Suddenly, the tea house doors burst open with a violent crash. A sharp gust of night wind rushed into the room, carrying the scent of sandalwood and a cold sword aura. Three cultivators dressed in pristine white robes with silver cloud embroidery on their collars stepped inside. The symbol of the Heaven Sword Faction.

  Their presence instantly froze the laughter and whispers within the shop. The owner, a hunched old man, hurried forward trembling. "Sirs of the Great Sect... how may I assist you?"

  One of them, a youth with an arrogant face and a jade sword hanging from his waist, swept his gaze across the room. His eyes stopped precisely at the dark corner where Zhi Xuan sat.

  "We are looking for someone named Gu Fengyan," the youth’s voice was clear but contained enough spiritual pressure to make the low-level cultivators in the room gasp for air. "General Tie Feng and Senior Ba Yan have stated that Gu Fengyan played a role in the disappearance of Master Taixuan. Has anyone seen him?"

  Zhi Xuan did not look up immediately. His fingers remained curled around the cracked porcelain cup, feeling the fading warmth of the mountain snow tea. Beneath his Ghost Hood, his eyes flickered for a moment—not out of fear, but out of disgust at how quickly news traveled. It seemed Tie Feng and Ba Yan preferred to seek shelter under the wing of a great faction rather than keep their secrets.

  "Gu Fengyan?" whispered one of the patrons, his face paling. "Isn't that the name of the rogue cultivator rumored to have entered the expedition along with Young Master Li Chen?"

  The arrogant youth from the Heaven Sword Faction stepped forward, his clean boots creating heavy thuds on the grimy wooden floor. His sharp sword aura began to crawl, slicing through the tobacco smoke in the air. He stopped right in front of Zhi Xuan’s table, his piercing eyes trying to penetrate the mist shrouding the figure in black-and-white robes.

  "You," the youth spoke commandingly. "Raise your head. In this city, not many dare to sit in the darkness while concealing their face with such a dense hiding technique."

  Zhi Xuan set his cup down slowly. The small "TAK" as the porcelain touched the wooden table sounded like an explosion in the midst of the harrowing silence. He slowly raised his head, letting the shadow of the Ghost Hood part slightly, revealing a pair of sapphire eyes as deep as an ancient ocean.

  "I am merely one who happened to come for a bit of peace; I do not understand what these comrades are speaking of," Zhi Xuan said, his voice low and polite as he offered a thin smile from behind his hood.

  "Peace?" The Heaven Sword youth snorted, his cold laughter tearing through the silence of the shop. "Under the sky of the southern region, which is shaking from the fall of a Soul Transformation Master, you speak of peace? That is a luxury ill-suited for a suspicious wanderer like yourself."

  He leaned in, letting the sword intent from his jade blade pressure Zhi Xuan’s wooden table until fine cracks began to spread. "Tie Feng described Gu Fengyan as a youth carrying the aura of death and an unknown sword. You... even though you try to hide your cultivation, the scent of demonic air from the Ancient Demon Land still clings faintly to your robes."

  Zhi Xuan merely looked at the cracks on the table with a flat gaze. "The scent of demonic air? If one has just escaped from a collapsing grave pit, it is only natural for the smell of tomb soil to be carried into the city. Has the Heaven Sword Faction now become the guardian of every speck of dust on a traveler’s clothes?"

  "Insolent!" barked one of the youth’s companions, a sour-faced woman who immediately drew half her blade. "You dare speak as if you are an equal to the core disciples of a Great Sect? If you are not Gu Fengyan, then remove that Ghost Hood and let us inspect your Sea of Consciousness!"

  At that demand, the cold glint in Zhi Xuan’s eyes could no longer be hidden. Inspecting the Sea of Consciousness was the ultimate insult to a cultivator—an act equivalent to stripping the soul bare and surrendering every secret of life and death to a stranger.

  "Inspect my Sea of Consciousness?" Zhi Xuan stood up slowly. Though his movement seemed leisurely, every inch of his body’s displacement created a heavy air pressure, causing the lanterns in the shop to swing wildly. "Even Master Taixuan did not have the gall to say such a thing to me while he still breathed."

