First Glimpse of the Immortal Sect

Inside the quiet chamber.

You Xuexin closed her beautiful eyes and flung the [Five Thieves Steal Heaven Myriad Transformations Divine Talisman] away as though it were a venomous snake. Then she sat down cross-legged on the floor.

At some point, a red-skinned gourd had appeared in her hand.

The spell she cultivated above all others was [Swordcraft]. She excelled with flying swords, which, as weapons of slaughter, she normally kept in her Sword Chest to nurture.

This gourd was her Sword Chest.

Now, as she circulated her Dharma Power, a torrent of Spirit Sense poured into the red-skinned gourd. From within the once-quiet vessel came the growing roars of dragons and tigers.

"Treasure, reveal yourself!"

You Xuexin formed a hand seal and recited an incantation. Then, without hesitation, she opened the gourd's mouth. Sword Qi surged out like a flood through a broken dam.

Clang! Clang!

The cries of a sword rang through the quiet chamber. An invisible flying sword seemed to shuttle through the air before settling above You Xuexin's head and turning a leisurely circle.

In an instant, the sword severed some invisible connection. Clarity returned to You Xuexin's eyes, and she let out a long breath. Only then did she salute the gourd with cupped hands. A sword cry sounded in reply before the blade returned to the gourd and every strange sign faded.

"Thank goodness..."

You Xuexin patted her full chest, then glanced with lingering dread at the jade slip she had hurled into the corner of the quiet chamber.

She had even used a spell to throw it.

It was [Scene Transposition], the same spell she had used to capture Wang Ping. As its name suggested, it could move the surrounding scene and reshape space, turning a distance of inches into a journey to the horizon.

The jade slip, for instance, appeared to lie at the other end of the chamber. But to pick it up, one would actually have to walk at least a hundred kilometers before touching it.

No precaution was excessive against something so sinister. Out of caution, You Xuexin did not dare retrieve it just yet. She decided to wait until her Dharma Power and Spirit Sense had fully recovered, then make every preparation before fetching it.

With that thought, You Xuexin looked inward at her Sea of Consciousness.

Across the vast ocean formed from her memories, a small region had warped. Memories of cultivation arts had faintly taken the shape of a talisman.

"Hiss...!"

You Xuexin drew a sharp breath. "Thank goodness I severed the related memories in time. If that talisman had taken shape, I'm afraid I truly wouldn't have been able to forget it."

That was the treacherous thing about the [Five Thieves Steal Heaven Myriad Transformations Divine Talisman].

Once it beguiled a cultivator into viewing the art's contents, a response immediately arose in their Sea of Consciousness. Their memories of the art formed a talisman out of thin air.

Engraved deep within the Sea of Consciousness, that talisman let a cultivator skip the arduous stage of practice and instantly gain every bit of experience needed to wield this supreme immortal art. They could read it one moment and use it the next. No art in the Immortal Sect could match its speed of mastery. But it had an equally fatal flaw.

It drew the Heaven-Stealing Thief's attention.

"The Heaven-Stealing Thief spreads this art to raise venomous creatures in a jar. Every cultivator who emerges from the struggle will end up as nourishment for his Immortal Dao."

With a flaw like that, no benefit could tempt You Xuexin.

Inside the [Six-Desire Demon Banner].

Wang Ping's eyes were closed as he, too, looked inward. A talisman no bigger than his thumb had appeared above his Sea of Consciousness, and boundless light now flowed across it.

The next moment, the talisman's true name surfaced in his mind.

[Life-Stealing Thief].

"A thief that steals life. It can take Life Essence. The instant I make contact with someone, this talisman lets me steal the vital energy, spirit, and soul bound to their life."

It did not sound like much.

In truth, this method of stealing Life Essence was ferocious. At its highest level, a touch could steal a person's very life.

Touch someone, and they dropped dead!

And the stolen Life Essence did not dissipate. It flowed into the thief's body and strengthened it, with an effect better than any miraculous pill or medicine!

Wang Ping's gaze deepened. He stared fixedly at the [Life-Stealing Thief] talisman in his Sea of Consciousness, examining it from every angle and savoring the knowledge and experience it conveyed. At last, between the lines of the talisman, he found two words—

Eat people!

