Chapter 625 – A Martial Artist’s Misfortune, the World’s Salvation - Part 1

At the edge of the ruined Ghost Sealing Pagoda, Li Yuan raised a hand and beckoned. A small golden Buddha statue flew into his grasp.

It was tiny, no larger than a baby’s palm, but the moment it landed in his hand, it felt as if he were bearing the weight of a mountain.

How vast was a mountain? Yet this Buddha was no bigger than a child’s hand.

The Buddha’s face bore a gentle smile, but the aura it gave off was steeped in lifeless stillness, like the echo of a tomb.

Li Yuan held the statue up to the relic and asked, “Recognize this?”

Shi Jialan examined it for a moment, his voice tinged with delight. “The Radiant Heaven beyond Heavens, casting light across the 3,000 Worlds... This is the Radiant Buddha! I can’t believe there’s actually a statue of him hidden in the Ghost Sealing Pagoda.”

Then, as was his habit, the man launched into a rambling account of the Radiant Buddha’s exploits.

Though the Age of the Ancient Gods was distant and murky, Shi Jialan, as the current Ghost Dean and inheritor of the Radiant Treasure Monastery’s legacy, knew a great deal about Radiant Buddha.

Back in the Age of the Ancient God, the Radiant Buddha had chosen to live in obscurity, establishing his monastery not in the Central Plains but in the then-barren islands beyond the Eastern Sea. That alone spoke volumes.

Yet some records in the Radiant Treasure Monastery hinted that the Radiant Buddha was a man of fierce righteousness, utterly intolerant of evil.

It was said that he once chased vile souls all the way into the realm of the dead and struck them down, denying them any chance of rebirth.

During that battle, his glowing hand lit up that icy, desolate land. Countless ghosts were obliterated, and even the kingdom of the dead trembled beneath his fury.

After returning from that netherworld, he carved part of its essence into a statue, a tool to suppress ghosts.

At this point, Li Yuan raised the statue again for a closer look.

Suddenly, a red lotus bloomed from the center of his palm.

Its petals brushed gently across the surface of the golden statue.

In an instant, the statue’s golden coating began to crack and flake away with a crisp

crack

, revealing the pitch-black material beneath.

“It’s the same stuff as the ancient hall!” the little crow shouted in alarm.

Li Yuan gripped the statue tightly, and the fragments of history began piecing themselves together in his mind.

The Radiant Buddha must’ve entered the ancient hall himself, chipped off a piece of its material for study, then used it to sculpt this very statue, later placing it here in the Ghost Sealing Pagoda.

From that alone, it was clear that the Radiant Buddha’s power must have reached unfathomable heights.

As for what connection there was between the ancient hall and the realm of the dead...who the hell knew?

Li Yuan glanced at the little crow.

Understanding immediately, the little crow tuned back in her

Deathless Tomb channel

to consult the ancient beings resting within about anything they might know regarding the Radiant Buddha.

But before Sheng’er could even ask a question, Li Yuan suddenly froze.

A sharp, piercing sense of danger, like a blade of ice pressing against his back, stabbed into him.

He didn’t say a word.

He simply grabbed Ping'an and shot toward the exit of the pagoda.

Whoosh!

In the blink of an eye, Li Yuan, Ping'an, Sheng’er, and the sarira were already at the threshold.

Outside the entrance, the tide was rising.

Waves lapped softly against the shore, glimmering under the sunlight as it danced across the sea. A serene and beautiful scene.

With a slight shift of his aura, Li Yuan caused the tide to part, revealing a circular patch of dry sand beneath the water. Seashells and bits of seaweed still clung to the beach, remnants of the ordinary world’s calm.

But Li Yuan himself was anything but calm.

Ping'an had caught on as well and said, “If the Radiant Buddha was powerful enough to carve through the material of the ancient hall, and even sculpt it into his own statue...then the Ghost Sealing Pagoda he personally constructed would not have been weak.”

Li Yuan was strong, yes, but only by the standards of this current era.

In the Age of the Ancient Gods, his strength might have been no more than average.

And that wasn’t a shortcoming of Li Yuan himself, it was simply the world he lived in. Throw the Radiant Buddha into the current age, and maybe he’d be no stronger than someone like Shi Jialan.

Circumstance forged heroes. But environment...environment shaped species.

The strong and the weak, they weren’t just levels of power. They were two entirely different kinds of beings.

Ghosts didn’t die or decay. But the mighty? They all had lifespans.

So even if the Radiant Buddha had long since vanished, the ghosts sealed within the Ghost Sealing Pagoda might still persist.

And now that the pagoda had been broken open...those ghosts were likely free.

That was why Li Yuan had fled so suddenly.

His instincts had kicked in fast very fast.

Now, standing with Ping'an on the shoreline, waves rising and falling in quiet rhythm around them, everything seemed peaceful.

But neither of them felt at ease.

