Thud! Thud! Thud!
Beneath the Supreme Primordial Cloud of Limitless Origin, Meng Qi’s vision plunged into darkness, severing all connection with the outside world. The only sound in his ears and mind was the thunderous beating of a heart—seemingly distant yet intimately close. At first, he thought it was his own, but soon he realized it belonged to another being, one residing within his very body!
Thud! Thud! Thud!
As this realization dawned, he felt a surge of savage, demonic power abruptly expand, shattering the nascent multiverse within him and staining his flesh with an alien will. In an instant, all his defenses and strength crumbled, and his consciousness lost all awareness of his physical form. The sea of his mind, once dotted with golden scales of memory fragments, now churned violently without wind, waves surging wildly. Figures clad in black robes and towering crowns emerged one after another, coalescing into a vortex of dark crimson chaos, claiming this realm as their own.
Meng Qi’s consciousness blurred. In his dwindling vision, the tranquil sea of his mind rapidly darkened from the edges inward, all memory fragments retreating until they were compressed into a single translucent golden sphere, gleaming like glass.
With his remaining will, he summoned the Infinite Seal, the Heaven-Splitting Seal, the Dao Transmitting the Cosmos, and the Unrivaled Dominance, but they were as fragile as paper, crumbling under the terrifying remnants of the Eastern Emperor’s flesh. The golden sphere soon tainted with dark crimson, twisting into madness.
“Ah!”
A scream erupted as the Supreme Primordial Cloud surrounding Meng Qi was pierced by deep red, nearly black blood vessels, dissolving into mist and revealing his current form: veins bulging grotesquely across his skin, extending and retracting as if alive, every acupoint now bearing a face—each a reflection of his alternate selves. Now, they were all twisted with madness, turning Meng Qi into a grotesque amalgamation of countless demonic corpses. His once-resolute eyes were now dark red, swirling with chaotic vortices, devoid of all reason and wisdom.
Even She Qin, the founder of Zhixu Mountain, who had attained the Perfection of Creation, had turned into a monster under the remnants of the Eastern Emperor’s flesh—barely retaining moments of lucidity—despite the Heavenly Lord of Primordial Beginning having excised most of it. How could Meng Qi fare any better?
At this moment, a glimmer of his innate spirit transformed into an imperfect moon, suspended within his Niwan Palace, seemingly floating at an infinite height. Below, the dark crimson tide surged relentlessly, threatening to drown his last vestiges of self. Suddenly, a faint silhouette appeared within the moon’s glow—a jade disc bathed in its light!
This was the shadow of the Creation Jade Disc, Meng Qi’s reward for refining the remnants of the Eastern Emperor’s multiverse. Only by mastering its lingering spirituality could he fully control the flesh!
The shadow of the Creation Jade Disc slowly rotated, casting faint rays that momentarily halted the dark tide, as if an intense struggle raged within.
Yet, after only a brief pause, the tide rose again—slower but just as relentless.
Then, beside the jade disc’s shadow appeared a small, crystalline tree brimming with vitality, its nine branches each bearing nine leaves. As it swayed, the harmonious tones of the Great Dao resonated, guarding the Dao Unity Glass Lamp behind it, which cast shifting lights of black and white.
The Tree of the Great Dao!
Together, the three forged a barrier of radiant light around the imperfect moon of Meng Qi’s innate spirit, weakening the tide’s frenzy. Though it surged and receded, it could never quite breach the barrier.
In the real world, Meng Qi’s Taoist crown disintegrated, his black hair transforming into writhing serpents that stretched endlessly into the void.
Deep within the Great Snow Mountain, Wang Siyuan sensed something and sighed:
“So that’s how it is…”
“A pity time is not on my side. With a few more years, I might have aided him…”
In the boundless Pure Land, the Ancient Buddha Dipamkara, his twenty-four layers of Buddha light encircling an ancient glass lamp, watched intently the happenings at the Jade Void Palace of Kunlun Mountain, awaiting his opportunity.
