Chapter 79 – Chief of the Dharma Transmission Hall

As the vortex of clouds continued to rotate, it seemed to generate a strange, inexplicable suction.

All the clouds in the sky above the entire Layered Cloud Sea were slowly drawn in, absorbed into the swirling mass.

The scale grew ever more vast, consuming the entire field of vision. Merely raising one’s head to look at it brought a sensation of suffocation.

And the frequency of the blue flashes at the center of the vortex quickened in tandem.

Finally, when everything reached a critical threshold —

At the center of the vortex, blue light erupted violently.

It formed a ring of blue light that expanded outward from the heart of the vortex in an unceasing wave.

The ring expanded at tremendous speed.

When those present first glimpsed it, it was still contained within the vortex of clouds.

In the blink of an eye, it had swept across every cultivator present.

Their faces had no time to form expressions of shock. The cultivators swept by the blue light faded like phantoms and slowly vanished from the spot.

The blue light continued outward.

Had one been able to look down from ten thousand meters above, they would have seen that ring of blue light spread, in an extremely short span of time, from the central sea region outward across the entire Layered Cloud Sea — only halting when it reached the very edges of those waters.

Then —

It suddenly contracted back.

Moving at several times the speed of its expansion, it collapsed back to its point of origin.

In an instant, the blue light became incomparably resplendent.

The thunderstorm within the vortex of clouds stilled.

Those cumulus clouds, thousands of meters thick and stretching tens of thousands of li, seemed to be squeezed and kneaded by some invisible colossal hand.

At the same time, down below in the Layered Cloud Sea —

Countless blue points of light emerged from the surface of the waters in every direction, drifting upward and converging.

They flew swiftly toward the cloud layer above.

Gradually, those thick cumulus clouds, through their ceaseless and silent movement, took the shape of a series of continuous, interconnected buildings.

Then, as the blue points of light drifting up from below — suffused with a hazy, misty vapor — attached themselves to the clouds,

the cloud layer slowly turned azure blue, transparent.

The phenomenon lasted a full quarter of an hour.

At last, a massive celestial palace — formed from the convergence of cloud and water, hovering between the real and the illusory, its entire body azure blue and translucent — appeared above the Layered Cloud Sea.

The Cloud-Water Celestial Palace, sealed for thousands of years, had reappeared in the world!

……

“The war at the front is fierce, and every great sect has suffered heavy losses. Our Cloud-Water Celestial Palace, as the leader of the sects of the Layered Cloud Sea, has suffered more than most.”

“Who knows how many fellow disciples have died on the battlefield.”

“The Sect Master Uncle left orders before departing that I go out and recruit disciples. I cannot fail his charge.”

“Fortunately, this trip has yielded a good harvest.”

Li Fan gradually regained consciousness.

He looked around. He found himself on a plaza where over a hundred cultivators lay sprawled in every direction.

However, every single cultivator’s clothing had changed — they now wore garments of alternating blue and white, upon which the characters for “cloud” and “water” could be dimly made out.

Before everyone, a white-robed young man with an upright bearing, striking brows, and sword-like eyes was murmuring to himself.

The white-robed young man was quite handsome, yet something in his expression faintly betrayed a rakish, devil-may-care air.

Li Fan surveyed the scene and, drawing on the knowledge from his previous life, understood that he had successfully entered the interior of the Cloud-Water Celestial Palace.

He could not act rashly for the time being. He needed to wait quietly for the “plot” to begin.

So he suppressed his aura and kept still.

Gradually, the cultivators on the plaza began to stir awake one by one.

Once they took in their situation, several among them grew agitated.

“What is going on? Where is this place? I remember we were right beside that vortex of clouds, weren’t we?”

“And these clothes — what happened to our clothes?”

They noticed that only the white-robed young man standing before them was dressed differently from everyone else.

Someone spoke up at once: “Hey! You there, the man in white — was it you who brought us here? Who are you? What is your purpose?”

Only then did the white-robed young man rouse himself from his murmuring.

He looked at the crowd of cultivators before him, and a delighted smile spread across his face. “Ah, you’ve finally woken up. Now then — keep quiet. I have some important points to explain to you…”

He had not even finished speaking before he was impatiently cut off.

“Stop rambling and just tell us — where is this place!”

A faint smile curved the corner of the white-robed young man’s mouth, and he shook his head repeatedly. “This batch of newcomers doesn’t seem very obedient at all.”

No one saw him make any particular movement. He merely glanced sideways.

A flash of blue light passed, and the head of the one who had just spoken tumbled to the ground.

The plaza, which had been somewhat noisy, fell utterly silent in an instant.

Some of the cultivators present showed expressions of terror; others wore looks of sudden realization.

The white-robed young man surveyed the crowd with satisfaction as they fell quiet, then spoke in an unhurried manner: “My name is Qin Tang. I am the Chief of the Dharma Transmission Hall of the Cloud-Water Celestial Palace. You will address me as Senior Brother Qin.”

“You are all outer gate disciples recruited during my time away. Over the next several months, you need only pass my several trials to formally join our Cloud-Water Celestial Palace.”

“Of course, there are several points you must commit to memory.”

“The first is this: you must show sufficient respect to me, Senior Brother Qin. Whatever I say, you do. As for the consequences of defiance — well, you’ve already seen them.”

“The second point…”

……

Qin Tang spoke on and on.

The cultivators below were outwardly silent, but in truth had long since begun conversing with one another through their divine senses.

“Does any fellow Daoist know what is going on here?”

“This is the bizarre! This Cloud-Water Celestial Palace must be a sect ruin shrouded in the bizarre.”

“Then is Qin Tang a real person or something else?”

“Certainly not a living person! Didn’t you notice there isn’t a single trace of aura on him?”

“Everyone, do not panic. The bizarre has its own rules. As long as we do what this Qin Tang says, there should be no immediate danger.”

……

Li Fan cast an unobtrusive glance in the direction of Si Kongyi and Baili Chen.

Both of their expressions were perfectly composed, as though they had long known they would encounter the bizarre.

Or perhaps — even faced with the bizarre itself, these two already had everything well in hand?

Li Fan looked again toward Qin Tang, who stood clad in white.

Based on the experience of those who had explored the Cloud-Water Celestial Palace in his previous life, this Qin Tang was the very first trial one encountered upon entering the palace.

He was not a living person — he was an existence akin to the bizarre.

The words he spoke were the rules of the bizarre.

To survive, one had to abide by them.

And only by passing his trials could one earn the right to explore the various parts of the Cloud-Water Celestial Palace.

……

Qin Tang finally finished speaking.

He clapped his hands together. “It’s getting late today. I’ll take you all to rest first. Tomorrow morning, we begin the trials in earnest.”

“Follow me.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the plaza.

The vast majority of the cultivators — including Si Kongyi and Baili Chen — obediently fell in behind the white-robed Qin Tang.

Li Fan followed closely as well.

Only a very small number of individuals exchanged glances with one another and did not follow the crowd.

Instead, they shot off in the opposite direction, attempting to flee.

Qin Tang seemed entirely unaware of their movements and showed not the slightest reaction.

These people, seeing their escape within reach, flew faster and faster.

What they failed to notice was that the farther they flew from Qin Tang, the more threads of blue light seeped out from within their bodies.

In the end, after flying a certain distance,

every single one of them turned into a desiccated corpse and crashed heavily to the ground.