Chapter 969

Looking down at the eight clerks below the steps, including the crow.

Brother Qian Chen rubbed his tense brow; even he, after three thousand years immersed in Western Kunlun Mirror's temporal displacement, felt a slight fatigue in his primordial spirit.

"Since I arrived at Zhigucheng, this pond has stirred with subtle ripples, but as the Grand Master who comprehends the Path of Salvation, I have no patience to dwell on such trifles."

"Fortunately, these days I've been testing talismans—this light rain from all eight directions, you shall each scatter one talisman to obscure it somewhat!"

"Though this world is but embers in a dying fire, it must still be reborn. All that transpires here shall one day become real; thus, even a faint glimmer within illusion, we must still protect."

The crow bowed its head, spreading its wings in reverence: "Grand Master, your mercy!"

Brother Qian Chen turned his gaze to Chang Yan: "This bell is named the Great Primordial Immovable Jin Zhong Talisman—it was forged from your Dao path and physical form. You once promised to recast the iron bell of the Drum Tower; now, hang this one up."

Chang Yan, whose soul-body was ethereal yet imbued with an indestructible golden essence, steady and unmoving, nodded.

Her original body had been remelted and forged into this bell; her Dao path had been inscribed by Brother Qian Chen as five thousand golden characters upon the bell's surface, expounding the Jin Zhong Eternal Wheel Immovable Baodu Zhenjing.

She had now largely transformed into a deity, stepping into the immortal sacred realm that the Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi had long dreamed of.

Due to Brother Qian Chen's influence, the orthodox Dao path in this world had nearly vanished; only unorthodox, highly innovative paths capable of condensing entirely new Dao seeds could succeed—thus, the crucial step toward immortality lay between human and non-human.

It could not be wholly human, for that would lack novelty.

But it could not be wholly non-human either, for the non-human is not me…

Thus, immortality borders on the monstrous.

With Brother Qian Chen's aid, Chang Yan took one step beyond the Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi's accumulated foundation: the Golden Man sought immortality by consuming gold, hoping to borrow gold's indestructible golden nature—but gold, though indestructible, was utterly motionless; how could motionlessness yield change?

Even the Supreme One's avatar, Fuxi, who condensed the Dao of humanity, achieved it through the Dao fruit of Yi.

Gold is indestructible, yet motionless—it is a dead thing.

The Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi erred at the very first step of his Dao path; the further he walked, the more he deviated—but precisely this deviation allowed him to reach the threshold of this world's immortal sacred realm.

Had he followed the correct path as in the Earth Immortal Realm—melding gold's indestructibility with the perfection of elixir arts to forge the Jin Dan Dao—he would have found no possibility of condensing a Dao fruit at all, for the Jin Dan Dao had been entirely monopolized by the Eight Trigrams Furnace, the Yin-Yang Fan, and the Dao Dust Pearl.

Instead, the Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi, unable to transform his golden body into a living thing, added other metals to form the Five Metals.

By exploiting the slight corrosion of these other metals, he embedded his consciousness within these minute changes, inadvertently causing the gold itself to corrode, and thus accidentally forged this rusted-gold body.

Leveraging gold's near-eternal yet not truly eternal nature, he achieved immortality.

If one were to dissect the Golden Man's skull with a True Insight Eye, one would see a brain nearly pure gold, yet surrounded by corroded metals; through metallic connections, the gold slowly oxidizes, generating change, while the corrosion of other metals produces minute electric currents.

These currents swept across the corroded golden brain, causing fluctuations due to its decay—these fluctuations in electromagnetic waves created the space for the Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi's consciousness to lodge within.

But the cost was that his golden body, being metallic, could not move without fire, and his consciousness changed with excruciating slowness.

Though not as extreme as Brother Qian Chen's former state—one thought taking sixty years—it still required at least an hour to turn a single thought.

During the Drum Tower duel, the Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi had to detach part of his golden brain and mix it into the molten metal.

Thereby fully activated, it was then swallowed by Li Li Jinao, hidden within his body to confront the All Xuanzhen Sect.

This rusted body was nearly monstrous, yet perfectly aligned with this world's principle: only the aberrant can attain the Dao.

Chang Yan had consumed the Golden Man Xie Xie Zushi's Dao path; logically, she too should have walked this rusted-seed path—but Brother Qian Chen had to consider her well-being. After all, using corrosion to erode eternity, seeking a narrow path between change and permanence, while novel, was unlikely to yield a comfortable immortality.

Thus, Brother Qian Chen altered the alloy ratio of the Five Metals and forged this Immovable Jin Zhong.

The Great Primordial Immovable Jin Zhong Talisman consists of five parts; the golden bead atop the bell is the Great Primordial Bell, containing a single gold atom, refined by Brother Qian Chen's supreme elixir art into a pill.

This pill is the smallest possible scale of matter, before gold disintegrates into qi.

Its sole function is near-eternal existence and the recording of the gold atom's resonant frequency, yielding an extraordinarily precise clock immune to most spiritual arts, spells, and spacetime fluctuations.

This Great Primordial Bell, modeled after the atomic clocks of Brother Qian Chen's original world, provides an exquisitely precise timescale.

Brother Qian Chen tested it with Western Kunlun Mirror's spacetime Dao fruit; this bell already contained a trace of eternal, unmoving spacetime essence—even Western Kunlun Mirror required effort to break through.

