Chapter 1728: Predicament

After the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon swallowed Qi Xuansu and Zhou Mengyao into its belly, the power of primordial chaos and the torrent of chaotic thoughts assailing them grew increasingly intense. The corrosion from the power of primordial chaos was still manageable, as the Taiji Eight Trigrams Mirror could withstand it, but the all-pervasive distracting thoughts were far more troublesome. Qi Xuansu had no choice but to hide his soul within the Longevity Stone Heart, relying on its indestructible nature to resist the invasion of external forces.

As a result, Qi Xuansu could no longer perceive the changes taking place in the outside world.

It was as though a violent storm had descended, forcing Qi Xuansu to hunker down inside the ship’s cabin. Other than feeling the ship pitch and toss amid the tempest, he knew nothing about what was actually happening outside.

After an unknown amount of time, Qi Xuansu vaguely sensed that the storm outside seemed to have subsided, so Qi Xuansu’s soul left the Longevity Stone Heart and returned to its proper place.

That was when Qi Xuansu discovered that he was lying on a beach, surrounded by wreckage and fragments from the multi-decked ship. Su Yuanzai’s semi-immortal object had been completely destroyed.

From this aspect, although Su Yuanzai had managed to preserve his life, he had suffered an enormous loss. He had not caught even the slightest glimpse of the opportunity to attain immortality, yet he had already lost a multi-decked ship and a Myriad Manifestations Body, both of which were on the level of semi-immortal objects. Qi Xuansu briefly wondered how Su Yuanzai would explain this to the Daoist Order.

In the distance stretched a vast sea, but at the end of it lay endless darkness, completely obscuring the boundary between the sea and sky. Dark shadows could be seen swimming beneath the seawater, making the entire place seem eerie.

Qi Xuansu felt his chest and discovered that the Taiji Eight Trigrams Mirror was still there. That was at least one blessing amid all the misfortune. As an immortal object, the Taiji Eight Trigrams Mirror was not so easily damaged. But at this moment, it was completely dull, resembling a dead object without the slightest trace of spirituality.

Qi Xuansu instinctively tried to inject divine power into it, only to discover that his body was completely empty. This greatly alarmed him as he thought, Have I lost all of my cultivation?! I shouldn’t have laughed at Su Yuanzai’s loss of semi-immortal objects earlier. Now, I’m in an even more miserable state!

After all, external possessions could still be regained. But cultivation was the true foundation upon which everything rested. Su Yuanzai had at least preserved himself intact, while Qi Xuansu had practically been beaten back to square one.

Qi Xuansu took a deep breath and forcibly steadied his mind before examining his condition once more.

His true essence, innate qi, magical power, and divine power had all vanished without the slightest trace. Although his blood qi remained, it had become extraordinarily weak, roughly equivalent to someone who had only just entered the Kunlun stage. As such, his body spirits had also disappeared.

The Kunlun stage was roughly the level Qi Xuansu had been at when he first arrived in Fengtai County and perhaps even slightly weaker. It was enough to incapacitate a few low-ranking Green Phoenix Guards but completely useless against gods and demons. Never mind an actual god or demon, even a single thought from one would be enough to kill him. He was now even weaker than the White Lotus Sect followers.

Fortunately, Qi Xuansu discovered that he could still open his magical receptacle.

However, opening the magical receptacle even once nearly cost him everything. Without divine power, magical power, innate qi, or true essence, he could only fuel it with his blood qi. A Heavenly-Being Martial Arts Practitioner would not care about losing such a small amount of blood qi. But for a Xiantian-Being Martial Arts Practitioner, that was another matter entirely.

Back then, Qi Xuansu had never owned a magical receptacle in the first place, so he had never had to experience this. He had carried everything in a satchel.

To make matters worse, the magical receptacle he was currently using had been given to him by Great Sage Jiang and was specifically designed to store immortal objects. Its specifications were extremely high, and so were the requirements for using it. If he still had the magical receptacle he had seized from Fengbo, things might have been easier, but Qi Xuansu had already given that one to Little Yin.

