Dao of Money

As Chen Ren watched the two city lords move toward the array, Princess Yanyue—now standing on a flying sword she handled with far more ease than he had expected, looked up. “Do you really think this will work?” she murmured.

He knew the question didn’t really need answering. It was not asked because she lacked the logic of the plan, but because she needed something firm to lean on before they committed to it.

Even so, Chen Ren still gave her a nod.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

The next instant, City Lord Xiangrui’s projectiles struck the red layer.

They shattered across its surface in a storm of ice and force, and as Chen Ren watched, cracks spread outward in a wide circle. That was all Shrey needed. Still seated on the back of his mount, he drove one crimson-soaked punch straight into the fractured section, and the force of it tore the weakened layer apart. He did not stop after that first break. His qi surged harder around him, and each follow-up punch carried its pressure farther across the surface, opening more damage beyond the first hole.

Chen Ren understood the reason for it at once.

Shrey was not only breaking through—he was making sure there was enough ruin left behind that if the array tried to close again, it would not do so cleanly. The golden layer had taken time to spread over everything before, and Shrey clearly had no intention of getting trapped inside a narrowing gap a second time.

Once the opening in the red layer was wide enough, both city lords moved without hesitation.

They turned their attention to the silver layer.

Again Xiangrui led with overwhelming force, sending another rain of ice projectiles crashing down across its surface. But this time he did more than that. As the barrage struck, he raised his left hand, and above the array a massive hammer of ice took shape. It was so large that several cultivators near Chen Ren let out startled breaths at the sight of it. The thing looked less like a spell and more like a frozen monument suspended in the sky.

Then Xiangrui brought it down.

The blow landed hard enough to shake the air around them.

The silver layer held better than the red one had. It was clearly sturdier, denser, and less willing to bend. But with the constant punishment from the ice projectiles and the crushing weight of the hammer, the surface still began to give. It spread fractures that slowly started to show themselves across the silver sheen.

Shrey didn’t trail behind Xiangrui either.

He kept hammering at the silver layer the same way he had before, but Chen Ren quickly saw that he was no longer relying on raw force alone. There was a technique in it now. Some martial method was folded into the way he struck, because each punch seemed to split into three impacts at once, every one of them driving into the silver barrier with the weight of a real blow.

From time to time, he would pull his mount back just far enough to build speed, then let it charge forward and smash its heads into the layer while Shrey used that same momentum to drive another punch in alongside it. With each cycle of that movement, more fractures spread through the silver sheen.

Standing on the sword ahead of Chen Ren, Li Xuan let out a gasp. “I never imagined the city lords would be this strong. It took dozens of cultivators, puppets, and cannons just to open the first cracks, and they’re doing it like it’s easy.”

Chen Ren kept his eyes on the assault. “They’re domain manifestation realm cultivators for a reason… But don’t just stand there admiring them. Be ready. The second we get our chance, you’ll have to move faster than you ever have before.”

Li Xuan nodded immediately.

It was not only him.

Several cultivators nearby seemed to straighten at Chen Ren’s words. Since the plan had been explained, most of them had already abandoned the boats and climbed onto flying swords instead, understanding that the moment the opening came, speed would matter more than anything else.

But he didn’t expect all of them to make it through.

If his reading of the array was right, then the opening wouldn’t stay open for long. Maybe a few seconds at best. But again, there was no point trying to stop them now. Each of them had already chosen to be here.

So Chen Ren left them to that choice and kept his full attention on the two city lords as they continued smashing the silver layer apart.

Bit by bit, the cracks spread wider.

At first they were only small lines running through the silver layer, but under the pressure of the two city lords they soon deepened into proper cracks, and Shrey started punching straight through parts of them. Chen Ren could tell that it was not only the strength of the blows doing that. The crimson qi coating Shrey’s attacks was helping in some other way, eating at the layer itself after impact. It was not elemental, at least not in any way Chen Ren understood, and the more he watched it, the less certain he became of what exactly it was. All he knew for sure was that it carried a destructive quality the silver layer clearly did not like.

He pushed the thought aside.

That was a question for later, maybe one he could ask Shrey if they all survived long enough for idle curiosity again. For now, there was only the array in his mind.

And under the work of the two lords, even the silver layer began to fail.

The sight made Chen Ren’s belief in his theory grow stronger with every passing breath. So far, the array had done nothing to them beyond what a wall would do. It resisted, repaired, endured—but it hadn’t yet revealed another hidden defense. Last time, it had already torn pieces of itself apart to create those silver eagles and try to force them down from the sky. This time, there was no trick like that—just retaliation.

