Translator: Transn Editor: Transn

Dawn drew up on the horizon, its pale reddish glow creeping defiantly through the darkness of the night that stubbornly lingered before its inevitable retreat. The back of the leaving Shangguan Heng slowly faded into a silhouette that eventually blended into the darkness of the early daybreak.

Meng Qi stood gazing at the departure of his companion for a moment gaping. A feeling of joy came to him moments after. “Was Shangguan Heng deflated by my strength and endurance? Defeated without a duel?”

Indeed the comprehension and understanding of Heaven and Earth, and the mulling of one’s future and prospective cause have always commanded admiration or exacted tribute.

He rubbed his chin as he reflected silently on his recent efforts and accomplishments. His fingers brushed his chin and felt the stiff hair of his beard.

“What?” He could not fathom the sudden growth of facial hair. His hands roamed his face, feeling the bristling hairs of his scanty beard that straggled on his lumpy chin like dry moss and raked his hands through disheveled hair.“Why has a beard grown suddenly? Why has my hair become like a brute ruffian of the wilderness? “

“It has ruined my handsome likeness in Northern Zhou… I have been too absorbed and immersed in my meditation and ponderings…” His distasteful thoughts of his appearance had barely registered when strands of hair from his beard and mustache began to fall. Gracefully and gently the hair drifted through the air and landed on the ground. The hair was slowly peeling from his face as if someone had held a razor to his face and shaved away the beard on his chin. In just a breath’s time, his chin was once again clear, as smooth as an egg.

It was unlike how Gao Lan had shed his tresses and locks of hair naturally. Instead, there was a blade, one that was formless and shapeless!

Three months had passed since Meng Qi had embarked on his pilgrimage of meditation. The majority of his deliberations and reflections had been on the first stroke of the Buddha’s Palm, “I, the Unique and Righteous”. With the augmentation provided by the Bodhi-seed and his peaceful state of mind, he had devised two series of disciplines, one for the saber and another for the sword, both of the strength of the Exterior. The entirety of the two disciplines he had created were full sets of martial disciplines of the Exterior, furnished with strokes and parts of the Enlightenment!

The saber discipline he created lacked proper strokes. It was similar to the Shaolin’s Formless Finger. It defeated opponents with sudden and swift attacks, but to a lesser degree than that of the Formless Finger which professed the truism of “Emptiness begets Matter, where shapes and forms abound neither”. Still, the blade technique marginally surpassed the Vajra Seal which he had created before. He would name this technique, the Formless Zen Knife.

The sword discipline that Meng Qi had created shared a certain affinity to the Fire of the Samsara Beasts which was imbued with Flowing Fire. The sword discipline had eight strokes, where the strokes of Heaven, Dragon, and Yaksha were of the Exterior level, while the remaining five strokes were of the Enlightenment stage. This new technique, however, pales slightly in contrast to the Formless Zen Blade he had devised.

Without much thought of the nomenclature, Meng Qi called it Samsara Beasts Sword.

Nevertheless, the creation of the two disciplines and his achievement of the Heaven-Man Connection were not the greatest fruits of his spiritual pilgrimage. These were but expected outcomes of his endeavor, whereas the journey of his self-discovery and the revelation of his future course, the elevation of his various disciplines such as the Immortal Pressing Arts and the Matchless Celestial Saber technique to powers tantamount to the Exterior by means of the Muscle-Bone Strengthening Scripture, and his heightened mastery of the Eight Nine Mysteries technique which would allow him greater and better methods of disguise; these were the outcomes and results that Meng Qi truly cherished.

Meng Qi found a quiet isolated site where he could meditate and train to secure and steady the levels of his powers, after a series of much-needed custodial rituals such as shaving his beard, tidying his hair, washing himself and donning a fresh set of green robes.

The Heaven-Man Connection was understood and assumed as the Inner World’s volatility in response to the Exterior that would both resonate off each other as they approximated, bringing about outer visible signs and traits that would be caused by the unsettled shift of one’s energies and Qi. The sureness of the Heaven-Man Connection equated to the sureness of one’s Inner World.

Meng Qi drew in his energy and Qi, channeling his powers and funneling them through his entire body.

