Within the Pure White Domain, the hem of a white silk robe swept along the ground.
Love's Hundred Bones Resonance narrowed her crimson-gold eyes into a smile, crouched down, and held out her right hand in front of the Record of the Myriad Worlds, three fingers folded up. "This Emperor will count to three."
"W-wait—" The strand of silver-grey residual consciousness that was the Record of the Myriad Worlds jerked to a halt barely a hair from the white-haired girl's knuckles. "I am a relic of the old world. I observe ten thousand fated tracks—"
"The observer cannot observe herself."
"Mm. And?"
Unfortunately, though Love's Hundred Bones Resonance had asked the question, she had no intention whatsoever of waiting for an answer.
Thud.
A very familiar dull impact echoed through the Pure White Domain.
That wisp of silver-grey residual consciousness had taken the shape of a girl of solid flesh, and she was now curled up like a boiled shrimp in the corner of the light-screen, both hands clamped over her stomach, tears glittering at the corners of her eyes.
She didn't understand. She truly did not understand.
It was one thing for the owner of this body to be fond of delivering enlightenment by physically hammering her in the gut — but why did this white-haired great buddha hidden away inside the Love Laboratory punch in exactly the same style?!
Love's Hundred Bones Resonance brushed nonexistent dust off her hands and looked down at her from above.
The pain was bad enough that the Record of the Myriad Worlds couldn't even get her eyes open. She, a ten-thousand-year observer, a relic of the old world — ever since she had run into Gu Chengming, she had been reduced to this sorry state again and again.
"Get lost. Back where you belong."
Love's Hundred Bones Resonance waved a lazy hand. "Sit tight in that layer of grey mist outside. If you dare step over the line again, next time it won't be settled with a single punch."
Before the words had finished, the world spun in front of the Record of the Myriad Worlds, and she was booted out of the Pure White Domain like a sack of rags flung out a door.
In the Sea of Consciousness, in the grey-mist region of the system interface.
The Record of the Myriad Worlds' residual consciousness barely steadied itself, dazed, as though her soul had been knocked clean out of her.
She hung there in midair, blank-faced. Whenever her divine sense so much as brushed the edge of the panel marked [Love Laboratory], she flinched all over like a startled cat and reflexively clutched a stomach she did not actually have.
Gu Chengming was busy regulating his breathing at that moment. Sensing the stir in his Sea of Consciousness, he sent a thread of divine sense over. "You went quiet just now. Where'd you go?"
[Record of the Myriad Worlds, distinctly guilty: Nowhere! I was merely lost in thought!]
Gu Chengming had his doubts. He had a vague idea she'd slipped into the Love Laboratory, and that she'd most likely run into something in there — but seeing her trembling and tight-lipped, he decided to file the question away for later, and instead pulled the Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom a little closer.
"Hundred Emperor, you worked hard back there."
"Heavenly Emperor Gu, This Emperor wants—"
"…"
"Wow, Heavenly Emperor Gu, you read my mind!"
Outside the cavern, the air slowly loosened.
The few silver-grey veins of light crawling across the vault above had withdrawn without a trace. Deep in the Emerald Screen Range the earth veins fell silent again, and even that suffocating tribulation pressure had dispersed entirely.
Qin Wuwang was the first to draw a long breath, the sword intent in his sleeve folding slowly away. True Lord Baicang's fingers eased their grip on his jade tablet, the thin frost inside his sleeve melting off. Song Heng lifted his eyes to the sky, the look beneath his heavy brows hard to read.
The Nameless Daoist stroked his crane-white hair, by now a hopeless mess, and sighed, shaking his head. "Tsk, tsk, tsk… what a sin. What a sin."
All four Fifth Realm powers let out their held breath, though not one of them truly lowered his guard. Qin Wuwang shot Song Heng a cold glance. "Sect Head Song, this Holy Son of your sect really is a remarkable man."
Song Heng laughed it off. "Oh, ordinary, ordinary."
Qin Wuwang's already gloomy face darkened another shade. The Nameless Daoist chose that moment to cut in, all smiles. "Speaking of which, that sword stroke from your sect's Supreme Elder just now was rather exquisite as well."
