A god could do many things in five seconds, but the War God could not think of any way to stop the moon from destroying the planet. If he put all his strength into the attack, he might be able to cut the moon in half. That wouldn’t stop the moon’s immense momentum, however. Such an action would just result in two continent-sized rocks striking the planet at many times the speed of sound.

  His mind moving much faster than his body, the War God considered the options available to him. With his new power, he could travel at about five hundred times the speed of sound. The Spider Immortal called it “Mach speed,” so that would be Mach 500. Most Immortals could travel between Mach 150 and Mach 200 if they didn’t bother to cloak themselves in a layer of air to protect others from the blast. In comparison, the moon was traveling at Mach 60. The War God was much faster than the moon, but its mass made such a distinction irrelevant.

  Nothing came to the War God’s mind, so he did what he had done many times before when he needed someone to come up with an idea. He went to the Spider Immortal.

  Moving at a slow Mach 400, the War God traversed the distance to the blimp floating off the coast of Haishan, cloaked in a bubble of protective air. He appeared next to the Spider Immortal, who was already staring up at the moon crashing toward the planet.

  The War God made eye contact with the Spider Immortal, and he immediately grasped the significance of what had just happened. In an instant, the Spider Immortal realized that the War God could not stop the moon crashing into their planet.

  There was no time for them to speak, so the Spider Immortal took a fraction of a second to turn to his wife, the Rabbit Immortal. They locked eyes, and the War God could sense the Spider Immortal’s intense desire to do something to say goodbye. He wanted to hug or kiss his wife, but there simply wasn’t enough time.

  A second later, the War God and the Spider Immortal stood in the Summer Palace in the Inner District of Shigong Temple. It was a palace intended only to be used by Immortals and their powerful cultivator servants. The Spider Immortal entered the section of the palace created for him, though he had not stepped into the Summer Palace ever since the detente between Immortals began several decades before.

  On the ground of one of the Spider Immortal’s workshops was a gargantuan circle engraved into the stone floor. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Spider Immortal began reading through leather-bound books and marking the ground with chalk or making engravings with a sharpened pick.

  The Spider Immortal would reference a book, step away to work again on the circle, and return to reference the book once again before it had time to fall to the ground. It was as if the Spider Immortal was undertaking months of research in seconds.

  After more than a second of frantic research, the Spider Immortal stepped in front of the War God, holding up a piece of paper on which a few words were written in Sino-Altaic.

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  I NEED YIN ENERGY EQUIVALENT TO 100,000 SPIRIT STONES.

  Upon seeing the number listed, the War God’s heart dropped. A standard spirit stone contained the same amount of ki as a lower-realm Jindan. Though the War God knew that he could supply that amount of yin energy, doing so would wound him deeply. If he expended so much ki at once, he would have to return to the realm of pure Dao, and he could not return for more than five hundred years.

  If it meant his world would be saved, the War God would accept any punishment. When he challenged the Entropy God, he was prepared to die. A temporary death was nothing in comparison. The War God caught the piece of paper out of the air, and he wrote his response on the opposite side.

  I CAN DO THAT.

  By the time the circle was completed and they took their places at opposite sides of the giant circle engraved in the ground, the air had begun to heat and the flash of impact lit the sky like noonday sun. The Spider Immortal gave the signal, and the War God began using the most basic form of ki channeling. Through his left hand, he sent yin energy into the circle below while he used his right hand to send yang energy into the sky above.

  The Summer Palace was destroyed as a tornado of raw destructive energy was fired upward. What was once a massive building flew so high into the sky that it became little more than a speck of detritus floating behind a cloud.

  The circle began to glow bright white as it was suffused with pure yin energy. Slowly, every bend and curve in the complicated geometric circle was filled with ki. Never before in the history of that planet had so much pure ki been contained in one object. If there had been any crack in the circle, the yin energy would have reacted with the ki in the air and frozen everything in the Island of Haishan and most of the Golden Tiger continent.

  Somehow, the Spider Immortal’s circle held, and the deep grooves in the ground were filled completely with yin energy. The War God stepped back, stumbled, and fell upon the ground. He had expended too much ki all at once. His body was turning into dust, and his essence was returning to the realm of pure Dao. All he could do was focus and try to stay in the material realm until the Spider Immortal’s plan was complete.

  The War God blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus, and the Entropy God was suddenly standing at one end of the Spider Immortal’s workshop.

  With anger in his voice, the Entropy God shouted at the Spider Immortal. “Is that a Regression Circle!? Stop! You’ll corrupt the whole kalpa!”

  The force of the Entropy God’s voice alone drove the Spider Immortal to his knees. Despite the obvious pain he was in, the Spider Immortal chuckled before saying, “It’s too late.”

  Eyes wide with fear, the Entropy God turned to the circle that had begun humming with energy and purpose. The scene continued to blur as the War God’s disintegration continued. Just before his eyes closed, he saw something that must have been a hallucination deep within his dying mind.

  Suddenly, a figure cloaked in white stood in the center of the Spider Immortal’s circle. The War God could barely make out the features of the white-cloaked figure. As far as he could tell, the newcomer was made of a pure white light that had been formed into the shape of an old man with a full beard and long hair. In his addled state, the War God could have sworn that this figure was the Creation God.

  As the Entropy God screamed in wrath and fear, the Creation God pressed two fingers together and snapped.