Chapter 80- Yang Ren Comes to Aid Xiqi Against Shang While Ziya in His 10...

The sources open with this almost chilling certainty. They describe the formation as fiercely set up and not easy to break. And then they state that this whole struggle at the pass happens only because Zia's disaster was not yet fulfilled. Wait. That theme of inescapable fate. That's the lens for everything we're about to see. Okay, so let's unpack this. The campaign opens with Nezha, who we know is this spiritual powerhouse. He's flying into the fight on his windfire wheels, challenging the pass defender, a man named Long Anji. And Long Anji knows exactly what he's up against. Yeah. He sees Nezha and recognizes him as a man of Taoist arts. So he decides brute force is, well, it's pointless. His strategy is immediate magical offense. He's not messing around. He goes straight for the spiritual jugular with his treasured weapon. And he deploys this thing, the four limbs numbing treasure, the Sizi Su. It's described as looking like the yin-yang buckle, and it makes this strange ding-dong sound in the air. Now, you, the listener, you might assume a weapon called the numbing treasure is physical, but it's much more insidious than that, right? Precisely. It's a function isn't to, you know, physically harm or bind the body. It's designed to target the spiritual essence, the Sao, the Hunpeng. In Taoist cosmology, if you can capture or disable the soul, that's it. Instant victory. So Long Anji is incredibly confident. He expects Nezha to just drop, completely immobilized and spiritually paralyzed. But the weapon fails. Just spectacular. It clatters to the ground. And Long Anji is left completely terrified and confused. So what is the fundamental, the cosmic reason it doesn't work? And this is our first big insight into the, let's call them the customized rules of this celestial war. The sources are explicit. Long Anji didn't know Nezha was a lotus incarnation, a Lian Hua Shan. Nezha's body is essentially a spiritual forgery. It's a replacement construct built from lotus stalks after his original death. Because he doesn't have a traditional organic soul or a normal spiritual body, any magic designed to target the Hunpeng, it literally has nothing to latch onto. It is the ultimate spiritual immunity. You can't disable the system if the system itself is nonstandard. So Long Anji, seeing his ultimate magic weapon become, you know, useless, he's just paralyzed by terror. And Nezha wastes zero time. He manifests his three heads and eight arms and uses the Cancun Circle, the universe ring, to just strike Long Anji's head. Kills him instantly. A very decisive, brutal end to that first challenge. That speed and intensity, it really signals the power of the disciples. But that victory just escalates the stakes. The local commander is panicking. And that's when the true, really formidable threat arrives to replace the fallen officer. And here comes Liu Yu, the air cultivator of Nine Dragon Island. I mean, his description alone is just terrifying. He has three eyes, a face the color of indigo dye, red hair, and these huge, tusk-like teeth. The liao ya, he looks like he walked right out of a nightmare. And his motivation is absolutely critical here. It's not just loyalty to the Shang dynasty. He tells the commander, Zhu Fang, that he harbors an unending feud with Jiang Shang. That's Xia. Liu Yu has co-opted this whole military mission to fulfill a deeply personal vendetta. It's revenge emasculating as divine service. Xia's disciples immediately recognize him and just swarm him. They're gnashing their teeth in fury. You have Lai Zhenzi, Jinza, Muzha, Li Jing, Wei Hu, Nezha. All of them surround him in this chaotic melee. Liu Yu matches their intensity, though. He transforms into his own three-headed, six-armed form and immediately uses the arrayed plague seal, the Lai Wanyin. This weapon is designed to cause instant disease, both physical and spiritual. And it's effective right away. It wounds Lai Zhenzi, forcing the others to break formation just to rescue their comrade. But Xia has countermagic. He strikes Liu Yu in the back with the god-beating whip. And here's where it gets really interesting. The blow causes three-flavored True Fire Sun Meizan Hanka to burst out of Liu Yu's body. It forces him to retreat back into Chuanyuan Pass. That three-flavored True Fire is important. It's one of the highest forms of celestial purificatory fire in Taoist lore. It shows that while Liu Yu's plague magic is powerful against the disciples, Xia, who holds the whip of divine authority, can still inflict devastating purificatory damage on Liu Yu himself. So Liu Yu is not untouchable. Not yet. The power struggle is clear. But that temporary retreat gives Liu Yu the time he needs to execute his real plan. He waits for his junior brother, Chen Gang, who was delayed finishing a crucial, precious treasure. Once Chen Gang arrives, they get to work setting up the array. We learn they arranged 21 Plague Umbrellas He, Ge, Bin, Skan, and Sun in this massive, complex formation. It's based on the esoteric principles