Chapter 240: I Acknowledge the Dao!

The humanoid figure formed from white smoke appeared, and the surrounding bluish-white lamps all shrank back toward it, as if once this "seat guest" appeared, the entire seat would start to acknowledge it.

Lu Yuan's gaze turned cold, his short saber held horizontally at his chest, and he barked:

"Don't let it get stable!"

"If it stabilizes, it will have recognized the seat!"

Before his words finished, the humanoid white smoke raised its head.

It had no face, only a misty blank, but in the center of that blank a very fine red dot slowly emerged, like someone pressing a pin against paper from behind.

Immediately a second red dot appeared.

One on the left, one on the right, positioned exactly like eyes.

"It's borrowing air to form eyes!" Song Qinghe cried out.

"Heaven without light, earth without gates!"

"Paper without eyes, smoke without body!"

"With my saber's qi I sever your shadow, with my true fire I burn your root!"

"Urgently, urgently, as by the law's command!"

On the last four words, he suddenly slashed his saber diagonally, the blade wind carrying the lingering fire from that flattened talisman, sweeping straight toward the white smoke figure's brow.

"Mouth!"

The white smoke was split open; mist billowed and revealed a section of blue-black spinal contour inside.

Only then did the others realize it was not a complete human form, but a "seat" made up layer by layer of paper, ash, incense offerings, and king-flesh.

It seemed prepared as a substitute for the empty seats on the formation, waiting for a living person to respond so it could drop in their soul.

"So it's a seat spirit!" Zhou Heng said in a low voice.

Cold deepened in Lu Yuan's eyes:

"Not a seat spirit, but a 'guest body.'"

"Whoever recognizes the seat will take its place."

He finished and his Yu Steps started again. The steps were short but unbroken, each one pressing along a line toward the yin path between the earth mound and the shrunken coffin.

He chanted while he walked:

"Left step on the Azure Dragon, right step on the White Tiger."

"Front suppresses the Vermilion Bird, rear presses the Black Tortoise."

"One step severs the road, two steps intercept the gate."

"Three steps seal the seat, four steps fix the soul!"

"With Daoist step talismans I walk your yin formation's proper vein!"

"Retreat!"

Lu Yuan's final step landed heavily; the black-ash circle on the ground trembled with a low hum.

From the gray line a layer of light yellow earth-energy rose, like something alive, forcibly lifting the lower half of the white smoke figure.

Seeing the opportunity, Lin Zhaoxuan immediately flipped the Thunderclap Token, pressed his two fingers to the back, and shouted:

"Thunder-fire, do not fall upon the lamps, heavenly might strikes only the yin road's root!"

"Borrow for me a strand of the Five Thunders, command your paper bones to scatter to dust!"

Bluish-white arcs of thunder issued from the token, but they did not strike the white smoke figure directly; they slanted into the shrunken coffin's seam.

"Boom!"

A muffled, miserable scream came from inside the coffin, as if someone below ground had their throat scalded by thunder-fire.

The white smoke figure shuddered, the two red lights in its brow flickering wildly, like eyes about to burst open.

The paper-masked person saw this and suddenly flipped the register to the last page, pressing a finger against those five red dots while saying in a low voice:

"Missing one seat, cannot disperse the feast."

At his press, the red dots snapped into light with a crisp sound.

Lu Yuan's face changed. He turned sharply to Zhou Heng and Song Qinghe and barked:

"It's trying to borrow a living person to fill the final seat!"

"Zhou Heng, cut behind the paper banner!"

"Song Qinghe, aim the plate heart at my feet!"

"Lin Zhaoxuan, press the register with thunder, don't let it flip pages!"

Zhou Heng shot up and horizontally slashed the nearest white banner behind it.

Where the sword light passed, the banner cloth tore, and a string of black paper figures fell out and turned to charred ash on the ground.