Ping'an kept a wary eye on their surroundings.

Li Yuan, meanwhile, was waiting for a response from Sheng’er.

At last, the crow gave a raspy caw and reported, “I asked around. A guy calling himself the Laughless Monk said the Radiant Buddha was deep, unfathomably deep, and probably someone from the

early

Age of the Ancient Gods.”

A man who had survived from the early days to the twilight of that age, and still left a legacy strong enough to influence the present?

That said enough.

Ping'an hesitated, then offered, “Father, should I send a clone back to the pagoda to check things out?”

Li Yuan shook his head.

He suspected there was something inside the Ghost Sealing Pagoda, a ghost whose power might rival that of the Dragon Vein itself. Why hadn’t it attacked them yet? Maybe because the long imprisonment had warped time, or dulled its senses, or tangled events in unexpected ways.

But one thing was clear. They weren’t going back in.

The pagoda had already been destroyed, the tide of ghosts within it consumed, and the Radiant Buddha statue retrieved. There was nothing left worth the risk. If they ventured back in and ran into whatever was still lurking...that would be asking for real trouble.

“You two alright?” Li Yuan asked.

Sheng'er and Ping'an each focused their senses briefly, then answered in unison, “We’re fine.”

Li Yuan turned to the relic and said, “Continue.”

A while later, the full picture began to form in his mind.

In addition to the Ghost Sealing Pagoda, the Radiant Buddha had left behind another treasure at Radiant Treasure Monastery, something known as the

3,000 Worlds

.

This 3,000 Worlds wasn’t metaphorical. It was a string of prayer beads, and each individual bead contained an entire

world.

Shi Jialan had once studied them and concluded that these

worlds

weren’t vast, expansive realms as people might imagine. Instead, they were pocket dimensions, self-contained spaces existing outside the main world.

It was similar to the Great Zhou’s ancient ghost street. Though it clung to the empire like a shadow, it wasn’t actually part of the Great Zhou’s official territory.

Another example could be found in ancient texts, the Endless Stars.

You could see the stars from the earth, bright and distant. But no matter how far you traveled toward them, you’d never arrive. That was because each star was its own world. You needed to find the precise entrance to get inside.

These entrances were often tiny, no more than a single point in space.

Only by pinpointing that exact spot could you enter.

Some, though, had larger gateways. Those were classified differently.

Such places were called

Bright Realms.

The ones with invisible entrances?

Dark Realms.

By that logic, the sarira was itself a Bright Realm.

Its interior wasn’t large, just enough for Shi Jialan to squat and make himself at home. But it still qualified as a

world

.

Afterward, Li Yuan, Sheng'er, and Ping'an spent some time relocating a nearby mountain, shifting it through domain force to cover the original entrance of the Ghost Sealing Pagoda.

Better to bury it, so that no one stumbled upon it in the future and accidentally unleashed another catastrophe.

Once the work was done, they retreated to a quiet clearing to rest.

The sarira was casually tossed under a nearby tree.

A fire crackled in the distance. The trio, two humans and one crow, chatted by the flames.

And Shi Jialan, seeing his chance with the others distracted, quietly slipped out of the sarira.

Li Yuan made no move to stop him...until he did.

As soon as Shi Jialan emerged, Li Yuan, who had been observing from the shadows all along, stepped out, took back the sarira, and in one swift motion, cut Shi Jialan down with the life-span severing blade..

There was no pain. No resistance. Just silence.

By tracking exactly where Shi Jialan had exited, Li Yuan now knew the entrance to the sarira’s internal realm.

Even though Shi Jialan had taken great care, it hadn’t been enough.

Li Yuan handed the sarira to Ping'an.

Ping'an summoned a clone and sent it diving through the point where Shi Jialan had appeared.

Soon after, the clone reemerged from the sarira, holding a rolled-up piece of tanned parchment.

He unfurled it.

It was covered in strange markings, paths and patterns. A map of sorts. Or maybe a guide to something more.

The brushwork on the scroll was delicate and graceful, refined to the point of beauty. If handwriting revealed the soul of its author, then the one who penned this must have been someone with a gentle heart and a love for the beautiful things in life.

The three of them studied it closely.

Ping'an suddenly blurted out, “It’s a map. A map of the ancient hall!”

He examined it a bit longer, then added, “But it’s not a complete map, just a portion. It points to a specific location...but doesn’t say what’s there.”

Then a frown crept across his face. “Why didn’t Shi Jialan tell us about this?”

Sheng'er answered, “Papa said he’d work around Shi Jialan, remember? Shi Jialan knew that too, so he left himself a trump card just in case. He was probably planning to use this map as leverage, something like,

Only I know where the ancient hall’s secrets are hidden

. But he never even got the chance to say it before he was killed.

“Still, he must’ve been desperate. Otherwise, he would’ve realized that even though we left the sarira lying there, we were still watching him. The entrance and exit to a world like that are fixed. If he came out from a specific spot, then that’s exactly where we can enter from. We don’t need him to tell us anything.”

