Rules

"It's actually you?" The Liao youth seated beneath the tree rose to his full height, a look of pleasant surprise washing over his face. Wei Yuan did not look at him. Instead, he gazed at the Red Earth Tree behind him. Seeing it now with his own eyes, Wei Yuan's revulsion became all the more pronounced, and he finally understood where this disgust came from. Most of the aversion stemmed from the immortal orchid, the Flame God Flower, and the Phoenix blood moss. Jianmu, Bingli, and the laurel also had similar reactions, though theirs were on a slightly smaller scale, while the Red Lotus Bodhi felt nothing toward it. In short, the flowers and herbs all detested it, whereas the trees fared relatively better. Seeing Wei Yuan ignore him, a flash of anger crossed the Liao youth's face, and he barked, "I know you are Wei Yuan! Do you dare fight me?" "Who are you? I don't have time for this." Wei Yuan shook his head. The Liao youth grew even angrier. A massive dark-yellow bow surrounded by countless tiny whirlwinds appeared in his hand, and he shouted, "I am Wuchi, the strongest of the Liao Clan's younger generation! I heard you are very strong too. Killing you today will make you the perfect nourishment for my mindscape world!" Wei Yuan feigned astonishment. "Your mindscape world is already about to take shape?" "Naturally! And it is no ordinary mindscape world!" Wuchi proclaimed proudly. Wei Yuan praised him, "That really is impressive! I'm still trying to figure out how to lift my mindscape world into the Immortal Heaven, and I have no idea how long just a single prerequisite will take. Come to think of it, I'm only two major steps ahead of you. Cultivate for another seven or eight hundred years, and you'll just about catch up to me." The more Wuchi listened, the more wrong it sounded. Ultimately, he flew into a rage, drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed a shot straight at Wei Yuan's face! Wei Yuan reached out and caught the long arrow, making it look completely effortless. He casually stowed the heavy arrow, clasped his hands behind his back, and said, "The force behind that shot was decent enough, just a bit on the slow side. What, are you looking to duel me in the arts?" As Wei Yuan spoke, he subtly wiped away the blood on his palm. The arrow's impact was extraordinarily heavy, no less than a full-power thrust from a magic treasure spear; catching it barehanded had scraped his skin raw. Wuchi had no idea Wei Yuan's skin was broken. Seeing him catch the arrow so nonchalantly, his expression turned grave, yet he grew even more thrilled. He barked, "Not just a duel—a fight to the death!" "Single combat?" "Naturally!" "Are there any restrictions on spells or other methods?" Wei Yuan continued to ask. "None!" "And what if our elders step in to intervene?" Wei Yuan's questions seemed never-ending. Wuchi had already lost his patience. "Life and death are determined by fate! Senior experts from neither side may intervene. Whoever violates this shall be struck down by heavenly lightning!" The moment he finished speaking, he suddenly noticed Wei Yuan produce a metal rod and thrust it into the ground beside him. Wuchi was taken aback and asked, "What are you doing?" Wei Yuan said offhandedly, "Just common iron. I accidentally brought along some trash, so I threw it away." Wuchi swept his divine sense over it and found that the rod was indeed ordinary iron. Suspecting nothing, he merely dismissed it as one of Wei Yuan's eccentricities, like some pre-battle ritual. Yet Wei Yuan still refused to fight, shaking his head. "No, I don't trust you. We have to raise the stakes." Wuchi's patience was wearing razor-thin. "Stop fussing like an old woman! What more stakes do you want?" Wei Yuan replied, "We each offer a precious treasure to be held in safekeeping by the other side's high-realm expert. If either party breaks the promise, they can forget about getting their treasure back. And the collateral provided must be accepted by the opposing party." "Why must you be so tedious?" Wuchi genuinely could not fathom what Wei Yuan was trying to accomplish. Ignoring him, Wei Yuan produced an elixir box, opened the lid, and said, "I'll stake this longevity pill that grants a genuine twelve-year lifespan extension!" In an instant, all of Wuchi's grievances vanished into thin air, and his eyes locked onto the longevity pill. Lifespan-extending pills were the most coveted currency in the cultivation world, and a genuine lifespan extension was something even immortals would not refuse. Wuchi hesitated for a moment before retrieving a wooden