Qi Jingchun's colossal Dharma manifestation, pristine and ethereal, sat solemnly at the northernmost edge of the Eastern Treasure Bottle Continent. Billowing sea clouds surged and pressed downward, inching ever closer to his brow. He gazed skyward, his smile free-spirited and unrestrained.
From beyond the clouds, a solemn voice resounded:"Qi Jingchun, you must understand—Heaven's way is impartial! As a disciple of Confucianism, your compassion for Lizhu Cave Heaven is understandable. If you choose to repent now, there is still time."
As the celestial's words echoed, thunder rolled fiercely through the clouds, lightning flashing briefly yet intensely from beneath the cloud sea—each word carrying the weight of law.
Another celestial sneered:"Why waste breath on this bookworm? To accomplish deeds that shake heaven and earth, one must first ask my fists for permission!"
At that moment, a colossal golden hand swept down, parting the dense fog to reveal a gaping void, into which a pillar of divine light descended, landing before Qi Jingchun's Dharma figure.
From the West, a compassionate chant arose:"Benefactor Qi, with a single thought of stillness, one may transcend to the realm of Buddha."
Qi Jingchun responded in a deep voice:"After the battle of dragon-slaying, the small town enjoyed three millennia of grand fortune. The flourishing generations that followed were nothing but borrowed time. Yet, since the four Sages set these rules, and the earliest cultivators who took root in Lizhu Cave Heaven raised no objections, who am I to question them? If Heaven now seeks to suppress this realm, so be it. Let me alone bear this tribulation in place of the town's people. Neither Heaven's way nor the law has gone astray—why then must you all stand in its way?"
The immortal who had cleaved the cloud sea into a chasm laughed wildly."Ha! Qi, do you truly not know the reason, or are you just playing the fool?"
At some unknown point, Qi Jingchun had extended a hand, clutching within it a pearl that held an entire miniature cave heaven. His palm closed into a fist, holding the orb tightly. Within his grasp, the cave, the town, the entire realm, had plunged into sudden nightfall.
The snow-white hand shielding Lizhu Cave Heaven began to sizzle with invisible strikes from all directions. White arcs of lightning burst and danced across the back of his hand. Snowflakes—seemingly delicate as feathers yet massive as mountains—peeled from his skin and fell earthward, only to vanish before they touched the ground.
A celestial seated above the void in the cloud sea burst into mocking laughter:"A mere scholar dares defy the Great Dao? Know your place! Let me amuse myself with you first."
From the farthest edges of the Eastern Continent, if one could pierce the veil cast by the immortals' concealment formation, they would witness a spectacle of immense grandeur: within the gaping maw of cloud, a black dot appeared, plunging straight downward. A sword tip emerged, followed by the rest of the blade—a tiny, "pocket-sized" flying sword matching the length of Qi Jingchun's fingertip.
As the first sword appeared, a second followed, then a third, a fourth... In total, twelve flying swords descended from the heavens, aligned in a single file, suspended in the sky like an iron cavalry awaiting the call to charge.
Above the clouds, a golden giant sat cross-legged, his golden eyes wide open. With his right hand braced on his knee, he extended a finger and flicked it.
A sword shot forth, swift as lightning, trailing a tail of clouds in its path. It pierced Qi Jingchun's arm, stopping mere inches above the ground. Then, with a gentle twist of the giant's finger, the sword traced an arc and soared back into the sky. A second flick, and another sword plunged downward.
Twelve swords fell and rose in turn, a relentless assault. Qi Jingchun's arm was riddled with wounds, black holes puncturing the once-pure white figure—ghastly against the serene majesty of his Dharma image.
Yet Qi Jingchun remained composed. As the swords prepared for another volley, he calmly uttered four words:"Spring finds its triumph."
A sword once again darted toward his arm—but before it could strike, it wavered, as if caught in a breeze. Not only that sword—all twelve lost their power, orbiting around his manifestation in trembling stillness, their blades humming, waiting, held at bay by an unseen force.
The descending sea of clouds, too, was quietly lifted and supported by the subtle spring wind that now filled the heavens and earth.
The golden giant, bare-chested and brimming with unrestrained arrogance, looked down in astonishment. "Huh?"
These blades, so devastating to mortals, failed to faze Qi Jingchun, whose focus never wavered from the pearl in his palm. That ancient orb, suspended over the continent for three millennia, was destined to shatter sixty years hence under the next Sage, Ruan Qiong. When its protective shell crumbled like the glaze of a porcelain vessel, Heaven's wrath would descend like an unstoppable tide.
No lives would be lost that day, but every soul in the town would forfeit their next reincarnation. Qi Jingchun had scoured Buddhist texts to uncover a more terrifying fate—the six thousand townsfolk might become eternal scapegoats in the Hungry Ghost Realm of the Western Paradise, forever denied deliverance.
The blacksmith-sage Ruan Qiong, the last guardian of Lizhu Cave Heaven, would not shield the townsfolk from Heaven's punishment. His duty would be to ensure that none escaped it.
The golden giant's voice, booming like a drum, shook the heavens as he laughed:"Some say you, Qi Jingchun, are no ordinary man—bearing not one, but two true names. Besides 'Spring,' you also bear the forbidden name—'Stillness.' Come, let me see for myself!"
Each time he roared the word "come", he struck his knee with a fist. After the third blow, the clouds churned like boiling water. The invisible breeze beneath the sea quivered; light flickered wildly.
The giant sneered:"You have spring wind? I'll summon a rain of flying swords to douse your spirit!"
With those words, countless golden threads pierced through the clouds, weaving into the wind. Compared to the giant's frame, they were mere needles—but numbering in the tens of thousands, they gathered with overwhelming force.
Yet Qi Jingchun's eyes never left his fist. Unshaken, he murmured:
"A timely rain knows its season—it arrives in spring."
Around his Dharma image, droplets sprang from the earth, each appearing minuscule but as vast as ponds. In defiance of nature, the rain surged upward toward the sky. An inverted rainstorm rose to meet the golden sword-rain that poured down from above.
The collision of spring's blessing and heaven's fury was about to begin.