Great Emperor Beiyin recounted his encounter with the Divine Maiden of Penglai, concluding, "Dwelling on Penglai, she seemed capable of foreseeing all manner of future events."
Xu Ying pinched the bamboo slip between his fingers, examining the characters inscribed upon it:
*Turmoil among the stars of the Nether Capital, a kun fish leaps from the sea. Nether fire on the other shore, a karmic bond arrives naturally.*
That Divine Maiden of Penglai had even foreseen that Xu Ying would be pursued by a crowd of anglers and that the Nether Fire on the other shore would incinerate Nuo Xiang's Primordial Spirit. Such methods were truly formidable and unheard of.
What was more, she had previously cast a hexagram for Mister Dongyue, prompting him to send the Golden Crow egg to Xu Ying, which ultimately led to Xu Ying and the Golden Crow running amok across Great Shang.
"Mister Beiyin, could you part with this bamboo slip and give it to me?" Xu Ying inquired.
Great Emperor Beiyin replied, "The divination on the bamboo slip has already come to pass. Take it if you wish."
Stowing away the bamboo slip, Xu Ying remarked, "Matters of fortune-telling are often vague and ambiguous—mostly intended to hoodwink people. Mister Beiyin, the one you truly ought to thank is Dongyue; it was he who sent me here."
He could not help but exclaim in admiration, "Mister Dongyue is the one endowed with divine foresight. After he cast me down, I happened to arrive right when the opportunity presented itself to seize my Nuo Ancestor cave-heaven. He even calculated that Your Excellency would lend a helping hand and forge a karmic bond with me, allowing everyone to reap their own benefits—a win for all sides!"
Hearing this, Great Emperor Beiyin felt a twinge of suspicion. He thought to himself, *The Mister Dongyue he speaks of must be Great Emperor Dongyue, right? That Dao brother has always been notorious for having terrible judgment and failing miserably at reading people. When did he ever possess divine foresight? Could it be that after dying for so many years, his cultivation hasn't degraded, but actually grown?*
Still, Xu Ying had a point. When Mister Dongyue cast Xu Ying down, he indeed had the intention of looking out for Great Emperor Beiyin.
After all, Great Emperor Beiyin was a heavenly god of vast divine power, born from the faith of hundreds of millions of common folk. He possessed a lucid mind and kept Great Emperor Dongyue's kindness close to heart.
Having only just revived, his injuries were far from healed. He mobilized the incense smoke qi within the Nether Sea, striving with all his might to restore his cultivation.
The pitch-black waters of the sea, previously placid without a ripple, now surged with rolling waves. Star souls continually flew forth, and the ghosts residing upon them bowed in homage to this Great Emperor, gathering their incense power of vow.
Above his head, natural Heavenly Dao runes sprang out from his shrine, ascending and shifting ceaselessly like burning paper money.
Xu Ying had never seen such Heavenly Dao runes before. He hurried to commit them to memory, pondering them closely.
Sensing the majestic power of a primordial heavenly god, he mused inwardly, *The plan to replace the Heavenly Dao must entail purging primordial heavenly gods like Dongyue, Beiming, and the Queen Mother of the West, remaking the Heavenly Dao world, and substituting them with the present-day heavenly gods. Doing so is actually to grasp the heavenly tribulations within their own hands.*
While Great Emperor Beiyin was still cultivating, Xu Ying invoked his own cave-heavens. His three great Nuo Ancestor cave-heavens began to circulate, and the Lotus Flower cave-heaven of the Bubbling Spring secret depository connected directly to the other shore of the Nether Sea.
Standing upon Mount Fengdu, he looked into the distance. Where the immortal radiance rose was none other than the other shore of the Nether Sea.
"No need to stare. You will never cross to the other shore across the Nether Sea," Great Emperor Beiyin remarked from behind him. "I too once wished to make landfall on that shore, yet no matter how I journeyed, I could never reach it."
Xu Ying inquired, "Then, Dao Brother, how did you ignite that other shore with Nether Fire to refine immortal medicine?"
Great Emperor Beiyin gave him a profound look and said, "Fellow Daoist Xu, you carry a Stone of Three Lives on your person, do you not? This stone can trace back the memories of past lifetimes. You likely recall little of your earlier days. As an emperor of the Netherworld, the underworld's supreme..."