Qi Xuansu finally got a taste of what anemia felt like. He was dizzy and lightheaded, so weak that he dropped onto the ground. It took him a long time before he barely managed to recover.

After opening the magical receptacle, Qi Xuansu discovered that with his current cultivation, the Guizang Lantern showed no response whatsoever. Even Pure Bodhi, a semi-immortal object, was completely unusable.

He could also forget about using the Buddha’s sarira and the like. Now, there were only two things he could use, and both were connected to Zhang Yuelu.

One was the pistol Zhang Yuelu had bought for him while they were strolling through Taiqing Market. He had said that he would display it in his study but had never gotten around to doing so. Unexpectedly, that had now turned out to be a great help.

The other was Qi Xuansu’s short sword, Qing Yuan. Zhou Mengyao had given it to Qi Xuansu while she was posing as Qi Haoran. Later, it had effectively become a token of love between Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu, and Qi Xuansu had kept it inside his magical receptacle ever since.

Qi Xuansu put away the Taiji Eight Trigrams Mirror, then took out the short sword and pistol, fastening one on each side of his waist. For a moment, it felt as though he had returned to his old days of wandering the Jianghu.

He had also found his beloved satchel, which had been his trusty companion before he possessed a magical receptacle. This had been given to him by Madam Qi, and according to her, she had painstakingly sewn it stitch by stitch from high-quality leather.

However, Qi Xuansu suspected that Madam Qi had simply bought the satchel somewhere and told him this to make herself look good. That was because Madam Qi did not seem like someone skilled in needlework, just as Zhang Yuelu did not look like someone who knew how to cook and Little Yin did not look like a refined young lady accomplished in music, calligraphy, and painting.

But whether it had been bought or sewn by hand, the satchel was nevertheless extremely practical. It was sturdy, wear-resistant, waterproof, and fit snugly against the body. Once securely fastened, there was no chance of anything inside falling out.

Inside the satchel was the compass that Madam Qi had given him. Strictly speaking, the satchel had actually come along with the compass when she gave it to him all those years ago.

Qi Xuansu had kept it all this time, a possession that had truly been buried away at the bottom of his chest. Now, he had dug it out once again.

Once he had everything prepared, Qi Xuansu began exploring the beach.

The first things that caught his eye were the various remnants of the multi-decked ship. All of its formations had completely collapsed. The wreckage did not appear to have been blasted apart or shattered upon impact. Rather, it looked as though the ship had simply disintegrated in midair.

After all, Qi Xuansu was quite experienced when it came to aerial disasters. He had been in the incident at Kunlun Pass and another in Fenglin’s Izumo Province. He had even witnessed the Yinglong Warship’s crash at Cuowenbu.

From the wreckage, Qi Xuansu quickly reconstructed what had happened during the multi-decked ship’s descent. After Su Yuanzai was no longer there to control it, the ship’s formations had failed one after another. Then, under the corrosion of the primordial chaos, the ship had begun to disintegrate and lose propulsion. Before it even reached the ground, it had already become a collection of scattered components.

Since the multi-decked ship had not fallen straight down, its fragments and wreckage were scattered for several kilometers along the coastline. Qi Xuansu searched through them bit by bit but found neither the ship’s core components nor any sign of Zhou Mengyao.

Could Zhou Mengyao have died at the hands of the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon?

Just then, Qi Xuansu suddenly felt a fierce gust of wind rushing toward the back of his head.

Qi Xuansu’s years of experience in the Jianghu immediately came into play. Without even turning his head, he threw himself forward without hesitation, evading the sneak attack. He immediately followed with a clumsy roll across the ground, avoiding any potential follow-up strike.

Only then did Qi Xuansu get up to look toward his attacker. It was none other than Zhou Mengyao, whom he had searched everywhere for without success.

Zhou Mengyao, who excelled in Heavenly Calculation, actually missed the strike?

From this, Qi Xuansu deduced that Zhou Mengyao had likewise lost her cultivation and could no longer use Heavenly Calculation.

Since that was the case, Qi Xuansu had no intention of holding back. He activated the Tantai Fist Intention and threw a punch straight at Zhou Mengyao.

