The mountainous landscape of the northwest region had turned into flat plains as far as the eye could see; the horizon was a perfectly straight line. It gave one the illusion that they could look out into the distance, but in truth, there was nothing to see, for there was nothing there.
When one stood inside it, they’d almost believe they could walk forever and never reach the end. The heavens and earth were so vast they made life and death seem as a narrow crevice, let alone life’s ups and downs, let alone humanity’s glory and disgrace.
Zou Yanlai savagely bit down on his tongue and clarity returned like the last glimmer of the setting sun, it was extinguished by that overwhelming enormity.
Though the ‘Lesser Accumulation Array’ was a ‘lesser’ array, it had countless layers, each layer multiplying the space within, until a foot’s length reached on into infinity.
Zou Yanlai stopped walking. He drew his sword and, kneeling with one knee on the ground, stuck the sword firmly into the ground.
The hilt trembled as the sword sank into the dirt and stood upright as a gravestone. The only sound in the dead silence was the faint, keening wail of the blade as it shuddered in the wind.
Zou Yanlai frowned and thought, wouldn’t it be inconvenient if he didn’t know how many layers the Accumulation Array had? Just what number had Shi Wuduan used, to create a space as large as this?
However, Shi Wuduan didn’t leave him guessing for long. The moment he began to regain his bearings, somewhere northwest, a bolt of lightning struck the ground. The earth trembled as a massive crack raced towards him from afar like a roaring flood, just happening to pass right by him.
With inexorable force, it cut through the entire plain.
Then, the blade’s keening came to an eerie halt. A moment later, violent gales surged up, mixed with the mineral smell of places deep within the earth, as if the fires down below had been kindled with rage.
When the wrath of the earth, stepped on by countless feet, silent for countless years, erupted, everything that had once been fixed started becoming ever more unstable. One day, its roar would flatten all the mountains and shake off all the snow, even if in doing so, it would become riddled with holes.
Zou Yanlai was stunned by that enormous roar. He stared wide-eyed at all that was happening, feeling as though he’d turned into a helpless child. Amidst the clamorous sound and the massive winds, he was merely a mayfly that might be blown away at any moment.
His legs weakened and he fell to his knees upon the ground, as if that unseen power was pressing down on his neck, forcing him to prostrate.
Then, the conflagration began blazing. Innumerable shadows flickered within, as if thousands of vengeful ghosts had suddenly filled the empty plains. They were like the shells dredged up by the waves in the final days of the apocalypse, swept to and fro like flotsam and jetsam, not knowing what to do or where to go.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
But at that moment, when all the flotsam and jetsam gathered together, the surface of the seas finally changed color. All their blurry faces, male, female, old, young, seemed to become a single, flickering shadow, feeding the flames.
Pcrajcais, jii bo ilof, ogbw mgjvif ab ugjnf, kjr rqijsfv bea yfobgf tlr fsfr — ogbw atf rajga bo atlr ibcu kjg, ogbw atf rajga bo atflg vscjras, ogbw atf mgewyilcu bo atf ijra vscjras, ogbw atf wbwfca atf olgra wjc, tlr tjlg jcv yfjgv ktlaf klat juf, kgbaf vbkc atf olgra kbgv bc atf olgra yjwybb raglq ecvfg atf iluta bo atf mjcvif, ogbw atf alwf ktfc tfjnfc ylgatfv fnfgsatlcu lc fzlrafcmf jcv atf olgra ugjrrfr yfujc ab ugbk, ogbw ktfc atf fjgat kjr rqila ogbw atf tfjnfc, ogbw ktfc atf qglwbgvlji mtjbr bo atf eclnfgrf yfujc ab ojii lcab bgvfg…
Until finally, everything ended in ash.
As if a single life came into existence only to kindle a single flame, only to be offered up in a single sacrifice.
The flames gradually enveloped all the sky and earth. Zou Yanlai’s eyes widened, he suddenly understood — this was Yin Corpse Fire!
Back then, he’d taken advantage of the new moon, when yin energy was at its peak, to light a Yin Corpse Fire in Guji City, using the corpses in the mass grave outside the city as a fuse, to forge a magnificent Demon Lord.
That fire had sparked the most violent war to ravage the lands in thousands of years and had caused the snow falling from the skies to turn ashen gray.
But it was nothing compared to this.
Zou Yanlai suddenly wondered, just what had Shi Wuduan used as the fuse to light this Yin Corpse Fire? He couldn’t possibly have summoned a bolt of lightning to crack open the deepest layers of hell, letting out all ghosts of the underworld spill onto the earth to be burned up as fuel, right?
All the arrays in the world… no one had mastered them more thoroughly than Shi Wuduan. If gods really existed, were the gods even as powerful as he?
To create a world in a splayed palm, and destroy it in a clenched fist.
The Dagu Road was burning with Yin Corpse Fire… Zou Yanlai quivered fiercely and suddenly understood; Shi Wuduan was “attacking them with their own spear.” The three great sects all guarded the Dagu Road, and though their numbers were decimated, the “core” of these sects, left behind by generations and generations of great masters, wasn’t affected.
In a way, they had a strange resonance with the world, like they were already melded with the blood and bones of the mountains and rivers. As long as that tiny speck of vitality never ran out, the Dagu Road would never be severed.