Song Qinghe held the plate, the Yin-Yang Fish suddenly spun, and the plate's heart sent a cold light directly down to Lu Yuan's feet.

Lu Yuan caught that thin beam and saw, in the black soil by his foot, an extremely fine handprint slowly extending outward.

His pupils contracted and he shouted:

"So the gate root is here!"

In the next instant he did not hesitate. He formed a seal at his brow with his left hand and drove his short saber sharply into the ground with his right.

"Heaven clear, earth manifest, I borrow three inches of soil as proof for my body."

"I borrow your gate root to lock me, I borrow your yin vein to press the ghost form."

"Seal!"

The moment the blade tip plunged into the earth, the earliest-stirred earth-energy within the black-ash circle suddenly recoiled, as if an invisible net tightened and clamped down on that handprint beneath the ground.

Something under the coffin finally made a true human sound for the first time.

It was an extremely low, hoarse cry—half-child, half-old—trickling up from the coffin bottom:

"Don't... press........

Lu Yuan heard it and his gaze dropped like a blade.

"So you are not the master."

"You were pressed in."

As his words fell, the short saber flicked upward in his hand; the copper coin on the blade's back rang as a very fine but bright white light shot straight into the smoke figure's brow.

"Break the seat!"

The white smoke figure exploded, the bluish-white lamp lights dimming simultaneously.

The paper-masked person abruptly stepped back half a pace, and the red thread along the register's edge began seeping black blood.

At that moment, the shrunken coffin's lid was finally pushed open an inch from within.

A glossy black eye opened from the coffin seam.

When that eye opened, every bluish-white lamp in the stone passage quivered.

It wasn't wind, not a man moving; it felt like something deeper, older, and ineffable, slowly pulling aura back into the coffin.

The eye was glossy black and bright, not like a living creature's eye but like an ancient well that hadn't seen the sky for years.

Deep in the well-water a shadow refused to dissipate, coldly peering out through the coffin seam at the people.

Lu Yuan felt a chill on his back but dared not loosen his grip. He said in a low voice:

"Don't stare into its eye."

"If it catches you with an eye, it recognizes people."

Zhou Heng immediately turned his face aside, veins bulging at his temple:

"Lu Dao-you, exactly what method is this thing?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer, but his feet silently stepped out three short talisman steps.

Left foot down, right followed, the third step pausing and pressuring as if driving an invisible stake into the ground.

He chanted quietly at the same time:

"Heaven's gate won't open, earth's gate won't connect."

"Eyes in the coffin, yin and yang reversed."

"I borrow three steps to lock your soul, not allowing you to leave an inch of edge."

"Urgently, urgently, as by the law's command!"

Each word fell steady, not rushed, but each struck like a nail driven into the earth.

The light yellow earth-energy at the black-ash circle's edge rose again and slowly pressed toward the shrunken coffin.

Song Qinghe watched alarmed and quickly pushed the Tai Chi Seal to Suppress Evil Plate forward, the Yin-Yang Fish spinning like a millstone, its cold light directly over the coffin seam.

"Lu Dao-you, my plate heart can suppress it for a breath, but not for long!"

"That's enough," Lu Yuan said in a deep voice.

"As long as that eye closes for half an instant, I can apply the second seal."

No sooner had he spoken than the black eye in the coffin abruptly rolled upward, flashing a patch of stark white sclera.

In that instant everyone felt a buzzing in their ears, like someone striking a bronze bell with an iron spoon.

Xu Erxiao staggered, nearly dropped to his knees, and let slip a low involuntary "ai."

"Shit!"

Wang Cheng'an clamped his hand over Xu Erxiao's mouth.

But it was too late.

Though soft, that "ai" sounded as if the thing in the coffin heard it. Immediately a thread of black qi slid out from the coffin seam.

A fine thread like an invisible needle lunged for the back of Xu Erxiao's neck.

Lu Yuan's eyes were quick. He parried with his short saber; the copper coin on the blade sang as it deflected, giving a crisp chime.

