Chapter 488 – Schemes Behind the Curtain, Undercurrents Beneath the Plot - Part 1

The man in the yellow robe stepped over the threshold of the doorway, but he didn’t find himself inside Clear Mind Hall. Instead, he was dropped into a vast, barren expanse.

His gaze swept across the emptiness, landing on a disturbing figure seated behind an ancient tree. It was impossible to tell whether this person was man or woman, only that their ghostly pale hands hung lifelessly at their sides. Squatting before this figure was a towering golden giant, easily a thousand feet tall.

The giant’s massive body was hunched over. His emotionless eyes gleamed with a savage hunger. It was as if he had just taken a deep breath and now held it in, his hands cupped before him, chin pointed squarely at the newly-arrived man in yellow.

Time froze.

Then, subtly, slowly...reality began to shift.

As the yellow-robed man’s eyes moved, the giant’s mouth opened.

And the breath he’d been holding...was released.

A pillar of pale, withered flame shot forth like divine retribution.

The air twisted. Everything burned.

In a blink, the man in yellow, who had only just stepped through the door and clearly hadn’t figured out what was going on, was engulfed in fire.

This was Li Yuan’s refined method of killing.

The old clap-and-burn routine had proven a bit inefficient. But ever since his last battle, where he’d mastered the art of

compressed flame projection

, he decided to make it standard practice.

And those massive hands on either side of the battlefield? They weren’t there to strike. They were there to block.

If the yellow-robed man tried to run, the hands would come crashing down without hesitation, slapping him back into place.

If he somehow got farther away, Li Yuan would drag him back with his ghost hands, no matter what it took.

He had always been a calm and methodical man. And calm people value efficiency. They got to the point. Because he understood something very simple.

Hesitation invited chaos.

The longer things dragged on, the more variables came into play.

When faced with an enemy, why waste time exchanging pleasantries? What was the point of stalling while the other guy pulled out his trump card?

That said, were these three envoys really Li Yuan’s enemies? Not necessarily. But here and now, in this moment, they were.

Tactically speaking, Li Yuan was already engaged in direct combat with the envoys. Whether it was Xie Wei or Yan Yu, they occupied territories Li Yuan would never surrender. The same went for the Deathless Tomb.

Strategically, things were even more tangled. If the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain and the awakened ghost domains were working to merge Yin and Yang, then the Deathless Tomb and Dragon Vein were trying to stop that fusion.

So what did Li Yuan want? To delay

everything

.

Stir the pot. Muddy the waters. Then fish in the chaos.

The Heaven Soul and Earth Soul cultivation techniques, and the safe journey of Cui Huayin, Jing Shuixiang, and Yao Jue to the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain...weren’t all of those fish he’d already caught?

And how could you fish if the water was clear? You couldn’t.

So first, Li Yuan needed to chop off the hands of those eager to rush the Grand Union of Yin and Yang.

Their methods were just too effective, and the forces lurking within the Western Extremes simply weren’t ready yet.

Naran had only just stepped into Earth Soul cultivation. The Western Extremes had only just birthed a single three-headed direwolf.

How could they possibly march on Cloudpeak Province and contend for the world?

The Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain had the advantage.

That meant Li Yuan had to crush that advantage before it was too late.

He wanted to keep the world in chaos. That was how he survived. That was

his

brand of evil. And he admitted it. He knew what he was doing.

He wasn’t the type to play the villain while still pretending to wear a halo. He couldn’t change the course of history. He couldn’t escape the grand game being played across heaven and earth. But he didn’t want to die.

And more than that, he didn’t want the people he cared about to be treated like disposable pawns, pushed around and tossed aside at someone else’s whim.

So, he did the only thing he could. That was to stir the waters, fish in the murk, fan the flames, and throw stones at those already in the well. If needed, he’d even swallow his fear and take a seat at a table he had no business sitting at, just to grab hold of his loved ones and use them as pieces in his own game.

And if someone tried to push those pieces into the abyss—

He’d snatch them back with his own hands!

That was exactly what he was doing now.

The withered flame roared downward, transforming into a towering column of divine punishment. It crashed down on the man in the yellow robe like heaven’s wrath incarnate.

In an instant, his robe caught fire and burned away, revealing a suit of tight-fitting, earthen-colored light armor beneath.

Dark shadows swirled faintly within the armor, and though it made no sound, Li Yuan could

feel

a silent, furious howl coming from it. It reminded him of the Wither Growth Sword and Earthfire Sword.

This was yet another clue confirming what he already suspected. This yellow-robed man was the true mastermind behind the Mountain Hall.

And that armor? It was the heirloom of the hall master of the Mountain Hall.

His sudden appearance beside Xie Wei was no coincidence; it had been a conspiracy all along.

Despite the ambush, despite being engulfed in searing flame, the yellow-robed man’s face remained calm. Almost...unsurprised.

Li Yuan looked down at him, met his gaze and understood.

Of course they had a way to pass on messages.

Of course the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain had their own systems in place.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

The first sneak attack had worked beautifully. He’d caught them completely off guard.

But the second time? Not so lucky.

