Severing Ties: The Sect Regrets My Departure

While the Supreme Disciple of the Azure Mystic Sacred Land began his self-imposed imprisonment at the Cliff of Reflection, a different scene unfolded above the Heaven-Leveling Mountains.

A black-canopied boat cut silently through the sea of clouds.

The Heaven-Leveling Mountains were a deathtrap, teeming with ferocious beasts. To fly here without absolute power was to invite death. A standard flying boat like this held no deterrent against the predators of the sky.

As if to prove this rule, a horde of demon beasts suddenly erupted from the forest below.

They surged upward, fangs bared, eyes locked on the two figures aboard the vessel. Leading the pack was a creature with azure-blue feathers and eyes burning like molten fire. It radiated a terrifying pressure—a Rank Six Demon Beast, equal in power to a late-stage Golden Core human cultivator.

Hunger defined their expressions. They saw food.

But as the swarm closed the distance, coming within three feet of the boat, the greed in their eyes vanished.

It was replaced by sheer, primal terror.

As if they had stared into the abyss and found something looking back, the beasts frantically scrambled to brake, turning tail to flee in a chaotic rout.

They were not fast enough.

Swish!

A chain lashed out from the boat.

It moved with the speed of a striking viper, instantly coiling around the Rank Six Demon Beast. The creature howled, struggling frantically against the bind, but it was futile.

“Tsk tsk. A Fire-Eye Bird? Now that is a rare find,” a voice drawled from the boat. “Every inch of this thing is treasure. Especially those eyeballs—top-grade materials for fire-attribute Dharma Treasures.”

Lu Dongshan reeled in the chain, shaking his head. “I spent months hunting for this wretched bird with no luck. Who knew tagging along with you would bring such fortune?”

He glanced at the young man sitting cross-legged nearby. “Speaking of luck, if you keep cultivating like a statue, don’t expect me to save you any roast meat.”

Gu Xiu did not respond. He sat with eyes closed, lost in meditation, as he had been since they departed Cloud Firmament City.

They were bound for the Bibo Sect.

Lu Dongshan had originally planned to use this trip to interrogate Gu Xiu about his time in the Forbidden Realm. Instead, he had been treated to a wall of silence.

“Excessive. Truly excessive,” Lu Dongshan grumbled, flipping the roasting meat over a magical flame. “We were mortal enemies once, remember? How dare you cultivate so openly in front of me? Have you lost your survival instincts, or do you just look down on me, Old Lu?”

Gu Xiu remained motionless.

“Bah.” Lu Dongshan cursed under his breath, though he still carved off the choicest cut of meat and set it aside for the boy.

“Squeak squeak!”

The little black monkey scuttled over, eyeing the food.

Lu Dongshan wasn’t stingy. He tore off a generous chunk and tossed it to the creature. Bored out of his mind and ignored by the human, the Soul Formation expert decided to impress the monkey instead.

“Little monkey, looking at your scrawny frame, you haven’t been alive long, have you? You probably don’t know the legends,” Lu Dongshan said, puffing out his chest. “Let me tell you about the glorious age of the Dongshan War God.”

“Squeak?”

“Five hundred years ago, I was the peerless genius of the era,” Lu Dongshan declared, waving a greasy bone. “I slew gods when I met gods, killed Buddhas when I met Buddhas. Great sect disciples? Imperial princes? Trash. All of them. I crushed them like bugs. The world trembled at my name.”

“Squeak squeak squeak!”

“Don’t look at me like that. Your master, Gu Xiu? He’s alright, I guess. But back then? I was too strong. My attacks caused too much collateral damage. When I saw him fighting for his sect, I simply couldn’t bear to hurt him. That’s why I didn’t strike. It definitely wasn’t because I couldn’t beat him.”

“Squeak?” The monkey tilted its head, its eyes filled with blatant skepticism.

“What is that look? You don’t believe me? Do I look like a liar to you?”

“Squeak!”

“Hey! You wretched ape, you dare question the integrity of a Soul Formation cultivator?”

“Squeak!”

“Oh, you want to go? You’re finished…”

The reminiscence of glory days quickly devolved into a physical brawl between a man and a monkey rolling around on the deck.

Suddenly, a wave of spiritual pressure washed over the boat.

Lu Dongshan stopped mid-grapple and looked over. A vortex of Spiritual Qi had formed in front of Gu Xiu, greedily devouring the ambient energy of the heavens and earth.

“Looks like the new Dao Platform is forming,” Lu Dongshan noted, dusting himself off. “It’s average, though. Not enough commotion.”

“Squeak squeak squeak!” The monkey bared its teeth.

“Still unconvinced?” Lu Dongshan scoffed. “When I forged my Foundation Establishment Dao Platform, I triggered a heavenly phenomenon! The sun and moon lost their…”

He stopped dead.

A sudden, bone-chilling wind swept across the deck.

Lu Dongshan scrambled to his feet, his playful demeanor vanishing instantly. He rushed to the railing and looked out.

His pupils contracted to pinpoints.

Without him noticing, the sky around the black-canopied boat had filled with shadows. Countless Yin souls drifted in the air, silent and eerie. If Lu Dongshan hadn’t opened his Divine Soul Sea of Consciousness as a Soul Formation cultivator, he wouldn’t have even seen them.

“Squeak!”

The little black monkey, seemingly possessing the eyes of the underworld, shrieked in alarm.

In a rare moment of synchronization, both man and monkey rushed to stand protectively in front of the meditating Gu Xiu.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.

