Chapter 20: All Personnel Deployed, Time to Take the Girl Away
The Ten Suns power, conceptually, was probably the most abstract ability that Hikigaya possessed—bar none.
The advantage of such an ability was that its potential applications were limitless; the downside was that because it was so abstract, deducing its workings was also the most difficult.
What Hikigaya initially grasped was the most apparent aspect of the Ten Suns—the Zhou celestial order.
From this, he understood the power to ignite the sun and to shoot down rebellious forces.
His battle with Horus led Hikigaya to comprehend the concept of time.
Now, in the battle against Luo Hao, Hikigaya understood how to evolve the concept of yin and yang.
Luo Hao, an ancient Chinese god-slayer, had instinctively incorporated the concept of yin and yang into her martial arts.
The ancient Chinese idea of yin and yang was completely integrated with the material "qi." Beyond the philosophical dialectic of opposing yet unified forces, it had concrete manifestations in astronomy, geography, medicine, and military strategy—it was the backbone of Chinese culture.
Luo Hao was a warrior; her concept of yin and yang was expressed through martial arts, which included the pre-Qin era notion of the transformation and generation of all things.
This concept of all things transforming and generating means that the earth, sun and moon, seasons, day and night, men and women, couples, sovereigns and ministers, even internal organs and blood qi—all are categorized as either yin or yang.
In traditional Chinese medicine, this theory is thoroughly elaborated, and since Chinese medicine and martial arts are inseparable, expressing it through martial arts is even more skillful and harmonious.
For Hikigaya, the yin-yang concept represented by Emperor Jun's Ten Suns was even more primal.
The "Ten Suns," or Ten Mothers, was the ancient name for the Ten Heavenly Stems, one conceptual meaning of which was a code for celestial positions.
Using yin-yang, the Five Elements, and the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions, it measured the movement of celestial bodies.
Yin-yang came first, then the Five Elements. There are various accounts of their time and place of origin, but it is widely accepted that the systematization of yin-yang and the Five Elements began during the Yin Shang period.
Hikigaya tended to agree with a sequence where yin-yang originated in or before the Xia dynasty, the Five Elements emerged around the Yin-Zhou transition, both expanded during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, and then flourished under Qin and Han, becoming the ideological laws and cultural backbone of ancient China.
China's earliest historical system was naturally the "Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors," and the idea that yin-yang originated from this early history has had the greatest influence and circulation in later generations.
Even so, the Yin Shang was a crucial transitional phase.
During the Yin Shang era, the twenty-two characters of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches already contained a relatively systematic yin-yang and Five Elements philosophy.
According to "Records of the Grand Historian: Annals of Yin," the ancestor Qi to Zhen, recorded on oracle bones, were worshipped by the Yin people and referred to the sun, moon, and five planets.
The arrangement of the five planets followed the generating cycle of the Five Elements—earth, fire, metal, water, wood—with earth at the center of the five elements, placed before fire. The Heavenly Stems correspond to the five directions of astronomy, arranged by the controlling cycle of the Five Elements, while the Earthly Branches are the later sequence.
This was the earliest yin-yang and Five Elements system in China.
As the culmination of the binary concept in ancient China, the core of this concept was to seek fundamental harmony and unity in all things, rather than struggle and chaos. Yin and yang were complementary.
Similarly, the meaning of yin and yang, besides the transformation of all things and the cycle of the sun and moon, also included the ideas of interior and exterior, hidden and manifest.
Although in the Yin Shang period, the meaning of yin and yang in oracle bone script was still simple and plain, mostly objective descriptions of natural phenomena, as an ability it was something else entirely—its rich dualistic comparative thinking could represent many things.
Hikigaya should have been quick to pick up the Ten Suns ability.
Unfortunately, in this life, the first similar concepts he encountered were Set and Osiris, whose ideas were completely different from the Chinese yin-yang theory.
Perhaps because of this prior influence, his progress in exploring the Ten Suns ability was slow, and the vital yin-yang concept never smoothly emerged.
Luo Hao's "Flying Phoenix Twelve Divine Palms" martial art, when disregarding speed and power and looking only at the moves, was not especially exquisite. Its strength lay in the embedded yin-yang principles.
This force dealt Hikigaya great damage but also led him through the gateway. Once inside, what appeared before him was entirely different.
He began to perceive Luo Hao's "qi."
With thought, schools of philosophy emerge.
The Chinese Yin-yang School has seven major branches. Like Hikigaya's previous life, they all originated in the pre-Qin period. In the Zhou dynasty yin-yang view, geographically, yang was the earth and yin was the sky, hence the saying "yang qi evaporates together, earth's moisture stirs," differing from the later "heaven yang, earth yin" doctrine, and it extended to ideas about rivers drying and earthquakes in relation to water and earth.
At the same time, this corresponded with the pre-Qin Ten Suns' symbolism of earth and agricultural seasons, and the natural laws of growth.
At this moment, the shockwaves between Hikigaya and Luo Hao grew more intense.
The weather fell, earth qi rose, heaven and earth harmonized, and plants sprouted.
By capturing Luo Hao's "qi," Hikigaya converted all of its yin aspects into yang power.
Every accomplished martial artist has unique "qi"—a standard by which to judge mastery.
Luo Hao's "qi" was heavenly yin qi; Hikigaya's "qi" was earthly yang qi.
Together, they formed the order of heaven and earth; without harmony, mountains collapse, earth cracks, and dynasties fall.
At this time, Hikigaya was no longer passively taking hits.
Though his body still bled, his spirit was at its peak. His "One Shadow Nine Fists" martial art continuously ascended, evolving into true "nine strikes, one kill," trading blows with Luo Hao almost evenly.
This was not a martial arts duel but a confrontation of yin and yang forces, using qi to carry power—the most direct expression of this strength.
The yin and yang qi of this land had completely fallen into disorder.
The rising and falling of yin and yang qi caused chaos in the earth's qi. Forget mountains collapsing or earth splitting; this space, created based on the Netherworld, was fundamentally destabilizing.
Curse power was revolting; the blue sky and the earth both cried out in agony.
Those who helped create this land had also been deeply influenced by Chinese yin-yang theory, but now, facing two god-slayers wielding the power to transform all things, it was growing more fragile.
Before their last separation, Hikigaya and Luo Hao's palm clash created a black hole, annihilating everything within that space until the surrounding flood of curse power erased it.
At this moment, cracks suddenly appeared in the earth, then closed, only to rise into mountains or form giant pits. Cities had long been sliced beyond recognition.
The sky switched from heavy snow, lightning and thunder, torrential rain, scorching sun, to pitch-black darkness.
Except for the stable stable where the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was held—protected by a suspicious golden light—the rest of the area was in utter chaos.
By now, both sides knew the fight could not continue.
Luo Hao aside, at least Hikigaya worried about those who had entered with him, like Ena.
That golden light was far too suspicious.
"I think we should all calm down," Hikigaya said to Luo Hao, looking toward the distant stable.
The Great Sage's seal had been broken.
The saying goes: "Better to not have a thief steal than to have one covet it." With Luo Hao's persistent watch, destruction was only a matter of time.
Hikigaya felt he had already been quite loyal, honoring the friendship they had drinking together back then—that was the key point.
Even toward Ena's side, he felt he had done right.
Who asked the Committee to seal that monkey? Going to seal him poked Luo Hao's pleasure spot.
It's well known that when a god-slayer wants to cause destruction, no one can stop them—not even their own kind.
So now Hikigaya planned to take the girl and run.
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