosely curled as if gripping something, but no one could see what it was.

After speaking, his right hand was no longer empty—a sword hilt appeared without a blade.

However, the sword hilt only flashed into existence for an instant before quickly returning to formlessness.

Chen Shuhua’s face turned deathly pale from exertion and shock. She forced herself to unleash the divine power of Heaven’s Will, pointing the sword in her hand straight toward the heavens.

In an instant, the entire sky began to sink, as though the heavens were collapsing.

The sea below responded in kind. Vast waves, as large as a tsunami, surged upward, throwing up towering walls of water that were 30 meters high.

That day at Thanglong Prefecture, Chen Shuhua was in the midst of her major rebirth, so she could not unleash the full power of this move and was forced to stop halfway. This time, however, she was fully prepared. Thus, she could activate Heaven’s Will to its absolute peak.

Great Sage Jiang showed no fear at all. He simply extended the right hand he kept behind his back, fingers curled as though gripping an invisible sword. The immortal sword was so weighty that even an Immortal’s power could not control it fully, like lifting a tremendous weight with one hand or like when Qi Xuansu tried to lift the Three Treasures Scepter.

The Great Sage intoned in a deep voice, “To ordain conscience for heaven and earth.”

At this moment, Great Sage Jiang was using Hengqu’s Four Ontological Goals to activate Moral Sovereign, which was a Confucian philosophy.

In that instant, a supernatural phenomenon arose.

As these words left Great Sage Jiang’s mouth, countless fissures appeared in the sea of clouds overhead, in which crimson light seeped through. The crimson light grew more abundant until the sea of clouds was shattered into fragments.

Then, with a single slash, Great Sage Jiang brought his sword down, unleashing the might of the heavens.

The tall waves were forcibly flattened by an invisible, overwhelming force, leaving the entire surface of the sea as smooth as a mirror.

Both heaven and earth returned once more to peace.

When the Holy Xuan first faced Moral Sovereign, he was still defeated even after employing the Taiyi Supreme Technique. Great Sage Lan had once used this same technique to fight two Ancient Immortals, completely shattering their divine descent vessels. This showed just how terrifying the power of Moral Sovereign truly was.

Although Great Sage Jiang could not compare to the Holy Xuan nor to the last leader of the Confucian School, his cultivation was more than sufficient to deal with Chen Shuhua.

Chen Shuhua’s face was deathly pale, devoid of even a trace of color.

She had long heard of Moral Sovereign but had never seen it with her own eyes, let alone experienced its might. To her, Moral Sovereign had always been something from the legends. Now, she finally understood the terror of its overwhelming power.

This was merely the first glimpse of Moral Sovereign’s edge.

No wonder even the Holy Xuan had been grievously wounded by this immortal sword.

Great Sage Jiang’s expression was increasingly solemn. His movements were slow, as though every action needed focus because it stirred both heaven and earth. “Secure life and fortune for the people!”

Ethereal and indistinct radiance from all directions surged toward Great Sage Jiang. Or rather, it surged toward the invisible sword in Great Sage Jiang’s hand. Moral Sovereign was formless and invisible, so it could take on any size.

This sword strike began at Thanglong Prefecture, its blade’s tip pointing straight toward Tongzhen Palace, where Chen Shuhua was located.

If the Southern Dragon was regarded as a colossal dragon that followed the river into the sea, then its tail lay in Kunlun, and its head in Wu’an Prefecture. Thanglong Prefecture was its eye, and Guijian Lake was its reverse scale.

Great Sage Jiang’s sword strike began at Thanglong Prefecture. He had to utilize the Southern Dragon’s power and gather it into a single sword that spanned half of Nanyang.

The Great Sage raised his right hand high, gripping the invisible sword hilt, then brought the invisible sword down in a slash. His entire arm trembled slightly, as every movement was taxing and sluggish.

But it was due to this that an incomparably vast power was generated from the sword.

Within the Daoist Order, there had always been a debate about which was the best immortal sword—the Heavenly Preceptor’s Twin Swords, Skycaller, or Moral Sovereign?

The Heavenly Preceptor’s Twin Swords corresponded to the two Punishment Pillars in the Demon-Vanquishing Platform, which were connected to the Demon-Vanquishing Cave. This place continuously siphoned the cultivation of the prisoners within, leaving them in a weakened state and ensuring an unending supply of power to the pillars. One had to admire the ingenious design of the Ancestral Heavenly Preceptor.