Zhou Mengyao moved with the force of his strike, drifting backward like a fallen leaf, always maintaining a distance of 30 centimeters between herself and his fist.

The maneuver was certainly graceful, but compared with an Immortal’s spatial translocation, it was little more than a child’s trick.

It seemed that Zhou Mengyao had indeed lost most of her cultivation.

As soon as the momentum of Qi Xuansu’s punch was exhausted, Zhou Mengyao halted her retreat and thrust a finger toward his wrist. Qi Xuansu pulled his hand back, changed his fist into a claw, and reversed his movement to seize Zhou Mengyao’s wrist.

Neither of them moved from where they stood while exchanging dozens of moves using only their hands. In the end, Zhou Mengyao proved slightly inferior and was struck on the shoulder by Qi Xuansu. The hidden force penetrated her body, leaving her stiff and immobile. However, Zhou Mengyao promptly circulated the six qi, reversing yin and yang as light and darkness alternated. In the blink of an eye, she was moving normally once again.

This could no longer be considered the Xiaoyao Six Void Tribulations, nor the regular Six Void Tribulations, but merely the basic application of the six qi. It was much like learning the sword. One first had to master basic movements such as chopping, slashing, flicking, and thrusting before moving on to specific techniques.

Zhou Mengyao had only just neutralized Qi Xuansu’s force when a figure suddenly flashed before her eyes. Moving like a phantom, Qi Xuansu abruptly closed the distance and appeared directly in front of her. Zhou Mengyao no longer had any great divine abilities at her disposal and could only respond with the Taiping Sect’s basic palm technique, the Wanhua Divine Sword Palm.

However, it was obvious that Zhou Mengyao was somewhat rusty with her palm techniques. Given her status, it had been at least several decades since she had fought someone in this manner.

On the other hand, Qi Xuansu had spent many years struggling through the mire of the Jianghu, and not that much time had passed since those days. Thus, he was far more experienced in this kind of fighting.

Qi Xuansu saw through the feint and reality of her movements and struck the center of her palm with a finger. Zhou Mengyao abruptly shuddered, suffering a setback.

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhou Mengyao turned and fled.

Qi Xuansu immediately pursued her, but unexpectedly, Zhou Mengyao’s retreat had also been a feint. She suddenly turned and unleashed a palm strike.

Sword qi seemed to flicker in and out of existence within this palm strike. Startled, Qi Xuansu could only raise both palms to block Zhou Mengyao’s attack. He immediately sensed six strands of foreign qi entering his body. Although they were not difficult to neutralize, Qi Xuansu was still forced to halt his offensive in order to purge them from his body.

At that moment, Zhou Mengyao seized the opportunity to counterattack.

Although Zhou Mengyao could not use the Six Void Tribulations, she had full mastery of the six qi. Moreover, her cultivation was higher than Qi Xuansu’s, so she had retained more of her cultivation than he had. At the very least, she could still use innate qi, allowing her to distinguish and manipulate the six strands of qi individually.

Zhou Mengyao’s only disadvantage lay in fighting experience. Whatever historical issues surrounded the Zhou family, someone of Zhou Mengyao’s background could never have spent years scraping by at the bottom of the Jianghu.

In this aspect, Qi Xuansu was an anomaly among the Daoist Order’s current senior leadership, as very few had ever lived as wandering Daoists. Qi Xuansu was one of the handful of exceptions.

The six qi shifted unpredictably. Zhou Mengyao first employed yin force, then transformed it into yang force just as its momentum began to wane. In a single instant, it changed from utmost yin and softness to utmost yang and hardness, catching Qi Xuansu completely by surprise.

Immediately afterward, Zhou Mengyao shifted again to wind force, gathering and dispersing unpredictably, ever-changing and elusive. Then she changed to rain force, intricate and continuous, flowing on without end.

An ordinary opponent usually had only one fighting style, but fighting Zhou Mengyao was like facing several opponents with completely different styles in succession. Even after exchanging more than 100 moves, Qi Xuansu was still unable to gain the upper hand over her.