Tanner Shue sobered up quite a bit, muttering, "Put my heart back in my belly? I don't even know where my body is right now. If my body is still alive, my heart would be jumping out of my mouth by now..."
Bruno the Dragon-Qilin and Young Master Cyrus Qi knew nothing about this; the two of them were still drinking, with Bruno pouring wine straight into his mouth and draining a whole jar in no time.
Young Master Cyrus Qi, on the other hand, stuck his head right into the wine jar. The jar’s mouth was wide enough that his head fit easily.
Bruno chuckled nonstop. "Third Brother, if you drink like that, be careful not to suffocate yourself. Third Brother, hey, Third Brother..."
His expression changed slightly when he saw Young Master Cyrus Qi motionless with his head in the jar. Bruno was about to help when Cyrus suddenly pulled his head out, grinning, "Scared you, didn’t I? Your head’s too big, you couldn’t fit it in. Drinking with your head in the jar is the best—wait, I can stick all nine of my heads in nine jars, just watch..."
He staggered to a door, hauled out nine wine jars, opened them, and with a shake of his body revealed nine phoenix heads. With a series of pops, all nine heads plunged into nine jars to drink.
Quinn watched all this and couldn’t help shaking his head.
Young Master Cyrus Qi was a prodigy of the Outer Heaven Court, famous for his intelligence. But after all the blows he’d suffered, he’d fallen so far as to be drinking and joking around with Bruno.
This scene today would definitely go down as one of the major embarrassments of his life.
"Indra King Buddha’s cultivation method has a subtle flaw. That means the Imperial Gate Divine Saber he forged will have a tiny weak spot, and that’s where I can open the Gate of Bearing Heaven to connect to the Netherworld. The key is figuring out exactly where that flaw is..."
Quinn's eyes flashed as he used his vital qi to construct Indra King Buddha’s physical and Primordial Spirit forms, then filled them with the Indra King Scripture’s qi-flow diagram, calculating carefully.
"This flaw keeps moving as the technique runs."
Quinn spent months calculating, his gaze locked on a single point in Indra King Buddha’s qi-flow—right where the method was weakest.
Quinn then used his own vital qi to model the Imperial Gate Divine Saber’s dual-element structure, imagining himself as Indra King Buddha forging the blade. As he pushed the method, the flaw in his cultivation would unconsciously imprint itself into the saber.
Clang, clang, clang—he imagined the sound of forging ringing in his ears, blow after blow.
Quinn’s mind spun furiously, all kinds of numerological symbols flashing through his head. After who knew how long, he suddenly opened his eyes and laughed aloud, "Got it!"
He looked around to see Bruno passed out drunk on the floor, while Young Master Cyrus Qi had reverted to his true form—a nine-headed phoenix sprawled in the corridor, one phoenix leg pinned under Bruno, and nine heads poking into nine different rooms.
Tanner Shue was doing better—he sat atop a wine jar, leisurely sipping from another.
"Wake up, all of you!"
Quinn nudged Bruno and Young Master Cyrus Qi with his foot, smiling, "We can leave now."
Young Master Cyrus Qi sobered up, looking around in confusion; Bruno yawned and woke up too.
Suddenly, Young Master Cyrus Qi remembered that he’d sworn brotherhood with Bruno and the Pioneer Heaven Court’s Left Adjutant Tanner Shue. His face flushed red and anxiety welled up inside him.
Tanner Shue strolled over, wine jar in hand, his goat hooves tapping crisply on the floor. He laughed, "Third Brother, sobered up? Don’t worry, we only swore brotherhood while drunk, nothing over the line."
Young Master Cyrus Qi’s expression stiffened. He stammered, "I’m the third brother?"
Bruno got up and shook his head. "You’re a hundred years younger than me, of course you’re the third brother. We swore to Tu Bo that we’d die the same year, same month, same day..."
"Swore to Tu Bo?"
Young Master Cyrus Qi’s eyes filled with panic and blankness. He was at a total loss. "Drinking really causes trouble..."
