Inside the quiet room.
You Xuexin’s beautiful eyes were shut tight. As if avoiding a venomous snake or scorpion, she hurled the 【Five Thieves’ Heaven-Stealing Myriad Transformation Divine Talisman】 far away, then sat cross-legged directly on the floor.
At some point, a red-skinned gourd had appeared in her hands.
Her primary spiritual art was 【Sword Arts】. She specialized in using flying swords, and as a weapon of slaughter, her flying sword was usually kept in a sword box for nourishment.
This gourd was her sword box.
Right now, as she circulated her spiritual power and poured billowing spiritual sense into the red gourd, the originally quiet gourd gradually emitted the roars of dragons and tigers.
“Please reveal yourself, treasure!”
You Xuexin formed hand seals and chanted an incantation. Without hesitation, she popped open the mouth of the gourd, and surging sword qi immediately rushed out like a bursting dam.
Clang, clang!
The cry of the sword echoed through the quiet room, as if an invisible flying sword was weaving through the air. Finally, it landed steadily above You Xuexin’s head and lightly spun in a circle.
In an instant, it was as if an invisible connection had been severed by the flying sword. You Xuexin’s beautiful eyes regained their clarity. She let out a long breath, and only then did she cup her hands toward the gourd. The latter let out a responsive sword cry before returning into the gourd, withdrawing all anomalies.
“Thank goodness…”
You Xuexin patted her full chest, then glanced with lingering fear at the jade slip she had forcefully thrown into the corner of the room.
She had even used a spiritual art for this throw.
It was the very same 【Scene Shift】 she used when capturing Wang Ping. As the name implied, it could shift the external scenery and mold space, creating a realm where two points far apart appeared close at hand out of thin air.
For example, right now, the jade slip seemed to be just on the other side of the room. In reality, if one truly wanted to pick it up, they would have to walk at least a hundred kilometers to even touch it.
However, against this kind of evil object, no preventive measure was too excessive. Out of caution, You Xuexin didn’t even dare pick it up right away. She figured it was better to wait a moment until her spiritual power and spiritual sense returned to their peak state. She would be fully prepared before retrieving it.
Thinking of this, You Xuexin looked inward at her sea of consciousness.
Within her view, upon the vast ocean constructed from memories, a small area was clearly distorted. A large amount of cultivation method memories were faintly forming a talisman.
Hiss…!
You Xuexin sucked in a breath of cold air. “Good thing I severed the relevant memories in time. Otherwise, once the talisman took shape, I truly wouldn’t be able to forget it.”
This was the eerie nature of the 【Five Thieves’ Heaven-Stealing Myriad Transformation Divine Talisman】.
Once a cultivator was bewitched by it and witnessed the method’s contents, a resonance would immediately bloom within their sea of consciousness. Memories of the method would form a talisman out of thin air.
This talisman, engraved deep in the sea of consciousness, allowed the cultivator to completely bypass the painstaking cultivation phase and grasp all the experience of this supreme immortal method instantly.
You could read it one moment and use it the next. Its speed of mastery was peerless in the immortal sects. However, it also came with a fatal flaw.
That was being targeted by the Heaven-Stealing Thief.
“The Heaven-Stealing Thief spread this method, but its true nature is cultivating Gu. Any cultivator who emerges victorious from the pack will ultimately only become his immortal dao resources.”
With such a flaw, no matter how great the benefits, You Xuexin would never be tempted.
Inside the 【Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner】.
Wang Ping’s eyes were tightly shut, similarly looking inward at himself. He stared at the newly manifested talisman in his sea of consciousness. Roughly the size of a thumb, it now flowed with endless radiance.
The next second, the talisman’s true name surfaced in Wang Ping’s mind.
【Thief of Life】.
“The Thief of Life can steal life force and primal qi. This talisman allows me to steal the vital essence, qi, and spirit tied to someone’s life the moment I come into contact with them.”
It didn’t sound like much.
In reality, however, this method of stealing life force and primal qi was exceedingly tyrannical. If cultivated to the highest realm, one could steal a life the moment they made contact.
Touch someone, and they die instantly!
Furthermore, the stolen life force and primal qi wouldn’t just dissipate. It would all integrate into himself, nourishing his physique. The effect was better than any miraculous elixir or divine medicine!
Thinking of this, Wang Ping’s gaze grew deeper. He stared fixedly at the 【Thief of Life】 talisman in his sea of consciousness, inspecting it from left to right, searching high and low, carefully savoring and digesting the knowledge and experience it transmitted. Only then did he finally spot two words hidden between the lines of the talisman—
Eating humans!
“Why do all the methods of this immortal sect walk the demonic path?!” Wang Ping’s scalp tingled slightly. “What 【Thief of Life】? To put it bluntly, isn’t this just eating humans!”