Qin Wuwang's eyes narrowed. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing at all." The Nameless Daoist's smile crinkled his eyes shut. "I merely happened to recall how your sect's Cease-Strife Bell was blown to pieces by young friend Gu with a single punch. Hard not to feel a touch wistful."
Qin Wuwang's fingers tightened inside his sleeve. True Lord Baicang finally spoke, and his voice was cold. "The Dharma-Station's whereabouts are unknown, and you still have the leisure to trade barbs?"
Song Heng made a puzzled sound. "Whereabouts unknown?"
True Lord Baicang stared at him. Song Heng met the stare without flinching. "From where This Venerable One stood, the Dharma-Station's aura seemed to simply fade out. As for where it faded to—"
He stroked his beard, his tone growing ever more open and guileless. "Fellow Daoist Baicang, can you still sense the Dharma-Station's aura?"
"…"
True Lord Baicang's expression cooled visibly. Watching the other man play the fool stoked a fire in him.
But it was far too early to fall out openly. What had just happened was too strange — strange enough that he was beginning to suspect this Dharma-Station, sprung up out of nowhere, was bait some greater power had dangled. The aura of the Pre-Nascent Dharma Rank deep in the Emerald Screen Range had vanished utterly at some instant after Gu Chengming ducked into the cavern. The pressure of the Heavenly Dao's tribulation had come sweeping in on its heels, then withdrawn just as soundlessly. After a commotion on that scale, the Dharma-Station still had not emerged.
Under ordinary circumstances there was only one explanation for that. The Dharma-Station had died in the womb, and been utterly devoured by some existence.
But the phrase "devour a Pre-Nascent Dharma Rank" was absurd on its face. A Dharma-Station was a nail the Dao drove into this world; the weight of a single unborn one was enough to carry a peak Fifth Realm cultivator up into the Sixth. Was that the sort of thing any stray mutt could swallow?
True Lord Baicang was silent a long while, and at last something like retreat stirred in him. Even if he laid hands on this Dharma-Station it would likely be a thorny thing to hold — never mind whether it was a genuine Dharma-Station at all. In the end he produced four words. "This matter is suspect."
"Suspect it is, then." The Nameless Daoist spread his hands, smiling. "Either way, it's nothing we're going to untangle standing here."
The old Daoist might be waving it off as beyond understanding, but privately he had most of it worked out.
Right now he simply thought that boy was outrageous. Before he came down the mountain, he had only meant to tuck this piece of uncut jade back to the Myriad-Theft Gate and polish it slowly into a fine seedling for the next Gate Master. As things stood, the Myriad-Theft Gate probably couldn't hold a figure that large at all.
And just as the four Fifth Realm powers were still shaking off the aftershocks, on the other side Gu Chengming had evened out his breathing and was gathering himself to walk out of the cave, carrying the Pre-Nascent Dharma Rank that the Love Laboratory had "devoured."
The Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom bounced along beside him, still pressing her case.
"Heavenly Emperor Gu, kisses aren't enough. This Emperor put in serious work back there! I want another—"
She never finished. The cavern went dead still, as though every thing in creation had been pinned down by an invisible hand.
[Qingxin Formula, expression changing at once: Chengming!]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method, going grim: This is bad. This is—!]
[Red Dust Phantom Body Formula, on maximum alert: The flow of qi has been crushed dead!]
Inside the Sea of Consciousness every technique sounded at once, and in the same instant every one of them fell silent. The Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom had been grinning a heartbeat ago; now she stopped short, blood and qi churning through her more violently by the second.
She put Gu Chengming behind her without thinking, her white hair lifting in a wind that wasn't there, the crimson gold in her eyes thickening until it looked solid.
"…Heavenly Emperor Gu." Her voice pulled tight, a rare thing for her. "There's another enemy!"
Outside, in that same moment, all four Fifth Realm cultivators felt the pressure.
Whatever Qin Wuwang had been about to say jammed in his throat. The jade tablet hovering before True Lord Baicang shuddered, and the true essence in his sleeves began flowing backward beyond his control. Song Heng's pupils shrank; his robes stirred at his sides with no wind to move them. The smile froze on the Nameless Daoist's face, his fingers stopping mid-stroke in his beard, his whole expression going cold at visible speed.
