ATEG Chapter 142.2

In the Underworld, on three of the remaining six stretches of the Yellow Springs, three new Yellow Springs Inns suddenly and silently erected themselves — like bridges, like spikes, locked fast upon the Yellow Springs waters. Now, of the nine stretches of the Yellow Springs, three were permeated with earth-territory power, and five were locked down by Yellow Springs Inns. Only one stretch remained.

Upon that last stretch, countless coffin-boats rose and fell, and beyond them, the yin-mist was so thick that one could not see a hand held before one’s face. Within the mist moved countless vengeful spirits under the command of the Yellow Springs Ferrymen.

Li Quan reached out to save a Mingdeng Sect disciple whose heart-lamp still burned. With the situation in the Underworld shifting so suddenly, the Mingdeng Sect cultivators and the Ghost King Nu Xu’s subordinates had been caught entirely off guard. Li Quan gave Bi Dongdi a push, and that great hulking figure transformed back into his true form, body wreathed in swirling arcane winds.

“Go rescue people,” Li Quan said.

Bi Dongdi let out a muffled growl, his rhinoceros horn blazing with ghostly light. He charged along the stretch of the Yellow Springs, and wherever he passed, the Yellow Springs Ferrymen were sent tumbling from their boats.

But the closer he drew to the Yellow Springs Inns, the greater the resistance he felt — the divine power bestowed upon him seemed to be pushing him away from them. These Yellow Springs Inns were unlike the ones he had smashed before. The power of Hundun had already descended. This was the moment Hundun had long awaited — the moment to build the sixth Yellow Springs Inn. Why would he be stingy with his power now?

Bi Dongdi simply veered aside underfoot, went around the inn, and continued charging at the back half of the Yellow Springs stretch.

While Bi Dongdi forged ahead on that side with gusto, the lamplight on another stretch of the Yellow Springs blazed brightly as well.

Yang Cang had arrived in the Underworld at some point unnoticed. Tiny sparks of heart-flame flew from his hands, linking together the Mingdeng Sect cultivators scattered across the Yellow Springs who were barely holding on — one lampfire’s glow meeting the next, illuminating more than half the Yellow Springs.

Countless wronged souls, bathed in that bright, clear light, felt within it a pure and unadulterated warmth. That warmth stirred in them, amid their endless bitterness and resentment, a sudden sense of grief and suffering — and with it, a single thought of longing for release. In that instant, they were drawn by the Yellow Springs and each entered reincarnation, breaking free from the Yellow Springs Ferrymen’s control.

The surface of the Yellow Springs was cleared in an instant, leaving only a scattering of coffin-boats drifting about.

A vicious gaze fell upon Yang Cang. He looked up sharply.

At the entrance of the Yellow Springs Inn, a waiter with a cloth draped over his shoulder was grinning, his mouth a crimson slash. As Yang Cang turned to look, the waiter waved at him in greeting, as if welcoming a customer.

Yang Cang frowned and paid the waiter’s provocation no heed. The Mingdeng Sect’s heart-flame could break the Ferrymen’s methods, but it had no power over a Yellow Springs Inn that harbored the power of Hundun within.

At this same moment, on that final stretch of the Yellow Springs — the one without Shetu’s power and without a Yellow Springs Inn — a new change had already begun to take shape.

The countless coffin-boats drifting through the Yellow Springs were enveloped by the power of Hundun. Though each was separate, together they formed one body — like locusts driven by their king — coalescing into a terrifying force that moved as one, unified in will yet freely adaptable.

The many coffin-boats subtly arranged themselves into a vast and peculiar formation. Within the formation, a section of the Yellow Springs was deliberately left empty — the point where the Yellow Springs passed from death to life, the place where, though life and death were one body with neither beginning nor end, a “beginning and end” had been forcibly designated. This was also the site they had chosen for the Yellow Springs Inn.

The formation’s power opened like the maw of a whale, swallowing the yin-mist made up of countless wronged souls into the formation. The power Hundun had bestowed upon each and every Yellow Springs Ferryman converged at the designated node, and under this unbelievable, towering force, countless wronged souls were solidified into an inn. It rose from the ground, and upon every floor-tile were many contorted, agonized faces, struggling and writhing. The more they struggled the more it hurt, the more it hurt the more maddened they became — so they tore at one another ceaselessly, and the grudge-energy born from that tearing forged them ever more firmly into the structure of the inn.