of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams. They build a central earthen altar for ritual use. This isn't just a barrier. It's a machine built to disperse spiritual toxins. And when Liu Yu challenges Xia to recognize it, Xia is, well, he's baffled. He sees it's a unified array without standard characters or patterns. It doesn't follow the normal playbook for magical warfare. He's anxious. He knows it has to be something that can't be attacked in a conventional way. This is where the whole narrative pivots fully back to destiny. Xia is just wracked with anxiety, trying to find a tactical solution, when suddenly the context clicks into place. He recalls Agatha, a warning from his master, Yuan Shi Tianzun, that's stated clearly. At Boundary Pass, meet the Immortal Slayers. Beneath Chuan Yun Pass, suffer the Plague. Wow. That confirmation must be devastating. He realizes this isn't just a battle. It's an appointment with fate. But if he has his clear, divine warning, why is he still so panicked? Doesn't knowing the future give him some kind of advantage? That's an excellent point. It really speaks to the limits of prophecy in this world. Knowing the name of the disaster, the Plague Array, it confirms the severity, sure, but it doesn't reveal the counter-strategy. And it certainly doesn't make the immediate danger any less lethal. He knows he's standing in the middle of a celestial time bomb, but he doesn't know the diffusal code. Not yet. And while Xia is grappling with all of his cosmic anxiety, Yang Jin provides one of the great historical taunts. He confirms the name of the Array to Lu Yu, but just dismissively claims it hasn't been set up fully yet. The sources say Lu Yu was left utterly speechless, like a stone sinking into the ocean. That taunt, as good as it is, does nothing to stop the flow of fate. The confrontation quickly prompts a philosophical intervention. A fellow Taoist practitioner, Li Ping, shows up to advise Lu Yu to back off. Right. And this segment is crucial because it really highlights the choice between destiny and free will. Li Ping argues that King Lu is a ruler destined to rise. The ying yun, or sing, he's saying the Shang dynasty is already over, heaven has decided. He urges Lu Yu to remain a casual man beyond the world, a true Taoist who doesn't interfere in these mortal, fated conflicts. But Lu Yu is just blinded by his personal feud. He refuses that path of spiritual freedom, insisting his revenge is actually following heaven and submitting to the people. He's claiming a divine mandate for what is essentially a personal war. Li Ping explicitly warns him against this choice five separate times. He even cites Ziya's ability to survive every previous great array, the ten absolute, the immortal slaying array, as proof that Ziya is divinely protected. But Lu Yu just ignores it all. So his insistence on making this fated situation personal means the disaster is now inevitable. Ziya is still worried about how to break the array when another immortal, cloud dweller Yun Zongzi, arrives. And he delivers the truly shocking news that just instantly negates all military strategy. This is the moment where human agency completely dissolves. Yun Zongzi reveals that the array is in fact unbreakable for now. And the reason is because it marks the fulfillment of Ziya's own 100-day disaster. There is no spell, no weapon, no counter-array. Ziya must simply fall victim to the plague and endure for three months before any solution can even be found. Just think about the strategic implications there for a moment. This is the supreme military commander, the man holding the god-beating whip, and he's being told by the heavens, your destiny requires you to be incapacitated, possibly dying, for 100 days. The entire campaign has to halt, not because of an enemy's power, but because of a celestial timetable. Exactly. Yun Zongzi is forced to take command of the army, he accepts the sword and seal, and has to reassure King Wu that this isn't a failure of leadership, but a function of heaven's cycles. The Tian Yun Sun Huan. It's an unavoidable scheduled suffering. The lesson here for the disciples is profound. Sometimes the greatest heroes are required to do absolutely nothing. Nothing but wait for their allotted misery to run its course. And Liu Yu, completely unaware that fate has already won this battle for him by giving Ziya a 100-day sick leave, he doubles down on his free will vendetta. He sends a formal war book, a challenge letter. And this letter is Liu Yu's final piece of spiritual self-justification, it's aggressive propaganda. He accuses Wes Kee of regicide, of relying on evil Chan teachings, of slaughtering cities. And he emphatically claims that heaven has specifically commissioned him to defeat them using this play array. He concludes by demanding Ziya either surrender or face immediate death. He's completely unaware that Ziya is already on his destined path to 100 days of illness. It's a powerful, chilling final gauntlet thrown down against an adversary who has just been commanded by the heavens to stand down. Jiang