Chapter 96 — Yuanyan Possession
"Master!" A heaven-shaking howl tore from Yiyunzi's throat. Though he was far away, his keen eyesight had caught everything clearly; the moment that towering golden body with eight arms and four faces appeared, even a man of Yiyunzi's iron resolve felt his heart quail. Only when Zhou Xuan crushed the old Daoist Qianji's skull did he snap back to his senses—and at the sight, grief and fury overwhelmed him. Forgetting even what spells he might use, he clutched Ling Yan and charged straight over.
Zhou Xuan frowned. Yiyunzi's charge carried the desperate finality of one who meant to self-detonate his yuanyan; true, such a blast could hardly harm the Zhou Xuan of today, but it would still be no small nuisance. His other six arms swept out, tracing a glittering golden sigil in the air; invisible force fields erupted on every side, freezing the whole space and binding Yiyunzi fast where he stood, unable to stir. Zhou Xuan now wore his Dharma Image Golden Body, and the power of any Daoist art he cast was beyond reckoning compared to what his flesh could muster. This art of Space Freezing—one only a Return-to-Void cultivator could perform—was likewise vastly magnified. Yiyunzi felt his whole body clench; the immense pressure squeezed his bones until they cracked aloud, and the air in his chest seemed to be pressed out of him drop by drop. No iron constitution could endure such pain; Yiyunzi choked and blacked out.
Zhou Xuan cast the binding art casually, without putting much force into killing—there were more important matters at hand. While his spell held Yiyunzi fast, his other two great hands were not idle; he shifted their form, shrank them to normal size, and drove them savagely into the chest cavity of Qianji's headless corpse. His hands went in and out in an instant, and when they withdrew, they held—for no reason at all—a golden whip some three chi long, thick as a child's arm: the God-Beating Whip!
Smoke and cloud coiled about the God-Beating Whip, talismanic light flickering in and out of view; ancient, twisted characters were carved along its golden length. Zhou Xuan gripped it and felt the vast, surging, unimaginably powerful tide of spiritual force within—and even his heart, still as an old well and unstained as a bright mirror, could not help but stir. This was a treasure from the ancient war of the Investiture of the Gods! How many mighty beings had perished beneath this golden whip? Holding Qianji's corpse in one hand and stroking this formidable artifact with the other, Zhou Xuan was lost in emotion.
Suddenly, Qianji's corpse burst apart in uncanny fashion; the violent discharge of magical power drove Zhou Xuan's gigantic golden Dharma Image reeling backward through the void. Zhou Xuan had not anticipated this turn, and for an instant he could not react. The frozen space dissolved as he fell back, and Yiyunzi, still clutching the unconscious Ling Yan, plummeted rapidly downward.
The exploded remains of Qianji's body suddenly dissolved into countless droplets of pale golden liquid, which shot at Zhou Xuan with furious speed. Each drop harbored a force utterly formidable, in no way inferior to the thrust of a first-rate flying sword; and though Zhou Xuan's golden Dharma Image was fully formed and many times over tougher than any mortal frame, he had no wish to take the impact of those thousands upon thousands of golden droplets head-on. Zhou Xuan well knew the terrifying degree to which a Return-to-Void cultivator could accumulate and compress true essence within his body. The bursting of the corpse, though not so exaggerated as a yuanyan self-detonation, was still potent enough. His enormous frame twisted, and he melted into the void—now that his true body had descended, this art of sundering space and slipping away needed only a touch of true essence and thought.
The instant Zhou Xuan vanished into space, the golden liquid struck empty air and fell straight downward. As it fell, the glittering golden light slowly gathered into a thin, faint human shape—features indistinct, limbs incomplete. The golden radiance on the droplets streamed ceaselessly into that blurry figure, and the pale golden silhouette grew clearer; though the face remained unreadable, its stature was eight or nine parts like old Qianji's. The golden liquid, all its luster drained, became drops of fresh blood that plunged swiftly toward the ground, while every flicker of golden light converged upon the figure.
A sharp wind suddenly blew past, and the pale golden figure gave a visible shudder of fright. It swooped downward at breakneck speed, chasing the tumbling Yiyunzi and Ling Yan. Zhou Xuan's gigantic frame thrust out of the void again and caught sight of the pale golden figure; with a great roar he reached down with a golden hand the size of a basket, and in an instant was at the figure's back. Seeing the hand come for it, the pale golden figure let out a shrill, piercing shriek and doubled its speed in a flash, in that same instant overtaking the plummeting Yiyunzi and Ling Yan. Zhou Xuan's hand surged in speed as well, and was once more right at the figure's back—and seeing escape utterly impossible, the pale golden figure suddenly dissolved into a golden thread and bored into the unconscious Yiyunzi's body.
Then the uncanny change came. The once-unconscious Yiyunzi abruptly flipped over and came to himself; a flick of his hand sent nine crimson rays streaking to meet Zhou Xuan's great golden hand. In midair the nine fiery red rays transformed into nine dragon pillars, each as thick as a man's embrace and eighteen feet tall, blazing with raging fire whose scorching heat beat down upon all—the flames had even turned purple. The searing temperature wove itself into a canopy of light that wrapped Zhou Xuan's great hand within.
"The Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Canopy! Is everything in your Kunlun a counterfeit?" Zhou Xuan's other seven great hands came up as well, utterly unafraid of the heat, seizing the fiery red dragon pillars and shaking them violently. The pillars were torn up one after another, the canopy of light vanishing altogether; the nine fiery red columns shrank into nine slender red rays, which Zhou Xuan clutched in his grasp. But the revived Yiyunzi had been ready: the moment he flung out the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Canopy, he had produced a green command flag and waved it twice, and man and flag alike vanished without a trace. By the time Zhou Xuan had gathered up the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Canopy, there was not a shadow of anyone before him.
Zhou Xuan's four faces showed no change, betraying nothing, but a cold laugh issued from his mouth: "Heh heh! So you are indeed the foremost grandmaster under heaven—able to escape even from this. No doubt the moment I drew out the God-Beating Whip, I also roused the yuanyan slumbering in your body! But I never took you for such a ruthless sort, to disregard your own disciple's life and work the art of yuanyan possession just like that. Heh heh—so it seems I did you a favor. Had I not knocked your disciple unconscious, how could you have seized his body so swiftly? But now that even the God-Beating Whip has fallen into my hands, what can you do to me?"
Zhou Xuan laughed on: "Still, you had best play the obedient disciple now—I doubt you dare declare who you really are. Haha! The sect master of Qincen, reduced by possession to his own disciple! Now that I know this secret, would you still dare come after me? I wager that once you return, you will have to spin a whole fabric of lies!"