A Pawn's Passage

For an ordinary Martial Arts Practitioner, the distortion of space would be confined to a single point. The size of that point varied according to one’s cultivation.

But Tantai Zhenxiao’s distortion of space formed an entire line.

Along that line, space itself shook and warped, ignoring all forms of defense. Whether it was the Last Sanctuary or the domain of the sun, neither could stop it.

This differed from tearing open a line of void. The fists of a Manly Immortal were akin to blunt weapons, ultimately shattering and pulverizing space itself. Such attacks were far more suited to fighting Godly Immortals, whose golden bodies possessed no fatal weak points. Since there were no vital spots to exploit, the solution was to strike everything, leaving not a single blind spot.

This was one of the reasons Great Sage Jiang had failed to kill Itzamna despite landing two consecutive sword strikes. Besides Itzamna’s exceptionally high cultivation, his golden body was simply too resilient.

In every sense, Godly Immortals had the greatest survivability. The home-ground advantage of a divine kingdom, the ability to avoid Heavenly Tribulations, golden bodies with no inherent weaknesses that regenerated rapidly, and the three stages of death all combined to make them extraordinarily difficult to kill.

The best way to kill a Godly Immortal was not through direct combat but by cutting off its source of divine power and allowing it to wither away naturally. Once deprived of divine power, a deity’s golden body would gradually decay, leaving only unorthodox methods, such as blood sacrifices, to sustain it. Yet those sacrifices accumulated karmic fire, making it a case of drinking poison to quench thirst and ultimately leading to destruction.

For this reason, the Daoist Order had never completely resolved the problem of the Ancient Immortals. Although it had once assembled overwhelming forces and severely wounded Wu Luo, the intervention of the Buddhist Sect prevented a decisive victory. Every large-scale military campaign required the mobilization of Great Sages, Spirit Guards, and numerous other resources, all of which came at great cost. In the end, the Daoist Order was forced to leave the matter unresolved.

The Daoist Order had been cutting off the Ancient Immortals’ source of divine power for years, primarily by suppressing secret societies. Yet because of the Buddhist Sect’s continued support, the problem could never be completely eradicated.

To put it bluntly, the Daoist Order’s Ancient Immortal problem was fundamentally a Buddhist Sect problem. As long as the Buddhist Sect continued to exist, these external forces would never truly disappear. If the Buddhist Sect were eliminated, the Ancient Immortal problem would resolve itself.

The problem with the Buddhist Sect ran far deeper. Although the Holy Xuan had dealt a crushing blow to the Buddhist Sect during his era, forcing it to sign a humiliating treaty and nominally submit to the Daoist Order, the reality resembled the Wei Dynasty driving the Golden Horde out of the Central Plains. Even though the Wei Dynasty had expelled the Golden Horde, it was never destroyed. Throughout the entire Wei Dynasty, the Golden Horde repeatedly launched incursions into the Central Plains, and the two sides alternated endlessly between war and uneasy peace.

The relationship between the Daoist Order and the Buddhist Sect was much the same. The Daoist Order dismantled the Central Plains Buddhist Sect, drove the Western Region Buddhist Sect away, and forced the Buddhist communities of Fenglin and Nanyang to bow their heads. Yet the Buddhist Sect never truly accepted defeat, continually engaging in underhanded activities.

Although the Central Plains Buddhist Sect had become little more than a symbolic monument erected by the Daoist Order, serving primarily as part of the policy of unifying the Three Religions, it remained unwilling to submit completely and continued to maintain ties with the Western Region Buddhist Sect.

On the surface, the Western Region campaign led by Sage Donghua was a war against the Shamanistic Sect. In reality, however, the force backing the Shamanistic Sect was the Western Region Buddhist Sect.

The force backing the Nanyang Federation of Daoist Expulsion and the humanoid insects was the Nanyang Buddhist Sect.

The Fenglin Buddhist Sect was also a strong supporter of the Sonno-joi faction.

The ancestral homeland of Buddhism, Shakya, faced equally serious issues. However, the Daoist Order maintained military rule there and stationed large numbers of troops, so the Shakya Buddhist Sect dared not act rashly. Even so, it had long maintained covert ties with the Holy Court, seeking autonomy. But Shakya was far from the Central Plains, so news from there rarely reached the mainland, giving it a relatively low profile.

