ATEG Chapter 132

“Changyang.”

The Flame Lord’s gaze held joy within it.

Their previous meeting had only been through an avatar; this was the first time he had truly seen Changyang in the flesh. But his expression quickly shifted to worry.

What he saw before him now — Changyang’s true form — was in such a depleted state. Compared to the Changyang of a hundred and twenty thousand years ago, he was now so faint and insubstantial he was almost like a shadow.

“To be reborn from death always demands a price.” Changyang smiled as though he didn’t mind at all. It was as if he had completed something, set something down, and had allowed himself to settle deeper into stillness.

His power was hollow and dim, yet within his eyes, the threads of cause and effect were dense and intricate. The Seven Emotion Triggers lay ready beneath his fingers — when the seven emotions stirred, cause and effect stirred with them. Even without his divine power restored in full, this was enough to help him manipulate cause and effect, and that alone was sufficient to accomplish a great many things.

The Flame Lord suddenly felt an unease rise within him, a premonition he could not account for, with no idea where it had come from. He furrowed his brows, turning it over in his mind, troubled by this sense of ill omen.

“Changyang,” he said gravely, “if you have important matters, you may entrust them to me. Do not leave the Daqing Mountain Range.”

He could not identify the source of this premonition that had arisen in this moment, but he knew it was something here that had prompted it. And of all things connected to this place, the only one that truly worried him was this: Changyang, in his current condition, had no capacity to contend against Hundun.

In these hundred and twenty thousand years, Taiyin had established the Divine Court, and then could hold on no longer — her true form had retreated into the Taiyin Star to recuperate, while the other celestial deities each carried their own wounds. The Flame Lord was the only one among the celestial deities whose condition remained intact. He had taken up permanent residence in the mortal world, clashing with Hundun in ways both open and hidden more times than could be counted. Were it not for him, Hundun would never have been forced into a hundred and twenty thousand years of dormancy and slow scheming, not after having so successfully set the great calamity in motion.

The Flame Lord knew this enemy well. This was an enemy whose desires were so fierce they could tolerate no fellow traveler — the path he walked was one of absolute solitude. Any being in the world whose desires burned this brightly would inevitably be driven by those very desires to act rashly and foolishly. But Hundun was different. He was a patient enemy, and an exceptionally cautious one.

No one knew how long Hundun had been scheming in the shadows before he could arrange, without anyone noticing, a trap that ensnared all the celestial deities of the heavens. And when he sensed that his scheme had gone awry — that the Flame Lord still retained his strength — he had decisively gone into dormancy again rather than confront him directly, like a venomous scorpion hiding beneath the sand, waiting for the moment to lunge out and deliver a vicious sting.

An enemy like this would never act recklessly, but would never miss an opportunity either.

With Changyang this weakened, within the Daqing Mountain Range and under the protection of Shetu’s power, Hundun could do nothing to him. But were he to step beyond the Daqing Mountain Range, even at tremendous cost, Hundun would surely seize this rare opportunity.

Changyang let out a small laugh. “Of course. Which is why I have come to find you now.”

The Flame Lord’s heart stirred. “What plan do you have?”

Rather than answering, Changyang first asked. “And the other deities?”

The Flame Lord’s expression grew grave and solemn. With Changyang in this state, the others were no better off. Taiyin’s true form lay sleeping within the Taiyin Star; only an avatar walked the world — not by choice, but because her true form was incapable of doing otherwise.

“Bai Di is within the Divine Court. Huamang is here with me. Shuixiang…” He paused. “She is skilled in the art of change, existing between the real and the unreal — her situation is unknown.” The Flame Lord’s voice held a gravity and weight it had never carried before.

Changyang also lost himself for a moment. He stood in still silence.

The celestial deities were few in number, and their acquaintance spanned long ages. Those who could walk beside them in this world were precious indeed…

The other celestial deities the Flame Lord had not named — that was a grief that needed no words.