box. Inside lay five fist-sized crystals, each housing a tiny swirling hurricane. A single glance was enough to tell that these crystals contained terrifying amounts of energy. "Hurricane heavenly crystals, superior grade, five in total—more than enough to match your longevity pill. How about I stake this as collateral?" Wei Yuan examined them carefully before nodding. "Acceptable." With that, both men channeled their magic power and tossed their items behind the other party. Two giant spectral hands materialized in midair, seizing the collateral before retreating. Both Scenery Command experts then pulled back beyond the firmament. Wuchi let out a sinister laugh, drew his bow, and fired an arrow at Wei Yuan. After this exchange, he had no intention of returning that longevity pill anyway—a dead man had no need for worldly possessions. Wei Yuan accelerated to evade, yet the incoming arrows still kept him hopping and scrambling. Every single one of Wuchi's arrows carried a different effect. Some were purely fast—so blindingly fast that Wei Yuan had to exert all his strength just to dodge them. Others vanished into the void only to abruptly reappear behind him, while some behaved like homing missiles, relentlessly tracking him. For a time, it seemed Wei Yuan was being suppressed to the point where he couldn't even fight back. Yet Wei Yuan moved like lightning, elusive and erratic, utterly impossible to lock onto. Every time Wuchi thought he had secured a lock and released an arrow, Wei Yuan would flick out a trinket to divert the tracking arrow away. A moment later, a swirling tempest suddenly enveloped Wei Yuan, thick grains of sand whirling within the gale. When Wuchi's sharp arrows drew near, the fierce winds deflected them off course, making it even harder to land a hit. Wuchi soon realized that Wei Yuan was cloaked in storm armor, but this spell was far more powerful than the standard version—it didn't resemble a single-target spell so much as a version cast from an array. Wuchi suddenly shot an arrow toward an empty patch of ground! His eyesight was extraordinary, and he could see that the spiritual power sustaining the storm armor originated from that spot. When the arrow struck, the scenery popped like a bubble, revealing the true image: several dozen pixel Dao soldiers were deployed in a battle array, generating and maintaining the storm armor covering Wei Yuan. Wuchi felt a sudden surge of irritation. Soaring into the air, he looked down from above as the spiritual energy within a hundred zhang converged onto his arrow. With a flash of light, what shot out was an earthen yellow dragon! Startled, Wei Yuan immediately dodged. The yellow dragon roared and tore through the earth with destructive momentum. The ground bulged, fissures spiderwebbed across the terrain, and curtain-like sheets of yellow light erupted from the cracks! The squad of Dao soldiers bolstering Wei Yuan's spells was also caught in the blast. First, the earth caved beneath them, swallowing them whole. Then, the geysers of yellow light hurled them into the air, finally reducing them to nothingness within the corrosive yellow glare. This cataclysmic shot had not only thrown Wei Yuan into disarray, but it had also neatly eradicated the support array. Yet no matter how hard Wuchi racked his brain, he could not understand why he couldn't lock onto Wei Yuan. He had always used his Heavenly Mystery pupil art to guide his heavy arrows, a technique that had never failed him in the past. Even against an opponent as slippery as Wei Yuan, a successful lock would reveal their general evasion path, allowing Wuchi to pressure or herd them with successive shots until they fell into a trap. But his pupil technique simply did not work on Wei Yuan. Having fought him for this long, Wei Yuan finally figured out what this fellow had been secretly trying to do all along. Wuchi had cultivated an esoteric technique in his eyes and had been trying to lock onto him the entire time. The catch was that Wuchi didn't rely on qi-mechanism tracking to lock on to his opponents, but rather on karmic suppression. If an opponent's karmic luck was inferior to his, then no matter what footwork technique or evasive secret art they employed, it would all be in vain. They could only watch in despair as devastating heavy arrows chased them down one after another until they were blasted to pieces. Applied to Wei Yuan, however, the technique was a complete joke. Wei Yuan hadn't even understood for the longest time what this fellow had been bustling about trying to achieve. A thought struck Wei Yuan. It appeared this