The Heavenly Emperor’s Prison-Suppressing Talisman came crashing down.
Haotian's command, "Kneel!", descended into Peach Mountain with the golden decree, shaking countless heavenly soldiers into bowing their heads at once.
Yang Jian stood atop the split mountain peak, looking up at the talisman.
He smiled.
"You're the ones who should kneel."
Boom!
Fifty Divine Elephant Particles trembled simultaneously.
The Hell Furnace opened deep within his dantian, and dark-gold divine flames surged upward, forcibly engulfing the Heavenly Emperor’s Prison-Suppressing Talisman.
The Emperor's Might erupted from within the decree.
Golden chains dropped from the void, winding toward Yang Jian's limbs, intent on pinning him back onto Peach Mountain.
Yang Jian clenched his hand.
Crack!
The first chain snapped.
Then the second, the third, and the fourth.
Every golden chain was dragged into the furnace by the dark-gold divine flames, refined into strands of pure essence that poured back into Yang Jian's body.
His aura rose another notch.
Above the clouds, the Heavenly King of Much Learning turned deathly pale.
He finally understood: even the Heavenly Emperor’s Prison-Suppressing Talisman could not suppress this youth.
The next instant, Yang Jian appeared before him.
A hand clamped around his throat.
"Speak."
Yang Jian's gaze was icy.
"Who else did Haotian send?"
The Heavenly King of Much Learning's divine armor shattered, and his primordial spirit trembled. He could no longer muster even a trace of the dignity befitting a proper god of the Heavenly Court.
"I... I'll talk..."
"Li Jing..."
"His Majesty ordered Li Jing to command a hundred thousand troops of the Heavenly River Navy in support. The Thunder Department and Dipper Department are blocking the routes. The Prison-Suppressing Talisman was only the first kill order..."
Killing intent flashed in Yang Jian's eyes.
"Li Jing?"
He recalled the heavenly soldiers who had first hunted him and his sister.
He also recalled that string of cold, merciless decrees issued before Haotian Hall.
"Good."
"That saves me the trouble of finding him."
The Heavenly King of Much Learning's pupils contracted sharply.
"Yang Jian, you can't..."
Crack!
Yang Jian tightened his fingers.
The Heavenly King of Much Learning's divine body shattered on the spot, and the Hell Furnace's dark-gold flames ground his primordial spirit into a fading shadow.
The last trace of his true spirit was forcibly swept away by his divine position in the Heavenly Court.
With that, all Four Heavenly Kings sent down by imperial decree had their divine bodies destroyed and their fighting strength utterly crippled!
The surviving heavenly soldiers knelt on the clouds, lacking even the strength to hold their weapons.
They stared at Yang Jian, nothing but terror remaining in their eyes.
In the distance.
Yu Ding Zhenren slowly curled his fingers within his sleeves.
As he watched the youth standing above Peach Mountain, his heart remained unsettled for a long time.
Tearing apart a formation with a flick of his fingers.
Subduing heavenly kings with a wave of his hand.
Even the Heavenly Emperor’s Prison-Suppressing Talisman had been refined into cultivation.
Such foundations, such murderous ferocity, such heaven-defying power...
If he could forge a favorable bond with this boy, the Chan Sect might truly gain another chance to turn things around during the great calamity of the Investiture of the Gods.
"Mother."
Yang Jian descended before Yao Ji, his voice softening.
"Please wait here a little while."
"Once I've cleared out these lapdogs of the Heavenly Court, I'll take you away."
Yao Ji looked at the bloody wounds covering him, her heart tightening.
"Jian'er, Li Jing commands the Heavenly River Navy. There are so many of them. Don't fight them head-on."
Yang Jian raised his head and looked toward the far horizon.
There, a black mass of clouds was closing in like a tide.
Moisture churned.
Warships stretched across the sky.
A great banner bearing the character "Li" snapped in the sea of clouds.
Yang Jian's gaze grew colder by degrees.
"However many come."
"I'll kill them all."
Meanwhile.
Chentang Pass, the Li Residence.
Before a smashed temple, the remains of incense lay scattered across the ground.
Nezha's remnant soul stood among the rubble, its spiritual light flickering.
He no longer had a physical body.
Only a broken spectral form remained, illusory red silk coiled around his shoulders, the shadow of the Fire-Tipped Spear flickering in his palm.