He hesitated. Although he was formidable, calling himself "supreme" seemed a bit exaggerated. Thus, he seamlessly pivoted: "...one of the Four Titans, I can help you activate the Stone of Three Lives and restore your past memories."
Both surprised and delighted, Xu Ying hurriedly expressed his gratitude.
Great Emperor Beiyin said, "It is merely forging a karmic bond, nothing more."
Xu Ying took out the Stone of Three Lives. Great Emperor Beiyin instructed him to lie down and rest his head upon the stone.
Xu Ying closed his eyes. Great Emperor Beiyin brought over the bronze lamp, pinched a cluster of flame from its wick, and flicked his finger gently. Instantly, Xu Ying's vision burst into brilliant radiance. The flame carried him whistling away, plunging endlessly into the depths of time!
*Thump!*
The sound of the flame hitting the ground rang beside his ears. Where he landed was a gruesome battlefield, corpses piled high like mountains. Xu Ying discovered that he and thousands of captives were digging pits.
"By order of the Upper General: bury the surrendered soldiers alive!"
Upon hearing this shout, Xu Ying looked back and saw the banner of Lord Wu'an, Bai Qi. Of the four hundred thousand surrendered troops, some were beheaded, some run through, and some shot dead, all cast into the massive pits that Xu Ying and the others had just excavated.
Beneath Lord Wu'an's grand banner stood the colossal Primordial Spirit of a powerful Qi Refiner, drinking in the slaughterous aura and origin qi of the battlefield to temper his treasures and Primordial Spirit!
Voices of Qin soldiers drifted over: "Upper General Bai Qi is using the four hundred thousand soldiers of Zhao to temper his treasures and Primordial Spirit this time. Once his cultivation reaches great completion, he will surely cross the heavenly tribulation and ascend amidst glowing mists!"
Just as Xu Ying was listening, an arrow whistled through the air with a *shhhk* and embedded itself into his chest.
Xu Ying was stunned. All strength drained from his body, yet he did not die.
"Not dead yet?"
A voice called out. With two more sharp whistles, an arrow struck Xu Ying's forehead and another pierced his chest, yet he remained standing, refusing to fall.
*Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!*
Volley after volley of arrows shot forth, turning Xu Ying into a hedgehog. In this lifetime, Xu Ying was merely an ordinary mortal. Unable to bear the weight of so many arrows, he tumbled into the massive pit.
*I'm going to die, I'm going to die...* His eyes stared wide, his mind in complete turmoil.
A soldier walked to the edge of the pit, frowning. "This Zhao soldier is remarkably hard to kill; he wasted so many of our arrows. Hurry up, slaughter them all and throw them in!"
Corpses were thrown down one after another, pressing atop Xu Ying. His vision slowly faded to black.
After an unknown length of time, the Qin army departed. Xu Ying began clawing his way outward with all his strength. A torrential downpour descended from the heavens, its weight pinning him so that he could barely move. Yet his resolve was immense; he pulled out the arrows lodged in his flesh and used the arrowheads to dig his way up.
Perhaps it was a single day, or perhaps a hundred days, but he finally broke through and crawled out from the pile of corpses.
Without him realizing it, the wounds all over his body had already healed.
He staggered across the ancient battlefield. Lightning flashed and thunder roared across the sky, streaks of electricity darting back and forth among the clouds.
"Lord Wu'an, Bai Qi, is about to undergo the heavenly tribulation!" a voice boomed from an unknown quarter. "Within a radius of a thousand li, all unrelated persons must withdraw at once!"
The rain washed the blood and grime from Xu Ying's body. He lifted his head to look: a bolt of lightning as thick as a mountain plunged from the heavens, striking toward the distance.
After a long while, a berserk tribulation might suddenly erupted, sweeping over to where Xu Ying stood and blasting the youth into the air!
Xu Ying crashed down, dizzy and disoriented, his bones fractured and tendons severed.
"Lord Wu'an, Bai Qi, is dead—!"
Wails and howls echoed from afar. Someone's voice cried out shrilly, "The world's most powerful Qi Refiner is dead! Still, no one can cross the heavenly tribulation!"
Xu Ying set his broken leg and struggled to pull himself up. His vision was blurred, but faintly, he seemed to see a man and a woman walking toward him.
"Fortunately, we are not late. It is time to give him a bowl of Meng Po soup," the woman said.
