Heavenly Wheel Ascension

Li Chen turned his head, staring at the bone pillars that loomed like giant ribs imprisoning them. "A plan? You overrate that old fox, Brother Gu. Taixuan may be cunning, but he wouldn't dare gamble his own life in this unstable spatial labyrinth. He simply... underestimated the Ancient Demon Lands too much."

"Or perhaps he knows it all too well," Zhi Xuan replied softly. He stepped toward the center of the hall, where an altar made from human jawbones stood tall. Hovering above the altar was a sphere of black-purple light, emitting a thrumming energy similar to the heartbeat they had felt earlier.

"Look at this," Zhi Xuan pointed toward the sphere. "Master Taixuan separated us so that our Soul Transformation energies wouldn't unite to resist the forest's pressure. He wants us to struggle individually, exhausting our essence to break the illusions, while he... he has the Spirit-Guiding Bell to stay on the correct path."

Li Chen snorted coldly, tapping his jade fan against his palm. "And when we are all exhausted, he will arrive at the Rusted Sword Tomb as the only one with full strength. Truly the method of a slippery southern cultivator."

Zhi Xuan did not reply. He raised his right hand, letting the dusky-grey essence crawl from his fingertips toward the black-purple orb. As the two energies touched, the shriek of thousands of souls echoed again, filling the bone hall with an aura of despair.

"What is this?" Zhi Xuan murmured, pulling his hand back as he felt a powerful demonic breath. He watched the residual essence on his hand being sucked into the sphere. "It is so thick with potent demonic aura. It’s as if we have become firewood."

"Firewood..." Li Chen repeated the word with a suddenly bitter tone. He stepped closer but maintained a safe distance from the bone altar. "You mean every drop of essence we expend to fight the illusions in this forest isn't disappearing into the air, but is being funneled into this thing?"

Zhi Xuan nodded slowly, his sharp eyes observing the ripples on the black-purple orb. Under the vision of his Heavenly Eyes, he saw fine—almost invisible—threads of energy stretching from every direction of the forest, connected directly to the core of the sphere. "That bell... is not just a guide. The Spirit-Guiding Bell is the 'shepherd,' while we are the cattle being driven toward this altar."

The atmosphere in the bone hall suddenly grew deathly cold, as if every pore of the giant ribs surrounding them had begun to suck away the warmth of life. Zhi Xuan realized that Master Taixuan had planned this long before they set foot at the South Gate. The departure of ten Soul Transformation experts was not an expedition; it was a feeding ceremony for the entity slumbering in the Ancient Demon Lands.

"The Heavenly Demon Calamity Banner," Zhi Xuan hissed. He felt a surge of curiosity about the Banner that drove Taixuan to devise such a scheme. "Perhaps it is not just about gaining control over a demon army. There might be something even greater behind that Banner."

"Something greater..." Li Chen whispered, his usually jovial face now clouded by the dark shadows reflected from the orb’s purple glow. "If my guess is right, that Banner is merely a key. To open a door that should have remained locked forever at the bottom of the Rusted Sword Tomb."

Zhi Xuan turned his body, staring into the living darkness outside the hall. "And Master Taixuan is willing to sacrifice nine Soul Transformation experts for that key. Truly a grand gamble."

Suddenly, the orb above the altar vibrated violently. The faint chime of a bell was heard from the distance, but the sound no longer brought peace; it was a call to death that made the Divine Soul tremble. From within the orb, faint projections appeared, showing what was happening to their other comrades.

Zhi Xuan watched through his Heavenly Eyes; the twin elders of the Whirlwind Sect were fighting desperately against their own shadows in a narrow bone corridor. Every attack they released—every spark of fire and wind energy—did not harm the shadows but was instead sucked into the threads and flowed heavily toward the orb before Zhi Xuan.

"They are being squeezed dry," Zhi Xuan hissed. "Taixuan isn't killing us directly. He is letting this Bone Forest harvest our essence."

Li Chen clenched his fists, his sea-blue essence exploding for a moment before he forced it to dim to avoid being drained. "We must destroy this thing, Brother Gu! If not, by the time we reach the center of the tomb, we will be nothing but helpless, empty shells."

"Destroying it by force will only trigger an explosion that will bury us here," Zhi Xuan answered with a terrifying calmness. "However, firewood that is too hot will eventually cause the furnace itself to crumble."

Zhi Xuan closed his eyes, letting the Heavenly Samsara Wheel within him spin in a rhythm opposite to the orb's heartbeat. He no longer held back his essence, yet he did not let it explode wildly like the Whirlwind Sect elders. Instead, he began to flow an incredibly pure dusky-grey essence, carrying the weight of the Ancient Heaven's blood.

"If he wants essence as a sacrifice, then I shall give him essence he cannot digest," Zhi Xuan hissed.