Not long before, he had slain Ao Bing, the East Sea Dragon King's third son.
The Four Seas Dragon Kings had descended upon Chentang Pass, flooding its people.
To keep his mother and Chentang Pass from being implicated, he had stripped out his bones to return them to his father and cut off his flesh to return it to his mother.
He had thought that would settle everything.
But after his death, Lady Yin had built a temple for him, hoping to use incense offerings to reconstruct his golden body.
Li Jing had smashed that temple with his own hands.
He had also shattered Nezha's path to resurrection through incense offerings.
"Li Jing!"
Nezha's remnant soul roared, resentment surging to the heavens.
"I gave you back all my flesh and bones!"
"And you still had to cut off my last way out!"
Black-and-red resentment churned wildly.
Nezha's soul grew increasingly unstable, almost burned through by the flames of his rancor.
Just then, a ray of Jade Purity Immortal Light descended from the sky.
The golden light dispersed, and Taiyi Zhenren appeared before the ruins.
Seeing Nezha in this state, a flicker of heartache crossed his eyes.
"Foolish child."
"You're driving yourself toward the utter destruction of your soul."
Nezha jerked his head up.
"Master!"
"Save me!"
"Li Jing destroyed my temple and cut off my path to life! He wants to keep me from ever rising again!"
Taiyi Zhenren sighed and raised a hand, shielding Nezha's remnant soul with Jade Purity Immortal Light.
"I can save your life, but I cannot sever your father-son karma for you."
"If I intervene by force, it will only deepen your tribulation."
Nezha stared fixedly at him.
"Then, Master, can you let me defeat Li Jing?"
Taiyi Zhenren fell silent for a moment.
"I can use the Immortal Lotus to fashion you a new Lotus Incarnation."
"Once your lotus body is complete, you can cast off the shackles of mortal flesh and cultivate faster."
A spark of light kindled in Nezha's eyes.
"Can I kill Li Jing?"
Taiyi Zhenren frowned.
"Li Jing now acts under the Heavenly Court's decree, protected by his divine position, and he also wields the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda. With a newly formed lotus body, you would find it difficult to defeat him anytime soon."
Those words fell.
The light in Nezha's eyes went out.
"Difficult to defeat him..."
He began to laugh quietly.
His laughter grew colder and colder.
"I stripped out my bones to return them to my father and cut off my flesh to return it to my mother."
"I died once."
"I cut off, temple I destroy he"
"Soul."
"Master, are you telling me that even if I come back to life, I still won't be able to beat him?"
Black-and-red resentment erupted with a thunderous surge.
Taiyi Zhenren's expression changed, and he immediately intensified the Jade Purity Immortal Light.
"Nezha, hold your mind steady!"
But Nezha could no longer hear him.
"I won't live again."
"I'd rather become a vengeful spirit and haunt him for his entire life!"
At that very moment.
An ancient, calm voice suddenly sounded deep within Nezha's remnant soul.
"Do you hate him?"
"Do you refuse to accept this?"
"Do you want the power to settle everything with your own hands?"
Taiyi Zhenren's face darkened abruptly, and Jade Purity Immortal Light instantly shielded every direction.
"Which fellow Daoist is prying into my disciple's karma?"
His divine sense swept across ten thousand miles.
There was no one.
No trace of an aura.
He could not detect even the slightest thread of karma.
Yet the voice continued.
"Thirty li east of Guanjiangkou."
"There is a dilapidated Mountain God Temple."
"Go there and offer a stick of incense."
"What you want, I can give you."
Nezha's remnant soul trembled violently.
An unprecedented light burst from his eyes.
"Power..."
"Power that will let me collect what Li Jing owes me..."
Taiyi Zhenren raised his hand to stop him.
"Nezha, come back!"
But black-and-red flames of resentment suddenly ignited around Nezha's remnant soul, and he escaped into the void along that thread of incense karma.
The Jade Purity Immortal Light missed him by a mere half-inch, ultimately grasping nothing.
Taiyi Zhenren's expression turned utterly grim.
"Guanjiangkou..."
"The Mountain God Temple..."
He recalled that utterly unfamiliar power within Yang Jian, and his heart sank sharply.
The same hand.
Reached toward Nezha once more.
Guanjiangkou.
Inside the ruined temple.