Ziya heading into this crucible. He knows it's bad. Oh yeah. And his master, Yun Zongzi, he makes sure Ziya is prepped. Not just vaguely prepped, but like down to the last detail. It's not just one magic charm, is it? It's like layers. Exactly. Three talismans, one on the chest, one on his back, and one hidden right inside his crown. Plus, he's carrying this special pill. That sounds less like gearing up for a fight and more like preparing to endure poison. Or radiation. That's a good way to put it. Because the array isn't really about combat. It's designed for instant, horrible termination. Yikes. What do the sources say it's actually like inside? It's grim. They talk about overwhelming slaughter energy, shaki, gloomy darkness, mournful cries everywhere. Then there are these winds. One type supposedly dissolves your bones. Dissolves bones. Seriously. Yeah. And another cold air that just penetrates right to your heart, to Xin Han, plus flying sand, rolling clouds, swirling pestilence everywhere. It's pure chaos designed to kill. And the guy running it, Liu Yu, he doesn't wait around. No. Zero time wasted. He lures Ziya in and immediately uses his big weapon, the Wansian, the plague umbrella. What does that do? It covers the whole area in this like suffocating red gauze and black fog. Anyone normal would just be gone. Instantly. Liu Yu actually shouts out that Ziya's dead. He claims victory right then. But he's wrong. Because of the prep work. Exactly. This is where Yun Zongzi's defenses kick in. Ziya's holding the Kunlun Apricot Yellow Banner, the Zhenguang Qi. It's this legendary defensive artifact. So the banner counters the umbrella. Perfectly. The sources say it doesn't just block the plague effects. It constantly releases these thousand golden flowers, yu shuo, that shield him. So Ziya's basically trapped, can't move, can't fight back, but he's inside this bubble of golden light. A golden flower bunker. Okay, so he's safe, but stuck. What about the army outside? King Wu hears Ziya's dead. Morale must have just tanked. Oh, absolutely. Total despair. But this is where Yun Zongzi steps up again, strategically. He gives them the bigger picture. The heavenly context. What does he tell them? He confirms Ziya isn't dead, but he is facing a hundred day disaster, Binlizi's eye. And crucially, he reminds them this happened before. So there's precedent. King Wu already endured a 100 day trial in the Red Sand Array. Reframes it from he's dead to he's undergoing a predestined trial. Precisely. It shifts the narrative. The lesson becomes about faith and destiny. Yun Zongzi says, a person with good fortune cannot be harmed by a thousand schemes. It gives them hope, but demands patience. A hundred days, though. That's over three months. Asking an entire army to just sit tight while their commander is stuck in a death zone, that requires immense discipline. Immense, absolute faith, strategic resilience. They can't just charge in. That would be suicide. They have to hold the line, keep morale up somehow, and only engage in these measured skirmishes. Tactical pokes, basically. Not trying to win, just disrupt. Exactly. Keep the enemy off balance. Which, you know, leads us right into those skirmishes while Ziya is doing his golden flower meditation. Right. The Zu heroes get involved. Nezha, Yang Jian, Li Jing. The big guns. The heavy hitters, yeah. They challenge Liu Yu and his second in command, Chen Gang. It's not about breaking the array itself, not yet. It's about wounding the masters. Creating instability. That's the goal. Force them to pull back, regroup, maybe make a mistake. And the sources give us specifics, right? Nezha does his thing. Oh, yeah. Nezha goes full three heads, eight arms, uses the universe ring, Qian Kun Quan, and whacks Chen Gang right on the shoulder. A solid hit. Ouch. And Yang Jian. Yang Jian brings out the howling celestial dog, a Sha Tian Qun. Classic move. The dog bites Liu Yu right on the head. On the head. Okay, that's definitely disruptive. Yeah, it forces them both to retreat, wounded, back into the safety of the array. It's a small win, but tactically important. It buys time and maybe rattles them. Okay, so Liu Yu is wounded back inside his array. But he's still thinking strategically, isn't he? About those captured Zu generals. He is. Which is interesting, because he claims to be this pure Taoist, not interested in worldly rewards. But he knows the value of prisoners of war. Huang Fei Hu and three others, right? High value targets. Very high value. So Liu Yu tells his ally, Xu Feng, look, get these guys out of here. Take them to charge the capital immediately. And he tells Yu Feng not to claim credit for it. Right. He says, don't mention my name. I don't want the merit. But then he stresses getting these prisoners secured is the most critical matter. He understands asset management, even if he's supposedly above it all. He wants to lock in that game before anything else happens? Exactly. He's trying to salvage something from that skirmish, secure those assets while he's stuck recuperating inside his own array. So they put the four generals in a cage cart, led by this Feng Yi Zhen, heading for Tong Pass. It's a desperate move. And it creates the perfect opportunity. A moving target away from the main battlefield. Ideal for an interception. Which sets the stage for, well, for divine intervention, right? Absolutely. Back on the celestial plane, True Lord King Su Dari's engine decides, OK, time's up. A hundred days are nearly done. Those generals need saving. And this plague ray needs breaking. So he calls in his specialist. He summons his disciple, Yang Ren. Yang Ren. OK, we have to pause here. Because his backstory is one of the wildest things in the source. This isn't just some standard hero arriving. No, definitely not. Yang Ren was originally a government official. A grand counselor. A civil servant. And he gave the tyrant, King Zhu, some honest, direct advice. And King Zhu, being King Zhu, reacted badly. He had Yang Ren's eyes gouged out, just brutally blinded him. Horrific. But that's not the end of the story, is it? Not at all. His master, the True Lord, finds him and saves him using an immortal means. He puts two magic pills into the empty eye sockets. OK, and what happens? The result is, well, it's unique. Instead of his eyes growing back, two hands sprout from his eye sockets. Wait, hands growing out of his eye sockets? Yep. And his actual eyes. They now grow out of the palms of those new hands. So he has hands sticking out of his face with eyes blinking on the palms. That is, wow. Talk about psychological warfare. It's incredibly effective. The sources specifically mention that enemy soldiers are just terrified by the mere sight of him. It's an instant shock and awe effect. Morale plummets before he even does anything. I can imagine. But he's not just there to look scary, right? He gets equipped for the mission. Right. He's given a specific arsenal. Three key items. First, the Flying Lightning Spear by Dian Qiang. Standard hero weapon. OK. Then he gets transport, the Cloud Radiance Beast, Yunshi Shou. Apparently, this creature used to hang out at the Grand Peach Festival, so it's got pedigree. A celestial ride. Nice. And the third item. This feels important. It's the crucial one. The Five Fire Divine Flame Fan, Wumshan Yan Shan. Think about it. You're up against an array based on plague, decay, cold. You need the opposite. Fire. Yeah. Cleansing. Destructive fire. Exactly. Elemental chaos to counter organized pestilence. It's the perfect tool for this specific job. And does he get to use it quickly? Oh, immediately. He intercepts that prism convoy carrying the generals. Fang Yi Zhen, the guard captain, attacks him. Big mistake. Huge. Yang Ren doesn't even bother with a long fight. He just whips out the Divine Flame Fan. And what happens? Give us the description. The sources say the fan creates fierce flames soaring 10,000 feet high, and 1,000 golden snakes made of fire. Just overwhelming elemental power. And Fang Yi Zhen? Him, his horse, the whole escort just instantly vaporized, blown away in a whirlwind of fire. Total annihilation. No contest. OK. Surgical strike complete. OK. General's freed. But then Yang Ren does something interesting. He doesn't just send them back to camp. No. And this is really clever strategy. He tells them explicitly, don't go back to the zoo camp yet. Find civilian houses near the pass, hide there, and wait. Why? Why the delay? Why hide them? Because if they return, they're safe. But they're just for more soldiers. By hiding them near the pass, he's positioning an internal strike force. They become a secret weapon inside the enemy's territory. Ah, waiting for a signal to attack from within once the main assault begins. Exactly. They're told to wait for a cannon shot. Once the array is broken from the outside, they launch a coordinated attack from the inside. It turns a rescue into a brilliant tactical setup. That's, that's really sophisticated planning. Divine level strategy. It shows how layered this whole operation is. So with the generals hidden and waiting, Yang Ren finally heads to the zoo camp. And houses reception. He's welcomed by Yun Zongzi, who notes his timing is perfect. Only three days left on Ziya's hundred day clock. Everything is converging just as prophesied. Just as planned. The endurance phase is over. Now it's time for the offensive. Right. Time to break the array. So Yang Ren, riding his cloud radiance beast, goes right out and challenges Liu Yu. And Liu Yu comes out. Does he know what he's facing? He comes out. And now he's in his own powered up form, three heads, six arms. But the sources say he's visually shocked. Maybe even stunned by Yang Ren's appearance. Those hands with eyes. It throws him off. The psychological edge again. Does the fight last long? Nope. It's almost anticlimactic in a way. They clash for less than three rounds. Liu Yu realizes he's outmatched. Especially against that fan, probably. So he retreats back into the plague array. He does. And Yang Ren, armed with a five fire divine flame fan, pursues him right in. This is it. The final confrontation is about to happen inside the array itself.