He stepped forward until he stood right before the jawbone altar. His hand rose, palm open toward the black-purple orb. A dense flow of grey energy began to stream out, but strangely, it was not sucked in violently. Instead, it seeped like a subtle poison into the spatial threads connected to the sphere.

Li Chen held his breath, watching as the orb began to change color. The once solid dark purple was now tainted by pulsing, irregular grey veins. "Brother Gu, what are you doing? You're feeding it voluntarily?"

"Not feeding it, Brother Li," Zhi Xuan replied without looking back. "I am simply giving this disgusting essence a new flavor."

The orb began to vibrate erratically, its sound shifting from a stable heartbeat to a deafening, static-like shriek. The dusky-grey veins injected by Zhi Xuan spread like thirsty parasitic roots, crawling through every thread of essence and beginning to reverse the flow of natural laws within the room.

"Brother Gu! Look!" Li Chen shouted, pointing at the ceiling of the bone hall. The giant pillars began to develop fine cracks.

The yellow light from the Spirit-Guiding Bell, previously faint in the distance, suddenly screamed—a chime full of panic. Master Taixuan, somewhere deep in this forest, must be feeling his control over the formation slipping away.

Zhi Xuan did not budge. His face was as cold as eternal jade, while his Heavenly Eyes glowed with a majestic golden light. "This dusky-grey essence carries the weight of the Samsara Wheel. This energy is not something a lowly demonic vessel can contain. If they want a sacrifice, then let this law of karma devour them from within."

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Suddenly, the black-purple orb swelled unnaturally. The moaning of souls turned into screams of horror as Zhi Xuan's essence began to forcibly purify the dense demonic aura within it. Two poles of law clashed: the acidity of the Ancient Demon Lands' aura against the cold authority of Zhi Xuan’s Samsara.

"Get out of here, Brother Li! This altar is about to collapse!" Zhi Xuan commanded.

Li Chen did not argue. With a snap of his jade fan, he shot backward toward the spatial rift. However, Zhi Xuan remained, his hand still pressed against the energy sphere. He felt a massive backlash trying to shatter his meridians, but his divine body, tempered by five hundred Heavenly Jades, stood firm like a reef in a storm.

KREK! BOOM!

The jawbone altar exploded. The orb shattered into thousands of energy fragments that sprayed in all directions. However, instead of exploding destructively, the fragments were sucked back into Zhi Xuan’s palm, which now formed a small black vortex. He inhaled the remaining energy—not to consume it as power, but to trace the essence threads leading directly to Master Taixuan.

"I found him," Zhi Xuan murmured.

A massive tremor shook the Whispering Bone Forest. The bone trees that once formed a confusing labyrinth began to collapse one by one as their energy supply was forcibly cut. The isolating grey mist thinned, revealing the now-ruined forest.

Zhi Xuan shot out of the collapsing hall, landing beside Li Chen, who was staring blankly at the destroyed formation. In the distance, they saw the yellow pillar of light from Taixuan’s bell flickering unstably, surrounded by four or five other streaks of light—their remaining comrades, who now appeared tattered and weak.

"You destroyed the furnace, Brother Gu," Li Chen whistled lowly, though his face still showed a hint of dread. "You just broke the Master's dinner plans."

"Not entirely," Zhi Xuan replied, his eyes fixed on the center of the forest where a magnificent structure of giant, rusted swords began to appear behind the fading mist. "He still has that bell. And as long as it chimes, he still holds control over the path to the Rusted Sword Tomb."

Zhi Xuan glided low across the bone debris, followed by a hyper-vigilant Li Chen. The air in the Ancient Demon Lands felt thinner yet sharper—like inhaling rusted metal shards.

A few hundred li away, the atmosphere seemed to twist. Master Taixuan’s bell still hovered, but its yellow glow was now tainted with blood-red streaks.

"Look," Li Chen pointed toward the base of the bell’s light pillar. "Ba Yan and the General... they’re still alive, but their minds look like candles flickering in a storm."

Zhi Xuan sharpened his gaze. General Tie Feng was kneeling with his bronze armor cracked, while Ba Yan leaned on a broken sword, gasping for air. Near them, Master Taixuan stood with a face no longer calm. His beard was stained with blood, and his once-wise gaze radiated a thirst for achievement bordering on madness.

"Don't get close," Zhi Xuan said, lowering his aura with a flick of his finger. "We need to find where the Rusted Sword Tomb is. Let the mad fox stay alive for now."

They hovered silently in the shadows of the fallen trees, blending into the white dust. Zhi Xuan manipulated the local spatial laws with extreme subtlety, creating a thin veil of dusky-grey essence that made them appear as part of the lingering mist.

In the distance, Master Taixuan performed rapid mudras, his hands trembling as he tried to quiet the increasingly wild bell. "Wake up! You are Soul Transformation experts! Do not let these residual illusions gnaw at your mental foundation!" he screamed, his voice cracking.

