Across ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers, Gu Changqing lowered his fingertip.
That finger landed between the brows of the divine statue in the Ruined Temple.
It also landed upon the destinies of Yin Jiao and Yin Hong, which should originally have belonged to the Chan Sect.
Boom!
Inside the Ruined Temple, the dust-covered divine statue abruptly opened its eyes.
Dust peeled away silently, cobwebs turned to ash inch by inch, and the speck of primordial violet light in the Incense Burner suddenly rose.
Outside the temple, the night remained dark and heavy.
Cold winds howled through the Mass Burial Grounds, while demonic qi surged over distant Chaoge.
Yet within this Ruined Temple, all calamity qi was forcibly suppressed.
Flying wood splinters froze in midair.
The blood on Yin Jiao's forehead also stopped at the edge of his brow.
Yang Jian's gaze sharpened.
This was not his master descending in person.
It was a sliver of a Divine Realm projection drawn here through an Incense Anchor.
Just one sliver had already rewritten the laws within the temple.
Xiaotian Dog's four legs weakened, and he immediately crouched low.
He had been calling himself "this emperor" at every turn just moments ago, but now he behaved so meekly that even his tail lay flat against the ground.
Kneeling before the divine statue, Yin Jiao and Yin Hong went rigid.
They heard a voice.
That voice did not come from within the temple.
Instead, it fell directly into the deepest reaches of their divine souls.
"Your mother remains unavenged, and humanity's Dao lies shrouded in dust."
"The Yin Shang Orthodoxy still retains a thread of its life-flame."
"I grant you leave to fight and reclaim it."
Boom!
As those words fell, the royal life-flame in Yin Jiao's chest, dimmed beneath the pressure of calamity qi, instantly ignited.
The fortune within Yin Hong, which had been on the verge of scattering, was forcibly hauled back by an invisible hand.
Both brothers raised their heads at once, barely able to contain the wild joy in their eyes.
The exalted god had answered them!
The next instant, two rays of divine light split off from the statue.
The first was purple-gold, regal as an emperor.
Within its radiance, the wish-flames of countless people converged into a torrent, and the mountains, rivers, and realm slowly unfolded.
A human king dharma form stood beneath the Dark Phoenix's fortune, raising a hand to suppress calamity qi in every direction.
This purple-gold divine light shot straight between Yin Jiao's brows.
"Ah!"
Yin Jiao shuddered all over, throwing back his head with a low roar.
His bones trembled.
The wounds left by a night of pursuit healed instantly, and purple-gold dragon qi forced open his meridians inch by inch.
Pain.
Yet within that pain lay power unlike anything he had ever known.
In his sea of consciousness, countless golden ancient characters condensed into a cultivation art.
"Human Emperor Heaven-Sealing Art!"
This art neither followed the Immortal Gate nor drew upon the sages' lineage.
It gathered only the wish-flames of the mortal world.
It tempered only the human king's dharma body.
It suppressed calamities solely through the dragon qi of humanity's Dao.
Cultivated to its ultimate heights, it could command mountains and rivers, suppress immortals and gods, sever divine decrees, and rewrite mortal destinies!
Yin Jiao abruptly clenched his fists.
Behind him, a human king dharma form flashed into being and vanished.
In that instant, the panic of a fugitive prince disappeared from his eyes.
Only hatred remained, buried deep beneath a sea of blood.
His mother's murder.
The chaos in Chaoge.
The disaster wrought by the demon consort.
He would settle every last debt, one by one!
The second ray of divine light was profound black and utterly silent.
The moment it descended, all the lingering soul qi, blood fiend energy, and tribulation ash from the three monsters inside the temple were dragged toward it.
That power resembled the Ruins of Return.
Devouring.
Refining.
Returning everything to its root and origin.
The Profound Black divine light sank between Yin Hong's brows.
"Aaargh!"
Yin Hong braced both hands against the ground, digging his knuckles deep into the stone tiles.
