The Existence Trap

Outside the eastern gate of Jing, the battle between the Dragon Vein Dice and the Supervisory Heavenly Office had fully begun.

Li Huowang lifted his head, watching the rain of black heavy armor crashing down from the sky. His brow furrowed, he took a few steps back, retreating to the edge of the city wall.

Just as the iron-clad cataphracts slammed onto the battlements, he gave a slight push with his feet and dropped backward off the wall.

Mid-fall, Li Huowang gripped the spine-sword, twisted his body, and slashed downward with all his force. A Great Qi fissure tore open instantly.

Peng Longteng’s figure appeared beside him in the next breath. She grabbed Li Huowang and, as she hurled him downward, his legs and four tentacles kicked hard off her body. The combined force sent him streaking into the fissure with a blur of afterimages.

A few breaths later, Li Huowang stood steady on solid ground. He had crossed from Great Liang into Great Qi.

On the Great Liang side, a battle for survival raged. In Great Qi, all that remained were stretches of crumbling walls and rubble—not a single living soul, a scene of desolate misery.

But unlike before, the pitch-black Sky Dog Devouring the Sun had vanished. The sun in the sky still bore traces of blackness, but no further deterioration occurred.

Great Qi was still broken and decayed, yet compared to its earlier state—infested with evil spirits—it was vastly improved.

“Monk! Look! The Emperor of Great Qi connected to the Dragon Vein of Great Liang, and Great Qi is saved! The people of Great Qi don’t have to die! Buddha be praised! Buddha be praised!” The old monk’s weathered face was wreathed in smiles; he pressed his palms together and bowed toward the east.

“The Buddha can’t help! You should thank Zhuge Yuan!” Li Huowang tightened his grip on the spine-sword and moved swiftly through the pitted barbican, heading toward the Dragon Banner he had glimpsed earlier.

He had no time now to dwell on what was happening in Great Qi. If the Dice was not stopped, Great Liang would be lost.

Approaching the Dice from the Great Liang side would cost too much effort. But if he jumped from Great Liang into Great Qi and approached him from that side, everything became much simpler.

“Almost there. Right here.” Li Huowang stopped at a spot and spoke in a low voice. Shangguan Yuting’s figure reappeared before him.

She stepped out from his shadow, surveyed the surroundings, and nodded lightly. “Good. The Director is ready. In half a stick of incense, we cross.”

Li Huowang nodded in silence, waiting as the seconds crawled by. Half a stick of incense felt unbearably long to him at this moment.

“Will the Director’s method be enough to handle the Dice? What if he actually succeeds… No. I’m a Heart-Element. I can’t think like that.”

“Time’s up!” Shangguan Yuting’s voice cut through his thoughts. Li Huowang tightened his grip on the spine-sword and swung it fiercely. A fissure tore open, and limbs and blood sprayed out from within—all of it belonged to the military forces of Great Liang.

Though Great Qi was empty, Great Liang was packed with soldiers.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Li Huowang’s four tentacles and two legs pushed off the ground, and he charged straight into the flesh-and-blood fissure.

The moment he appeared, absolute stillness erupted into frenzied motion. War drums and the clamor of slaughter filled his ears; the murderous aura around him was so dense it made his blood seethe.

“Aiyah~ Isn’t this my left and right Golden Guard Staff Officer? What took you so long? How’s that inside-job gig going?”

At the voice, Li Huowang turned his head and looked toward his side—toward the Dragon Banner—and saw Gao Zhijian’s face, but wearing the Dice’s expression.

The military cultivators watching from all sides and the generals standing around the Dice did not make Li Huowang flinch. He drew a deep breath and spoke. “Almost done. The Director plans to use me against you. But since I’m your inside man, he’s doomed to fail.”

With that, under everyone’s gaze, Li Huowang slowly approached the Dice.

Some military cultivators moved to block him, but the Dice stopped them. He seemed confident in his position, unafraid of Li Huowang’s proximity.

“Come, come. You must have worked hard faking it all this way. Let me toast you.” Gao Zhijian extended a cup of wine.

“How could it be hard, Boss Dice? After all, we’re both Zuowandao—we live to play tricks on people.” Li Huowang took the wine and drained it in one gulp.

At these words, the expressions of the surrounding generals shifted. That was exactly the effect Li Huowang wanted.

“Hahaha~ With the enemy before us, that’s no kind of joke.”

Li Huowang smiled, reached up, and wiped his face. The Red Center tile appeared on his features. His voice turned playful, laced with mania. “Boss Dice, how could that be a joke? We’re all following your lead here.”

The next moment, as Shangguan Yuting stepped up to Gao Zhijian, his square-jawed face began to shift, taking on the Dice’s features.

Li Huowang’s power as a Dragon Vein could not change him, but the Director’s illusion technique could fool every military cultivator present.

As long as the Great Liang soldiers stopped listening to him, the rest became much easier.

“Heh heh heh. Nice trick. But if you think a little sleight of hand like this is enough to beat me, then I’m afraid you’re overestimating yourselves.” Gao Zhijian extended a dragon claw and lightly tugged at his face. The Dice illusion vanished.

“If I’m not Red Center, Boss Dice, then who am I?” Li Huowang shot back.

“You are Zuowandao! You are the Dice!” As Gao Zhijian’s hand pointed at Li Huowang’s face, the Director of the Supervisory Heavenly Office appeared behind him instantly, hands forming the Heaven-Severing Seal, and pressed hard against the back of Li Huowang’s head. “Now!”

The moment the Director’s seal made contact with his body, Li Huowang felt something change—Innate Pneuma! Waves and waves of Innate Pneuma!

As a Heart-Element, Li Huowang could sense the minute differences in each wave. This wasn’t the Director’s own power! He couldn’t use it himself! These Innate Pneuma had all been stripped from other Heart-Elements!

A pair of skeletal hands holding a set of prayer beads clapped together with force. A low, alien chant rose from beneath the red robe. “!!!”

As the chant continued, everything around began to grow hallucinatory. The colors of armor and earth alike bled into the air, blurring the entire world. The line between reality and illusion was dissolving.

Li Huowang felt the Innate Pneuma inside him float as if submerged in water, becoming light enough for him to move on his own.

“Huff…! Huff…!” With each breath Li Huowang took, everything around him expanded and contracted, twisting and deforming.

“I am the Dice! I am the Dice!” With veins bulging on his temples, Li Huowang’s face began to transform, shifting toward the Dice’s likeness.

The chanting did not stop. The Director, through the hollow black void inside his Daoist robe, fixed his gaze on the Gao Zhijian before him. A second voice joined the chant, roaring: “If he is the Dice, and in this Great Liang there can only be one Dice, then you are not the Dice. You can only be Gao Zhijian!”

At these words, the Dice’s expression flickered with confusion. “I… I… am… I… am… Gao… Gao… Zhijian?!”

Just as Gao Zhijian’s demeanor grew increasingly hesitant, the ground suddenly collapsed beneath him. A few dice flew up and flashed before his eyes.

Seeing those dice, Gao Zhijian’s expression rapidly steadied. He smiled softly. “Xuanpin, you truly are devious. Trying to use a Heart-Element’s ability to overwrite my entire existence and take me over. Pity—I am a Dragon Vein. That trick won’t work.”

“But you’re a capable one, nonetheless. How about we join forces? We’ll split the Heavenly Dao we seize, half and half?”