The Torrent of Fate

Wang Ping sped along and soon caught sight of the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits, nestled amid precipitous peaks and veiled deep in murky white mist. Yet a moment later, his pace began to slow. "...Something isn't right." His expression grew solemn as he glanced up at the dark clouds overhead. The battle between Daoist Nun You and that mysterious true disciple had not yet ended, and the torrential downpour still roared across the sky. Compared to when it first began, however, the curtain of rain had actually thinned considerably. This was not because their clash was nearing its conclusion—in truth, the two were still fighting fiercely—yet the closer one drew to the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits, the lighter the storm seemed to become. What did this mean? "It's almost as if someone behind the scenes is using this heavy rain as a whip, lashing at me to herd me toward the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits." At that thought, Wang Ping stopped dead in his tracks. Rain clattered against his body like slashing blades, but compared to the start, the diminished downpour could no longer threaten him. 'If the real Ping Jiangzi were here, he probably wouldn't be able to endure it.' 'But I'm not Ping Jiangzi. Not only have I mastered cosmic circuit breathing, giving me a higher cultivation than his, but I've also trained my body in a full set of external martial arts.' Wang Ping sat cross-legged on the ground. Vitality surged through him like a roaring river, finally manifesting across his skin as a shimmering layer of brilliant golden light. Copper Head and Iron Forehead; Arms Holding a Thousand Jun; Ground-Standing Vajra. Hundred-Step Divine Fist; Stele-Cleaving and Stone-Splitting; Piercing Steel on Solid Ground. Mountain-Sinking Elbow; Bronze-Wall-Smashing Knee; Armor-Hard Abdomen. Metal-and-Stone-Piercing Finger; Steel-Blade-Locking Throat; Golden Spear Never Falls. Iron Bones and Steel Sinews. Thirteen complete military arts bolstered him, intertwining and coalescing into one until they forged an entirely new military art that enveloped him like an inverted golden bell. The Indestructible Vajra Body! At the same time, a dense barrage of raindrops pounded down. Mingled with spiritual energy, every droplet struck with immense mass, like a miniaturized boulder. Wang Ping paid it no heed. Instead, he opened his mind, listening to the rain and thunder between heaven and earth. To better weather the rain's impact, he began adjusting his body. Rather than meeting it with brute force, he employed neutralizing force, borrowing and redirecting the momentum to dissipate the raindrops crashing into him. It was a wondrous process. At first, he had to use a martial artist's divine intent to gauge the threat of every single droplet, distributing the corresponding physical strength to counteract it. Yet as time slipped by, he ceased intentionally reacting. His body's natural circulation gradually fell into sync with the pouring rain and the rumbling thunder across the sky. The rush of his blood sounded like the rain. The shifting of his sinews and bones carried the momentum of thunder. Wang Ping's mind was utterly submerged in the experience, heedless of the world around him. Barring any accidents, he could easily hold out like this until the cooldown ended. 'In another two days, the Fiend from Beyond should be ready.' Yet if Wang Ping had learned any lessons or gained any experience from entering the immortal sect three times, it was that in this godforsaken place, avoiding accidents was simply impossible. *** The Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits. Rather than a valley, the place was more like a giant pit, surrounded on all sides by rugged peaks. The center dipped inward, but what filled it was neither sand nor soil. It was bones. Countless skeletons, nearly all preserved in complete human form, spread outward in concentric rings, encircling and guarding a three-meter-tall sacrificial altar. Seated upon the altar was an elderly man with snow-white hair, his appearance deeply grotesque. Half of his body possessed vivid, lifelike flesh with clear skin texture, while the other half was a stark white skeleton. Pale green ghostfire burned within his eye socket, and his slender, bony fingers tapped out a rhythmic cadence. Meanwhile, in the valley below, amid the sea of skeletons, a dozen or so living people of varying cultivation levels struggled desperately. Among them was Fairy Yuerou. Beside her was a handsome young man. Among the living captives, his cultivation was the highest and his aura the most powerful. Accordingly, he was surrounded by the densest cluster of skeletons. "Senior Brother Guo, there is no need to struggle," the old man chuckled softly. "Fate showed the outcome long ago. From the moment you stepped into this Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits, your doom was sealed." "How could this be...?" Senior Brother Guo gritted his teeth, his face etched with disbelief. "Master of Soul-Drooping Study, you're merely the lord of a blessed land, a rogue cultivator by origin! How could you possibly defeat me?" With that, he moved to rise and break free. Yet the moment he shifted, the world in his spiritual sense warped drastically. In a daze, he felt as if he had been cast into a pitch-black dungeon. Heavy shackles clamped around him. Every movement became an agonizing struggle, and his breathing turned feeble. But when he retracted his spiritual sense, the dungeon vanished. It was as if it were all an illusion, yet it was undeniably real. "What kind of spell is this?!" "A