Quinn walked down the corridor, inspecting room after room. "It’s not the drinking that causes trouble—it’s that people get drunk on their own. The wine here is actually a kind of spiritual manifestation, which is why it never runs out. The Left Adjutant Yan Shaoqing from the Outer Heaven Court must be an extremely powerful spiritualist. He turned his mental divine art into all this wine. Since you’re in Primordial Spirit form, drinking the wine is really drinking his spiritual power—that’s what made you feel drunk."
Bruno, Tanner Shue, and Young Master Cyrus Qi followed him. Bruno asked curiously, "There’s a divine art like that? So we were just drinking air this whole time?"
"Not exactly air," Quinn said, "but a spiritual phenomenon created by Yan Shaoqing."
Quinn opened a door, peeked inside, and took out a jar of wine. A powerful mental shock surged through his Primordial Spirit, and he watched as his own spirit made the wine grow fainter and fainter—until, right in front of them, the jar vanished.
"That’s me using my own spirit to erase Yan Shaoqing’s mental power. Of course, he’s extremely strong and conjured countless jars of wine, so my spirit isn’t enough to dispel all his illusions. Every time you drink, it’s like he’s attacking you mentally—so you feel drunk."
Quinn counted the rooms, then his eyes lit up and he laughed, "It’s right now, right here!"
The others didn’t understand. Quinn shoved the door open, and a burst of dazzling light shot out, making everyone shield their eyes.
Quinn stepped into the room, Bruno hurried after him, and Tanner Shue and Young Master Cyrus Qi quickly followed. When their vision cleared, they couldn’t help but marvel.
It wasn’t a regular room at all, but a strange fragmented space made of runes, each fragment forming a gear-like piece that meshed with the others.
Tanner Shue muttered, "I’ve opened every room here—how come I’ve never seen this one before?"
Only then did he notice that Quinn, walking ahead, had turned into a paper-thin figure!
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Quinn was now walking ahead like a two-dimensional paper person—utterly flat!
Tanner Shue shook his head and suddenly realized he could see his own rump!
He’d turned into a paper person too!
Bruno and Young Master Cyrus Qi were the same!
They were all Primordial Spirits, which should be three-dimensional—but in this room, they’d been flattened to zero thickness.
"This room has always existed, but it’s Indra King Buddha’s flaw. The room keeps drifting and changing, so even if you open every door at once, you might never find it."
Quinn’s mouth now appeared on the back of his head, which made Bruno, Tanner Shue, and Young Master Cyrus Qi shudder.
The mouth on the back of Quinn’s head opened and closed as he spoke: "You have to get the timing and the room exactly right—then open the door to find this place. Inside the Imperial Gate Divine Saber, the outer structure is dual-element, but here, because Indra King Buddha noticed his own flaw while forging, he made a junk room to store it. This is a one-element space, so anyone who enters gets flattened."
Gear-like fragments of space drifted silently past them, dazzling and strange.
Inside those fragments were all sorts of bizarre runes—presumably designed by the Pioneer Emperor.
The Pioneer Emperor designed the Imperial Gate Divine Saber and had Indra King Buddha forge it. The Pioneer Emperor was the designer, so there shouldn’t have been any mistakes; but Indra King Buddha’s forging wasn’t truly flawless, which is why this junk room exists.
It was precisely this junk room that gave Quinn and the others a chance to escape.
The Pioneer Emperor could have forged the Imperial Gate Divine Saber himself, but every craft has its master. His artifact-refining skills couldn’t match Indra King Buddha’s, so he handed the task over.
—In Yankang, there are many cultivators who specialize in the craft of Heavenly Works, forging spirit weapons for others to earn a living.
Quinn studied the runes inside the fragments, his heart surging. These were the Pioneer Emperor’s wisdom; if he could decipher their mysteries, it would be a priceless treasure.
"We can’t stay here too long—our bodies will die," he murmured, though his eyes couldn’t tear away from the runes.
"Brother Quinn, we really can’t wait any longer!"
Young Master Cyrus Qi urged, "It’s been three days outside—what if wild beasts have ruined our bodies?"
Tanner Shue sighed, "My body’s probably long dead…"
"I think I’ve seen your body before, Senior."