Like these silent mountain ranges: Shetu was gone. The great earth nurtures birth and gathers death, and thus touches the cycle of reincarnation. Shetu’s power could reach into the Underworld — which was why Hundun had sought to seize control of the earth’s veins.

Huamang was deeply bound to Shetu. When Shetu perished, he had suffered a grievous blow in turn. Huamang’s Dao was continuous and ever-renewing — he should not by rights still be unawakened even now. He had been together with the Flame Lord when the catastrophe struck. The great calamity a hundred and twenty thousand years ago had come suddenly and without warning — Changyang fell abruptly, and heaven and earth were plunged into the great daxuan, sending the world into a chaos of obscurity. What followed was obscured by this confusion, and even the celestial deities could not see it clearly. They heard only the crack and collapse of Tianzhu Mountain, and then Shetu perished, and Huamang suffered a sudden devastating blow. The Flame Lord had wished to help him recuperate, but Huamang stopped him.

They had both recognized that behind all of this, some hidden presence had been calculating — a scheme that had already ensnared every celestial deity in the world.

“One of us must remain unimpaired,” Huamang had said.

The hidden presence that had dared to scheme against so many celestial deities had yet to reveal itself, and he was already gravely wounded, incapable of any meaningful action in the near term. Better, then, to relinquish still more of his power and preserve the Flame Lord’s intact strength.

He had given his power to the Flame Lord, and sunk himself into deep sleep entirely — and had not awakened since.

Hundun had schemed long and had indeed laid plans to deal with the Flame Lord. But relying on the power Huamang had left behind, the Flame Lord had come through the three days of great obscurity intact. His sacred flame had illuminated the heaven and earth after the Sun Star was extinguished; in the most chaotic of times, he had preserved for all living beings the true path of the passing flame, cutting off Hundun’s plans and buying time for Taiyin to establish the Divine Court.

The great obscurity following the Sun Star’s extinction had been the greatest foundation Hundun dared to rely upon in his scheme against all the deities. So long as Changyang lived — bright and clear — the Dao of the celestial deities reached through heaven and earth without distance or separation, and they would inevitably come to each other’s aid. Only the combined darkness of a celestial deity’s fall and the obscurity caused by the Sun Star’s extinction could cause the celestial deities to fall into the shadows each on their own, isolated from one another — only then could Hundun scheme against them one by one.

But among the deities, there was still one who could see through the darkness.

Changgeng Qiming, penetrating all of heaven and earth.

A melody completed forms a movement; where the song ceases is called a chapter. The chapter of heaven and earth lies in the meeting of the sun and moon — thus Changgeng Qiming was the chapter of heaven and earth.

Master Yunzhang had been on good terms with Shuixiang, and had once learned from her the essence of flowing clouds. In the interlude between the sun and moon’s chapters, she was fond of transforming into flowing clouds to observe the world. She was the only celestial deity who could clearly perceive what was happening during those three days of great obscurity, and guide the scattered celestial deities out of their confusion. How could Hundun not have first arranged, when the great obscurity came, exactly how to deal with her?

This celestial deity — who had once wondered in the Sun Star how on earth the Flame Lord had managed to get his hands on that pile of bamboo and wooden crates — was also gone.

Changyang closed his eyes. When he opened them again, a flash of keen light shot out from beneath his lids — like lightning striking a taut bowstring, there and gone in an instant, so brief one might almost wonder if it had only been imagined. When he spoke again, his tone was as calm as ever. “There is something I need your help with.”

…..

“I intend to break another arm of his.” Li Quan said in a quiet, unhurried voice.

His head was half-bowed, his gaze resting on the qin. His fingers moved at an even pace, tuning the strings. Each pluck of a string sent tremors through countless threads of cause and effect in the world.

“Great Yin?” Heavenly Maiden Wuyou sat across from him.

Hundun had taken the form of the Yin Son of Heaven and, seven hundred years ago, unified the various kingdoms to establish his own legitimate position in the human world. But the origins of the Yin Kingdom had not been Hundun’s own creation from the beginning.