The man forced his mouth open, pouring a bowl of strange-tasting brew down his throat.
Suddenly, a lamp flared to life. A brilliant blaze wrapped around Xu Ying, carrying him as he whistled downward. As Xu Ying struggled, the sky twisted, and the next moment, the flames dispersed.
A stretch of verdant grass entered his sight. In the distance stood a tree, beneath which a delicate young maiden stood gracefully, carrying a small travel pack. Gazing at him, she smiled and said, "Brother Ying, let us elope."
Xu Ying sprinted toward her, hot blood surging within his chest: "Sister Zhuxi, I'm ready too!"
Holding hands, the two raced into the distance. Behind them came the shouts of an enraged mob: "Catch them!"
Two days later, Xu Ying and the maiden were crammed into wicker pig baskets. Xu Ying reached out toward the girl, but their hands drifted farther and farther apart.
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid," the girl comforted him. "If there is an afterlife..."
The two baskets sank into the water. Several days later, the villagers watched in terror as a youth tore through a pig basket and walked out from the depths of the water. Dripping wet, he held another corpse in his arms.
"Murder! The Xu family lad has committed murder!"
Xu Ying held a firewood chopper in hand. Behind him lay a burning village and a field of corpses.
Amidst the firelight, a man and a woman walked over.
"The time has come. It is time to send him off to a new life."
"Be careful. He is dangerous."
A burst of flame erupted, wrapping around Xu Ying and plunging him deep beneath the earth. Xu Ying's vision blurred, and his descent suddenly halted. Roaring flames surrounded him on all sides; he was sitting inside a pill cauldron. The furnace was massive. A Qi Refiner stood outside, chanting incantations: "Now is the time to add the ten-thousand-year ginseng so its medicinal power can nourish the ageless immortal... Master, the ageless immortal hasn't been burned to death yet!"
"Confound it! He's been refined for forty-nine days—even a true immortal would have been melted down by now!"
A voice shouted as someone barged inside.
Sitting inside the pill furnace, Xu Ying looked up and locked eyes with that person's face. It was the face of Mount Emei's Mad Martial Uncle.
"You madman, you scoundrel!"
Someone else rushed in from outside, raging, "Are you trying to stir up a catastrophe? Is the ageless immortal something you can eat? Everyone who ever tried to eat him has died, yet he alone remains alive—isn't that eerie enough for you? Hurry up and open the furnace, and invite him out!"
Yet another burst of flame flared, and Xu Ying continued to fall, tumbling toward an even more distant age.
Those ancient eras were his deepest memories, washed away by Meng Po soup and sealed beneath two demon-quelling runes. Now, under the power of the Stone of Three Lives, those memories were gradually growing clear.
As Great Emperor Beiyin channeled the Stone of Three Lives, he felt tremendous resistance. The farther back through time he traced, the greater the drain on his magic power became. "Something's wrong, something's not right... This seal is even more terrifying than the one that suppressed me!"
Fine beads of cold sweat broke out across Great Emperor Beiyin's forehead. Continuing to drive the cluster of lamplight, he muttered in an undertone, "This karmic bond is proving rather difficult to forge..."
*Whoosh—*
Xu Ying plummeted to the ground. Suddenly, the aura of heavenly tribulation around him grew incomparably thick. He looked up, and sure enough, he saw tribulation clouds blanketing an area of over a thousand li.
A white-haired elder with the appearance of a celestial sat cross-legged, laughing heartily: "I, Cang Chenzi, have dwelled long in the Mount Hua cave-heaven, painstakingly researching tribulations, and have finally comprehended the method to cross them! Sacrificial offering—go!"
Xu Ying rose into the air against his will, cast upward by that white-haired old immortal as a sacrificial offering to meet the heavenly tribulation.
A bolt of heavenly lightning as thick as a mountain plunged from above, passing straight through Xu Ying to strike squarely upon the body of that white-haired old immortal, Cang Chenzi.
Cang Chenzi was instantly reduced to a handful of tribulation ash. Xu Ying was also charred black from head to toe, seemingly bereft of breath. Yet a moment later, he shakily clambered back to his feet, stared blankly at the dissipating tribulation in the sky, and shouted a curse at the heavens. He fell once more, a tender voice echoing by his ears:
"Brother Ying, I feel as though I have seen you before."