Quinn activated his Overlord Body Three Pellet Technique, and a paper-thin Gate of Bearing Heaven appeared in the junk room. The gate opened, and Netherworld demonic qi poured out in sheets. "I saw what looked like an Overlord Body god-demon in the Valley of the Dead, with a honeycomb-shaped seal behind him—very similar to my Gate of Bearing Heaven."
Tanner Shue was stunned. He shook his head. "What’s the Valley of the Dead? When I cut off Tu Bo’s horn, Tu Bo chased me—his hand grabbed for me, so I ran. He’s truly formidable. I escaped the Netherworld through the God-Slaying Mysterious Gate but still couldn’t shake him, so I turned myself into a statue."
Terror filled his small eyes. "Tu Bo’s hand reached out from the Netherworld and grabbed my body. I turned into a statue and my Primordial Spirit fled, but part of my spirit is still trapped in the statue… I escaped to Fengdu and only got away after dodging him. But I still can’t return to my body—if I do, he’ll grab me. There’s still a bit of my spirit in the statue, and I can always feel Tu Bo squeezing me…"
He shuddered and quickly changed the subject: "So this Gate of Bearing Heaven—is it this one? It’s kind of like my God-Slaying Mysterious Gate, but not quite. Also, what’s an Overlord Body?"
Quinn said, "The Overlord Body is complicated. You’re a pseudo-Overlord Body—I’ll explain later. You all go first, I’ll be last."
Young Master Cyrus Qi entered the gate first. Bruno hesitated, then jumped in too. Tanner Shue’s horns trembled and he grew timid. "If I go to the Netherworld, I’ll definitely see Tu Bo. Maybe I should just stay here…"
Quinn quickly reassured him, "Don’t worry, Senior—I really do have a connection with Tu Bo!"
Tanner Shue shivered as he stepped through the Gate of Bearing Heaven, his voice trembling: "Tu Bo is heartless—you couldn’t possibly be friends with him…"
He went in, and Quinn glanced around one last time, sighed, and entered the Gate of Bearing Heaven. "The Pioneer Emperor’s runes are incredibly exquisite—a testament to his profound mastery of the Dao. How could someone with such genius be just an old man hiding in Worry-Free Village, afraid to come out…"
He put aside his confusion and stepped through the Gate of Bearing Heaven, arriving in the Netherworld.
He had just found his footing when a lantern light shone over. A small boat approached, a lantern hanging from its prow. Beneath the lantern sat an old man whose face couldn’t be seen, drifting toward them.
All around was endless darkness, with only the lantern light shining on their faces.
The old man under the lantern stood and saluted from afar: "Heavenly King Tianqi, greetings to the Netherworld King and the Son of the Netherworld!"
"Son of the Netherworld?"
Tanner Shue glanced at Quinn, startled, then burst into laughter. All his gloom and anxiety vanished, replaced by overwhelming presence; his Primordial Spirit grew vast, making Quinn and the others seem tiny beside his hooves. He declared in a booming voice, "Tanner Shue, Left Adjutant of the Pioneer Divine Dynasty, greets the Lord of Tianqi!"
The underworld ferryman smiled, "Heavenly King, Tu Bo has waited for you a long time. Please board the boat."
Tanner Shue’s presence instantly wilted; his Primordial Spirit shrank, his horns trembled, and he chuckled nervously, "I was planning to apologize to Tu Bo, but I’ve been trapped for years and never had the chance."
He quietly nudged Quinn, trembling, and whispered, "Are you really friends with Tu Bo?"
"Relax."
Quinn thumped his chest, "Tu Bo and I are friends through thick and thin, across generations and forms—he’ll surely give me some face."
The little boat drifted closer. The ferryman’s gaze fixed on him, and he sneered, "I sensed someone opened the Gate of Bearing Heaven, so I knew it was you! Stirring up trouble again, are you? If you mess up once more, Tu Bo will swallow you whole!"
Tanner Shue’s face turned ashen and he collapsed, thinking, "This friendship isn’t what I imagined… I’m doomed!"
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