  The atmosphere in the shop turned deathly cold. Zhi Xuan’s words were no longer a defense, but an implicit confession carrying the aura of death. The arrogant youth recoiled a step, his hand instinctively clutching the hilt of his jade sword.

  "So... you truly are him," the youth hissed, his face shifting between fear and excitement at having found a great prize. "Gu Fengyan! You are accused of treason and causing the death of Master Taixuan! Come with us to the headquarters to be judged, or we shall drag your corpse!"

  Zhi Xuan took a long breath, one that carried a plume of cold mist from his divine body. "Justice is a word often misused by those who hold a sword but possess no heart. You were sent here not to seek justice, but to find a scapegoat for your faction's embarrassing failure."

  Without warning, the Heaven Sword youth drew his sword. A jade-green light exploded, forming a vertical slash aimed at splitting both the table and Zhi Xuan in two. "Flowing Cloud Sword Technique!"

  CRAAK!

  The wooden floor of the shop shattered, but the jade sword touched nothing but a fading shadow. Zhi Xuan had disappeared, merging with the darkness of the corner using the new understanding he had gained from Ruo Xianxue.

  "Where is he?!" the woman screamed, her eyes wildly searching for Zhi Xuan.

  "Searching for a shadow in the middle of the night is a foolish act," Zhi Xuan’s voice appeared right behind the arrogant youth’s ear.

  The youth spun around in a panic, but before he could swing his sword again, a hand wrapped in the robe’s sleeve had gripped his throat. The pressure from that hand not only locked his physical frame but also froze the flow of spiritual essence throughout his meridians.

  "Ugh... y-you..." the youth choked, his eyes bulging as he felt an extraordinary cold seep into his soul.

  Zhi Xuan stared at the other two cultivators with a gaze capable of freezing blood. "I have just washed my hands in the Spring of Life. I do not wish to soil them again with the blood of disciples who do not yet understand the meaning of true Sword Intent."

  Zhi Xuan released his grip, but he delivered a jolt of gray energy that sent the three Heaven Sword disciples flying out the door, rolling across the cobbled streets of the busy Dragon Lotus City.

  The people at the night market gasped, seeing disciples of a great sect humiliated so utterly. Zhi Xuan stepped out of the shop calmly, his black-and-white robes fluttering like the wings of a predator under the moonlight.

  "Go back and tell your elders," Zhi Xuan spoke, his voice booming through a mental transmission heard only by those three disciples. "If the Heaven Sword Faction wishes to demand accountability, send someone who understands the laws of heaven, not children just learning to hold iron. The name Gu Fengyan will not run, but the price will not be cheap."

  He did not wait for an answer. With a single step that seemed to leap atop the shadows of the lanterns, Zhi Xuan’s figure faded and vanished toward the rooftops of the city, leaving behind chaos and a deep sense of dread for anyone who witnessed it.

  Within his mind, Ruo Xianxue chuckled softly. "You are too soft, Zhi Xuan. If it were me, their heads would already be decorating the posts of that tea house."

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Killing them would only invite larger flies too soon," Zhi Xuan replied while darting through the darkness. "I need time to understand this Heaven-Demon Calamity Banner, and perhaps give it a new name."

  Zhi Xuan appeared in the air, crossing hundreds of li in a few breaths, looking down at Dragon Lotus City stretching beneath him. He stopped in the air upon reaching a rocky hill. With a subtle wave of his hand, he struck his palm forward, hollowing out the boulders before him and triggering a muffled thud suppressed by his aura.

  Zhi Xuan landed lightly before the stone alcove he had just created. Fine dust from the stone fragments flew about but vanished the moment they touched the protective aura of his divine body. This place was secluded enough, far from the reach of the senses of cultivators in Dragon Lotus City—a perfect place to meditate and tame the treasure he had snatched from the hands of death.

  He sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, letting the night darkness envelop him. With a wave of his hand, he brought out the banner, which had now changed its appearance. Its black wooden pole looked dull, but the gray silk fabric vibrated slightly, emitting a low hum carrying the frequency of thousands of souls trapped within.

  "You wish to give it a new name?" Ruo Xianxue’s voice manifested beside him, her spiritual form appearing denser under the moonlight. "An object born of hatred and betrayal, yet now washed in the essence of life. It is no longer entirely demonic, yet not holy either."

