Nightfall

The drifting snow was like a curtain. It fell at the root of the city wall, and piled up a snow barrier which was as high as half a man’s height at the southern gate. A scholar stood before the snow barrier, but nobody knew when he showed up there.

He was still in the old cotton jacket, but the jacket had fresh cuts all over it, and the cotton filling was coming out from them, shivering in the snowy storm.

He had bled for days. Some of the blood had been blown away by the wild wind, while more of it had condensed on the protruding cotton, looking black and ugly. With the wooden rod which had cuts of the swords on it, he looked like a beggar that had been chased by a dog for days.

He might be in discomfiture now, but his expression remained peaceful still. He looked tranquil from top to bottom, like the snow drifting slowly at the moment.

He looked at the Abbey Dean and said, “The Academy finally chose Chang’an City for the final battle.”

The Abbey Dean looked at him and said, “I chose the place first.”

Eldest Brother asked sincerely, “Why?”

The Abbey Dean then answered, “Because the city can no longer stop me.”

Eldest Brother asked, “Then what took you so long?”

The Abbey Dean then answered, “Because now is the time when the city stops shutting me out.”

The Abbey Dean held the Taoist Sword in his hand, and looked at the magnificent city before him, saying, “You were waiting, and I was waiting, too. You were waiting for the city to be restored, but I was waiting for the city to weaken.”

Eldest Brother said, “I can see that you’ve got what you wanted.”

The Abbey Dean then said, “I am not surprised. I’ve been preparing to break the array for many years, and nobody can stop me ever again after the Headmaster ascended to heaven.”

“The will of Heaven is always irresistible, no matter if you obey it or not.”

He looked at the Eldest Brother who was standing before the snow barrier, saying, “The snow barrier can’t stop me, and the Academy can’t stop me, either. I’ll kill you and destroy the God-stunning Array, and then everything would be put to an end.”

He walked towards Chang’an City after finishing those words.

The snow layer covering the state highway at the southern gate was light. The Abbey Dean stopped before his right foot could barely touch the ground and leave a print.

He had taken no more than one step, or to be specific, half a step.

The Abbey Dean looked down at the ground.

He wore cloth shoes.

There was a tiny rock by his shoes.

He looked at the tiny rock and frowned.

Then, he drew back his right foot and stood still.

He craned around and noticed that thousands of rocks emerged at the south gate of Chang’an City. The rocks varied from small ones to huge ones, sharp-edged or rounded.

No matter how the rocks looked, all of them were radiating a raging and disobedient aura. The aura might come in silence but it was so indocile, and it was filling up the whole place.

The aura was so unique, so silent and so irresistible that it had added barriers in the air of Chang’an City, making it hard for people to breathe.

Like how it blocked the breath, the rocks had blocked those mysterious and tiny passages around. That was to say, in this world of rocks, there was no Limitless State.

The first snow of the winter kept falling for a whole night. The thousands of rocks in the south of Chang’an City looked like soldiers in white armor. And the bigger rocks stood like Snowfield Direwolves, stern and fearsome.

The Abbey Dean looked at the rocks, and suddenly laughed.

He had been to the Daming Lake on the Wilderness for more than once, and of course he knew the Stone Array Tactics.

Using the Stone Array Tactics to block the Limitless State was a typically smart move from the Academy.

But he feared nothing.

He didn’t step forward.

He stood silently among the rocks, waiting for the next move of the Academy.

Eldest Brother took a step forward and disappeared in the light snow.

The Abbey Dean knew that the Eldest Brother wasn’t in the Limitless State. He disappeared because the Stone Array Tactic blocked his vision.

Standing in the craggy array, they couldn’t see each other. So, the Abbey Dean did nothing but wait quietly for the Academy to attack him first.

Snow kept falling slowly. The flakes were so tiny but so beautiful. As they were about to fall on the ground, they disappeared suddenly and fell on other spots which might be dozen feet away. The scene looked so strange.

A thin snowflake fell along the black city wall and onto the Abbey Dean.

A short wooden rod fell closely after the flake.

The wooden rod brought out no sound in the air. And it had little influence on the blocking aura around. It moved with the drifting storm and snow, showing up without a trace.

The eyes of the Abbey Dean lit up.

As simple as the short wooden rod might seem, it was more astonishing than the Great Blockage Formation because the Eldest Brother had reached such a state within days after he had learned how to fight.

When referring to the speed of learning, the man was second to none.

The Abbey Dean raised his sword to the wind and snow before him. He thought to himself that it would be hard for him to be his match if the Headmaster hadn’t ascended to heaven and could teach the man for ten more years, because he was such a quick learner.

The Taoist Sword rushed away, tearing apart the wind and snow. Then it hit right on the wooden rod which emerged from nowhere in the falling snow.

That was the second time the sword had met the rod in Chang ‘an City.

The first time they met, the snow was falling heavily like a curtain, but this time it was different, when they met each other they seemed so quiet and gentle, like melting snowflakes falling into the lake.

Thousands of rocks standing as the Stone Array Tactics at the southern gate were giving out a craggy and hard aura, which were later overwhelmed by the gentle aura released by the sword and the rod when they clashed.

