Chapter 81: Certain Death, No Survival

Liang Yan glanced around, then suddenly drew an octagonal compass from his storage pouch and cast a spell onto it. The needle spun rapidly, finally settling after three breaths, pointing directly toward the entrance of the village.

“What?” Liang Yan gripped the compass tightly, his gaze darting about in alarm.

“There’s absolutely no way out!”

His face was filled with disbelief as he stared at the village before him.

The place had an ancient charm, indistinguishable from any secular village. If not for the palpable sense of murderous intent within the array, it could easily be mistaken for a picturesque countryside—old vines, aged trees, crows at dusk, a small bridge over flowing water, a tranquil homestead.

Yet, caught in this peril, Liang Yan knew better than to lose his composure. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm.

Although the octagonal compass revealed that the “gate of life” was sealed, offering only death and no escape, he reckoned there might be some misunderstanding. Since it was an array, there must be a way to break it.

He followed the narrow village path, taking a few more steps inward, all the while observing his surroundings.

The grass-thatched huts were scattered with deliberate order—some large courtyards, others humble dwellings. In the village center stood an old locust tree, solitary and upright, like an elder silently watching the roads.

A clear stream wound its way down from the surrounding mountains, passing through the village, its smooth river stones visible beneath the water, reflecting even drifting clouds from the high peaks.

This scene was an ordinary pastoral village, nothing betraying the secrets of a grand array.

“Wait! The roads, houses, dried wells, even every blade of grass and branch seem to correspond with the hexagrams. Could it be…” Liang Yan’s mind suddenly caught a spark, a possibility flickering into view.

With this thought, he quickened his pace, heading straight for the old locust tree in the village center. Upon reaching it, he leapt gracefully, his feet tapping lightly against the trunk, propelling himself onto the treetop.

From this vantage point, the arrangement of houses, streets, and objects in the village became perfectly clear to him.

Liang Yan studied the scene for a long time, then suddenly cried out:

“Heaven and earth connected, chief among the classics—knowing the Book of Changes without divination, skilled in its ways without fortune-telling! Is this array born from the hexagrams?”

He was deeply shocked. Though he had read through the array manuals in the library for nearly six years, he did not recognize the name of this formation. Yet its layout so clearly echoed the lines of the Book of Changes, it must have been derived from those hexagrams.

The art of the hexagrams began with the Daoists, flourished with the Confucian classics, and later became its own branch—though strictly speaking, it was a sub-discipline of both Daoist and Confucian schools.

The library’s array books described the combination of hexagram arts and formations, but the accounts were vague or cryptic. Luckily, Liang Yan’s talent was exceptional, and he had managed to synthesize the scattered hints and mysterious statements, gleaning several transformations of the hexagram arrays.

“If this is so, then it’s disastrous!” Liang Yan thought to himself. “The Book of Changes is a technique of heavenly secrets, and any formation derived from it must be endlessly mutable—truly difficult to unravel.”

“But hexagram arrays mostly imitate the workings of heaven, emphasizing the natural order. Even the deadliest dangers often arise from seemingly insignificant things, just as ‘the wind begins at the tip of a green blade.’ Now, the killing force of the array has not yet stirred. If I can find its source, perhaps I can outwit it…”

With this, Liang Yan scanned his surroundings, watching the silent village closely, seeking any unusual detail.

He did not wait long. A gentle breeze swept through, and at the corner of his eye, Liang Yan saw something inside a house at the west end of the village being moved by the wind, teetering atop the stove.

With a sharp sound, Liang Yan sprang into action, dashing toward the house.

Though his cultivation had not yet reached the eighth level of Qi Refining, enabling him to fly objects, his speed was only slightly less. Within three breaths of the object being disturbed, Liang Yan reached the doorway. He kicked the door open and rushed inside. Suddenly, a sharp crack rang out.

He saw that the object moved by the wind was actually an oil lamp, which, as he entered, fell from the stove, landing—by sheer misfortune—in a pile of dry straw on the floor.

A burst of flames shot skyward, billowing thick smoke toward Liang Yan.

“Earth below, fire above—Advancement Hexagram!” Liang Yan exclaimed in shock.

But despite his alarm, he did not panic. Fleeing the house, he muttered inwardly:

“The Advancement Hexagram is earth and fire, its momentum unbroken for a thousand miles. I’ve come too late; this earth fire is already raging beyond my ability to resist. I must find the water position in the array and use the power of the Master Hexagram to counter it.”

As he pondered, the fire spread from the house, surging toward him. Liang Yan held the compass in his left hand, calculated with his right, murmuring incantations.

After two breaths, he put away the compass, turned, and ran toward a large courtyard on another street.

Leaping into the yard, he found a water jar at its center. Though empty, Liang Yan’s face brightened.

“This is it. Earth and water—Master Hexagram. When the earth fire arrives and water and fire clash, that’s my chance to escape!”