Skycaller resonated with heaven and earth. Thus, in theory, it had no upper limit. However, how much power one could draw from the infinite heavens depended entirely on one’s own ability. This was why the might of Skycaller was tied to the wielder’s cultivation. If one’s realm was low, Skycaller’s might was probably even weaker than most semi-immortal objects. Even upon reaching the Longevity stage, a newly-ascended Immortal might not be able to unleash enough power for the sword to compete with the Heavenly Preceptor’s Twin Swords. Only a First-Tribulation Immortal could activate enough power for Skycaller to surpass the Twin Swords.

Moral Sovereign’s power lay between the two. Confucians say that Moral Sovereign could only be wielded by one with virtue. But the virtue spoken of here was not personal morality but the virtue of emperors and sages, or in other words, fortune and destiny. To put it more plainly, it was dragon qi.

The Daoist Order’s fortune was flourishing due to the dragon veins, from which Moral Sovereign drew power.

This was also the reason Great Sage Jiang, as the envoy of the Golden Tower Council—the current highest authority of the Daoist Order—was able to wield Moral Sovereign.

If Great Sage Jiang were stripped of this special status of envoy, then even with his Immortal cultivation, he would find it difficult to control Moral Sovereign. This was precisely why Moral Sovereign was the exclusive immortal object of the Grand Master, who was the foremost representative of the Daoist Order.

Kunlun was the ancestor of all mountains. The three great dragon veins all originated from Kunlun. A Grand Master who presided over Jade Capital and represented the Daoist Order could certainly wield the might of the three dragon veins with Moral Sovereign in hand. Such power would make one invincible.

Great Sage Jiang cannot be compared to the Grand Master, but controlling a single dragon vein was not difficult. If Chen Shuhua and her accomplices could siphon the dragon qi, there was no reason the Daoist Order could not likewise draw upon the power of the Southern Dragon as the rightful master.

Dragon qi was an exceptionally special form of earth qi. It was born from the earth veins, yet it also drew upon the incense power of the mortal world, making it the manifestation of the people’s faith.

The Southern Dragon’s qi originated from Kunlun but took effect within the Yu Kingdom. At present, the Yu Kingdom was not exactly peaceful and prosperous, so the people’s faith faltered; hence, the Southern Dragon was said to be in decline.

At such a time, when the people grew numb and indifferent, the dragon qi would decay, bringing upon natural disasters and manmade calamities.

Thus, although Great Sage Jiang’s sword strike was overwhelming, it concealed grave dangers within.

With the slightest misstep, the corrupted dragon qi could enter his body, leaving him in a state worse than death.

The sheer quantity of this dragon qi was utterly incomparable to the likes of Yang E. Even Chen Shuhua’s Longevity Stone fell short of it.

Facing this strike, Chen Shuhua had nowhere to evade and could only choose to meet it head-on.

Chen Shuhua’s hair hung loose and disheveled. Of course, she was no match for Great Sage Jiang, yet she possessed an advantage of terrain.

She had long been familiar with Tongzhen Palace and had merged with it in perfect harmony. Thus, her cultivation level surged significantly until she was not too inferior to Great Sage Jiang.

At this moment, she channeled all her cultivation into Heaven’s Will, sweeping up seawater and sending it forth in a wave so massive that it blotted out the sky.

The two Immortals were both using their immortal swords against each other.

The invisible blade of Moral Sovereign met Heaven’s Will, stirring up enormous ripples that spread outward for hundreds of kilometers, surging in all directions.

Between heaven and earth, light and darkness alternated unceasingly, like the ebb and flow of the tides.

With such overwhelming might, even a mere aftershock would mean instant death or grievous injury for anyone below the Pseudo-Immortal level. Thus, even Pseudo-Immortals dared not brush against it.

There was no doubt that Moral Sovereign held an absolute upper hand.

However, Moral Sovereign was simply too vast and heavy, so its movements were sluggish. Though it carried a crushing momentum, it still required time to completely split apart the surging waves created by Heaven’s Will.

Since Chen Shuhua did not have the physique of a Manly Immortal or a Godly Immortal, she began to show signs of collapse.

However, Great Sage Jiang did not fare well either. He aged rapidly, his wrinkles carving deep ravines into his face, his tall frame growing hunched and stooped.

This was the result of decayed dragon qi entering his body. With such a vast quantity of corrupted dragon qi, even an Immortal could not avoid being affected.

At this point, the situation was perfectly clear. Even with Chen Shuhua merging with Tongzhen Palace, Great Sage Jiang still held the advantage through Moral Sovereign.