Chapter 77
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Bai Tai Shou seemed like the descent of thunder calamity, lightning engulfing the entire Ascension Immortal Platform, and in an instant, the Ghost Crown Prince shouted sternly: “Xue Tai Sha!”
The Blood Sword unsheathed into the air, held firmly in his palm, with a resounding boom, firmly blocking the Bai Tai Shou sword edge. The ground beneath his feet cracked and split, countless giant rocks shaking up into the air!
“Repair the array, raise another Heavenly Dao path!” The Ghost Crown Prince didn’t even look back, shouting at Ying Kai, “Quick!!”
Cold light flickered in Gong Wei’s eyes as he glanced past the Ghost Crown Prince towards the underground palace.
Only to see that the foundation of the Heavenly Dao was not damaged at all. In the center of the underground palace was a huge and magnificent, cold and bright silver array, and Ying Kai stood in the middle of the array with a sword in hand. Countless strange symbols filled every corner of the underground palace――these were the guiyuan seals that Qu Xie personally created when he split from the Heavenly Dao tens of thousands of years ago and went to the underworld to create them.
At this moment, those densely packed sinister inscriptions seemed to have a life of their own, converging from all directions toward the array, then climbing onto Ying Kai’s body, almost too fast to stop.
The opening of the Heavenly Gate relied on the divine power of the Ghost Crown Prince. Once all the seals were integrated into the array, the second Heavenly Dao would immediately rise!
Gong Wei’s face was burning with anger, and he flew past the Ghost Crown Prince, swinging his sword in fury towards Ying Kai――clang!
The Ghost Crown Prince decisively blocked the sword’s momentum, then suddenly swung his arm upwards.
The two swords clashed violently, sparks flying from the friction, and Gong Wei, along with his sword, was flung into the air. Immediately, Qu Xie rushed forward, and the two sword blades collided fiercely, emitting magnificent arcs of electricity!
The high-altitude hurricane lifted Gong Wei’s blood-stained robe, and the two confronted each other with their swords. The Ghost Crown Prince’s smile was filled with a cold evilness: “Don’t deceive yourself, Gong Wei. Actually, you know very well that once you return to the mortal world, it’s inevitable that Northern Wall’s ascension will happen, and you won’t have time to stop it…”
Cold light overflowed in Gong Wei’s eyes: “Today, you will surely be skinned and torn apart, by my hand.”
The Ghost Crown Prince smiled: “Don’t forget, ‘death’ is a concept only for mortals, you and I will only temporarily return to the Heavenly Dao or the underworld. And even if you kill me today, guess how long it will take for me to come back? A hundred years, ten years?”
With his deep and magnificent voice, the slim blood sword gradually changed its shape, countless dark red seals spreading from the hilt, covering the entire blade.
“The more people die, the faster I will come back.” The Ghost Crown Prince’s smile carried a hint of pity: “It’s like the kindness in human hearts will eventually be worn away, but the evil in human nature will last forever.”
Gong Wei exerted force, pushing the Ghost Crown Prince back tens of meters: “Shut your smooth-talking mouth!”
The Ghost Crown Prince stopped in mid-air, shaking his head helplessly, then his two fingers closed together and swept across the blade, with each word trailing a thunderous sound in the heavens and earth: “Mortal finally dies――”
As the four-word sword mantra was uttered, the blood sword erupted with countless layers of dazzling cold light, illuminating the eerie sky.
The next moment, the two swords of the same origin collided heavily, like tens of thousands of thunderbolts falling from the sky, dazzling and blinding from top to bottom, and smashing the Ascension Immortal Platform!
――The entire underground palace trembled forcibly, and the sword light, like thunderbolts from the nine heavens, shattered the corner of the huge silver array, smashing the last part of the ghost seal inscription, which had not yet been integrated, forcibly hanging in mid-air.
Ying Kai’s face changed, rushing forward to repair the missing corner of the array, but at this moment, the Bai Tai Shou divine intervention came!
With a clang of swords, the sound deafening, Ying Kai was forced to retreat several steps, and then the Ghost Crown Prince followed suit, chasing after him. Gong Wei turned around like a whirlwind, firmly holding the blood sword. He fought against the two, but did not fall behind at all. The dazzling sword light of Bai Tai Shou exploded in the underground palace, and amidst the melee, Ying Kai tried several times to repair the missing corner of the array, but each time, he was mercilessly cut back by Gong Wei’s sword, and a burst of blood rose up from his chest, reaching up to a height of more than ten feet.