Centered on this Great Primordial Bell, the bell body is an exquisitely sensitive resonant structure.

All vibrations in the universe—sound, gravity, spacetime, electromagnetism, qi, even thoughts—can transmit into it; its structure and material receive every faint vibration, triggering continuous resonance within the bell.

This resonance causes the five thousand inscribed characters on the bell wall to tremble with infinitesimal motion.

The frequencies of these tremors intertwine, forming an extraordinarily complex sonic structure within the bell, stirring changes in qi.

And that is Chang Yan's physical form.

Her consciousness arises through sound—or countless subtle vibrational changes; she achieves immortality through the bell's near-eternal indestructible body; she calibrates herself through the timescale fixed by the Great Primordial Bell; she sustains change through the "motion" of heaven and earth, transmitted as vibrations; she anchors her Dao path through the five thousand inscribed characters on the bell wall.

Thus, the cluster of ever-vibrating, entangled sound waves within the bell—accumulating energy by transmitting the universe's vibrations—is the Heavenly Sound Physical Form.

The five thousand inscribed characters on the bell wall are the Jin Zhong Eternal Wheel Immovable Baodu Zhenjing, containing the entire principle and manifestation of the Jin Zhong's Dao.

The bell's indestructible material is called Indestructible Resonant Metal.

The bell's structure, resonating with all things in the universe, is the structure of the Xi Yi Divine Thunder Jin Zhong artifact.

Combined with the Great Primordial Bell hidden within the golden bead atop.

The five parts united.

Only then is it Brother Qian Chen's creation: the Great Primordial Immovable Jin Zhong Talisman.

The art of talismans, properly practiced, had become this under Brother Qian Chen…

Western Kunlun Mirror, which often came to chat with Brother Qian Chen during the three thousand years of time, had seen the eight talismans he tested to forge the Supreme Great Demon Secret Talisman, and could not help but complain: "These are your talismans? If the Primordial Dao Xie Xie Zushi saw them, he'd purge you from the sect."

Brother Qian Chen retorted: "Who says sound cannot be used in talismans? I inscribe golden script on the bell wall; when the bell rings, sound gathers, and the talisman forms! What's wrong with that?"

"Are talismans truly so inconvenient?"

Western Kunlun Mirror pondered long before saying: "I was wrong! Your sophistry, blending the Buddha's true mantra path into talismans—perhaps the Primordial Dao Xie Xie Zushi would even be pleased!"

Brother Qian Chen fell silent.

The Great Primordial Immovable Jin Zhong Talisman indeed drew inspiration from the Buddha's true mantra; at least, the Dao of transmitting all vibrations in the universe originated from the Buddha's Six-Syllable Great Brightness Xia Zhenyan, which transformed the six cosmic background sounds into mantras.

Chang Yan, whose body is a cluster of sound within the bell, now manifests as a faint thread of sound, condensed and projected outward through the golden bell.

She received Brother Qian Chen's decree, transmitting only a whisper of vibration from her body—the golden bell trembled, emitted gravitational waves, and floated upward; she carried it, bowed slightly to Brother Qian Chen, and headed toward the Drum Tower.

The residual ripples from that day's duel had not yet faded; crowds thronged beneath the Drum Tower.

Many carried loads, pushed carts, passing beneath the city gate tower…

At that moment, a group of All Xuanzhen Sect disciples surrounded a figure, drawing the attention of many.

Chang Yan, carrying the three-foot golden bell, ascended the Drum Tower step by step, surveying the surroundings; many scholars and gentry arrived upon hearing the sound, gathering atop the tower.

"The day I took your bell, today I return you one!"

An elderly villager stared in disbelief at the seemingly pure-gold bell, trembling as he stepped forward, reaching out to touch it.

Suddenly, the bell rang of its own accord; the elder was bathed in golden light and froze in place.

A flicker of annoyance passed through Chang Yan's eyes—this bell was her physical form; how dare an old man touch it?

"This is…"

Another elder pointed at the man frozen in golden light, voice trembling: "What happened?"

"This bell is a sacred artifact bestowed by our sect to suppress all evil in this city—how dare anyone touch it!" Chang Yan said. "It needs no striking, no tending; at dawn and dusk, it rings of its own accord, purifying evil. If demons or monsters approach, it rings of its own accord. If anyone tries to touch it, it rings of its own accord—and the result will be as his: immobilized for an hour."

The elder gasped, his gaze toward the bell now changed; he nodded repeatedly: "Indeed! Indeed!"

The onlookers nearby cared nothing for this; they laughed and joked: "Is this bell truly made of gold?"

"I took your iron bell; I return you a golden one."

Chang Yan said: "But do not covet it. This bell is given to Zhigucheng; any outsider with ill intent who approaches will be frozen for an hour. If they persist despite warnings, the bell will ring nine times—and they will be frozen for life, never to move again."

After hanging the golden bell, the All Xuanzhen Sect party departed.

Only Chang Yan remained standing long beneath the bell, gazing into the city.

Wu Wu Ponu walked barefoot in a full circuit around Zhigucheng, leaving a blood handprint at each of the four city gates; then, like Chang Yan, he stood motionless atop the eastern city gate tower, gazing toward the Haihe River beyond.