As for why the Daoist Order had not completely resolved the Buddhist problem, the reasons were not complicated.

The first reason was that the Daoist Order had shifted its policies, prioritizing economic development. That required a stable environment, so launching another all-out Buddhist-Daoist war was out of the question. Localized wars such as the Western Region Campaign and the Fenglin Campaign could not fundamentally solve the Buddhist problem, as they merely treated the symptoms rather than the root cause.

The second reason was that the Daoist Order had truly flourished. It had become prosperous and prestigious, no longer wishing to fight a relatively impoverished Buddhist Sect. In fact, the Daoist Order had begun to look down on the Buddhist Sect. Buddhist disciples watched Daoist priests enjoying wealth and prestige while they themselves remained in impoverished lands. Faced with such an enormous disparity in material conditions, they felt envious. As a result, over the years, many Buddhists had become sympathetic to the Daoist Order, secretly currying favor with it. During the era of the third-generation Grand Master, the Daoist Order changed its strategy, deciding to rely primarily on cultural influence and only secondarily on military force to resolve the issue once and for all.

The Daoist Order commanded the wealth of the Central Plains, the Western Region, Nanyang, the overseas continents, and the Southern Continent, all of which lay within its sphere of influence. As such, the Daoist Order stood as the undisputed master of the East, dividing the world into two with the Western Holy Court.

The Buddhist Sect called itself the religion of the West, yet the Holy Court was the true master of the West. Rooted in the East, the Buddhist Sect merely echoed the ideas of others among the Three Religions.

As such, every debate between the Daoist Order and the Buddhist Sect ended the same way. The latter, which had once overwhelmingly dominated the former, now consistently lost. The balance between attacker and defender had completely reversed.

No matter how eloquently the Buddhist masters chanted their scriptures, ordinary Buddhist disciples had never seen the bliss of the Pure Land with their own eyes. What they could see clearly was just how prestigious Daoist priests were and how comfortably they lived.

Seeing was believing, so quite a few Buddhists’ convictions had begun to waver. As long as the Daoist Order was willing to give them an opportunity, they were more than willing to serve it.

To resist the Daoist Order’s ideological influence, the Buddhist Sect adopted several measures. The first was to promote asceticism. Ascetic monks became highly revered, living with disheveled hair, dirt-covered faces, and tattered robes, deliberately enduring hardships that ordinary people considered unbearable in order to strengthen their will and free themselves from worldly desires. The second was internal isolation, preventing ordinary Buddhist disciples from witnessing the prosperity of the outside world. These measures achieved some short-term success, but they also caused the Buddhist Sect itself to stagnate.

The Daoist Order had gone through a similar experience. Back then, its members had only just survived the devastation at the end of the Wei Dynasty and decades of warfare between Buddhism and Daoism. Peace had only recently been restored, and everything was waiting to be rebuilt. When Daoists traveling west witnessed the prosperity of the Holy Court, they were profoundly shocked, and unrest spread within the Daoist Order itself. It was this experience that finally convinced the Daoist Order to completely cease its wars with the Buddhist Sect and devote itself wholeheartedly to economic development.

After formulating its strategy of emphasizing cultural influence over military force based on its own experiences, the Daoist Order saw immediate results. Throughout the overseas continents, many people naturally gravitated toward the Daoist Order, and it took advantage of this momentum to promote sinicization, achieving remarkable success.

The solution to counter this strategy sounded simple but was extraordinarily difficult to carry out. Once one’s material prosperity could rival that of the Daoist Order, people’s hearts would naturally cease to gravitate toward it.

The strength of a culture or doctrine often stemmed from economic strength.

It all came down to a simple aspect of human nature. Once people reached a height, they always desired a higher one. To live, people needed two things. First, they needed aspirations—hope. Second, they needed vanity. No matter how difficult life became, as long as they were better off than others, they would feel happy.

Development sounded easy enough in theory, but putting it into practice required generations of perseverance, extraordinary courage, and exceptional ability.

