Facing the fifth-rank Yin Corpse he had painstakingly cultivated, Wujian struck without hesitation.
He paid no mind to the immense gulf between his own perfected Longevity-stage cultivation and the overwhelming power of his opponent.
As a veteran Spiritual Construct Bearer of one of the great law-lineages, he carried absolute confidence in his own strength.
This battle touched upon the very core of his Dao-path. He would fight with everything he had, bleeding himself of every reserve.
Even against a fifth-rank Yin Corpse, he dared to stand and fight!
The blood rain falling from the sky coalesced into a massive crimson dragon, lashing toward Yang Jia.
The Honey-Blood Spiritual Construct was driven to its limit, its rain infused with soul-eroding force.
This power, perfectly suited to countering Yin Ghosts, gnawed viciously at their strength.
Wujian unleashed his cultivation to the fullest, flinging out strange fate-arts as if they cost him nothing.
Meanwhile, a basin-sized black jade seal hovered at his command, slamming down onto the forehead of the Sea Star Yin Corpse.
That seal radiated a unique suppressive force. The moment it landed, it pinned the Yin Ghost lurking within.
Wujian, too, was forging the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal!
The Blood River Sect disciple had mastered a secret of the Yanfu Dao, the art of refining Spiritual Construct.
But unlike others, he did not use the method for Spiritual Construct-forging at the Destiny stage. Instead, he treated it as the cornerstone for his coming ascension into the Spirit-Subduing realm.
The seal he wielded was the Lingbao pattern known as the Black-Rope Great Hell Seal, ranked at the Violet-Eye tier.
His Longevity cultivation was already at perfection. He had come to Hunzhou precisely to find a sea-demon overlord, to catalyze Yin Corpse transformation, and harvest a high-grade Yin Ghost for use in forging his Spiritual Construct.
For the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal, nothing was more vital than a fitting Lingbao pattern, a trove of precious metals, and above all, a first-rate Yin Ghost.
His patterns were already in place. Through the Red Ridge affair, he had secured the necessary ores from the Isle of the She-Dizang.
Everything was ready. He only lacked the final spark!
And now, with just three days left in the Yin Year, he could not afford to fail. To wait three or five more years would be unbearable.
More than that, this gathering of great demons was an opportunity of rare fortune, something even the other military prefectures of the empire could never replicate.
Even if it meant burning his own lifespan, Wujian would crush these demon corpses here and now.
The Black-Rope Great Hell Seal hammered down upon the Sea Star Yin Corpse. Strange power spread through the Heavenly Seal's runes, conjuring chains of soul-binding iron.
Those chains dragged the six-rank Yin Ghost from the Sea Star's body, trapping it within the seal.
The Hell Seal shuddered as it devoured the ghost. Faint metallic luster began to seep across its surface.
Without pause, Wujian stamped the seal down on the remaining five-sixth-rank Yin Corpses.
When all six mighty Yin Ghosts had been absorbed, the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal was complete!
Wujian felt the Seal towering above his Dao, commanding all his strength. The Black-Rope Great Hell Seal pattern imprinted itself upon its foremost face.
Its burden of Life Measure points was shared, while its divine might and his own power swelled together.
His refined Blue-Blood Life Essence suddenly blazed and hardened, condensing into his first Violet-Eye Life Essence.
At that instant, Wujian stepped into the sixth rank Spirit-Subduing. From the lower three realms, he ascended into the middle three, crossing one of life's greatest thresholds.
And with that breakthrough, the Honey-Blood Spiritual Construct shattered into drifting snowflakes, melting seamlessly into his body and cultivation.
It was the perfect fusion of Spiritual Construct, a hallmark of the Spirit-Subduing realm, the foremost advantage of the Spiritual Construct Bearer.
After enduring the harsh grind of the lower three realms, the moment one's first Spiritual Construct ascended with them, it would merge flawlessly, saving decades of toil.
Now perfected through Honey-Blood, Wujian's Blood King Dharmic Manifestation transformed. Its power became tangible, its form solid.
The Blood King rose upon his flesh, becoming a visible Dharmic Armor.
Flesh without skin, a faceless carapace, yet gleaming and lustrous, not grotesque but magnificent.
It clung to him like blood-forged armor, lending him immense might.
This Dharmic Armor was the true weapon of the Spirit-Subduing stage
, something no ordinary rogue cultivator could ever form.
Only when the Manifestation and Spiritual Construct resonated in perfect harmony could such armament be born. This was the exclusive right of the great sect scions.
Wujian, armored in the Blood King, became a streak of crimson light, driving his Heavenly Seal once more into Yang Jia's forehead.