The Xuanniao descended, and from it Tang was born; the Tang people flourished upon the soil of Yin.

There were no longer any Tang people in this world. Their bloodline had been severed entirely, and only wandering souls drifted homeless without a place to rest. The threads of cause and effect upon the Xuanniao had been violently torn apart. The destiny of the Tang people were never meant to be extinguished — and so though they had perished, remnant qi still remained in the world.

Hundun had taken that qi, named it Yin, tangled up destiny, and stolen them for himself.

To have staged that grand scheme a hundred and twenty thousand years ago, he had already exhausted all he had. How could he simultaneously conceal this from all the celestial deities while developing his own power? He had placed greater weight on that scheme, and for its sake had kept himself carefully hidden, making no unnecessary actions that might expose his presence.

Yet in that scheme, Changyang had divided the Underworld in two and sealed off the realm of the dead; Taiyin had established the Divine Court; Shetu had locked down the earth’s veins; Huamang had pushed the Flame Lord outside the scheme to preserve his strength; the Flame Lord had broken through the obscurity to stand watch in the mortal world… Hundun had failed to accomplish everything in one decisive move, and so could only go into dormancy. Having no arms to act on his behalf after going dormant, he used his power to seize and distort the world’s ownerless foundations.

Yet had his scheme targeting the earth’s veins not reached the sleeping Huamang and forced the Flame Lord to divide his attention, Hundun would never have managed to claim legitimate dominance over the human world even up until seven hundred years ago.

Now the Xuanniao had returned, the Flame Lord held the sacred flame — and this twisted creation, the great Yin, should be returned to peace at last.

“Conditions are indeed favorable now, but — what are your plans regarding the Underworld?” Heavenly Maiden Wuyou asked.

The Yin Son of Heaven, as Hundun’s avatar, was no easy opponent. To move against him would inevitably reduce the attention one could give elsewhere.

Neither Taiyin nor the Flame Lord had ever asked Changyang about the whereabouts of the other half of the Underworld. It was a trust, and a tacit understanding. The more people knew a secret, the greater the chance of it being leaked — so in the true arrangements concerning the Underworld, only Changyang himself knew the full plan.

But after the matter of the Xuanqing Sect, Hundun’s focus would surely turn toward the Underworld. They could not leave Changyang to face Hundun alone — in the matter of the underworld, a question had to be asked.

“The priority going forward is not the underworld,” Li Quan said, shaking his head instead. “It is the great calamity.”

“The great calamity…” Heavenly Maiden Wuyou murmured with a furrowed brow, then her gaze suddenly sharpened. “Aberrant!”

…..

In the land of Sui. Outside the martial arena, in a room rented for cultivators to rest in, two cultivators sat quietly within a spirit-gathering formation, recovering the energy spent in combat.

These two cultivators were blood brothers, yet they looked nothing alike — one appeared to be a young man, while the other seemed to have entered his twilight years.

Before long, the younger-looking cultivator, Wu Shui, finished his recovery first. He opened his eyes and looked at his elder brother Wu Shan beside him, saying nothing, but his gaze betrayed his worry.

Wu Shui had only expended some of his qi, so he recovered quickly, but Wu Shan had sustained serious injuries. Though he had taken medicinal pills, he would not recover so easily.

After a much longer while, Wu Shan finally withdrew his cultivation and opened his eyes.

“Brother,” Wu Shui asked with concern, “how do you feel?”

Wu Shan’s gaze was heavy. After a long silence, he only shook his head.

Wu Shui felt a surge of desperation within him. They were blood brothers with comparable cultivation and similar appearances. But Wu Shan’s Five Declines of Heaven and Man had suddenly descended upon him, and within the span of only a few days he was on the verge of the end of his lifespan. This was the chaotic upheaval of the calamity — they had not foreseen it, nor were they prepared. In those few days they had tried everything they could think of, but death pressed close, and they had no more time. Only one final path remained — to face death head-on, and find life within it.