Excited, Liang Yan waited in place. The earth fire roared down the street, yet bizarrely, nothing in its path was reduced to ashes. Anything covered by the flames remained unchanged, as if touched by rootless fire.

“Hm?” Liang Yan sensed something was wrong, but couldn’t immediately see why.

As he hesitated, a breeze suddenly rose in the courtyard, blowing directly at him and chilling his heart.

“No! This isn’t the Master Hexagram—this is the Encounter Hexagram of Heavenly Wind!”

As if in response, the wind in the courtyard surged from a gentle breeze to a raging gale. Fallen leaves were swept skyward, forming a whirlwind out of nowhere.

Across the street, the earth fire was caught by the wind, growing even fiercer, surging toward Liang Yan.

“How can this be? How can this be?” Liang Yan’s mind was in turmoil as he leapt out of the courtyard. “I couldn’t have miscalculated—this place should be the Master Hexagram, so why has it become the Encounter Hexagram of Heavenly Wind?”

There was no time to ponder. The earth fire, once just a spark from an oil lamp, now raged with unstoppable force—far beyond what a Qi Refining disciple like Liang Yan could withstand.

To make matters worse, the whirlwind grew ever stronger, wind feeding fire, both surging after him.

Clenching his teeth, Liang Yan pulled out the compass and calculated swiftly.

“Fire fed by wind—the earth fire can no longer be countered by the Master Hexagram. There are sixty-four hexagrams in the Book of Changes, beginning with Heaven and Earth, ending with Water and Fire. If I can find the Great Prosperity Hexagram of Earth and Heaven, perhaps I can survive even at the point of despair.”

Drawing on six years of study, aided by the Dragon Seeker Formula and the octagonal compass, he calculated directions as he fled.

Though it seemed lengthy, it all happened within a few breaths. Sweating profusely, he suddenly changed direction, heading back toward the old locust tree.

With a leap, he returned to the treetop, watching the compass spin. He murmured to himself:

“Earth below, heaven above—changing with the times, prosperity from adversity, finding life at the brink of death! This is the place.”

No sooner had he settled on the old locust tree than the advancing earth fire and whirlwind halted, as if held fast by some unseen force.

Liang Yan wiped cold sweat from his brow, his heart still pounding.

“Luckily, this Prosperity Hexagram is the gate of life. Otherwise, I would have died here without even understanding why.”

“Come to think of it, this gatekeeping array shouldn’t be a trapping or illusion array—why is it a killing array? The sect uses this grand formation to test disciples of the array branch, isn’t it afraid its disciples may die tragically in the array…”

Thunder rumbled.

Before he could finish his thought, a tremendous roar sounded in the distance. The earth fire, previously halted, suddenly blazed with renewed fury, advancing toward him even more fiercely than before.

Not only that—the whirlwind, once stalled, howled and spun into action again.

“What?!”

Liang Yan was utterly shaken. This place should be the Prosperity Hexagram of Earth and Heaven—why did the killing intent not dissipate, but grow even more violent?

He examined the raging fire and saw that despite its intensity, everything it passed remained untouched.

“Rootless fire, rootless fire. Could this not be earth fire?”

With that realization, it was as if he had been struck by lightning—his mind suddenly cleared.

“Heaven and earth reversed, hexagrams inverted. The entire village is upside down—so earth is heaven, heaven is earth. It should be heaven above fire below—Fellowship Hexagram! This is the Heavenly Fire Fellowship!”

When fire is above heaven, it needs no fuel, burning rootless and untethered, igniting all without truly consuming anything.

With this understanding, the previous oddities made sense. Heaven and earth inverted, hexagrams shifted—using the usual hexagram methods to seek the Master Hexagram, he found nothing. Not only did he fail, he attracted the Encounter Hexagram of Heavenly Wind, wind and fire merging, intensifying the killing force.

“In that case, my location isn’t the Prosperity Hexagram—it’s the Obstruction Hexagram! No communication, no passage—the gate of death!”

As if to confirm his words, the heavenly fire, accompanied by the gale, closed in, trapping him in the center, tightening from all directions in a sea of flame with not the slightest gap.

As the gale howled, the heavenly fire grew ever fiercer, its heart turning pale gold. Within a few breaths, it left the ground, rising into the sky, becoming true “rootless fire.”

Seeing this, Liang Yan let out a bitter, self-mocking laugh.

“Fire fed by wind, Fellowship turns to Great Possession. Now fire is in heaven—the Great Possession Hexagram of Fire and Heaven. Even a Golden Core master would be powerless…”

He had never imagined the array could invert heavenly secrets—everything seemed to fall within the orchestrator’s design.

One misstep, and every step after was wrong. Now, trapped in the Obstruction Hexagram, earth below offered no escape, heaven above no route; beset from all sides, death was certain.