Great Pagoda Art, One-Qi Chaos Tower

Mu Chen swept his gaze over the remaining people in the hall, his eyes indifferent, and casually waved his right hand.

Bang! Bang!

Several muffled crashes rang out in succession. In an instant, the entire council hall fell into deathly silence, not a breath of life remaining.

Mu Chen turned and looked toward the depths of the City Lord's Mansion.

Within his perception, an obscure, heavy aura was slowly awakening there, steadily gathering strength.

Judging by its aura, it should have been at the half-step Heaven Fusion Realm.

Liu Jingshan, the previous Domain Lord of the Liu Domain. He had entered seclusion to break through to the Three Heavens Realm and had reached the final stage.

"Quite the timely coincidence."

Mu Chen murmured to himself and strode out of the council hall.

He stepped through the wreckage littering the floor, passed through corridors and courtyards, and finally stopped before a secluded courtyard deep within the mansion.

Its walls towered high, its gate was tightly shut, and not a blade of grass grew inside. Only a gray-black meditation chamber stood at its center.

Mu Chen stopped before the courtyard gate and quietly regarded the chamber, his eyes as still as an undisturbed lake.

Then he raised his right hand, spread his fingers slightly, and closed them in a distant grasp toward the chamber-

Hummm-!

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth suddenly erupted!

Centered on Mu Chen's palm, the spiritual energy within a thousand-zhang radius surged in from every direction as though drawn by an invisible force, weaving into a vast net of spiritual light that blotted out the sky and sun.

The wind stopped, the clouds scattered, and all of Liu City fell into deathly silence.

Everyone from the Liu Domain who was still fleeing involuntarily looked up at the sky.

They saw spiritual energy gathering above the City Lord's Mansion into a terrifying vortex more than a hundred zhang across. At its center, an enormous hand formed entirely of spiritual energy slowly took shape.

The next instant, the enormous palm drew its fingers together and thundered down with the force to crush mountains and rivers!

The meditation chamber built from black ironstone, along with Liu Jingshan secluded inside, was reduced to powder beneath that single palm. Dust filled the sky, drifting through the sunlight.

The long street outside the mansion stood empty, its people having long since fled. Only the wind swept up the dust, sending it swirling through the air.

Mu Chen stepped into the sky and hovered above Liu City, looking down upon the city that had once dominated this region.

He spoke, his voice calm yet carrying clearly throughout the city:

"Liu Qingtian, Domain Lord of the Liu Domain, has been executed."

"From this day onward, the Nine Domains of the Northern Spiritual Realm shall become one, and the Northern Spiritual Alliance shall be established."

"Those who submit shall live. Those who resist shall die."

"Conduct yourselves wisely."

With the Liu Domain as the warning, he had killed the chicken to frighten the monkeys. The course of events was settled!

Seven days later, the founding ceremony of the Northern Spiritual Alliance was held in Mu City.

The leaders of the eight domains gathered, and every faction came to offer congratulations.

Mu Feng sat in the alliance leader's seat, with Mu Chen standing beside him.

The young man wore black, his jet-black hair neatly trimmed, his expression calm, and his eyes gentle enough to merit the word.

Yet this seemingly slender figure filled everyone present with solemn awe. None dared meet his gaze.

After the ceremony, Mu Feng called Mu Chen to his side and took a dark jade slip from within his robes.

His fingers stroked the jade slip over and over for a long time before he slowly held it out.

"Chen," Mu Feng said in a low voice, "your mother left this behind."

"There are some things you should know now."

Mu Chen accepted the jade slip.

Naturally, he knew what it was: the Great Pagoda Art, the core inheritance of the Buddha Ancient Clan.

He also knew his mother Qing Yanjing's identity, understood why she had left, and knew the secrets that had weighed on his father's heart for years.

"Your mother..." Mu Feng's throat bobbed, and he paused. "She came from somewhere unimaginably far away, from an ancient clan beyond anything I could conceive."

Light slanted through the carved window lattice, casting mottled patterns across the bluestone floor.