Having completed his breakthrough, suppressing a fifth-rank Yin Corpse was now almost effortless.
And with his dominion stretching across the field, every Yin Corpse lay shrouded beneath his power.
The tattered remnants of Hunzhou's prefectural forces, who had been cornered and desperate, finally slipped free of doom.
Shenpeng and Jingwei wasted no time, steering their treasure ships away without so much as a backward glance.
This battle had gutted Hunzhou. More than half its cultivation strength lay broken. It was a ruinous defeat.
And the cause of it all
was none other than this sudden, inexplicable appearance of the Blood River Sect's Spiritual Construct Bearer.
As the Yin Year neared its end, the proper course was to return to the island quickly, report the battle's outcome to the Divine Dynasty, and file a thorough complaint against Wujian in hopes of securing greater support.
Yet on the battlefield, only Wujian remained, carrying out the final steps of his cultivation breakthrough.
The Blood King's power erupted in full, releasing ten massive chains of flesh and blood that bound the Yin Corpse of Yangjia hand and foot, forcing it down against the water's surface.
The Revolving Heavenly Son Seal unfurled countless black chains, snaking straight into Yangjia's sea of consciousness.
Then, the great seal slowly rose into the air, dragging forth by sheer force a Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost.
Wujian's face was cold and stern, but his eyes betrayed his delight.
He had prepared meticulously for this very moment. Now, at last, he was reaping the richest of rewards.
The Revolving Heavenly Son Seal was six-sided, able to imprint six life patterns and bear Life Measure weight. It was profoundly mysterious.
But no Spiritual Construct could reach its maximum potential the instant it was forged. At first, it could usually only open one side of its seal.
Only by fusing into it a soul of a higher rank than the cultivator himself could more faces of the seal be unlocked.
For Wujian, beginning this ascension at the Seventh Rank, if he could subdue and fuse a Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost, his Heavenly Son Seal would immediately open a second face, and its might would rise dramatically.
This was the opportunity he had pursued relentlessly, wandering across half the Divine Dynasty's territories to find.
Now, with success almost in hand, Wujian was already imagining his elevated status and the new opportunities it would bring.
But at that very instant, disaster struck!
At the point where the Heavenly Son Seal's chains bound Yangjia, a tiny, almost invisible spatial fissure tore open, no thicker than a strand of silk.
From within, twenty razor-thin sword threads streamed forth like fish, coiling quietly around the chains of the Heavenly Son Seal. With a single slash, they cut every chain clean in two.
Then the twenty sword threads split: half whipped toward the Heavenly Son Seal itself, carving faint scars across its surface and knocking it aside; the other half slashed into the hovering Blood King that armored Wujian, gouging several deep, bone-revealing wounds.
At that moment, a tiny white-bone seal, no larger than a fingertip, shot out. It struck the Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost square on the forehead, sprouted a writhing tangle of threads, bound it tight, then dragged it away into a void rift.
The duck that had already reached Wujian's lips… flew away!
"AHHH!"
Wujian roared, his voice amplified by Mana until it burst like a sonic bomb across the sea's surface.
The Blood King was pushed to its limit, transforming into a colossal cadaver of crimson flesh that writhed and pounded the waves, raising towering tsunamis.
Thirty-six blood-red tentacles stretched from its body, thrashing violently.
"Pure Yang Ruins!"
"You bastard!"
"Where did this stray rat come from!?"
Helpless fury was the most humiliating of defeats, and what could he do?
Had he secured that Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost, Wujian would have forged one of the ten strongest foundations in the history of the Blood River Sect's Spiritual Construct Bearer disciples.
But now, with the greatest prize stolen, his ranking would plummet past the hundred mark.
A flicker of inner-demon doubt stirred within him, nearly shattering his Dao Heart. After scouring the sea in vain for any trace of his attacker, he finally streaked away as a crimson beam of light, fleeing into the distance.
...
Deep within the mountain gate of the Pure Yang Ruins, there stood a one-zhang-tall cliff known as the Sword-Grinding Cliff. Upon its surface were etched tens of thousands of sword marks, some deep, some shallow, some thick, some thin, but every single one exactly three inches in length.
Most of these sword marks, however, were weathered with frost and time, and their brilliance faded. Only the ones at the very bottom still seemed new and vibrant.
On this day, after lying unchanged for so long, the Sword-Grinding Cliff suddenly gained a brand-new sword mark!
Clang!
It was as if an invisible sword had cleaved the cliff, leaving behind a hair-fine scar, yet one that bit deep into the stone.
