Chapter 63 Nameless Pieces, The First Game of Chaos

There was no light.

There was no sound.

There was no up, down, left, or right; no distance or depth.

He sat on a prayer mat, a chessboard before him. He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, nor did he know who he was.

His mind was as empty as this Chaos.

The only thing he was certain of: an old man sat opposite him, waiting for him to make a move.

"The rules are changing."

The old man held a white piece between his fingers, his tone as casual as if he were discussing what to eat today.

"In this game, you are not allowed to calculate."

He raised his illusory head.

"Before placing a piece, you must not think for more than three breaths. If you exceed that, the piece is wasted and thrown directly off the board."

He instinctively wanted to refuse.

No calculating? Playing chess without calculating, what's the difference between that and walking with one's eyes closed?

But his body was faster than his consciousness. His hand already reached for the stone jar; the moment his fingertips touched a black piece, Yin and Yang Qi flooded into his body, bone-chillingly cold.

Three breaths.

He placed the piece. Upper right star point.

It wasn't the calculated optimal solution; his wrist had turned on its own. The moment it landed, he knew—this move was terrible.

As expected, the old man's white piece casually leaned against it, and his black piece at the star point instantly lost all possibility of subsequent variations.

The second move.

Three breaths. He tried to make basic judgments in that time, but there were no reference points in the Chaos; his brain was like a rusted gear, unable to turn.

He placed the piece. Lower left komoku.

Even worse.

Third move, fourth move, fifth move...

Every move was like throwing stones onto the board. No layout, no coordination.

Black pieces were scattered everywhere, severed from each other like a group of strangers thrown into the same room.

He began to feel anxious.

It was an unease surging from the depths of his marrow.

It wasn't because he was losing—he hadn't felt this bad even after losing six games in a row. It was because of the loss of control.

He was used to calculating. Used to holding all variables in the palm of his hand, used to every step being the result of his own choice.

Now, that ability had been stripped away.

He had become a blind man pushed into an unfamiliar maze, unable to even feel where the walls were.

The tenth move.

The black pieces on the board were scattered here and there, like a vegetable patch dug up by a dog.

He even felt the board itself showing disdain—the flow of Yin and Yang Qi became sluggish, as if rejecting these meaningless moves.

The old man sat quietly, white pieces falling one after another, offering no evaluation, no guidance, not even looking at him.

This indifference stung more than mockery.

Eleventh move. Anxiety.

Twelfth move. Anger.

Thirteenth move. His illusory fingertips paused on the piece for two breaths.

He almost violated the rule, only slapping it down haphazardly at the last moment.

Fourteenth move.

When the three breaths were nearly exhausted, he suddenly didn't want to place it.

It wasn't giving up. He was tired.

He couldn't calculate, couldn't understand, couldn't control.

The precision machine in his brain that had been running for who knows how many years finally overheated and shut down in its continuous idling.

He thought of nothing anymore.

Fifteenth move.

He closed his eyes—though he didn't actually have real eyes.

His hand rose, hovering above the board.

No thinking. No judgment. No calculation.

With a slight turn of the wrist, the black piece fell.

"Buzz—"

A clear and resonant vibration exploded from the center of the board.

He snapped his eyes open.

That black piece landed in a position he had never noticed—not at a star point, not at the Tengen, not at any conventional landing spot.

It was wedged at the intersection of two lines of Qi flow, precisely the node where the Yin and Yang conversion was most frequent on the entire board.

Once the black piece landed, the surrounding Yin and Yang Qi no longer stagnated.

They began to flow.

Like a parched riverbed suddenly welcoming the first spring rain, trickles meandered along the lines of the board.

Naturally converging toward that black piece, circling and resonating around it.

It wasn't something he had forcibly suppressed.

The board itself had chosen this position.

"Remember the feeling of this move."

The old man finally spoke, his tone still flat, but there was a spark of light in those murky old eyes.

"It's not you choosing the position. It's the position waiting for you."

These words were like a needle, piercing a deep layer of the shell within his blank consciousness.

And then—

Images appeared.

Without any warning.