A dark void loomed in his Inner World, a darkness without bounds. His Vital Spirit hovered in the midst of the empty void, sitting cross-legged. Still as a stone, he sat at the precise center of the complete blackness of the void. Emptiness lived in the void without even a faint whisk of force, like the Moment of the Primordial Beginning.

Beneath his Vital Spirit, from his Nine Inborn apertures and his vital organs sprung forth The Celestial, the Domain of Life and the Origin of Creation, where it overlooked his meridian acupoints and his flesh and bones.

The flesh and bones and the acupoints formed a wide expanse, dark and gloomy, where stars and the black hole resided; various systems and galaxies came into being.

The enigma of the human body, which the Heaven and Earth were shrouded in. None, save for the rare few of the great legends of old such as Heavenly Primogenitor, whose persona Meng Qi presently assumed, would dare parade loudly that his Inner World was exceptional and unprecedented in the history of Man!

In the final moments, Meng Qi clung firmly to his will, drawing forth the knowledge of his reincarnations and the nature of the disposition of character and fortitude, ultimately resolving on his course, to “Watch not the boundless shifts in vain; Eternal immortality shall be his to gain”.

It was a preliminary conditioning that was established on the grounds of his understanding and meditations. His Vital Spirit assumed the highest position, resembling the Buddha and Primordial Beginning. Oddly, his course took on an affinity to the Golden Body of Bodhi, rather than the Immortal Golden Form.

Much of his Inner World remained obscured with a mere loose form without the intricacies of its inner detail, like the various realms which ought to have been formed by each of his meridian acupoints. Still, that would be the subject of his meditation and training once he had broken through the Exterior. The security and surety of his Inner World would take paramount precedence as he sought the best condition for the best resonance of harmony between his Inner World and the Exterior.

Meng Qi would have conformed the inner workings of his Inner World to the descriptions from his study of the Eight Nine Mysteries as per common norms and convention, but much of his course was still obscured. The depictions of his study would remain no more than references as he resolved that the pursuit of his course required patience rather than haste.

One other approach would be to allow Nature to take its course. A deadly battle with opponents of equal or close levels of strength and skill would allow his body to naturally funnel his energy and Qi to form his Inner World through the congenital flows of his body and achieve a greater resemblance to the Exterior.

Meng Qi spiritually surveyed the oeuvre of his making in the Inner World. In deep meditation, he continued harmonizing his Inner World, a faint glow of golden illumination shrouding him and bright radiance twinkling from the meridian acupoints throughout his body.

A sudden ripple in his state of mind disrupted the stillness and peace of a lake. The disturbing irritation coursed through him but it came from outside his body, not within.

He halted his meditation and slowly opened his eyes. Lo and behold, busy passersby flocked around him in a busy street filled with pedestrians and peddlers. There were artists accosting patrons with paintings and scrolls of arts and calligraphy, monkey charmers impressing onlookers and curious spectators with acrobatic performances, peddlers mongering food and goodies and so on.

Among the shuffling strollers that ambled about, Meng Qi noticed a temple before him. Its walls were yellow topped with a black roof. Strong tall trees lined the courtyard within. An atmosphere of serenity and peace wafted out of the temple despite the bustling hubbub of noise and activities taking place just on the other side of its walls.

Impossible! He had stopped to meditate in the lush plains of the wilderness!

How was it possible that he had been transported within his sense and knowledge?

Could it be a dream or an illusion?

He frowned in confusion, making a mental note to prevent the infiltration of the External Devil following his proper training on the Primal apertures on his forehead. The training and meditation on the workings of Nature had opened certain risks to mental invasions that he would have to be wary of.

A blood kin of the Skyscraping Devil, the External Devil preyed on anyone, especially practitioners of martial disciplines and techniques who were deeply troubled by conundrums of stress and despair. It would encroach and corrupt the hearts and minds of their quarry, gnawing on their soul, tormenting them and possibly force them off the cliff of a mental precipice that would cause even the most invincible warrior to collapse into life-threatening seizures and derangement.

“Could this be an illusion crafted by the invasion of the External Devil?” Meng Qi wondered. He braced himself for an imminent attack by an unseen foe who might be hidden and waiting to ambush him.