  Zhi Xuan stared at the banner intently. He touched his fingers to the ragged gray cloth. Instantly, flashes of memory from thousands of ancient warriors who fell at the Sword Grave rushed into his mind—pain, anger, and betrayed devotion.

  "It is a collection of remnants of wills that refuse to be extinguished," Zhi Xuan murmured, his eyes glowing gold as the Heavenly Samsara Wheel spun. "If it once brought calamity to the living, then now it shall be a witness for those who are gone. From this day forth, you are no longer the Heaven-Demon Calamity Banner."

  Zhi Xuan flowed his twilight-gray essence into it, mixing it with his newly learned understanding of the Law of Darkness. The gray cloth began to glow, silver patterns crawling along its seams, forming ancient runes that looked like rivers flowing under the moon.

  "The Ruthless Heavenly Banner," Zhi Xuan said coldly, like dipping eternal ink onto an ancient painting. "Every warrior who fell, every existence that is now only a lingering will. Reincarnation never came, and the Heavenly Dao is so ruthless."

  The moment the name was spoken, the Ruthless Heavenly Banner vibrated violently. The sky above the hill, which was previously calm, suddenly filled with swirling black clouds, forming a giant vortex that seemed to want to swallow the moon. Gray lightning flickered within the clouds, yet it produced no thunder—only a crushing silence, a natural phenomenon signaling the birth of something that defied the heavenly order.

  The gray cloth on the banner began to lengthen and widen, swallowing the moonlight and turning it into a cold silver radiance. Shadowy figures began to manifest on the surface of the cloth; thousands of warriors in shattered armor, faceless swordsmen, and entities that were merely clumps of pure killing intent.

  "Good enough," Zhi Xuan muttered, turning his gaze for a moment from the banner hovering before him. "Then, it is time to uncover the secrets of the Ancient Nirvana Puppet scroll."

  Zhi Xuan tapped his waist, bringing out a scroll made of beast hide that floated before him. The copy of the Ancient Nirvana Puppet. This object had been in his hands for a long time, a mysterious legacy from the past, but only now—after reaching the Soul Transformation realm—did he feel he possessed the qualifications to unveil its deepest layers.

  As the scroll unfurled, an aroma of sandalwood mixed with the scent of ancient blood-rust wafted out. The characters within were not written in ink but carved with an incredibly sharp Mental Intent, until every letter seemed ready to jump out and tear the reader’s mind apart.

  "Nirvana..." Zhi Xuan hissed, his sapphire eyes scanning the lines of sentences crawling over the old hide. "Not as a form of death, but as a process of 'living death.' A puppet that possesses only will, without a soul."

  Zhi Xuan focused his entire consciousness on the characters that began to glow reddish. He realized that this Ancient Nirvana Puppet technique was not merely the art of forging inanimate objects into servants, but a forbidden method to cheat death. Within the complex lines of instructions, it was explained that a perfect puppet is a body that has crossed the gates of death, leaving behind only the frame and a spun will.

  "As I once thought, this is almost bordering on Necromancy," Zhi Xuan muttered. "This technique demands the practitioner to plant a seed of consciousness into a shattered body, yet let that body remain in a state of Nirvana—empty, without desire, yet possessing a combat instinct that transcends physical limits."

  Zhi Xuan fell silent, letting the night wind sweep over his face as he contemplated the essence of the scroll. Under the subtle guidance of Ruo Xianxue, his perspective on life and death had shifted. If the Law of Darkness taught him about the shadow predating the light, then this Ancient Nirvana Puppet was the body that refused to truly vanish—an existence perched on the threshold between being and non-being.

  "Master Taixuan wanted to use that Banner to command spirits," Zhi Xuan thought, his fingers moving along the grooves of the ancient characters. "But he was a fool. He tried to control them with hatred, when the key is to give them Nirvana—a Will."

  He stared at the Ruthless Heavenly Banner still hovering low. The shadows of warriors on its gray cloth seemed to struggle in silence. Suddenly, a mad and daring idea emerged in Zhi Xuan’s mind. He would combine the Ancient Nirvana Puppet technique with the essence of the Ruthless Heavenly Banner. He would not just have an army of spirits, but an army of puppets with bodies made of condensed will.