Yet Shi Wuduan had cut off the Dagu Road at Sanyang Pass, set a Lesser Accumulation Array, enlarged a square foot of space into infinity, then ignited what had to be the largest Yin Corpse Fire in all of history. All the grieved souls who’d lost their lives in the fires of war and the chaotic upheaval seemed to have been drawn within. Mounds of dead blocked the roads, resentful energy surged into the skies. A place so malevolent would surely cause the sect’s protection to rebound against them.
Why Sanyang Pass?
Because Bodhi Mountain was less than fifty kilometers north of it, Jiulu Mountain was only three rivers west of it, and Mi Sect’s Valley was merely separated by a mountain range south of it.
No… Zou Yanlai suddenly began to panic. The Dagu Road was the court’s lifeline, if it was cut off, then the north and south cut off, all the major passes in the south would be lost. Right now, while Bodhi Mountain was surrounded, and the northwest was in chaos, who could save this crumbling country on the brink of collapse?
No!
He suddenly got to his feet, the tendons in his legs that’d gone soft suddenly tensed. The winds blew past the withered hair at his temples, sending it flapping. He tightly grasped the hilt of his sword, and, like the old Grand Mentor Yan, his panic and confusion firmed into steely resolve, like so many others who sacrificed their lives for their cause.
Then, this Mi Sect disciple, this Sir Yan who’d risen and fallen in the court’s ranks, pointed a hand towards the sky and conjured a spell. He closed his eyes, and the spell’s faint glow was swiftly put out by the relentless winds.
Zou Yanlai was unperturbed. He forced the sword deeper into the ground, his feet making deep prints in the dirt, as he sank down a bit, uttering an indecipherable incantation.
He intended to use his body as a wedge in this fiery world, to lengthen the ancient protection of the great sects.
The incantation shattered the moment it left his mouth, the spell was already disintegrated. Zou Yanlai was like a spider stubbornly trying to weave a fragile web in the midst of a tornado.
Slowly, a drop of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. But still, he stood straight, like an ant trying to prop up a falling tree.
This country had raised him, elevated him, bestowed unimaginable glory and power unto him, and it had also clubbed him over the head, smiting him from the clouds into the mud, questioned his loyalty, and doubted the sweat and blood he’d bled for it.
Now, he still tried to accomplish a task he knew was futile, standing alone as he used his life to guard this ancient road.
Though death was certain, he didn’t regret it.
Then, he was overwhelmed by the wind and fire. When that tremendous force passed, nothing was left in its wake. The ground along the Dagu Road buckled high into the air, revealing a bottomless abyss below.
But, on the edge of the cliff, there remained a pair of footprints nearly three feet deep.
In the course of a day, the landscape had changed irrevocably. The last road connecting the three sects was finally shattered. In the Dasheng Sect, the oil lamp that had burned constantly in the “allies’ shrine” went out, leaving behind a wisp of smoke.
The disciple refilling the oil jumped in fright, then after a moment of stupor, scrambled out while yelling, “This is bad, this is bad…”
But he accidentally ran headfirst into someone. He woodenly raised his head and saw their elusive sect leader, Great Master Zhiye, looking at the extinguished lamp. He chuckled bitterly and said, “I knew that there’d be a day when nothing in this world could stop him anymore.”
The disciple looked at him confusedly, “Sect Leader…”
Great Master Zhiye poured out the oil in the lamp and said, “In this world, is there really a way to use the souls that once belonged to this ancient dynasty as fuel for Yin Corpse Fire? Now, I finally see.”
The disciple said, “I beg your wisdom, Sect Leader.”
Great Master Zhiye said, “It’s the imperial tombs within the dragon vein — every time an emperor of this dynasty passes away, a grand ceremony is held, but it’s only their clothes that are buried. The real location of the imperial tomb has always been a mystery. The throne’s base is built upon the blood and souls of thousands; if one uses the body of a true dragon as fuel for Yin Corpse Fire, then it’s only natural that it can burn away the sects’ foundations.”
The disciple asked, “If it’s a secret, then how did people find out about it?”
“The mountain lanterns.” Great Master Zhiye said, “Back then, when the seven mountain lanterns were lit to plead for heaven’s favor, they borrowed seventy years. The method by which these lanterns borrowed luck is a secret kept by the Mi and Xuan Sects. Even people like Yan Huaipu and the Xuan Sect’s former leader only know what is, but not why it is. There are so many ways to destroy the fate of this dynasty that the all-important imperial tomb is simply too obvious.”
The disciple asked dumbly, “Does the person who did it understand then?”
Did he understand?
Great Master Zhiye sighed, but said vaguely, “Who knows if he really did figure it out?”
The dragon vein was destroyed, a major path was severed. The fourth and fifth lanterns lit up one after another — are you intending to borrow the power of the earth to go against the sky?
Great Master Zhiye slowly turned around and went back to his own room. A thought suddenly flitted through his mind: there really were people in this world born to face calamities.
Only a few more chapters til ending. I’m so anxious how this will end.😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭.. Thank you, translator-nim..
Hope this won’t be too heart-wrenching… where is my tissue box again. Oh, I need that cheer up playlist ready too.
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you so much 🙏❤️💐🧨
💙💙💙