"…" The old Daoist's Myriad-Theft Spirit Pupils spun frantically, trying to read the newcomer's qi. In the next breath they shook violently in their sockets.
A small, crisp crack sounded behind his eyes, and countless threads of blood seeped out over his lids.
He clapped both hands over his eyes, face bloodless, and staggered back half a step. Never in his life had he swallowed a loss like this in silence.
The Myriad-Theft Spirit Pupils, handed down from the Myriad-Theft Immortal Sovereign, could steal the Dao of the world and observe all its workings. But this pressure did not fall within the scope of the Fifth Realm at all.
"Sixth Realm," the old Daoist forced out.
Song Heng, Baicang and Qin Wuwang all went a shade paler at once. Before any of them could think it further through, a figure appeared soundlessly in the air before them — as though he had always belonged there, and had only now permitted himself to be seen.
Daoist robes woven of moon-white and black, the hem embroidered with rings of impossibly intricate patterning. At a glance it looked like cloud motifs. Look closer and it resembled countless twisted repetitions of two characters — "life" and "death" — circling endlessly through the design.
He said nothing. He only hung there in the air, looking quietly down at the four Fifth Realm cultivators below.
And with nothing more than that single glance, all four of them dropped to their knees.
Qin Wuwang ground his back teeth and tried to force himself upright, and found he couldn't move so much as a finger. True Lord Baicang's face was ashen, his legs trembling beneath his robes; he clenched his jaw and did not dare make a sound. Song Heng's eyes went wide, and that was all they did — he couldn't push out even a grunt. Every trace of color drained from the Nameless Daoist's face; hands still pressed over his eyes, he knelt in midair, chest heaving.
The old Daoist's thoughts raced. Who was this man? Why appear here? Nearly every Sixth Realm power within the Great Qian had a file on record somewhere. How could this one's qi be so utterly unfamiliar?
And… that pattern on his robes. A passage of unbelievably ancient record flashed through his mind, and his whole body locked up.
—The Eternal Life Sect?!
Before the thought had finished forming, inside the cavern the pressure had forced Gu Chengming and the Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom out through the cave mouth whether they liked it or not.
The two of them were all but bodily "moved" into the line of sight of the Eternal Life Sect Perfected One. Seeing it, the Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom flew into a rage, her white hair standing on end, crimson-gold blood-qi condensing outside her body into a solid shell of imperial aura. She stepped forward, brought both fists together, and smashed them down into the ground.
The newcomer didn't even raise his head. He lifted a single finger, idly, and tapped it forward.
That imperial aura shield, condensed from the Primordial Imperial Aura and strong enough to run wild in the face of a late Fifth Realm cultivator, burst like a punctured soap bubble.
The backwash of that one finger blew the phantom a good twenty feet backward. Her white hair fell scattered as she dropped back to Gu Chengming's side, and she stared blankly down at her own small hands, which were slowly turning transparent.
"…Th-This Emperor's Primordial Imperial Aura…"
Gu Chengming's hand came up on instinct to catch her. This was bad.
She had already burned through a great deal in the earlier fight against that late Fifth Realm opponent.
On top of that, the ceiling on any phantom summoned by the [Endless War God] CG depended entirely on Gu Chengming's own spiritual power — and now, after taking a hit from this unknown arrival, she clearly couldn't hold together much longer.
The newcomer watched the fading Hundred Bones Resonance with open interest.
Anger surged up through Gu Chengming.
The Hundred Bones Resonance couldn't truly be wounded. Even if she dispersed completely, she would only revert to her dialogue-box form.
But as a gal-game veteran, how could he stand by while someone humiliated one of his romance targets right in front of him?!
Fresh off a brutal battle, his spiritual power already run dry, Gu Chengming gathered every scrap of strength in his body without hesitation and, blood running from his nose and mouth, circulated the strongest strike he could presently produce.
—Infinite Love.