Li Yuan picked up the sarira again and studied it for a moment. Then he tossed it back to Ping'an. “Keep it. You're still only at the first stage of the Human Soul Realm. If things go sideways, that thing might save your life. Why don’t you test whether your real body can enter it, and then send out clones from inside?”

The sarira could certainly function like a storage space, but what Li Yuan cared about far more than storage was his son’s safety.

Ping'an nodded and gave it a try.

To his delight, it worked.

His face lit up with a childlike grin, like he’d just gotten a brand-new toy.

The little crow cackled. “Looks like Ping’an can hide in a shell just like me now. I’ve got my Deathless Tomb, and he’s got his sarira. I send out crows. He sends out clones.”

Father, son, and daughter exchanged warm smiles.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Half a month passed.

After stabilizing everything, the group once again set out, this time heading straight for the first ancient hall.

As for the second and third ancient halls? No one even considered them.

Those two were just too ominous, too tainted with strangeness.

Besides, their research had already confirmed that the first ancient hall was the one tied to the Human Soul, the Hall of Life. That meant they could skip the Solar Yang and Lunar Yin Halls entirely.

They had neither the time, energy, nor capability...and frankly, there was no reason to go.

After the previous expedition, Li Yuan had a better sense of the Hall of Life’s

safety

and felt confident enough to proceed.

This time, he brought Meng Xingxian and Han Feng into the hall with him.

Once inside, after a bit of observation, it was Han Feng, more experienced with foreign realms, who spoke first. “This...this might be innate qi.”

Spiritual energy was formed by the balance of Yin and Yang.

But innate qi nourished the soul directly, elevating it toward the Heavens.

This was likely the kind of energy needed to break into the second rank.

But there was something strange about this so-called innate qi. It carried a faint scent of decay. something off, something quietly unsettling. Even Han Feng couldn’t explain it. After all, the very concept of

innate qi

was something she’d pieced together from fragments of soul memories she had glimpsed long ago.

As the others immersed themselves in this mysterious second rank energy, their faces lit with fervor, bodies bathed in its glow, Li Yuan paradoxically chose not to partake.

Instead, he stayed behind in one of the Immortal Alliance’s blessed grounds, pouring an enormous quantity of Earth Fog Spirit Stones into breaking through to the fifth stage of the Earth Soul Realm.

Meanwhile, Ping'an set his clone to work, exploring the location marked on the ancient map.

During this period, the little crow brought back a stream of updates from the Central Plains.

The boy emperor, Ji Zheng, had abdicated the throne, stepping aside for the former regent, Ying An, who now ascended as the new Son of Heaven.

But the Great Zhou was vast, so vast that no one man could realistically govern it all, especially not Ying An, who, for all his title, was still just an ordinary mortal.

The weight of the crown crushed him. Despite the finest medicine and nourishing elixirs, his once-robust body began to wither under the strain.

Realizing this, he made a bold choice, to hand over governance to a powerful coalition of noble clans.

But to prevent a repeat of past dynasties, where the emperor retreated into irrelevance while the world burned, Ying An imposed strict reforms.

Any descendant of this ruling elite, before they could rise, would have to change their name, start at the very bottom, and work their way up.

Until they had achieved something on their own merit and received the emperor’s approval, they were forbidden from revealing their true identity.

Anyone who broke this rule would have their path to power permanently severed.

Of course, there was another option, do nothing. No cultivation, no official post, no authority, just a pawn to be married off when the time came.

This coalition of clans was given a name, the Eight Pillar States.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Eight noble families, bound together.

To keep their ideals aligned, intermarriage among the clans would be frequent and tightly orchestrated.

Both the Ying and Xie Clans were among the Eight Pillars.

And as for Li Hu, who had returned triumphant from the mission to the Nine Flames Tribe, reopened Sword Mountain Pass, and restored trade between the Great Zhou and Western Extremes. Because of his surname, he was split from the Xie Clan and established as an independent pillar of his own.

But the Li Clan's ancestral line, its very first ancestor, was a mystery. His name was hidden behind a curtain of black cloth, a secret only the current head of the clan could know.

The young Li Clan didn’t yet have an ancestral hall of their own.

So when Li Hu pulled back that black cloth, he saw the golden statue beneath, and instantly understood under whose protection his honor had been earned.

He bowed three times, deeply and with sincerity.

That golden statue was unmistakably in the likeness of Li Yuan.

Li Yuan had remained hidden in the shadows. In the outside world, there was no great

Li Clan

to speak of.

But Empress Dowager Xie had planned in advance, and Ying An followed through after, forcefully handing this grand clan into Li Yuan’s reluctant hands.

When Li Yuan learned of it, he didn’t say much.

He neither accepted nor rejected it, just tucked the thought away in a quiet corner of his heart.