  "Great Saint, do you think it is possible to manifest these wills into actual bodies using the Nirvana method?" Zhi Xuan asked in his Sea of Consciousness.

  Ruo Xianxue, sitting on a branch of the Devil Tree of Life, looked up from her slender fingernails. "You wish to create an undead army from the corpses you keep in your Divine Cauldron? Zhi Xuan, you truly do not fear heavenly retribution. However, the Nirvana method does indeed allow for such a thing. You only need one primary vessel as the core—a Puppet King who will act as the anchor for the others."

  "Heavenly Retribution?" Zhi Xuan hissed with a bit of amusement, exhaling softly and smiling thinly. "For hundreds of years, my hands have been stained with blood, reaching Soul Transformation accompanied by three Ancient races within me. This sort of thing is not an atrocity. It is survival."

  Zhi Xuan moved his arm, and instantly, his Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron manifested in the air. He looked briefly and saw Xiao Die and Ao Sheng cultivating peacefully under the radiance of the Four Seasons Law and Xuan-Huang energy. "You two are certainly comfortable cultivating in there."

  With a jolt of his mind, Zhi Xuan summoned the piles of bodies he had long stored within the Cauldron's storage space. Dozens of cultivator corpses he had gathered from the Devil Fire Abyss—bodies of disciples and elders from the Sky Lotus Sect and other foreign cultivators—flew out, frozen in the air under the spiritual pull of the bronze cauldron.

  "Senior Yan Xu, Senior Nian Qin," Zhi Xuan murmured, sighing as he remembered the faces of those two Sky Lotus Sect elders. "Zhi does not violate anything of yours; these bodies of disciples and elders are merely frames that have lost their souls."

  Zhi Xuan’s eyes fixed on the most intact body, that of a Soul Transformation expert. "This will be the primary vessel. A vessel that will hold the will of the Puppet King."

  "However," Zhi Xuan continued, frowning as the images of the Ancient Nirvana Puppet technique flickered in his Sea of Consciousness. "The Night Petal Root Fruit... every puppet requires that fruit. Where am I to find it?"

  Zhi Xuan waved his hand, and immediately the bodies were stored back into the Divine Cauldron, which floated back into his Sea of Consciousness along with the Ruthless Heavenly Banner returning to his storage bag. He rose from his cross-legged position and looked out through the crack; dawn was showing its signs.

  "This Ancient Nirvana Puppet technique was likely created by a very powerful cultivator," Zhi Xuan muttered with a hint of annoyance. "However—they always write about how to defy the heavens, but rarely care whether the materials can actually be found in the mortal world."

  "Perhaps I should seek a herbal shop in this Dragon Lotus City," Zhi Xuan remarked, pulling the Ghost Hood back over his head and darting out. "Hopefully, those 'large flies' do not disturb the peace of this beautiful morning."

  Zhi Xuan darted like a shadow cutting through the dawn mist. Dragon Lotus City below began to stir; smoke from the kitchens of the mortal inhabitants rose, mixing with the scent of dew wetting the clay tiles. But to Zhi Xuan, this mortal beauty was merely a thin curtain covering the tension rising between the cultivation factions.

  He landed in a narrow, dark alley, far from the main gate now heavily guarded by disciples in white uniforms with silver cloud patterns. His hunch was correct; the Heaven Sword Faction would not let last night’s humiliation pass easily.

  They had locked down the city, searching for the figure in black-and-white robes who had overturned their pride. Zhi Xuan adjusted his robes, ensuring the Ghost Hood suppressed his aura until he appeared as no more than a poor scholar. He walked down the main street, his sharp eyes scanning the signboards of the shops lining the commercial district.

  "Pavilion of a Hundred Roots... Longevity Medicine Shop... no, not these," he muttered softly. His steps stopped in front of an old building that appeared dull and squeezed between two magnificent jewelry stores.

  The shop had no grand signboard, only a strip of black cloth with faded embroidered characters. Yet, Zhi Xuan’s inner senses caught something different—a deep, bitter scent of earth, a scent that only comes from plants growing in places never touched by sunlight.

  Kring—

  The sound of a small bell greeted his arrival as he pushed the heavy wooden door. Inside, the light was minimal. High wooden shelves filled with small drawers covered the walls, and a powerful aroma of medicinal plants stung the nose.