Chapter 58
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“…Xu Bai,” Gong Wei, unarmed, took a step back under the strange, smiling gaze of “Liu Xuzhi,” gasping, “Xu Bai?”
Not far away, in the abyss, the broken mechanical arm of the world-destroying soldier scraped against Xu Shuangce as it collided with the mountain wall, swallowing all sound in a thunderous rumble.
Bai Xian gritted his teeth and stood up, keeping a wary eye on “Liu Xuzhi” as he extended his right hand. The Buqi Sword immediately turned into flowing light, gripped in his palm. At this moment, Du Kaixun instinctively wanted to stride towards Bai Xian to check on his condition after freeing himself from the soldier thread around his throat, but upon seeing this, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, realizing that they were no longer the anonymous but widely known Dao companions “Iron Sect Master” and “Daoist Spiritual Master Bai.”
Du Kaixun forcibly averted his gaze, staring vigilantly at “Liu Xuzhi.” “How come you’re here?”
Ghost cultivators in this world lacked the five senses; they could only make sounds through others’ mouths. Upon careful listening, Liu Xuzhi’s voice was slightly different from usual, carrying a cold, sinister tone that was difficult to describe. Yet, it was smiling. “To infer so much from such incomplete memories, it seems that among the descendants of the Iron Sect, only you still resemble something.”
It reached out, catching the Qingli Sword from somewhere. “Don’t you want to return to your true origin?”
Du Kaixun’s expression changed slightly. The ghost cultivator continued, “Thoroughly kill Law Flower Immortal, and you can go back.”
—Law Flower Immortal?!
Du Kaixun didn’t react immediately, then he saw the ghost cultivator swiftly flying forward without hesitation, a sword slashing towards Xu Shuangce’s beloved disciple, “Xiang Xiaoyuan”!
With a resounding boom, the sword edge struck the mountain rock, and an explosion of debris filled the sky. Gong Wei’s right pupil turned blood-red almost instantly. In the onslaught of wind and rain, he retreated step by step, suddenly leaping backward. The Qingli Sword’s cold light swept past his nose, splitting the thousand-catty boulder falling overhead into pieces.
The entire glacier trembled, and millennia-old accumulated snow cascaded from above. However, the eerie and strange voice of the ghost cultivator persisted in his ears throughout, and no matter how fast Gong Wei was, he couldn’t shake off the presence within three feet of him. “With your unparalleled divine power aiding him, it’s no wonder that the Eastern Heaven could beat the God of the Northern Wall in the past… But this illusion is really too exhausting. It could still operate for sixteen years after your ‘death.’ What does it take to truly kill you?”
Gong Wei’s right pupil was almost entirely red, the remaining traces of his spiritual power pushed to the limit. He swung his palm, deflecting the Qingli Sword’s edge. “What did you say?!”
“Ding!” A clear sound rang out. With a single sword, the ghost cultivator pinned Gong Wei’s sleeve to the mountain wall and reached out towards his blood-red eye. “Let me try.”
Instantly, Gong Wei’s pupils clearly reflected its fingertips. But at that moment, a fierce aura approached from afar, knocking “Liu Xuzhi” several yards away!
It was Xu Shuangce!
The ghost cultivator’s sword plunged into the ground, stabilizing its form, as it looked up. Far away at the mouth of the abyss, Xu Shuangce broke through the black flames spewed by the world-destroying soldier puppet, immediately charging towards them like lightning.
The giant roared with anger, attempting to pursue but unable to climb the cliff—it hadn’t truly revived, as if an invisible seal had tightly imprisoned it inside, preventing it from climbing out of the abyss and returning to the mortal world.
The ghost cultivator sighed, saying, “I knew just one strand of blood wouldn’t be enough.”
Then, it raised its hand, and Gong Wei suddenly felt something, looking up abruptly.
Above the glacier, the sky was dark and gloomy, and a thin and familiar figure descended from the sky, wearing white funerary clothes fluttering in the wind—it was Law Flower Immortal!
Gong Wei’s heart sank suddenly. “Stop him!”
Before he could finish his words, the body controlled by the soldier thread turned cold and pale. It raised its hand in mid-air and made a cut at its neck.
Blood that hadn’t solidified for sixteen years gushed from the side of the corpse’s neck, reflecting in Xu Shuangce’s enlarged pupils, splashing into the abyss, and briefly appearing in the deep crack between the eyebrows of the world-destroying soldier, dissolving into it.
—The second strand of blood.
Without even blinking, a more powerful and terrifying hurricane erupted from the soldier’s countless large and small wound openings. Its wildly swinging severed arm finally broke through the invisible seal above the abyss, and then most of its body protruded from the ground, crashing towards Xu Shuangce with a thunderous roar!