“Go repair the array!” The Ghost Crown Prince flew up to avoid the sword edge, the thunderous sword aura causing his pupils to shrink, and the expression of ease that he had always worn had completely disappeared: “The restrictions of the Mirror Immortal’s descent are limited, he won’t last that long!”
As soon as the words fell, Ying Kai swiftly strode towards the corner where the array was missing, but Gong Wei didn’t even spare a glance. He swiftly unleashed a deep crimson, majestic sword light like lightning.
—The might of that sword was simply overwhelming. Just as Ying Kai was about to be cut into a bloody mess, the Ghost Prince instantly flew over, not even considering to intercept, but directly blocked the blade with his body.
Pfft!
The Ghost Prince was pierced through front and back by Bai Tai Shou, blood gushing out from the sword tip breaking through his back!
Blood poured from his palm as the Ghost Prince tightly gripped the blade that pierced through his abdomen. His entire arm bulged with tendons and bones as he gritted his teeth, “Go repair the array… quickly!”
“Ying Chenyuan,” the Bai Tai Shou sword edge flickered with rings of cold light in the life-and-death struggle, as icy and piercing as Gong Wei’s tone at this moment: “I’ll give you one last chance, you can still turn back now.”
The cold wind wrapped in gunpowder, the breath of hot blood and cold iron intertwined. For a long time, Ying Kai closed his eyes and asked hoarsely, “Have you heard the crying in the wind?”
Intermittently from the distant horizon, like elongated whistles, and also like the eternal lament of sorrow.
“That crying has been haunting me, like a festering sore, lingering and never calming down for thousands of years. Regardless of whether I died protecting them in the floods, or whether I disbanded the armies to bring them peace, regardless of how many good deeds I did in my lifetime, and how much effort I put in…”
“The greed of mankind is endless. As long as one thing doesn’t meet their expectations in the end, all previous gratitude turns into dissatisfaction, all faith turns into doubt, and all praise becomes evidence of hypocrisy. The evil will become a Buddha as soon as he puts down his butcher’s knife, but the good will lose all honor when they falter in old age. Words are like melted gold, solid and true, and everyone sees themselves as gods who can judge everything.”
“I don’t want to hear that crying anymore.” Ying Kai tightened his grip on the handle of Mountain Ocean Order, calmly saying, “People are never weak and helpless. The only thing that human nature can never abandon is malice.”
Mountain Ocean Order suddenly unsheathed, and Gong Wei’s expression changed.
Ying Kai rushed towards the broken part of the array’s foundation stone, but it was too late to react. Gong Wei forcibly pulled out Bai Tai Shou from the abdomen of the Ghost Crown Prince, and the sword body brought forth a blood arrow, forcefully pushing Ying Kai back several meters――bang!
Ying Kai’s back collapsed against a stone pillar, and half of the underground palace shook and collapsed; Gong Wei, amidst the pouring giant rocks, swung his sword with one hand, his divine power bursting into the sky, about to blast the entire array into pieces!
In that instant, Ying Kai closed his eyes and chopped off his left hand with a sword.
Blood soared into the sky, the severed hand flew up, drawing an arc in Gong Wei’s widened pupils, and precisely fell at the gap in the array far away.
Time seemed to freeze in an instant, and the next moment, the foundation stone of the array was completed by Ying Kai’s blood and bones.
The last section of the spell madly poured into the array, and the terrifying light shone from the inside out; the second Heavenly Dao rose from the ground in the violent tremor, majestic and straight up to the sky!
The strange clouds surged and began to rotate slowly, then faster and faster, like a huge vortex on the sea. A clear light leaked out of the clouds, and then rapidly expanded. This was the flying gate that was forcibly opened again.
The Ascension Immortal Platform, Mount Dai, Yejinmen, Julu City, and the Yanchuntai…. all the cultivators in the world looked towards the sky with fearful eyes, only to see a blood-drenched figure soaring straight towards the Heavenly Gate, as if being supported by divine power.