spell?" The Master of Soul-Drooping Study's voice drifted over eerily. "Senior Brother misunderstands. This is no spell... Did I not just tell you? This is fate. "I can roughly guess what you saw, so allow me to enlighten you... That prison is your end, the terminus of your fate. As a sacrificial beast, you no longer have any possibility of moving forward. I am not speaking in vague metaphors; I am stating an absolute fact. "There are no possibilities here, only the outcome. "Guo Huan dying in this place is already a predetermined result. Thus, even if you are stronger than me, here and now you are doomed to suffer a crushing defeat at my hands. "Do you understand now?" Guo Huan naturally did not, yet the old man's cryptic rambling offered him a clue. "You... are a rogue cultivator from Xuan Yi Immortal Peak?" The immortal sect had eight immortal peaks in total. Each immortal peak possessed its own unique lineage. For instance, Supreme Bliss Immortal Peak focused on dual cultivation, whereas Xuan Yi Immortal Peak centered on divination. The word they uttered most frequently was 'fate.' "Is it a curse?" Guo Huan's mind raced as he hazarded a guess. "You knew all along that I would move against you, so you secretly cast a curse and laid a trap, waiting for me to walk right into it?" "Senior Brother overestimates me." The Master of Soul-Drooping Study shook his head. "I am a mere rogue cultivator. Though I know a little divination to calculate auspicious and inauspicious signs, how could I possibly curse you, Senior Brother? "It is a magical treasure." Raising his skeletal hand, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study smiled. "The Fate-Peering Flesh-Flensing Bone Mirror revealed your destiny and that of these predatory cultivators long ago." "A magical treasure?" Guo Huan froze for a moment, then sneered. "A rogue cultivator is still just a rogue cultivator—so utterly ignorant. A magical treasure requires Dharmic powers to wield. Without Dharmic powers, how could you possibly drive one? "If this object truly is a magical treasure yet can be wielded by a rogue cultivator like you, the price it demands must be far steeper than Dharmic powers. And what could a lowly rogue cultivator possess that would tempt a magical treasure? Only your worthless life, I wager. By that measure, the one whose death draws near is truly you." At these words, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study's face darkened. "Absurd! Trying to shake my Dao heart?" With a flick of his fingers, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study formed an incantation seal. Countless skeletons swarmed forward, rapidly burying Guo Huan beneath them, and the entire Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits returned to silence. Seeing this, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study regained his composure and resumed tapping his skeletal fingers, prepared to bide his time and thoroughly refine them all. Right then, his tapping abruptly halted. The Master of Soul-Drooping Study raised a brow. "What is this? One is still missing... Impossible. How could the Fate-Peering Flesh-Flensing Bone Mirror be wrong?" Refusing to believe it, he tapped his skeletal fingers once more. The result remained unchanged. He poured his spiritual sense inside and shifted to divining the identity of the absent individual. Soon, the skeletal half of his body whispered the answer directly into his ear: "Ping Jiangzi?" The Master of Soul-Drooping Study blinked in astonishment. "The rogue cultivator I dismissed? Even he was supposed to be here? No, that can't be right. Anyone could see at a glance that he has a worthless, fragile fate. "Why is he absent?" Fate was not an absolute mandate; it was a boundless ocean formed by countless converging crosscurrents. When people struggled across it, most simply drifted with the tide. Yet there were always wondrous methods capable of altering the direction of these currents, guiding certain people and events to converge at a predetermined juncture. This process was a person's destiny. Those with resilient fates were difficult to redirect, while those with cheap, fragile fates could be swayed with ease. In the Master of Soul-Drooping Study's eyes, Ping Jiangzi undoubtedly possessed a cheap, fragile fate. Yet now, even Guo Huan—who had the highest cultivation and the most resilient fate—had followed the current into the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits. Why had a nobody like Ping Jiangzi failed to appear? It defied reason! "...No, I must make him come." The Master of Soul-Drooping Study scowled. In the torrent of fate, even the slightest deviation in the current could lead to a vastly different outcome. He could not be certain whether the absence of Ping Jiangzi's thread of destiny would introduce variables into the predetermined ending, and he could not afford any variables. Taking a deep breath, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study circulated his spiritual sense to drive the Fate-Peering Flesh-Flensing Bone Mirror that occupied half his body. Using his pale skeletal fingers, he slowly formed a seal and gave a light tap, like dipping a hand into water to stir up ripples. *** *Rumble!