The fresh sword mark appeared at the very bottom of the cliff. Though unobtrusive, it immediately drew the gaze of an elderly Daoist.
At some unknown moment, Shangxi had appeared before the Sword-Grinding Cliff. He bent down, pressed his hand against the new mark, and carefully sensed the refined sword aura within. His face showed a trace of astonishment. Then he lifted his head toward the direction of Hunzhou, sinking into thought.
Among disciples of the Pure Yang Ruins, it was custom to take stone dust from the Sword-Grinding Cliff and blend it into their sword caskets when refining them.
When a Spiritual Construct Bearer of the sect achieved sufficient sword power, strong enough to leave a scar upon the cliff even from thousands of miles away, the Sword-Grinding Cliff would resonate and respond.
This new mark meant only one thing: at some point, the sect had gained a new Spiritual Construct Bearer!
Judging from the potency of the sword aura, this one's talent was extraordinary.
Shangxi could not help but feel a surge of anticipation at the thought of meeting this mysterious new disciple.
...
Meanwhile, within the Void Realm, the Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost was being utterly suppressed by the realm's power, pinned immovably beneath the weight of the Ghost Seal.
Jing Qian had now realized with absolute clarity that the inheritance of the Yanfu Path was the very bane of Yin Ghosts.
The Soulweavers, a mere Azurewing-rank life pattern, was already sufficient to annihilate Yin Ghosts with ease, let alone higher secret arts.
The refinement method for the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal was peculiar indeed: once the seal descended, even a Fifth-Rank Yin Ghost was left weak-boned, unable to rise.
With great effort, Jing Qian forced Yangjia's Yin Ghost together with his own Ghost Seal into the Void Furnace.
"Xili, stoke the flames, burn it for me!"
Inside the furnace, the black cat spirit's last reserve of Fate-Fire flared violently, igniting both Yin Ghost and Ghost Seal with fierce heat.
Jing Qian slammed the lid shut, sealing the Yin Ghost within.
Only then did he finally let out a long breath of relief.
The surprise he had been preparing in secret for several days had at last been sprung upon Wujian, and Jing Qian felt a thrill of excitement.
With this Yin Ghost in his possession, nothing now stood in the way of refining the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal. And since the ghost was of Fifth Rank, once the seal was forged, it would open with three faces already active.
Now it was only a matter of Fate-Fire to temper it to completion.
Xili still held twenty-four flames in reserve, enough to burn for seven days straight, until the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal was born.
Once this Spiritual Construct was forged, Jing Qian's cultivation foundation would be complete, and he could step directly into the Dragon-Elephant Realm.
By then, not only would he be able to bear new Heaven's Mandates, but he could also begin tempering his Manifestation, advancing his cultivation into an entirely new stage.
He could hardly wait.
As he busied himself with subduing the Yin Ghost, the storms of the outside world gradually quieted, and the sky that had been shrouded in gloom all year finally brightened. The Yin Year was over!
This year of drifting amid calamity had brought Jing Qian abundant harvests, his cultivation soaring upward at unprecedented speed.
Now that the disaster had passed, he felt both body and spirit pushed to their limits; he needed to set foot on land and recover.
Moreover, with so many dead across Hunzhou during this Yin Year, great upheaval was sure to follow.
His strength had advanced by leaps and bounds; he was more than ready to stir the waters.
He stamped his foot, and the Dingyuan Ship reemerged upon the sea, carrying him swiftly toward Hunzhou Island.
On deck, Jing Qian carefully studied the drastically altered information before him, sinking into deep contemplation:
[Host: Jing Qian]
Lifespan: 139 years
Life Measure: 9 taels 3 qian / 9 taels 9 qian
Life Essence: 163.43 (White Fang grade)
Spiritual Construct: Qingping Sword Casket, Revolving Heavenly Son Seal
Heaven's Mandate: Sumeru, Qingping's End
Heaven's Mandates Missing: Worldly Insight, Tushita Furnace
Life Patterns: Shadow Step (Violet), Flesh Bud Nurturing (Violet), Tidal Wave (Half-Violet), Soul-Weaving (Half-Blue), Ghost Seal (Half-Azure), Little Ghost (White), Longevity (Azure – 4 hours, 3 quarters)
Fate Arts: Dragon's March, Rune Imprinting, Lotus Seeding, Fate Calculation, Sword-Light Division, Forging Sword into Thread
With the Yanfu Path's Nether Cycle Dao Book in hand, his cultivation had finally formed into a complete and coherent system.
All of his future cultivation steps now lay neatly arrayed in Jing Qian's mind.