It was Ying Kai!
“Ying Chenyuan…” Gong Wei spat out three words from between his teeth, his robes fluttering in the wind: “Ying Chenyuan!”
Another huge thunder burst out from the long steps to the Heavenly Dao. Gong Wei bathed in lightning rose up, striking out with a shocking scarlet light. Ying Kai endured this sword, suddenly spewing out a mouthful of hot blood, but did not stop the speed of his ascent; the Bai Tai Shou’s second sword followed closely, meeting the blood-colored sword edge of the Ghost Crown Prince head-on, bursting out enough dazzling sparks to scorch the eyes!
The Ghost Crown Prince seemed to completely ignore the terrifying wound in his abdomen. His face became even paler and more eerie amidst the interweaving lightning, and he laughed loudly, “He used to be your most promising god, shouldn’t you congratulate him on returning to his rightful place?”
“…Qu Xie,” Gong Wei said each word coldly, his pupils turning into a deep blood-red, a powerful and terrifying momentum bursting from his body, like rolling substance, covering most of the sky.
The Ghost Crown Prince widened his eyes, recognizing what it was――
Celestial beings are not always infinitely compassionate and benevolent; this was Gong Wei’s extreme evil aspect.
“I’ll make you feel a pain a million times worse than Xu Bai’s death, so that you’ll remember it firmly even in the underworld…”
The Bai Tai Shou sword overwhelmed the thunder, pressing the blood sword inch by inch towards the Ghost Crown Prince’s forehead, and the blood sword emitted a trembling, piercing scream.
On the gleaming sword blade, Gong Wei’s only blood-red eye reflected: “…so that you’ll never forget even a fraction of it.”
Finally unable to bear the burden, the blood sword suddenly slipped from the grip and disappeared far into the depths of the thunderous waterfall.
Gong Wei hurled Bai Tai Shou into the air, and the scarlet divine sword turned into a meteor, piercing through the Heavenly Dao path heavily, countless cracks flashing with electric light spread upwards, instantly turning the long steps into a giant lightning rod piercing through the heavens and earth.
Then, Gong Wei clamped down on the Ghost Crown Prince’s throat with one hand and pressed into the Ghost Crown Prince’s chest with the other, ruthlessly tearing off a piece of flesh!
The divine body of the Ghost Crown Prince remained in the ghost realm, but this fleshly body would still feel pain. He wanted to struggle, but the fingers that pinched his neck were like iron clamps, and he could only watch helplessly as blood continuously spurted from his chest, skin, flesh, bones, and viscera torn apart from chest to abdomen.
Then Gong Wei broke through the bones, pulled out his still-beating heart without mercy, and squeezed it mercilessly with five fingers――
Snap!
Flesh and blood splattered, the heart exploded into a mass of bloody pulp in his palm!
“…,” the Ghost Crown Prince stared straight at Gong Wei’s extreme evil aspect, his pale lips moved slightly, forming a faint smile: “Look…how much you resemble me.”
Gong Wei’s face was as indifferent as a death god’s, lifting the Ghost Crown Prince’s body, now mostly turned into white bones, with one hand, and fiercely smashed it towards the Heavenly stairs!
Bang!
Bang!!
Bang—
As if even the heavens and earth were trembling, the Ghost Crown Prince’s head shattered, limbs were knocked off, and torso was turned into a mist of flesh and blood; finally, the incomplete skeleton was grabbed by Gong Wei in his bloody five fingers, and the vast thunder and lightning reflected his icy face:
“No, you’re just a vile ghost torn into countless pieces.”
The thunderous sound shook the Heavenly stairs, and the fragmented skeleton was smashed into several pieces by Gong Wei, then burned to ashes in the thunderous waterfall!
――The Heavenly Gate cast down a boundless clear light, indicating that the God of the Northern Yuan had returned to his original position.
In the sky above the unreachable highest heavenly realm, Ying Kai wore a black brocade robe with dark silver patterns embroidered on it. Majestic divine power rose from under his feet, finally restoring his legendary appearance. Mountain Ocean Order widened and lengthened, trembling violently in its scabbard, emitting a long roar echoing in all directions.
That sword roar seemed to be the collective heart-rending wails of countless people, but upon closer listening, it sounded like only one voice, full of suppressed anger, pain, and injustice accumulated over thousands of years.
