Chapter 130: Starfall, Heavenly Secrets

Iron City Mountain, the main hall at the summit.

Hidden deep in the clouds, this hall sat at the very peak of Iron City Mountain. Looking down, one could see the twenty-four mass graves built around the mountain.

Inside the hall, dim lamps flickered with dark fire. The air was bone-chilling. Three open coffins rested there, revealing three figures with pale, bloodless skin. They sat cross-legged in deep meditation, fingers forming hand seals. Their divine senses, as vast as the sea, intertwined within the hall as they conversed:

"Junior Brothers, I suddenly feel restless today."

"I feel the same. For some reason, my sea of consciousness won't settle. I tried divining the cause, but only saw a hazy fog... This never happens."

"Could the Corpse Cave be making a move?"

At this, one of them grew tense. "Although we share the Xuanyin Lineage with the Corpse Cave, Patriarch Xuanyin is no longer watching the furnace."

"Exactly."

"I heard the furnace-watching disciple has become the patriarch of Book Mountain. If not for that, why would the world be in this state where the dao rises and demons wane?"

"In any case, we must be careful. The Corpse Cave shares our lineage, but internal strife has always been an Immortal Gate tradition. We both draw from the same resources, and it's never enough. The Corpse Cave might be planning to get rid of us so they can monopolize Patriarch Xuanyin's favor."

"Sigh, it's just our bad luck."

Another Loose Immortal gritted his teeth. "As it stands, our Iron City Mountain only has twenty-four mass graves. Even exhausting all our resources, we can only support the three of us Loose Immortals."

"Each mass grave only produces three to five corpse puppets a year."

"If Iron City Mountain didn't have a profound foundation passed down for over a thousand years, with some reserves still intact, I'm afraid we couldn't even afford to raise our disciples!"

"Just thirty years ago, we ruled over seventy-two mass graves at our peak! But then that crazy woman threatened us, forcing us to abandon most of our foundation and cower in these woods... Senior Brother, do you think our restlessness today has something to do with her?"

"Ah? That crazy woman?"

The sect master of Iron City Mountain froze, then shook his head. "No. If it really was her, the three of us wouldn't even have the chance to feel restless before she struck."

"That's true."

"Besides, we're keeping our heads down now. We only take a few black-headed commoners every year to refine corpses. No matter how unreasonable she is, she can't push us too far."

"Exactly. We don't even slaughter those black-headed commoners outright. We scheme in multiple ways, engineering years of famine so they die naturally, and then we collect their corpses under the guise of performing their last rites. You could say we align with heaven's will above and comfort the people below. They even build shrines for us!"

"That's all incense merit right there."

Just as the three Loose Immortals of Iron City Mountain were complaining and chatting to pass the time, a sudden chill struck them all simultaneously.

"Hmm!?"

In an instant, all three looked up. Their divine senses swept from the ground toward the horizon, only to meet an indescribable darkness surging down like a tidal wave.

No, it wasn't darkness. Whatever approached was just too massive—so gargantuan that the combined divine senses of three Loose Immortals couldn't even grasp its full shape right away.

"Is that... a falling star!?"

...

The Immortal Gate, the Eight Trigrams Furnace.

Daoist Xuanhe returned. As he looked down at the world below—boundless as a sun, constantly radiating light out into the cosmos—his expression shifted rapidly.

He had been sitting here in silent meditation for days, but he still couldn't find a way to break the deadlock. Kunyun's true transmission route was a dead end, and his master Mingyou had no solutions either. The only way forward was the Eight Trigrams Furnace. Compared to the first two options, he could at least put up a fight against that crazy woman inside the furnace.

"Maybe I should just take it by force!"

Daoist Xuanhe clenched his jaw. "I'll descend to the lower realm with my true body and snatch it myself. Once I have it, I'll return immediately. That crazy woman can't possibly chase me out here anyway."

Truthfully, he wasn't afraid of fighting her head-on.

But she had nothing to lose, whereas he still had a long immortal dao to walk. If they fought hard enough to shake the Eight Trigrams Furnace, he wouldn't be able to hide anything anymore.

Moreover, descending with his true body carried risks of its own.

He only dared to risk this because he originally started out as Human Firewood from within the furnace. If it were a native of the Immortal Gate, they would only send a clone at most.

Just like You Xuexin and Lian Shengyue had done earlier.

Daoist Xuanhe was a decisive man. Having made up his mind, he quickly cast his worries aside, forming hand seals to divine the Child of Destiny's location.

Suddenly, his brow twitched.

"Hm?"

His gaze swept out to the countless star fragments drifting through the void outside the Eight Trigrams Furnace. Suddenly, one of those fragments shifted off its orbit.

This made no sense. The Immortal Gate had carefully plotted the trajectories for all these fragments. Yet right now, the gravitational pull from the Eight Trigrams Furnace suddenly fell into disarray, tearing one of the fragments away and dragging it down into the furnace world. An external force was clearly guiding it.

