Chapter Fifty-Five: The Eight Gates Battle Formation

Jin Feichen and his companion fought as they withdrew, clouds billowing from the city of Golden Tortoise, while a streak of black light followed distantly behind them.

Upon reaching the hills outside the city, Jin Feichen carefully collected the Azure Tide Pearls one by one. The surrounding mist dispersed, and from the void, streaks of thunder descended. He wore a smile, as if entirely confident in his plans.

“Why are you smiling, senior brother?” Li Jingxun rolled her eyes and scolded, “Your profound methods, which of them are any use against a ghost immortal?” Despite the many thunders swirling in the sky, these techniques, rooted in the mysterious Yin and icy thunder, were of no use against a ghost immortal! Otherwise, how could the fierce spirit within Turtle Mountain have forced Jin Feichen into such a prolonged struggle?

Jingxun once again summoned the Gate of the Mysterious Female, with dragons, phoenixes, turtles, and unicorns supporting a golden portal, which settled above their heads.

“True, we cannot defeat her, but neither can she defeat us, can she?” Jin Feichen sent the twenty-four pearls into the heart of the thunderstorm, at once stirring wind and cloud, streams of cool water swirling endlessly, and eight portals rising in succession.

This was Jin Feichen’s most adept technique: the Eight Gates Formation. Three ribbons of azure radiance formed a luminous portal, the eight gates opening wide to encircle the Gate of the Mysterious Female, establishing the formation amidst the wilderness.

“In the end, ghost immortals are merely failures. For cultivators like us, who takes such beings seriously?” As he finished speaking, the black light approached, and Jin Feichen pulled Li Jingxun into the Cloud-Locking Formation of the Eight Desolations.

The Ghost Mother of Nine Spirits arrived, sword in hand, riding the wind. She beheld a vast expanse of golden cloud rolling over the countryside, drifting and ethereal, covering the land for miles in a shroud of mist. Faintly, the cries of dragons and phoenixes could be heard, and auspicious light churned endlessly overhead.

“These two young ones have some impressive tricks,” the Ghost Mother mused as she surveyed the formation from above. It subtly mirrored the mysteries of the Eight Trigrams and Nine Palaces, murderous thunder traps hidden in the air, ingenious mechanisms within. Should any ordinary cultivator enter, they would not escape alive.

Hesitating at the edge, she suddenly heard thunder crack. The clouds parted and the mist withdrew, revealing the pair standing beneath a portal, dragons and phoenixes at their sides.

Jin Feichen called out, “Elder, as an honored master of the demonic path, why not wager a contest with us? If you win, we will withdraw from the Bi family’s affairs. If you lose, we ask that you depart at once and never again harm your own descendants.”

Li Jingxun, holding the Jade Book, smiled sweetly. “As a master of the demonic path, surely you will not refuse a duel with two juniors of the mystic school?”

The Ghost Mother, extreme in temperament and unable to endure provocation, burst into wild laughter at these words. “You young whelps dare act so brazenly before me? Do you know how I earned the name ‘Nine Spirits’?”

Before Li Jingxun could reply, Jin Feichen recited a verse:

“In mud you boast of Nine Spirits’ fame,
Shameless, faceless, delight in your shame.
Misfortune rampant, luck weighed down,
You hide your head and settle low.
Pity your ancestors’ toilsome deeds,
You betray the classics, the way’s true creed.
Alas, your heirs are base and wild,
A degenerate tortoise’s wayward child.”

The Ghost Mother flushed red with shame. Was this not saying she survived the massacre of immortals and demons only by hiding and cringing, relying on ancestral glory with no virtue of her own?

As the saying goes, “One should not strike the face or expose the root.” Yet Jin Feichen ruthlessly laid bare her origins, mocking her as a mud-dwelling tortoise that attained the Way. Furious, the Ghost Mother’s three corpse gods leapt in rage, and she charged into the formation sword in hand.

