Chapter 1422: The Will of Heaven Cannot Be Defied

The gravestone that had appeared out of nowhere, and the characters carved upon it, froze Qin Sang where he stood. This was the last thing he had expected.

"Tan Hao?" Qin Sang muttered.

One of Qin Sang's purposes in coming to the North Sea had been to find Tan Hao and the mysterious Ghost Mother.

He had traveled half of Crescent Moon Realm following Master Feng with nothing to show for it, and had intended to search Boundless Sea thoroughly once Pure Sea Sect business concluded.

Of all the North Sea's domains, Boundless Sea was the most tangled and chaotic in its balance of power. Anything was easier to accomplish there, with no need to worry about drawing the hostility of an entire continent.

An entity of obscure origins like the Ghost Mother was likeliest to surface in such a place.

He had never imagined he would stumble on Tan Hao's trail under circumstances like these.

"So Tan Hao and the Ghost Mother took those herbs. Which means the phenomenon that drew Daoist Qi here was very likely caused by their entry. Is the Ghost Mother a Buddhist powerhouse?" Qin Sang muttered.

Scanning his surroundings, Qin Sang walked up the hillside and stopped before the gravestone.

The characters carried an overwhelming grief.

"Since we parted at Yinshan Stronghold, Tan Hao has run himself ragged for a century trying to bring Tan Jie back. Given what those brothers were to each other, so long as a shred of hope remained, he would never have given up. He succeeded in finding and freeing the mysterious figure behind Heavenly Corpse Sect, and yet here he stands, raising a stone for his brother. So even the Ghost Mother could not resurrect Tan Jie..." Qin Sang looked at the gravestone, his mood heavy.

From Canglang Sea to Small Cold Domain and Sin Abyss, and on to the North Sea.

Mute Girl's condition had been steadily improving, and Qin Sang had assumed that finding the Ghost Mother would be the turning point that woke her. Seeing Tan Jie's grave, he realized matters might not be so simple.

He let out a quiet sigh. With Tan Jie's grave here, Tan Hao could not be far.

"Surely they haven't made Pure Sea Sect into their cave dwelling?"Muttering to himself, he put away the devilish flames and the Golden Sinking Sword. Still holding some wariness toward the Ghost Mother, he kept the devilish banners concealed in his sleeve, ready to act at any moment.

His gaze traveled past the hills to the cliff face. After studying it briefly, he found the irregularity. The seemingly ordinary rock concealed a barrier within, and another world behind it.

Suddenly, fluctuations rippled through the stone and a grinding sound issued from it.

Qin Sang halted, alert.

The face of the cliff transformed, revealing a cave that had plainly been carved by hand. The stone door was pushed open from within and a figure stepped out.

It was Tan Hao!

"Late-stage Golden Core—No! The peak of the Golden Core Realm, a single step from condensing a Spiritual Infant." Qin Sang read his cultivation at a glance.

At Tan Hao's age, his prospects of breaking through to the Spiritual Infant Realm were far from slim.

The true essence in his body showed clear signs of instability, apparently from cultivating some secret technique that had been forcibly interrupted, though fortunately it was not severe.

Tan Hao pushed the door open and emerged without summoning an astra. He worked a mental incantation with practiced ease, divine light flickering in both pupils, and was about to look toward the depths of the purple mist to assess the situation when he caught sight of the unfamiliar figure before Tan Jie's grave. Alarm shot through him.

Qin Sang had deliberately masked his aura, and Tan Hao had no inkling that anyone else was there.

The hair stood up all over his body. Face filled with shock, he summoned his life-bound astra without hesitation. Then he saw the man's face, and a rush of familiarity rose in him, and he froze where he stood.

"You're... Qin..." His voice shook and disbelief covered his face.

They had been apart far too long. Had Tan Hao not carried his gratitude for what Qin Sang had done for the two brothers all these years, he could never have recognized him at a glance.