"Why do all the Immortal Sect's arts tread the Demonic Path?" Wang Ping's scalp prickled. "What [Life-Stealing Thief]? Put plainly, it's just eating people!"

Wang Ping raised his gaze and looked outside the banner again.

As the [Life-Stealing Thief] flickered, he saw the immeasurable, terrifying abundance of Life Essence within You Xuexin.

"Gulp..."

Saliva flooded Wang Ping's mouth. It took tremendous effort to swallow it down, while an indescribably fierce hunger swept through his entire body!

So hungry! So hungry! So hungry!

Want to eat! Want to eat! Want to eat!

"...Wait. Is this thing controlling me?"

Wang Ping abruptly held his breath and poured all his Spirit Sense into the [Life-Stealing Thief]. Only then did he barely suppress the hunger and keep his reason intact.

"What a powerful demonic nature."

"This can't go on. I have to find a way to control this hunger completely, or sooner or later it'll drive me into a cultivation frenzy."

Would killing myself help?

Wang Ping considered it, then shook his head. His instincts told him it would not, because the [Life-Stealing Thief] did not depend on this body of his.

It depended on his memories.

"To rid myself of its influence, I'd have to cut away every memory connected to it. Otherwise, even if I die and start over, this thing will probably follow me."

For now, he could only suppress it with Spirit Sense while stealing enough Life Essence to satisfy the hunger. Attacking it from both sides would treat the symptoms rather than the cause, but it could buy him plenty of time—enough to advance his cultivation and seek another solution.

Only after three full hours of meditating to recover did You Xuexin beckon the jade slip back from the corner of the quiet chamber.

She took out a jade box, tossed the slip inside, and sealed it. Then she pressed two fingers together like a sword and engraved sealing characters across the box. When its entire surface was covered, she took out a larger jade box and repeated the process...

After doing so several times, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"There's no time to lose. I should escort this thing over and let Master handle it. If it stays in my hands, something else may go wrong."

You Xuexin dared not delay.

She formed a hand seal and murmured an incantation. With a final point of her finger, dazzling golden light burst forth around her.

Wang Ping had been quietly watching the outside world from within the [Six-Desire Demon Banner]. His vision blurred, and by the time he recovered, the scene had changed.

The sights of the Daoist temple were gone. He now stood upon an immense deck, surrounded by resplendent pavilions and halls. Blue sky and white clouds encircled a gigantic flying ship suspended in midair, and engraved sealing characters lit up across its hull.

What a flying ship!

Wang Ping was shaken. You Xuexin circulated her Dharma Power, and the ship stirred in response. Bathed in golden light, it rapidly pulled away from the ground.

It moved faster than Wang Ping had imagined possible.

In the blink of an eye, the Daoist temple became a barely visible black speck. He had not even seen what lay around it.

All he could see were mountains and rivers growing tiny beneath him. As time passed, even they began to resemble an abstract painting.

A sudden realization came to Wang Ping.

Stop looking down.

Only a soul bound by gravity would keep its gaze fixed on the earth. Now was the time to lift his head and look up at the far vaster, boundless heavens.

So Wang Ping looked up.

The flying ship burst through the cloud sea of fierce winds in the Thirty-Three Heavens. As the clouds parted, a sight both familiar and strange appeared before Wang Ping's eyes.

There was a profound darkness, as though spilled ink had stained the dome of the sky. Yet compared with the tiny earth below, that darkness was so vast, so deep. As the ship drew closer, silvery starlight gradually shone from within it.

The universe.

Wang Ping was absolutely certain that what lay before him was the universe. At that very moment, the flying ship was racing toward it.

What did this count as?

One person breaking through the atmosphere?

Wang Ping's gaze moved across the stars that studded the darkness, glittering in a dazzling array that stretched beyond sight. Almost instinctively, he began to study them.

He tried to find something familiar among the stars... but to his disappointment, every constellation was strange to him.

The Big Dipper, the twelve zodiac constellations, the twenty-eight lunar mansions... he saw none of them.

"...Heh."

Suddenly, Wang Ping laughed.

Never before had he understood so clearly that he truly had crossed into another world. Yet that certainty brought a moment of doubt:

"Something doesn't seem right."

The stars were wholly unfamiliar, but on closer inspection they somehow seemed familiar too, as though he had seen them somewhere before.

