Chapter 546 - Blade Without Rival, the Khagan's Finale - Part 1

No one truly knew what the Archon Star or Outerborn really were.

Even the answer Xia She gave to Ji Hu, was it really the truth?

To ordinary people, the last sovereign of the Xia Dynasty was a figure beyond reach, a legend. And indeed, judged by human standards, he was undeniably extraordinary.

But in the eyes of the heavens, he was nothing more than an insect.

And what did insects know?

Still, one thing was clear. The Dragon Vein was connected to the Archon Star, just as the Ghost Lake was now connected to some Outerborn.

And the lake’s power? It lay in stripping away life, memory, and strength.

The Ghost Lake had become a true Yellow Springs.

Now, above those nether waters, the luxurious and eerily extravagant coffin was gliding toward the ghost palace. Its lid cracked open just slightly, and from within, a flawless, pale jade hand shot out, fast as death, grabbing Feng'er’s wrist right in front of Yan Yu.

Feng'er had been with Yan Yu for a long, long time. In that time, she had grown unimaginably powerful. But no matter how strong she had become, there was no resisting this hand.

The moment that hand grabbed hold, Yan Yu’s face changed drastically. She could feel the connection between her and Feng'er beginning to unravel.

Feng’er was the anchor. She was the reason Yan Yu could retain a living human’s rational mind while ruling the realm of the dead.

If Feng’er disappeared...what would become of her?

But in this moment, there was nothing she could do.

In this moment, the only one still thinking of her...was Feng'er.

Of the seven taboo-level ghost domains, three had now fused into one. And the strongest of them was the Ghost Lake, already merged with Ghost Peak and Apparel Atelier.

Yan Yu had managed to fuse with Happyland Zoo herself. But even with Happyland Zoo’s ghosts, plus her own boar ghost, flower shop girls, the blue-robed ice ghost, and all the other ghosts she controlled—they were only just barely holding off the enemy’s advance. If not for the balancing force of the other merged great ghost domain, the Northern Wind Inn fused with the Ghost Bazaar, she likely would have been overrun already.

Now, the land was locked in an eerie, drawn-out fusion, a balance of opposing forces.

And in this strange stalemate, only two anomalies remained. That was Yan Yu and the newly arrived coffin from afar.

Was this a king meeting a king? No. Yan Yu was just another soul, struggling not to drown in the vortex.

But behind the Ghost Lake...might stand the true player of the game.

She was only a piece on the board, picked up and moved by a hidden hand.

Victory or defeat? That had never mattered.

Because the only winner...was always going to be Ghost Lake.

Sure enough, the bond between Yan Yu and Feng’er was disintegrating rapidly.

Feng’er’s body twisted unnaturally. And in the next instant, she vanished with a

whoosh

, yanked into the coffin and gone without a trace.

And in that instant, the link between them was gone too.

A thousand chaotic voices surged in Yan Yu’s mind, like countless ghostly hands that had long been sealed away suddenly bursting free, reaching out from the darkness to grab her, to drag what little humanity she had left down into the abyss.

A little longer, and that humanity would’ve been lost forever.

But the ghost in the coffin wasn’t going to wait for her to become a mindless fiend.

It didn’t want to destroy her humanity; it wanted to absorb her.

And a Yan Yu consumed by confusion and inner torment...was far easier to assimilate than one already fully transformed into a demon.

So, after dealing with Feng’er, those delicate, bone-white fingers struck again, this time aiming straight for Yan Yu herself.

The five fingers grew larger, longer, narrower until they consumed all of Yan Yu’s vision, all her senses.

SNAP!

This time, the fingers closed around her completely.

With a sharp whoosh, she was yanked into the coffin.

The lid slid shut, slow and silent, until the abyssal crack between its edges vanished without a trace.

And then the coffin drifted on, still floating gently atop the Yellow Springs.

In the pitch-black within, perhaps due to some twisted version of fighting poison with poison, Yan Yu’s mind momentarily cleared, only for her to feel a terrifying female ghost pressing down upon her.

But it wasn’t Feng’er.

And yet...there was something of Feng’er in her.

Yan Yu understood immediately. Feng’er had already become part of this ghost.

And soon, she would become another part.

Her memories, her strength, everything was being torn away, faster than she could grasp.

“Li Yuan! Sheng’er!! Li Yuan! Sheng’er!” Yan Yu screamed their names inside her mind, over and over. But even as she clung to them, the names themselves began to blur, to slip through her fingers.

“Peach Garden... Garden... Jade... One...No...”

Yan Yu was unraveling. She was fading, her entire self on the verge of being erased from existence.

The ghost was taking everything.

Time passed, though how long, no one could say. Then suddenly, the luxurious coffin on the Yellow Springs trembled violently.

Once. Then again, harder. And again. So violently now that even the heavy, suffocating waters of the Yellow Springs surged outward like a tsunami.

Unspeakable ghosts surged upward with the filthy yellow waves, forming monstrous walls of water that crashed high into the sky, only to fall back down with bone-rattling force.