The sword met the rod in the air. They clashed in a point and stayed still. In the space around their clashing point, everything froze, including the wind and the snow.

The snow stopped falling and it strangely floated in the stillness. Then those snowflakes, all of them, started to collapse from the edge to the center, till they collapsed into the tiniest powder.

The powdered snowflakes drifted profusely and disorderly onto the Abbey Dean and the Eldest Brother.

Many more cuts emerged on the Eldest Brother’s cotton jacket, and he bled again.

The snow was blown off the ground and drifted around him like a pair of invisible wings. His wounded body was supported and pushed forward, and then like a flurry of snow, he left the Stone Array Tactics for Chang’an City.

The Abbey Dean frowned slightly, and he was surprised.

In the south of the city was the Stone Array Tactics, it might look limitless but that was an actual blockage.

This might be troubling for him, and it would be even more troubling for the opponent of his.

But since the Academy had come up with the way to break the Limitless State, surely it would have subsequent moves, so he ignored the crushed snowflakes on him, and waited for the Academy’s next move.

However, the Academy did nothing but retreat into Chang’an City.

In that case, he had to go into the city as well.

To get into the city, he had to break the Stone Array Tactics blocking before him.

The Abbey Dean waved his sleeves and blew off a thousand clouds of snow drifting in the air.

On the roadside of the state highway, a huge stone weighing tons was blown off the ground by the sleeve and fell onto a piece of farm field further away.

As he waved his sleeves again, more huge stones flew away.

He walked towards the city gate.

As he walked, his sleeves waved like floating clouds, destroying the rocks and the array all along the way.

How to destroy the Stone Array Tactics?

When Ke Haoran entered the Front Gate of Devil’s Doctrine, he destroyed it with his sword.

The Abbey Dean destroyed it with his sleeves.

That didn’t mean that the Abbey Dean was more powerful than Ke Haoran. The point was, the Great Blockage Formation in the south of Chang’an City was far less powerful than the one at the bottom of Daming Lake.

As the leader of Haotian Taoism, he had done a deep research on the Devil’s Doctrine. And he knew that a real Stone Array Tactics should be a complete world made up of stubborn rocks. Thought there might be thousands of stubborn rocks in the south of the city, they didn’t form up a word.

If they didn’t form up a world, then they must’ve left spaces.

Where there is space, people would be able to pass and find more space.

Continuous sound of falling rocks rang out of the city. The storm and snow gradually stopped, and the man in black had walked far.

On the city wall, Mo Shanshan paled, with snow in her hair and blood at the corner of her lips.

The Abbey Dean destroyed the Stone Array Tactics by casually waving his sleeves. He was as relaxed as when he was walking in his own backyard.

Inside the southern gate was Chang’an City.

There was no one on Vermilion Bird Avenue. It was quieter than ever, and the snow kept falling.

The Abbey Dean strolled along Vermilion Bird Avenue, looking relaxed.

Like a normal visitor, he looked at the buildings on both sides of the street; the embossment revealed by the snow in the middle of the street, the black eaves and the roofs with snow on them.

“So this is what Chang’an City really looks like.”

Many years ago, when he was still a kid, he visited Chang’an with the elders in his family, but that was so long ago that he had already forgotten what the city exactly looked like.

Later he started cultivating and hadn’t been to Chang’an ever since.

He cultivated and became powerful; that might be part of the reason why he was not welcomed in Chang’an City. Another important reason was the Headmaster, who had been staying in the Academy in the south of the city.

People always took what they couldn’t get as the best.

That was the truth in cultivation, romance, and all other things.

So he liked Chang’an City very much.

But unfortunately, the city couldn’t possibly belong to him, so he was going to destroy it.

He had thought about the city for many years.

Just as well, he had been planning to destroy it for many years.

He had finally entered the city today.

He was surely full of emotions.

He looked into the snowing sky and said, “If you can see the scene here from above there, will you regret leaving the world too early?”

At this moment, a cicada suddenly chirped on Vermilion Bird Avenue.

The snowflakes falling into the city from high above looked reflecting, like the wings of cicadas.

It was winter now and the first snow was falling, so where did the cicada chirping come from?

The Abbey Dean inclined his ear to listen, and finally seriousness emerged in his eyes.

When the guy was sure that the Stone Array Tactics couldn’t stop the Abbey Dean, he made the quick decision to retreat into Chang’an City, and prepared to take advantage of the power of the city. An ordinary man couldn’t possibly make a decision like that.

The Abbey Dean was sure that someone interesting was waiting for him in the city.

But still he was surprised because the guy was incredibly interesting.

This must be the trump card of the Academy.

“There was a kind of cicada in the arid land of the far west. The cicadas had been hiding amid the mud for a whole 23 years periods. It was not till the time when the Snow Mountain began to melt its snow and the flood started to arrive that the cicadas began to wake up and regain their consciousness. While showering in the muddy water and drying their wings in chilly winds, in the end, they fluttered to fly out of the void.”

The Abbey stared at the storm and snow at the end of the long street, saying calmly, “Of course you’re here, too.”

The snowy clouds became thicker and blocked the sky. The bleak chirp of winter cicadas echoed in Chang’an City.

A girl arrived with the storm and snow.