Chapter 141: "No!!" "I WON!!"
What Shen Jizhou extended was, indeed, only a single hand.
But with that single hand, his five fingers wheel-turned, and in an instant he formed a hand-seal Lu Yuan had never seen before!
The opening motion of the seal looked like a common sword-style seal.
The thumb hooked the base of the ring finger, the index and middle fingers pressed together, the little finger slightly raised.
But the next moment, his wrist twisted at an inhuman angle, and the joined fingers suddenly split apart!
One finger to the heavens!
One finger to the earth!
The thumb clenched into the palm, the ring and little fingers interlaced, forming a bizarre seal that propped the sky and steadied the earth!
Others might not recognize it, but Lu Yuan could!
Legend said it was an unsurpassed seal passed down from Laozi, the founder of Taoism!
Once formed, it could prop the sky above and brace the earth below, the body becoming like the pillar of heaven, impervious to all laws!
The cultivation method for this seal had been lost a thousand years ago, now surviving only in fragments within the Yunji Qiqian!
Lu Yuan recognized it because the Dao heart-method manual he studied recorded this seal!
In an instant, Lu Yuan understood completely.
This old man had truly reverse-engineered a lost ancient technique from those old top-tier ritual artifacts!
Judging by the calm with which he formed the seal, this method had clearly reached perfection!
Shen Jizhou’s lips and teeth moved slightly as he intoned sixteen true words.
His voice was not loud, yet carried the solemnity of the nine heavens, each word becoming a great bell, reverberating across the world!
"Primordial Dao unified, prop the sky and brace the earth!"
"Unbowed and towering, ten thousand calamities shall not topple!"
The incantation fell!
The space around him violently distorted!
An invisible column of force sprang up from the ground centered on him, reaching the firmament above and piercing the nine nether realms below!
Within that column of force, the shadow of a mountain, majestic beyond imagination, slowly manifested,
Mount Buzhou!
The legendary divine mountain formed from Pangu's spine, the pillar that holds up heaven and earth!
At that moment, the golden radiance of the Human Emperor Seal thundered into collision!
Boom—!!!
A tremendous blast erupted, as if heaven and earth were overturning!
The sound was so enormous, so fierce, so feral, that everyone in the audience was instantly deafened!
Where the golden light struck the mountain shadow, space was torn open inch by inch into pitch-black rifts.
From the rift edges, primordial chaotic currents welled forth, the original might from before heaven and earth opened!
Lu Yuan’s bones all cried out, but he bit down on his tongue, squeezing out the last of his spirit, and forced the Human Emperor Seal to activate again!
Crunch!
The seal-body trembled anew!
The eight ancient scripts detonated with burning golden light that could incinerate all things!
The golden light no longer dispersed, but condensed into an apocalyptic pillar of light, transforming into a heavenly-punishment sword that furiously cleaved down toward Shen Jizhou’s head!
Where the pillar passed, the void itself was instantly vaporized!
Those black rifts were lit by the golden beam and were forcibly erased without even a chance to heal!
The propping column began to wildly shudder!
Fine cracks appeared across the mountain-shadow of Mount Buzhou!
Shen Jizhou’s expression finally hardened like iron.
His single-hand seal shifted again!
The Sky-Propping, Earth-Bracing Seal transformed into the Five Mountains True-Form Seal!
The thumb pinched the middle joint of the middle finger, representing the Central Mountain Songshan!
The index finger curved to hook the thumb, representing the Eastern Mountain Taishan!
The ring and little fingers spread like bird wings, representing Southern Hengshan, Northern Hengshan, and Western Huashan!
The five divine mountain shadows flashed across his palm and vanished, becoming five-colored divine lights that brazenly poured into the collapsing column of force!
"Five Mountains guard, rivers and mountains stand eternal!"
Once the Five Mountains True-Form Seal completed, the column instantly stabilized!
Mount Buzhou’s shadow ceased trembling; the cracks began to mend at a visibly rapid pace!
The golden pillar from the Human Emperor Seal arrived!
It struck the Mount Buzhou that guarded the Five Mountains with repeated blows!
Rumble———
This time the sound seemed smaller.
Not because the power had lessened, but because its vibration frequency had exceeded what living beings could perceive!
Those destructive soundwaves could directly pulverize organs into bloody paste!
Among the crowd, the weaker cultivators began to bleed from the seven orifices and faint!
Even the advanced cultivators turned pale, desperately circulating their zhenran to protect their heart conduits!
On the arena, the clash of two supreme forces had reached its final hour!
The Human Emperor Seal’s golden light, now condensed into substance, frantically hewed at Mount Buzhou!
Mount Buzhou stood immovable, stubbornly keeping the golden light outside!
But if one looked closely, the mountain-shadow was becoming transparent bit by bit!
The golden light was penetrating!
Shen Jizhou’s brows knitted into a deathly knot.
For the first time, his gaze changed.
This Lu Yuan... could actually erode the shadow of Mount Buzhou?!
Impossible!
That was Pangu’s spine, the pillar of heaven and earth! Even as a mere shadow, it should not be shaken by mortal power!
Shen Jizhou’s mind spun, but his hand movements did not slow an inch.
The Five Mountains True-Form Seal shifted again!
This time, all ten fingers moved together!
Yes, ten fingers!
His left hand, which had been tucked behind him, instinctively rose to meet it!
That was the body’s truest reflex at the edge of mortal danger!
But the thought flashed only briefly!
Shen Jizhou’s eyes hardened; the half-raised left hand was forcibly pushed back by his will!
Words uttered, law followed!
He had vowed to use only one hand; even if he died, he would not go back on his word!
With the left hand withdrawn, only the right remained, transforming into the Three Purities Seal!
Yu Qing, Shang Qing, Tai Qing—the three supreme holy realms—appeared as shadows in his palm, forming three layers of light screens, each layer bolstering Mount Buzhou!
"Three Purities above, guard my true body!"
The chant fell, and the three light screens fused with Mount Buzhou!
The golden light of the Human Emperor Seal struck down!
First breath: it cleaved through the Yu Qing holy realm!
Second breath: it tore apart the Shang Qing holy realm!
Third breath: it pierced the Tai Qing holy realm!
The golden light that had penetrated the Three Purities was already half-dimmed, but it still carried the supreme imperial might and struck the true form of Mount Buzhou heavily!
The mountain-shadow shuddered violently!
Shen Jizhou’s face finally altered.
The muscles at his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
He at last experienced the essence of that power firsthand.
It was genuine Human Emperor power!
The ancient sovereign might with which the archaic human emperor commanded all spirits and subdued the eight wildernesses!
Even if only one ten-thousandth of that power was sealed in this jade seal, it could still stagger a divine mountain!
The stand-off continued for three breaths.
For those in the crowd who had lost consciousness, three breaths were a blink.
For Shen Jizhou, those three breaths stretched like three days and nights!
He could clearly feel how the golden light tore inch by inch through his defenses, corroding Mount Buzhou’s source little by little.
He held the sky with one hand, pouring in all he had, resisting to the last!
After three breaths—
Boom!!!!!!!
A great blast shattered heaven and earth!
The Human Emperor Seal’s golden light finally crushed every defense!
Mount Buzhou’s shadow collapsed with a roar!
The Three Purities’ holy realms shattered piece by piece!
The Five Mountains True-Form dissolved into an endless rain of light!
That golden beam, like the first light at creation, cleaved straight toward Shen Jizhou!
Shen Jizhou’s figure was completely swallowed by the golden light!
In the audience, everyone’s minds went blank.
The highest mountain of the Dao Gate beyond the Great Wall...
had fallen?
In such circumstances...
Even Shen Jizhou would have no strength to stand again, right?!
Especially...
Everyone had seen this earlier!
Even in the last moment, because of that opening vow, Shen Jizhou had used only one hand!
So...
Could it be...
Lu Yuan actually won?!!
At this moment Lu Yuan’s body had been totally drained!
There was no need to describe the physical pain; spiritually, Lu Yuan was utterly spent!
Right now Lu Yuan barely had the strength to keep his eyelids open.
His left eyelid hung halfway uselessly, barely lifted.
But his eyes were filled with hope.
Could...
could it work?!
If this strike could truly defeat Shen Jizhou...
Time passed second by second under everyone’s stunned gaze.
The dazzling golden light finally dissipated.
Lu Yuan’s hope was dashed...
Shen Jizhou.
Was still standing in the same place...
Still with his hands folded behind his back.
Only, the hand behind him trembled slightly, unable to be fully suppressed.
He looked at Lu Yuan across from him, on the brink of collapse, his spirit flame nearly extinguished, with a complexity in his eyes that was almost unbearable.
Then his Adam’s apple bobbed.
A thread of crimson blood slowly trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Drip.
It fell onto his dark Dao robe, leaving a small, dark stain.
Shen Jizhou lifted a hand and casually wiped the blood from his mouth.
He glanced at the smear of red on his fingertip, a barely perceptible complexity flitting through his eyes.
He lifted his head and looked toward Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan swayed, his gaze beginning to grow vacant.
But he still stood.
Shen Jizhou.
Was truly too strong!
So strong he no longer seemed fully human!
Even the Human Emperor Seal...
had only made him spit a mouthful of blood...
And he had taken it single-handed.
If not for that vow, then if he had used both hands, wouldn’t he have been completely unharmed?!
Plop!
Lu Yuan’s body could no longer hold, and he collapsed heavily to the ground.
The ritual platform behind him had already crumbled to dust; only one jagged boulder remained as his sole support.
Lu Yuan leaned weakly against the stone, but he seemed insensitive to pain, quietly staring at that godly figure across from him.
"I'm curious."
Shen Jizhou spoke, taking a step, then another toward the collapsed Lu Yuan, his voice betraying no anger nor joy.
"Curious about what..."
Lu Yuan’s voice was as weak as a candle in the wind; he was so exhausted he could barely lift his eyelids.
Shen Jizhou’s steps stopped two dozen feet away, beside a stretch of ruined rubble.
He did not come closer; instead, he casually waved a hand.
Crunch!
A ritual sword wrapped in purple thunder broke from the debris and flew into his hand.
It was Lu Yuan’s Purple Firmament Lightning-Struck Jujube Wood Sword.
Then Shen Jizhou looked to the other side and beckoned again.
The dimming Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden Seven Star Lamp flew to him as well.
One hand held the sword, the other cupped the lamp; Shen Jizhou’s gaze returned to Lu Yuan with the appraisal of one who commands rank.
"Since you possess that divine seal, why did you not use it from the start?"
"Why instead expend vast mind and zhenran to activate these?"
Shen Jizhou’s tone was calmly plain, but it struck like a hammer in everyone’s hearts.
Right!
Those at the Celestial Master Grand Ceremony finally recovered from the world-undoing duel, and the same question flooded their minds—
Lu Yuan’s actions had been bizarre from beginning to end.
If he hadn’t had that seal, everything would make sense.
But he clearly had it!
Why not use it at the outset?
While Shen Jizhou was complacent and at his peak, why not drop a single seal and perhaps blast Shen Jizhou off the platform?
Then Lu Yuan would have won!
But he didn’t!
He chose the most foolish path: using the other ritual artifacts to exhaust himself until life and lamp were spent, and only then play his strongest card.
This wasn’t merely pointless.
This was courting death!
If he had used the divine seal at the start...
There would have been a real chance...
At least thirty percent!
"Dad!!!"
"Enough! Don't ask any more!"
From the audience, Shen Shulan could no longer hold back; her voice quivered with tears as she snapped:
"Master Uncle is barely holding on! Announce the end now!"
He Xun burst into curses:
"Shen Jizhou! What the hell are you waiting for—stop the damn thing!"
Shen Jizhou heard them, gave a slight nod, seeming to think he had perhaps been too verbose.
He looked at Lu Yuan and sighed faintly:
"However, regardless, for you to, at a one-star Celestial Master’s level, force me to—"
"From a certain angle, you won. I lost..."
Before Shen Jizhou finished, the motionless Lu Yuan on the ground suddenly answered:
"Because I didn't want to gamble..."
Though there was a thirty percent chance that unleashing the Human Emperor Seal at full force from the start could have blasted you off the platform...
Lu Yuan’s voice was hoarse like a broken bellows, yet carried a chilling calm.
"But there was a seventy percent chance of failure."
"This Celestial Master title of our era, I must have it. There can be no mistake."
Shen Jizhou: "????"
Shen Jizhou didn’t understand a word of the strange talk.
No one around him did.
What was that nonsense?
What kind of drivel??
Are you dissatisfied with a thirty percent chance?
You want a hundred percent?
From everything that just happened, where would a hundred percent come from?!
This kid’s brain must be fried, right?!
However, before Shen Jizhou could reply, the corner of his eye caught an unusual light.
The light came from beneath the collapsed platform rubble.
Like a firefly, yet brighter, with a strange pulsing rhythm.
Shen Jizhou’s brows knit, and he reacted instantly.
This is... a formation?!
The thought barely took shape when an intense pang gripped his heart!
Shen Jizhou didn’t even have time to trace the origin; he looked down in horror at the two ritual tools in his hands!
This...
Shen Jizhou sensed that the two top-tier ritual tools in his hands seemed to be weakening...
More precisely...
The spiritual mechanism within these two top-tier tools... was rapidly dissipating!!
Soon, no spiritual sense was needed.
You could see the change with the naked eye!
The Purple Firmament Lightning-Struck Jujube Wood Sword, whose blade had glowed with purple light and dense thunder patterns,
When held one could feel the utmost yang, rock-solid thunder’s intent, as if grasping a condensed bolt.
But now, that purple glow was fading visibly.
The thunder patterns on the blade faded like ink, one after another disappearing.
The blade began to tremble and emitted a mournful cry.
That lament was the sorrow of a tool near death.
"Crack—"
One crisp snap, and the last purple thunder flash on the blade exploded into specks of light and vanished.
Then the jujube-wood blade that had survived millennia of lightning quickly lost luster, turned grey and brittle.
It finally became a length of ordinary dried wood—light in his hand, devoid of spiritual mechanism.
Shen Jizhou’s pupils contracted sharply.
Without hesitation he looked to the Seven Star Lamp in his other hand.
That lamp had still emitted seven-hued brilliance moments ago; though the flame was faint, it had been alive.
Now the seven-colored radiance on the lamp was rapidly waning; the flame shrank and dimmed,
Finally giving a soft "puff" as it fully extinguished.
The nine-petaled lotus base engraved with intricate astronomical patterns blurred one petal at a time until they vanished.
Only bare bronze remained.
On the slim lamp shaft, the seven ancient characters of "Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden Seven Star Lamp" fractured; the strokes broke, turning into unreadable rust.
A legendary divine lamp in an instant became a worthless old bronze relic.
Shen Jizhou’s face finally, utterly changed!
He snapped his head up and fixed his stare on the ever-brightening light under the rubble; that light seemed like a greedy maw devouring everything nearby.
"This is..."
Before he finished, screams of terror erupted from the audience!
"Look! Those ritual tools!"
People turned and saw that several artifacts scattered in the rubble were simultaneously undergoing drastic change!
The All-Penetrating Golden Light Mirror, which had hovered with a solemn ancient face, now had the tadpole-like esoteric runes on its surface wildly flickering, then bursting into motes of light and vanishing.
The sun-and-moon pearls on the mirror’s back dimmed as if all their radiance had been siphoned away.
The mirror trembled and let out a sorrowful cry, then...
Clang—the mirror fell into the debris, its surface dulled, bereft of wonder.
The Five Thunders Command Token, its black body patterned in red, had once exuded oppressive authority.
Now the Five Directions Thunder Gods’ sigils on the token were rapidly fading.
The symbols representing the Eastern Heaven-Shaking Gates Thunder God, the Southern Fiery Light Thunder God, one by one dimmed and disappeared.
The token trembled and gave one final thunderous sound of unwillingness.
Then...
Crack—the token split a hairline, and fell silent forever.
Look at the Xuanming Summon Soul Banner.
Where the silver-thread runes had once crazily flowed with countless fierce faces struggling and roaring, they were becoming paler, blurrier, until they dissolved into nothing.
The three gray-white skull bells atop the banner pole rang wildly.
Then they shattered into powder with successive pops.
The banner tore down the middle and hung limply as a lifeless rag.
Everyone stared in stunned silence, their minds blank.
This...
What is happening?!
These top-tier ritual artifacts—these supreme treasures from legend—how could they simultaneously...
Be destroyed at the same time?!
Shen Jizhou whirled, his gaze like lightning, fixed on the collapsed figure of Lu Yuan by the stone.
Lu Yuan still had his eyes closed, breath so faint it was barely perceptible, as pale as paper, drenched in blood and ready to die at any moment.
Yet the corner of his mouth curved into a smile.
A smile of triumph.
Shen Jizhou’s heart dropped into an abyss.
He lowered his head again, his sight piercing the rubble to lock onto that increasingly blinding light source.
A horrible idea detonated in his mind.
A formation...
It was a formation!
He strode forward, his robe-sleeve whipping an invisible gale.
"Whoosh—"
The rubble and shards on the ruins instantly swept aside, revealing the shocking truth hidden beneath the platform.
Beneath the very center of the arena’s foundation lay an enormous formation diagram, as huge and unrivaled as a mountain!
The complexity of the diagram exceeded Shen Jizhou’s comprehension.
Radiating from the arena center were billions of hair-thin esoteric lines,
Crossing and layering, they composed a three-dimensional formation suspended beneath the earth.
At each critical node of the diagram lay an inlaid jade talisman that shimmered with flowing light.
The jade talismans glowed faintly, light surging along the prescribed lines, ultimately converging like rivers into the formation’s center.
There, in a shallow recess the size of a fist,
Lay a jade seal.
The Human Emperor Seal.
But now the Human Emperor Seal had utterly changed its appearance.
