Just as the three-headed, eight-armed manifestation took form, a heart-rending cry from Madam Yin rose from the base of the tower: "Nezha, run!" This scream, echoing across a millennium, caused the Fire-Tip Spear to veer off course. Its gust swept a bronze bell from the tower's eaves, and from within it drifted the incense ash of the shrines the children of Chentang Pass had built for Nezha.
"What a magnificent spectacle of father against son." Li Jing’s eyes suddenly turned a solid, molten gold, and the eighth level of the Golden Pagoda roared open. Nezha caught a glimpse of a shard of the Xuanyuan Sword suspended in the tower’s core, its blade pointed directly at a phantom image of his own three-year-old swaddling clothes. As the scriptures on every level of the Exquisite Pagoda began to flow in reverse, nine Immortal-Binding Ropes shot from Li Jing’s crown, each tethered to one of Nezha’s baby teeth.
When the Universe Ring shattered the third level of the pagoda, Nezha suddenly caught the scent of lotus blossoms. The Universal Heaven Ribbon wound itself around his wrist, its surface displaying the scene of Madam Yin’s final moments—a Nine-Tailed Fox’s claw piercing her chest, yet a bloody handprint pressed tenderly against Nezha’s birthmark. "So, Mother had known all along..." Nezha tasted copper in his throat; his Fire-Tip Spear suddenly reversed direction, and the Samadhi True Fire traveled along the Immortal-Binding Ropes, burning toward his own primordial spirit.
Chapter 202