“Ignorant child! If I catch you, I will skin you alive and tear out your sinews!”

Though her anger boiled, as a spiritual tortoise, she was born with innate mastery of the Nine Palaces and the River Luo script. Calculating the gates of life and death, she made her way into the formation by the path of life.

But after only a few steps, she sensed something amiss. The Gate of the Mysterious Female was swallowing and exhaling the primal energies of heaven and earth, dragons and phoenixes flying, its momentum overwhelming.

“No, I am now in a ghostly immortal body. How can the ordinary life gate accept me?” Suddenly alert, the Ghost Mother withdrew at once.

“Why retreat now that you are here, Ghost Mother?” Jin Feichen clapped his hands, and a flurry of icy thunderbolts rained down.

Silver brilliance flashed, ice and frost scattering.

The Ghost Mother suffered several strikes, her hair disheveled as she fled from the gate.

“This formation is truly formidable!” she exclaimed, surveying the eight gates, each concealing its own secret, none approachable with ease.

“If only I had come in person rather than just an avatar, why would I fear two juniors?”

Seeing her hesitate, Jin Feichen boasted, “See, junior sister? Did I not say she is nothing to fear? A mere ghost immortal—how could she best the two of us?”

In the world, there are five ranks of immortals.

The highest is the Celestial Immortal, the ultimate goal of all mystics—immortals of pure yang, as enduring as heaven and earth, as constant as sun and moon.

Next are Earthly Immortals, half a step below Celestial, above Human—residents of blessed mountains, called land immortals, who live for a thousand years.

Below are Human Immortals, just entering the gate of longevity, able to preserve youth, immune to all disease, commanding the arts of the Way, summoning wind and rain, steering fortune and disaster.

These three correspond to Heaven, Earth, and Human, the trinity of the mystic path’s true fruits.

Beyond these, there are Divine and Ghost Immortals.

Divine Immortals are those like the Celestial Official of Golden Tortoise, holding divine office, receiving incense and worship, cultivating through divine means. Their highest achievements rival, or sometimes surpass, Earthly Immortals.

Ghost Immortals, however, are the fallback for failed cultivators. When the flesh is destroyed and the yang spirit cannot be achieved, one may condense the fruit of Human Immortal into a ghostly body, clinging to the world as a shade. Though they may move between the human and nether realms, they can never ascend to the azure heavens or achieve the fruit of Earthly Immortal.

Most ghost immortals seek only reincarnation and a chance to cultivate anew, or to regain a human immortal body and return to the right path.

Such was the fate of the Ghost Mother of Nine Spirits. Once, a master of the School of the Way and Virtue severed her body, and only a thread of her yin spirit escaped. Unable to receive incense and worship, she reluctantly turned to the ghostly path, transforming her human immortal essence into a ghostly body. The mystic path seeks pure yang and clarity; the ghost immortal’s yin body is turbid and despised. Moreover, many techniques of the mystic schools specifically restrain ghost immortals. Though a human immortal and a ghost immortal are not so different, it is said that one human immortal can easily defeat five ghost immortals.

For example, the Five Elements Pure Yang Demon-Subduing Thunder of the Supreme Firmament Palace is deadly to any ghost immortal. The Gate of the Mysterious Female of the School of Virtue can sweep away a ghost immortal’s body with ease, or cast them into the cycle of reincarnation. The Way of Emptiness has also profound methods to easily disperse a ghost immortal’s form.

If a human immortal from the School of Virtue were present, how would the Ghost Mother dare act so fiercely? Only because Li Jingxun’s cultivation was lacking did the Gate of the Mysterious Female not instantly slay her.

Thus, the ghost immortal’s body runs counter to the mystic path’s great momentum and is the lowest of the five, barely above the mundane realm.

Originally, the “Eight Desolations Cloud-Locking Formation” could be entered only through the life gate, but this was meant for living cultivators. Once joined to the Gate of the Mysterious Female, the life gate became fatal to a ghost immortal.

