From within the statue of Lady Qingyi came the sound of frantic pounding. The statue’s eyes were now hollow voids, yet blood-tears continued to stream down. After being wounded by Li Yanchu, the entire statue began to shake violently. It started scanning the surroundings, as if searching for something. At last, her empty gaze fixed directly on the spot where Li Yanchu stood. Suddenly, her hands formed a seal. Then, a swarm of black hair, vast and suffocating, surged toward Li Yanchu like a tidal wave. These black strands were formed entirely from condensed yin qi, steeped in intense resentment. In just a single breath, they had already encircled him. At this time, Li Yanchu’s eyes flashed like cold lightning, and the talismanic armor on his body burst forth with divine light. In an instant, the black hair ignited. The pure yang qi of Daoist teachings was a natural nemesis to such evil spirits. Especially with this armor, which boosted a martial artist’s qi and blood, strengthened the vital spirit, and lit the three inner fires of the human body. A sea of flames surged around him, formed entirely from this pure yang qi. If Li Yanchu’s cultivation were more profound, this would already be the legendary Three True Fire of Samadhi[1]. Though he was not yet there, it was enough to cause these terrifying strands of black hair to be burned away by the armor’s blazing aura and dissolve into smoke. When Li Yanchu took a step forward, the black hair shrank back and was clearly afraid. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novｅlfire.net “Stop hiding behind tricks! Get down here and face me!” Li Yanchu’s voice boomed like a thunderclap. He threw out a palm strike, and a surge of power as heavy and forceful as a tidal wave crashed forward! At this time, Lady Qingyi’s statue suddenly came to life. Her own hand shot out, meeting his strike head-on. Boom! A powerful shockwave surged outward in all directions. Li Yanchu poured his inner force and qi into the Jiaoslayer, then swung it down hard toward Lady Qingyi’s statue. This statue was nearly twice the size of the one in Wei City, and it looked grand and imposing. Yet under Li Yanchu’s fierce and domineering strike, it suddenly seemed small and insignificant. The statue flared with a dazzling green light, mixed with an intense blood aura. It was said that not even sacred relics from Buddhist or Daoist sects could scratch it, let alone a mere weapon. And yet, Li Yanchu wielded his Jiaoslayer and cleanly severed the statue’s raised arm in a single strike. The saber was so razor-sharp that the strike was met with no resistance at all. The severed arm crashed to the ground, and the exposed cut looked disturbingly like living flesh and blood. This arm was alive! “How dare you! How dare a mere mortal oppose a god?!” As the statue of Lady Qingyi let out a thunderous rebuke, its voice was laced with divine authority. Its aura swelled rapidly, intensifying with each passing moment. Now missing its eyes and an arm, the statue looked even more sinister and grotesque, and it was a horrifying visage of twisted power. But Li Yanchu stood unmoving before it, like a lone reef battered by crashing waves. He was weathered, but unshaken and as steady as a mountain. Any normal cultivator, faced with a shrine deity empowered by incense and belief, would feel an instinctive dread. After all, temple gods were still gods and were a realm above mere mortals. Ghosts and gods were not to be disrespected. But, Li Yanchu’s eyes gleamed cold as lightning as they locked unwaveringly onto the statue. “A god? You dare call yourself a god, you heretical demon? What a joke,” he sneered and stepped forward. Forget this corrupted, demon-tainted form of Lady Qingyi. For someone like him, who had personally invoked the divine powers of Celestial Court’s legitimate gods, even her original divine self worshiped in incense-filled halls would not strike fear into his heart. The Dao was weighty, after all. And the one he had invoked was no lesser deity. It was Spirit Officer Wang, chief of the five hundred Spirit Officers of the Celestial Court and Daoism’s formidable protector divine general[2]. At this moment, Li Yanchu was suffused with the awe-inspiring and unstoppable aura of lightning and fire. Clang! Li Yanchu swung his saber with force. A dazzling saber qi slashed forth, moving so fast it was nearly invisible to the naked eye and struck directly upon Lady Qingyi’s statue. The sound echoed through the heavens like a great bronze bell. A crack split open across the statue’s surface, and even the vast power of incense and faith that had empowered it could not withstand Li Yanchu’s overwhelming saber qi. From the fracture, fresh blood gushed, and the scene was startling and grotesque. “I will destroy you and suppress your divine soul for all eternity! You shall never rise again!” the statue’s voice shrieked with rage, echoing throughout the grand hall. Just then, a surge of cold wind swept the shrine. It was as though countless vengeful ghosts were screaming in unison. The broken statue suddenly blasted out a