An illusion? Déjà vu?

Before Wang Ping could sort through his thoughts, even the constellations vanished from view. The flying ship had not stopped. It was hurtling toward one of the stars.

As it traveled, the constellations shifted, seeming to draw aside a curtain. From a new angle, Wang Ping saw their other side: twelve objects shone like stars, mingled among the countless lights.

Viewed from afar, they had not stood out.

But as the flying ship drew near, the gulf between stars and planets became unmistakable. Those twelve lights blazed brighter, asserting their overwhelming presence.

"The One Palace, Three Courts, Eight Immortal Peaks..."

You Xuexin's voice suddenly rang out, full of wonder. "No matter how many times I see them, I can't help marveling at the mighty power of the Immortals."

Wang Ping listened in secret and committed the name to memory.

The One Palace, Three Courts, Eight Immortal Peaks. Were they the sources of those twelve star-like lights? Judging by the name, they seemed to be organizations within the Immortal Sect.

Wang Ping studied the twelve lights more closely. Then he noticed something strange.

Each of the twelve lights led a group of stars. Together, deep in the boundless darkness of the universe, they formed a pattern.

More precisely, they formed a gate.

Eight of the dimmer lights made up its frame. Three brighter ones traced the outline of a signboard.

The most dazzling light sat squarely at the center of that signboard. Unlike the others, which led stars along their orbits, it neither strayed nor wavered. It seemed to declare itself the center of it all.

What kind of power could do that?

Wang Ping had no doubt that some outside force had intervened. How else could the paths of the stars form a gate? The chance of it occurring naturally was far too small.

Was this the Immortal Sect?

The thought made Wang Ping hold his breath. Did "Immortal Sect" refer not to a sect, but to a star system?

What kind of joke was that?

In his previous life, cultivation worlds had been described in abstractions like realms of heaven and seas of light. The real universe before him struck Wang Ping far more forcefully.

It aligned, in a subtle way, with part of his understanding of the world. That overlap made him grasp all the more clearly what a colossal thing the so-called [Immortal Sect] was. Measured on a cosmic scale, its radiant immortal light appeared brighter and more dazzling still.

"Magnificent, isn't it?"

The voice came without warning.

Those few simple words fell like a bucket of cold water, extinguishing every thought in Wang Ping's mind. For an instant, even his consciousness seemed to freeze.

But he quickly came to his senses.

That wasn't directed at me!

Inside the [Six-Desire Demon Banner], Wang Ping lowered his head. He stopped watching the boundless stars above and looked instead at the ground swelling into view below.

It was one of the stars.

It was not one of the twelve brilliant lights, but an insignificant speck among the myriad stars—a stop on the flying ship's journey to escort the jade slip.

Then the scene changed.

The ground peeled back like a curtain, crumpled, and shattered in an instant. Boundless radiance blazed behind it, eclipsing even the stars of the universe!

"It is magnificent indeed."

A cold, calm voice answered You Xuexin, resounding through heaven and earth. "Your Spirit Sense is impressive, fellow Daoist. A pity you noticed me a little too late."

The stars fell. The heavens opened.

Amid the blazing divine light, Wang Ping saw a towering figure standing in the cosmic starfield. Fingers as vast as mountains and rivers were slowly forming a hand seal.

Beside him, the flying ship seemed no more than a fallen leaf in his palm.

His ten fingers intertwined. The seal they formed resembled a precious vase, its mouth aimed directly at the flying ship.

"Divine Ability manifest—"

The majestic incantation echoed among the stars like an order. As the words rang out, heaven and earth truly began to change at his command.

Everything suddenly collapsed inward.

The flying ship, the figures aboard it, the starry sky—everything that had stood on a cosmic scale began to fall, like a bird with broken wings plunging toward a vast lake.

The change was so violent that Wang Ping stared blankly for some time before he understood what was happening.

"No, it isn't anything that grand. Heaven and earth aren't changing."

"I am... the flying ship is changing. It's shrinking!"

"Someone set a trap on the star the ship was about to reach. They're using some method to shrink the ship and send it into another world!"

At almost the same instant, the majestic voice that commanded heaven and earth slowly uttered its final words.

"—[Heaven in a Pot]."