Tile by tile of vengeful spirits laid the flooring, stacked up the surrounding walls. Pillar by pillar of vengeful spirits rose upright; rafters were fitted, black roof-tiles layered and capping the whole — the entire Yellow Springs Inn shot upward in an instant. The wronged souls in the yin-mist struggled endlessly, irresistibly sucked into the formation and refined into counters and bowls, tables and chairs…

The Yellow Springs Inn also took root downward. The gu-formation that refined vengeful spirits extended beneath the ground. Countless agonized, resentment-filled souls clawed and struggled against one another, yet none could escape that gu-formation. Their struggles formed a downward-spinning vortex, like a great sharp nail driving itself toward the Yellow Springs.

This was the foundation of the Yellow Springs Inn. But this foundation, no matter how it pressed, could not be driven in.

The Yellow Springs grew ever more still. The calm surface of the water was a deep, dark mirror, nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding Underworld. Silent, vast, at once infinitely great and infinitely minute — a force heavier than mountains, rolling like a wheel and utterly irresistible — gathered upon this stretch of the Yellow Springs.

Even the most resentment-laden, most ferocious, most powerful evil spirit at the base of the vortex — the one that had drawn upon the power of every wronged soul in the entire Yellow Springs Inn — the moment it touched the surface of that Yellow Springs, shattered on contact.

In the face of this sixth Yellow Springs Inn about to be established, the full power of the Underworld’s Dao itself naturally struck back. Hundun dared not personally enter the Underworld, and no matter what he did, he could not directly drive that inn into place.

But the moment he had been waiting for had arrived.

Above the Yellow Springs, within the Underworld, a figure came drifting silently down.

Nu Xu.

Her eyes were closed, and she was falling directly toward the designated node of the Yellow Springs — the very spot where countless wronged souls had gathered and the Yellow Springs Inn was about to be anchored. But she did not move at all. From her eyelids to her fingertips, she was utterly still, as though she had become entirely unresponsive to the outside world.

A tremendous suction suddenly arose from the vortex of the Yellow Springs Inn, impatient and ravenous, as if desperate to swallow her whole.

Yet still she continued to drift slowly downward. The vortex built from Hundun’s power seemed to have no effect on her whatsoever.

Countless Yellow Springs Ferrymen leapt from their coffin-boats, wreathed in the yin-mist of vengeful spirits. Like a vortex twisted from countless black chains, their bone-thin arms reached for Nu Xu — clawing at her, grabbing for her, flailing — desperate to seize her, drag her down, and lock her into the base of the Yellow Springs Inn.

The Little General’s face was a mask of ferocious fury. Bared teeth gleaming, he threw himself savagely at the chains, biting and tearing.

Yang Cang’s expression darkened sharply. The lamp-flame in his palm exploded upward like a fire phoenix, hurling itself forward.

A clear wind rose suddenly, holding the Little General back and deflecting Yang Cang’s heart-flame.

It was not only the Little General and Yang Cang who were held back by that wind — every cultivator who had moved the moment they recognized that falling figure was stopped in their tracks.

The Little General instinctively swung his head to bite, but Yang Cang held him back.

“Senior Li Quan?” Yang Cang looked over, confused and with a hint of wariness. He had received Li Quan’s kindness before — yet the moment he saw Nu Xu, he understood what the Yellow Springs Inn was after. Whether out of personal friendship with Nu Xu or out of principle, she absolutely could not be allowed to fall into its hands. So why was Li Quan stopping them?

“Do not be hasty,” Li Quan said with a calm smile, his gaze drifting leisurely toward the downward-twisted vortex of chains.

He had made no attempt to approach that stretch of Yellow Springs, nor any attempt to near any of the Yellow Springs Inns. Hundun knew he was in the Underworld, and the traps being laid were aimed at more than just the Mingdeng Sect and the ghost soldiers. Hundun could not enter the Underworld directly, but Li Quan was only an avatar — and Hundun had been making preparations here for a long time. To hold Li Quan back at this critical juncture was no difficult feat.

But Li Quan had no need to intervene.

Nu Xu was still quietly falling. The topmost Yellow Springs Ferryman had already touched her arm — and passed straight through her, as though grasping at a shadow.

Then the second. Then the third. Every one of them, their bone-thin arms wrapped in Hundun’s power, clutched and grabbed and swept at her — and not one of them could touch that figure drifting serenely downward.

They seemed to exist in two entirely different worlds. All those chaotic, malevolent things — they simply had no way of reaching that pocket of peaceful stillness.

“This is…” Yang Cang watched the scene in awe.

“The state of no-self,” Li Quan said in a calm, drawn-out tone, his eyes holding a trace of admiration. “They cannot touch her.”

…..