The brothers Wu Shan and Wu Shui had come to the land of Sui precisely because they walked the path of gaining insight through combat and contest — but they were not extremists, and had only exchanged techniques with others on ordinary arenas. They had never set foot on a life-or-death arena.

Dangerous as the life-or-death arena was, they had no other option. If they waited any longer, Wu Shan would simply exhaust his lifespan and die. A few days ago their cultivation had been roughly equal, but now Wu Shan’s power had waned to the point where Wu Shui could suppress him with ease.

Wu Shan’s opponent was a fellow cultivator they had come to know in Sui — someone who enjoyed fighting between life and death. His cultivation had originally been about on par with the two brothers, but this time on the life-or-death arena he had ended the fight with Wu Shan in a completely one-sided display. Had Wu Shui not quietly approached both the opponent and the official overseeing the arena beforehand, arranging for an intervention to save Wu Shan at a critical moment, Wu Shan would truly have died in that arena.

Wu Shan had not known about this beforehand, and the opponent had held nothing back — for without that, the life-or-death arena would have had no meaning.

Yet even this final attempt had failed, and Wu Shui couldn’t help but feel despair. Was there really no other way? Was he truly powerless to do anything but watch his brother die when his lifespan ran out?

“Between life and death, I gained some other insight. Perhaps… there is still one more way.” Wu Shan said as he bowed his head, stifling a heavy cough. His injuries hadn’t fully healed; any movement risked aggravating them.

“What way?” Wu Shui asked with hope in his voice.

“Come closer.” Wu Shan’s voice had grown faint — the damage to his lung meridian from his earlier injuries continued to torment him.

Wu Shui hurried over, intending to lend his own power to help with the healing. Before, in order not to disturb Wu Shan’s insights at the threshold of life and death, he had not been able to circulate his power to interfere with the flow of energy within Wu Shan’s body — but there was no such concern now.

Yet the moment he drew near, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his chest. Wu Shui looked down to see Wu Shan’s hand tearing open a deep wound over his heart.

He felt his power, his flesh, and his vitality flowing out through that wound — flowing into those fingers plunged into his chest, running up the arm, pouring into that decaying body.

He struggled to raise his head, and saw Wu Shan’s aged face filling out anew, reverting to the youthful appearance he knew. But in that familiar face, both eyes had become a murky, bloodstained haze.

Wu Shui’s lips trembled, as though he wanted to say something. But before he could speak, his eyes went dark forever.

Brother…

After a long while, the murky bloodstained haze in Wu Shan’s eyes gradually faded, replaced by a consciousness that was clear yet bewildered.

He suddenly looked down and saw what lay before him. A withered, aged corpse lay at his feet, the face long since still — frozen in an expression of deep grief and anguish.

“Xiao Shui? Xiao Shui?!” He stared at the sight in horrified grief, his eyes flickering between confusion and clarity.

“No… no… Xiao Shui doesn’t look like this.”

“That isn’t Xiao Shui… then who am I… who am I?” He looked down at his own smooth, youthful hands, his eyes growing ever more bewildered.

He muttered incoherently in a frenzied daze, then suddenly burst out of the room, out beyond the city walls, and vanished.

…..

Amid the wild howling of the winter wind, something else was faintly mixed within — a strange sound, low and feeble, yet even those ordinary people who could not distinguish it from the gale still felt, instinctively, the hair rise on their bodies when the shrieking cold wind swept past them.

Bai Hong frowned sharply. She had heard an ominous sound in this wind — it was like some creature drinking hungrily, greedily, sucking something up in a frenzied frenzy.

Following that sound diffused throughout the wind, they came to a desolate house in the outskirts.

The sound of drinking grew louder, accompanied by a cold, dry smell of blood carried on the wind.

Ding Qin’s gaze pierced through the obstruction. She saw the scene within the house, and her face went white and cold.

“It is him.” Ding Qin said quietly. “There is still time.”

