69novels Chapter 38 Divine Power Descends from Heaven
Chapter 38 Divine Power Descends from Heaven
Chapter 38 Divine Power Descends from Heaven
Zhou Yi faced off against the four great demon kings alone. Furthermore, over thirty demon kings commanded an army of 100,000 demons, setting up the "Ten Thousand Demons Locking the Sky" formation. Demonic energy descended like an iron curtain, layer upon layer, not only sealing off the four directions of heaven and earth but also constantly eroding and isolating the spiritual energy within the formation, intending to exhaust him to death in this spiritually depleted prison.
Even though his palm techniques had reached a state of perfection, and his sword intent was deeply ingrained in his blood and marrow, every move he made contained the sharpness to cleave mountains and rivers. However, human strength has its limits, while the sea of demons is endless. A single tree cannot ultimately withstand the raging tide, and the courage of one person is ultimately no match for the crushing and eroding power of an entire nation.
In the heat of battle, at the cost of taking a vicious blow from the Poison Frog King's staff to his chest and abdomen, he closed in, his single arm shooting out like a dragon, its five fingers forming a claw, and actually dug into the joint where the nine-headed demon's remaining seven heads were connected! Demon blood gushed out, and the sound of bones cracking was deafening. He roared, pouring all his life's cultivation, all his resentment and anger into that single pull, tear, and squeeze!
"Puff puff puff puff—!!!"
Seven muffled explosions followed in quick succession! The seven ferocious bird heads were crushed like ripe berries by immense force, and red, white, and blue sap mixed with broken demon bones and feathers shot into the sky! At the last moment, his fingertips touched the pulsating dark purple demon core hidden deep in his cervical spine, and without hesitation, he crushed it with force!
"No--!!!"
The nine-headed demon let out a final, twisted shriek, filled with unbelievable terror and boundless resentment. This great demon king, who had dominated the Southern Kingdom for thousands of years and ranked among the top three, convulsed violently, then collapsed as if all its support had been ripped away, turning into a pool of foul-smelling blood that continued to corrode the ground, splashing onto the scorched earth, announcing the complete demise of an era's monstrous ferocity.
However, this decisive blow nearly drained his remaining magical and physical strength. His old power was exhausted, and new power had not yet been generated, leaving him wide open!
"Hiss—!" The poisonous frog king's long-awaited, putrid breath followed him closely, grazing his right eye.
"Sizzle!" The Water Spider Queen's long-planned Soul-Binding Silk took advantage of the situation and entered. Although most of it was broken by the residual force of the protective barrier, several extremely tough silver threads still cut into the flesh and bones of his right arm.
"Clang! Crack!" The Flying Centipede General's piercing poison spear seized this fleeting opportunity, breaking through the crumbling defenses on his chest. Although he managed to twist and avoid his heart at the last second, the spear still pierced through his left chest near his shoulder! The spear tip emerged through his back, bringing with it a cloud of blood mist mixed with fragments of internal organs!
Zhou Yi staggered backward, coughing up blood, but even on the brink of death, he launched a counterattack. His single eye turned bloodshot, and despite the deep cuts to his right arm that revealed bone, he fiercely unleashed three palm strikes! The wind from his palms was as mournful as a ghost's wail, containing a tragic will to perish with his enemy.
"Bang!" The Poison Frog King screamed and flew backward. The bulging seven-colored poison sac at its waist was hit by the aftershock of the palm strike and exploded. The poison backfired, corroding half of its body and causing it to sizzle. Its demonic aura plummeted.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!" The Water Spider Queen let out a mournful shriek as her three most crucial supporting legs were severed at the root by an invisible palm blade. Silver blood gushed out, and her massive spider body lost its balance, tumbling and crashing into the demon army, crushing countless demon soldiers to death.
"Boom—!" The Flying Centipede suffered the most tragic fate. Driven by greed and recklessness, it pursued too deeply and was struck squarely by Zhou Yi's final, concentrated palm strike at the junction of its chest and abdominal carapace. The hidden force, powerful enough to shatter mountains, penetrated its body. The carapace shattered inch by inch in the middle of its monstrous body, which stretched for tens of meters, and its internal tissues were almost completely crushed. Only the two ends remained barely connected, emitting a teeth-grinding "crunch," clearly indicating it had been severely injured.