fellow was one of the Liao Clan's children of karmic destiny; otherwise, he wouldn't have cultivated such a pupil technique. Once he realized his opponent was actually a child of karmic destiny, Wei Yuan immediately made a slight adjustment to his battle plan: he discarded every single one of his baseline principles—not that his baseline had been very high to begin with. The battle remained intense, yet it was hardly precarious. Wuchi grew increasingly perplexed the longer they fought, unable to comprehend why he still couldn't lock onto Wei Yuan. The possibility that Wei Yuan was also a child of karmic destiny crossed his mind, but he dismissed it an instant later. Wuchi had fought plenty of children of karmic destiny before. At worst, the lock would falter occasionally; he had never encountered a situation where it failed to work altogether. His mind raced, and another possibility struck him: a human immortal was intervening! Thinking this, Wuchi actually calmed down. If the human immortals were interfering, the immortals on his side wouldn't sit idly by either. The Little State Preceptor had returned to the depths of the grasslands, but the Great Shaman's gaze was fixed on this place. Reassured, Wuchi grew patient, continuing to press Wei Yuan with relentless attacks. He had just drawn his bow to the full when a warning bell suddenly rang in his mind! A blood-red blade materialized without warning, slashing down viciously! Wuchi was not fast enough to dodge completely, and a gash was sliced open along his arm. Another array spell! Shocked and infuriated, Wuchi's gaze darted across the field. Locking onto an empty stretch of ground, he loosed an arrow and indeed discovered that a concealing spell had been laid there at some unknown point. Over a hundred tiny Dao soldiers were leaping and dancing around an array, performing a shamanic sacrificial dance to forge another blood blade. Wuchi's expression remained cold as he unleashed another yellow dragon arrow, wiping out the shamanic array. Right at that moment, a piercing shriek resembling a young girl's voice exploded beside his ear. The cry was like a needle, piercing through his magical protection and plunging deep into his sea of consciousness! Wuchi's vision went black, and his body plummeted. Taking a deep breath, he fired seven consecutive yellow dragon arrows. Under the terrifying might of these seven shots, the earth for dozens of li rolled like waves, crossed by crisscrossing curtains of yellow light. This indiscriminate bombardment indeed blasted open three more hidden arrays. One of them was the culprit from moments ago. Wuchi recognized it: the Demonic Sound Mind-Piercing Soul-Startling Array. Its primary function was to emit soul-disrupting demonic sounds to assault an enemy's origin soul. The damage was not high, but it was extraordinarily difficult to resist; taking a hit mid-combat easily caused one to lose focus. And in a life-and-death duel, how could anyone afford to lose their focus? Another was the Demonic Blood Calamity Array he had just destroyed, designed primarily to manifest a blood curse demonic blade that cleaved through the air—its main virtue being unpredictability. Wuchi had destroyed one earlier, but he hadn't expected Wei Yuan to be so sinister as to lay the exact same array twice. Wuchi suddenly remembered there was a third array! Turning his head, he only caught sight of a black-and-red glow rising from within the array before it was swallowed by the yellow qi. Wuchi had some vague recollection of this array; it seemed to be called... the Six Heavens of Desire Calamity and Sickness Array? The moment the name crossed his mind, his forehead began to burn, and his throat flared with excruciating pain, feeling as though he were swallowing razor blades with every breath. A wave of exhaustion washed over him, his joints stiffened, and his magic power slowed to a crawl, sputtering erratically. Wuchi knew he had fallen ill. As a pinnacle Dharma Idol cultivator, he was supposed to be immune to all toxins; falling ill was a major event. Returning from this, Wuchi had no idea how many days it would take to recover—at the very best, it would take seven days, and only with the aid of specialized spiritual medicines. Even after recovering, he would remain weak for a long time. Wuchi was incensed, roaring in a hoarse voice, "Wei Yuan, you despicable coward, I will slay you today if it's the last thing I do!" Wei Yuan's voice drifted from afar: "You have a weak constitution and came down with a fever and headache. What does that have to do with me?" In truth, Wei Yuan