Immortal Mountains shrouded in mist. The mountain range was massive, stretching endlessly.

His perspective was pulled to a remote cliff corner.

A bamboo grove, a stone table, and a dust-covered chessboard.

A young man sat at the stone table, playing against himself.

Wearing the faded Daoist robes of an Outer Sect Disciple, his features were handsome, and a lazy curve hung at the corner of his mouth.

No fellow disciples passed by, no masters inquired; there was only the sound of the wind through the bamboo grove.

Solitude.

Yet, peace.

The young man picked up a black piece, hesitating, then suddenly muttered something to himself.

The content was inaudible, but his tone carried a cynical smile, as if he were telling himself a dry joke.

The image shattered.

Like a stone thrown into water, ripples spread, and all details blurred into a cluster of light spots, dissipating into the Chaos.

He tried desperately to grab it.

He couldn't.

Who was that young man?

Where was that Immortal Mountain?

Why did his chest ache when he saw that dust-covered chessboard?

"Don't be in a hurry."

The old man's voice pulled him back. The board was cleared with a sweep of a sleeve, black and white pieces returning to their places.

"Memory is not something you chase. It returns on its own once you are worthy of it."

He was silent for a long time.

"Again."

The old man nodded.

"The rules remain the same. With one addition—from today on, ten games daily, and the opening of each game must not repeat any previous one."

"The moves you've used are dead ends. The Way of Chess is infinite; why should you only walk those few paths?"

He did not argue.

The first day.

Losing all ten games. In the fastest game, he was defeated in twenty-eight moves.

The second day.

Losing all ten games. But in the shortest game, he held on until the thirty-ninth move.

The third day.

Still losing all games. The longest game lasted fifty-three moves.

He was losing more and more slowly.

Not because his chess skill had exploded, but because he was making fewer and fewer foolish mistakes.

Those pieces placed by intuition without thinking were slowly approaching a certain 'correctness' he couldn't quite name.

The third day ended.

The old man set down the last white piece and suddenly asked an irrelevant question.

"Do you know why the character for 'chess' ( chess) has 'wood' ( tree) at the bottom?"

He shook his head.

"Because the best chess grows on trees."

The old man pointed toward that invisible Tree of Void deep within the Chaos.

"It has roots, it breathes, it grows. It's not something you carve out stroke by stroke with a knife."

These words stuck into his blank consciousness, unable to be pulled out.

He vaguely felt that he had made a huge mistake before.

Treating chess as a blade.

As a calculation tool.

As a weapon to conquer heaven and earth.

Everything except treating it as a living thing.

The fourth day.

The first game.

He picked up a black piece, closed his eyes, three breaths.

He thought of nothing.

He placed the piece.

The moment the black piece touched the board, he felt something he had never felt before.

After that black piece landed, the surrounding Yin and Yang Qi were neither suppressed nor severed.

They began to circulate on their own around the black piece.

Slowly, subtly, like a seed that had just cracked its shell, revealing its first sprout.

The old man's hand stopped.

The white piece hung in mid-air, not falling for a long time.

He stared at that black piece for a long while.

"Interesting."

---

Outside the Chaos.

In the imitation taiji diagram space controlled by Chi Jingzi, the gray void was as deathly silent as ever.

Chen Yuan's Physical Body sat cross-legged within it, eyes tightly closed, expression calm.

Chi Jingzi stood ten zhang away, his horsetail whisk resting in the crook of his arm, his gaze fixed heavily on that Mortal body.

He had thought that by trapping this boy within the Magic Treasure and cutting off all contact with the outside world...

At most three days, and the Mortal's Divine Soul would collapse on its own.

But it was already the fourth day.

Not only was Chen Yuan not dead.

The faint golden halo on the surface of his body was even brighter than it was four days ago.

And what chilled Chi Jingzi's heart even more was—

His imitation taiji diagram, this Acquired Spirit Treasure personally refined by Yuanshi Tianzun.

The Restriction patterns on the outermost layer of its spatial barrier were, at an extremely slow but unstoppable speed...

Being eroded.