He drove that thread of energy almost on reflex, meaning to put it between the newcomer and the Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom. Platinum radiance flared, gathering in his palm into a small, dense ball of light—
The newcomer still didn't care. He snapped his fingers, and the platinum aura belonging to Love's Hundred Bones Resonance was swallowed as though by some kind of death-energy. Gu Chengming never got the punch out; the light scattered to nothing, and the backlash struck him all the harder for it. He coughed up another mouthful of blood.
[Qingxin Formula, flustered for once: Chengming, don't meet it head-on!]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method, voice heavy: There is an off-taste in this man's qi. It is not the qi of any ordinary cultivation lineage. It resembles—]
The next moment, the newcomer's voice pulled Gu Chengming's attention off the dialogue boxes.
"—All of you here, hear this poor Daoist out. I come from the Eternal Life Sect."
"Merely to collect something."
[Record of the Myriad Worlds, frowning slightly: …The Eternal Life Sect?]
[If this truly is the Eternal Life Sect, then where did this man come from?]
[That I failed to observe him just now was not simply because his realm exceeds my ceiling of observation. He does not fall within my range of observation at all.]
[This man must have come out of somewhere that cannot be come out of.]
[Record of the Myriad Worlds, privately: Why does this world line hold so many strange affairs and stranger people? The Eternal Life Sect as I know it has no Sixth Realm to call upon at this point in time.]
A genuine, unmistakable chill spread through the Nameless Daoist. Someone from the Eternal Life Sect?!
Since when did the Eternal Life Sect still have a living Sixth Realm?
And besides — weren't all the Sixth Realms of this age supposed to have already gone to that place…
At that thought the Nameless Daoist went rigid, as though something had struck him, and cold welled up from the pit of him.
Could it be that they had failed…?
But the Eternal Life Sect's people — how had the Eternal Life Sect's people broken free?
With no idea what was running through the Nameless Daoist's mind, Gu Chengming forced his head up and met the gaze of the man who claimed to come from the Eternal Life Sect. He had thought he'd seen his share of scenes by now.
The struggle right after he crossed over. The killing on the Hidden Dragon List. The Returning River in Floating Isle City. The battle across time with the Red Dust Immortal. The Heavenly Dao tribulation he'd only just barely survived—
Every last one of them a scene carved permanently into memory.
But this was plainly the most dangerous moment of all… a development entirely outside anything he had anticipated.
The Hundred Bones Resonance's phantom went on fading at his side, dissolving slowly away, yet those crimson-gold eyes stayed locked on the Perfected One opposite, the fury in them undimmed.
"Heavenly Emperor Gu." Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper. "It's This Emperor's fault… I didn't put my strength into it just now."
Gu Chengming said nothing. He rested a hand lightly on her thinning shoulder, then straightened his spine, faced the gaze in the shadow of that hood, and spoke slowly.
"What is it you're referring to, sir?"
Getting out of this was plainly going to be difficult. At the very least, he had to understand what was actually going on.
Why had all of this become tangled up with the Eternal Life Sect? Since when did the Eternal Life Sect have a spare Sixth Realm?! Who was the man in front of him? Learn the reasons first, and then, perhaps, he could find a way out of a dead position.
The Eternal Life Sect Perfected One seemed to laugh softly. "Young friend. That Pre-Nascent Dharma Rank you swallowed — this poor Daoist has already chosen a name for it."
"It was always the thing I came to collect."
"You have… been holding it on your tongue for me for a full hour now."
—The Dharma-Station?!
Wasn't the Dharma-Station something the Record of the Myriad Worlds had made? Or else…
Gu Chengming's thoughts raced, and he landed on a new problem almost at once. His face changed.
That wasn't right!
The Record of the Myriad Worlds had only ever said she was anchored to this unborn Dharma-Station. She had never once said she had made it.
The birth of a Dharma-Station required a seed. Perhaps the Record of the Myriad Worlds had poured enormous effort into cultivating that seed, had even raised the Dharma-Station into something wholly her own — but she was not the one who had sown it.
So he had been careless from the very beginning?
Gu Chengming drew a long breath. "So this Dharma-Station, and the Dao Plague as well — all of it was an arrangement of the Eternal Life Sect's?"
