The sensation of "Fate Swapping" was not like a transition; it was like being hollowed out by a rusted hook and filled with molten lead.
As Hua Sui's fingers sank into his own chest, the grey Inverse Qi surged out, colliding with the golden threads of the Saint Ancestor's Blood Covenant. In the physical world, a blinding pillar of light erupted from the pair, half-grey and half-gold, tearing through the mist of the Gods' Graveyard.
4402 collapsed, the white-gold flames in her eyes flickering out as the heavy, divine burden was forcibly ripped from her soul. But for Hua Sui, the world simply ceased to exist.
He was no longer standing on the grey wasteland. He was standing in a vast, silent sea of golden mercury.
This was his own Sea of Consciousness, now invaded and occupied by the Saint Ancestor's projection. Far above the golden waves, a colossal face manifested in the clouds—not a face of flesh, but one made of swirling nebulae and ancient laws.
"9527," the Ancestor's voice was no longer a distant echo. It was the weight of a thousand suns pressing against Hua Sui's spirit. "You are the most fascinating 'error' I have ever cultivated. To swap your fate for a broken tool... you truly are a specimen of pure, unadulterated madness."
Hua Sui stood on the surface of the golden sea. His spiritual form was tattered, his silver hair turned to a dull leaden grey. But his back remained straight, a solitary iron spike in a world of fluid gold.
"A broken tool?" Hua Sui spat, and where his spit hit the golden mercury, a patch of grey rot began to spread. "She has a name. And I am not your specimen. I am the man who is going to bury you."
"Bury me?" The Ancestor's laugh caused the golden sea to erupt in tsunamis. "I am the Firmament. I am the very breath that allows you to think these rebellious thoughts. You used 'Zero Logic' to negate my avatars, but here, in the realm of pure thought, there is no logic to negate. There is only Will."
A massive golden hand descended from the clouds, intending to crush Hua Sui's spiritual core and rewrite his very identity.
Hua Sui closed his eyes. He didn't reach for the God-Burying Tablet or the Life-Severing Sword. Those were external manifestations. Here, he reached for the only thing the Saint Ancestor couldn't simulate: The Memory of Pain.
"You talk about Will," Hua Sui whispered, his voice vibrating with a frequency that made the golden sea shudder. "But you have never been hungry. You have never been cold. You have never felt the weight of a whip or the sting of the smelting furnace. Your 'Will' is a silver spoon. Mine... mine was forged in the dark."
"Inverse Will: The Pillar of Despair!"
The grey rot on the golden sea didn't just spread; it crystallized.
From the depths of Hua Sui's consciousness, thousands of spectral figures began to rise. They were the shadows of the other "Specimens"—the ones who had died in the pits, the ones who had been ground into pills. They didn't speak. They simply added their weight to Hua Sui's form.
The golden hand stopped inches from Hua Sui's head, unable to descend further. It was as if it had struck an invisible mountain of lead.
"What... is this?" The Ancestor's voice wavered. "This is not cultivation. This is not the Dao!"
"This is the Audit," Hua Sui roared, his silver-grey hair erupting into a crown of jagged, dark energy. "And your account is overdrawn!"
The Gods' Graveyard. Physical World.
The golden light around Hua Sui was beginning to crack. 4402 scrambled to her feet, gasping for air, her eyes widening as she saw Hua Sui's body hovering in the air, his skin turning a translucent, obsidian black.
The Saint Ancestor's projection was struggling. The golden totem on Hua Sui's back was being slowly crushed by the grey Inverse Qi, turning into golden dust that blew away in the wind.
But at that moment, the ground beneath the "Tomb of the Remnant Spirit" burst open.
A skeletal hand, still clad in the remnants of divine war-armor, reached out and grabbed Hua Sui's ankle. The War God he had just "buried" was being forcibly reanimated by the Saint Ancestor's overflow of power.
"If I cannot have your mind," the Ancestor's voice screamed from the sky, "I will have your corpse!"
The reanimated War God stood up, a headless titan of bone and fury, and raised a fist the size of a house.
"Hua Sui!" 4402 screamed, lunging for the fallen Life-Severing Sword.
Suddenly, a wine gourd flew through the air, trailing a stream of fragrant, emerald liquid. The liquid hit the War God's skeletal arm and instantly ignited into a cool, green flame that smelled of spring rain.
Moo—
The low, resonant cry of a green ox vibrated through the mist.
"Now, now," the old sweeper's voice drifted through the carnage, lazy as a summer afternoon. "It's bad form to interrupt an undertaker at work. Especially when he's just getting to the good part."
The old man sat backward on his ox, uncorking another bottle of wine. He didn't look at the titan or the swirling gold in the sky. He looked only at Hua Sui.
"Kid, don't just fight him," the old man called out. "If you want to bury a God, you have to give him a Tomb. Use the tablet! The God-Burying Tablet isn't a weapon—it's a Contract!"
In the Sea of Consciousness, Hua Sui heard the old man's voice. It was like a bell ringing in a foggy harbor.
He looked at the golden nebula face of the Ancestor. He realized his mistake. He had been trying to kill the Ancestor's thought. But you cannot kill a thought. You can only Contain it.
Hua Sui's spiritual form reached out and grabbed the golden nebula.
"Ancestor," Hua Sui said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "I hope you like small spaces."
"Undertaker's Law: The Final Seal!"
The God-Burying Tablet in the physical world suddenly expanded, turning into a monolithic tower of black stone. It wasn't sucking in the Ancestor's power; it was inviting it in.
The golden nebula was sucked into the tablet. The golden sea in Hua Sui's mind drained away, replaced by the familiar, quiet darkness of his own soul.
The Saint Ancestor let out one final, muffled roar as his projection was slammed into the black wood of the tablet. A new line of vermillion text appeared beneath "The Undertaker":
"First Inmate: The Shadow of the Saint."
Hua Sui fell from the sky, hitting the grey sand with a heavy thud. The black-furred demonic hand, the golden hands, and the reanimated War God all dissolved into ash as their source of power was severed.
The old man on the ox trotted up to him, looking down with a toothless grin.
"Not bad, kid. You just put a piece of the Heavens in jail. But you know what they say..." The old man took a long swig of wine. "A jail only works as long as the jailer is stronger than the bars. And you? You look like you're about to fall apart."
Hua Sui looked up, his breathing ragged. He saw 4402 running toward him, her face full of a humanity he hadn't seen before. And then he looked at the God-Burying Tablet, which was now vibrating with a rhythmic, angry thumping from the inside.
"The Sect Leader..." Hua Sui coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Where is he?"
The old man's smile faded. He pointed his wine gourd toward the very center of the Gods' Graveyard, where the stars in the sky were so thick they formed a solid ceiling of white light.
"He's at the Headstone," the old man said. "But he's not the Sect Leader anymore. He's been promoted. He's the Chief Mourner now."