That alone told him a great deal.

More of the silver light peeled away until, eventually, the two city lords slowed and finally pulled back a little. Between them and the golden layer, a large opening now stood clear enough to let them pass through directly.

Neither of them rushed in. Instead, both paused for a moment and looked back toward Chen Ren.

It wasn’t much, not even a gesture really, but the meaning was obvious enough.

Be ready.

Chen Ren gave them a nod.

Then they moved.

They entered the final gap almost together, and Shrey wasted no time at all. Still riding his mount, he drove it straight at the golden layer and smashed into it with all the force the beast and his own body could gather. Xiangrui took a different approach. This time he did not fill the air with projectiles. Instead, he formed a sword out of that same black ice he had used before. Whatever it was, the weapon felt wrong in a way that made it hard to look away.

Then Xiangrui struck.

The sword bit into the golden layer and carved down through it, leaving behind a long, deep vertical line.

Though the array still did not crack, City Lord Xiangrui did not slow. He kept swinging the black ice sword in shifting patterns, each movement flowing into the next as lines of qi burst from the blade and struck the golden layer in quick succession. For the next minute or so, everyone watching could do little but stare as the two city lords fought side by side without holding anything back.

They could not have been more different.

Xiangrui moved like a master, showing off a lifetime of polished technique. Every swing of his blade had shape and purpose to it, each one clean enough that Chen Ren could easily imagine an ordinary cultivator being carved into pieces before even realizing what had happened. Shrey, on the other hand, had none of that elegance. He and his mount simply hurled themselves at the golden layer again and again, all brute force and savage momentum, as if they meant to break it apart by sheer refusal to stop.

It felt like watching a graceful dancer and a crazed brawler fighting on the same side.

And yet, somehow, it worked.

As the two of them kept attacking, their intensity rose little by little. Soon every swing of Xiangrui’s sword and every punch of Shrey’s seemed to send shockwaves rippling through the golden barrier. No visible cracks appeared, but Chen Ren did not need them to know the layer was weakening. He could see it in the way the light shivered. He could feel it in the way the barrier seemed to absorb each strike with slightly less confidence than before.

That was enough.

And more importantly, the golden layer still had not responded.

That only strengthened Chen Ren’s faith in the theory he had built. The city lords, for whatever reason, were not triggering the array’s true safeguards. But even that was not enough on its own. The golden layer still had to be opened before Chen Ren and the others could rush through, and there was only one way to do that.

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He had already spoken to both of them at length before this part of the plan began, and despite all their reservations, they had both agreed on one point.

The golden layer would not break unless they used part of their domains.

Shrey had, of course, hated that conclusion and resisted the idea from the start.

He had only just used part of his domain to tear open a path and get them out of what should have been a certain death, and even now Chen Ren could still remember the way the man had looked afterward, annoyed less by the danger and more by the fact that he had been forced to use his domain.

In the end, though, it was Xiangrui who agreed to take on the greater burden. He would use his domain, but only for ten seconds. No more. Just enough to create a window without suffering too much backlash, and during that window, Shrey and his mount would strike together and try to force a crack into the golden layer.

Hence, they had not just been battering at the third layer for the sake of it. They were testing it, spreading their force across different parts of the barrier, trying to feel out weak points while also wearing down whatever energy they could. Chen Ren knew that the latter might not amount to much. The golden layer felt so dense with qi that he could believe it held enough power to push an ordinary cultivator straight into domain manifestation realm if someone found a way to absorb it. Still, even if they could only bleed a tiny fraction of that away, it was better than leaving it whole.

“They’re slowing down.” Yalan, standing on his shoulders, muttered suddenly.

Chen Ren had already noticed that.

Xiangrui’s strikes were no longer coming one after another in that smooth, cutting rhythm from before. They had started to stretch apart, each one slower than the last. Shrey had stopped punching altogether. For one brief second, the two city lords simply looked at one another.

Then Xiangrui let the black ice sword vanish.

He closed his eyes.

Chen Ren felt his own heartbeat quicken at once.

The next second, an enormous amount of qi burst out of Xiangrui, enough that it did not feel like mere energy anymore but like a weather pattern being born in front of them. The qi spread outward and gathered around him until it looked like a blizzard had erupted into existence, spiraling and thickening around his body with a force that made the sky itself feel smaller.

Even from where he stood, Chen Ren felt the cold.