However, the Book of Changes itself is also running out of steam and is on the verge of extinction.
His right eye, corroded by the putrid poison, instantly lost all its light, turning into a charred, lifeless void. A bowl-sized, penetrating wound pierced his chest, its edges raw and mangled, gleaming with an eerie greenish-black sheen. The poison continued to seep into his heart, each breath drawing out more black blood and shattered internal organs. His remaining right arm was even more gruesome; its muscles were ripped apart by silver threads, and multiple bones were unnaturally twisted and broken, held together only by an unyielding will and a mere wisp of magical power, as if it might detach completely from his body at any moment.
The dark-colored outfit he wore had long since turned into a blood-stained rag, barely clinging to his body. He leaned on a massive log from the city wall that had broken off somewhere, barely able to stand, his body covered in blood, his breath as weak as a candle flickering in the wind, as if the next gust of wind would extinguish it completely.
On the city wall, the dozen or so old cultivators who had long been resigned to their deaths witnessed this scene, their eyes wide with rage and tears streaming down their faces!
"Let's fight these beasts—!!"
They let out wild howls, no longer caring about the difference in strength or the poisonous fog blocking their way. Like moths drawn to a flame, they burned their last bit of life force, transforming into streaks of resolute light, and charged headlong into the dense, deadly miasma at the edge of the battlefield!
However, reality is heartbreakingly cruel.
Their protective aura melted away like snowflakes in spring the instant it came into contact with the poisonous miasma. Then came their robes, their skin, their flesh—
"Zzzzzzz—!!!"
A chilling, corrosive sound rang out in rapid succession. The few old cultivators at the forefront didn't even have time to utter a complete scream before they were dissolved, rotted, and turned into pools of bubbling, strangely colored, thick blood in the churning poisonous mist at a speed visible to the naked eye. In an instant, their bodies were reduced to ashes, and their souls were completely annihilated!
Those behind them had bloodshot eyes, but their steps did not falter in the slightest. They continued to rush into the wall of deathly mist, hoping to get one step closer to the center of the battlefield and to distract the Demon King with their insignificant demise.
On their twisted, festering faces, in the final moments of their lives, the deepest, most profound hatred was not directed at the monstrous demons before them, but rather, with endless sorrow and despair, they stared intently at the north and the east—directions they had once firmly believed would be their last bulwark and hope.
"The Qi Dao Alliance — Aristocratic Families — Sects —"
Broken, blood-stained curses were squeezed from their melting throats, barely audible yet weighing heavier than mountains: "You—you have betrayed humanity—you shall die a horrible death—you shall die a horrible death!!!"
This blood-cursing curse, as their lives completely dissipated, drifted away in the raging wind filled with endless bloodshed and eerie atmosphere, like a stone sinking into an abyss, unable to stir up the slightest ripple.
No one knows, or perhaps no one wants to know.
In the distant, safe ancestral lands of noble families, the main halls of sects, and the star-gazing platforms of the Dao Alliance, protected by numerous arrays—how many pairs of eyes, some aged, some majestic, some indifferent, are "watching" the final moments of this isolated city in the southern border through the shimmering magical water mirrors, or through their profound divine senses, as they witness the inevitable demise of the swordsman who was once hailed as the pride of the southern border, but whose blood now stains the ruins.
Occasionally, young men with faces still brimming with passion and ambition would witness the horrific scene reflected in the water mirror. Their blood would surge, and they would suddenly stand up, clench their fists, and want to volunteer for battle, even if it was just to collect the remains or to utter a single shout.
However, a steady or withered hand would always reach out and place on their shoulder. The cold, emotionless voice of their teacher or head of the family, like an icicle in the dead of winter, would easily pierce their still-tender passions and fantasies: "Sit down."
"A pointless sacrifice will not change the outcome."
"The tide has turned, and trying to stop a chariot with a mantis's arm will only make you a laughingstock."
"Do not act rashly and needlessly damage the foundation and future of your family."
"Remember who you are, your responsibilities—they don't lie here."
The youthful passion, chilled and frozen by the cold indifference of reality and the "big picture," eventually turned into a suppressed, unwilling sigh, or a tear quickly wiped away unnoticed. They sat back down, lowered their eyes, and dared not look at the increasingly dim, dark figure in the water mirror, as if it were a distant and bloody dream unrelated to themselves.