Moments later, the yellow-robed man reached into his sleeves and, with a flick of the wrist, conjured two stones—one red, one black—each the size of a goose egg. He gripped them tightly, one in each hand, and then crushed them in his fists.

But the stones didn’t crumble. They dissolved into Yin and Yang energy, swirling upward like twin streams of mist.

His soft armor flared with golden-yellow light. Not just any glow, this light pulsed with the weight and stillness of unmoving mountains.

Then, the yellow-robed man raised one hand, fingers pointed to the earth, and yanked upward.

The ground compressed and condensed, forming a spear of hardened soil that shot up like a spike.

But it barely managed to form a tip before the entire attack was cut off.

Because by then, the man had become nothing more than a

floating yellow bubble

, suspended in mid-air. The ground beneath him had already been burned to scorched black sand by Li Yuan’s withered flame. And now that sand was being whipped away by the violent winds.

The yellow-robed man’s pupils narrowed.

In the next instant, he saw the golden giant’s two hands crashing in from either side like massive gates of solid gold, closing in to pulp him like minced meat. The glowing yellow barrier around him shook under the force of the blow, releasing a thunderous boom that rattled the heavens. The light dimmed drastically.

A flicker of pain crossed the man’s eyes.

With a flick of his sleeves, a storm of tiny red and black stones appeared in his hands, much smaller this time, only about the size of pigeon eggs.

They floated into the glowing barrier, one after another, before shattering mid-air. Each fragment turned into radiant streams that surged into his body.

The yellow light, which had just begun to fade, swelled again. It was stronger and brighter than before.

Li Yuan didn’t let go after clapping his hands together. Instead, his ten fingers dug straight into the yellow bubble of light, gripping it tightly as he tried to lift it up, then burn it down with his endless stream of withered flame.

He wasn’t afraid of a war of attrition.

The Sun itself could keep supplying him with Yang energy, an infinite well of power.

But the man in the yellow robe wasn’t about to let that happen.

A flick of his sleeve, and three earth-colored banners shot out, bursting through the yellow bubble like streaks of light. They spun rapidly in the withered flame, forming a second layer of defense outside the bubble, like a spinning shield.

Within this new barrier, mountain stones began to materialize out of thin air.

The yellow-robed man pointed with one hand.

The three spinning banners suddenly locked into place, forming a straight line, like a single sword stroke drawn across the air.

Whoosh!

The

line

of banners shot toward the mysterious figure sitting motionless behind the golden giant, dragging a flurry of sharp stone projectiles with them.

Li Yuan had no choice but to pull back and block.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two thunderous crashes rang out.

The banners pierced straight through the golden giant’s massive hands.

But Li Yuan responded instantly. Another jet of compressed flame shot out from his mouth, halting the flying line of banners just in time. They came to a trembling stop, hovering right at the edge of the giant’s lips.

Meanwhile, the yellow-robed man had already leapt backward, retreating rapidly back to the earth. He raised one hand, and with a sharp motion, the hovering banner zipped back to him in a streak of rainbow light.

He grabbed all three banners at once, and with a decisive motion, drove one of them straight into the ground.

The giant’s hand came crashing down.

From the looks of it, the yellow-robed man had no time to dodge. But just as the blow landed, he vanished and reappeared almost two kilometers behind Li Yuan, arm already raised, slamming a second banner into the earth.

The golden giant tried to strike again, missed, and immediately reached down to pull the banner from the ground.

But as he tugged, it was as if he were trying to uproot the entire earth itself. It didn’t budge.

And in that brief moment, the yellow-robed man appeared once more in a third location, and plunged the final banner into the dirt.

The instant the third banner landed, the golden giant vanished. So did the mysterious figure who had been sitting behind him this entire time.

From above, one could now see that the three banners formed a triangular formation on the ground, enclosing a strange and mysterious domain. Within that triangle, all the soil turned into writhing earth dragons, churning the land in a violent upheaval.

Inside the zone, the world was being turned upside down.

But outside? Not even a single blade of grass stirred.

There was only one problem. This wasn’t some empty wilderness. This was the

Jade Capital

.

No matter how open and empty the space appeared...people still lived here.

Li Yuan had always directed his flames toward the ground, limiting the damage. But this new triangular formation spread across a wide swath of land, and this time, it hit everything.

In an instant, before many could even react, countless lives were snuffed out in the chaos, crushed, buried, and ripped apart by the roiling earth.

Fortunately, the man in the yellow robe didn’t dare stay to finish the fight.

The moment he saw the golden giant vanish, he swept his sleeves and recalled the three banners in a flash.

Then he placed both feet on the ground. And without hesitation, he

drilled straight into the earth

, vanishing without a trace.

Silence returned to the capital.

A clash between

gods

was over in the blink of an eye.

This time, it was clear the yellow-robed man had come prepared. Li Yuan hadn’t gained much of an advantage. Despite their difference in power, it wasn’t large enough to guarantee a win.

If they were to fight to the bitter end, burning everything until one of them dropped, the yellow-robed man would almost certainly be the one to die.

But in a normal fight? This was all he could do.