An intense hunger erupted from the depths of his divine soul.
He wanted to devour.
To devour the monsters that had hunted them.
To devour the demonic qi in Chaoge's palace.
To devour every culprit responsible for his mother's death and turn them all into his own strength!
Just as that hunger threatened to drown his reason, a Primordial Purple Seal descended into his sea of consciousness and held it firm.
Gu Changqing's voice sounded again.
"This art devours demons and evil beings, refines calamity and baleful energy, and seizes the origins of an enemy's Dao."
"If you dare devour innocent humans, I will personally cripple you."
Yin Hong trembled all over.
The sinister red gleam in his eyes was instantly suppressed.
Immediately afterward, an ancient Profound Black scripture unfolded in his sea of consciousness.
"Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art!"
This art used the body as a furnace and calamity's baleful energy as its fire.
It devoured the origins of demons and evil beings, refined the power of an enemy's Dao, seized the killing force of the Tribulation, and nourished its practitioner's own Dao foundation.
So long as his Dao heart did not collapse and the purple seal did not crack, he could draw upon the slaughtering calamity to break through realm after realm!
Yin Hong slowly raised his head.
His gaze had changed.
The boy's timidity had been pressed into his deepest depths.
In its place was an edge of utter coldness.
He could fear death.
But from this moment onward, he wanted even more for his enemies to fear him.
Within the temple, purple-gold and Profound Black auras intertwined.
A human king's destiny had begun to awaken.
A demon emperor prototype had begun to take shape.
The two powers were complete opposites, yet under the suppression of Gu Changqing's Primordial Purple Seal, they formed a delicate balance.
Watching this unfold, Yang Jian felt a slight tremor in his heart.
He had seen his master bestow the "Divine Elephant Suppressing Prison Force."
He had also cultivated the "Primordial Chaos God-Demon Prison-Suppressing Body."
He had even shattered the Heavenly Dao Stone Fate Track with a single punch in the Jade Void Palace.
Yet he could still discern something different about these two arts.
Yin Jiao's "Human Emperor Heaven-Sealing Art" bypassed the Mystic Gate's immortal arts entirely.
It attained the Dao through humanity's fortune.
The deeper the turmoil of the age and the fiercer Humanity's Dao Wishfire, the sharper his edge would become.
Yin Hong's "Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art," meanwhile, was naturally suited to the Tribulation.
The more enemies he faced and the heavier the calamity qi, the faster he would grow.
If he could hold fast to his Dao heart, he might truly be able to devour and refine a Great Luo origin someday.
This move of Master's...
Yang Jian looked toward the divine statue, his eyes filled with even greater reverence.
He had thought his master merely intended to snatch away Guangchengzi's and Chijingzi's disciples.
Now it seemed that his master intended to pry loose the entire Investiture of the Gods Game surrounding humanity's Dao.
Xiaotian Dog silently retreated half a step.
It glanced at the human king's phantom that had not yet fully dispersed behind Yin Jiao, then at the Pitch-Black Demonic Mark between Yin Hong's brows.
His tail immediately stiffened.
He suddenly felt that his earlier remark about "taking in lackeys" had come just a tiny bit too soon.
A moment later, the divine light faded.
Time within the temple
began flowing again.
The wood splinters suspended in midair clattered to the ground.
Yin Jiao and Yin Hong opened their eyes simultaneously.
Their cultivation was still shallow; they had only just stepped through the doorway of cultivation.
Yet their innate constitutions and destinies had already been completely rewritten by the two supreme arts.
Within Yin Jiao, the human king's dharma bones had begun to form.
In Yin Hong's sea of consciousness, a heaven-devouring demonic seed took root.
The two had gone from fugitive princes to wild cards in the Tribulation.
"Thank you, exalted god, for bestowing these arts!"
Yin Jiao kowtowed heavily, his voice hoarse but resolute.
Yin Hong knelt as well, pressing his forehead to the ground.
"This disciple, Yin Hong, thanks you, Master!"
