Chapter 981: The Final Encounter with the Great Demon Who Inverts the Six Roots

“Qian Chen!”

The Divine-Communicating Daoist staggered backward several steps, visibly shattered and his soul scattered; his topknot disheveled by his frantic hands, white hair spilled wildly down.

He muttered softly: “Qian Chen!”

Then his face twisted into a monstrous snarl, eyes brimming with bloodshot veins, temples bulging, tendons standing out as he roared: “Qian Chen!”

He threw his head back and howled, letting a copper coin fall from his hand—the very Coin of Fate, forged from Bei Xiannü’s Dao path.

The Divine-Communicating Daoist clenched his palm tightly around the five copper coins.

The Treasures of Mingshang, Yulong, Canghua, Kongxian, and Tongming—five coins stacked together—finally coalesced into a head with fully formed features, bearing eight-tenths resemblance to the Divine-Communicating Daoist in his youth.

But it was too late!

Everything was too late…

Or perhaps, everything had been calculated by someone—and the timing was perfect?

“True Eye of Breaking Illusions, Heavenly Melody Divine Ear, Rushing Dragon Jade Nose, Tasting Dao Immortal Tongue, Mysterious Divine Hair…”

The demonic shadow behind the Divine-Communicating Daoist gazed down at the Coin of Divine Communication in his palm, expression calm, even contemptuous toward the Daoist himself.

On Wanghai Tower, Qian Chen stared at the copper coin he had tossed upward and murmured: “Five Organs Chief?”

“Perhaps. But it is only a fragmentary name. Add to it—you, the Divine-Communicating Demon Thought—and together you form the seventh path, the true pillar of Kharma: the Six Roots Inverted.”

“Eye, ear, nose, tongue, hair? You think these are the Five Organs? Hair is the tip of blood, and Mysterious Divine Hair arises from emotion—it represents the ‘Body.’ Thus, though called Five Organs, they are truly the Six Roots.”

“Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch…”

“Money can communicate with the Divine! Your path of Divine Communication begins with the word ‘tong’—but its root remains demonic. Money is the origin of desire, the ruler that measures all things. ‘Tong’ means measuring all things with money, connecting all things, communicating with ghosts and gods, even extending this ‘tong’ to the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—and to the disciples who comprehend the Dao of self and other hearts.”

“But to use ‘money’ to distort and pervert all things—that is the essence of your path.”

“Thus, when you twisted the Five Immortal Bones—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body—with your Divine-Communicating Demon Dao, you became the Sixth Immortal Bone: the Mind!”

“For distorting sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch is already to become consciousness. Twisting the Five Roots to forge the Sixth Root—this entire scheme was laid for you…”

The head formed from the Five Organs Chief flew toward the Divine-Communicating Daoist as Qian Chen spoke.

Pressed against his face, the two heads gradually merged; the Divine-Communicating Daoist, along with his Dao path, was irrevocably refined, bit by bit, by Qian Chen.

The Five Immortal Bones the Divine-Communicating Daoist had labored so hard to seize now flew to him like swallows returning to their nest, willingly taking root upon his body.

But now the Daoist felt no joy—only a hatred etched into his bones, teeth gritted: “Qian Chen! Qian Chen! Again you? Again you? Why won’t you let me go? Why?”

“It was Miao Kong who harmed you—he’s already fallen into your hands! Why won’t you spare me?”

“So vengeful…”

“Cowardly, treacherous, cruel—you’re no True Lord of the Dao, no Patriarch of the Righteous Path?”

“You are the demon!”

“You are the true demon!”

The Divine-Communicating Daoist was filled with unbearable regret; he feared Qian Chen—not so much the Dao Lord, as fate itself.

In those days, when he and Miao Kong annihilated the Louguan Sect, how ignorant and fearless they had been. He believed the Lord of Reincarnation stood beyond fate, that their identity as Reincarnators granted them invincibility, even daring to defy fate.

Only when the truth was finally revealed did the Divine-Communicating Daoist feel such despair.

For he realized their deeds had never escaped fate—indeed, they were part of fate itself.

