Gate of God

Fang Zhengzhi couldn’t be sure if Yan Qianli and Qian Ye were in a relationship. However, the mountains and waterfalls looked extremely similar to the ones in Yan Xiu’s Mountain River Illustration.

“Black hair dyed white, I wait silently and wholeheartedly for you to paint!”

These two sentences described a beautiful and tragic love story that took place in a chaotic era, which Fang Zhengzhi still remembered vividly.

Why did the Mountain River Illustration, which was painted by a Yan family’s ancestor with painstaking effort, appear at this place?

Fang Zhengzhi couldn’t wrap his head about this. However, it was meaningless to think about the Mountain River Illustration at this instance, because the most important task was figuring out how to get out of this place.

“Qian Ye, I am ordering you to show yourself now!” Ping Yang couldn’t help cursing when she failed to find Qian Ye after looking all around.

That didn’t seem to work at all.

The sceneries didn’t change because of Ping Yang’s cursing. Not even a single leaf had fallen from the trees either.

Ping Yang was pissed off, and she struck at the mountains with Blazing Qilin Spear.

Rumble!

The mountains collapsed, and the trees fell.

Since Ping Yang couldn’t find Qian Ye, she was working very hard to demolish the mountains and trees as a responsible princess coolie.

Fang Zhengzhi didn’t stop her, because he could see the rocks turning into dust instead of light spots when they were destroyed.

The realness wasn’t something that an illusion was capable of.

“It isn’t an illusion? If it isn’t an illusion… Does that mean all of these are real? But that isn’t scientifically possible!” Fang Zhengzhi shook his head at the oddity of this occurrence. After all, he was supposed to be fighting Qian Ye.

Why did this happen?

Was this Qian Ye’s doing?

Fang Zhengzhi suddenly recalled that Qian Ye crushed one of the golden orbs in her hand while he was charging towards her.

Golden orb?!

“That’s it!”

Fang Zhengzhi remembered seeing an image in the golden orb, but he couldn’t see it clearly because it was so small.

However, after thinking back… He was almost certain that the image in the golden orb was the Mountain River Illustration that he was looking at!

Did Fang Zhengzhi and Ping Yang enter the space within the Mountain River Illustration after Qian Ye crushed the golden orb which contained the illustration?

Fang Zhengzhi believed that this was a sensible explanation.

In that case, the two golden orbs in Qian Ye’s hand must be some sort of sealing technique.

That led to the question – How could they get out?

While Fang Zhengzhi was engrossed in his thoughts, he heard a loud rumble coming from a huge mountain, which Ping Yang’s destruction capacity was clearly insufficient of producing.

Rumble!

An enormous fire appeared at the same time as the extremely loud rumble.

Fang Zhengzhi looked towards the fire and quickly discovered countless humongous rocks were raining down from the mountains.

Each of those rocks was the size of almost three to four men combined. Furthermore, there appeared to be thousands of them.

Moreover, many thorny vines appeared on the ground. They started wrapping around Ping Yang’s feet as if they were alive.

Wait a minute!

Something was wrong. This wasn’t just a simple seal!

Fang Zhengzhi soon realized that he was wrong, because the rocks and thorny vines were definitely abnormal.

When Ping Yang destroyed those falling rocks with Blazing Qilin Spear, the broken shards flew towards her like sharp razor blades.

“This is a Sage’s attack!” Fang Zhengzhi finally realized that the Mountain River Illustration wasn’t just a simple seal. It was an attack that contained multiple techniques.

Rumble!

Just as Fang Zhengzhi wanted to rescue Ping Yang, he felt something tying his legs. When he looked down, he discovered a gigantic “water dragon” that flew out of the lake.

Furthermore, the lake water started spinning rapidly and turned into a huge vortex. The water dragon was pulling Fang Zhengzhi into the vortex with a tremendous suction force.

“Splitting water!” Fang Zhengzhi slashed the water dragon into two.

He remembered an ancient saying at this moment: Splitting water is futile.

The move that he had just pulled off was the legendary move called “Splitting Water with One Sword”. Of course, the scientific explanation behind this move was very simple. It was coldness.

When his sword went through the water dragon, the coldness froze the water that came into contact with the blade. Hence, it created the delusion that the water was split into two.

It was a cool move!

Fang Zhengzhi subconsciously turned towards Ping Yang after he split the water dragon, thinking that she would be extremely impressed by the coolness of his move.

However… She wasn’t.

Ping Yang wasn’t just unimpressed, she didn’t even glance at Fang Zhengzhi. She was destroying the falling rocks nonstop and burning the thorny vines with a fire-like armor on her body. Ping Yang was hopping around like a pretty butterfly.

“She… Really became much tougher than before!” Fang Zhengzhi was sure that if it was in the past, Ping Yang would have started panicking and shouting for help the moment something went wrong.

Despite that, Ping Yang did not once ask for his help at the moment. She was sampling handling everything that was coming at her, almost as if it was a piece of cake.

Moreover, her body movement was impressive.

Fang Zhengzhi recalled Ping Yang using the same body movement to defeat several Ling Yun Tower’s disciples just now.

“Shameless fellow, hurry up and think of a way to destroy Qian Ye’s attack. I can handle this myself!” Said Ping Yang.

“Ok!” Fang Zhengzhi nodded and looked away, because he knew that Ping Yang was no longer a burden.

Although she wasn’t nearly as strong as him, she was at least capable of defending herself now.

He didn’t put his attention on Ping Yang anymore.