In fact, this world-destroying soldier puppet was only half a corpse now. Its joints and millions of parts had exploded into countless fragments under the sword of Xu Shuangce thousands of years ago, creating a sky full of debris.
But even so, it still possessed terrifying destructive power, not to mention that it had already broken free from the shackles of the abyss. Xu Shuangce couldn’t escape from the immense pressure at all!
With a crisp sound of the sword, the ghost cultivator grasped the sword and approached slowly, smiling. “It’s just you and me left, Law Flower Immortal.” Gong Wei retreated step by step. “Why do you want my skin?”
“I just happen to need a perfect skin.”
“Don’t you have your own skin?”
The ghost cultivator stopped, gently asking, “But isn’t a gift something someone should prepare the best thing for?”
Before Gong Wei could reply, the sword edge was already upon him—its killing intent was so intense that it didn’t waste any words. Gong Wei gritted his teeth and dodged repeatedly, about to turn around, when suddenly he felt a chill at the corner of his eye. A figure had silently approached from behind—Law Flower Immortal.
In an instant, he found himself caught in a pincer attack. Gong Wei realized with a sinking heart, instinctively blurting out, “Xu Bai!”
Actually, his sharp cry couldn’t reach far, but at the moment the words left his mouth, inexorably, a sword burst from the abyss, dislodging the soldier puppet’s left severed arm in a deafening shockwave. Weapon parts poured down like hail, and Xu Shuangce emerged bathed in blood, shooting towards them like an arrow.
But it was already too late.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment, and all assassinations happened at this moment—
The corpse’s four fingers closed into a palm thrusting towards his back, and Gong Wei narrowly avoided it; the ghost cultivator’s hand was already close, two fingertips digging into his eye sockets.
Intense pain pierced him, followed by a more forceful pull backward by an unknown force. “Clang!” The sound of two swords clashing deafened the ears—it was the Buqi Sword that had intercepted the Qingli Sword!
The corner of Gong Wei’s right eye tore, blood gushing down. “Bai Xian?”
Bai Xian held the sword with one hand, facing the ghost cultivator head-on, slightly tilting his head to look at Gong Wei. His eye sockets were slightly red as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Grand Elder Gong.”
Du Kaixun, who had been standing by without intervening, changed dramatically, leaping down from above to pull Bai Xian away. But in that split second, the ghost cultivator blocked Bai Xian’s Buqi sword, mercilessly slamming a palm towards Bai Xian’s heart!
The change happened too suddenly. Neither Du Kaixun nor Gong Wei nearby had time to intervene. In an instant, Bai Xian withdrew his sword.
He didn’t dodge at all?
At that moment, the ghost cultivator realized something was wrong, but Bai Xian had already taken the astonishing blow head-on, flying back several yards before barely stopping with a sword thrust into the ground. Large sections of his chest had collapsed;
Then, a force several times stronger than that palm surged forward, sending the ghost cultivator flying backward on the spot!
With a thunderous roar that shook the mountains, “Liu Xuzhi” shattered countless rocks. Human bodies couldn’t withstand such a blow and spat out blood on the spot.
The ghost cultivator gritted its teeth as it rose from the rubble. The severe impact on its soul made it unable to firmly control the body of Music Saint anymore, and there was a tendency for it to leave the body: “….Blood oath backlash? Why?”
Bai Xian knelt on one knee, tightly gripping the Buqi Sword. “Do you still remember the content of our blood oath?”
“To use the soldier thread as a price, create an opportunity for Du Kaixun to expose the crime of fratricide to… ah.” The ghost cultivator covered its lips with a fist, finally understanding: “The world.” Only Xu Shuangce, Gong Wei, and “Liu Xuzhi” knew about it, so it hadn’t been exposed to the “world” at all. Bai Xian’s demand seemed to be merely about exposing Du Kaixun’s crime, but in reality, it aimed to bring it to light for all to know and to leave a mark on history. How difficult it was!
The attacking party would suffer a backlash several times greater if the blood oath was incomplete, and Bai Xian had set a trap for it from the beginning!
“Very clever,” the ghost cultivator wiped the blood from the corner of its mouth, not sparing its praise.
At this moment, a tremor approached from afar, and Xu Shuangce had come close from above the abyss. At the critical moment, the ghost cultivator looked regretfully at Bai Xian and smiled faintly: “But this little cleverness doesn’t work in the face of absolute death.”
In the earthquake-like tremor, Xu Shuangce came flying, his sword thrusting towards the ghost cultivator, and he shouted sternly to Gong Wei, “Run!”
Gong Wei turned around to see the soldier puppet following Xu Shuangce, most of its body already crawling out of the cliff.