He trembled to realize the Lord of Reincarnation, towering above them, was one of those great beings who turned fate itself.

But when he desperately sought to escape fate, fate brought him face-to-face with the true master—Qian Chen.

Only when confronting Qian Chen’s methods did he realize how laughable their earlier thoughts had been.

Two ants beneath the Nascent Soul, defying fate, seeking to seize the Dao Lord Qian Chen’s opportunity—yet even after sensing that terrifying fate, they remained ignorant enough to ignore the very ‘Dao Lord.’

Now, he finally understood what manner of being a ‘Dao Lord’ truly was!

Though unaware of the full story, the scene of the Divine-Communicating Daoist being slowly refined alive sent chills through the three watching beside him.

Though his cultivation was only one level above theirs, as a Reincarnator, his Divine-Communicating Dao directly pierced the root of human Dao—though twisted, corrupted into a demonic path, it remained a supreme achievement among demonic arts.

Before the Divine-Communicating Daoist, the three were utterly crushed, toyed with as if on his palm.

Yet even this terrifying Divine-Communicating Daoist met such a pitiful end before the true mastermind—so pitiful, one could almost feel pity.

The Lord of Xuanzhen had acted without a trace.

He merely cooked a dish of Immortal Flesh, imprinting the ultimate human flavor into Bei Xiannü’s Dao path—and then events unfolded naturally to this point, without any earth-shattering spells or techniques, not even allowing the Divine-Communicating Daoist to glimpse the Lord of Xuanzhen.

His body, soul, Dao path—all his existence—had been stripped and refined into the manifested Dao known as the Six Roots Inverted.

At this moment, the Divine-Communicating Daoist’s hatred, fear, rage, and madness surged like a tide, and the Demon Thought of Divine Communication, representing consciousness, slowly took form.

“Kill me!”

The Divine-Communicating Daoist’s voice was hoarse, his heart dead, speaking to Bei Xiannü, Dou Dabianbao, and others nearby.

Yang the Scholar offered a bitter smile, spreading his hands: Look, even you, a master of such stature, have been reduced to living death. Do you think we, mere ants, could ever reach you?

Bei Xiannü offered a bitter smile.

That fallen Immortal Flesh, piercing straight to the root of human desire, drowned the Divine-Communicating Daoist’s twisted consciousness in endless, insatiable gluttony, seized his Dao path, then refined the Daoist himself using the corrupted path.

Such a method was terrifying beyond measure. Though Bei Xiannü had only once been used by Qian Chen’s technique to borrow her Dao path, the lingering presence of that ‘Immortal Flesh’ had severely tainted her own Dao.

Otherwise, by her true nature, she would never have fallen into the path of Dark Cuisine at the final moment.

How could she ever face the Lord of Xuanzhen’s methods again?

Even now, Bei Xiannü struggled desperately to shake off the influence of the Gluttonous Demon of Food.

Dou Dabianbao let out a heavy sigh and muttered: “So in the end, Xuanzhen Sect truly won.”

He looked at the Divine-Communicating Daoist with pity: “Though this Daoist’s methods were astonishing and his schemes profound, Dao rises one inch, demon rises ten—after all, one demon is always stronger than another! In the end, he drank Xuanzhen Sect’s washwater—and like us, he was merely prepared material for Immortal Bones.”

“Same Immortal Bone…” Dou Dabianbao reached out, gripping the reins of the nearby green donkey, his expression steadying, whispering: “I still have one final trick—originally meant to surprise you… but now, it seems I must aid you instead!”

“Hehe… you all searched for that final treasure—but I never found it.”

“But I’ve been deceiving you all for twenty years, right under your noses!”

“Aaang!”

The green donkey brayed loudly, hooves restless.

Dou the Blind reached under the donkey’s head, gripping its chin, then suddenly flipped his hand—up flew a hide the size of a millstone; the entire donkey, skin and all, was peeled open, revealing what lay within.

It was a light!

A radiance refracted from a mirror.