Even so he could not believe Qin Sang would appear here. After their parting at Yinshan Stronghold he had gone traveling and had fought in the Three-Domain War, and never once received word of Qin Sang again. Hard as it was to accept, he had understood that in all likelihood Qin Sang had perished.

An old friend he had thought separated from him by the divide between the living and the dead now stood before him, and in the least likely place imaginable. It felt like a dream.

"Brother Tan. It's been a long time." Qin Sang's expression was complicated. It really had been long, nearly three hundred years.

For a moment neither man spoke.

Qin Sang covertly examined Tan Hao's cave dwelling. The interior was spare, and it seemed he lived there alone. Where the Ghost Mother cultivated, he could not tell.

Tan Hao drew a deep breath, pressing down the surge of feeling, and gave Qin Sang a long look before smiling. "Brother Qin. You've gotten a step ahead of me again, haven't you?"

He had scanned his surroundings the moment he was roused in his cave dwelling and had detected nothing of Qin Sang's aura. Had Qin Sang not revealed himself, he would still be in the dark.

To Tan Hao, Qin Sang was profoundly mysterious, his realm impossible to read. There was only one explanation: Qin Sang's cultivation far surpassed his own.

He remembered their meeting at Yinshan Stronghold all those years ago, and how similar the circumstances had been. It was thanks to the Foundation Building Pill Qin Sang had given him that he had managed to reach the Foundation Building Realm at all.

In the years since he had enjoyed one fortuitous encounter after another to reach his present cultivation, and barring surprises he should break through to the Spiritual Infant Realm before four hundred. Yet he still fell short of Qin Sang.

As he recalled it, Qin Sang had four spiritual roots, or was it five...

"Nothing but luck." Qin Sang nodded slightly, saying nothing further about himself. He lowered his head toward the gravestone, his voice dropping. "Brother Tan Jie, he..."

"The will of heaven cannot be defied." Tan Hao shook his head bitterly, his voice thick with helplessness.

Qin Sang could understand it, the feeling of chasing something for centuries only to find it a reflection in a mirror, a moon on the water. The immortal cultivation world had always been this cruel. And a man of Tan Hao's temperament had no need of consolation from anyone else.

Qin Sang was quiet a moment before speaking. "A hundred years ago I made a trip to Yinshan Stronghold to find you. I met Yi'en, and learned your situation from him."

"Yi'en? How is he now?" Tan Hao's eyes lit up and the question came out before he could stop it.

"Don't worry, Yi'en is well. He's formed his core. I founded a sect, and he handles affairs on my behalf." Qin Sang gave a brief account of Tan Yi'en's circumstances.

Tan Hao seemed to release a held breath. "Good. That's good..." he murmured.

He had given up too much for his brother, his own bloodline included, and he carried his guilt toward Tan Yi'en.

Qin Sang chose his words carefully. "Yi'en has been searching for you all this while. We found several of your friends and learned that you'd traced word of Heavenly Corpse Sect and slipped into Sin Abyss. I followed the trail to investigate, and eventually found Heavenly Corpse Sect's main headquarters, along with the water prison in Abyssal Ruin."

He paused and looked at Tan Hao.

"I've put you both to a great deal of trouble." Tan Hao sighed.

He then recounted what had befallen him in Sin Abyss, concealing nothing, and it matched the clues Qin Sang had uncovered.

At Heavenly Corpse Sect's branch, Tan Hao had heard a mysterious figure calling out to him, been guided to the headquarters, and struck a bargain to bring Tan Jie back to life in exchange for freeing the figure trapped in the water prison. Afterward that figure had brought him to the North Sea.

It was the Ghost Mother!

"Senior Ghost Mother was gravely injured and extremely weak from her imprisonment. She barely managed to suppress her injuries and recover part of her strength, then taught me a joint-strike secret technique. Together we drove a protective astra through the storm belt. Once in the North Sea, Senior Ghost Mother retrieved treasures she had left behind long ago, and only then did she heal and recover her full strength," Tan Hao explained.

"Treasures she had left behind?" Something struck Qin Sang as off. "Did that senior stumble into the water prison by accident and end up trapped there?"

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