felt a slight pang of regret. According to Sun Yu's plan, this was supposed to be a three-stage array combo. The first stage used the blood curse demonic blade to break the opponent's defenses and resistance, followed by triggering the calamity and sickness, which would usually inflict a severe illness. Yet the true essence lay in the final array: the Spring Breeze and Gentle Rain Sickness-Dispelling Array. Initially, Wei Yuan hadn't understood why they would inflict a sickness only to dispel it immediately after. Sun Yu had explained that the Spring Breeze and Gentle Rain technique couldn't cure ailments from the Six Heavens of Desire at all. Far from helping, it would occupy the afflicted body, crowding out any newly ingested medicine and rendering targeted remedies completely useless. In Sun Yu's words: taking the wrong medicine was far more dangerous than taking no medicine at all. With Spring Breeze and Gentle Rain, a minor illness became a severe illness, and a severe illness turned terminal. Unfortunately, the third array had been destroyed by Wuchi before it could be fully activated. But Wei Yuan was in no hurry. If the sequence didn't work the first time, he could simply repeat it a few more times. Having learned his lesson, Wuchi noticed Wei Yuan pausing briefly in one spot and immediately gave chase. With an enraged roar, his magic power rippled across a thousand zhang, forcing another hidden pocket of space to reveal itself. This space had clearly just been laid out, with over a hundred tiny Dao soldiers inside busy constructing an array. These pixel Dao soldiers bustled about in a comical manner that nonetheless carried an eerie undertone. Wuchi landed straight in the center of the unfinished array. A boundless yellow sandstorm erupted from his body, corroding and wiping out more than half of the surrounding Dao soldiers in an instant. This storm was born from his innate divine ability; ordinary dharma idols lingering inside it would eventually be blown apart. Yet several of the Dao soldiers did not disperse, merely stumbling back a few paces! Wuchi's alertness spiked to its absolute limit. Striking his chest, the necklace he wore instantly shattered, transforming into a barrier of light that shielded him within. In an instant, those several Dao soldiers expanded in size and gained richer detail—it was Longying and the Civil and Martial Guards. The three dragon guards attacked simultaneously, their spells surging like a deluge against Wuchi's protective barrier. Yet that barrier was top-tier even among Scenery Command spirit treasures, managing to barely hold against the surprise assault from the three Dharma Idol dragon guards. A Liao general suddenly manifested in the sky, intending to rush down and save him. But a handsome young cultivator abruptly appeared before him, remarking casually, "Nothing was said about forbidding Dao soldier puppets. We haven't broken any rules! Step back, Fellow Daoist." The Liao general was clearly wary of the young cultivator, and seeing that Wuchi was unharmed for the moment, he snorted heavily and flew back beyond the firmament. The instant he flew off, the situation on the battlefield shifted drastically. The last Dao soldier that had yet to change suddenly vanished on the spot, replaced by Ji Liuli! Wuchi's heart pounded wildly, his hair standing on end. His pupils narrowed into golden vertical slits, instantly locking onto Ji Liuli as he loosed three consecutive arrows! Wuchi felt a surge of relief. This time was fine—he had finally locked onto his opponent, and not a single arrow would miss. But in the next blink of an eye, he watched as Ji Liuli reached out, grabbed one of the arrows, snapped it, and tossed it aside. She snapped the next, tossed it, and in a flash, all three arrows lay broken on the ground—and she was already right in front of him! The Liao general high in the firmament widened his eyes and roared, "How dare you!" His voice was like thunder, but before it could reach the ground, Ji Liuli had already shattered the protective barrier with a single punch and pulverized Wuchi's spine with another. Then a shadow dragon emerged, swallowed Wuchi's dharma idol in a single gulp, and vanished instantly. In a single breath, Wuchi's body was slain and his soul destroyed. High above, the Liao Scenery Command general couldn't even intervene in time. Trembling with rage, the Liao Scenery Command general pointed at the young cultivator and raged, "This time, your human race was the one that didn't follow the rules!" The sunny-faced young cultivator smiled faintly and said, "Yes. So what?"