Bai Wei’s eyes narrowed, his gaze locking with Wang Lin’s. He offered a curt nod, words unspoken. The hour of the Rabbit was nigh spent, and Bai Wei drew a final, shuddering breath. His gaze lingered on the heavens and the earth, before settling, yearningly, on the east, as if beholding his distant homeland.

A profound sorrow clouded his eyes as he closed them. In that instant, the potent Yin energy within him, already considerable, erupted like a tidal wave, a cataclysmic surge.

The increase defied reason. In the blink of an eye, every withered blade of grass, every desiccated leaf within the valley shattered, pulverized into a whirlwind of dust. The very stone of the valley walls groaned and cracked under the creeping frost.

An aura of ultimate Yin, a chilling essence born of shadows and despair, emanated from Bai Wei, coalescing above him into a swirling vortex. Composed entirely of Yin energy, it spiraled, growing ever larger, ever more ravenous.

The winds of Yin howled, and Wang Lin, his gaze like sharpened steel, watched Bai Wei in silent vigil.

The vortex spun faster and faster, until it became a veritable tempest, freezing everything within the valley. Even the swirling motes of dust, once dancing on the breeze, hung suspended in the air, locked in icy stasis.

The subtle enchantments guarding the valley’s mouth shattered with a series of sharp reports, their delicate weavings undone.

From the outside, the valley appeared shrouded in a torrential downpour, illuminated by sporadic flashes of lightning, each strike followed by the wrathful roar of thunder.

The relentless rain battered the land, forming vast pools that rippled endlessly under the onslaught.

Yet, within the valley, an unnatural calm reigned. The deluge fell upon it as if striking an invisible barrier, a shimmering shield that deflected every drop, sending the water cascading down its sides.

As the storm intensified, a faint, iridescent arc began to materialize around the valley’s perimeter. It was the valley’s ward, made visible by the relentless rain.

But the power of the rising Yin proved too great. With a sharp crack, a fissure split the shimmering arc.

In that instant, a tendril of pure Yin energy escaped, sending a chain of thunderous echoes reverberating through the heavens and the earth.

As raindrops descended towards the breach, they were met by the escaping Yin, and in an instant, they transformed into shimmering ice crystals. As the Yin rose, it carried these frozen tears into the sky, creating a spectacle of haunting beauty. Strands of glistening pearls hung suspended in the air, sparkling like captured starlight against the backdrop of the storm.

The shield continued to fracture, each new fissure releasing another torrent of Yin, transforming more and more of the cascading rain into frozen jewels.

Then, with a final, deafening crash, the shimmering arc shattered completely, unleashing a torrent of raw Yin energy into the world.

In that instant, the rain surrounding the valley froze solid, forming a vast expanse of crystalline ice. The transformation spread outward, a creeping winter that claimed the storm itself.

Within the valley, Wang Lin’s eyes burned with an alien light. Even his ancient divine physique struggled against the potent Yin. He retreated, his senses reeling.

Before him, Bai Wei sat in meditation, his long hair whipping about his face, his robes snapping in the unnatural wind. The Yin within him reached its zenith, and his flesh was being consumed, rapidly encased in deep blue ice.

In a heartbeat, his body was a frozen sculpture, the ice coalescing around his brow, forming a cluster of razor-sharp spikes that converged upon the center of his forehead.

There, upon Bai Wei’s brow, pulsed an arcane mark, the very same pattern Wang Lin had witnessed tracing the Yin energy through his veins.

The mark shimmered with an unholy light, each pulse sending a wave of agony across Bai Wei’s face. Veins bulged, and the Yin energy within him was drawn into the mark’s insatiable maw.

With each surge, the encasing ice thickened, until it seemed to permeate his very being, transforming flesh and blood into crystalline structures.

As the mark pulsed faster and faster, its hunger growing more ravenous, it claimed Bai Wei’s final vestige of Yin.

His body convulsed. The flesh below his waist dissolved entirely into ice. The mark upon his brow turned a venomous black-purple, its depths churning with a power that could shatter the heavens.

An unbearable agony tore from Bai Wei’s throat, a final, defiant roar filled with lifelong regrets, hatred for the scheming Tian Yunzi, the sorrow of his fate, and the tenacious hope that his struggle had not been in vain. Within it all, a desperate plea for release.

The sound hammered at Wang Lin, forcing him back once more. He understood Bai Wei’s defiance, a rebellion against the puppet strings held by Tian Yunzi.

