Hong Kaiyuan appeared above the Fuyuan Mountain Range. The Great Change Array Diagram unfurled beneath his feet, its Taiji and Eight Trigrams revolving before transforming into sixty-four hexagrams that enveloped the entire mountain range.
His gaze pierced the void and fell upon the old man walking toward him through empty space.
The old man had a lean face and gray hair and beard. He held a board of intersecting lines, its black and white pieces sharply distinct.
"Qiu Xuanbai, you really are still alive," Hong Kaiyuan said gravely.
"Brother Hong, since you haven't died yet, how could I dare go ahead of you? We both cultivate the array Dao. You cultivate the Great Change Array Diagram, while I wield the Mystic Heaven Go Board. What better time to decide which of us is superior?"
Qiu Xuanbai picked up a black piece between his index and middle fingers and casually placed it down. A black array pattern spread through the void, colliding with the edge of the Great Change Array Diagram.
Where the array patterns met, space collapsed soundlessly, and the laws of the true Dao eroded one another.
Both the Great Change Array Diagram and the Mystic Heaven Go Board were Middle Rule Divine Artifacts, and both used the array Dao to command the myriad Daos.
Their clash was also a collision of great Dao domains, each using the array Dao to manifest the myriad Daos of heaven and earth.
Gu Yuanqing stood atop a mountain in the North Spring Realm, his hands behind his back. He watched the clash through his Void Piercing Heavenly Eye, discerning the changes within.
Hong Kaiyuan wasted no more words. With a sweep of his fly-whisk, all eight gates of the Eight Trigrams opened. The four manifestations of thunder, fire, wind, and marsh emerged