Inside the abandoned house, many dried corpses had been carelessly discarded in the corners. Only the body near the doorway — one that had only recently lost its life — still retained its full flesh and blood. The cultivator crouched over it, drinking in its vitality, until he finally sensed movement outside. He rose to his feet, as though transforming back from a ferocious beast into a man — but both his eyes were filled with a murky bloodstained haze.

And in Ding Qin’s eyes, his entire being was shrouded in that murky bloodstained haze, just as the Xiezhi she had once witnessed in Saichi, sliding inexorably toward an Aberration — yet deep within the blood-stained haze, there still remained a small point of light, flickering but not yet extinguished.

Wu Shan pushed open the door and walked out. Bai Hong had now seen the grim scene inside the house. Her voice held the resonance of wind and thunder as she spoke coldly, “Wu Shan.”

“Wu Shan… Wu Shan…” Wu Shan had just fed well; his mind was not as muddled as before. The call, carrying the resonance of thunder, seemed to jolt more of his consciousness awake. “No — no — I am not Wu Shan. Wu Shan has grown old. Wu Shan is dead.”

“Wu Shan is dead. Then who are you?” Bai Hong’s voice grew colder still.

“I am… who am I… I am Wu Shui, I am Wu Shui,” Wu Shan murmured.

“You are Wu Shui — then who is the person who died in room seven beside the martial arena?”

Wu Shan suddenly erupted into madness. He lunged at Bai Hong, his hands — still slick with flesh and blood — curling into sharp claws, dragging a more shrill and frenzied howl from the wind. “That was Wu Shan! That damned Wu Shan! Wu Shan! Xiao Shui would never be like that!”

Bai Hong moved like a leaf in the wind, lightly evading his charge. The pristine hem of her sleeve swept up the ice and snow from the ground, and with a bracing sting, smashed it across Wu Shan’s entire face.

Her voice rang like thunder, exploding in that frozen world of ice and white. “Look at your hands. Is that the kind of person Wu Shui was?”

The ice and snow fell away. Wu Shan looked at his hands — white, strong hands with full, healthy flesh — but the skin was covered in dried blood, and even beneath the fingernails were still scraped traces of flesh. The murky haze in his eyes shuddered, and his whole body lurched and stumbled down. He trembled violently, scrubbing his hands together desperately in the snow.

Ding Qin, who had not spoken a word until now, suddenly let her eyes blaze bright. The divine power in her hands, in the narrowest of margins, pierced through the crack that had appeared in the bloodstained haze as Wu Shan’s spirit shook — reaching that small point of clarity within his depths.

The bloodstained haze in Wu Shan’s eyes slowly faded away. He stood where he was, looking around with a lost and grieving gaze. “Where is Xiao Shui?”

“He wanted to save you,” Ding Qin said. “Do you intend to keep going down this path?”

Wu Shan raised his head and looked into Ding Qin’s pair of clear, lucid eyes. A tremor passed through him, and suddenly he remembered everything.

An Aberration… At the threshold between life and death, he had not seen through the great terror — instead, because of it, he had in one instant completely abandoned his Dao. He had harbored that single thought: so long as he could live, he would do anything.

And then… and then he had found his insight. Another path.

The Five Declines of Heaven and Man — but the fifth decline, the decline of the Dao-heart, would not in itself take a person’s life. Only the first four declines would lead a cultivator to the end of their lifespan and death. The fifth decline would accelerate the progression of the first four — but in the midst of the great calamity, complete surrender to the fifth decline could instead offer cultivators a thread of survival: transformation into an Aberration.

So long as one became an Aberration, one need not die from the first four declines. The principles of the Five Declines of Heaven and Man would cease to function upon an Aberration’s body, for they walked a different path entirely:

So long as they could seize sustenance, they could live on forever — and keep growing stronger, without end.

His heart had been moved. He wanted to live. And so in that one instant, he had willingly stepped onto that path — and by the time he came back to his senses, he had indeed recovered to the vigor he’d had before the Five Declines of Heaven and Man had descended upon him. But he had also seen Xiao Shui… Xiao Shui lying collapsed before him… Xiao Shui was the first sustenance he had seized.