This was, in its own way, an act of defiance against destiny itself.

Bai Wei’s roar echoed across the land, reaching for tens of thousands of leagues, but the thunderous storm swallowed his lament.

“Tian Yunzi,” he croaked, “let my death be a miscalculation! I, Bai Wei, laugh in the face of death! My life…means nothing! Only…an end!”

Bai Wei’s manic laughter mingled with the storm as the mark upon his brow absorbed the last vestiges of his Yin, initiating a grotesque transformation. The boundless energy compressed into a fist-sized vortex, twisting and churning within the mark. The very air thrummed with a deafening resonance, louder than any thunderclap.
The vortex, born of the mark, reached its zenith in a heartbeat. Within its depths, a golden spark ignited, drawing all shadow and cold to itself in a frenzied embrace.

Then, stillness. The chilling darkness vanished, leaving only a radiant golden mote, a tiny sun adrift in the air, drifting towards Wang Lin.

Bai Wei stood frozen, all life extinguished. A grotesque smile lingered on his face, now entombed within an eternal ice sculpture. This monument of frost pulsed with defiant energy, a rebellion against the shackles of fate.

The golden mote floated closer. Wang Lin felt its potent life force, an intense heat burning within.

“A spark of Pure Yang!” he murmured, extending his hand to grasp the essence.

Instantly, the icy prison of the valley dissolved. Bare earth reappeared, and verdant shoots burst forth, transforming the desolate landscape into the heart of spring.

Outside the valley, frozen raindrops thawed, cascading from the sky. All traces of the encroaching cold receded, normalcy restored in its wake.

As Wang Lin’s fingers brushed against the Pure Yang, the hour of Mao ended, and the hour of Chen began.

Far away, within the Heavenly Fortune Sect, rose a mountain of peculiar form. It resembled a colossal trident plunged into the earth, only its prongs visible above the surface.

Seven rings of vibrant color encircled the peak, emanating an ethereal glow, a halo of celestial energy that cloaked the mountain in a dreamlike aura.

Upon the highest point, Tian Yunzi sat in meditative repose. Robes of white billowed around his aged form, but despite the passage of years, he held no air of decay. Instead, he radiated an otherworldly grace, a vision akin to an immortal.

As the hour shifted, from Mao to Chen, his eyes snapped open. Within them swirled clouds of mist, and, impossibly, the celestial dance of sun, moon, and stars, a reversed panorama of the cosmos in fleeting transition.

It was as if the passage of ages was captured within his very gaze!

He surveyed the world below with an air of profound serenity. After a long moment, he sighed softly.

“Mortals strive for longevity, yearning for the eternity of heaven and earth… yet few understand the true worth of such endless existence! To be one with the cosmos… which existed long before us… who dares to say they can achieve that fate!”

“Their aspirations are mere illusions, the vision of ants! Tian Yunzi seeks not to mirror the eternal heavens, but to make my fortune, the very fortune of the sky! My will, the very will of heaven itself! To weave the Grand Dao into the very fabric of my being!”

Tian Yunzi’s gaze fell towards the distant city of Ghost Eyes, a strange light glimmering in his eyes. “Wang Lin…” he murmured, “Such audacity!”

Without stirring from his position, he raised his right hand and casually extended a single finger.

At that instant, beyond the dazzling Heavenly Fortune Star, within the vast expanse of the cosmos, winds howled, and thunderous booms echoed. Innumerable strands of cosmic energy converged in a frenzied vortex.

Across countless leagues, nearly all elemental power felt the pull of a primal force, a summon, a command, drawing it forth in a frenzied concentration.

In a heartbeat, a colossal finger materialized in the void outside the Heavenly Fortune Star. Hundreds of feet thick and thousands of feet long, it was a spectral apparition, a phantasmal presence in the abyss.

Unimaginable torrents of raw power surged toward the nascent digit, with such speed that it seemed to devour all elemental energy like a cosmic black hole.

Instantly, the spectral form solidified, its very fingerprints becoming clear, appearing as ranges of mountains and deep ravines.

It descended slowly, deliberately, upon the Heavenly Fortune Star.

The finger was vast beyond measure, yet it was not the Finger of an Ancient God, but rather a supreme technique birthed from Tian Yunzi’s own profound understanding – “Finger That Usurps the Heavens!” (To be continued…)