It hit him like a wall. It was the kind of cold that made the skin tighten before it properly touched you. Around him, several cultivators on flying swords gasped and nearly lost their balance just from the wave of it. Chen Ren himself grabbed Li Xuan by the shoulder to steady him, doing what he could to hold himself together while relying on his starlight armor to dull some of the pressure pressing against him.

But even then, he could already tell that the domain Xiangrui was unleashing was far beyond anything armor alone could help him endure for long.

Still, Chen Ren kept his eyes on the golden layer.

The moment City Lord Xiangrui’s domain settled over it, the change was immediate. Parts of the barrier lost their golden sheen altogether and went white instead, frozen so completely that even from a distance the layer looked brittle for the first time.

That was all Xiangrui had been waiting for. He moved at once, another sword forming in his hand, and what followed did not even look fully real to Chen Ren. The city lord struck into the frozen sections again and again, each blow landing too fast, too cleanly, until the white cracks finally gave way and pieces of the layer broke apart, leaving behind a narrow opening.

Chen Ren felt his heartbeat jump the instant he saw it. This was the moment they had been waiting for.

“Move!” he shouted.

At once, the people still capable of handling the pressure of the domain shot forward through the air. Li Xuan did not waste even a breath. Lightning burst around him to help take some of the weight off as he drove the sword toward the red layer. Chen Ren already knew what was coming once they crossed, and from the way Li Xuan leaned into the sword and pushed more speed out of it, the man clearly knew it too. The acceleration was sharp enough that even Yalan had to dig her claws into Chen Ren’s shoulders to stay steady.

Then they crossed through the red layer.

Chen Ren had estimated it would take roughly forty-five seconds to reach the break in the golden one if nothing interfered.

But his luck was never that good.

The moment they were inside, the array shuddered around them. Not the ordinary tremor this time, but something deeper, as if the whole formation had finally realized what was happening all at once. Chen Ren did not need more than that to understand. The triggers had caught up. Every part of the array that had remained quiet while the city lords pressed it was waking now.

The golden layer lit again.

This time the gaps didn’t start sealing immediately, probably because Xiangrui’s domain was still suppressing that part of the response. But the array still had other answers. Smaller beams fired out at once, flashing through the layers and heading straight for them.

“Down!” Chen Ren shouted.

Li Xuan reacted instantly. The sword dropped hard enough that Chen Ren felt the pull in his stomach as one of the beams tore over their heads. They missed that one.

Others didn’t.

He saw one of the Frostpeak Sect cultivators take a beam full in the side and get thrown away from the formation. The man was lucky enough to crash onto one of the boats instead of falling outright, but others were not. A few swords wobbled, dipped, and vanished downward with their riders before Chen Ren could properly register who they had been. He did not even have the room in his mind to pity them. Everything was moving too fast.

Ahead, Shrey suddenly raised a barrier of crimson qi around the opening in the golden layer, clearly trying to buy them more time. For a breath, Chen Ren thought it might work, but then the golden surface lit up again and tendrils spilled out of it, coiling around Shrey before the man could fully pull back. He struggled at once, but Chen Ren had no time to keep watching.

They hit the silver layer, then crossed it.

At that same moment, City Lord Xiangrui let his domain fall away.

Chen Ren saw the effect immediately. The golden layer began stitching itself shut.

The opening was closing while they were still racing toward it, and as the suppression of the domain vanished, the beams coming from the array only grew worse. Before, there had at least been a rhythm to them. Now they came in short, ugly bursts, firing at random, as though the array had given up pretending to be controlled and simply wanted to cut down as many intruders as possible before the gap vanished.

Chen Ren caught sight of Han Qingshi getting struck in the chest and thrown back, and even that did not stop him from focusing ahead. The brute would survive. Probably. What mattered was the opening.

Every second, it shrank.

Every second, they got closer.

And yet the beams kept forcing them to veer, dip, and twist away from clean lines. That was the worst part of it. They should have been flying straight. Instead, Li Xuan had to keep wrenching the sword around one attack after another, and each movement made it harder for Chen Ren to stay balanced. The sword shook under them. Yalan’s claws dug harder into his shoulders. The wind around them screamed.

Still, they were getting closer. Chen Ren only needed them to hold on a little longer—

Then a beam clipped the edge of their flying sword.

It happened without warning. One instant they were still moving, the next the impact sent the sword spinning violently off balance. Yalan let out a startled yelp.

Li Xuan lost his footing.

Chen Ren felt the whole world tilt under him, and then there was nothing beneath his feet at all.

He dropped.

***

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