In the center of the battle, Zhou Yi's mangled body stood upright, like an unyielding battle flag driven into the earth. His only remaining left eye was bloodshot, yet its gaze was terrifyingly bright, fixed on the three great demon kings in front of him who, though severely injured and with chaotic demonic energy, still burned with murderous intent.
He was covered in blood, the wound piercing his chest rising and falling weakly with his breath, oozing black, poisonous blood; his right arm was twisted and hanging limply, bone fragments piercing his flesh; his right eye was just a charred hole. To anyone who looked at him, he was a broken shell held together only by willpower, a candle flickering in the wind, about to be extinguished completely at any moment.
However-
The Poison Frog King, the Water Spider Queen, and the Flying Centipede General, instead of rushing forward, hesitated dozens of feet away, their demonic eyes flashing with surprise, apprehension, and even—a trace of barely concealed fear.
Fear of this final, desperate strike. If it were to strike, it would be earth-shattering, enough to drag another great demon king—to the Yellow Springs with him!
The air freezes.
The roars of the 100,000 demon soldiers subsided at some point, and countless demonic eyes focused on that small area of death.
Who will stop them?
Who would be willing to sacrifice their life and a thousand years of cultivation to pave the way for their companions to kill this person and seize their flesh and blood essence?
The Poison Frog King's swollen, tattered venom sac contracted slightly, and its single eye swept over the broken leg of the water spider.
The water spider queen silently spread her silver threads, but her compound eyes, out of the corner of her eye, alerted the flying centipede's nearly severed body.
The flying centipede wriggled its hundred legs, making a soft "rustling" sound, and its gaze, hidden beneath its ferocious helmet, shifted between the other two great demon kings.
Suspicion, defensiveness, and scheming—like an invisible spiderweb, intertwined among the three demons. They all wanted Zhou Yi dead, all yearned to devour this powerful figure's flesh and blood to heal their severe injuries or even break through their bottlenecks, but none were willing to be the "pioneer" who paid the price. It was precisely this mutual scheming and hesitation that allowed Zhou Yi, seemingly on the verge of collapse, to cling to life for a moment in this deadly predicament. For a brief moment, the overwhelming momentum of the Southern Kingdom's demon army faltered. The hundred thousand demons gazed up at the three hesitant "kings" in the sky, their bloodthirsty roars involuntarily tinged with a hint of bewilderment and unease. Even the Great Demon King—could he fear?
At this delicate moment, when murderous intent was boiling yet a strange stalemate ensued, "Clang—"
A single note from the zither, clear and cold yet carrying a strange quality that penetrates to the bone, rang out without warning.
It wasn't loud, yet it strangely pierced through all the roars, wind, and energy hums on the battlefield, clearly imprinting itself on the souls and perceptions of every living being. It was as if it wasn't heard through the ears, but resonated directly in the heart and mind.
Poisonous old man, finally stopped standing by and watching.
This royal uncle from the Southern Kingdom, Huan Du Qingtian's most trusted right-hand man, appeared silently high in the sky on the flank of the battlefield. His hair was tied up with an ancient jade crown, his long gray hair was meticulously styled, and his white beard was neatly trimmed. Only a deep, old scar on his forehead, revealing the bone, added a touch of cold, ruthless aura to his refined appearance, a result of years of bloodshed.
He wore a plain white round-necked robe, the hem of which reached his ankles, with slits on both sides for easy sitting cross-legged. The most eye-catching feature was the five large characters written in bold, cursive script on the robe: "All professions are inferior," the strokes powerful and vigorous, exuding an air of disdain. He wore a gray-blue sleeveless long jacket over it, which made him appear even more composed.
At this moment, he sat suspended in mid-air, his body as steady as a mountain, with an ancient-looking, dark-colored seven-stringed zither resting on his lap. He lightly lifted his fingertips and placed them on the strings.
The legendary skill of the Immortal Chess Master, whose poison had intimidated the Southern Frontier for thousands of years and made countless cultivators tremble at the mere mention of it, quietly plucked its first note at the very end of this deadly game.
Move your fingertips again.
It has nothing to do with war or horses, nor with bitter winds and rain.