Looking up, Wang Ping once again gazed outside the banner.
Within his sight, as the radiance of the 【Thief of Life】 faintly flickered, he immediately saw the immeasurably terrifying life force and primal qi within You Xuexin’s body.
Gulp…
In an instant, Wang Ping’s mouth watered. It took him a great deal of effort to swallow it down. An indescribable, terrifying hunger swept through his entire body at this moment!
So hungry! So hungry! So hungry!
I want to eat! I want to eat! I want to eat!
…Wait, is this thing controlling me?
Wang Ping abruptly held his breath. All his spiritual sense frantically surged into the 【Thief of Life】, barely suppressing the hunger and maintaining his rationality.
Such strong demonic nature.
This won’t do. I have to find a way to completely control this hunger, or sooner or later, it will drive me into qi deviation.
Would suicide work?
Wang Ping thought about it, then shook his head. Intuition told him it likely wouldn’t, because the existence of the 【Thief of Life】 wasn’t anchored to this physical body of his.
It was based on memories and consciousness.
If I want to eliminate its influence, unless I sever all memories related to it, this thing will probably still follow me even if I die and restart.
The only plan for now was a two-pronged approach—suppress it with spiritual sense while appropriately stealing some life force and primal qi to satisfy the hunger. Although this method treated the symptoms rather than the root cause, it would delay the inevitable for a long time—enough for his cultivation to progress further and allow him to find a new solution.
A full six hours later, You Xuexin finally finished adjusting her breathing and recovered. She reached out and beckoned the jade slip in the corner of the room back to her.
Immediately after, she took out a jade box, tossed the jade slip inside, and sealed it. She then formed her fingers into a sword and continuously engraved secret talismanic scripts onto it until the entire surface of the box was full. Only then did she take out an even larger jade box and repeat the exact same process…
After repeating this several times, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“No time to lose. It’s best to escort this item over as quickly as possible and let Master handle it. Keeping it in my hands might lead to further mistakes.”
Thinking of this, You Xuexin didn’t dare delay.
The next second, she formed hand seals and muttered an incantation. Finally, she pointed her finger, and a burst of dazzling golden light instantly blossomed where she stood.
Inside the 【Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner】, Wang Ping had been secretly observing the outside. His vision blurred, and by the time he recovered, the scenery had completely changed.
The various sights of the Daoist temple vanished, replaced by a magnificent deck. In his view were resplendent pavilions and terraces, surrounded by blue sky and white clouds. It was a colossal flying ship suspended in midair. One after another, the secret talismanic scripts on the ship’s hull lit up.
What an incredible flying ship!
Wang Ping was shocked. Then, he saw You Xuexin channel her spiritual power. The flying ship moved in response, rapidly pulling away from the earth, flanked by golden light.
The speed was faster than Wang Ping could have ever imagined.
In just a blink of an eye, the Daoist temple turned into an imperceptible black dot in his vision. He didn’t even get a clear look at the environment surrounding the temple.
All he could see were the mountains, rivers, and landscapes that had already become tiny. Even these were gradually turning into abstract paintings as time passed.
Suddenly, a flash of insight hit Wang Ping.
Stop looking down.
Only souls bound by gravity would fixate their eyes entirely on the earth. What he should do right now was raise his head and look up at the vast, boundless firmament.
So, Wang Ping looked up.
In an instant, the flying ship burst through the astral qi sea of clouds within the Thirty-Three Heavens. As it parted the clouds and emerged into the sunlight, a sight both familiar and utterly foreign unfolded before Wang Ping’s eyes.
It was a realm of absolute darkness, as though the very vault of heaven had been drenched in ink. Yet compared to the tiny earth below, that darkness was boundless and unfathomable. As the flying ship continued its ascent, the silver-white radiance of countless stars gradually emerged, illuminating the infinite depths of the void.
【The Universe】.
Wang Ping was one hundred percent certain that what was presented before his eyes right now was the universe. At this very moment, the flying ship was sprinting toward space.
What was this? Breaking through the atmosphere?
Wang Ping shifted his gaze, looking at the boundless sea of stars decorating the darkness, flowing with light and offering a feast for the eyes. He began to observe them almost subconsciously.
He tried to find the familiar parts among the sky full of astrological phenomena… To his disappointment, however, all the constellations were completely foreign to him.
The Big Dipper, the Zodiac signs, the Twenty-Eight Mansions… He didn’t see a single one.
“…Heh.”
Suddenly, Wang Ping laughed.
Never had there been a moment where he was so acutely aware that he had indeed transmigrated. Yet, precisely because of this, a momentary doubt arose in his mind:
Something doesn’t seem right.
Although the constellations were entirely foreign, looking at them closely now, he inexplicably felt a sense of familiarity, as if he had seen them somewhere before.
