Chapter 18: The Thunderous Pivot of Yin and Yang

“It’s not an option to give up. The very fact that you can forge a new path reveals your deep potential—I knew my judgment wasn’t wrong.” Ning Peach Blossom hesitated for a moment, but still dashed through the portal.

A thunderous boom erupted. It was as if an endless ocean had unfolded, but what collided within was not water, but the very substance of laws. There was thunder and lightning, the interplay of yin and yang, the five elements…

Fierce winds howled, muddy yellow waves surged with sand and earth, while lush vegetation transformed into forests and mountains. In a blink, rivers and mountains flipped, the heavens toppled, and the sun plummeted from the sky.

This was a scene of world-ending destruction. The laws evolved, and even if vast landscapes manifested, they could not endure. One moment was serene and sunlit; the next saw earth-shattering upheaval, the speed of change enough to leave one reeling.

In the midst of a boundless desert, a spirit butterfly hovered, dazed and terrified by the tumult of heaven and earth, frantically beating its wings, but still swept up in a sandstorm.

“This is bad. I’m done for,” Ye Chen wailed inwardly, facing a death as inexplicable as it was abrupt, his mind rendered blank and confused.

He looked utterly wretched—his body charred and black, still carrying the smoke and fire of disaster. His physical form had been destroyed, but it was only the manifestation of incense-wish power, so it wasn’t truly an issue. With his soul exposed and dangerously vulnerable, Ye Chen used what little incense-wish power remained to reforge a body.

In his Niwan Palace, a thumb-sized talisman glowed with golden light, gentle as water, nourishing his soul and keeping his body from collapsing.

Truth be told, had it not been for the talisman’s effect, the hastily patched body would have perished instantly. Even so, his state was pitiful—a spirit butterfly, palm-sized, ensnared by a blue bolt of lightning.

Thankfully, the lightning’s power was greatly diminished; otherwise, Ye Chen would never have survived.

He was in a sorry state, as if he’d rolled through a mud pit. Now tossed about by the sandstorm, he had no idea where he’d be carried off to.

The sky was filled with flying sand and rolling stones, shaking the heavens. The muddy yellow winds and waves roared like a golden dragon spewing flames of fury.

Ye Chen seemed minuscule beneath it all. The sand and stones battered his body, leaving him dizzy and disoriented. It was an ordeal that felt endless.

He did not know how much time passed before the raging winds finally relented. The storm calmed, and by the time Ye Chen regained his senses, he had left the desert and entered a lush forest, though many trees had been uprooted and their leaves stripped—clear evidence of a thorough ravaging.

The forest had blocked the wind, and Ye Chen now hung upside down from an ancient tree.

He forced himself to calm down, finally having the leisure to ponder the causes and consequences of his predicament.

It was all too strange. If he’d simply been struck dead by lightning, that would have been preferable—at least it would have been quick. Now, he had suffered immensely.

Staring at the relentless lightning still clinging to him, Ye Chen fell into contemplation. Even if he cut away the part of his body in contact with the lightning, it made no difference—the lightning was determined to stick to him.

This was the only thing in this world that felt remotely familiar, a tribulation, yes, but it sparked a strange sense of kinship. Otherwise, lost in this vast, unfamiliar realm, under the boundless sky, utterly alone, it would have been enough to inspire despair.

“Was that sudden lightning strike the tribulation for forging my own path?” Ye Chen wondered aloud. “The lightning struck me and brought me here. Is there a special connection between the two?”

He couldn’t make sense of the logic; it was all a haze. “Maybe I should try refining the lightning. I might glean some information from it. After all, the lightning is the root cause of these changes—I can’t simply ignore it.”

“Lightning is the awe of heaven, its destructive power immense. But the one I face now is greatly weakened—otherwise, I’d have been obliterated outright.”

“It probably matches one’s strength. Since it’s a tribulation, it wouldn’t be like using a cannon to kill a mosquito. In other words, I shouldn’t underestimate myself—there’s still hope.”

Lightning, the pivot of yin and yang, possesses unparalleled destructive force. Ordinary means are useless against it; one can only wait for it to dissipate naturally. In Ye Chen’s Niwan Palace, the talisman appeared and plunged into the lightning.

A thunderous explosion. In an instant, Ye Chen seemed to be adrift in a sea of lightning, and then, like flowing water, the thunder was absorbed by the talisman.

Originally, the talisman glowed with golden light, no bigger than a thumb, like a golden seed. Now, faint green light began to flow across its surface.

“It seems the talisman has benefited—it’s grown stronger.”

This was unsurprising. The talisman had only just been completed, blank as a fresh sheet of paper, and still needed the later imprint of myriad Dao laws to truly transform.

In the end, what Ye Chen had gained was only a broken talisman—it could not possibly hold a complete divine inheritance from the start. It merely offered him a new path. How that path developed would depend on Ye Chen’s fortune and fate. Without sufficient luck, he might end up as a mere precursor paving the way for others—the pathfinders whose bones become the road for those who follow, as the saying goes: the predecessors plant the tree, the successors enjoy the shade.

Such was a real possibility. Of course, Ye Chen also had a chance to become the true origin of a new path, but either way, it could never be achieved by one person alone. It would take many successors to forge ahead, or the path would never be complete.

Ye Chen understood none of this; he simply sensed that the talisman was changing. It seemed to merge with heaven and earth, no longer separated from them. Immersing his entire consciousness within, Ye Chen became one with the Dao. His body turned ethereal, an aura of transcendence flowing around him, as if an immortal had descended from the heavens.

He forgot himself, and even the world faded away. He existed no longer as himself, but as the mountains and seas, bearing the nascent Dao.

“Aren’t you going to wake up? If you don’t, the chance will be lost forever!”

Ning Peach Blossom’s exasperated voice rang out, laden with worry—she seemed even more anxious than Ye Chen himself, like a eunuch more desperate than the emperor.

Ye Chen’s spirit drifted through a profound and unfathomable current of laws, as though he wandered amidst the stars, each one a piece of agate set in the sky, illuminating eternity. The ages and the world’s fleeting changes all lay beneath his feet, insignificant as passing clouds.

No matter the attachment, it all seemed trivial; emotions faded, and it was as if he walked the supreme path of detachment, sharing existence with the highest principle.

Ye Chen’s entire body began to glow, dissolving, about to become one with the Great Dao—when suddenly, he was jolted awake.

His past memories appeared like a three-dimensional painting, stripped away and unstained. His emotions were distant. After a moment, he returned to himself, filled with lingering dread.

“What just happened to me?”

Hearing this, Ning Peach Blossom huffed, “You almost merged with the Dao. If I’d been a moment later, you’d have become a seed. Don’t think that’s a good thing—you’d have lost all memory and feeling, becoming part of the Great Dao.”

“A seed?” Ye Chen was bewildered. Then, as a thought flashed through his mind, he saw the talisman before him shed thousands of threads of golden light. With a crack, it split open, and a tender sprout quickly emerged. The golden glow swirled like flowing water, washing over the sprout as it grew visibly before his eyes, finally becoming a young white lotus.

“What does this mean?” Ye Chen exclaimed in astonishment. “Was the so-called talisman actually a white lotus seed?”

Ning Peach Blossom stared intently at the white lotus, her heart ablaze with desire, though she managed to restrain herself. Even if she snatched it, it would do her no good; otherwise, she might not have resisted being a thief in the night.