It was a series of strange, profound rhythms, seemingly originating from the beginning of chaos, yet also leading to endless nightmares. The pitch fluctuated, the rhythm changed from fast to slow, with no discernible pattern, yet it possessed a strange charm that struck the soul, compelling one to become involuntarily absorbed, to listen, and then—to lose oneself.
The sound of the piano enters the ear, or rather, enters the soul in that instant—
At the center of the battlefield, the Poison Frog King, the Water Spider Queen, and the Flying Centipede General all trembled simultaneously! A moment of confusion appeared in their demonic eyes, which was then replaced by a strange light.
But in the eyes of the remaining defenders on the city wall, and under the watchful gaze of Yang Yifang atop the distant mountain peak, and in the perception of all onlookers, the scene at the center of the battlefield underwent a terrifying distortion!
The three great demon kings moved! Their movements were incredibly fast!
It wasn't just a little faster, but several times, even ten times faster! The Poison Frog King sprayed venomous saliva, the Water Spider Queen flicked out silver threads, and the Flying Centipede General thrust forward with its spear—all the attacks, all the dodges, all the circulation of demonic power were faster than normal, leaving behind a series of continuous, multicolored afterimages! The figures of the three demon kings transformed into three frantically flashing, intersecting, and cutting streams of death light, weaving a seamless, breathtaking net of deadly killing in the air!
That speed was beyond description; it was almost like teleportation!
Zhou Yi, who was already like walking a tightrope on the edge of a precipice, relying solely on his indomitable spirit to hold on, finally couldn't withstand the terrifying speed that was completely illogical and subversive to his understanding.
"Thud—!" That was the dull sound of a sharp blade slicing into flesh again.
"Crack! Crack-crack—!" That was the ear-piercing sound of arm bones and ribs, already on the verge of breaking, being further crushed by tremendous force.
"Boom!!!" That was the roar of the protective energy completely collapsing and the body being violently smashed away by the violent force.
In the blurred vision and perception of the crowd, all they could see were the three streaks of light and shadow transformed from the demon kings, which crossed over Zhou Yi's location several times at a speed from which their trajectories could not be tracked.
Each time they crossed paths, the dark figure trembled violently, bursting into a cloud of blood mist, and its aura plummeted.
Finally, after an exceptionally heavy bombardment, Zhou Yi's shattered body, like a boulder thrown by a catapult or a puppet with all its strings broken, traced a tragic parabola in mid-air and fell helplessly toward the closed, blood-stained city gate below.
"BOOM—!!!"
The earth trembled violently, and smoke and dust billowed into the sky.
In front of the sturdy city gate, a cracked crater several meters in diameter and over a foot deep had been smashed open. The broken bricks and scorched earth were mixed together and stained dark red by the splattered blood.
Center of the pit.
Zhou Yi knelt on one knee, barely managing to stay upright. His head hung low, his messy, blood-stained black hair obscuring his face, with only dark blood mixed with fragments of internal organs dripping from the corner of his mouth onto the scorched earth, making a soft "drip-drip" sound.
His body was covered in wounds, especially the massive penetrating wound in his chest, from which blood gushed forth, quickly pooling into a small puddle beneath him. His breath was extremely faint, like the last embers in a desolate winter wilderness, ready to vanish completely in the next gust of cold wind.
silence.
A deathly silence enveloped the city walls and spread to some of the demon army.
ended?
The thought arose in the minds of all living beings who witnessed this scene.
On a distant mountaintop, Yang Yan bit her hand hard to keep from crying out, but tears blurred her vision. She held the unconscious Qin Lan tightly, her other hand trembling as she tried to cover Mu Mie's eyes.
Mu Mie didn't cry. He just stared wide-eyed at the deep pit, his face as pale as paper, his body trembling slightly from the exertion.
Yang Yifang stood with his hands behind his back, his face as calm as still water, only the slightly clenched fist in his sleeve betrayed that his heart was not entirely unmoved.
On the battlefield, the afterimages of the three great demon kings finally ceased, revealing their true forms. They were scattered in three directions around the deep pit, their demonic eyes flashing with a mixture of greed, vigilance, and brutal pleasure as they stared intently at the seemingly lifeless figure at the bottom of the pit, slowly approaching.
On the old man's lap, the last eerie note of the seven-stringed zither faded away in the wind.
He raised his eyelids, his gaze sweeping indifferently across the bottom of the pit, as if looking at a "work" about to be completed, or—a "fruit" about to be picked.
