Unlike Wu Yao, whose sole desire was to leave the cultivation world and journey to the world beyond, Guan Shanhai had poured untold heart and blood into founding the Great Yu Dynasty.
Yet how had it ended? The Great Yu Dynasty fell, and Wu Yao had personally sacrificed the empire merely to depart the cultivation world.
From then on, their paths diverged, and Guan Shanhai never saw Wu Yao again.
Though Wu Yao had achieved his wish and left the cultivation world, Guan Shanhai had always brooded over Great Yu's destruction.
When the Great Yu Dynasty collapsed, Immortal Kirin had also appeared, though Guan Shanhai did not know what role Immortal Kirin had played in its ruin. He had to see Immortal Kirin and demand a clear answer!
Previously, Jin Caiwei had been alone; he could not be certain of her importance in Immortal Kirin's heart, and had he acted then and alerted Jiang Ping'an, he could forget about seizing the power of national destiny.
Now, however, all three of Immortal Kirin's wives were right here. He refused to believe that Immortal Kirin would fail to show himself once the three of them were captured!
Heaven's timing, earth's vantage, and human harmony—all three favored him.
"Since you refuse to speak, stay here, all of you!"
Guan Shanhai shed his former respectful demeanor. His expression turned cold and indifferent, like a supreme sovereign holding absolute power over life and death, before whom all living beings were merely straw dogs.
Though he had no wish to antagonize the Heavenly Court, information regarding Immortal Kirin was something he had to obtain.
Jin Caiwei repeated her earlier tactic. Countless bone shards compressed into two-dimensional planes flew forth, blanketing the sky so thoroughly that there was nowhere to dodge.
Guan Shanhai walked toward Jin Caiwei at an unhurried pace, allowing the bone shards to strike him.
The very shards that had chopped General Yu to pieces could not inflict the slightest scratch upon Guan Shanhai.
"If I am not mistaken, your Dao fruit is of a spatial nature, capable of stripping away the concept of 'height.'"
"Compressing bone shards into planes is a clever idea. Regrettably, you do not understand the sheer might of an immortal body."
Guan Shanhai did not even need to invoke a Dao fruit. By his immortal body alone, he could withstand every single shard.
An immortal existed on an entirely different plane. A half-immortal had ultimately not completed the metamorphosis and still belonged to the realm of mortals.
Among mortal methods, those qualified to harm an immortal were few and far between.
"I'll capture one first."
Guan Shanhai closed in on Jin Caiwei. His steps appeared slow, yet every stride employed Inches to the Ends of the Earth. He bore down like an imposing mountain, terrifying Jin Caiwei so deeply that she dared not move.
"Don't you dare!"
Ao Ling gave a sharp rebuke and transformed into an ink-black true dragon. Charging with her indestructible dragon horns, she rammed directly into Guan Shanhai and actually sent him flying.
"Fascinating. The intelligence gathered from the East Sea claimed you could temporarily attain an immortal body, and it seems there truly is something to it."
Ao Ling had prepared thoroughly. As early as when Lu Yang was preparing to deliver the immortal peach to the Imperial Palace, she had asked Jiang Lianyi to beat her up, allowing her to rapidly elevate herself to an immortal body.
In hindsight, it was fortunate she had prepared so well.
Facing an immortal adversary, the three women dared not slacken in the slightest. All three revealed their true forms: a white Qiongqi, a five-colored immortal phoenix, and an ink-black true dragon. The three great immortal beasts possessed colossal bodies several sizes larger than the mountains of the Imperial City, blotting out the sky and sun like ancient myths brought to life.
Feeling the oppressive weight of the immortal beasts, the cultivators in the Imperial City below trembled like winnowing sieves, unable to keep their feet.
"Heh, did you think having an immortal body would let you protect the two of them?"
Guan Shanhai let out a soft chuckle and retrieved a corpse from his storage ring that none of them recognized. The only certainty was that the person had been a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator in life.
The corpse originally had the appearance of a middle-aged man. As Guan Shanhai clamped his hand over its face, its form gradually shifted, changing from a middle-aged man with faint lines into a heavily wrinkled elder!
Ao Ling frowned, unable to discern what Guan Shanhai was doing.