It, once majestic as a god of destruction, now, after a thousand years have passed, its armor mottled and weathered by wind and frost, the hollow, gigantic blood eye no longer possesses any hint of divinity. Instead, it harbors boundless resentment. With a thunderous roar, its right palm swiped fiercely against the hem of Xu Shuangce’s clothes, slamming heavily onto the ground. Rocks within a radius of ten zhang instantly turned to dust beneath its palm.
Even Xu Shuangce was nearing the end of his strength. The terrifying impact caused blood to immediately trickle from his thin lips, but the assault became even more fierce. “Clang!” With a loud clang, the No Way Out Sword forcefully knocked away the ghost cultivator’s Qingli sword, and with relentless force, it slashed towards its crown. However, at this moment, “Liu Xuzhi’s” body unexpectedly went limp without any warning.
At the moment of lightning speed, the ghost cultivator unexpectedly detached from Music Saint’s body, transforming once again into an invisible ghost shadow under the hood, crimson lights flickering sinisterly beneath the hood. It reached out from the void, drawing out Bai Tai Shou, and thrust a sword through Xu Shuangce’s right shoulder!
Blood sprayed forth, reflecting in the narrowed pupils of Gong Wei.
Even in their most confrontational moments in their past lives, Xu Shuangce was always perceived as the strongest in his mind – unbeatable, unstoppable. There was no weapon in this world that could penetrate his cold, unyielding exterior. Even when Gong Wei ascended to the Ascension Immortal Platform in his deepest subconscious, he couldn’t imagine Xu Shuangce bleeding.
―― How much would Xu Bai suffer? This thought suddenly arose in his mind.
No one in this world should cause Xu Bai harm.
At the same moment, the giant hand of the world-ending soldier puppet descended once again with earth-shattering force, seizing Xu Shuangce’s entire body and slamming him deeply into the mountainside. Then, it opened its colossal mouth above the heads of the crowd, causing a hurricane to sweep across the land with just this one movement.
Deep within the giant’s throat, faint black flames flickered.
Bai Xiang: “Grand Elder Gong!”
Du Kaixun rushed forward, one hand tightly pinching the blood hole pierced through his abdomen, using the intense pain to stimulate his last bit of willpower, while the other hand grabbed Bai Xian as he flew back, shouting, “Let’s go!”
But at that moment, a pale face emerged from the darkness – it was the body of the Law Flower Immortal controlled by the ghost cultivator. With a swift motion, it snatched the Buqi Sword from the dying Bai Xian’s grasp, its movements stiff and rapid, and slashed towards Bai Xian’s throat!
—That moment seemed to be infinitely elongated, the flames above the head were about to burst out of the soldier’s mouth.
Gong Wei opened his tightly closed eyes, his left and right pupils blood-red.
The blood splattered on Bai Xian’s cheek, and Du Kaixun used his arm to block the Buqi Sword’s edge, almost breaking his arm; the corpse mercilessly raised the second sword, and it was about to slash towards the two, but at that moment, above everyone’s heads, a red star flashed in the distant sky!
The corpse deep in the earth
The sword in its hand clattered to the ground, and a terrifying surge of spiritual power suddenly erupted from its spine.
Not far away, one saw Gong Wei reaching out to his past self’s corpse and hoarsely saying, “Bai Tai Shou.”
As the red star shimmered in the sky, the dormant sword spirit suddenly let out a long roar, and Bai Tai Shou’s sword bathed in blood, broke out from the spine!
The corpse was torn into millions of pieces in the hurricane, blood bursting like peach blossoms in the sky, finally revealing the illusion of its past life.
The Law Flower Immortal closed his eyes tightly, his face pale, and his delicate features calm as a girl’s, with shoulder guards, arm armor, and metal waistband all intact; this dharma image merged into the body of “Xiang Xiaoyuan” amidst countless scarlet lights, and the youthful figure elongated, the face quietly changed, the deep red robe fluttered in the wind, the arms stretched long and slender, and he tightly grasped the incoming Bai Tai Shou sword in his hand.
Gong Wei looked up.
His face was no longer immature, his features serene and sharp, his figure tall and straight like a pine tree. The Bai Tai Shou sword shimmered with cold light, reflecting the fierce mouth of the world-destroying soldier puppet—
The flame finally whistled in, covering the sky and the earth, swallowing everyone’s sight.
And Gong Wei swung his sword fiercely against the torrent of black fire, the deep crimson sword light breaking through the void, splitting the head of the soldier puppet in half!
Boom!!
Like an avalanche waterfall, the giant’s half head exploded into the sky, crashing backward and collapsing most of the cliff, with the aftershocks lingering.
Gong Wei breathed slightly, and with a clang, he nailed the Bai Tai Shou sword into the ground, then turned to look behind him.
On the distant mountain wall, Xu Shuangce was bathed in blood, staring motionlessly at him, his dark eyes never flashing with such light before.
“….Gong Wei,” it was a long time before he uttered those two trembling and silent words from his thin lips.
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