Golden Seal Heavenly Talisman

The enormous Golden Light hand swiftly took shape, several yards across, looking like a solid object forged from pure gold. With a sharp cry from Wei Fengniang, it slammed straight down.

Seeing the ferocious palm descending from the sky, Shi Feiyang dared not meet it head-on by other means while his two Inner Cores were entangled with Wei Fengniang's Immortal Sword. He hurriedly sprang aside to dodge.

The Diamond Divine Palm crashed down through the opening in the ice and struck the Crouching Dragon Stone squarely. This stone, left behind by the Yellow Emperor, was no ordinary thing. It reacted instantly to the impact, erupting with a thousand rays of Golden Light and filling the cavern with crimson radiance.

Although Wei Fengniang's palm missed its target, she had seized the initiative. She entered Human-Sword Unity and flew straight down to the lakebed, where she stood atop the Crouching Dragon Stone. Pointing a finger, she directed her Flying Sword to slash at Shi Feiyang, then raised her hand and unleashed three magical treasures: two Yellow Cloud Nails and a Crow-Venom Thorn.

She had refined the Yellow Cloud Nails herself. They became two streams of yellow smoke the moment they left her hand, shooting straight toward Shi Feiyang's eyes as fast as lightning. The Crow-Venom Thorn, a gift from Bruninga, transformed into a streak of Jade Fire concealed behind the yellow smoke. It looked inconspicuous, yet was even more formidable.

With his body pressed tightly against the stone wall, Shi Feiyang recalled his two Inner Cores in time to protect himself and deployed the White Light Sword as well. Seeing the Yellow Cloud Nails hurtling toward him, he hurriedly parried with the White Light Sword. He wanted to shred the flying nails with its Sword Light, but he had spent too little time refining the sword to wield it at will. Moreover, the Immortal-Skewering Pill's medicinal power was taking effect inside him, leaving him in unbearable pain. Before the Sword Light could curl back, both nails had already evaded it.

Next came the Crow-Venom Thorn. Unable to parry in time, he was struck in the waist.

The Crow-Venom Thorn was roughly three inches and eight tenths long, a little thicker than a needle, and shaped like a twig with nine branches. Once embedded in flesh, it resembled nine living leeches, competing to burrow deeper. As they bored inward, their tips spewed Jade Fire that scorched flesh and bone. This fire was also highly poisonous; the agony it inflicted was easy to imagine. Abbess Guangming's arm had been crippled in precisely this way. Had her cultivation not been profound, she would have lost her life as well.

Fortunately, Shi Feiyang's body was already in such excruciating pain that the burning Jade Fire did not stand out much. Its poison also failed to breach the bounds of the virulent poison within the Immortal-Skewering Pill. Sustained by the juice of the Ten-Thousand-Year Queen Mother Grass in the pill, Shi Feiyang could not be brought down by this poison either.

Seeing that the Demon Dragon appeared unaffected even after being struck by the Crow-Venom Thorn, and that her Yellow Cloud Nails had achieved nothing, Wei Fengniang grew impatient. She raised her hand to recall the nails, then unleashed the Diamond Divine Palm again, forming an enormous upright Golden Light hand and slamming it straight toward the Black Long!

She thought that even if this blow failed to flatten the Monster Dragon, it would at least shatter mountains and split the earth. Seizing that opening to slay him with her sword should be child's play.

Yet after the enormous Jin Light hand flew out, its radiance dimmed the closer it drew to its target. What had originally looked like a solid object cast from pure gold was reduced to a mere hand-shaped patch of golden light by the time it reached the Black Dragon. A casual breath from him blew it apart!

Unable to believe her eyes, Wei Fengniang hurriedly formed another Diamond Divine Palm and struck again, only to meet the same result.

In fact, Shi Feiyang had chosen his refuge long beforehand. Above him was a ring of Golden Seal Heavenly Talismans left behind by the Yellow Emperor. Taken as a whole, they resembled an Ancient Times star chart; examined individually, they consisted of three hundred and sixty Heavenly Talismans.

Shi Feiyang had studied these Heavenly Talismans carefully against the inscriptions on the Heavenly Book Jade Casket. Combining this with his previous knowledge, he had concluded that they depicted the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions.

The ancients calculated time by observing the celestial star charts. One full revolution of the Seven Northern Dipper Stars around the North Pole Star marked an One-Year Cycle, and time was determined by the angle at which the Dipper pointed toward the surrounding Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions. When its handle pointed toward Yin, it marked the Beginning of Spring; when it pointed toward Chou, it marked Major Cold...

The Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions were divided among twelve zodiac palaces, from which twelve primal cycles were assigned: Zi corresponded to the Void Sun Rat, Chou to the Ox Metal Ox, Yin to the Tail Fire Tiger, Mao to the Room Sun Rabbit... and finally, Hai to the Encampment Fire Pig. This was the origin of the twelve zodiac animals.