It was from its owner himself.
With a clang, Ying Kai calmly drew out the divine sword, and the sharp sword roar abruptly ceased.
Then, he slashed towards the human realm with one sword, the sword light crumbling mountains and swallowing seas, traversing the nine provinces and sixteen cities, ruthlessly splitting the extreme northern land!
The vast ice plains cracked in the powerful quake, land rocks collapsed, revealing black permafrost. From the depths of the earth’s core erupted the resentment sealed for nine thousand years, rolling like a giant dragon.
The world-ending soldier puppet finally broke free from its seal.
Its body disintegrated into millions of mechanical parts, like a meteor shower obscuring the sky, tearing through the firmament under the fearful gaze of humanity, converging over Dai Mountain; countless parts assembled, rotated, and combined to form a towering new body.
It was as if a colossal grim reaper had descended upon the mortal realm, wielding two flaming longswords with its adamantine arms, sweeping horizontally across the continuous mountains and rivers!
Boom—
Heaven collapsed, earth crumbled.
The Dai Mountain Immortal Alliance, which had stood for thousands of years in the mortal realm, collapsed under this blade, turning into flat ground!
All the cultivators on the Ascension Immortal Platform were forced to fly up on their swords, and Yuchi Rui shouted, “Gong Wei!”
Only on the ground beneath his feet, Gong Wei knelt with one knee, his entire body draped in the Ghost Crown Prince’s blood, his robes dyed deep red. He tightly gripped the No Way Out Sword in one hand and held Xu Shuangce in the other, burying his head deeply in the stiff, cold neck that had long lost its warmth.
The Ascension Immortal Platform was already in ruins, with Gong Wei’s surroundings being the last intact piece of land. Yuchi Rui rushed forward, grabbing Gong Wei’s arm and shouting, “Quickly, let’s go!”
But Gong Wei didn’t move. His heavy hand drooped down, falling onto the cracked ground.
“I feel so uncomfortable,” he said softly.
His youthful voice sounded muffled, not really carrying any trace of tears, but somehow evoking a poignant sense of sadness. Yuchi Rui’s voice trembled as he said, “Gong Wei…”
“When I was in the Heavenly Realm, East Heaven often watched me quietly from a distance, watching me chat with Northern Wall, watching me go down to the mortal world to play. Sometimes I would turn into a mirror, immersed in the mortal world, traveling and observing all kinds of human conditions, wearying over a decade and then returning to the heavens. Whenever I met East Heaven again, he always seemed particularly silent, as if angry, but I didn’t know why.”
“Do you think if he had never met me in this life, would he be happier?” Gong Wei turned his head slightly, revealing half of his eyes which were now red, his voice tinged with confusion. “If I had never opened the door to ascension for the world, would they all be luckier?”
“…,” It felt like hot steel needles pierced through his lungs, and Yuchi Rui didn’t know what to say. After a while, he murmured again, “…Gong Wei.”
At this moment, in the sky above Dai Mountain, the World Ending Soldier Puppet raised his double swords on his shoulders, his whole body still, his majestic eyes burning with black flames. In the distance, the various factions of Xuanmen were in chaos, extreme fear causing everyone to lose their reason. Several cultivators couldn’t help but swing their swords at the giant, but their sword lights seemed tiny and insignificant, except for one that happened to strike the giant’s eye in mid-air.
The black flames suddenly surged up hundreds of feet, infuriating the World Ending Soldier Puppet. His giant head slowly turned towards those cultivators on the ground, and then suddenly he swung his swords down like a deluge!
Whoosh—
A fire dragon surged out from the blade, reflected in the terrified eyes of everyone, but there was no time to dodge.
At the critical moment, Gong Wei rose from the ground with his sword drawn, and a fan-shaped light curtain like a towering wave instantly swallowed up the fire dragon!
“Gong… Grand Elder Gong!”
“Law Flower Immortal!”
“It’s Grand Elder Gong!!”
…
The surviving cultivators, as if seeing a savior, all cried out their most instinctive and familiar titles. The World Ending Soldier Puppet was thoroughly enraged, his two giant eyes like black suns, converged from high in the sky straight towards Gong Wei’s small figure on the ground. However, Gong Wei stood up, holding Bai Tai Shou and the No Way Out Sword in his hands, his figure slender and upright, his face calm as he stood in the raging wind. “Changsheng, take Xu Bai and leave.”
