The instant the true essence entered the formation eye, everyone near the iron tower seemed to hear the bloodcurdling wails of thousands upon thousands of people. The thunderclouds overhead, which had not completely dispersed, even showed signs of gathering again.
The iron tower outside Zhuque Gate stood with an unshakable presence, refusing to yield even to the rolling thunder. A faint glow appeared against its pitch-black surface and gradually grew brighter.
It absorbed all the spiritual energy pouring out of the imperial palace, transforming into a gigantic spiritual artifact that rose toward the heavens.
Zheng Jiao Jiao stood beneath the tower’s pinnacle, right at its center. As true qi circulated through him, his body slowly became translucent, reverting to its original, disembodied soul form.
He had paid a terrible price in his battle with Cheng He Cheng. Not only had his body been destroyed, but his soul had suffered grievous damage. If he had not devoured the souls of Cheng He Cheng and Wu Xuan Yin in succession to repair it, he might not have been able to withstand the power of advancing to Golden Core now.
While pondering this, he suddenly sensed something wrong with the tower. Based on what had happened in the New City, it should have connected Heaven and Earth by now, absorbing the souls of Haojing’s inhabitants and transforming them into spiritual energy to break through the heavenly barrier.
But the tower had neither connected Heaven and Earth nor begun drawing in spiritual energy. Instead, the true essence placed in its formation eye was endlessly releasing spiritual energy and soul power. Yet all of it clung to the tower itself, forming a prison.
A prison!
Zheng Jiao Jiao realized something was terribly wrong. He tried to remove the true essence from the formation eye, but it had already fused with the tower. As soon as his hand touched it, an irresistible force seized him and began draining his true qi without pause.
By now, of course he knew something was wrong with the tower. But what, exactly?
Every detail connected to the supposed Haojing grand formation flashed through his mind.
He had learned of the formation from Cheng He Cheng’s memories after devouring his soul. Then he had handed the plans to Hu Luo Luo, who instructed the Spirit Sect to reproduce them, building a smaller New City as an experiment.
Could the problem be the dimensions?
No. Everything present in Haojing had also been present in the New City. Even if there was a flaw, size should not be the cause.
Afterward, he had contacted Qin Xiao Xun and taken away the New City’s iron tower. He deliberately built a false wooden tower and had Mei Xia Ying carry it openly into Northern Zhou. The real tower was dismantled under his supervision and transported outside Haojing. Only a few days ago, to gain leverage over Mo Xiao Ran, had he handed it to Mu Kai Sen.
Was it Mu Kai Sen?
Or the White Tiger King behind him?
Or even Mo Xiao Ran behind the White Tiger King?
At this moment, Zheng Jiao Jiao could no longer suppress his nature. The seed of suspicion had barely been planted before it sprouted branches and leaves, growing into a towering tree. He glared venomously out of the tower, searching the faces nearby.
Who was it? Who?!
“Come out!”
Zheng Jiao Jiao activated the No-Return Sect’s Sect Master’s Soul Seal. The sect members near the tower all felt a buzzing in their heads. If they were still cultivating the Profound-Breaking Essentials, the seal might have constrained them then and there. Unfortunately for Zheng Jiao Jiao, all of them, including Mu Kai Sen, had switched to other cultivation methods. The seal affected them, but not greatly.
The old man looked up in bewilderment, apparently unable to understand why Zheng Jiao Jiao had suddenly gone mad. Having taken no part in the New City battle, he naturally had no idea that the iron tower’s present behavior was abnormal.
He merely thought it would be better to go up and look for himself than to stand below guessing.
“Master.” Mu Kai Sen stood behind him and called out, whether deliberately or not.
The old man spun around. “You tampered with it? You’ve gone over to Mo Xiao Ran?”
“I haven’t,” Mu Kai Sen answered calmly, meeting his gaze.
The old man regarded him suspiciously for a moment but abandoned the idea of going up.
Someone else, however, was now standing on the eaves of the floor just beneath the topmost story, staring at Zheng Jiao Jiao inside the tower. Zheng Jiao Jiao needed only a glance to know who was behind everything.