So long as he proceeded step by step, completing each item on his list, he would forge the strongest possible foundation and refine the most flawless Dharma Manifestation.
After carefully organizing his path, he divided the work before reaching Manifestation Condensation into three major tasks:
...
Jing Qian activated the power of Worldly Insight, and in front of him cascaded a torrent of data, like a waterfall of flowing light:
Qingping Sword Casket – Deduction Task: Link Life Patterns
Weaving Souls: Completed
Longevity: 78%
Sumeru: 18%
Shadow Step: 46%
Ghost Seal: 89%
Little Ghost: 89%
Flesh Bud Nurturing: 48%
With a second Golden Root pattern integrated, the power of Worldly Insight had expanded, now capable of running multiple deduction tasks simultaneously.
Jing Qian customized it to his liking, crafting a task panel by hand.
The very first mission he assigned was simple: perfect the Sword Casket.
For him, strengthening the Qingping Sword Casket promised the most immediate surge in combat strength.
Even before, merely by linking a single Weaving Souls pattern, his sword strikes had grown by more than thirty percent in power, an edge that had proved decisive in his clash with Wujian.
That one link alone had gifted him the secret art of Forging Sword into Threads, condensing sword light into razor-thin filaments of killing force.
And each additional pattern linked would only amplify the casket's power further.
...
Next was the systematic upgrading of his Yanfu Path Patterns.
From his Void Realm, Jing Qian drew out a lump of gray, gelatinous pulp and swallowed it whole.
The Sumeru Dao Tablet glowed. His Ghost Seal now gained +1 Recast Attempt.
That jelly was the refined residue of a Ninth-Rank Yin Bone, precisely the material required for reforging the Ghost Seal and Little Ghost patterns.
His storage space was full of Yin Bones, and until now, he'd had no way to digest them. This made them perfect fuel for reforging.
It was the very reason he had boldly chosen the Little Ghost and Ghost Seal with plentiful materials; he could push them both to their ultimate limits.
...
The third, and most critical, was the successful refinement of the Revolving Heavenly Son Seal, his second Spiritual Construct and imprinting at least the Sumeru Heaven's Mandate upon it, solidifying his Dao foundation.
The seal's birth was only seven days away.
Within the Void Realm, Xili the Furnace Spirit was working like a tireless craftsman, diligently fueling the furnace with Fate Fire while ferrying ingots of spiritual metals into its blaze.
Forging this seal required ingots worth nearly twenty thousand gold.
Had it not been for the rich harvest from his venture to She Dizang Island, he would never have afforded such extravagant consumption.
Thanks to the Dao Book's secret methods, Xili now labored with full competence and obedience, saving Jing Qian from endless tedium.
Otherwise, he would never have been able to step away from the furnace for a moment during the seven days of forging.
...
All three pillars of cultivation were advancing rapidly.
Jing Qian sat calmly aboard the Dingyuan, savoring a rare moment of peace, almost even at leisure.
He lifted a hand, and with a ripple of Mana, a ghostly shadow flickered from his left ear.
The phantom was a mirror of himself in face and form, only more insubstantial.
For the first time, he had summoned the life pattern Little Ghost, and he found it strange indeed.
It was as though he now possessed a second self, a spirit-body clone with its own faint awareness. Its Mana reserves, however, were only a tenth of his own, about fifteen White Fang Life Essence.
It had no innate techniques of its own; it could only borrow one of Jing Qian's Pattern powers at a time.
He chose to lend it the power of Tidal Wave.
With a thought, he commanded:
"Take the helm."
The Little Ghost immediately obeyed, channeling the Tidal Wave to seize control of the Dingyuan.
The ship sailed smoothly across the boundless sea, heading straight for Hunzhou Island.
The return trip would take ten days, just enough for the Heavenly Son Seal to be born.
Jing Qian withdrew into his cabin, wholly absorbed in cultivation.
At the heart of Jingzhou, within the imperial city of Yingdu, the Golden Luan Hall stood resplendent.
Seated upon the dragon throne was a middle-aged emperor in full dragon robes. He addressed a young boy standing below:
"Ying Hao, you are now seven years old. Your Vital-Nurturing is complete. You may burn your body to fix your Pattern and accept a Spiritual Construct."
"Our Ying Clan's twelve Heaven's Mandates still have five unclaimed. Have you chosen one?"
The boy, radiant with youthful grace and natural poise, bowed and replied:
"Uncle, I have tested my Life Measure seven times and calculated my path.
"Among the family's Heaven's Mandates, only the Jingshao Lightning Pattern and the Fentian Blaze Pattern align with me."