"A spell?"

...

"Let the heavens split their expanse, and the earth destroy their bones!"

At Wang Ping's command, all of Iron City Mountain—and not just Iron City Mountain, but the surrounding black-headed commoners and honest citizens as well—witnessed a magnificent spectacle.

High in the firmament, the vast sea of clouds was effortlessly blown apart. Yet, instead of revealing a clear, sunny sky, a sprawling darkness shrouded the heavens. A shadow called death cast itself downward, falling squarely and perfectly over Iron City Mountain.

"The sky! The sky has split open!"

The darkness steadily descended toward the earth, beginning to glow with fire along the way—flames ignited by air resistance as it breached the atmosphere.

A meteorite.

A genuine star fragment, nearly fifty meters in diameter. Its terrifying speed and sheer mass formed a display of absolute, visible violence.

"Stop it!"

Facing such immense power, the three Loose Immortals of Iron City Mountain reacted almost instantly. They shattered the air as they flew out, their bodies expanding wildly into the wind while still in midair.

In moments, three towering, mountain-like figures with ferocious faces stood around Iron City Mountain. They stretched out their arms, reaching for the falling star fragment.

"It is but a mere star fragment."

"Junior Brothers, let's join forces and push it back!"

This was no empty boast. If it were just pure bad luck and a random falling star happened to strike, a Loose Immortal could easily block it with their abilities.

But how could such a coincidence exist in this world?

"So heavy!?"

In an instant, the three Loose Immortals felt an unimaginable force crashing down on them, causing their bodies to groan under the unbearable strain.

This was only natural. Wang Ping had used the Dragon Head Guillotine to establish a Dharma Covenant with heaven and earth. To answer his command—"Let the heavens split their expanse, and the earth destroy their bones!"—the world itself had summoned this meteor. And until the command was fulfilled, it would never end!

"BOOM!"

Unrivaled, the star fragment effortlessly crushed the three figures before slamming into Iron City Mountain, setting off an explosion powerful enough to obliterate all things.

Ironically, however, the mountain-protecting formation—originally built to fend off foreign enemies at the cost of all twenty-four mass graves—had now become a perfect prison.

The explosion, the shockwaves, and the shifting tectonic plates triggered by the starfall were all entirely contained within Iron City Mountain. Not a single ripple escaped to the outside world.

...

Before the Eight Trigrams Furnace, Daoist Xuanhe looked utterly astonished.

"Iron City Mountain... That is Senior Brother Xuanyin's lineage."

The disturbances caused by the falling star naturally couldn't escape his Dharma eyes. Driven by curiosity, he immediately began to divine the cause, wanting to know exactly what had happened.

"Hm? It's the Child of Destiny?"

"He actually triggered this starfall? Where did he get a spell like that... If it's not a spell, then it must be a Dharma treasure. He reached the Martial Dao Grandmaster Rank?"

The more Daoist Xuanhe calculated, the deeper his frown grew. He felt that the Child of Destiny's path had completely slipped out of their control. First, he killed Kongzhi. Now, he had wiped out an entire blessed land. He wasn't even cultivating immortality properly, having strayed down the wrong path to attain the Martial Dao Grandmaster Rank... He had definitely been led astray by that crazy woman!

"Wait, Kongzhi?"

Suddenly, Daoist Xuanhe froze. His gaze shifted within the torrents of destiny, instantly locking onto a ripple that had already dispersed.

"...How can I scry him now?"

Before this, all of Kongzhi's heavenly secrets and karma had been completely obscured. He hadn't been able to divine a single thing about the monk, totally ignorant of his whereabouts or whether he was dead or alive.

But this was normal. After all, Kongzhi was a Brahma Cultivator infiltrating the Eight Trigrams Furnace. If he lacked even this basic method to hide his heavenly secrets, he would just be courting death.

Yet now, things had changed.

"Before, the only reason I knew of Kongzhi's death was because a Book Mountain disciple witnessed that great battle and reported it to me. But now, I can see his death directly within the torrents of destiny... His method for hiding his heavenly secrets is gone? When did that happen? Why?"

Daoist Xuanhe shot to his feet, his expression grave.

Something was very wrong!

Based on his past experiences, any Brahma Cultivator who dared to sneak in had optimized their concealment of heavenly secrets and karma to the absolute limit. It wouldn't just vanish simply because they died.

"So even if Kongzhi died, whatever he used to hide his heavenly secrets should have erased his traces in destiny, ensuring he wouldn't be discovered."

But looking at it now, that item had clearly lost its effect.

Or rather—

"Did someone take it?"

Daoist Xuanhe's eyes blazed:

"Before Kongzhi died, someone took the thing he used to obscure his heavenly secrets... The Child of Destiny? No, I can still see the Child of Destiny."

If he could see him, it meant the heavenly secrets were still there, unhidden.

However, Kongzhi had been slain by the Child of Destiny. If that item concealing his heavenly secrets hadn't been taken by the boy... then who took it?