Because the Way of Heaven took the form of a circle, repeating in endless cycles, one circuit of the ecliptic marked an One-Year Cycle. An One-Year Cycle was divided into the Four Seasons, Eight Seasonal Nodes, and Twenty-Four Solar Terms. Each solar term contained three pentads, each pentad five days, making the Seventy-Two Pentads in all. Each pentad brought one change, for a total of seventy-two transformations. Thus, a complete circle was divided into at most three hundred and sixty degrees for calculation: the number of the Circumcelestial Cycle.

The Yellow Emperor had arranged these three hundred and sixty Heavenly Talismans in a circle, each representing one degree of the Way of Heaven. Dinghu Peak had been his pill-refining site. The entire peak was hollow within, shaped like a gigantic cauldron, and its height, dimensions, and breadth had all been calculated and designed by the Yellow Emperor himself. The Crouching Dragon Stone below occupied the position of the Pole Star. Heavenly light refracted through the lake water onto the lakebed at a different angle each day, causing one talisman on the stone wall to react.

Well versed in the arts of calculation, Shi Feiyang had already unraveled this principle. He had calculated the day's ecliptic angle beforehand and taken shelter beneath the corresponding Heavenly Talisman. When Wei Fengniang's Diamond Divine Palm struck, the Heavenly Talisman reacted, immediately dissolving her Spell into nothingness.

Wei Fengniang was astonished when both successive palm strikes were neutralized. She knew that the Golden Seal Heavenly Talismans left by the Yellow Emperor on the lakebed could protect the Monster Dragon, but not how that protection worked. Now that she had witnessed it, she could not understand it, yet sensed its power. She tried seven more Spells in succession, including the Daoist Five Strongmen Mountain-Splitting Art and the Demon Cult's Demonic Fire Heart-Burning Technique. All failed beneath the Heavenly Talisman. She therefore abandoned Spells and unleashed the Yellow Cloud Nails again, controlling her sword with her right hand and the nails with her left to launch an assault like a gale-driven rainstorm.

With his back against the rock wall, Shi Feiyang sent his two Inner Cores dancing up and down. Curtains of water and flames surged out together, neutralizing his opponent's attacks one by one.

The woman and the Long fought for another meal's worth of time. As the Zi hour passed and the Chou hour began, the fogginess in Shi Feiyang's mind started to recede, as though he were sobering up. Previously, only the intense stimulation of the Immortal-Skewering Pill had kept him from falling unconscious, but the urge to sleep had remained. Now his mind grew increasingly clear, his magical power recovered rapidly, and he fought with ever greater vigor.

Wei Fengniang sensed that the energy contained within his two Inner Cores was growing stronger and stronger, gradually overpowering her Sword Light. She knew the critical hour had passed and the Monster Dragon's three thousand years of magical power were returning.

She considered how many strange things lay at the bottom of this lake. Who knew what measures the Yellow Emperor had left behind all those years ago? The Daoist and demonic Spells she had painstakingly cultivated for years had all been rendered useless... She had already laid the Ten Thousand Li Yellow Sand Formation above. If she could lure the Monster Dragon out of here to fight, killing the vile beast would be as easy as turning her hand once he entered the formation!

When she looked up, she suddenly discovered that milky-white mist had spread all around her. Raising her gaze slightly, she saw that the opening in the ice overhead was already filled with dense fog. This mist had formed without a sound. At first, it had been so faint and thin as to be almost invisible, but it had thickened with time. Only where they were fighting, amid bursting Sword Qi and raging fire, did the mist fail to show itself, gathering elsewhere instead.

Wei Fengniang's heart tightened. Fearing that her opponent had used the Yellow Emperor's legacy to lay another ambush, she shouted sharply, "Vile beast! This place is too cramped. Do you dare come up above and fight me?"

Without waiting for an answer, she recalled her Immortal Sword and entered Human-Sword Unity, becoming a streak of blue-yellow light that shot upward into the billowing fog.

Shi Feiyang recalled his Inner Cores and paused briefly. Then his dragon jaws suddenly opened wide, and a scaleless white dragon emerged from within: his newly born body, utterly bare. Spreading all four legs, he landed on the Crouching Long Stone and panted incessantly. Looking back, he saw the Black Long's husk still standing against the rock wall, its scales as glossy and jet-black as ever, but hollow inside like a tube.

He took a Fury Profound Pill and swallowed it. After resting for a short while, he formed a hand seal and cast a spell, spraying a mouthful of essence blood onto the husk. The shed shell came alive, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws as it twisted through the air. It circled once along the stone wall, then flew out through the opening in the ice.

Shi Feiyang followed close behind, flying out after the Black Dragon's shed shell to fight Wei Fengniang to the death.