Chapter 637: The True Monarch's Advent

Chapter 637: Chapter 117: The True Monarch’s Advent

At this moment, Chengxi’s thoughts were not on Jiangcun at all. He scanned his surroundings, sensing the cold indifference of the people around him, and finally let his gaze fall upon his junior sister, Quecai.

The best option now was to abandon this place, but the Qi Fortune Array he had arranged was located directly beneath the island. He had spent over four hundred years calibrating the array below.

Giving up this array meant giving up on this ascension, because he no longer had the will to start over from scratch.

“Fellow Daoists, if we don’t work together right now, more than two hundred years of effort will be for nothing!” Chengxi’s voice also turned cold. He was already thinking, ‘If I’m lucky enough to ascend, I’ll make these people pay.’

“Fellow Daoist, you should try to ascend now. Otherwise, you won’t get another chance,” a Monk from Vajra Temple said after saluting Chengxi with one palm pressed to his chest.

Everyone present was shrewd. The reason they weren’t giving their all was that they could see Chengxi’s chances were slim. Ever since his plot against Qianmu Temple had failed months ago, these people had lost faith in him. They felt that the fact they were still protecting him now was going above and beyond what was required.

As for them fighting to the death against the Lishui Prefecture cultivators, that was practically impossible.

Chengxi’s eyes flashed; he found he had no rebuttal. Just then, an Artifact Cultivator from the Taiyin Sect spoke. “We have plotted on your behalf for nearly two hundred years. Ascension is simply a matter of success or failure. Hurry down and divine your chances. We can stand guard for you until dark.”

As he spoke, he produced a jet-black Eight Trigrams Plate and added, “Your attention is entirely on those Lishui Prefecture cultivators. Haven’t you noticed the activity in the waters further out?”

A chill ran down Chengxi’s spine. His Primordial Spirit Consciousness rapidly expanded outward, and a flicker of fear crossed his face. Five hundred kilometers out at sea, puppets were setting up arrays designed specifically to detect Transfer Talismans.

In other words, his aura would be locked onto even if he tried to flee now!

“Senior Brother!”

Quecai watched Chengxi worriedly.

Chengxi gave a bitter smile. Staring at the towering waves rolling in ahead, the light had all but faded from his eyes.

“We won’t stop you if you wish to give up,” the Fire Cultivator from ‘First Day’ said with a smile. “However, you will need to repay us for nearly two hundred years of compensation! With your cultivation, Daoist, you should be able to pay it all back in five or six hundred years, at most.”

“How could you…”

“Junior Sister!”

Chengxi stopped Quecai before she could finish. Then, he transformed into a streak of light and plunged into the mountain below.

He decided to risk it all.

Back in the small palace on the high mountain cliff, Chengxi’s hand seals changed rapidly as a complex, Eight Trigrams-shaped formation materialized beneath him. He stood at its center, and the instant the formation appeared, his right hand began to calculate furiously.

「Six hours passed in the blink of an eye.」

Just as with all his previous calculations, he failed to divine the opportunity for his ascension. Outside, the sky had grown dark, and the Transfer Arrays the puppets had erected around the island had completely exhausted their stored Spiritual Qi.

In the distance, the space beneath the dark clouds brightened as if a full moon were rising.

Wang Ping and his companions had arrived.

Inside the small palace, Chengxi’s calculations grew even faster. At this moment, his desire swelled uncontrollably, causing the Spirit Vein Consciousness within him to surge. Countless tiny, dark-green plants began to seep from the surface of his skin, only to wither and die upon contact with the air.

But still, he could not divine the opportunity to ascend.

As the Transfer Arrays collapsed, their Spiritual Qi completely depleted, he seemed to sense something and opened his eyes. His gaze pierced the palace walls and crossed the vast night to fall upon Wang Ping, who had just appeared on the horizon.

“You really do have all the luck!”

He spat the words, his voice full of jealousy. As his body was now covered in vegetation, his voice came out sharp and shrill. He ignored his body’s mutations and directly summoned his Primordial Spirit. From within it, he called forth a Spirit Communication Talisman, a Luck-Borrowing Talisman, and a Heaven-Reaching Talisman, followed by a single blank Talisman.

The moment the blank Talisman appeared, Chengxi gritted his teeth and commanded the Wood Spirit to inscribe the Heaven-Covering Talisman onto it. The instant the Heaven-Covering Talisman formed, an indescribably powerful force abruptly manifested between heaven and earth.

Everyone instinctively looked up, for the power had appeared in the heavens. But the sky was empty.

Wang Ping, too, gazed at the sky, but he was observing the Inspiration Realm. Within that realm, he saw an invisible force rapidly destroying a Wood Spirit Consciousness in the region ahead.

Then, in the void, he saw a projection that was both familiar and strange.

The Heaven-Covering Talisman!

Its appearance was recorded in the latter half of the fourth volume of the *Taiyan Talisman* compendium, which Wang Ping knew by heart.

‘Chengxi tried to ascend to the Fourth Realm, but he failed!’

The moment Wang Ping reached this conclusion, he felt as if the world had been covered by a faint gray veil. Immediately after, he found his body frozen in place, as if shackled.

It wasn’t just him; the same thing was happening to everyone in this corner of the world.

Viewed from a greater distance, this pocket of space seemed to have been stripped from the real world, held in a state of absolute stillness. It was colliding with the space of adjacent regions—likely the Heaven and Earth Rules attempting to repair this area, but the restoration process couldn’t keep pace.

An ethereal figure flashed out of the void and landed beside Chengxi, saying in a satisfied tone, “A perfect tool!”

As his words faded, another figure appeared beside him and said coldly, “Don’t waste time!”

With that, he formed a spell with his hands.

The next moment, time around Chengxi seemed to reverse, rewinding in the blink of an eye to the moment just before he inscribed the Heaven-Covering Talisman!

“The Rules’ restoration will speed up soon. Stop playing around,” the time-controlling cultivator instructed, then vanished on the spot.

“I never play around!”

The remaining figure flicked his sleeve, wrapping up the stunned Chengxi, and vanished as well. As he disappeared, the frozen pocket of space was instantly restored. The original spatial fissures healed in the blink of an eye.

For a moment, Wang Ping felt the world turn upside down and nearly plummeted from the sky. But the disorienting sensation vanished in an instant, and everything returned to normal.

Just as everyone was filled with questions, a streak of light descended from the sky. Within it was an emerald-green gourd—a very familiar one.

“It’s True Monarch Yuan Wu’s gourd!”

Yu Lian’s voice rang out abruptly; once again, she was the first to recognize it.

Just then, a figure in a bright yellow, narrow-sleeved Daoist Robe materialized beside the gourd. He scanned his surroundings, then stroked his three-foot-long beard, looked at Wang Ping, and said, “The slot for the Taiyan Fourth Realm is yours. For the next three hundred years, no one can take it from you unless your own ascension fails.”

With that, without waiting for anyone to react, he transformed into a streak of light and vanished in the blink of an eye.