"Yet choosing a Heaven's Mandate must also accord with the Spiritual Construct. I do not know whether the secret vault holds a Spiritual Construct suited to them."
The emperor nodded.
"In the vault remains a Thunder Qilin, a Fourth-Rank Star Spirit. With it, you may forge the Jingshao Lightning Pattern."
But Ying Hao, seemingly unsatisfied, asked again:
"Uncle… is there no higher Spiritual Construct? Forgive my greed, but I wish to forge my Pattern directly with an Upper Three-Rank Spiritual Construct."
The emperor chuckled softly and said:
"Since you insist, then forge your Fentian Blaze Heaven Pattern with the Third-Rank Flame Rakshasa.
"If you succeed, you will carry two Heaven's Mandates upon you. Across three generations, you will be unmatched.
"But since your ambition soars so high, if you fail to contain it and damage your foundation, do not blame me."
"Oh, and you must complete your ascension before the fifth day of the fifth month.
"After that, go to the Zhuoling Grotto-Heaven and suppress your peers completely, so that the prestige of the Ying Clan will shine forth."
The boy bowed:
"Your nephew obeys!"
...
In a vast kitchen hall, a rotund chef was furiously berating a pudgy apprentice:
"How can you be so stupid!"
"These Dragon Liver and Phoenix Gall are the easiest of all Fourth-Rank ingredients to handle!
"You, who managed to cultivate the Kitchen King (Zaowang) Dharma Manifestation, are the pattern heir of our Zaowang Hall.
"This dish, Dragon-Phoenix Grand Congee, once eaten with the Kitchen King Dharma Manifestation, can increase Life Measure by a whole tael. If you fail to cook it properly, I'll throw you into the Great Furnace to roast for three days!"
The words made the pudgy boy break into a cold sweat, the ladle in his hand steaming from his frantic movements.
Neither pot nor ladle was ordinary; they were a matched set of rare Spiritual Construct.
Though they burdened him with lifespan cost like any Spiritual Construct, they doubled the Life Measure they provided.
In the massive cauldron, Dragon Liver and Phoenix Gall glowed with surging Mana radiance, slowly melding under the boy's clumsy control.
Beneath the pot roared a Fifth-Rank Life Furnace, stoking the golden Life-Flame that boiled the porridge.
Above the Violet grade furnaces lie the Fifth-Rank "Titled Life Furnaces."
This one's title was Six Rice Hall, a name rustic to the core.
But when one recalled that all fourteen dining halls of Zaowang Hall used nothing less than Fifth-Rank furnaces to cook, awe was unavoidable.
...
Behind the mountains of Zhushan Sect, a little girl was crying miserably, her wails sharp and pitiful.
Looking closer, she was locked in a gruesome struggle with a golden centipede more than a meter long.
The two were head-to-tail, gnawing at each other. The centipede had already chewed her left foot clean off.
Beside her stood a kindly looking old woman, who said gently:
"Qiqi, bite harder! I've already snapped this Fate-Prayer Centipede's fangs with Mana. It won't be able to chew through you."
"If you out-bite it, this Spiritual Construct will become yours, helping you forge an unrivaled Dao foundation."
"But if you lose, then your junior sister will take your place and this great fortune will belong to her instead."
Hearing this, little Qiqi suddenly stopped crying and bit fiercely into the centipede's tail.
Her sharp teeth tore it open, juices spurring everywhere.
No one knew how Zhushan Sect had devised such a bizarre cultivation method, pitting disciples against high-tier poisonous beasts in contests of devouring.
If the disciple won, the beast became a Spiritual Construct, and the victor ascended as a Zhushan Spiritual Construct Bearer.
If the disciple lost, she became food nourishment for the beast's rise.
This particular Fate-Prayer Centipede had already devoured four core disciples. Whether Qiqi could prevail remained to be seen.
...
The Twelve Dao Lineages of the Scholastic Palace were no trivial matter.
Each lineage's Spiritual Construct Bearers were terrifying monsters in their own right.
To say they were all cheats, all overpowered, was no exaggeration.
And yet even among this crowd of prodigies, Jing Qian felt no fear.
On the second day of sailing, his Little Ghost Pattern successfully linked with the Qingping Sword Casket, transferring one tael of Life Measure to the casket.
The Sword Casket gained a new divine effect, called Sword Shadow.
With this power, every sword strike left behind an echo strike, a spectral blade carrying ten percent of the original's power at no additional Mana cost.
Combined with Sword Light Division, once mastered to perfection, Jing Qian's sword could rot mountains and seas with a single blow.
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