A Pawn's Passage

In Qi Xuansu’s original plan, the humanoid insects were to be dealt with by Utu and Hun Ahau, while the remnants would be handled by the Juesheng Hall with support from the Northern Palace Guard. Tonight, however, the plan was changed at the last minute. Huangfu Zhu’s force was tasked with launching the assault on the humanoid insects, while Hun Ahau and Utu remained out of sight.

Had Hun Ahau and Utu taken action personally, these two humanoid insects, who had already entered the adult stage after emerging from their cocoons, would have stood no chance against them.

But Huangfu Zhu required considerably more effort to defeat them.

There was, of course, a reason for this. Utu had discovered the whereabouts of Kukulkan’s High Priest, so the two of them had been dispatched to hunt him down.

The Divine Court maintained a relatively primitive and straightforward temple hierarchy, nothing as elaborate as the Holy Court’s. The High Priest was the highest-ranking figure within a temple, equivalent to the Holy Court’s Pope, so his strength was not to be underestimated.

The High Priest of the Sun God Temple had originally been one of Kukulkan’s chosen servants, possessing the cultivation of a Pseudo-Immortal. Furthermore, he had awakened his divinity and established his own divine domain. Over the years, he had abused his position to siphon off no small amount of divine power. As a result, even after Kukulkan’s fall, he still retained the cultivation of a Pseudo-Immortal Shaman.

The moment Kukulkan fell, the High Priest sensed it immediately and understood what had happened. He anticipated that Ixchel and the Western Daoist Order would never let him go. Taking advantage of the time while Ixchel was still in council with the other gods, he stole the temple’s semi-divine artifact and went into hiding.

Afterward, when neither the Daoist Order nor the Western Daoist Order made any immediate move, he assumed the danger had passed. He then came out of hiding and decided to flee north to seek refuge with the Holy Court, bringing with him numerous confidential secrets. It was this decision that exposed his whereabouts.

Qi Xuansu issued a strict order to Utu and Hun Ahau to capture this High Priest at all costs. Capturing him alive would be ideal, but if that proved impossible, they were to kill him. Under no circumstances could the High Priest be allowed to escape to the Northern Continent.

Compared to such an important matter, those few humanoid insects were relatively insignificant and could be left for Huangfu Zhu and the others to deal with.

Within the Tawantin Empire, Hun Ahau and Utu could mobilize forces from every side to assist in the pursuit and blockade, giving them the advantage. As such, the High Priest could not simply head straight north. He had to remain in hiding and even take lengthy detours, much like Qi Xuansu had done when returning from the Northern Continent to the Southern Continent.

Hun Ahau and Utu split into two groups—one pursuing, the other intercepting.

Finally, Hun Ahau intercepted the High Priest on the banks of the Rio Grande.

In Qi Xuansu’s presence, Hun Ahau had always restrained himself, maintaining a remarkably humble demeanor. Now, he no longer deliberately concealed his aura. The blood qi surging from his entire body radiated freely. To ghosts and wandering spirits, Hun Ahau was like a blazing sun. One glance was enough to destroy them. If Hun Ahau were simply to let out a mighty shout, it would resound like the spring thunder, powerful enough to shatter the souls of a Diviner’s wandering soul.

The power displayed by Hun Ahau was built entirely upon his overwhelming physique and blood qi. Though he still possessed a human form, he was no less formidable than the primordial beasts. Such power was the natural bane of Shamans and Diviners.

The High Priest dared not underestimate him. He drew the Sun God’s divine sword and prepared to meet the attack.

The next instant, Hun Ahau vanished from sight. He reappeared about 30 centimeters in front of the High Priest, his five fingers hooked like claws as he reached directly for the High Priest’s face.

Hun Ahau’s speed far exceeded the High Priest’s expectations. It was simply unbelievable. In that split second, there was no time for the High Priest to evade, so he could only thrust his sword toward Hun Ahau’s throat.

The sword thrust was equally swift. Had Hun Ahau not withdrawn his body to evade, his throat would have been pierced immediately.

At the critical moment, Hun Ahau caught the Sun God’s divine sword that was aimed at his throat with his right hand. Although the tip of the blade had already touched his neck, it did no more than leave a tiny dot of blood. At the same time, Hun Ahau clenched his left hand into a fist and struck.

Having reached the Pseudo-Immortal stage, Hun Ahau had refined his blood to its limit so that it was almost solid rather than liquid. The body spirits residing within his acupoints remained in a slumber when not stimulated by blood qi. Only in this way could Hun Ahau maintain a normal form without his blood qi leaking out and harming those around him. However, once he began circulating his blood qi again, allowing it to flow into his acupoints and awaken the body spirits, he could unleash overwhelming strength comparable to that of Master Wan.

There was nothing fancy about this punch. It relied solely on unimaginably immense physical strength. Moreover, a Martial Arts Practitioner could freely extend the length of their limbs, so there was no such thing as an arm falling just short of its target.

The High Priest dared not be careless in the slightest. Driving his divine power to its absolute limit, he condensed a miniature sun between the two of them.

The punch carried an unstoppable force, shattering the miniature sun. True Solar Flames and Hun Ahau’s immense blood qi neutralized one another before his fist smashed violently into the High Priest’s forehead.

Massive ripples spread outward. The ground beneath the two men instantly transformed into something resembling glass, which was the result of the extreme temperatures generated by the collision of blood qi and the flames.

The Manly Immortal lineage possessed its own unique advantage—an incomparably powerful physique. Anyone from another lineage who tried to receive a Manly Immortal’s punch with their face would inevitably suffer a predictable fate. The High Priest’s face had caved in completely, twisted into an indescribably grotesque shape.

But the Godly Immortal lineage also had its own advantage—a divine domain.