“You again, Scholar Mo.”
Mo Xiao Ran looked at his face twisted with hatred, remaining as calm as the surface of a mirror-smooth lake. “You asked me to help you complete the Haojing grand formation, and I swore upon my three hun souls that I would. All three are still intact, which proves I haven’t broken my oath. So why do you hate me?”
Zheng Jiao Jiao was nearly out of true qi. His soul was being forcibly converted into soul power, and his gaze grew increasingly crazed. “You plotted against me?”
“No,” Mo Xiao Ran replied. “You were never the one I intended to ensnare.”
Zheng Jiao Jiao let out a hideous, icy laugh, as though the sound had risen from the underworld itself.
“The person I wanted to trick back then was Cheng He Cheng,” Mo Xiao Ran said. “Unfortunately, you beat me to him.”
“You kept putting off killing him because you wanted to use the formation to do it?” Zheng Jiao Jiao spoke while gripping the true essence and struggling against the formation, trying to drag it out of the eye. “You didn’t even dare kill the half-dead old Cheng He Cheng yourself?”
Mo Xiao Ran’s eyes drifted leisurely across the back of his hand before rising to his face. “Haven’t you realized? As long as the No-Return Sect’s last Soul Seal remains, no one in this world can attain Golden Core. If I killed him myself, there was a chance the seal would pass to me. Only by using the Haojing formation to refine it gradually could I reopen the road to the heavens for cultivators everywhere.”
Zheng Jiao Jiao was shaken to his core. “This formation is…” As his concentration slipped, the true essence he had managed to move an inch snapped back into place. He felt his soul power draining even faster.
“There is no such thing as the Haojing grand formation,” Mo Xiao Ran said.
“What?”
“Haojing is merely a city laid out in neat squares. This supposed grand formation was something I cobbled together after studying formation arts. The thing actually doing the work is this Great Soul-Locking Pagoda of Forward and Reverse Modes.”
“No wonder. No wonder even Song Lei Ming said he couldn’t figure out the Haojing grand formation. Because the whole thing was fake.”
“Whoever built the city may have studied formations, but never put them into actual use,” Mo Xiao Ran said. “Otherwise, I couldn’t have fooled so many people.” The supposed formation had deceived Cheng He Cheng, Zheng Jiao Jiao, Hu Luo Luo, Wu Xuan Yin, Ban Qing Yu… even Pei Xiong Ji and Wang Yu. Plainly, that could not have been achieved merely by opening and closing his lips. Haojing’s city plan, which happened to follow numerous formation principles, had been indispensable to the deception.
“And what is this Great Soul-Locking Pagoda?” Zheng Jiao Jiao could hear the malice in the name alone.
Mo Xiao Ran kindly explained. “A spiritual artifact based on a pill-refining furnace, forged through the entire Spirit Sect’s efforts. When Ban Qing Yu used it, it was set to reverse-lock, so the towers absorbed souls from outside. Before you moved it, I switched this one to forward-lock, so it started drawing inward instead. The tower is a spiritual artifact, but only Earth grade, not enough to restrain you by itself. To make it stronger, I needed Ban Qing Yu’s true essence, which had absorbed the soul power of tens of thousands, to activate the formation eye.”
Had Zheng Jiao Jiao still possessed a body, he would probably have vomited blood from sheer fury.
All his schemes, first his deal with Wu Xuan Yin, then his agreement with Mo Xiao Ran, had been aimed at obtaining Ban Qing Yu’s true essence. In the end, he had rung his own death knell with his own hands.
“If you wanted to refine me, why did you join forces with the General to hunt me down in Southern Yu? Was that an act too?”
“Snatching Ban Qing Yu’s true essence from him was an act, to keep you from getting suspicious and changing your mind halfway,” Mo Xiao Ran said. “Trying to kill you was real. Until then, I had thought the person holding the Soul Seal was the General.”
Zheng Jiao Jiao doubted his explanation. “I killed Cheng He Cheng.”