When he saw Meng Qi recklessly absorb the Eastern Emperor’s flesh, he showed a flicker of emotion before calming. Whether it was Su Meng or the Eastern Emperor’s remnant spirit, as long as the Old Mother erased them, the “Dao Unity Seal” could be reforged.
As this thought crossed his mind, the voice of the Demonic Buddha Ananda echoed in his ear: “Beware.”
Before the words faded, Dipamkara saw black serpents emerge before him, somehow piercing the Pure Land’s countless barriers without a sound, lunging to “bite” him.
Buddha light flashed, the glass lamp turned, and the serpents were severed, falling by the Merit Pond, twisting briefly before turning into strands of broken black hair.
“Instinctively seeking to devour the karmic path I’ve forged…” Dipamkara’s expression grew graver.
This monster was truly mad—not to be underestimated!
Consumed by savagery, Meng Qi retained only a faint, inexplicable urge preventing him from destroying everything around him—as if something precious needed protection. Instinctively, he sensed danger, knowing a deadly foe approached.
His hair billowing, veins bulging, he reached out and grasped the Peerless Blade.
“Die!” he roared, his dark red eyes brimming with madness.
Purple light erupted, transforming the world into an ocean of lightning—silver, white, azure, gold—each bolt embodying the clash of yin and yang, the cycle of life and death, the conflict of righteousness and evil. The Dao of Thunder was far more than mere lightning!
The bolts converged, forming Dao patterns that surged toward the heavens, where an immaculate full moon suddenly rose, its radiance suppressing the thunder. A flawless white finger extended from it, its tip shrouded in darkness, erasing even time itself.
Silently, the thunder sea collapsed, swallowed by the void. The lightning and Dao patterns condensed back into the heavy purple blade, buying only a brief pause in the sacred finger’s descent.
Even as a monster wielding the fully awakened Peerless Blade, Meng Qi could only slightly hinder the Old Mother of No Birth—utterly outmatched!
At that moment, Gu Xiaosang approached Meng Qi, unafraid of his savagery, and whispered: “Gather the past, go to the Nine Nethers!”
Go to the Nine Nethers! Meng Qi’s dark red eyes burned with the urge to rend everything, yet something in him resisted harming her, compelling him to obey.
“Kill!”
He roared again, the blade’s light surging once more—not filling the world, but piercing through time itself, connecting with every version of himself: the Meng Qi before absorbing the Eastern Emperor’s flesh, the one who entered the highest realm of the Immortal World, the one who proved his uniqueness, the one who severed past and future, the one struggling within the Six Paths, the one who first entered Shaolin… all the way back to Earth. Simultaneously, it linked every moment of Gu Xiaosang’s past.
From the full moon in the sky, another finger descended—pure white, slender, and holy, casting all beyond its light into absolute darkness, a void that existed in both present and past.
Meng Qi, bereft of reason, summoned the Supreme Primordial Cloud once more, darker and more terrifying than ever, as if harboring all the dangers and mysteries of chaos itself. It surged into the Peerless Blade.
The blade’s light contracted abruptly, pulling every past version of Meng Qi and Gu Xiaosang into the present, forming a dark sphere teeming with flickering figures, leaving only imprints in history.
The sphere, unstable, threatened to collapse. The Peerless Blade suddenly rose, enduring another near-instantaneous strike from the Old Mother, then used the force of its defeat to drag the monstrous Meng Qi and Gu Xiaosang into the Nine Nethers!
Under the black sun, amidst rolling demonic energy, they arrived in the uppermost layer of the Nine Nethers. The dark sphere shattered silently, its figures merging into the river of time there, severed by the blade’s power from returning to the real world.
Above, the barriers of time and space collapsed as the flawless white finger pursued, bringing final doom. Even without reason, the monstrous Meng Qi felt utterly drained, sustained only by the Nine Nethers’ demonic energy flooding into him.
As the Golden Emperor’s attack neared, a figure appeared before him—a towering, dark-furred ape bridging heaven and earth!
The Great Sage Equal of Heaven, Sun Wukong!
“The Old Lord told me to wait here and borrow your blade,” the ape grinned.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage