"Du Tian refers to the entirety of the heavens."

Scholar Zhu came outside the little shrine, scrutinized the surroundings, and said, "Whether it is the sky over the Western Ox New Continent, the underworld, other worlds, the Upper Realm, Despair Slope, or even the Realm of Emptiness, anywhere that has a sky is part of Du Tian. Even the sky inside a temple falls under Du Tian's scope. The Du Tian Protector means that this Wang Lingguan can go to any place to uphold the doctrines."

Chen Shi asked in puzzlement, "With authority that vast, why was the Golden Body still shattered?"

Scholar Zhu shook his head, "A lot of things that happened at the end of the True King's Era remain a mystery. The death of the True King, the destruction of China's orthodox doctrines, the disappearance of the gods, and the severing of ties with the Divine Continent — none of that can be answered."

Extraordinary power in the Fire Mansion was extraordinarily dense, forming streaks of radiant light that drifted out from the miniature shrine.

Chen Shi walked amid the streaks of radiance, carefully sensing the extraordinary power in the Fire Mansion. Drumbeats and sounds of slaughter seemed to whisper at his ears, noisy and tumultuous.

Suddenly, he felt as if he stood within a battlefield filled with killing; before him stretched armies of immortals and demons, and at his side was the Du Tian Fire Mansion.

Standing inside the mansion, at a command, hideous and ferocious celestial officers leapt from the miniature shrines, charged into the immortal-demon host, and unleashed slaughter, wiping out the disloyal!

They cut forward like a breaching tide, smashing through all resistance, severing enemy heads and tying them to their belts. On some deities' thick waists hung rings of heads.

They even skewered enemies on forks, breathing suffocating smoke and fierce flames to roast them, even tossing foes into their mouths and devouring them!

These spirit officers did not look human; their forms were bizarre and varied: beast heads on human bodies, bird heads on human bodies, growing bird talons, beast feet, hooves, thunder-and-wind wings sprouting from their backs, hides patterned with lightning.

Chen Shi raised his hands and saw one hand grasping a twelve-segment golden whip, thin at the front and thick at the rear, and the other hand holding a wind-and-fire wheel, blazing fire on the outside and a whirlwind in the center.

Looking down, he saw his face covered with red whiskers and beneath them a long bird beak lined with nail-like sharp teeth.

At his waist were hung the heads of slain immortals and demons; around his neck hung another ring of heads, large and small, men and women, old and young, everything imaginable.

Chen Shi relaxed his spirit, and the vision faded.

Even Yu Daoren perceived the terror here; the extraordinary power in this place made him feel insignificant.

Though he had absorbed over a thousand years of incense offerings' energy, compared to the lingering extraordinary power in this temple he was but a speck in the ocean, utterly negligible.

The extraordinary power within this temple was so rich that each of the five hundred miniature shrines' corresponding power far exceeded his own.

Chen Shi steadied himself, took out an incense stick, and placed it. The incense smoke rose, drifting toward the central miniature shrine.

"Fire Mansion spirit officer and celestial general, disciple Chen Shi reports: In recent days the hiddenness has occurred, the sinister moon hangs high, yin and yang realms converge, cataclysms cover the Western Ox New Continent, the common people suffer evil spirit disturbances and ghostly harms, and tyrants oppress while gods and demons run rampant. Now I, disciple Chen Shi, by the True King's mandate, exercise the authority to confer divinity, hereby consecrate the Fire Mansion spirit officer as Du Tian Protector god: enter the Water Mansion to calm waves' fury; enter the Underworld to subdue ghost-god troubles; protect the commoners, relieve the suffering of sentient beings. Exorcise demons, punish the offended will of the people, receive incense offerings, and forge the Golden Body. I pay my respects!"

The Western King's Jade Seal shone brilliantly, the imperial seal descending to impress upon the extraordinary powers in the miniature shrines.

Those extraordinary powers suddenly began to contract, sinking into the shrines and condensing into pools of luminous clear water.

Chen Shi consecrated the gods one by one. After the seal had been impressed upon each of the shrines, he put the Western King's Jade Seal away, then offered incense to each miniature shrine.

Yu Daoren asked, "Fellow Daoist, after consecration, can the demonic transformation be resolved?"

Chen Shi shook his head, "No. After consecration, it still takes time for the extraordinary power to coagulate into form."

He had previously consecrated the Qianyang Mountain Lord, consecrated Mazu and other deities, but after consecration they did not immediately coalesce into a Divine Manifestation; it took a long time before the manifestation formed. The stronger the deity, the harder it was for the form to coalesce and the longer the wait.

Chen Shi said, "Demonic transformation takes a hundred days, but these manifestations don't require that long. Short ones take a dozen days, long ones several months."

He walked outward, Yu Daoren hurried after him, timidly glancing back.

