Chapter 17 The East Sea is the chessboard; please join the game, fellow Daoist.

Guangchengzi laughed.

He laughed out of extreme anger.

He had traversed the Primordial World for endless ages; as the head of the Golden Immortals of the Chan Sect and the first disciple under a Saint, when had he ever been questioned to his face by a Heavenly Immortal ant?

"Very well."

He spat out those two words, offering no further nonsense.

The giant golden hand suspended above Gu Ziyuan's head saw its Law divine chains interweave frantically, its power surging once more as if it intended to completely crush this patch of time and space!

He didn't even bother to wonder why the other party could remain safe and sound under his pressure.

In his view, to crush an ant, one did not need to study why that ant was stronger than its kin.

Crushing it was enough.

However, at the very moment that world-destroying palm print was about to fall, an invisible, intangible golden ripple quietly spread out around Gu Ziyuan.

That ripple was not magic power, but a kind of order, a kind of rule.

Guangchengzi's terrifying pressure, which was enough to suppress and kill a Taiyi Golden Immortal, the moment it touched this ripple—

Was silently neutralized and smoothed away, like spring snow meeting a blazing sun.

[Great Dao Merit Golden Wheel (Embryonic Form) enhancement effect: Impervious to all methods, protected by order.]

A flash of realization crossed Gu Ziyuan's mind. This reward had come at just the right time.

"Noisy."

He looked up at the still-descending giant golden hand and softly spat out a single word.

In the next instant, he flipped his wrist, and that simple, unadorned stone chessboard flew from his hand.

There was no earth-shattering immortal light, no world-destroying Aura.

The chessboard simply spun rapidly, meeting the giant golden hand that blotted out the sky.

Under the terrified gazes of the Three Xiao Fairies and within Ao Guang's already numbed perception, the tiny chessboard and the massive palm collided with a roar!

There was no explosion.

There was no sound.

Time seemed to have been paused at this moment.

The giant golden hand, capable of shattering mountains and rivers, actually acted like a clay ox entering the sea the moment it touched the chessboard.

The endless immortal power and Laws contained within it were swallowed in one gulp by that small chessboard, without even raising a single ripple.

"What?!"

Guangchengzi's expression changed drastically; this was the first time he was truly moved.

He was mentally connected to that giant golden hand and clearly sensed that his power had not been defeated, but... decomposed.

It was decomposed into the most primitive Spiritual Qi by a higher-level rule that he could not understand.

Before he could react, another change occurred!

The stone chessboard hovering in mid-air gave a sudden jolt!

Buzz—!

Lines of crisscrossing Laws, centered on the chessboard, spread frantically in all directions!

They pierced through the treasury's ceiling and rushed out of the Crystal Palace like a deity's paintbrush, splashing wildly across this boundless East Sea!

One horizontal, one vertical.

Ten horizontal, ten vertical.

A hundred horizontal, a hundred vertical!

In an instant, within a ten-thousand-mile radius of the sea, the wind died down, the waves stilled, the currents stopped, and the fish and shrimp fell silent.

The entire East Sea, from the surface to the ten-thousand-fathom abyss, was completely pierced and partitioned by these lines that had appeared out of thin air, radiating the breath of the Great Dao!

The originally surging seawater transformed into distinct black and white colors, flowing slowly within the squares formed by those lines.

The islands, reefs, and even the undersea volcanoes in the sea all happened to fall on the intersections, turning into natural 'star points'!

The sky was the cover, the deep sea the base.

Ten thousand miles of the East Sea had actually transformed into an... incomparable, giant chessboard!

"This... what Divine Ability is this?!" Bixiao cried out in shock.

Feeling the terrifying Dao rhyme outside that was reshaping heaven and earth, she felt as if her Primordial Spirit was trembling.

Yunxiao firmly covered her younger sister's mouth, her eyes also filled with unmaskable shock.

This was not a Divine Ability!

This was the 'Dao'! It was the 'Dao' that truly belonged to Junior Brother Gu himself!

He had actually used heaven and earth as a chessboard!

At this time, Guangchengzi, at the center of the storm, had a face as dark as water.

He found himself enveloped by an invisible force; the surrounding space became viscous and tough, as if the weight of the entire East Sea was pressing down on him.

He was already a person inside the match.

"Fellow Daoist, you seem to enjoy not following the rules."

Gu Ziyuan's voice drifted from outside the chessboard, ringing clearly in Guangchengzi's ears and in every corner of the ten-thousand-mile sea.