beam of bloodlight, tearing a gaping hole through the floor where Li Yanchu had just been. He shifted aside with a light step and slashed out a fierce, domineering arc of saber qi. The saber qi collided with the next beam of bloodlight, and a violent explosion shook the temple. At that moment, countless twisted tree branches burst from the ground, rising with terrifying speed to wrap around Li Yanchu. His Qi Shield flared up, blocking the encroaching branches for now. But he could see clearly that each branch bristled with sharp, jagged teeth, gnawing at his protective barrier. In the blink of an eye, more than half of it was chewed away and had become dangerously thin. With a thunderous surge, Li Yanchu ignited his qi and blood, and his body blazed like a furnace. The Daoist talismanic armor he wore lit up with divine characters. Then, a wave of pure yang qi surged skyward. The vicious branches instantly recoiled, retreating like a tide, as if facing some unspeakable terror. At this time, Li Yanchu's heart leapt with joy, as this armor's power far exceeded his expectations. Its power was devastating against evil spirits and corrupted entities. Li Yanchu glanced at Lady Qingyi’s statue, and his eyes seemed to flash with piercing, icy lightning. In the next instant, he appeared directly in front of the statue, cloaked in his Daoist spirit armor with the triple-enhanced Jiaoslayer in his hand. The statue’s aura was clearly disturbed and unstable. It was obvious that the saber in Li Yanchu’s hand terrified it. Suddenly, a blinding red light erupted in the statue’s eyes, casting the entire Lady Qingyi Temple in a hellish crimson glow. Just then, from the blood-colored sea of light, a burst of radiant white light exploded outward, and the Eight Trigrams Mirror tore open a glowing rift in the blood sea. Li Yanchu and Lady Qingyi’s statue crossed paths in a blink, and then, there was a brilliant flash of saber light. Her head was severed cleanly from her shoulders, and blood-red light surged skyward from her chest like a geyser. “Aaaahhh! Damn it!!” the statue’s shrill scream echoed violently through the entire temple, shaking the walls and rafters. The air itself seemed to thicken with blood; it became so dense that even breathing felt difficult. Li Yanchu stood calmly and sneered, “Is that all you’ve got?” With a single tap of his foot, he leapt high into the air, then smashed down with a forceful cleave. The saber’s scorching pure yang qi cleaved the statue in two, and from inside the broken statue, a figure was revealed. It was a beautiful woman dressed in elegant palace robes. Her aura was serene and balanced, yet her entire body was enveloped in waves of blood-red light, and her eyes were tightly shut. Judging by her features, she was clearly the true Lady Qingyi. Her divine consciousness had been trapped inside the statue all along! Just then, another figure materialized midair. It was identical to the palace-robed woman, but her expression was twisted and sinister, and her eyes were full of malice and poison. “You dare destroy my Dharma Body!?” Lady Qingyi’s demonic remnant howled in fury. 1. I’m including this explanation to make sure the readers understand the symbolic meaning rooted in Daoist and Buddhist traditions: Samadhi (三昧) is one of the meditation practices in Buddhism, meaning the elimination of all distractions to achieve a calm and focused mind. There are two ways to cultivate concentration: the first is an innate ability called “born concentration” (生得定), and the second is the concentration developed through later effort, called “acquired concentration” (后得定). The former depends on the accumulation of virtue, while the latter relies on dedicated practice. The Śrāvakabhūmi-Śāstra (卷十一) records: “Samadhi is all forms of concentration beyond the four dhyānas (the four meditative absorptions) and the eight liberations; it also refers to the three doors of liberation (the samadhis of non-leakage: emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness) and the three types of samadhi (concentration with awareness and observation, concentration without awareness but with observation, and concentration without awareness or observation).” It should be noted that the definition of samadhi differs somewhat between early Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism. Samadhi True Fire, also called Samadhi Divine Fire, is a term frequently found in classical Chinese literature and Daoist culture. It is generally understood as follows: “The heart is the sovereign fire, also called the divine fire, named Upper Samadhi; the kidneys are the ministerial fire, also called the essence fire, named Middle Samadhi; the bladder, that is, the Qi Sea below the navel, is the people’s fire, named Lower Samadhi.” Together, these constitute the Three Inner Yang Fires, or Samadhi True Fire. ☜ 2. Yes, I understand the author repeats this a lot. But here, I chose not to omit it here to preserve the character’s authority and the narrative’s sense of awe, as the repetition in the original emphasizes his divine status and power. ☜