On shrine after shrine within the Fire Mansion, extraordinary power condensed into droplets that slowly fell into the shrines with a tinkling sound; otherwise, nothing unusual occurred.

Yet the darkness within the mansion still made him shudder.

Just as he was about to turn, the central shrine's rear suddenly opened, and a huge eye unsealed from the blackness, larger even than the Wang Lingguan's shrine.

It was an inverted, leaf-shaped eye that slowly split open left and right, revealing a burning, fiery eye.

Yu Daoren saw this fire eye and his heart leapt; suddenly he felt as if the world contained only himself, standing alone beneath that fire eye like an ant about to be roasted.

Chen Shi was about to step out of the Fire Mansion when a thunderous voice sounded at his ear: "You used the Western King's Jade Seal to summon me, so are you the contemporary True King?"

Chen Shi's body stiffened as an unparalleled pressure rolled from behind him, as if the Fire Mansion had become a pure world of thunder and fire.

"I sense the authority upon you, the power of the people's king, ruling over the common people, the rivers and mountains. Yet your power is still weak. There is another force hidden in your body, the lady's power... So, little True King, you used this little god as the sacrificial offering to awaken me?"

The thunderous voice was irritated, "I do not eat that! I only eat maiden boys and girls!"

"Whoosh—"

Yu Daoren cried out and was flung from the Fire Mansion, apparently thrown out.

"You, True King, are not honorable!"

Chen Shi spun around to see the huge fire eye trembling violently behind the central shrine, shaking left, right, up and down as if extremely enraged: "The previous True King asked me to come to this godforsaken spot, to offer me two hundred ox and horse, three hundred condemned prisoners, nine hundred pigs and sheep. Also a thousand vats of fine wine! And you only bring this scrawny little god!"

From the darkness a thick index finger extended, two or three zhang long, its skin coarse and cracked, callused, the fingernail thick far beyond normal, marked by burn scars.

The finger pointed at Chen Shi, and an angry voice from the dark said, "You little True King, how stingy you are!"

Inside the little shrine, Scholar Zhu was stunned and leapt from his shrine, calling out, "Little Ten, this Wang Lingguan wasn't dead? Wasn't he supposed to take another dozen days to revive and form a manifestation?"

Chen Shi was stunned as well. Every god he had awakened before required continuously gathering scattered extraordinary power from heaven and earth to slowly coalesce into a manifestation.

Except for a single exception.

Lord Guan, the Sage Emperor!

Lord Guan had already formed a manifestation without Chen Shi performing the consecration.

Chen Shi later concluded that Li Tianqing had been possessed by Lord Guan, turning into the Red Horse Bandit: killing corrupt officials, slaughtering evil spirits, robbing the rich to aid the poor. Many impoverished villagers voluntarily worshiped that Red Horse Bandit, and thus incense offerings accumulated naturally, leading to revival.

This was the people's wish forging the Golden Body.

But the Wang Lingguan's case was clearly different.

Chen Shi had just consecrated him with only one incense offering, and he revived immediately—an unprecedented situation.

This meant either the Wang Lingguan was extremely powerful, or extremely weak. If the calamity back then had failed to kill him, he might be powerful. Or perhaps Chen Shi had revived him with just one incense stick because he was feeble.

No sooner had he thought this than the voice in the dark laughed, "Oh? You brought offerings! So many offerings! Little True King, I thought you were stingy, but I didn't expect you to bring so much demon!"

Chen Shi didn't understand its meaning. Turning, he saw a monstrous figure rushing this way, already near the seal.

The creature was jet black and gaunt; from its neck grew a large flower bud. The bud closed then began to open, and a human face appeared on the bud.

As the flower bloomed, petal by petal unfurled, and on each petal was a human face.

The monster's body towered, perhaps hundreds of zhang high. Chen Shi craned his neck and watched countless faces look down from the sky, blotting out the heavens.

Facing those gazes, dark thoughts sprang up within him. He hurriedly invoked the Sixth New Talisman; thunder surged within him, refining away the demon thoughts and calming him.

"The demon seed is sprouting!"

Just as he thought this, his face began to itch, and just as he reached to scratch, he recalled the fate of the people in Fusheng Town and suppressed the urge.

Now the back of his skull itched too, growing more intense, maddeningly wanting to be scratched, to claw and tear!

Chen Shi dared not move, but itching spread to his back, belly, legs—everywhere. If he could scratch he'd feel ecstatic.

He felt an itch in his heart too, as if a kitten were inside, gently raking him with its tail.

"Just scratch once, just once..."

He fought to resist the urge, but Yu Daoren, who had been thrown to the ground, could not hold back and scratched his face.

Yu Daoren's face instantly became hundreds of thin petal-like faces, softly unfolding; beneath each petal lay Yu Daoren's face, thin as paper.

"What's happening to me?" His hundreds of voices overlapped.

The corner of Chen Shi's eye twitched; his eyes began to itch.

He blinked, and suddenly his vision doubled, seeing many afterimages.

"Little Duan, Little Duan!"

Chen Shi's voice trembled as he froze, unable to move. "Look at my eyes!"

Little Duan flew out from the little shrine behind his head and hovered before him, astonished, "Your eyes..."

She slightly frowned. Chen Shi's eyes seemed composed of countless thin petal-like layers.

She puckered her lips, "Husband, let me blow on them for you!"

"Don't!" Chen Shi hastily stopped her.

If she blew, that eye might bloom like a flower!

"Ha ha ha ha!"

The earth suddenly convulsed violently. The golden whip in front of the Fire Mansion began to tremble incessantly, buzzing. Behind the mansion the land heaved and a huge hand reached out, grabbing the golden whip. From the mountain a red-haired, red-bearded god-demon slowly rose, one hand still braced in the earth holding up the peak.

"Little True King, you are not stingy!"

The Wang Lingguan swung his twelve-segment golden whip, like a tower of treasure stacked in layers, striking the monster whose head was like petals; petals flew everywhere, scattering in all directions.

Faces on each petal shrieked in a mournful cry. The head of Yu Daoren, now transformed into petal-like form, also screamed as if sharing the pain.

At the same time, Chen Shi felt searing pain in his right eye, his head convulsing with pain. He clutched his eye and crouched down.

"You are the most generous True King I have ever met!"

The red-haired god-demon pulled his torso from the mountain with great force and swung up his left arm, in which he still held a golden wind-and-fire wheel, flames outside and a whirlwind within.

"Fwoosh—"

The wind-and-fire wheel shot out, spinning through the air and with a hiss cleaving the monster's neck.

The Wang Lingguan laughed and inhaled, drawing the demonic soul from the corpse and exclaimed, "Tastes not bad!"

After the monster died, Chen Shi immediately felt the sharp pain in his right eye vanish. Yu Daoren's petal-like head began slowly to close and reunify.

The monster had been a demon seed; when it died the demonic domain dissipated, and the effects it had imposed on them disappeared.

Below the mountain many strange-shaped figures were running toward them, demonqi roiling, twisting the sky around the peaks. These were the demon seeds spawned from those blooming demonic flowers.

Their forms were grotesque and varied: some with hideous flesh and exposed bones, some undulating like centipedes, some with a radiance behind them sprouting countless arms, some covered entirely in eyes, and wherever they passed everything melted away.

Originally these demons had no physical bodies, but after yin and yang merged they possessed many living beings in the mortal world and gained flesh, beginning to undergo demonic transformation!

Suddenly the wind-and-fire wheel whistled back into the Wang Lingguan's hand.

The god-demon laughed heartily, charged down the mountain, and met the oncoming demon seeds. The wind-and-fire wheel sliced off half a demon's skull. He swung his golden whip, and thunder sprang from the sky, linking to the whip's tip.

When the whip struck, the thunder descended as well, cleaving the approaching demon seeds and throwing them flying.

He stamped his foot heavily and the whole mountain shook violently; divine fire surged from the earth, igniting those demon seeds.

The Wang Lingguan plunged into the sea of fire, casting the wind-and-fire wheel spinning; heads were severed one by one as he advanced, his golden whip whipping as thunder continued to fall from the sky, tearing through the fire and smashing skulls to pulp!

Scholar Zhu watched in a daze, then suddenly said, "This Wang Lingguan—this is his true form, isn't it?"

Chen Shi shook his head, "Absolutely not his true body. The gods who crossed the sea from the Divine Continent in the True King's Era were only avatars or manifestations. Only Shiji Your Ladyship came in her true body."

Scholar Zhu murmured, "Even an echo of a manifestation is this formidable?"

One demonic domain after another collapsed. Little Duan was examining Chen Shi's eyes closely when she suddenly turned and looked into the distance with a puzzled expression.

Chen Shi asked, "What are you looking at?"

Little Duan said, "Someone far off is watching us."

Chen Shi's heart stirred. "Which direction?"

Little Duan pointed, and without hesitation Chen Shi invoked the Heaven-Measuring Iron Ruler, ignited the Heavenly Cycle Fire Domain, and the iron ruler shot out with a whoosh, flying a hundred li away. At Chen Shi's thought the ruler swung, growing incomparably thick, transforming into a towering black pillar that crashed down with a roar!

Scholar Zhu also sprang up and hovered to look at where the iron ruler struck.

Just as the Heaven-Measuring Iron Ruler was about to land, it suddenly halted mid-fall, as if someone had held it up and it could not strike down.

"Found us. Let's go." A voice came from below the Heaven-Measuring Iron Ruler.