"it's over!"
The Poison Frog King puffed up its tattered venom sacs, emitting a hoarse, piercing, excited cry, and thick, venomous saliva dripped from the corners of its mouth, corroding the scorched earth beneath its feet.
"His life—is mine!"
The Water Spider Queen's shriek tore through the air. With her few remaining legs exerting force, she transformed into a silver lightning bolt. Instead of fine, wispy silk, she spewed out a dense, rain-like torrent of silver-white spider silk, cascading down like a waterfall and covering the deep pit. Each strand gleamed with a deadly cold light and stickiness, intending to bind her prey tightly and drain its essence!
"Get out of my way! Devouring its flesh and blood will surely heal my injuries, and perhaps even allow me to advance further!"
The Flying Centipede roared even more fiercely, ignoring the excruciating pain of its body almost breaking apart. It frantically poured its demonic power into the strangely shaped spear in its hand. The spear tip trembled, transforming into hundreds of terrifying spear shadows that resembled the hundred legs of a centipede, carrying a shrill whistling sound that tore through the air and a strong, sweet-smelling poison. It struck first, aiming straight for the head and heart of the figure at the bottom of the pit, intending to kill it with one blow and enjoy the spoils of war alone!
Seeing their formidable foe, which had caused them so much loss and terrified them, finally crumble and lay dying, utterly powerless to resist, the three great demon kings instantly cast aside their earlier suspicions and wariness. Greed and the desire for revenge completely overwhelmed their reason and caution. They charged forward with frenzied abandon, unleashing their demonic power without reservation, fearing that if they were even a fraction slower, their companions would seize the initiative!
On the city wall, the surviving people clung desperately to the cold crenellations, their knuckles white, their lips bleeding from biting them. In the deathly silence, only heavy, desperate breathing and suppressed sobs could be heard. The last glimmer of light seemed to be extinguished along with the figure at the bottom of the pit.
On the distant mountaintop, Yang Yan was already in tears, her vision blurred. She held tightly to the still unconscious Dongfang Qinlan, oblivious to the impending tragedy, with one arm, while her other hand unconsciously rose, trembling as she reached towards Mu Mie's eyes—she didn't want the child to witness her father, Uncle Zhou, suffer such a tragic end. It was too cruel.
Mu Mie abruptly turned his head away, avoiding his mother's hand. He bit his lower lip hard, so hard that blood seeped from it. His eyes were wide open, tears streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks, yet he stubbornly refused to blink, staring intently at the still-smoky pit with a self-destructive expression, as if trying to imprint this scene into the depths of his soul.
"Is it... coming to an end?"
This heavy and chilling thought, like the most biting wind in winter, swept through the hearts of every witness, bringing a desolate despair.
However, just as the poisonous frog king's venomous saliva was about to drip, the water spider queen's silver silk waterfall was less than three feet from the bottom of the pit, and the flying centipede general's hundreds of spear shadows were about to pierce through that broken body in the blink of an eye!
An unexpected change occurred!
"Buzz—!!!"
A deafening roar that shook the heavens and earth erupted without warning!
Within the deep pit, the dark figure, who should have been exhausted, barely breathing, and kneeling like a corpse, suddenly unleashed a terrifying aura that defied description!
A final burst of energy before death! A last-ditch effort before death!
It has finally arrived!
"He's going to fight to the death!" This thought flashed through the minds of all beings who sensed this aura like lightning. Such a reckless, limitless outburst—what else could it be but a final, desperate act of burning everything together, intending to destroy everything in its path?
but!
To the utter astonishment of all witnesses, including the three demon kings who had already lunged towards the edge of the pit, the figure at the bottom of the pit suddenly unleashed an earth-shattering aura. Its raised, remaining right arm, burning with a mixture of blazing white and crimson light, delivered a devastating blow—the very point of which was—
The real threat is not the Poison Frog King, the Water Spider Queen, or the Flying Centipede General, which are close at hand and ready to strike!
His remaining left eye, at this moment, completely pierced through them, penetrating hundreds of feet of space, its gaze fixed, filled with a deep-seated hatred, carrying a chilling mockery and resolute killing intent born of complete understanding—
Locked on—
Hundreds of feet away, he remained seated cross-legged in mid-air, a zither resting on his lap, his expression just shifting from indifference to a hint of surprise—
Poisonous old man!