"Ding!"

The black needle was knocked aside, brushing Xu Erxiao's ear and embedding into the rear stone wall with a thin black streak, like ink seeping into paper.

Lu Yuan's face darkened:

"It's piercing soul-needles."

Lin Zhaoxuan's expression hardened; he held the Thunderclap Token to his chest and the bluish-white thunder pattern crawled along its edge without rest.

"I'll sever its eye path!"

He brought two fingers together, flipped the token's back, and chanted rapidly:

"Ninth Heaven's Thunder Ancestor above, lend me a line to break that abyssal glow."

"Thunder as eye, lightning as blade, illuminate and shatter the yin eye with no hiding."

"East thunder open, west thunder close, south thunder cleave, north thunder bind."

"Five-direction true reserve presses the evil light."

"Rescue!"

On the last word the Thunderclap Token shot forward.

A bluish-white thunder thread flew from its tip, not to strike the coffin but slanted directly at the black eye in the seam.

"Snap!"

The thunder grazed the coffin rim; the black eye shrank, and a deep, heavy groan came from within.

At that groan, the entire stone passage felt as if a breath was forcibly held.

Meanwhile the paper-masked person slowly lifted his head; the dark light seeping through the crack in the white paper mask intensified.

He turned the register to a middle page, pressing a finger at the corner. His voice was chillingly flat:

"Once the soul is marked, it enters the seat."

"One who enters the seat cannot retreat."

Lu Yuan's eyes went icily cold:

"This isn't an invitation feast, it's borrowing a name to bind life."

The paper-masked person did not answer; he turned another page forward.

This page was not blank but filled with a row upon row of pale red fingerprints, tightly packed, as if many people had pressed their hands one by one until the paper swelled.

When those fingerprints appeared the bluish-white lamps seemed fed and suddenly surged.

"They're adding lamps!" Song Qinghe cried.

"They cannot add," Lu Yuan snapped coldly.

"It's flipping old accounts, calling the shadows who previously filled seats to help."

His words had barely fallen when the paper faces that had been just paper began to change slowly along the stone passage's sides.

Where there had been hollow black eye-sockets, some faces began to swell with noses; cracked mouth corners gained faint bluish-gray human skin texture.

They no longer looked like paper; rather like real human contours pasted with a thin coat of adipocere and paper pulp.

"It's borrowing old souls to nurture new shells!" Zhou Heng shouted.

Lu Yuan nodded, his coldness sharpening to a blade:

"Right. It first uses the seat names on the formation to feed the paper, then uses paper to feed the skin, and finally the skin borrows Vitality Energy."

"If it advances another step the whole formation could come alive."

He raised his short saber upright, blade pointing up, left hand forming a seal against the spine of the blade.

His right hand curled into an extremely standard "seal of closure."

"Heaven's mouth shut, earth's mouth gather."

"Yin mouth locked, yang mouth kept."

"With my saber as talisman, with my blood as nail."

"Seal your paper mouth, stitch your yin voice."

"Close!"

On the last word his left hand slapped the blade spine.

The saber emitted a very fine, long vibration, like iron plunging into cold water.

The sound was low but tangible, propagating outward along the stone passage as an extremely thin ripple.

Where the ripple passed the red-and-white banners trembled, and several recently-swollen paper-skin faces slumped down with a rustle.

For the first time the paper-masked person paused for half a breath.

Lu Yuan seized that half-breath and suddenly turned to Song Qinghe:

"Give me half a turn of the plate!"

Song Qinghe understood instantly. With a flick of her hands the Tai Chi Seal to Suppress Evil Plate tilted slightly.

The Yin-Yang Fish on the plate rotated half a turn off-axis; the cold light changed from horizontal to diagonal, now shining directly on the register in the paper-masked person's hands.

The register's cover shrank around the red thread at the touch of the cold light.

Lu Yuan timed it and spun, reversing his grip on the short saber. Borrowing the step-talisman momentum he swept forward, but the blade did not stab a person—it slashed the register's spine diagonally.

"First cut the name book, then cut the gate-root!"

"If you want to mark seats, I'll leave you nameless to mark!"

The blade's tip slashed and the register's spine split with a ripping crack.

At that instant a shrill, near-piercing chorus of cries erupted from the passage's end, like many women straining their throats in a single mouth.

At that sound all the paper banners went madly trembling, the bluish-white lamps flickered uncertainly.

The paper-masked person's wrist trembled and the register nearly slipped from his grip.

At last he retreated a full step.

"Done!" Zhou Heng exclaimed in a low voice.

Lu Yuan showed no joy. He growled:

"Don't loosen!"

Before his words finished, the black eye in the coffin suddenly widened.

Then a second, a third eye pushed out from the seam—many eyes, not a single thing watching but layers of watching eyelids, stacks of resentful qi, pressing out from the coffin.

Song Qinghe's face went pale:

"This... is a crowd-eye calamity?"

Lu Yuan's voice sank terrifyingly:

"Not a crowd-eye, but a thousand-eyes lock."

"Someone pressed hundreds and thousands of soul-skins at the coffin bottom so it could borrow eyes to find the way."

"Every eye that appears means another layer within has awakened."

He cut his words short and bit his index finger suddenly. A bead of blood formed and he pressed it onto the copper coin on the short saber's back.

The coin stained with blood, faintly flashing a dark gold.

"Zhou Heng, block three breaths for me!"

"Lin Zhaoxuan, press thunder on the right-rear lamp!"

"Song Qinghe, plate heart aimed at the coffin seam, do not move!"

"Cheng'an, Erxiao, throw salt under my feet, quickly!"

They obeyed at once.

Zhou Heng braced his sword and became like a wall at Lu Yuan's side front.

Lin Zhaoxuan pressed his Thunderclap Token at an angle, forcing the right-rear lamp back to half-dark with thunderlight.

Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao scrambled with salt, desperately scattering it at Lu Yuan's feet.

When the salt hit the ground a very light "sip" sound came from beneath Lu Yuan's feet, like a drop hitting a hot pot.

Lu Yuan inhaled deeply and recited a short charm three times:

"Salt is the earth's bone, fire is heaven's sinew."

"If the earth sinew is unbroken, the yin road will not move."

"One scatter severs three times, a hundred calamities shall not be born."

"Urgent, urgent, urgent!"

On the final "urgent" he spun and slashed.

Blade wind carried the copper-coin bloodlight and struck the unseen yin road at the stone path's center.

"Flavor!"

That sound was not in the ears but in the bones.

The seat road that had been pressed down by the red-and-white procession was abruptly cleaved aside by his blade.

Under the black soil violent upheaval followed, as if some enormous creature lost its bearing and frantically tried to recover direction below.

The paper-masked person used the chance to flip the register, his voice finally growing urgent:

"Fill the seat... fill..."

Lu Yuan's gaze went icy:

"It's panicking."

Lin Zhaoxuan suddenly looked up:

"Can I just cleave its register?"

"No." Lu Yuan said decisively.

"The register is a live account; cleaving it would scatter the names into the earth."

"What it fears now isn't your cleave, it's not knowing who sits."

As he spoke, something occurred to him and he turned to look at the earth mound.

The 'hand gate' they had forced back with sword and saber had slowly withdrawn and left a deep palm imprint in the soil.

In that palm print a very fine white light faintly flickered.

Lu Yuan's expression sharpened.

"So that's it."

"This formation isn't about replacing a single seat."

"It wants to first light the master seat, then force a living person to sit."

Song Qinghe was startled:

"Master seat?"

Lu Yuan lowered his voice:

"Yes. The real thing inside that coffin doesn't want to come out by itself; it's waiting for a breath of 'seat-recognition' qi."

