Third Prince Zhao Li could feel his Ziwei imperial qi resonating with the laws of heaven and earth.
He was waiting for those fragments of the laws to pour into his body of their own accord.
Waiting for that majestic, boundless Heavenly Dao to converge upon him like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.
Finally, the moment arrived when the laws of heaven and earth shattered.
Yet the phenomenon of a hundred rivers returning to the sea never materialized.
The golden-red light of the formation still burned, and the Heaven-Measuring Ruler's trembling continued to intensify.
The canopy above Zhao Li's head continued to revolve.
Yet the fragments of the laws of heaven and earth pouring into the array were pitifully few.
It was not that there were none at all, but that they were sporadic and sparse, like a few drops of rain leaking into a dilapidated house during a downpour.
It was a world apart from the deluge he had anticipated.
Zhao Li's brow furrowed.
Forcibly suppressing the restlessness in his heart, he pushed his Ziwei imperial qi to the absolute limit, attempting to actively attract those fragments of the laws dispersed between heaven and earth.
Yet the instant he pushed his Ziwei imperial qi to its peak, he felt a bizarre sensation he had never experienced before.
The purple-gold canopy above his head was trembling.
It was not trembling from the shockwaves of the qi of heaven and earth, but shivering autonomously from within.
The nine golden dragons upon the canopy simultaneously closed their agape maws, curling their bodies tightly with tails tucked beneath their bellies and heads hung low, as if cowering before some terrifying entity.
Zhao Li could even sense the emotion conveyed by those nine golden dragons.
Fear.
His Ziwei imperial qi was afraid!
“Daoist Master.”
Zhao Li snapped his eyes open, his voice tinged with an irrepressible restlessness.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Standing outside the array, Qingyangzi held hand seals, sweat already gathering into rivulets at his temples and running down his cheeks.
His gaze was glued to the wildly jumping markings on the Heaven-Measuring Ruler, his lips moving as if calculating something, or perhaps chanting some secret Daoist incantation.
“This should not be... This should not be happening...”
His voice was low, raspy, and hurried.
“The formation is operating normally, the markings on the ruler are fully activated, and every single pattern of the hexagram array is functioning at maximum potency. Your Highness is endowed with Ziwei imperial qi—the most legitimate sovereign destiny between heaven and earth. With imperial qi enveloping you, the laws of heaven and earth should naturally draw close... This is an eternal, immutable truth. Nothing could possibly go wrong...”
His voice came to a sudden halt.
Because he sensed something.
Qingyangzi slowly turned his head. His gaze passed over the golden-red glow of the formation, through the latticed window of Wangchao Pavilion, beyond the dense crowd atop the city walls, and finally settled upon that reef beach.
A person stood upon the reef beach.
Above that person's head, the laws of heaven and earth were frantically converging!
As a Daoist adept situated within the Sky-Stealing Sun-Swapping Formation, Qingyangzi's perception of the laws of heaven and earth was a hundred times sharper than that of an ordinary martial artist.
Others could only sense the violent shaking of the qi of heaven and earth in the air.
Yet he could clearly see the trajectories along which those fragments of the laws flowed.
In his eyes, each fragment of the laws resembled a meteor trailing a long or short tail of light, etching arcs across heaven and earth.
And at this moment, the terminus of every single arc pointed toward the exact same person!
That young spearman holding his spear!
Compared to the meager amount gathering around Third Prince Zhao Li, the fragments of the laws around that young man defied all reason!
Furthermore, their speed of convergence was nothing like the sluggish trickle near the Third Prince; instead, they were coalescing into a vast ocean at breakneck speed!
Fragment after fragment of the laws scrambled to plunge toward the crown of Chen Zui's head like moths to a flame.
Pouring into the crown of his skull, his meridians, and his dantian.
The law fragments even emitted faint sonic whistling as they surged into his body, as though impatient to burrow inside.
They poured in at such blinding speed.
So fast that an invisible vortex of laws formed above Chen Zui's head.
The vortex spun larger and faster, sweeping in every stray fragment of the laws of heaven and earth scattered across dozens of li around!
Yet once sucked into the vortex, those law fragments vanished without a trace, like clay oxen cast into the sea.
Not a wisp leaked out, not a sliver was wasted, and not a single bit was repelled.
This young man's body was like a bottomless abyss—no matter how many fragments of the laws surged in, they failed to stir the slightest ripple.
Qingyangzi's face turned deathly pale in an instant.
“How is this possible... How could this be possible...”
His voice trembled, and his hands holding the seals trembled as well, the hand seal between his ten fingers almost collapsing.
“The Sky-Stealing Sun-Swapping Formation... The Ziwei imperial qi... Neither has any effect... This is impossible...”
Zhao Li rose from the center of the array.
The canopy above his head had shrunk to the size of a palm, the nine golden dragons curled into nine blurry motes of golden light, unable to even maintain their draconic forms.
He glared fixedly out the window at the tattered young spearman standing on the reef beach.
“Gazing” in the direction where the laws of heaven and earth—which he could not see, yet could distinctly feel—were madly converging.
“Daoist Master, have the things that rightfully belong to this prince all gone to him?”
His voice was calm—unusually, unnaturally calm.
Yet Qingyangzi had resided in the prince's manor for twenty years; he knew precisely what lay behind such calm.
It was the tone this prince produced only when boundless fury was forcibly suppressed to the absolute brink.
“Your Highness... this poor Daoist... this poor Daoist does not understand why either...”
Qingyangzi spoke with great difficulty, each word squeezed out from his throat.
“This boy is merely in the Second Rank Mountain-Viewing Realm, possessing neither imperial bloodline nor sovereign fortune. By all reason, the laws of heaven and earth should never actively draw close to him, let alone be swallowed in such a whale-like feast. This completely defies every Daoist text recorded over the past millennium...”
Before he could finish his words,
the vortex of laws above Chen Zui's head abruptly expanded by another circle!
Even more fragments of the laws were drawn from the battlefield where the two sword immortals clashed.
Passing through the sea mist and residual sword qi shockwaves, through the spectating crowd atop the city walls, through the latticed windows of Wangchao Pavilion, through the array lines of the Sky-Stealing Sun-Swapping Formation, they plunged straight into that vortex.
Those fragments of the laws did not linger for even a fleeting moment as they swept through the Sky-Stealing Sun-Swapping Formation.
As though this formation, which had cost Qingyangzi half a lifetime of effort to lay down, was beneath notice in their eyes.
Watching this unfold, Qingyangzi suddenly tasted bitterness in his mouth.
Never in his life had Zhao Li imagined he would suffer a setback at the hands of an obscure martial wanderer.
He was the Third Prince of Grand Zhao, born into luxury and raised at the pinnacle of power.
Whatever he desired, no one had ever dared utter a single word of refusal.
When he was three, he wanted the coiled-dragon jade pendant hanging from Imperial Father's waist, and his imperial father had smilingly untied it to hang around his neck.
When he was seven, he wanted a Ferghana horse, and his imperial mother had dispatched three hundred couriers to ride day and night from the Western Regions to deliver one.
When he was sixteen, he wanted eight hundred retainers, and the prince's chief administrator had recruited elite fighters from north and south of the river within three months.
In all his life, Zhao Li had never tasted the bitter flavor of “unattainable.”
Whatever he wanted had always been his, and would always be his!
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