He wanted to kill Poison Old Man!
The figure at the bottom of the pit suddenly blurred, not as a residual image left by high-speed movement, but as if a reflection in water had been shattered by a stone. The light and shadow distorted for a moment, and then it disappeared into thin air!
It wasn't fast, but rather something almost defied common sense—spatial teleportation!
"boom!!!"
The Poison Frog King's corrosive cascade, the Water Spider Queen's strangling silver threads, and the Flying Centipede General's hundred-legged spear shadow—the three demon kings' deadly combined attacks, which they were determined to deliver, all missed their mark. The violent energy poured forth without restraint at the bottom of the pit, exploding into a destructive sphere of light mixed with venom, silver light, and spear energy. The earth and rocks instantly vaporized, forming a terrifying abyss several times larger than before, its edges showing signs of melting like glass.
The Book of Changes, which should have been at the bottom of the pit bearing all of this, is nowhere to be found.
What's even more chilling is that the three great demon kings who pounced on the attack seemed to react in a strangely "slow" instant to onlookers when their attacks missed! A trace of excitement and greed from the prey remained on their ferocious faces, but their demonic eyes were already reflecting empty pits. Their instinctive movements of turning, withdrawing their attacks, and searching for their target were like being stuck in a sticky swamp, compared to their previous ghostly "teleportation" speed!
No—that's not right!
On the distant mountain peak, Yang Yifang's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints! The golden patterns of his Heavenly Eye flashed intensely, not to capture the vanished figure, but to pierce through appearances and point directly to the source!
He understood.
It's not that the I Ching suddenly sped up.
It's not that the three demon kings were slow at this moment.
Rather—their previously unbelievable "extreme speed" was completely fake! It was an illusion! It was—distorted perception!
A sudden realization, clearing up all the doubts, exploded in his mind like a thunderclap: "That zither music—Poison Old Man's Divine Chess—wasn't enhancing the Demon King at all, but rather distorting the perception of everyone who heard the music!"
"Their speed never increased dramatically! It's just that we perceive them as faster!" Zhou Yi—seemingly unable to react in time—was actually dragged into a quagmire of distorted time perception; in his warped senses, the Demon King's movements were too fast for him to follow!
"To see through such a tactic after only one experience, and even find a way to counter it! What terrifying talent!"
See you in the picture!
The Poison Master's "Immortal Chess," this bizarre and powerful divine ability that shook the southern border, is far more than just a simple auxiliary enhancement. It is an extremely insidious and domineering high-level sensory poison that acts on the level of the soul! Using music as a medium, it is invisible and intangible, directly invading the spiritual platform and altering the victim's fundamental perception of the flow of time and spatial distance.
To onlookers, the Demon King's speed seemed to have increased dramatically, almost like teleportation. In reality, however, the Demon King, in his distorted sense of time, felt he had "ample" time to complete more complex actions. But to his equally affected opponents, the enemy's movements became blurry, overlapping, and untrackable, as if they were facing countless phantom attacks from different points in time.
The moment the zither music began, Zhou Yi ruptured his eardrums!
Everything that followed—the agonizing struggle to stay afloat amidst the distorted sense of time, the constant "hitting" of the attacks, the gushing of blood, and finally the feeble, powerless fall into the abyss—was all a facade! A carefully orchestrated performance of feigned weakness!
Throughout the entire story, Zhou Yi has always reserved at least the power for one last strike. He wants to drag one more great demon king down with him.
He wasn't sure who he should drag to his death.
Now Poison Laozi jumps out.
Exactly!
I'll drag you down with me!
He was buried with this city as the royal uncle of the Southern Kingdom!
Zhou Yi's figure seemed to step out of the void and appeared directly three zhang in front of Poison Old Man!
Without a trajectory, without a process, it was as if space itself had "spit" him into this position. The broken, dark figure and the elegant posture of the Poison Master sitting cross-legged playing the zither formed a shocking contrast.
A palm strike was unleashed!
The palm strike was ancient and simple in its trajectory, yet it seemed to encompass the grandeur of collapsing mountains and reversing the flow of rivers. Before the palm wind even arrived, the protective poisonous miasma surrounding Poison Master was crushed by an invisible force, hissing and rapidly annihilating. Under the palm shadow, the space groaned under its unbearable weight, the light distorted, illuminating Poison Master's face, which had finally turned completely pale, a mixture of horror and disbelief, making it appear utterly ashen.
