Seeing the First Emperor suffer the backlash of the rules while his own Corpse-Dissection Immortal Body had just begun to take shape, Xu Fu felt that he had already escaped the cage. He had no wish to remain entangled with this altar, which was on the verge of collapse.
He bowed from afar toward the First Emperor and spoke in a teasing tone:
"Your Majesty, the road to eternal life has been laid out for you. Forgive me for taking my leave first. I'll see you again in the immortal realm! Farewell!"
Before his words had even faded, his illusory form became a streak of gray-white light and shot skyward, intent on fleeing this place of trouble.
"Bang!"
A dull, thunderous crash, like something striking an ancient bronze bell, echoed through the air.
The streak of light that Xu Fu had become shot back even faster than it had flown away. It tumbled several times in midair before barely managing to steady itself.
A massive, invisible yet tangible barrier briefly revealed its outline above all of Langya Terrace. Intricate trigrams and runes flowed across it, completely sealing off the inside from the outside.
"Daoist Xu, why the hurry?"
A calm voice, as if it came from the highest heavens, rang out.
Chen Jin found it somewhat familiar and looked up.
Beneath the Sun and Moon Radiance in the sky, an enormous phantom slowly appeared.
It nearly filled half the sky. Its eyes were like abysses as it looked down upon the people below, who seemed like ants.
It was Jiang Yan, the current Libationer of Jixia Academy.
He continued, his voice like a heavenly decree:
"The ruler, ministers, assistants, and envoys—the great laws of the elixir dao. His Majesty is the 'ruler,' the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers are the 'ministers,' and the spiritual energy filling this mountain, along with the lives of all its people, are the 'assistants'... I've considered it again and again. Without you, the 'envoy' who guides the medicinal ingredients back to their proper channels, the formula would be incomplete. You'd best stay."
Jiang Yan's phantom began to chant:
"Heaven and Earth as a Furnace—"
As his words fell, all of Langya Mountain shook with a thunderous roar. Its once-steep, sheer rock faces softened like wax under intense heat and collapsed inward. The snow atop the summit instantly steamed into white mist, while the exposed rocks turned crimson within moments. The sharp peaks slowly sank and flattened, as if struck by an invisible hammer.
Orange-red molten cracks spread across the gray-black furnace walls. Smoke and fire billowed from the opening at the top, while the brittle crack of splitting stone mingled with the low growl of lava.
The entire mountain had truly become an enormous furnace.
"Creation as the Craftsman—"
The crazily growing Heavenly Dao Purple-Veined Ganoderma unfurled its cap, releasing billions of golden, powder-like spores that drifted across the world. Golden-veined strands of mycelium writhed like living creatures, burrowing into the stems and roots of plants and clinging to the bodies of living beings.
This golden tide of mycelium spared neither friend nor foe. All fell within the scope of its "creation." It meant to "smelt" everything on Langya Terrace into material for the pill furnace.
The Alchemists hurled out talismans, but mycelium quickly covered their forearms. Mushroom caps crowded their stalks, and tiny gills even filled the seams of their Daoist crowns. When the Black Bird flapped its wings, white fungi sprouted between its feathers. In mere moments, they covered its back, and the golden-veined caps weighed its wings down. Thick stalks pushed through the joints in the Iron Men's bronze bodies, while countless caps cracked their metal shells apart.
Everything between Heaven and Earth had become a bed for the ganoderma to feed upon.
"Yin and Yang as Charcoal—"
Two starkly different streaks of light suddenly split open the horizon. One turned Zhifu Island into the eye of the yang fish, and the other turned Sanshan Island into the eye of the yang fish. Within moments, the two lines twisted around each other like living creatures, and Qi Territory became a yin-yang fish a thousand li across.
A thin frost coated the yin half, river surfaces formed icy patterns, and plants glimmered with a faint light. A gentle flame burned across the yang half, heat waves rolled over the fields, and the rocks shimmered with golden light.
The yin-yang fish slowly revolved around Zhifu Island and Sanshan Island. At first it turned as slowly as a pendulum, then faster and faster, like a spinning wheel. The earth rumbled, the wind howled like a dragon, and bands of black and crimson-gold light flowed across the fish's surface. Even the clouds were stirred into spirals.
"All things as bronze."
The black and crimson-gold streams of smelting light surged forth. An invisible force, wrapped in searing energy, instantly engulfed every living being beneath the heavens, as if it meant to break everything down and forge it anew.
In that instant, the Qin Elite Soldiers, the Alchemists, the Shark People, the Black Birds, the Golden Men, and even Xu Fu and the First Emperor all felt an irresistible power of "smelting" take hold of them. It meant to reforge their flesh, souls, and power into the "pill embryo" the alchemist required.
Taking advantage of the moment when the upheaval of Heaven and Earth drew everyone's attention, Chen Jin used his Metamorphosis ability to take the form of an ordinary Qin soldier. Braving the wildly spreading Lingzhi Mycelium and the chaotic energy storm, he struggled toward the statue of the Lord of the Four Seasons at the center of the altar.
He tried to peel the golden mycelium strands wrapped around the statue away with his hands, but found that they were already connected to the statue's very essence. Forcibly removing them would only make the statue collapse faster.
"Senior! How can we stop this?" Chen Jin asked urgently in a hushed voice.
The statue's pained face turned slightly. The remnant consciousness within it sent out a faint, broken thought:
"It's... too late... the furnace... is already burning... the charcoal and fuel are ready... there's... no saving it..."
As soon as the words faded, more mycelium strands surged up as if alive, completely covering the statue's face and freezing and devouring the last trace of its expression.
The statue lost all its spiritual nature. It had become nothing more than a "cultivation pillar" wrapped in ganoderma, no longer able to convey even a final thought.
Chen Jin's heart sank. He looked up at Jiang Yan's enormous phantom in the sky, and a chill rose from the depths of his heart.
The pill he meant to refine encompassed gods, humans, emperors, and immortals... a peerless grand pill!
This was a true god-slaying, immortal-refining ritual, with Heaven and Earth as its stage and gods and all living beings as its sacrifices!
Jiang Yan, the Libationer of Jixia Academy, meant to turn the entire world into a pill furnace on his path to the Dao!
The flames were roaring now, and all the ingredients were ready. All that remained was the moment the pill was complete!
Just as the golden Lingzhi Mycelium, like a tide of doom, was about to swallow the last few pockets of resistance, and even Xu Fu's Corpse-Dissection Immortal Body and the First Emperor's mercury shield were beginning to shudder violently and teeter on the brink, a sharp shout rang out from the edge of the altar.
"Enough!"
A figure suddenly tore away his disguise, revealing Chen Jin's true appearance.
His eyes shone with fierce resolve. Faced with the golden mycelium surging toward him from every direction, he did not retreat. Instead, he charged straight at it.
He held his hands before his chest as if embracing a ball. The aura around him suddenly grew deep as the sea, as though a void universe had opened within his body. An overwhelming force of suction burst out from him!
[Swallow Sun and Moon] unleashed at full power!
The Lingzhi Mycelium writhed madly, trying to assimilate him. But the instant it touched the field around his body, it seemed to encounter its natural bane. It was no longer the mycelium devouring Chen Jin. Rather, the immense vitality and power of creation within it were forcibly stripped from the strands, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, and transformed into visible golden streams of light that surged madly into Chen Jin's palms!