Still as a stone, Meng Qi stood amongst a flowing brook of pedestrians. A good many passersby could not help but shoot him a glance or two, staring at the handsome young man in green robes who had remained still despite the heavy flow of the crowd around him.

Surveying the surroundings around him, Meng Qi finally noticed the name of the temple he had seen:

Yuanjue Temple.

The festival of the Yuanjue Temple, a fleeting memory, flashed before him. The name of the temple had summoned a long and distant memory from his past. His ears perked up, listening for sounds of the people close by.

Not far from him, a story-teller smacked his gavel block hard on his table. In a roaring voice, he began, “We spoke of the duel of the Right Chief Minister and the Devil Empress yesterday. Long and fierce they fought, the turbulence of their malice stirred like a ferocious typhoon, wreaking destruction and damage as their blows flew. On another end, Xiao Meng, the God-Petrifying Sword trampled past the defenses of the Crown Prince’s Residence and slew the prince despite the staunch steadfastness and the vastness of his retainers and guards!”

The Devil Empress? The God-Petrifying Sword? Yuanjue Temple! Meng Qi blinked as the reminiscence of his past returned to him, clear as yesterday. It was finally unfolded before him, that he now stood before the very same Yuanjue Temple where the Demon Venerable had abandoned his earthly life and heaved his final words, “So be it”, before his retreat into repentance and became a monk, leaving only the Monster’s Skin!

With extreme care, his trembling fingers extracted the Monster’s Skin from the Space Ring.

A sudden light gust of wind blew by. The seemingly indestructible Monster’s Skin which had yielded to no forms of destruction and treatment burst into an abrupt blaze. Within mere moments, it was consumed by flames, reduced to ashes and dust that billowed with the breeze and sprinkled onto the ground.

“So it seems… You drew me here…” A thin smile lined his face, “How is my External Devil then?”

There was not even the slightest indication that would convince him that his surroundings were fabrications of insidious intent. His present skills and powers affirmed to his findings, so his conclusion was that everything around him was real. He now stood in the dimension of the Devil Empress and the Sword Emperor. The realm where he was known as Xiao Meng, the God-Petrifying Sword. It would seem that he would have to slay the External Devil to return to his homeland.

Meng Qi expended hardly any thought on the ability of the External Devil of the Demon Venerable to have him transported through time and space. By virtue of “So be it”, not even the Demon Venerable himself possessed the skill to bend time and space to his will.

His head rose as he surveyed his surroundings once again. With his hands behind his back, he strolled casually towards Yuanjue Temple like a common devotee arriving to pay respects and worship the Buddha.

He stepped past the threshold of the entrance and went through two main halls of the temple. His acute senses picked up a strange peculiarness that drove him to veer into the adjacent side halls, smiling leisurely as he continued his stroll.

Unlike the rest of the temple, the side halls were empty and quiet, save for a few men who stood guard at the entrance, silent and watchful. The rippling emanation of genuine Qi that caused the air around them to tremble indicated their extraordinary strength.

An unassuming Meng Qi strode by unhurried. His hands behind his back, Meng Qi strolled about like a young scion of a rich household here to enjoy the sights and scenes of the temple. He attempted to enter the side hall when the guards rushed forth to bar his way.

An abrupt tremor shook them uncontrollably before their hands even grazed the hems of Meng Qi’s robes. They languished slightly at the sudden jolt that assailed them, slowing their movements. Meng Qi lazily meandered past the disabled guards and entered the side hall. The sight within the hall filled him with amazement.

Before the Buddha’s statue in the side hall sat a woman in a white veil. She quietly sat on a cushion as she prayed with only the enticing view of her back and the curves of her figure visible to the approaching Meng Qi.

Slowly and gracefully he came and halted at the side of the lady. Without taking his eyes off the Buddha’s statue, he wore a light grin as he spoke, “The Demon Venerable has repented and devoted his life to the servitude of Buddhism as a monk. I wonder if My Lady, the Devil Empress is here to contemplate a future as a nun?”

The veiled lady fixed her eyes upon the Buddha’s statue before her as her sudden companion. With a hoarse voice, she remarked,

“A great many winters have passed. How have you progressed?”

“Are you here to exact the passing of the Sword Emperor?”