A calculated move, yet the unprepared strike! A well-planned strategy, ready to strike when caught off guard!
Zhou Yi had absolute confidence that under this attack, which was achieved by pushing himself to his limits and burning everything, even if the Poison Master had profound cultivation and unparalleled poison skills, he would have no chance of escaping unscathed!
This palm strike will surely take his life!
However—no one can predict everything. Zhou Yi calculated the suspicions of the three demon kings, deciphered the mysteries of the "Immortal Chess," and even calculated the power of the final blow that his own crippled body could withstand—
However, he overlooked the most important point.
Huan Du Qing Tian!
This ruler of the Southern Kingdom, the Demon Emperor of Ten Thousand Poisons, was on the battlefield from beginning to end.
He could stand by and watch the death of the nine-headed demon with indifference. But the Poison Master was different.
This was not only his right-hand man, not only the pillar of Southern Poison Arts, but also his own younger brother!
How could he sit idly by and watch his own blood brother perish at the hands of a dying human swordsman?
Just as Zhou Yi's deadly palm was about to strike the head of the Poison Old Man, a short figure, seemingly supporting the entire southern sky, appeared without warning and entered the deathly distance between them!
The space in front of Poison Old Man rippled like water. Huan Du Qingtian was already standing there, his back to Poison Old Man, facing Zhou Yi's decisive palm strike that seemed capable of shaking the heavens and earth.
He didn't even adopt any defensive stance; he simply raised his withered right hand, which seemed to contain the source of all poisons and bear the weight of the southern land.
Then, gently push forward.
His movements were effortless and unassuming, devoid of any hint of worldly concerns.
"Pop—"
—
A soft sound, like a bubble bursting.
Zhou Yi's palm strike, which embodied all his will and power and was powerful enough to kill a great demon king, landed on Huan Du Qingtian's palm.
There was no earth-shattering collision, no explosive surge of energy.
There is only one chilling, absolute "melting".
It was as if ice and snow met the blazing sun, or as if a sand tower collided with a tsunami.
The destructive power in Zhou Yi's palm was like a clay ox entering the sea the moment it came into contact with Huan Du Qingtian's palm. It was silently swallowed, dissolved, and annihilated by a deeper, more vast, and more irresistible force!
Immediately afterwards—
"Snap! Snap snap!!!"
A series of teeth-grinding, extremely dense sounds of bones cracking came from Zhou Yi's right arm!
That arm, already on the verge of collapse, began to shatter from the palm, through the wrist, forearm, elbow, and shoulder—inch by inch! Flesh and bone fragments mingled, as if smashed from the inside by an invisible giant hammer, turning into a tragically beautiful cloud of blood mist!
The terrifying force did not stop, and it slammed into Zhou Yi's chest along the mangled arm!
"puff--!"
He suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, and his body flew backward like a tattered sack thrown by a catapult at full force, even faster than when he came!
The man was suspended in mid-air, his bones broken in countless places. His already battered body was now completely twisted and deformed, almost unrecognizable as human. Blood gushed from countless wounds as if it were free, leaving a long, shocking trail of crimson in the air.
In the end, he lost all strength and consciousness, and like a discarded rag, he fell helplessly from dozens of feet in the air towards the scorched earth below, which was already soaked in blood, riddled with pits and corpses.
The wind whistled in my ears, but I could no longer feel the pain.
Vision quickly blurred and went dark.
ended.
Although the process was full of twists and turns, and although he almost turned the tide—
But it finally came to an end.
Lone Peak Sword —
lost.
They were defeated by Huan Du Qingtian, the demon emperor of the Southern Kingdom.
"!!!"
On the distant mountaintop, Yang Yan was almost completely limp. Qin Lan, in her arms, seemed to be moved by the silent grief, her brows furrowing uneasily in her sleep.
"Uncle Zhou!!! No—!!!"
Mu Mie let out a pitiful cry like a young beast, struggling to rush out, but Yang Yifang held him down tightly. His small body trembled violently, tears blurring his vision, and he could only watch helplessly as that familiar figure, like a lone goose with broken wings, plummeted rapidly toward death.