Gu Changqing was refining the ten million years of cultivation returned to him.
The law patterns on the dark-gold Divine Embryo sank into the depths of the statue, inch by inch.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes.
Outside the ruined temple, a remnant soul wreathed in black-and-red resentment plunged violently into the temple.
Nezha raised his head.
Upon the altar, the Dark-Gold Divine Statue stood in silence.
It wore no furious glare.
It radiated no oppressive might.
Yet one glance was enough to quell the flames of resentment within Nezha's soul.
"It was you..."
"Were you the one calling me?"
There was no incense in the ruined temple.
Nezha looked down at his own remnant soul. Then, suddenly gritting his teeth, he raised a hand and forced a wisp of essence out from deep within his soul.
He used his soul as incense.
And his resentment as flame.
Before the statue, he lit a stick of black-and-red soul incense.
"I, Nezha, wish to take you as my master, revered god!"
His remnant soul prostrated itself.
"Master, please grant me a way to begin anew!"
The instant the soul incense began to burn, system notifications rang out in Gu Changqing's Sea of Consciousness.
[Ding!] [Detected Nezha, a child of the Heavenly Mandate, offering incense!] [Incense type: vengeful soul karmic incense!] [Establish master-disciple karma?]
Gu Changqing looked at Nezha kneeling beneath the altar, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
After Yang Jian.
His second disciple of the Heavenly Mandate had arrived.
"Nezha."
"Your physical body has been destroyed, yet your remnant soul endures, and your resentment surges to the heavens. You are perfectly suited to this technique."
Nezha jerked his head up.
Gu Changqing's voice drifted slowly down from the statue.
"I have a technique called the Self-Manifestation Technique."
"When you first begin cultivating it, you can use resentment to condense a battle body, nourishing yourself with your enemies' power."
"Once you reach its profound heights, all the myriad arts of heaven and earth, all enemies past and present, can become your manifestations."
"Are you willing to learn it?"
Nezha did not hesitate in the slightest.
"I am!"
"As long as it lets me collect Li Jing's debt with my own hands, I'll learn anything!"
"Good."
The Dark-Gold Divine Statue's eyes lit up.
A ray of black divine light shot from between the statue's brows and entered Nezha's remnant soul.
Boom!
Nezha's soul shook violently.
The black-and-red resentment was forcibly compressed into a pitch-black Dao Seed, embedded in the deepest recesses of his soul.
Then the flames of resentment rolled back inward.
His remnant soul was reforged.
Within the divine light, Nezha's form solidified little by little.
His gaze, too, changed from frenzied to icy.
The system notifications rang out again.
[Ding!] [Congratulations to the host on accepting your second disciple: Nezha!] [Technique imparted: Self-Manifestation Technique!] [Master-disciple karma established!]
Gu Changqing's expression remained calm.
"Go."
"You've held that anger in your heart for far too long."
Nezha slowly rose.
He bowed deeply before the statue.
"Your disciple Nezha thanks you for granting me this technique, Master!"
The next instant.
Black-and-red Demonic Qi surged out of the ruined temple.
It did not alert the Three Realms.
Yet it followed the Father-Son Karma and slammed toward the battlefield at Peach Mountain.
Above Peach Mountain.
Li Jing arrived at the head of a hundred thousand troops of the Heavenly River Navy.
As he looked at Peach Mountain cleaved in two, the shattered divine armor strewn across the ground, and the lingering glow of the Four Heavenly Kings' Divine Positions after their defeat, his pupils abruptly contracted.
But he quickly steadied himself.
The Exquisite Pagoda bloomed with golden light in his palm.
Li Jing's gaze flashed like lightning as it locked onto Yang Jian.
"Yang Jian, you vile wretch!"
"You split Peach Mountain without authorization and spirited away an immortal condemned by the Heavenly Court."
"Do you admit your crime?"
Yang Jian looked up at him.
His gaze was chillingly cold.
"You're Li Jing?"
Li Jing was just about to speak when the Father-Son Karma deep within his Divine Soul suddenly shook violently.
His expression changed sharply, and he whipped his head toward Guanjiangkou.
The next instant.
An icy, defiant voice traveled along the karma and reached his ears with perfect clarity.
"Li Jing."
"Wash your neck clean and wait."
"I, Nezha, have returned to collect your debt."