The sound of hooves echoed through the empty sky.

Lu Dongshan looked toward the horizon, his hand instinctively gripping the hilt of his weapon.

A spectral army emerged from the mist.

They wore ancient, rusted armor and rode skeletal warhorses. Their spears and halberds radiated a coldness that seemed to freeze the soul itself. They stood perfectly still, yet the temperature around the boat plummeted, covering the deck in frost.

“Yin Soldiers!”

Lu Dongshan’s expression darkened. “Damn it. Have we run into the March of the Yin Soldiers?”

The worlds of the living and the dead were like parallel lines—never meant to intersect. Unless one was a Ghost Cultivator, these entities were invisible. Even powerful cultivators usually only observed them from afar.

But there was one exception.

The March of the Yin Soldiers.

No one knew exactly what it was, but the rule was absolute across both the mortal and cultivation worlds: When Yin Soldiers march, the living must retreat.

If the living block the path… souls are seized.

Lu Dongshan didn’t hesitate.

“Ascend!”

He slammed his hands together, channeling mana into the boat. He was a Soul Formation powerhouse, a titan of the cultivation world, but he was not arrogant enough to challenge the laws of the underworld. He had to move the boat out of their path.

But it was too late.

Just as the boat lurched upward, a detachment of Yin Soldiers drifted down, blocking the airspace above. Simultaneously, the ghostly army surged from all sides like a tidal wave, boxing them in.

“Dammit!”

“They’re blocking the road? Are they coming for us?”

Lu Dongshan’s face turned pale. He drew his blade with one hand and clutched a stack of high-grade Thunder Talismans with the other. He didn’t know if lightning could stop the army of the dead, but it was the only option he had.

However, he didn’t attack.

The Yin Soldiers had surrounded them, but they stopped exactly five zhang away from the hull. They stood silent, motionless, like statues of ice.

Then, the formation parted.

A path opened through the ranks of the dead. Within this corridor of silence, white petals began to fall from the sky, drifting gently through the gloom.

Lu Dongshan looked down the path.

A sedan chair, crafted from flawless white jade, floated toward them.

It was carried by eight bearers.

No, not people. Though they had human bodies and limbs, their heads were those of beasts. Lu Dongshan could only see the first four—Ox-head, Horse-face, Rat-head, and Chicken-face.

Lu Dongshan’s soul trembled. His instincts screamed at him to flee.

Just these bearers radiated an aura that terrified him.

Ghost Venerables.

At least four of them. Each one possessed power comparable to a Void Refining cultivator.

“Gulp.”

Lu Dongshan swallowed hard, staring at the veiled sedan chair with undisguised horror.

Ghost Venerables acting as mere bearers? Who—or what—was sitting inside that sedan?

“A Dao Platform with the aura of the Purple Mansion… A Chessboard Dao Platform that can conceal Immortals… Interesting. Very interesting…”

A voice echoed directly inside their hearts.

It was impossible to tell if it was male or female, or where it came from.

Lu Dongshan stiffened. He slowly turned his head to look at Gu Xiu. The boy was still meditating, completely oblivious to the army of the dead surrounding them.

Did he attract them?

Despite his fear, Lu Dongshan stepped forward, shielding Gu Xiu with his body. He gritted his teeth and bowed slightly.

“Senior, may I ask the purpose of your visit?”

Silence. The entity in the sedan did not deign to answer him.

Instead, the curtain of the sedan lifted slightly.

Before Lu Dongshan could glimpse the interior, a flower drifted out.

It was a brilliant, blood-red blossom, beautiful enough to steal a man’s soul. It floated through the air, heading straight for Gu Xiu.

Panic surged in Lu Dongshan. He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t let it touch Gu Xiu.

“Break!”

He unleashed a torrent of energy, striking at the flower.

But his attack passed right through it. The flower was like an illusion, existing on a different plane of reality. Lu Dongshan’s frantic strikes were as useless as fireworks against smoke.

He could only watch helplessly.

The red flower drifted effortlessly through his defenses and sank into Gu Xiu’s dantian, vanishing without a trace.

“The Other Shore Flower has fallen. A good affinity is formed.”

“I hope that in the future… you will not disappoint this world’s last Other Shore Flower.”

The voice faded from their minds.

Lu Dongshan watched, stunned, as the white jade sedan turned and drifted away. It moved slowly, yet with each second, it crossed vast distances—Shrinking the Earth to Inches. In the blink of an eye, it was gone.

The sky full of Yin Soldiers dissolved into black smoke, vanishing between the heavens and the earth.

The cold lifted. The sun returned.

It was as if nothing had happened.

Lu Dongshan stood frozen, his heart pounding against his ribs. He looked down at the little black monkey, who was also letting out a long, shuddering breath.

“Hey,” Lu Dongshan whispered, his voice trembling slightly. “Was I just… ignored?”

“Squeak!” the monkey confirmed.

Suddenly, a terrifying fluctuation of power erupted from Gu Xiu.

In the shadows behind the boy, Lu Dongshan saw a phantom image manifest. Upon a spectral chessboard, a blood-red Other Shore Flower bloomed. It radiated the ancient power of Yin and Yang, of life and death.

It was an aura that demanded submission. Impossible to spy upon. Impossible to look at directly.

Lu Dongshan didn’t know exactly what had just happened, but as he looked at the meditating boy, one thought dominated his mind.

This kid… just picked up a heaven-defying Fated Chance while sleeping.