Yuchi Rui angrily said, “I’m not leaving! I…”
“When Ying Kai created the World Ending Soldier Puppet, he gave instructions to only slaughter mortals, not to involve the Xuanmen. As long as the cultivators of the world don’t actively engage in battle, it won’t attack any cultivators.” Gong Wei slightly turned his head. From Yuchi Rui’s perspective, he could see half of his profile, as cold as ice. “I’m going to trap it in Dai Mountain, completely kill it, and then go to the Heavenly Realm to kill the God of the Northern Wall.”
“But you’re already injured! How can you possibly…”
With a clang, Bai Tai Shou and the No Way Out Sword were drawn simultaneously, and a faint, irresistible aura of majesty emanated from Gong Wei’s exhausted eyes. “Stand behind me, and do not intervene no matter what happens.”
Yuchi Rui’s pupils suddenly widened.
At that moment, the World Ending Soldier Puppet roared, and the two swords crossed, chopping down! Black streams of fire surged down from above like a volcanic eruption, its momentum so grand that it was indescribable, but in an instant, they were repelled by Gong Wei’s twin swords. The raging flames reverberated in the heavens and the earth, and the World Ending Soldier Puppet’s entire body was roasted into a dazzling gold. Enraged, it spewed out a second, even more intense blaze, but Gong Wei mercilessly countered it once again, even heavier, even fiercer, and even more ruthless!
That was an indescribable scene, with the black flames engulfing the heavens and the earth, and the flames of the World Ending Soldier Puppet growing more furious with each passing moment. Gong Wei’s counterattacks were just as fierce and powerful as each preceding sword strike. Each eruption of the apocalypse’s torrent of destruction was firmly blocked by Gong Wei, as if he were an invincible guardian.
“Roar—“
The World Ending Soldier Puppet could no longer contain itself, no longer engaging in sword clashes, but instead, in a violent tremor, it lunged towards Gong Wei.
Its massive, towering figure cast a shadow over Gong Wei’s entire body, but the beautiful profile of the youth remained unmoved. With a swift cross of his twin swords—
Bai Tai Shou and the No Way Out Sword simultaneously broke through the overwhelming force, their intersecting arcs pushing along the ground. In a deafening boom, they severed the World Ending Soldier Puppet’s arms in mid-air!
Boom!
Boom!
The two steel arms fell to the ground one after the other, instantly creating deep valleys, and were soon buried under thousands of tons of soil!
That strike was more than just a miracle; everyone was dazzled and mesmerized by this magnificent and colorful scene. Even the heads of the major sects couldn’t help but be shaken to their cores, instinctively falling to their knees.
The giant World Ending Soldier Puppet, burning with hatred to the extreme, leaped towards Gong Wei. It was a mutual destruction, its huge mouth flashing with black stars, and it seemed like it was about to unleash an unprecedented flame!
At that moment, the void beneath it suddenly cracked open, and a brilliant golden light curtain rose up from all sides.
With a bang, the World Ending Soldier Puppet collided head-on, but despite the violent tremor, the light curtain remained intact, like an impregnable fortress, firmly trapping it within. Then, a thin and sturdy stroke of a character appeared above the array—
“Xuan”!
Yuchi Rui exclaimed, “The Great Vehicle Seal?!”
Before he could react, another void fissure opened up from beneath their feet, and h*llish flames erupted.
Yuchi Rui didn’t even have time to reach out to grab Gong Wei, and the two of them, along with Xu Shuangce’s body, plummeted down together!
This time, they truly fell from the mortal world into the underworld, with rushing streams of fire roaring past their ears, and the sights of the underworld passing by like a galloping horse. The sense of weightlessness lasted for less than a moment, and then twelve towering blood-painted palace gates appeared beneath their feet, rapidly approaching as they fell, and just before impact, they burst open with a resounding boom.
Yuchi Rui had no choice but to fall into it, bang!
Finally setting foot on solid ground, the Rakshasa Tower plunged into the ground, stabilizing Yuchi Rui’s figure as he gasped for breath and looked up.