“The Yellow Springs people cannot touch her.” In Wudi Gorge, Xi Chen’an, unable to read anything from Bie Chunian’s face, gave up trying and said it plainly.

Bie Chunian raised an eyebrow in surprise, and asked with genuine interest. “Why?”

Xi Chen’an was silent for a moment.

What he had said earlier — that Nu Xu had not been able to hurt him — was only half true.

If he had not agreed to Bie Chunian’s terms, he would never have let things develop to the point where Nu Xu could strike that blow. Under those circumstances, she would never have hurt him. But the moment she struck — he was necessarily going to be hurt by it.

Nu Xu’s blade… outwardly, it cut at him. But in truth, it was a step she used to cut herself.

By stepping into the fathomless darkness, by taking that single step, she cut away the self. Understanding alone is not enough to achieve it — so she had used the blade aimed at Xi Chen’an as that step, cutting herself free of the fathomless darkness in one stroke.

Having taken that step, the path ahead of her was wide open and unobstructed.

To bear the vengeful-energy and cut through injustice — to cut through heaven and earth, and through the heart itself.

“She took the step of cutting through me,” Xi Chen’an said, his expression complex, a faint trace of admiration threading through it.

…..

Nu Xu felt herself sinking.

She had stepped out from the path beneath her feet and fallen into the fathomless darkness.

Beyond the sinking, she could feel nothing — not Xi Chen’an, not the Inverted Heavenly Ladder, not the darkness around her. She could not even feel the white bone blade in her hand, refined from ten lifetimes of vengeful-bones.

Gradually, she could no longer even feel herself sinking. In her heart, only that final thought remained.

Cut!

But she had nothing left to cut at — all outward things had dissolved away.

What was left to cut?

Her cultivation — cut away! The arcane power concentrated with yin-energy — cut away! The vengeful-energy she bore — cut away!

Her memories — cut away! All the killing intent in her being — cut away! The tangled thoughts of old — cut away!

The Seven Emotions — cut away! Fear — cut away! Anger — cut away!

The self too — cut away! All things, entirely cut away!

And after the cutting, even the thought of cutting ceased. In this state of no thought, no contemplation, the true Dao — obscured for so long by a thousand tangled thoughts and vexations — at last surfaced.

In this clear, still state of no-self, without anyone standing guard over it, malevolent intentions could not find her, harm could not reach her. Every outside force fell upon empty air.

Only Nu Xu continued to sink, down to the deepest, stillest, most fundamental place.

She had already fallen into the Yellow Springs Inn — yet not an inch of the inn could touch her. She fell further, into the gu-formation refining the vengeful spirits — yet neither the souls nor the formation’s power could affect her.

Until at last she fell into the Yellow Springs.

Upon the Yellow Springs’s surface, a silent, vast, infinitely great and infinitely minute sense of meaning received her.

A yellow jade quietly coalesced from her body and fell into the Yellow Springs. Long before this — not long after the earth-spine had been re-anchored — Changyang had hidden this piece of Shetu’s power within her.

The fourth stretch of the Yellow Springs.

Within the Yellow Springs, Nu Xu’s eyes suddenly opened clear and bright, awake yet not fully awake. Both hands gripping the white bone blade, she slowly lifted it in an upswing.

Washed by the Yellow Springs, the white bone blade held no trace of killing ferocity — only stillness. In silence and without sound, the blade lifted, as though it had lifted the entire stretch of the Yellow Springs with it.

A soundless enormous wave suddenly surged above the Yellow Springs. The wave shattered the newly formed Yellow Springs Inn, sweeping every brick and tile refined from vengeful spirits down to the bed of the Yellow Springs. The Ferrymen’s coffin-boats rocked and capsized in the surge — those who fell in made no struggle and sank soundlessly to the bottom.

After the one stroke was done, memories of the past came flooding in — one life, two lives… ten lives. Her heart clear as a mirror, the memories passed through it like light and shadow in a glass, the ten lifetimes flowing by and leaving no mark on her state of mind. The cultivation she had cut away was reborn of its own accord. Nu Xu roused from the state of no-self as if waking from a dream. Looking ahead, the ghost-cultivation path she herself had walked into existence lay before her, clear and unobstructed.

Above the Yellow Springs, Hundun’s power gathered into a mass of dark, chaotic cloud and came crashing downward like fury given form.

Li Quan swept his sleeve in a wide arc. A long wind rose to meet it, and Hundun’s power, having lost its foundation, scattered and dispersed entirely.

He looked at Nu Xu, who was coming back to herself and looking up, and suddenly smiled.

“Congratulations.”