"As soon as someone in the formation recognizes the invitation, it can borrow the name to take the seat."

"So what we must do isn't to confront it directly, but first destroy the path it uses to recognize the seat."

Zhou Heng urged:

"How do we destroy it?"

Lu Yuan glanced at the surrounding red-and-white banners and then at the register in the paper-masked person's hands, and said in a low voice:

"It uses names to mark seats, and lamps to recognize seats."

"Lamps are at the left-rear, names are in the register, the seat is in the coffin."

"Then cut all three at once."

He didn't finish speaking before he thrust the short saber back into its sheath and formed a peculiar pair of hand seals.

Left thumb hooked the base of the ring finger, index and middle pressed together against the palm.

Right hand's five fingers spread like a lamp, palm inward as though shielding a small flame.

He slowly raised both hands and intoned a set of very steady, very slow altar-pleading words, as if lifting characters from an old temple stele—each word heavy enough to make one hold their breath:

"Above I invite the Three Pure Ones to shine before the altar, below I request the underworld to close its gates."

"Between them one mortal flame to illuminate the yin book and the ghostly feast."

"I take my hand as talisman, my heart as furnace."

"In the furnace burn true intent; true intent breaks evil bonds."

"Not inviting demons, not inviting ghosts, only requesting a single ray of heaven's light."

"Urgently, urgently, as by the law's command!"

At the last words he slammed his palms together, then sharply opened them again.

Between his hands a faint, faint thread of white qi appeared, as if plucked directly from the air.

The white qi was so fine it resembled a needle.

"What is that?" Song Qinghe cried.

Lu Yuan's gaze did not waver. He whispered:

"It is the altar-heart qi."

"A true reserve forced out using human heart as furnace."

"It can be used only once."

He drew that white thread onto his short saber, then abruptly looked up, his eyes flashing like lightning.

"Zhou Heng, retreat half a step!"

"Lin Zhaoxuan, raise thunder half an inch, don't let it fully fall!"

"Song Qinghe, plate heart aimed at the coffin eye!"

"Cheng'an, Erxiao, lie down!"

Although unsure of his plan, they obeyed instinctively.

In the next instant Lu Yuan raised the short saber high; the blade shimmered with the copper-coin bloodlight and was wrapped in that slender altar-heart qi.

He seemed to be filled with an invisible force.

He let out a long shout that cut through the stone passage:

"Heavenly talisman fall, earthly malevolence gather!"

"Lamp cut, name cut, seat cut, master cut!"

"Today I borrow the saber to sever your seat-recognition root!"

"Sever!"

On the final "Sever" he struck down.

This time the saber's qi arrived before the blade. The left-rear bluish-white lamp exploded in midair with a sharp pop into a ball of fragmented fire.

The register's spine cracked another line.

The black eye that had protruded three times in the shrunken coffin suddenly shrank as if struck by an invisible blade.

Immediately all paper faces, paper hands, paper feet, and paper banners along the stone passage emitted a very light but dense rustling—like a thousand sheets of paper simultaneously flicking a corner.

"Is it done?" Xu Erxiao asked from the ground, his voice altered.

Lu Yuan did not answer at once.

Because at that moment the coffin fell silent.

It wasn't suppressed or sealed; rather the thing inside seemed to be silently thinking.

After a full three breaths a very low voice slowly leaked from the coffin seam.

This time it was no longer man nor woman.

It sounded like many voices layered—children, old women, mute wretches, dead-house whispers—pushed out bit by bit:

"You... won't recognize the seat?"

Lu Yuan's gaze froze to ice. Pointing his saber at the coffin seam, he replied slowly:

"I recognize the Dao."

"You recognize the seat."

"Then we'll see who loses breath first."

As his words landed the coffin at the stone passage's end finally pushed open a seam wider than a finger for the first time.

Glossy black yin qi poured out from within like a tide.