Behind them, among the various forces "watching" through the water mirror or divine sense, there was a suppressed silence. Some sighed, some were indifferent, some had complex and unfathomable expressions in their eyes, and some—perhaps—quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Ultimately, human strength is finite, and destiny is hard to defy.
Huan Du stood atop the sky, hands behind his back, his gaze calmly sweeping over the direction where Zhou Yi had fallen, then over the trembling demon army below, and finally, seemingly casually, glancing at the distant mountain peak. His voice, though not loud, echoed clearly across the battlefield, carrying a condescending sigh and—a faint regret: "Lone Peak Sword—"
"What defeated you was not the myriad demons of the Southern Kingdom, nor the poisonous schemes that surrounded and killed you, nor even this palm strike of mine."
His voice paused, as if he were making a final comment on a worthy opponent: "But it is—your choice."
"If you can let go of everything, ignore worldly affairs, and devote yourself to cultivation, with your talent and ability—"
Why wait thirty years?
"Twenty years, or even—just ten years."
"At that time, let alone these demon kings present, even if I myself were to arrive, what would you have to fear? In this Southern Realm, who could possibly stand in your way?"
He shook his head slightly, and in his sigh, there seemed to be a genuine sense of regret from a powerful figure for another fallen expert: "What a pity."
The words had barely left his lips when they were spoken, their echo lingering long afterward.
A peerless prodigy, once the most dazzling and solitary legend of swordsmanship in the Southern Realm, met his end in this isolated city of the Southern Realm, amidst the presence of the Demon Emperor and the surrounding hordes of demons, in an incomparably tragic yet resolute manner—
It seemed he would die with resentment, returning to silence.
Not only him, but also the lonely city of Tiannan and the countless living beings within it, seemed destined to fall into the jaws of the demons and become dust in history.
"Is it...the end?"
In the weightlessness of the rapid descent, Zhou Yi managed to turn his neck with the last vestige of consciousness.
Through his blurred, blood-red vision, the last thing he saw was a small yet towering figure high in the sky. Huan Du Qingtian withdrew his hand, put his hands behind his back, and stood suspended in the air. The might of the Demon Emperor was as deep and as heavy as a prison, indifferently looking down on all living beings, and also on his "accidental" demise.
And behind Huan Du Qingtian, there was the face of Poison Old Man, whose shock had subsided but whose expression of coldness and lingering fear had returned.
Just a little bit short of...
That way you can get him to come along —
pity----
I hate it!
I hate this crippled body that can't be saved, I hate this desperate situation that's closing in on me step by step, I hate that so-called "fate" that's high above and manipulates everything!
but----
I'm so tired.
Exhausted to the extreme, both body and soul, it felt as if every fragment was crying out to sink into eternal darkness and slumber.
Slowly, he gave up his last struggle, letting his consciousness, like a stone falling into an icy sea, irrevocably sink into the abyss of absolute silence called "death"—
However, in the absolute darkness and silence just before his consciousness was about to completely dissipate and fall into the eternal abyss known as "death," a "sound" of indistinguishable origin, transcending the boundaries of time and space, or rather, a "thought" that reached the very source of his soul, rippled like a stone thrown into stagnant water in the depths of his shattered soul.
"you----"
"Were you also enraged by this inescapable fate?"
Angry?
This word, like a last, cold ember, fell upon the lingering warmth of Zhou Yi's will, which had already turned to ashes.
In the darkness, the voice was indifferent, yet it seemed to carry a hint of inexplicable—expectation?
"At the cost of your thirty years of stagnant cultivation, you will achieve the absolute pinnacle of power that you can attain in this lifetime."
"A chance, perhaps, to defy fate."
"you----"
"Would you like to trade?"
exchange?
To have the chance to throw a punch at the fate that manipulates everything?
"I'm willing...I'm willing..." In absolute darkness, Zhou Yi seemed to grasp at the last glimmer of light.
I do!!!!
'
As if in response to his answer, a ray of light fell in the absolute darkness.
"Then... I'll grant you supernatural powers."
Zhou Yi grasped the light in his palm with his only remaining right hand.
Innate Divine Power - Awakening!
Could you please arrive soon?
A long chapter of 10,000 words, please vote with monthly tickets and give rewards!
There will be more later.
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