Fang Zhengzhi started looking around at the spinning lake water and fallen tree leaves that were as sharp as razors.

A black flame appeared on his body to ward off the incoming attacks. Multiple colored lights appeared in his eyes.

The mountains and rocks could move!

The water could move…

The trees could move too!

“What kind of attack is this?” It was his first time seeing an attack containing so many versatilities. He didn’t think that it was simply an attack anymore. It felt like a painting, in other words, it might be an independent world.

A painting?

An independent world?

Fang Zhengzhi held the Traceless Sword tighter, because he suddenly remembered the paintings hanging in the skies of the Nine Heavens.

Apart from the paintings… There were Heaven Dao Tablets as well!

Did Qian Ye use a Heaven Dao Tablet to trap him?!

That wasn’t it!

Something felt wrong!

Fang Zhengzhi shook his head. Since he had 23 Heaven Dao Tablets with him, he could obviously detect the existence of another Heaven Dao Tablet.

Even if he couldn’t, the black metal box that he had definitely could.

This wasn’t a Heaven Dao Tablet.

Heaven Dao Tablet was more complicated because it was more spacious. Moreover, each Heaven Dao Tablet contained many more versatilities, each of them uniquely different.

This Mountain River Illustration was different. It was smaller and contained less versatilities than a Heaven Dao Tablet.

Most importantly, Heaven Dao Tablet wasn’t aggressive by nature. On the contrary, this Mountain River Illustration seemed be under something’s control.

“Could it be fusion?!” Fang Zhengzhi’s eyes lit up. After reading all the books in Heaven Dao Pavilion’s Repository, he became decently knowledgeable.

Hence, he was aware that different Dao techniques could be fused together, just like how an attack could contain two techniques.

For example, “Splitting water” contained “Wind” and “Coldness” Dao techniques, which was why it looked so cool.

Apart from this, there was another special combination which was possibly even more complicated. That was the “Gifted Bloodline”.

Gifted Bloodline was the result of a certain combination, but the combination was fixed. Only a certain set of different versatilities were capable of producing different Gifted Bloodlines.

However, Qian Ye’s fusion attack… Didn’t seem to be related to Gifted Bloodlines. It felt more like the perfect form of fusion attack, or even the fusion of multiple perfected versatilities.

“Is this really possible?” Fang Zhengzhi felt like he opened a new door in his life, as if he had discovered a new continent again.

Of course, it was wrong to use ‘again’, because Fang Zhengzhi had never discovered a new continent in his entire life.

However, that wasn’t important.

Finding a way to destroy Qian Ye’s attack was the matter at hand.

Fusion… Fusion…

“How do I destroy fusion? By comprehending it?”

This idea actually crossed his mind. He could comprehend all the Dao techniques in this illustration and then create an identical attack.

However, that wouldn’t solve the problem that he faced.

Putting aside the amount of time he needed to comprehend all the Dao techniques in the illustration, how was he supposed to get out of this isolated world in the Mountain River Illustration even after he comprehended all the Dao techniques here?

Could he create another isolated space in the Mountain River Illustration and force the current one to burst open? That seemed impossible.

He had to force it open!

Under normal circumstances, one must identify the unique pattern involved in an attack to destroy it.

For example, a person must know about formations and how they were formed, as well as the eight gates of Mysterious Gates Escape Technique, in order to tear apart a formation.

Fang Zhengzhi had to do the same to destroy Qian Ye’s attack.

Mountains, water, trees, flowers…

Fang Zhengzhi knew about these things, but that wasn’t enough. He had to find out how they were combined into an attack.

Ling Yun Tower…

The five sects of the Holy Region were experts in different areas. Heaven Dao Pavilion focused on swordsmanship, Nine Pinnacles Mountain practiced craftsmanship, Yin Yang Hall was well-versed with alchemy, Fu Xi Valley studied formations, while Ling Yun Tower emphasized the understanding of Dao.

“Understanding…” Fang Zhengzhi frowned. He didn’t know what it meant at first, but after seeing Ling Yun Tower’s techniques, he finally gained an initial understanding.

For example, those disciples were capable of synchronizing their Dao techniques with a special ability. Fang Zhengzhi would have never thought of such a technique unless he saw it personally.

At the moment, Qian Ye’s attack felt like a brand-new world for him.

He had to admit that Ling Yun Tower definitely understood Dao techniques more than the other sects of the Holy Region. Furthermore, their techniques were much more elusive and unpredictable too.

Wait a minute!

Speaking of fusion…

Yan Xiu’s Mountain River Illustration contained the same kind of “fusion” as well. Although it was far weaker, the core concept was the same.

“Painstaking effort! That’s it. It’s the painstaking effort!”

Fang Zhengzhi was gaining a deeper understanding of fusion. He remembered Yan Xiu saying that his ancestor painted the Mountain River Illustration with painstaking efforts.

The painstaking effort represented his melancholic yearning.

His melancholic yearning injected a power into the Mountain River Illustration, which was why anyone trapped by the illustration felt like they were drowning in sorrow and depression.

In that case, was there an origin for this fusion attack too?

A specific origin that successfully fused multiple Dao techniques and turned them into a painting… Nope, it turned into the isolated world in the Mountain River Illustration.

The only question was… What was the origin?

Fang Zhengzhi closed his eyes and started sensing the emotions in this world. There was no sadness, no happiness, and no anger. Everything was calm like the surface of a lake that had no movements.

However, this calmness could be manipulated and burst into motion at any minute.