The entire river churned in chaos.

Even the distant Ghost Bazaar began to shake. Black roof tiles tumbled down like hail, shattering into shards.

Ice mountains crumbled. The stone pestle cracked apart. Blades snapped, iron trees withered. Bright crimson flowers shriveled and died. Entire hills of graves folded inward like closing books.

Everything was shifting, changing, in ways beyond understanding.

Inside the coffin, the hand that had been stealing away all of Yan Yu’s being suddenly froze, stiff and rigid.

It was as if the force that had been tearing her apart had finally encountered something it could not claim and got stuck.

But to stop...was not in a ghost’s nature.

To be a ghost is to devour. To take.

And so, even frozen, the hand continued to claw forward.

Yan Yu, cloaked in an azure dress of ten thousand ghosts, lay motionless in the coffin, eyes lifeless, face pale and porcelain-like, as if she had turned into a lifeless doll. That flawless, bone-white hand was still clamped over her face.

But now even that hand was beginning to stiffen.

Everything inside the coffin seemed suspended in time.

But outside...the world was coming undone.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Flutter flutter!

A crow’s wings beat as it flew ahead.

A youth strode through the freshly built gates of Sword Mountain Pass.

Beyond the gates, the Great Zhou’s army patrolled in tight formations. Scattered groups of settlers were migrating inward toward the heartland.

But he walked in the opposite direction, straight out beyond the gate.

Had anyone seen him, they would’ve tried to stop him.

But no one could see him.

On this land, Li Yuan was already...unstoppable.

Though of course, even among mountains, some peaks rose higher than others.

Even Sheng'er stood undefeated at Antelope Pass, holding the line alone, one woman against ten thousand.

Li Yuan had completely left Gemhill County behind, sending the Xie sisters and Zhen’er north.

Xie Wei’s entourage headed for the Central Capital under the protection of the two Tree’ers. Accompanying them were senior figures from both the Bladeseekers and the Court of Judges.

So many minor entanglements had come and gone in between, and now somehow it was already September.

The land was bleak and empty. Towns still stood with their buildings intact, but they were hollowed out, no signs of life, like ghost towns.

Li Yuan stepped into one such place.

Half of it lay in ruins, the other half still standing. Inns, taverns, and courtyards all preserved in eerie perfection, yet not a single soul within. The silence clung like cobwebs.

A crow, after circling overhead, descended swiftly and landed on his shoulder. Its voice was urgent.

“Papa, Naran...he’s not doing well. He says he won’t make it through this winter. He says he’s ready to walk into the White Deer Tribe’s bonfire and die there. He says...whether he’s the Son of the Sun or not doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you died that way. And he wants to die the same way, in the same place.”

“Can he still move?” Li Yuan asked.

“Move? Easily. But his strength is draining fast.”

Li Yuan thought for a moment. “Tell him to bring your Fifth Mother to the border of the Western Extremes.”

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Sheng'er fell silent. No immediate response. Just a long pause.

“What is it?” Li Yuan asked.

“Papa, the borders of the Western Extremes are a long way from the tribe encampments now,” the crow finally replied, “South of Sword Mountain, nearly half the land’s already been swallowed by the Evernight. It’ll take over half a month just to get from the clan lands to the border.”

“...” Li Yuan fell silent.

In a way, the Grand Union of Yin and Yang had already begun. But it was a slow process, at this point, more a unification of the ghost domains. The appearance of high rank meat fields pointed to another phase, the growing presence of pure Yang energy.

And as that happened, the borders of the Evernight would naturally expand outward.

“What should we do, Papa?” the little crow asked again.

“Let’s go take a look first,” Li Yuan said. He quickened his pace and within days reached the newest boundary of the Evernight.

Towns and ancient villages alike lay cloaked in darkness.

Though it was only early autumn, snow had already begun to fall from the skies.

In the lower-lying towns, the snow had risen so high it buried everything. The world before him was a vast stretch of white, nothing else.

“Have there been any leads on your sister, Nian Nian?” Li Yuan suddenly asked.

In truth, he’d wanted to search for Tang Nian ever since returning to Gemhill County over a decade ago. But she had vanished.

He’d sent Sheng'er to inquire with the Tang Sect.

The sect master Tang Ling had only replied that Tang Nian had gone into seclusion but no one knew where. She added that the Nine Flames Tribe had searched for Tang Nian more than once but never found her. Tang Nian had completely disappeared after leaving the Western Extremes that day.

Now, the Tang Sect had been forcibly relocated within the borders of the Great Zhou. Their poisons, hidden weapons, and puppet arts had been absorbed into the Myriad Lineages Academy as a minor branch of study.

Word had it that the Human Emperor even created a special title within the military, Eccentric General, as an honor for those who achieved mastery in unorthodox disciplines.

“No sign of her, Papa,” the little crow said. “She probably doesn’t know you’re still alive. After that day she carried your bones away...she vanished.”

Li Yuan exhaled lightly into the wind and snow. “She really is the stubborn type”

He walked on, pausing now and then.