The High Priest swiftly unfolded his divine domain.

The core of Qi Xuansu’s divine domain was the Emperor Willow, his beloved Little Yin. Meanwhile, the core of the High Priest’s divine domain was a solar barque. The Misir Sun God used the solar barque to traverse across the heavens and the underworld.

The High Priest appeared on the prow of the solar barque, using his golden body to restore his shattered face. Countless Golden Eagle Warriors materialized upon the deck, each carrying a longbow. They released tens of thousands of flaming arrows, covering the sky until it seemed as though an entire sea of fire was descending from above.

Hun Ahau focused his mind and steadied his breathing, circulating the blood qi throughout his body to its absolute limit. His blood qi surged visibly into the air, while rolling waves of scorching heat radiated from him, causing the surrounding scenery to warp and blur.

Then he threw a punch with all of his might, shaking the void.

As Hun Ahau unleashed his punch, the space overhead shook and warped. The flames, which existed by relying upon that space itself, dissipated along with the distortion.

Hun Ahau threw another punch. The entire divine domain shuddered violently, and many areas became blurred and indistinct, like an ink landscape painting soaked by water. Rings of golden radiance formed from divine power rippled outward, while countless Golden Eagle Warriors exploded into golden dust and scattered with the wind.

This was merely the shaking of space, not the shattering of it.

The High Priest had no choice but to reveal his trump card. Ignoring the tremendous drain on his divine power, he condensed a pyramid formed entirely from sunlight right above the solar barque.

The pyramid continuously emitted sunlight in all directions, like a second sun.

Suddenly, the sun descended in the west, engulfing Hun Ahau within it.

For a moment, Hun Ahau seemed to find himself immersed in an endless ocean of light. The radiance even sought to seep into his body, filling every meridian and his Dantian completely, making him transparent inside and out, as though he himself were becoming a being of light, to be assimilated into the sunlight itself.

At the same time, Hun Ahau clearly sensed the flow of time slowing down. Its underlying principle resembled the Cosmos Loop. According to the Western Daoist Order’s patriarch Tantai Yun and her insights into the Temporal Arts, when the flow of time approached a standstill, one’s movements would appear to an opponent to be almost as fast as light, while from one’s own perspective, space itself would seem flattened, as though a sheet of paper had been folded.

Though the High Priest could not directly control time, he had worked backward through the manipulation of light to approach the mysteries of time itself.

Hun Ahau could feel his thoughts growing increasingly sluggish. Even though he had the means to shatter the void, he found himself unable to attack.

Not to mention, this radiance generated searing heat. The armor Hun Ahau wore had already melted into molten iron, while the light that had penetrated his body scorched his internal organs. Had it not been for his body spirits, which were indestructible, Hun Ahau would already have perished from this technique.

As a result, the two of them fell into a stalemate.

It now became a contest of endurance—whether Hun Ahau’s blood qi would be burned away first or whether the High Priest’s divine power would be exhausted before that happened.

Just then, the situation changed dramatically. A moon suddenly appeared within the High Priest’s divine domain.

As the moon emerged, darkness descended. It swiftly rose to contend equally with the sun and its light, dividing the divine domain into two opposing worlds.

One world blazed with boundless brilliance, filled with endless sunlight and infinite radiance. The other was shrouded in mysterious darkness, bathed in gentle moonlight that awakened the dead.

The High Priest’s expression changed. “The convergence of divine domains.”

Just as divine kingdoms could converge, so too could divine domains. In essence, it was much like two ships coming alongside one another in combat.

Someone had initiated a divine battle against the High Priest.

The newcomer was none other than Utu.

A streak of moonlight that was as swift as lightning flashed by in an instant.

An almost imperceptible thread appeared behind the High Priest. It flickered in and out of existence, seeming broken one moment and continuous the next, making it impossible to detect. Then, in a heartbeat, the thread solidified into a flash of blade light that slashed toward the back of the High Priest’s neck.

Occupying the home-ground advantage within his own divine domain, the High Priest’s instincts were at his sharpest. Without seeing or hearing the attack, he sensed the imminent danger and instinctively avoided it, spinning around to intercept the blow with the Sun God’s divine sword in his hand.

The blade light turned out to be a scythe.

A colossal shadow materialized out of nowhere, carrying an overwhelming aura of death. It wore a black cloak, wreathed in rolling black mist, while beneath its hood, there was nothing but an endless void.

The gigantic shadow wielded a long-handled scythe. Compared to Death Apostle Samuel, it lacked the scales symbolizing justice but was replaced by a bright full moon.

Utu swung his enormous scythe toward the High Priest.

The giant scythe was merely a phantom. Wherever it passed, there was neither sound nor disturbance. But its blade could sever the soul.

Unable to contend with both threats at once, the High Priest could only manifest his Spiritual Statue to block Utu’s scythe.

Seizing this opportunity, Hun Ahau immediately assumed his Manly Immortal True Form as soon as he was freed from his predicament. He stepped forward and pushed off violently, shattering the ground beneath his feet and leaving behind a deep crater. Borrowing the explosive force of that step, he shot forward like a bolt of thunder, leaving a string of afterimages in his wake as he drove a punch straight at the High Priest’s true body.

At the same time, every body spirit within Hun Ahau struck with him.

The High Priest swept his sword horizontally and barely managed to block the punch at the critical moment. Yet Hun Ahau’s physical strength was simply too terrifying, sending the High Priest flying nearly 300 meters backward without leaving him any opportunity to retaliate.

At this moment, Utu swung his scythe and cleaved the High Priest’s Spiritual Statue cleanly in half at the waist.

After that, the giant scythe did not lose its momentum, continuing its relentless slash toward the High Priest.