General Tie Feng raised his head slowly, his eyes bloodshot. "Taixuan... your bell... it is sucking my blood essence. This is no longer just a guide!"

"Quiet, Tie Feng!" Taixuan snapped, eyes glinting maliciously. "Without this bell, we would all be trapped forever in the Mire of Regret! A small sacrifice is a fair price to reach the Sword Tomb!"

Zhi Xuan observed closely as the nerve-like red threads from the bell extended, attaching themselves to the backs of the remaining cultivators. Taixuan was no longer hiding his intent; he was openly turning his comrades into livestock to sustain the artifact.

"Truly ruthless," Li Chen whispered. "He doesn't just want the Banner; he wants to use Soul Transformation lives as a final blood offering to open the tomb’s seal."

"Let him lead," Zhi Xuan replied emotionlessly. "The Rusted Sword Tomb has a guardian that Taixuan cannot breach alone. He needs that 'firewood' to open the door, and I need him to show the exact location of the tomb's core vortex."

Suddenly, the earth beneath Taixuan’s group shook. From the dust at the horizon, a terrifying structure emerged. Millions of ancient, rusted, and broken swords were stabbed into a vast, sloping hill, forming a monument of death reaching toward the coppery-red sky. The Sword Intent radiating from that place was sharp enough to shred the Divine Sense of anyone trying to scan it.

"There it is... the Rusted Sword Tomb," Taixuan murmured with a suppressed laugh.

In the center of the sword field lay a massive rift resembling an open abyss, emitting a cold air carrying the scent of blood from thousands of years ago. There, according to legend, the Heavenly Demon Calamity Banner was planted, absorbing the hatred of every fallen blade.

Zhi Xuan felt the Heavenly Sword within him vibrate—not out of fear, but in resonance with the millions of dead Sword Intents there. He knew this was where fate would be decided.

Master Taixuan’s staggering yet ambitious steps led the broken group toward the base of the sword hill. Every chime of the bell now sounded like the scream of twisted metal. The air around the tomb vibrated; Sword Intents dead for millennia rose again as sharp gusts capable of tearing the skin of Soul Transformation cultivators.

"Enter! Enter the rift!" Taixuan roared, forcing the reeling Tie Feng and Ba Yan forward.

Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes. Under the Heavenly Eyes, he saw the rift was not just an entrance, but a terrifying vortex of Sword Karma. Thousands of bloodthirsty sword spirits hovered around the abyss, forming an invisible storm of blades.

"Brother Gu, look at the ground beneath their feet," Li Chen whispered in horror.

The grey earth had turned deep red—not from fresh blood, but from ancient rust mixed with primordial Yin essence. Every time the bell rang, the ground seemed to suck their weight, pulling them toward the abyss.

"Taixuan is baiting the anger of those sword spirits using their remaining lives," Zhi Xuan murmured. He stepped forward subtly, his body blending with the rust-filled air. "He's using them as spiritual lightning rods so he can slip into the tomb's core."

Suddenly, from within the yawning rift, a heavy growl echoed—a sound produced by the friction of thousands of metal blades. An entity began to crawl out. It had no definite form; it was a mass of hundreds of broken swords held together by threads of black hatred, forming the shape of a giant headless knight wielding a massive, crumbling blade that radiated an aura of ruin.

"Destroy it!" Master Taixuan yelled, throwing the Spirit-Guiding Bell forward. The bell exploded in a blinding yellow-red light, forcing General Tie Feng and Ba Yan to release their remaining energy to support the attack.

DUAAAMMM—!

The wave of energy hit the Sword Knight. The ground shook, triggering an avalanche of rusted swords. Amidst the chaos, Master Taixuan laughed madly, his body shooting straight past the distracted guardian into the deepest darkness of the tomb's abyss.

Zhi Xuan watched Taixuan’s departure with eyes as deep as an ancient well. "That fox has walked into a trap of his own making," he hissed. He no longer hid his aura; dusky-grey essence exploded from his pores, shattering the spatial veil.

"Brother Li, get ready. This stage is already too crowded with corpses," Zhi Xuan said as he shot forward, his body cleaving through the sword-filled air like lightning tearing through old cloth.

In front of him, the headless Sword Knight roared in spatial silence. Despite the bell’s explosion, the entity grew even more ferocious. It swung its giant blade, creating a horizontal slash carrying the Law of Decay. The deep red earth beneath it split, releasing rust vapors that could rot meridians instantly.

General Tie Feng, at the limit of his mental endurance, could only stare at approaching death with empty eyes. But before the crumbling blade could separate his head from his body, a black-and-white shadow appeared before him.

"Stand behind me, General. You are not yet permitted to become ash here," Zhi Xuan’s voice was calm, yet it carried an undeniable authority.