Unable to pass through the life gate, the Ghost Mother turned toward the death gate.

Yet, though yin and yang are inverted, the death gate is a place of utter annihilation, the most lethal of the eight gates, able to scatter soul and spirit alike. The Ghost Mother dared not enter there either.

Seeing her hesitate within the formation, Jin Feichen taunted, “Ghost Mother, are you, a master of the demonic path, afraid of two juniors? Yet, perhaps I am not wrong—bearing the Nine Palace Tortoise Shell on your back, you excel at hiding and fleeing, cherishing life and fearing death. If you retreat now, let us end this matter here.”

Li Jingxun discreetly tugged Jin Feichen’s sleeve. “Senior brother, why provoke her further? Aren’t you afraid she’ll fight to the death?” Though ghost immortals are the weakest, having once been human immortals, she might have some powerful protective treasures.

Indeed, stung by Jin Feichen’s words, the Ghost Mother charged in through the Gate of Rest. Black energy billowed above her head, a mass of demonic cloud, and atop the Rest Gate she placed a diagram of the postnatal River Luo, suppressing three of the Azure Tide Pearls.

This River Luo diagram, refined from her own tortoise shell, was a treasure born of her essence as a human immortal. With the Azure Tide Pearls suppressed, Jin Feichen instantly lost his connection to his treasures.

“Look at what you’ve done, senior brother!” Li Jingxun glared at him, then once more invoked the arts from her Jade Book of Virtue.

“All things in the world are born of being; being is born of non-being! Be transformed!” This spell, also from the “Classic of the Way and Virtue,” was a method of dissolution—returning all things to the void, one of the sect’s true killing moves.

A surge of black and white energy collided; the Ghost Mother sensed the danger and dodged aside, a trace of fear in her eyes as she glanced at the Jade Book in Li Jingxun’s hands.

“How many of the School of Virtue’s prized arts are recorded in that girl’s treasure?”

The purpose of magical treasures is to enable swift action in battle. Li Jingxun had recorded the various arts and divine powers of her elders and her own insights, sealing each spell in golden-scripted jade pages. In battle, she could instantly activate them with her own power, many of which had been left by human immortals of her sect.

“The highest good is like water; water benefits all things and contends with none!” A clear cascade, like a celestial river, hung in the sky, blocking the Ghost Mother’s path.

“Heaviness is the root of lightness; stillness, the master of agitation!” White light flared from the ground; the Ghost Mother felt a tremendous force seizing her feet, making it impossible to advance. At the same time, a fire surged within her, chaotic thoughts disturbing her soul.

For a ghost immortal, the soul is the body itself. Wisps of blue flame ignited unbidden upon her immortal form, attacking the very foundation of her existence.

“Well done, girl!” The Ghost Mother quickly summoned the River Luo diagram; golden light rained down, extinguishing both the flames and the binding force.

“A true adept of the School of Virtue. Impressive indeed.” As she prepared a counterattack, a thunderous dragon’s cry split the sky—a divine dragon dove from above, its whiskers transforming into scissors that sliced neatly through her waist, severing her in two.

Yet in the next instant, the Ghost Mother reformed her immortal body from a surge of dark light, the River Luo diagram in hand, and shouted angrily at Jin Feichen, “Whelp, you court death!” She unfurled the diagram, and from it flew the Divine Diagram of the Nine Palaces, which blanketed the entire formation.

“Alas, the ghost immortal’s body, formless and unfixed, fears not the attacks of yin-yang scissors,” Jin Feichen thought with regret. Looking up, he saw the power of the Nine Palaces forcibly suppressing the formation, and two golden seals descending upon both himself and Li Jingxun.

The great seals pressed slowly downward, each inch weighted with a thousand pounds, making movement impossible. They could only watch as the golden seals descended. When the seals struck their foreheads, the outcome was certain:

Their skulls would be shattered, death unavoidable—there could be no exception.