"She left to protect you, to protect me, to protect the Mu Domain." Mu Feng's voice grew quieter. "Your father was useless. I couldn't do anything."

"I tried, but in the end... I still failed. I'm sorry."

Mu Chen raised his eyes and quietly looked at his father.

Mu Feng's eyes were bloodshot, and the white hair at his temples looked especially stark in the light.

This man who had once commanded the winds and clouds of the Northern Spiritual Realm now seemed drained of every ounce of strength, leaving only exhaustion and profound self-reproach.

The Northern Spiritual Realm was too small, and he was too weak.

"Whether you cultivate this spiritual art is your decision, Chen. Your mother... only wanted you to live a peaceful, safe life."

"Don't worry, Dad." Mu Chen tightened his grip on the jade slip, his voice calm and every word clear. "Before long, I'll bring Mother home."

Sunlight pierced the overlapping branches and leaves above the courtyard, carving out bright shafts of light. The air brimmed with clear, tranquil vitality.

Mu Chen sat cross-legged on the bed beside the window, his expression composed and his eyes half-closed, shutting out every sound from the world beyond.

Without hesitation or any need for reflection, he focused his mind, slowly channeling the pure spiritual energy within him into the dark jade slip in his hand.

"Hummm..."

A faint tremor came from it, and a streak of black spiritual light flowed backward through his meridians, reaching the depths of his sea of consciousness behind his brow.

There was no pain in the process. Instead, it flowed as smoothly as water finding its channel.

"Transform the body into a pagoda, and attain the great Dao of the spirit..."

"The pagoda suppresses all evil, gives rise to the clear and the turbid, governs the workings of the mysterious and the yellow, and establishes the root of heaven and earth..."

"The tower has nine levels, each ascending toward heaven. The heart is its foundation, intent its body, and the spirit its spire..."

The profound, obscure truths of the incantation echoed through Mu Chen's mind, and he committed every one to memory.

Ordinary cultivators suddenly receiving such a vast and profound inheritance could usually only memorize it by force, then slowly work toward comprehension.

But Mu Chen was different!

His talent was already peerless, and he possessed the innate chaos saint body dao embryo. His comprehension had reached an inconceivable level.

Mysteries that seemed like a heavenly script to others entered his mind like ice melting into water, naturally understood and absorbed.

Almost as smoothly as water finding its channel, he grasped the vast majority of the incantation's essential truths.

The spiritual energy within him began circulating according to the Great Pagoda Art of its own accord.

Let my body become the Futuo Pagoda; I shall govern the mysterious and the yellow!

Laying the foundation and condensing its form took only an instant.

Just then, the Chaos Dao Diagram deep within Mu Chen's sea of consciousness trembled slightly without warning!

Mu Chen felt his mind become clear and empty. The incantation he had believed he understood thoroughly surfaced once more, giving rise to an entirely different insight-

He seemed to have found a path that would allow him to directly cultivate a real Futuo Pagoda...

Break and then rebuild. Take the heart as the path and draw in ancestor qi; only then shall the pagoda become real.

This was what the incantation recorded.

Ancestor qi?

I possess the innate chaos saint body dao embryo, born of chaos and attuned to the great Dao. I am the primordial source myself. Why would I need to seek another's ancestor qi?

An exceedingly faint wisp of chaos qi was drawn from the Chaos Dao Diagram and gently wound around the newly condensed Futuo Pagoda.

The tower, originally crystalline yet illusory, underwent an earth-shaking transformation the instant it touched that wisp of chaos qi-

The illusory became real!

Mu Chen stirred his intent slightly.

Hummm!

A nine-story Futuo Pagoda just over a foot tall appeared out of thin air above his palm and hovered quietly, its entire dark-gray body shimmering with the luster of chaos.

Though small, the tower was as heavy as a mountain. The will it radiated to suppress all arts made even the surrounding light distort slightly.

This was the One-Qi Chaos Tower. Mu Chen could summon or dismiss it at will, and its size shifted according to his wishes.

And from this moment onward, the "Great Pagoda Art" should be called the "Chaos Buddha Art"!