“I know. But the General was there that day, so I thought he was the one who had obtained the benefit.”
Again, if Zheng Jiao Jiao had still had a body, this would probably have made him spit out a second mouthful of blood.
“I worked with him to pursue you for two reasons: first, to kill you before you could ruin my plans later; second, to draw him out.” Mo Xiao Ran sighed frankly. “Only when you admitted yourself that you had killed Cheng He Cheng and taken his soul did I realize that the General hadn’t taken the seal.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Perhaps he also knew he shouldn’t take it.” Mo Xiao Ran smiled faintly. “That makes things simpler.”
“Does it?”
With a cold, mocking question, Zheng Jiao Jiao suddenly raised the index finger of the hand holding the true essence and drove it fiercely inside. Soul power spilled from it, and Zheng Jiao Jiao frantically sucked it back in, hoping to replenish what he had lost.
Mo Xiao Ran watched with perfect composure.
However desperately Zheng Jiao Jiao fought against death, his life had been forfeit from the instant he placed the true essence into the formation eye. Unless someone breached this tower from the outside, no amount of struggling by those trapped within could get them out.
He raised his head.
Above the iron tower, soul power shot toward the ninth heaven.
The thunderclouds Wang Yu had gathered grew thicker and denser. Their purple radiance had vanished, replaced by flashes of gold. This was the authentic color of the lightning tribulation passed down through generations of the No-Return Sect.
With the cool breeze against his face, Mo Xiao Ran was slowly beginning to smile when he sensed a murderous presence rushing toward him. He turned his head.
Wang Yu, clad in blood-soaked purple-gold armor and holding Oriole’s Cry, was speeding down Chengtian Gate Street toward him.
Mo Xiao Ran frowned faintly and descended from the tower. Just then, the old man came over and asked, “What’s happening inside?”
Ignoring him entirely, Mo Xiao Ran addressed Mu Kai Sen. “Keep your master under control.”
The old man frowned, about to object, but his gaze fell upon Wang Yu racing toward the tower. It was still Wang Yu’s face, still Wang Yu’s body, yet there was no life in his eyes. His purple-gold armor seemed to drink blood. Despite the amount covering him, not a single drop fell to the ground.
“Is that the Northern Zhou imperial family’s Purple-Gold Battle Armor?”
The old man’s voice came drifting from behind.
Obviously, Mo Xiao Ran answered in his mind, already rushing forward to meet Wang Yu.
Afraid the old man would interfere, Mu Kai Sen asked quickly, “Master, what exactly is the Purple-Gold Battle Armor?”
“The Purple-Gold Battle Armor is an Earth-grade spiritual artifact capable of Heaven-grade strength. It’s the Northern Zhou imperial family’s last-resort counterattack.” The old man paused. “And it’s their last resort because the requirements for using it are brutal. To activate it, someone must cultivate the imperial art Purple Qi from the East to the Martial King level and supply it with fresh blood. Once the armor is brought out, the battle doesn’t end until one side dies.”
That was why the armor could only ever be a last resort. No Martial King could endure fighting while the armor drained his blood until he died. Thus, the Northern Zhou imperial family’s first and, before Wang Yu, only use of the armor had employed the fresh corpse of the founding emperor’s younger brother. But without a soul, the armor attacked indiscriminately. This time, Wang Yu seemed different.
Mu Kai Sen stared at Wang Yu’s expressionless face. “Then Emperor Jianhong is now…”
Watching the armored figure exchange blows with Mo Xiao Ran, the old man finally noticed what made him different. A trace of admiration appeared in his eyes. “He’s dead too. But before his death, he stored one hun soul within the armor, so the armor is fighting under the direction of his soul’s will. Now it’s a question of which runs out first: the soul’s intent or his blood.”
At the same time, the Yulin Guard soldiers who had personally placed the emperor’s remains inside the armor charged out of the palace, full of grief and righteous fury, and attacked the iron tower.
Emperor Jianhong had played his final card. Everything now depended on… fate.