* A crash of thunder detonated across the heavens, jolting Wang Ping awake. He looked up, only to find that the thinning rain had abruptly surged in intensity. The thunder grew deafening, and the downpour became violently torrential. This chain of disruptions instantly knocked Wang Ping out of his near-oneness with heaven and earth, making it impossible to maintain his state of comprehension. "Just as... I thought!" Amid the raging storm, Wang Ping opened his eyes. A sharp pain shot through his shoulder as raindrops smashed through his Indestructible Vajra Body, drawing a dazzling splatter of crimson. The icy rain tore at his flesh, chilling him to the bone. Yet what chilled him even more was the truth he had deduced: 'This storm... is no accident. It's premeditated, directed by someone behind the scenes!' The moment he had halted outside the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits, the waning rain had flared up again. How could there be such a coincidence in this world? Yet who the mastermind was remained a mystery. He could not fathom what kind of person could have two true disciples of the immortal sect battling for their lives just to herd a lowly cultivator like him toward a specific place. However, he knew one thing: 'I must stall.' Facing the bone-chilling rain, Wang Ping gritted his teeth and refused to stand. While the downpour had grown strong enough to injure him, it was not enough to kill him. As long as that held true, he still had room to maneuver. Enduring the agonizing torment of the rain scouring his flesh like a thousand blades, Wang Ping circulated Qi Restriction to swiftly mend his wounds, refusing to take a single step forward. He knew he was courting death by waiting, but stall he would! Time flew past. This unexpected defiance left the Master of Soul-Drooping Study in the valley increasingly stunned. "Impossible! I even increased the sacrifice, yet I still can't summon a single rogue cultivator?" Though he was a rogue cultivator himself, in his own view, as someone who controlled a blessed land and stood just a single step away from crossing the Mortal Tribulation and forging Dharmic powers, he could no longer be grouped with ordinary rogue cultivators. His spirit had already attained the realm of an immortal sect disciple; all he lacked was that final breakthrough in cultivation. Thus, his fury burned all the hotter. "A mere rogue cultivator..." Taking a deep breath, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study poured in more spiritual sense, stirring even larger ripples in the torrent of fate. Meanwhile, Wang Ping felt the effects grow ever more pronounced. Before long, the thunderstorm worsened. Several cultivators fleeing the weather even appeared nearby, calling out to him before hurrying into the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits: "Fellow Daoist, what are you doing hiding out here?" "There's no rain inside—come in!" As they spoke, those sheltering cultivators walked in and out of the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits multiple times, completely unharmed. Yet Wang Ping turned a deaf ear to them. Until the sun sank in the west, the rain grew fiercer and fiercer. Exposed to the deluge, Wang Ping was riddled with wounds from head to toe, blood pouring from his body, his life flickering like a candle in the wind... yet he remained utterly motionless. The second day. Dawn, morning meal, mid-morning, noon, early afternoon, evening meal, dusk... Time trickled away like the rain, and Wang Ping showed no sign of life. At the brink between life and death, a revolving lantern of memories began to drift through Wang Ping's mind, bringing past recollections to the surface. Yet the instant the thought arose, a memory surged up in his sea of consciousness ahead of his own. It did not belong to him, but to Ping Jiangzi, bursting forth like a flash flood! 'Something's wrong!' A jolt of horror struck Wang Ping. 'I have cultivated a martial artist's divine intent, subduing the mind-monkey and reining in the thought-horse. Even on the verge of death, it is impossible for me to experience a dying flashback.' It was that mastermind again! Seeing that physical force had failed, they were resorting to a mental assault? In the center of his sea of consciousness, Wang Ping watched with cold detachment as Ping Jiangzi's memories flickered by. The cycling recollections gradually gave birth to a single, overwhelming urge: To live. Ping Jiangzi did not want to die. Under the sudden surge of a desperate desire to survive, Wang Ping's body finally moved, staggering step by step toward the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits. Everywhere he walked, the rain poured relentlessly. Water flowed beneath his feet, every drop laden with spiritual energy, heavy as a mountain, bearing down on his shoulders and back. He had no way to escape and could only drift with the flow. Step by step, following the current, he walked into the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits. Almost simultaneously, the Master of Soul-Drooping Study rose from the altar in the valley, shedding a cascade of flesh. Two-thirds of his body had now turned to bare bone. This was the price he had paid to summon Wang Ping. Yet he felt not the slightest regret. Instead, he was filled with joy. Heavy though the cost had been, all the currents required to guide fate had finally converged. "Good, magnificent!" The Master of Soul-Drooping Study laughed heartily and stepped down from the altar. "The heat is sufficient, the conditions are ripe! It seems today is the destined moment for me to cross the Mortal Tribulation and forge Dharmic powers!" Ping Jiangzi wore a dazed expression, seemingly still lost in his dying memories and unable to extricate himself. Yet Wang Ping, who had observed it all from within, finally breathed a sigh of relief. With a shift of his thoughts, his consciousness descended into the space of the Classic of Great Peace. Upon the towering tome, the scroll marked 'Fiend from Beyond' shone with brilliant radiance. The cooldown had ended.