An illusion? Deja vu?
Before Wang Ping could sort out his thoughts, even the constellations vanished from sight—because the flying ship didn’t stop. Instead, it sped frantically toward one of the stars.
During this process, the constellations gradually shifted, as if pulling back a curtain. Wang Ping saw the other side of the stars from an entirely new angle—within his sight were fully twelve entities emitting light like suns, mixed among the stars.
When viewed from afar, they weren’t conspicuous.
But as the flying ship truly approached them, the fundamental difference between suns and planets immediately made the former shine brightly, demonstrating an absolute presence.
“One Palace, Three Institutes, Eight Immortal Peaks…”
Right then, You Xuexin’s voice suddenly rang out, filled with emotion. “No matter how many times I see it, I can’t help but marvel at the mighty power of the Exalted Immortals.”
Wang Ping eavesdropped from the side and silently memorized this.
One Palace, Three Institutes, Eight Immortal Peaks. Was this the source of the twelve stellar lights? Taken literally, this seemed to be the internal organization of the immortal sect.
Wang Ping inspected the twelve suns before him even more earnestly, and then he noticed something wrong.
He saw that these twelve stellar lights each guided a batch of stars. Resting in the depths of the dark, boundless universe, they actually formed a pattern.
To be exact, it was a door.
Eight relatively less bright stellar lights constructed the frame of the door, while three brighter stellar lights outlined the trajectory of a plaque.
As for the most dazzling stellar light, it sat firmly in the very center of the plaque. Unlike the other stellar lights that guided the stars and revolved along orbits, this stellar light remained perfectly impartial and unwavering, as if interpreting that it was the center of it all.
What kind of mighty power was this?
Wang Ping had no doubt that external forces had interfered. Otherwise, how could the orbital paths of the stars form a door? The possibility of a natural formation was simply too low.
This is the Immortal Sect?
As soon as this thought arose, Wang Ping held his breath. The so-called “Immortal Sect” wasn’t the name of a sect, but the designation for a galaxy?
You must be joking!
Compared to the abstract descriptions of cultivation worlds in his past life—like heavenly realms or seas of light—the undeniably real universe before his eyes shocked Wang Ping even more.
Because it subtly aligned with a portion of Wang Ping’s worldview. And this overlap in worldview made Wang Ping acutely realize just what kind of colossal entity the so-called 【Immortal Sect】 truly was. Measured on a cosmic scale, its resplendent immortal light appeared all the more brilliant and dazzling.
“How is it? Spectacular, isn’t it?”
—A voice suddenly rang out.
A few simple words acted like a basin of cold water, instantly extinguishing all of Wang Ping’s thoughts. His consciousness seemed to freeze in that very instant.
But he quickly snapped out of it.
It wasn’t spoken to me!
Inside the 【Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner】, Wang Ping lowered his head. He no longer paid attention to the boundless starry sky above, but instead looked at the ground beneath his feet that was gradually enlarging.
This was one of the planets.
It wasn’t one of the twelve stellar lights, but rather an insignificant speck among the sky full of stars. It was a stopover for the flying ship on this escort journey.
Yet, at this exact moment, the scenery abruptly changed.
The ground was torn away like a curtain, crumpled and instantly shattered, revealing boundless radiance behind it that actually eclipsed the stars of the universe!
“Spectacular indeed.”
An icy and calm voice answered You Xuexin, echoing between heaven and earth: “Fellow Daoist’s spiritual sense is extraordinary. Unfortunately, you still noticed a bit too late.”
Stars fell; the sky split.
Amidst the brilliant divine light, Wang Ping saw a towering figure. He stood right there in the cosmic starry sky. Fingers comparable to mountains and rivers were slowly forming hand seals.
Compared to him, the flying ship seemed like nothing more than a fallen leaf in his palm.
Immediately after, his ten fingers intertwined. The hand seal he formed looked at first glance like a treasure vase, its mouth aimed perfectly straight at the flying ship.
“Divine Ability Manifestation—”
The majestic incantation echoed through the starry sky, as if issuing commands. As his voice faded, heaven and earth truly began to change just as he declared.
All things, all matter, suddenly collapsed inward.
The flying ship, the figures, the starry sky—everything originally standing on a cosmic scale was plummeting, falling like birds with broken wings toward a vast lake.
Such a drastic change in scenery left Wang Ping stunned for quite a while before he realized what had happened.
No, it’s not that exaggerated. It’s not heaven and earth that are changing.
It’s me… It’s this flying ship that’s changing, shrinking!
Someone set a trap on the planet the flying ship was about to visit. They used some method to shrink the flying ship, intending to send it into another realm!
Almost simultaneously, the majestic voice commanding heaven and earth slowly spat out the final syllables.
“—【Heaven in a Pot】.”