Long ago, this mirror-light had blinded Dou Dabianbao’s Divine Eye of Gazing Heaven—it was one of the mirrors of Mirror Lord, one of the Three Creators, hidden in the Southern Sea’s Return Void.

In ancient times, when the Three Creators forged the world, Mirror Lord crafted the World Mirror as its foundation.

Then came the Sun and Moon Mirrors, dividing day and night. When Sun Lord and Cauldron Mother shaped life upon the moon, Mirror Lord wandered the heavens, scattering countless shattered fragments that became the stars.

Among them, some mirrors remained intact—among them, one fell into the Southern Sea’s Return Void, named Yue Bie, the Dark Moon Star.

That beam of Yue Bie mirror-light was unpredictable, reversing at will.

Dou Dabianbao exhausted all his means, spent all Three Treasures, and used the Qin King’s Bone Mirror to preserve that mirror-light, then drew upon ten-thousand-year vitality from the Southern Sea to form a green donkey, hiding the mirror-light within the beast.

For years, man and donkey relied on each other; many suspected the green donkey was a treasure, but through countless trials, Dou Dabianbao kept the secret hidden until now.

The power from the Three Creators, identical in origin, shattered the process of the Six Roots converging, tearing the Divine-Communicating Daoist’s Dao path apart.

This unexpected boon allowed the Divine-Communicating Daoist to instantly sever his own Dao path, letting the Five Roots devour most of his Divine Dao, while he rolled up the remainder, slashed himself once, and fled as a shadow beyond the control of the demonic shadow behind him.

The demonic shadow of Qian Chen merely raised an eyebrow, watching the scene with detached amusement.

In the Medicine King Temple, an Xuanzhen Sect official raised his right hand; the character “Ding” in his palm erupted in golden light, freezing time and space. Far away, in Zhigucheng, the bell atop the Drum Tower rang suddenly—its sound froze the fleeing, shadow-form Divine-Communicating Daoist in mid-air.

At that moment, the statue of the Night King in the side hall hurled a trident.

A sharp cry rang out: “I’ll help you!”

The Medicine King statue’s five viscera writhed; it stepped down from its altar, waving its hand to unleash a great technique—Five Elements Great Escape.

Five-colored light formed a wheel that slashed down, shattering the frozen golden light.

The golden bell rang nine times, each ring more solemn, more profound than the last, shattering the Night King blocking the Divine-Communicating Daoist’s path.

Then a path of bloody footprints, Yin and Yang, slowly approached, dividing Yin and Yang before the Medicine King Temple, plunging the entire temple into the Netherworld.

“One quality pleases another, one quality restrains another, one quality dominates another!”

Dr. Drummond stepped out from another side hall, holding a tablet of emerald-green stone; in his other hand, he gripped a beautiful crystal reflecting starlight.

“There are few of Newton’s Star-Antimony left! Only this near-transcendent spiritual substance can open the gate of transcendence in the Abyss!”

Drummond held the Emerald Tablet and recited its Eighth Rule: “It can swiftly ascend to heaven, then descend again into the Abyss, gathering all the power of the Upper and Lower Realms—spirit and truth…”

“Truth Alchemy—Gate of Ascension!”

The beautiful crystal reflecting starlight—the Star-Antimony—shot upward as a beam of starlight, piercing through the Yin-Yang Path’s barrier between the two realms.

The starlight became a beacon, projecting a long bridge to guide the Divine-Communicating Daoist beyond the Yin-Yang Path.

There, Du Xiaoling had waited long; he unbuttoned his chest, revealing five tattooed beasts on his torso—fox, snake, rat, weasel, hedgehog—each bearing the marks of torture.

Five kinds of punishing qi descended like blades to sever the spirit…

Finally, a hand reached from the void, flicking lightly—shattering the descending execution blades.

Only then did the Divine-Communicating Daoist escape, vanishing into the void.

On Wanghai Tower, Qian Chen watched all this, a calm smile deepening on his lips.

“Originally merely a supporting herb, it suddenly rose to prominence, like a salted fish turning over—showing signs of becoming the main herb. What a delightful surprise indeed!”