The surroundings were no longer Dai Mountain in reality, but a vast, dark hall. Looking up, he couldn’t see the ceiling, and looking around, he couldn’t see the walls of the hall. The shiny, smooth obsidian floor tiles extended from his feet in all directions, disappearing into the distant shadows like an endless sea.
Suddenly, Yuchi Rui caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye, and his face changed.
He saw nine tiers of steps winding upwards, with a luxurious obsidian throne at the top, high enough to overlook the entire hall. At this moment, a slender figure was perched on top, with a pale and handsome face, draped in a gorgeous black robe, eyes tightly closed, and one hand supporting his cheek.
It was the Ghost Crown Prince!
The Rakshasa Tower was drawn out abruptly, but immediately, a calm and gentle voice came from behind him, “It’s useless, that’s his divine body.”
Yuchi Rui turned around lightning-fast, “Who are you?!”
A hundred steps away behind him, there was a huge circular altar in the hall, with a diameter of thousands of feet, engraved with exquisite and strange patterns, but upon closer inspection, it was all densely packed forbidden seals.
The altar was filled with a bright red liquid that resembled blood, and a person was seated in the center of the blood pool, appearing young and seemingly innocent, with a fair and beautiful face, like a lotus emerging from boundless blood.
He had a slender and tall figure, but the black satin robe he wore seemed slightly oversized, with large and glamorous amaryllis flowers embroidered on the lapels and sleeves. It was unmistakably the Ghost Crown Prince’s attire!
Yuchi Rui vaguely felt that this person was familiar, and couldn’t help but frown, “You are–“
The young man calmly said, “The Western Boundary God, Xuan Jinghe.”
It turned out to be Xuan Jinghe, the Ghost Crown Prince’s master who had slain the World Ending Soldier Puppet nine thousand years ago and then descended to the underworld!
With a bang behind him, Yuchi Rui turned his head in astonishment, only to see Gong Wei and Xu Shuangce appear successively in this eerie hall.
Xu Shuangce seemed to be only in a deep sleep, his body quietly floating in mid-air; Gong Wei, on the other hand, stood up with his sword, looking around with a slightly solemn expression and casting his gaze towards the altar. He asked, “What’s going on?”
Xuan Jinghe replied, “I made a mistake and was countered. I can’t leave anymore.”
His voice was gentle but deep, as if his throat had been injured.
Compared to his resolute posture during the battle of the apocalypse, Xuan Jinghe seemed a bit more exhausted now. However, he did not explain the reason, but instead leaned towards Gong Wei’s direction and said, “I failed the mission bestowed upon me by the heavens, and instead of calming the Guiyuan, I ended up imprisoned here for many years without seeing the light of day. It wasn’t until you scattered the Ghost Crown Prince’s soul just now, causing him to temporarily lose control of this sleeping hall, that I could reluctantly open the doors to do something.”
Gong Wei seemed to have a premonition and asked, “What did you do?”
Xuan Jinghe didn’t answer, but raised his hand and pointed forward. Countless dazzling lights instantly converged from the void, forming a vague figure, which appeared above Xu Shuangce’s corpse.
It was Xu Shuangce’s soul!
“The Ghost Crown Prince’s soul won’t dissipate for too long. Only when the Eastern God returns to his original position will you have enough power to suppress both the Ghost Crown Prince and the God of the North Wall at the same time.” Xuan Jinghe paused and said, “But the God of the North Wall is causing chaos in the heavens. It’s almost impossible to return through ascension at this time, so Sect Master Xu needs… a new godhead.”
Divine positions can be exchanged, but godheads are the unique and irreproducible source of life!
“I have been shameful with this heavy task, and my life is not long now.” Xuan Jinghe bowed deeply, his voice hoarse, “There is no need to save me anymore.”
Gong Wei’s expression changed abruptly. “Xuan Jinghe?!”
As soon as he finished speaking, the severe wound on Xu Shuangce’s chest gradually healed, and his fingers suddenly moved.
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Thank You for the chapter ❤٩(•౪•٩)
These twists keep coming so fast they are making me dizzy. If they don’t just straighten up and finish the story I’m gonna throw up. How is all this going to end! I hate you and love you author! And love our translator. Muah!