Wu Shan could not help but begin to shake.

“When an Aberration is extinguished, the true spirit perishes.” Ding Qin said slowly.

“Your brother wanted to save you. Do not let him down.” Bai Hong looked down at him.

Wu Shan bowed his head. His shaking grew more violent. He could feel the two forces twisting and fighting within him — one turbid and murky, yet thick with dense vitality gathering within the bloodstained haze; the other warm and clear, illuminating the lucid part of his spirit. But the greater part of his spirit had already been tainted by that bloodstained haze.

To become an Aberration was to have one’s true spirit cease to exist upon death — utterly annihilated. Yet if he were to lose the Aberration’s vitality, he would die immediately. And his spirit had already been more than half corrupted — even if he were to reincarnate, there would be little of him left…

Aberration… Xiao Shui… Aberration… Xiao Shui…

Wu Shan stared at the warm, clear light within his spirit. His face contorted from the fierce struggle. A sound gurgled from his throat that no one could understand — and then, trembling like someone begging for help, he reached out his hand toward Bai Hong. “Help…”

That same hand, which had just been wiped clean by the snow, suddenly curled into sharp claws and lunged toward Bai Hong.

Bai Hong’s gaze turned instantly sharp. She was about to act — but Wu Shan suddenly stopped.

He stood motionless where he was, his pupils — already half-drowned in the bloodstained haze — going hollow and unfocused, a rattling sound rising in his throat. Two keen blades of sword qi had already torn through his heart and dantian.

Wu Shan fell into the snow. Behind him, Ding Qin stood with two fingers pressed together like a blade. Her face was whiter than before — and colder.

Ding Qin lowered her arm, a faint weariness in her voice. “Let us go. There is another place to attend to.” Concealed beneath her sleeve, her hand trembled faintly.

In these past few days, she had, for the first time, killed with her own hands. Wu Shan was not the first, but she had not grown accustomed to it — perhaps she never would.

In this time, the Five Declines of Heaven and Man had seemed to run rampant, descending upon cultivators with chaotic, unpredictable frequency. If the Five Declines of Heaven and Man had once been a tribulation for cultivators alone, then what followed had become a tribulation for the entire world. Among those cultivators who had endured the Five Declines, some had not died — but had instead transformed into Aberrations.

Every Aberration greedily seized sustenance from other living beings — beginning with flesh and blood vitality, and progressing to spiritual soul-force. But those who believed they had found a path requiring no cultivation, no tempering of the heart, no fear of lifespan’s end — needing only to seize in order to achieve immortality and grow stronger — were themselves nothing more than tools serving another’s purpose.

When an Aberration was extinguished, not even the true spirit would remain. They would dissolve into a pitch-black void — just like the black abyss the Xiezhi had once desperately fought to escape.

The more Aberrations there were, the stronger the one behind the curtain grew. Therefore — if one encountered a cultivator who had not yet fully fallen into being an Aberration — it was best, if possible, to sincerely turn them away from this path and back to the proper way. If that was not possible… they had to be cut down before the cultivator fully transformed.

“You can help them cast off the Aberration-force’s influence over their minds — but you cannot make the choice for them,” Bai Hong said by way of consolation.

Ding Qin said nothing, only nodded in a scattered way. The land of Sui was full of cultivators, and the culture of martial combat ran extremely deep. In the wake of the great calamity’s sudden shift, it was also where the situation was most severe. Divine power descended from a High God was far more effective at casting off the Aberration-force’s influence than cultivators’ ordinary power. At the request of the King of Sui, they had come to offer their aid — this matter concerned every cultivator in the land — and under the full operation of the Wuying Hall, reports had been flowing in one after another, without pause.

They had very little time to rest.

Ding Qin offered a silent prayer in her heart, and her figure vanished together with Bai Hong into the wind.

…

Transform into an Aberration — and be free from death by the Five Declines of Heaven and Man.

“Hundun will not let this opportunity pass.” Li Quan finished tuning the qin. Within its strings, there was a killing intent.