Something like appreciation flickered through the newcomer's eyes, though he went on at his own unhurried pace. "That is a long story. Since young friend has swallowed it, this poor Daoist will explain the matter clearly for you."
"Beneath the Emerald Screen Range, the source of the Dao Plague left behind by the old world has been gathering for ten thousand years. Ten thousand years of sediment like that is first-rate material."
"To my Eternal Life Sect, its value is beyond measure."
The Perfected One's voice stayed flat, with not a trace of feeling in it. "What is called the Dao Plague is no ordinary pestilence. The world believes the Dao Plague poisons cultivators. The world is mistaken."
"What the Dao Plague poisons is the 'Dao' itself."
"…"
Kneeling in midair, Song Heng, Baicang and Qin Wuwang all changed color at once.
"The Dao — itself?"
The words shook out of True Lord Baicang's throat. The Dao was the rule of heaven and earth, the source of all laws, the far shore every cultivator spent a lifetime reaching toward. Setting the word "poison" beside "the Dao itself" was flatly, staggeringly absurd.
"And therefore, the reason this Dharma-Station was gestated at all—"
"—is that generations of my Eternal Life Sect's Perfected Ones raised it with their own hands, by a thousand contrivances."
The hell — now it was you people who raised it? Wasn't it the Record of the Myriad Worlds who raised it?
Hearing that much, Gu Chengming was annoyed enough to laugh. Clearly this Perfected One's promise to "explain the matter clearly" was nothing but a game. The man had no intention of explaining anything; he was spinning half-truths and watching how they reacted.
As if she had caught the drift of Gu Chengming's suspicion, the Record of the Myriad Worlds considered a moment and spoke. [In ten thousand years I have never observed this sect directly interfering with the earth veins of the Emerald Screen Range.]
[In other words, the Eternal Life Sect does not know I exist.]
[…And conversely, I did not know the Eternal Life Sect existed. Neither knew of the other, and yet both schemed for the same thing.]
Reading that aside, Gu Chengming let out a quiet sigh. So it had all been a farce of mistaken assumptions — though he had only his own carelessness to blame. He had assumed the Record of the Myriad Worlds was the final schemer behind everything. He'd never imagined there was a greater hand still above her.
The Perfected One continued. "This poor Daoist came here today for that Pre-Nascent Dharma Rank on the verge of descending into the world."
"Before the Dharma-Station ever descended, we had already chosen its name."
"That 'Edict Name' is the means by which the Perfected Ones of my Eternal Life Sect anchor a Dharma-Station and pass it down from generation to generation."
"The moment the Dharma-Station descends and the Edict Name settles into place, that Dharma-Station falls wholly into the Eternal Life Sect's grasp."
"After which the source of the Dao Plague is drawn entire into the Dharma-Station, becoming the capital by which one Perfected One of my sect proves his Dao."
At that he finally tipped his chin up a fraction, and a faint cold smile could just be made out. "Young friend."
"That one swallow of yours today did not take down a Dharma-Station. It took down a thousand years of the Eternal Life Sect's planning."
"…"
The Fifth Realm cultivators were struck dumb, every one of them. Gu Chengming drew a deep breath, and when he lifted his head he met that gaze in the shadow head-on.
"If the Edict Name is the Eternal Life Sect's means of anchoring—"
"—then when I swallowed the Dharma-Station just now, where did that Edict Name go?"
"…"
The Eternal Life Sect Perfected One paused, then said, slowly:
"Sharp of you, young friend. That Edict Name is drifting inside your body at this very moment."
"The second purpose of this poor Daoist's journey is to draw that Edict Name out through your seven orifices, inch by inch."
"…"
Gu Chengming was silent.
The thread of energy at the Perfected One's fingertip gathered again, three times heavier than before, and then some.
Gu Chengming looked at him. Looked at the now wholly transparent phantom of the Hundred Bones Resonance beside him. Looked at his own hands, trembling faintly under the pressure of a Sixth Realm. Then he raised his head and smiled.
"Pity. That Dharma-Station is one thing you can no longer touch!"
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