Patriarch Chi Yan
Patriarch Chi Yan is a Seventh Mountain Dao Sovereign who leads the force confronting Meng Hao near the Eighth Mountain.
Biography
The invasion force
Chi Yan arrives at the head of four Dao Realm experts and hundreds of thousands of Seventh Mountain cultivators. His crimson hair and enormous black ox make him immediately recognizable. He first sees Meng Hao receiving the Eighth Mountain Xuanwu's formal acknowledgment and correctly treats that unexplained allegiance as dangerous information rather than ceremonial spectacle. (Chapter 1293)
When Chi Yan probes Meng Hao's power, his dual pupils and the underworld fire in his ox's eyes produce a layered vision, but the result only deepens his caution. Meng Hao feels as lethal to him as Lord White. Chi Yan therefore orders the army to withdraw five thousand kilometers, explicitly choosing to spare subordinates from a clash they cannot survive. Political pressure and the demands of the invasion force him back into confrontation, but his first instinct is strategic preservation, not blind confidence. (Chapter 1294)
Defeat and observation
Chi Yan combines four completed Essences—wind, rain or water, thunder, and lightning—into a storm formation. He supplements them with a fifth power still taking shape in the blood-red mist of his hair and attacks alongside the black ox. Meng Hao breaks the formation and defeats the assault without killing him. Lord White's arrival then relegates Chi Yan and the other commanders to witnesses of a battle far beyond their own scale. He survives to observe Meng Hao's continuing fight with the Seventh Mountain Lord. (Chapters 1295, 1310–1311)
Appearance and personality
Chi Yan is an old man with blazing crimson hair and unusual double pupils. He travels with a pitch-black ox roughly three thousand meters long, whose eyes burn with underworld fire. He is proud enough to fight but unusually pragmatic for an invasion commander: after measuring Meng Hao, he values the lives of his army and tries to avoid a pointless massacre.
Abilities and cultivation
Four-Essences Dao Sovereign
Chi Yan has completed four Essences. Wind supplies violent movement, rain or water saturates the battlefield, and thunder and lightning add concussive and destructive force. He can interlock them into one environmental formation rather than throwing four unrelated attacks, making the surrounding starry sky itself the medium of the assault.
Emerging blood-mist Essence
His crimson hair can become a blood-colored mist that carries the beginnings of a fifth Essence. It augments the four-Essence formation but is not described as complete, placing a clear limit below a true Five-Essences opponent.
Black ox coordination
The ox's charge adds enormous physical force, while the underworld flames in its eyes can distort perception into a swimming vision. The beast is a combat partner, not merely transportation, yet Meng Hao can still defeat the combined master-and-beast offensive.
Relationships
- Black Ox: Longstanding mount and battle companion whose visual magic and charge reinforce Chi Yan's formation.
- Meng Hao: Opponent Chi Yan accurately identifies as too dangerous for his army.
- Sima Dao: Lord of Chi Yan's Mountain and superior commander; Chi Yan yields the central battle to him.
Items
No independently notable portable item is assigned to Chi Yan. The black ox is a living companion, not an item.