When Lu Yuan previously activated it, the seal had been pure white jade and the eight ancient scripts had released blazing golden radiance.
Now the eight ancient scripts’ golden light was no longer illusory.
They had become viscous, substantive streams of golden liquid, slowly moving on the seal face as if alive.
The seal body was no longer wholly white.
It had grown semi-transparent.
Through this translucence, a horrifying sight could be seen.
Streams of light flowed within, weaving and colliding.
There were flashes of Purple Firmament thunder.
There was the glow of the Seven Star Lamp.
There was the divine light of the Five Thunders Command Token.
There was the eerie glow of the Xuanming Summon Soul Banner.
Countless primordial lights that once belonged to those top-tier artifacts were now imprisoned within the small jade seal, spinning madly.
A chaos-world was evolving inside it.
More chilling was the oppressive might.
That earlier imperial compression that could crush all things had now vanished without trace.
Not dissipated—
But intensely reined in, horribly compressed, all bound within the seal body, without a shred leaking outward.
And this inwardness made it more terrifying.
Like a divine sword: its brilliance is not dangerous when bared; what’s truly terrifying is when it’s sheathed.
Because when it draws again, what world-shattering force will be unleashed then, no one can know.
As Shen Jizhou watched, it was as if thunder exploded in his mind.
He finally understood.
He finally understood why Lu Yuan’s prior actions had seemed so meaningless.
He understood why Lu Yuan used each artifact only once.
Why, despite possessing the Human Emperor Seal, Lu Yuan had chosen to deploy the top-tier ritual artifacts one by one from the start.
Those artifacts...
Those top-tier ritual artifacts...
Were not meant to attack him!
They were meant to—
Be sacrifices!
This formation was a spirit-gathering array!
No—wrong, not merely a spirit-gathering array...
This is...
Shen Jizhou’s gaze pinned to the esoteric lines of the diagram; his mind raced through memories of scattered texts.
He had seen this pattern before.
In marginal notes of the Yunji Qiqian, in fragments of the Daofa Huiyuan, in countless lost ancient passages—
This was the "Sect-Converging Grand Array"!
A forbidden formation from pre-Qin antiquity used to craft supreme treasures!
This array can forcibly extract the primal essence from each artifact, reverse creation, and pour it into a single vessel, transforming it into a deity-like object!
The method of laying this array had been lost since pre-Qin times and existed only in legend!
Lu Yuan...
Lu Yuan actually knew this formation?!
And he dared to use those top-tier ritual artifacts as offerings, feeding them to the Human Emperor Seal?!
Each of those artifacts alone could serve as a sect’s mountain-treasure!
But Lu Yuan had treated them as kindling!
As fertilizer!
Using them all to feed this Human Emperor Seal!
Shen Jizhou spun, his stare like twin blades, aimed at Lu Yuan slumped by the stone.
Lu Yuan still had his eyes closed, breath mere whispers.
But that smirk, the smile of success, grew clearer, more piercing.
"The Celestial Master Grand Ceremony site... is guarded at night by the Fengtian City Security Regiment..."
"The captain of the Security Regiment, Song Zonghu..."
"is my wife’s younger brother."
Lu Yuan’s voice was as light as a mosquito, but each word rang like thunder, clearly exploding in everyone’s ears.
"You just asked me... why I didn't use the Human Emperor Seal from the start..."
"I say..."
"Because I didn't want to gamble."
"A thirty percent chance is too low..."
"What I wanted was..."
Lu Yuan paused, took a deep breath, using his last ounces of strength to enunciate each word:
"A... hundred... percent... certainty..."
The instant the words fell, Lu Yuan suddenly opened his eyes!
There was no light left in his pupils, only a burning blood-red!
The next moment, two lines of bloody tears rolled from his eye corners!
Blood gushed from his nostrils, ear openings, and mouth!
Seven orifices bled!
He was forcibly burning his life, squeezing his soul for the final surge to activate the seal!
"You just said... from a certain angle, you won?"
Lu Yuan twisted his face into a bloody grin.
"No!"
"I WON!"
Hum—
A faint sound came from the formation’s center.
It was not loud, but it felt like the first rhythm when heaven and earth opened!
The Human Emperor Seal rebooted!
At that instant Shen Jizhou quickly scanned his surroundings, sensing changes in detail.
Shen Jizhou’s pupils contracted to the extreme,
And finally, the millennia-unchanging composure on Shen Jizhou’s face thoroughly shattered.
Fear, a feeling he had almost never shown, surfaced in his eyes for the first time.
Shen Jizhou...
Was finally in a panic!
End of Chapter
