Su Min'er silently stepped out of the cabin and onto the deck.
She knew very clearly that all her kin had perished on the island ahead.
And the murderers who had slaughtered her family now occupied her homeland, desecrating it at will.
That searing hatred of blood and death drove her to cast aside all fear, to break through every obstacle, until she stood here.
In the depths of her heart, she believed it was only through her ancestors' protection that she had survived thus far.
Now, she prayed once more for their blessing
that they would guide her hands to sweep away all filth.
From her storage treasure, Su Min'er withdrew three ninth-grade White Fang weapons and laid them before her.
Then she drew a jade knife, slashed her own left palm, and let her blood spill across the weapons.
The Su clan's secret art, The Jade-Washed Spear Fate Method, came alive in her hands.
Extravagant!
To burn three entry-tier spirit weapons at once, this was the true heritage of a Life Furnace blood heir.
At that moment, deep within the ancestral mountain of Jiangzhu Island, the Azure-Burning Furnace flared in resonance.
A blazing column of Fate Fire shot skyward, streaking toward the distant sea.
Before the ancestral shrine, the three great Dragon-Elephant cultivators of Tsushima Island sensed it at once.
Jiu Jianwan's voice rasped coldly:
"Fate Fire has gone seaward! Likely the last remnants of the Jing or Su bloodlines attempting to ignite their fate!"
"Zhendou, go investigate. Be cautious, don't end up like Aoli and Fuying. If anything seems amiss, withdraw and return to discuss with me."
The cultivator wielding the Jiaotu form rose at once and sped toward the sea.
If not for the fact that Jiu Jianwan and Youzang's Dharma forms were ill-suited for sea battle, they would have gone together for safety.
But before Zhendou had flown far, a second pillar of Fate Fire soared into the sky!
Jiu Jianwan barked again:
"Youzang, go guard the Su ancestral shrine. The two of us will hold these positions. No one must set foot in the ancestral mountain. Everything else can wait until Zhendou returns."
The island was empty of the living now. Only the ancestral mountain mattered.
The two Dragon-Elephants split their guard, doing everything possible to seal off risk.
...
Meanwhile, aboard the Dingyuan, Su Min'er's grand, lavish fate ritual pressed on.
She never realized that right beside her, Jing Qian was mirroring her movements, laying out three fresh sea-demon treasures, summoning the Three Sacrifices Fate Method, and calling down a flame of his own.
The last heirs of the Jing and Su bloodlines, both invoking Fate Fire, side by side upon the same treasure ship.
Yet the difference could not be starker.
For Su Min'er, it was her first time in the perilous burning of body and soul, walking the knife-edge between life and death.
For Jing Qian, it was as casual as a trip to the market, just stocking up on supplies again.
His strength was far greater now than in his second or third Fate Burnings.
The mysterious inner space he entered had grown firmer, more stable, more enduring.
This strange realm treated him like a seasoned customer, skipping the preliminaries and laying out three Golden Root life patterns directly for him to choose from.
As he gazed upon them, the power of his Worldly Insight pattern flared, piercing through their veils.
Three strands of meaning sank straight into his mind.
The first: vast emptiness drawn into a mustard seed, endless cosmos enfolded within
another Sumeru Pattern.
The second: wisdom, spirit, truth-seeking, heart-questioning, the formless giving rise to form
another Worldly Insight Pattern.
And the third: the world as a furnace, burning both life and heart; in the flames, a golden body forged; the pure joy of Tushita's realm
a completely new pattern:
Life Pattern: Tushita Furnace
Rank: Golden Root
"Entice with illusions, delight in Tushita's bliss. Burn it all to ash!"
Jing Qian was silent, immersed in the true meanings of these three.
Here, in this mysterious realm, even his Worldly Insight pattern had shed mortal veils and risen to a higher clarity.
For a moment, hesitation stirred in him.
But at last, he chose decisively
The new pattern: the Tushita Furnace.
The space shattered around him, and this sublime treasure-born pattern sank into his brow, into his sea of consciousness.
A surge of world-burning power flashed through Jing Qian's sea of consciousness.
Beneath that overwhelming will, his very spirit was tempered anew.
His consciousness sea, once scarcely two inches wide, suddenly expanded fivefold, opening into a full foot in breadth.
In that instant, his Life Essence surged past forty strands, while his divine sense itself leapt straight to the level of a perfected Dragon-Elephant cultivator.
Thus, his fourth Fate Fire burning had succeeded. Jing Qian sat cross-legged on the deck, beginning his new cultivation.
This was already the fourth time his body had endured the flames. But with years of nourishment from White Fang's beast-flesh and the essence of innate vitality, his spirit and flesh were tightly fused, his foundation deep.
So beneath the flames of fate, his body suffered little harm.
Unburdened, he could focus wholly on comprehending his new pattern, the Tushita Furnace.
With the aid of Worldly Insight, the divine powers of this treasure-born pattern streamed into his mind.
And he realized in awe: this Furnace was both a supreme smithing cauldron and a peerless Life Furnace itself.
Inside, he could ignite soul flames with Life Essence to refine weapons or pills, or implant island veins to accumulate Fate Fire for the burning.
More than that, it could store Life Essence, temper divine sense, purify energy, and harden the body
an all-in-one supreme furnace.
Jing Qian's imagination ran wild, countless ideas flashing through how to test its wonders.
But just as he immersed himself deeper, a prickling sense of danger shot through him.
His eyes snapped open.
Far across the waves, a streak of azure spiritual light cleaved through the sea, raising white spray.
A Dragon-Elephant cultivator was racing toward him at full speed.
At that same moment, Su Min'er's burning of fate also concluded.
Though her face was pale, her eyes shone brilliantly. Pure spiritual force radiated from her frame. She had stepped into the Ninth-Rank Fatebinding Realm.
She rose, bowed deeply to Jing Qian, and said:
"Thank you, elder brother, for your escort. The road ahead is perilous; I will go to the island alone. May we meet again in this life."
But Jing Qian scarcely looked at her.
Instead, he flung out dozens of threads into the sea, sweeping up a school of fish.
Controlling them to circle on the surface, he wrapped a White Fang material in countless threads, weaving it into a human shape, and cast it into the shoal.
Only then did he turn to Su Min'er:
"The Dragon-Elephant from Tsushima Island is rushing here. Go quickly, don't interfere with my baiting."
"Keep your cloak tight. Don't let them glimpse you."
Su Min'er started, then obeyed without argument. Activating her spider-silk cloak with Life Essence, she sank into the depths, vanishing from sight.
Jing Qian, meanwhile, continued weaving his strange decoys' peculiar shapes, intricate patterns, ominous and inscrutable.
The bait had been cast.
But what kind of monster or cultivator would bite?
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