If the Buddhist Sect wanted to develop, it had to relax its restrictions and confront the Daoist Order’s corrosive influence head-on. But what if it was ideologically defeated by the Daoist Order before it had a chance to develop? What if the Daoist Order dismantled it from within before it could grow stronger? That depended entirely on the courage and capabilities of the Buddhist leadership.

As things stood, the Buddhist Sect possessed neither that courage nor that capability. At its core, its doctrine amounted to little more than selling an unattainable dream. All good things were promised in the next life, in the Pure Land. If everyone only sought a better reincarnation, then who would care about the present? Who would still strive for better in this life?

The Daoist Order was different. It had always sought fulfillment in this life rather than the next, which was precisely why it pursued longevity. From the very beginning, it acknowledged that practical necessities like wealth and companionship were indispensable. Unlike Buddhism, it never glorified suffering. Thus, the Daoist Order had every incentive to pursue better development and a better present.

Thus, the Daoist Order chose not to resolve the Buddhist problem through military force. Killing the body was the inferior strategy. Conquering the heart was the superior one.

No matter how difficult Godly Immortals were to kill, that did not mean killing them was impossible.

This time, the Daoist Order had deployed three Immortals, three of its highest-ranking and most formidable Immortals. It could be said that Itzamna had been shown the utmost respect.

How could Itzamna possibly survive?

After Great Sage Tantai shattered a line of space itself, Itzamna’s golden body became completely distorted, losing all stability and dissolving into a chaotic state that flickered between cohesion and disintegration.

It was like a perfectly ordered army formation being thrown into disarray until it became nothing more than a mob.

The Heavenly Preceptor grasped Green Cloud once more. Though he could not wield the Twin Swords in unison, for someone of his caliber, a single sword was more than enough.

Great Sage Jiang wielded Heaven’s Will and unleashed his third strike.

Almost simultaneously, the Heavenly Preceptor struck with his sword as well.

Relying on their own cultivation, vast knowledge, and abundant experience, the two Immortals forcibly combined their swords into a single coordinated attack.

A vast torrent of sword light descended from the heavens, engulfing Itzamna, whose form had already fallen into utter disarray.

Time and again, Itzamna reassembled into human form, only to be shattered once more into a twisted, dispersing mass.

The newly resurrected King of Gods was heading toward his next death.

Itzamna barely managed to reform his head, while the rest of his body had become nothing more than a distorted shadow. Struggling, he forced out a plea. “I surrender! Spare me! No...”

Neither the Heavenly Preceptor nor Great Sage Jiang showed the slightest reaction. They continued driving the sword light forward.

A First-Tribulation Immortal was simply too dangerous. The Daoist Order could seal or suppress such an existence, but controlling one was virtually impossible. Since that was the case, Itzamna had to die. The Daoist Order could not allow such a threat to exist.

The sword light grew ever more brilliant. Itzamna’s figure was gradually swallowed by its radiance until only a faint shadow remained.

The immense sword light sent wave after wave of enormous ripples sweeping across the pocket realm.

The shadow beneath the sword light grew smaller and smaller until it vanished completely.

Only then did the Heavenly Preceptor and Great Sage Jiang each withdraw their sword light.

The King of Gods was slain, displaying the heavenly might of the Daoist Order.

Under the watchful eyes of the three Immortals, it was impossible for Itzamna to fake his death.

The Heavenly Preceptor tossed Green Cloud back to Qi Xuansu before gradually fading away. After all, he had only been a projection.

Great Sage Jiang and Great Sage Tantai, on the other hand, had arrived in person.

Great Sage Tantai flew toward the divine kingdom, while Great Sage Jiang was in no rush to leave. Instead, he walked over to Qi Xuansu.

By this time, Qi Xuansu had already found Madam Wu, who had been blasted to the ground. As expected of the woman who had once withstood the Taiyi Supreme Technique head-on, Madam Wu was certainly injured, but she was nowhere near death’s door.

When Qi Xuansu saw Great Sage Jiang approaching, he quickly stepped forward and bowed respectfully.

Great Sage Jiang waved a hand, signaling Qi Xuansu that formalities were unnecessary. He then turned his gaze toward Madam Wu.

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