Yin Jiao raised his head, all hesitation gone from his eyes.
"This disciple, Yin Jiao, pays his respects to Master!"
The divine statue did not respond.
But a gentle flicker of violet light in the Incense Burner signaled its tacit acceptance.
At the same time.
In the main temple at Guanjiangkou.
Gu Changqing sat cross-legged before the divine statue as system notifications sounded one after another.
[Ding! The host has successfully accepted Yin Jiao and Yin Hong as disciples!] [Guangchengzi's and Chijingzi's predetermined master-disciple karma has been severed!] [The Chan Sect's humanity fortune branch has deviated!] [The main quest "Humanity's Dao's Struggle for the Dragon" has officially begun!] [The first round of Tribulation returns for "Humanity's Dao's Struggle for the Dragon" has been triggered!] [Because the host snatched away two heaven-ordained Chan Sect disciples at once, the multiplier for this return has increased!] [Congratulations! The host has obtained: one billion years of pure cultivation!] [Congratulations! The host has obtained: the yin shang humanity fortune origin!] [Congratulations! The host has obtained: the complete "Human Emperor Heaven-Sealing Art"!] [Congratulations! The host has obtained: the complete "Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art"!] [Congratulations! The host has obtained: one primordial violet qi remnant thread!] [Notice: this origin has been concealed by the system and cannot be sensed by the Heavenly Dao.]
Boom!
An immense volume of cultivation surged into Gu Changqing's body.
Twenty godfiend acupores trembled simultaneously.
Humanity's fortune transformed into a phantom of the Dark Phoenix, circled once behind him, then was swallowed into the depths of the Divine Realm by the Primordial Purple Patterns.
Gu Changqing did not rush to break through.
He pressed the billion years of cultivation into his flesh, then used his godfiend acupores to temper his foundation over and over.
Yin Jiao.
Yin Hong.
These two chess pieces had landed at just the right moment.
In the original Investiture of the Gods, Guangchengzi and Chijingzi would have taken them away, turning them into tools for the Chan Sect to draw upon the Yin Shang's lingering fortune.
Now, they had become his disciples.
The Chan Sect would never swallow this insult.
Gu Changqing's gaze shifted slightly as he looked beyond Chaoge City.
"They're here."
Outside the Ruined Temple.
Two beams of Jade Purity Immortal Light suddenly split the night sky.
One was as weighty as a mountain, with the Dao resonance of the Heaven-Flipping Seal faintly rising and falling within it.
The other interwove black and white, the Yin-Yang Mirror's light sending the chill in the Mass Burial Grounds surging.
Guangchengzi.
Chijingzi.
They had arrived.
The oppressive might of Daluo Golden Immortals descended from the heavens, bearing down on the Ruined Temple.
Yin Jiao and Yin Hong had just risen to their feet when their faces instantly went pale.
They could feel that those two auras were far stronger than the monsters that had hunted them.
These were beings they had no hope of opposing in their current state.
Xiaotian Dog bared his teeth, the dark-gold vertical mark between his brows slowly opening.
But before he could leap out, Yang Jian had already stepped forward.
Boom!
The strength god-demon acupoint trembled within his body.
Primordial violet qi shielded the Ruined Temple's threshold.
He forcibly held that oppressive Yuqing might outside the temple.
From the night sky, Guangchengzi's icy voice bore down.
"What fiend dares steal my Chan Sect's heaven-ordained disciples?"
Chijingzi held the Yin-Yang Mirror in his hand, his gaze settling on Yin Jiao and Yin Hong inside the temple.
"You two sons of the Yin Shang, why have you not come out?"
"Return to Kunlun with this humble Daoist, and you may yet preserve your lives."
Yin Jiao clenched his fists.
A Pitch-Black Demonic Mark flashed in the depths of Yin Hong's eyes.
Yang Jian slowly raised his head, the divine eye between his brows glowing faintly.
"They have already become my master's disciples."
"The Chan Sect is too late."