Xu Ying fell yet again, through ever more ancient history—the Warring States, the Spring and Autumn period, the rise of the contending lords—until, without realizing it, he arrived at six thousand years ago.
In the sky, the emperor star wavered, the constellations were thrown into chaos, and celestial phenomena roiled in turmoil.
Xu Ying looked up to see mountains floating in the heavens and seas hanging upside down; heaven, earth, time, and space were completely warped.
Great Emperor Beiyin sat cross-legged, a primordial Primordial Spirit as tall as Fengdu rising behind him. He mobilized every scrap of incense smoke qi he could muster, sending the bronze lamp flying up to press upon Xu Ying's glabella.
"How is this confounded seal so formidable? Meng Po—you old hag!" His voice boomed across the Nether Sea. "Lend me a hand!"
The surging Nai River spanned across countless worlds, fluttering like a silken ribbon as it drew ever closer to Fengdu.
Amidst the winding Nai River, a divine maiden sat solemnly. She pointed a finger, and a vast, majestic surge of incense smoke qi flew forth, drilling into Xu Ying's glabella.
Great Emperor Beiyin breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately felt the pressure spike sharply, meeting immense resistance!
The divine maiden Primordial Spirit behind Meng Po also took on a solemn expression. She spoke, "Brother Northern Emperor, recognize when you are outmatched and withdraw."
Great Emperor Beiyin gritted his teeth and persevered.
At that moment, Xu Ying looked toward the sky. He saw the firmament swirling, suddenly tearing open to reveal a grotesque eye that covered the entire celestial expanse. Within the eye, the corpses of immortals bobbed up and down, like people drowned in deep water.
A golden scroll flew in from beyond the heavens, drifting down to unfurl in midair.
The grotesque eye rolled about, fixing its gaze upon the characters on the golden scroll, and intoned:
"This world defies Heaven's mandate. The rebel Ji Man fashioned the Boat of the Other Shore and stole the elixir of immortality in a vain bid for longevity. Now, in obedience to Heaven's mandate, We cleanse this realm and remake Shenzhou."
Across the land of Shenzhou, immortal artifacts flew forth from sacred ground after sacred ground, anchoring themselves in midair to shed immortal radiance and protect those sacred sanctuaries.
The golden scroll blazed with brilliant light, and the sounds of the Immortal Dao burst from it, reverberating across the world and resounding in the ears of all living beings.
Xu Ying watched the sky, witnessing countless Qi Refiners lose control over their Dao images and magic power as they rose into the air against their will. Like drowning souls, they flew toward the celestial abyss!
*Crack!*
A Qi Refiner exploded, flesh and blood mingling with magic power as they shot forth like a blood dragon, flying straight toward the abyss in the heavens.
*Crack! Crack! Crack!*
Sharp cracking sounds reached Xu Ying's ears one after another, accompanied by the wondrous, ineffable sounds of the Immortal Dao. In the sky, the drowning Qi Refiners detonated one by one.
"Quick! Hide inside the Wangxiang Platform!"
Some Qi Refiners were still struggling, sprinting toward the Wangxiang Platform. Yet even as they ran, their bodies involuntarily rose into the air and burst apart, turning into blood dragons that flew toward the celestial abyss.
Xu Ying watched this scene unfold as countless blood dragons drifted and soared through the heavens, while that colossal abyssal eye watched over it all in chilling silence.
After an unknown length of time, the twisted heavens and earth gradually returned to normal. The celestial abyss and the grotesque eye vanished, and the immortal artifacts of the various sacred grounds fell still.
Not far away, a Qi Refiner stepped out from the Wangxiang Platform. He was a youth carrying a conical bamboo hat, gazing up at the serene sky with a countenance full of rage and bewilderment.
"Senior Sister, you fled too! You too have abandoned this world! Just like the Son of Heaven of Zhou, you are nothing but an incompetent coward who only knows how to run! You people have abandoned us!"
He roared at the heavens, cursing the injustice of heaven and earth. Then, gradually, he fell quiet. His gaze turned incomparably cold as he walked past Xu Ying.
"The Heavenly Dao betrays me, and Senior Sister abandons me. Blame me not when I turn my back on all under heaven and harvest them all! If I do not harvest the weak, how can I ever contend against the injustice of this Heavenly Dao!"
He cast a glance at Xu Ying, donned his bamboo hat, and strode away alone into the distance.
Chapter 277