To everyone's utter astonishment, the wrinkled elder suddenly opened his eyes and woke up!
Soon, someone below recognized his identity, their voice trembling: "He's... Great Yu's second Imperial Preceptor!"
The second Imperial Preceptor of Great Yu was a momentous figure who had shaped the course of Great Yu's history, and his portrait was widely known.
What was more, he had once died at the Dao Seeking Sect.
"What kind of technique is this?!" Jin Caiwei was stunned. Resurrecting the dead was one thing, but after being revived, he didn't even look like he had when he died—he wasn't even the same person!
"Master, where am I?" The second Imperial Preceptor looked at Guan Shanhai in utter bewilderment, equally unaware of what had happened.
Guan Shanhai stroked his disciple's head with fond affection. Offering no explanation, he pointed toward Jin Caiwei and Jiang Lianyi. "Go and capture those two. You may wound them, but do not take their lives."
"Understood!" Out of trust in his master, the second Imperial Preceptor did not hesitate. Under the gaze of the crowd, he vanished into thin air.
Everyone promptly forgot his existence. Even Ao Ling and the other two women merely watched Guan Shanhai with vigilance, completely forgetting what had just occurred.
Suddenly, Jin Caiwei felt a devastating blow to her back. A spiritual blade had plunged straight into her flesh.
Only then did the crowd remember the second Imperial Preceptor's existence, recalling what had happened moments before!
Ao Ling and Jiang Lianyi remembered what Lu Yang had recounted previously: Great Yu's second Imperial Preceptor possessed a rudimentary Karma Dao fruit that could erase his own karma. Had he not run into Bu Yaolian last time—who happened to counter him directly—any other half-immortal would have found him exceedingly difficult to deal with!
None of the three women had ever witnessed Guan Shanhai's method before. This was a Dao fruit that had never appeared even in the ancient era—not even as a rudimentary form!
Jiang Lianyi unleashed five-colored divine light, enveloping Jin Caiwei to heal her wounds.
Guan Shanhai looked at the grim Ao Ling with a beaming smile. "Now, what will you do?"
"And just how long can you maintain that immortal body of yours?"
Ao Ling's expression shifted. Indeed, she could not maintain an immortal body forever, and Guan Shanhai's methods were extraordinarily bizarre and difficult to handle. They could not flee even if they wanted to. This was an inescapable trap.
Witnessing this from below, Lu Yang grew terribly anxious and frantically shook the sleeping Immortal Fairy awake.
"Fairy, wake up! Disaster has struck!"
Inside the spiritual space, Immortal Fairy stirred from her wide, comfortable throne. Grunting a couple of times, she woke up with great reluctance.
"What is it, waking this immortal up? Is that boring play finally over?"
"Emperor Xia is gone!"
Immortal Fairy gave a wide yawn, not in the least surprised. "Then doesn't that mean the play is over?"
Lu Yang froze for a moment.
Suddenly, a hearty burst of laughter resonated across the sky above the Imperial City. The source of the voice seemed now distant, now near, drifting unpredictably. Guan Shanhai, who had been poised to seize the three women, froze in shock.
"Fellow Daoist Guan, how goes the refining of that power of national destiny?"
Guan Shanhai searched all around for the owner of the voice. It sounded deeply familiar; he had heard it before, yet for a moment he could not recall where!
Sensing something, Guan Shanhai shifted his gaze from the north of the Imperial City across to the south, where the Meng Mansion lay.
Above the Meng Mansion, a young figure stood with a faint smile, looking at Guan Shanhai and even waving a hand, as though greeting an old friend he had not seen in ages.
Guan Shanhai's memories were dragged back one hundred thousand years. Back then, Great Yu had fallen into a chaotic era, and two great factions arose to contend for supremacy over the realm—one led by a man surnamed Jiang, the other by a man surnamed Meng.
In the final battle for the empire, the two men had abandoned a clash between their armies, choosing instead to decide who would become the future emperor through a duel between themselves.
In that battle, Jiang Ping'an attained immortality.
And the man surnamed Meng had left an equally profound impression upon Guan Shanhai.
"Meng Junzi!"
Chapter 949