"Since that's the case, then I, Gu, have no choice but to invite you into this chess match to play a game with me."

As his voice fell, Gu Ziyuan's figure slowly rose into the air, standing above this ten-thousand-mile chessboard, his white clothes fluttering like the sole deity in charge of this heaven and earth.

"Arrogant!"

Guangchengzi roared. His pride as the first disciple of a Saint made it impossible for him to endure the humiliation of being toyed with in the palm of someone's hand.

He slapped the top of his head, and Celebratory Clouds appeared behind him, with Three Flowers Gathering at the Peak and Five Qis Directed Toward the Origin!

"heaven-turning seal, suppress him for me!"

That simple small seal soared into the sky and expanded against the wind, transforming into an ancient divine mountain that blotted out the light of the sky.

Carrying the Acquired Karma power that suppressed the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, it smashed down fiercely toward Gu Ziyuan and toward this bizarre chess match!

With this strike, he was truly enraged, holding nothing back!

However, Gu Ziyuan just watched quietly, a faint curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

He extended a finger and lightly tapped toward the churning seawater below.

"Rise."

Splash—!

In an instant, above the chessboard, countless black and white seawater streams soared into the sky, condensing in the air into giant water chess pieces a hundred fathoms in diameter!

These chess pieces were not physical entities but were interwoven from the purest Law of Water and Way of Chess rules.

Facing the divine mountain of the heaven-turning seal, the hundreds of seawater chess pieces closest to it actually took the initiative to meet it!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The first chess piece hit the divine mountain and shattered instantly, but it also caused the mountain's descent to pause slightly.

Then came the second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth!

One after another, undaunted by death!

Guangchengzi was horrified to find that every time his invincible heaven-turning seal shattered a chess piece—

A sliver of the Karma power and Laws contained within it would be obliterated, and its power was being constantly guided, neutralized, and consumed!

How was this a head-on confrontation?

This was clearly the 'Sacrificial Piece' technique in the Way of Chess!

Using the smallest price to weaken the opponent's strongest offensive layer by layer!

After the hundreds of seawater chess pieces had all shattered, the power of the divine mountain formed by the heaven-turning seal had been reduced by thirty percent, and it crashed down dejectedly.

Yet it was steadily held up by a grand formation composed of even more seawater chess pieces below, unable to advance another inch!

"How is this possible!"

Guangchengzi's heart shook violently. This was the heaven-turning seal! A supreme treasure bestowed by a Saint!

In this chess match, it was actually blocked by a bunch of 'seawater'?

He felt that his entire cultivation, which could reach the heavens and penetrate the earth, was like a heavy punch hitting cotton—he had the strength but couldn't use it, making him feel extremely frustrated.

He wasn't fighting a single person.

He was fighting this entire East Sea, fighting the 'rules' of this chess match!

[Ding! Detected that the host has set up an epoch-making chess match, triggering a resonance with the Laws of heaven and earth!]

[heaven and earth chessboard upgrade authority activated!]

[Detected that the current environment contains endless water element power, meeting the upgrade conditions. Do you wish to begin absorbing the East Sea Origin to complete the chessboard's promotion?]

The System's prompt sounded in Gu Ziyuan's mind.

"So that's how it is." The smile on Gu Ziyuan's lips grew even wider. "This Guangchengzi is quite the wealth-sending boy."

With a thought, he chose 'Yes'.

In an instant, the core of the entire East Sea chess match, that simple stone chessboard—

Transformed into a bottomless vortex and began to frantically devour the vast and boundless Origin power of the East Sea.

And all of this went unnoticed by Guangchengzi, who was inside the match.

He only felt that the suppression of this space was becoming stronger and stronger, and the rules were becoming more and more refined, making him feel increasingly suffocated.

"Playing tricks!"

Guangchengzi took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the shock in his heart, his gaze like lightning as he locked onto Gu Ziyuan above the chessboard.

"If I can't break your match, then I'll kill you, the one who set the formation, first!"

His body blurred as he prepared to cross space to take Gu Ziyuan's main body directly.

However, as soon as he moved, the 'chessboard grid' lines beneath his feet suddenly lit up, and a powerful spatial binding force came, fixing him firmly in place.

At the same time, Gu Ziyuan's calm voice rang out again, carrying a hint of mockery.

"Fellow Daoist, your heart is in turmoil again."

"In playing chess, there is no rule for directly flipping the table and killing your opponent."

Please make your move.