“Ancient Phoenix, Aspect of Extreme Evil.”
Zhou Hui pulled everyone behind him and whispered, “Find an opening and slip out later. Don’t look back—and take the weasel with you.”
The Nine-Tailed Fox asked quietly, “I thought phoenixes didn’t have wrathful aspects?”
“Phoenix Ming Wang doesn’t. But the ancient divine beasts do,” Zhou Hui replied. “His power is still too weak to sustain that form for long. But while it lasts—stay out of the way. It’s devastating.”
The fox glanced toward the weasel’s broken body, voice low with a hint of sorrow. “Fatty Huang…”
“Don’t ask questions now. Go!”
Chu He turned and walked toward Maha, still pinned to the wall.
His face no longer resembled his usual self. The phoenix seal now covered half of his body. Golden-red feathers shimmered across his cheek in a glow that flickered like firelight against his cold, pale skin. His eyes were dark and lifeless—like glass. He stared at Maha with no emotion at all.
Maha opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
He shut his eyes tight, then cried out in pain as the emerald arrow piercing his abdomen was ripped free. Flesh tore with a sickening sound, blood trailing in ribbons onto the ground.
A hand seized his throat and hurled him through the air.
Like a cannonball, Maha smashed through the tunnel’s rocky interior. “Boom!”
His body struck the massive Sanskrit mantra net.
At that exact moment, Chu He vanished—and just as Maha rebounded from the impact, Chu He reappeared in front of him and, in one seamless motion, grabbed him again and flung him straight back into the stone cave.
—CRASH!
A thunderous explosion rocked the cavern as huge slabs of rock broke loose from the walls and ceiling.
Maha lay buried under shattered boulders, taller than a man, panting for air. Blood blurred his vision. Through the haze, he saw Chu He walking toward him—his body engulfed in searing blue flames that cracked and groaned the very ground he stepped on.
The moment the weasel had stopped breathing, Maha knew things had gone too far.
Killing someone under Chu He’s watch was no small matter. This wasn’t like casually stealing the Heavenly Dao’s offerings. This was different.
He had always known that Chu He—his “mother”—carried far too much inside. Time, centuries of it, had forged his own measure of justice and morality, different from anyone else’s. He had never thought Zhou Hui’s origins as a blood sea demon were shameful, nor had he ever resented Zhou Hui’s refusal to convert to Buddhism. Even when Maha himself committed an unforgivable sin and was struck by divine punishment, Chu He only shielded him with silent heartbreak—never judgment.
But some lines could not be crossed.
Some things, in Chu He’s eyes, simply could not be forgiven.
Maha gritted his teeth and tried to rise. The moment his feet touched the ground, his entire body convulsed. The earth beneath him was blistering hot, and the superheated rocks cracked beneath his weight.
His swords were gone. He had nothing left to defend himself.
But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Chu He’s gaze bore into him with a pressure beyond human comprehension. Maha staggered back—until his spine hit the wall—and instinct made him freeze.
“…Mother…” he rasped.
Chu He said nothing. He raised his hand—
—and slapped him.
It wasn’t a slap—it was like a divine blow from the heavens. Maha’s vision whited out. His skull rang like a temple bell. Blood gushed from his ears, nose, and eyes. He felt the cold numbness of blood loss seep into his bones.
Time felt like it had stopped. A century passed in a second.
When his vision returned, he realized he hadn’t been flung away.
He had been embedded in the stone wall—his entire body. Blood blurred his eyes so badly he couldn’t see the scene around him.
Had he been able to see it, he would have fainted from despair.
The stone walls, columns, and floor had all cracked apart. A web of fractures radiated from the spot where he was lodged—splintering across every surface of the cave and spreading even into the tunnel beyond.
Maha gasped through the blood, barely conscious.
“Are you going to kill me… Mother?” he choked out. Blood poured down his face in a mesh of crimson lines. “Then go on… do it. Doesn’t the Heavenly Dao say… those who defy it must die? Vajra’s wrath… cast down in the wilderness…”
Chu He gripped his throat, yanking him from the stone with brutal force. Bits of shattered rock rained down.
“I shouldn’t have sent you to the Heavenly Dao,” Chu He said coldly. “The way you are now… that’s my mistake.”
He raised his hand again and struck.
CRACK!
Maha’s head snapped back, slamming into the stone with a sickening crunch. Half the cave collapsed in a deafening roar of rubble.
Maha could no longer tell if he was alive. It felt like his soul had left his body—floating far above, watching himself dispassionately from a distance, drifting slowly toward the vast Gui Xu beyond the thirty-three heavens.
Memories drifted through his fading mind like falling petals.
He had grown up in the Heavenly Dao. Chanting by the lotus seas, draped in white kasayas, praying day after day for three thousand years. He had never understood why he had been sent there—until the day he asked the Buddha.
The Buddha told him: Your father still dwells in the eight-thousand-zhang blood sea. The Phoenix Ming Wang saved countless demons—but not him. He was the only one beyond salvation.
“And my mother?” Maha had asked.
The Buddha was silent for a long time. Then he said softly:
“The Phoenix cannot teach you—he no longer believes in the Heavenly Dao.”
He no longer believed.
Maha opened his eyes. They were almost blinded by blood. Every bone in his body was shattered.
He wanted to scream—Then why did you force me to believe?!
But no words came out. Blood frothed from his mouth like seawater. He felt like a broken thing, hollow, pointless. But even so—he didn’t care anymore. If this was death, maybe it was time.
He remembered once whispering into the Phoenix’s ear:
I want to be like you.
I want to believe in what you believe.
He had expected a smile, a fond pinch of the cheek, maybe a kiss on the forehead. But Chu He had only stared at him, eyes full of sorrow and unspeakable weight.
“Don’t be like this, Maha,” he had said.
“You’ll become a monster. You’ll be struck by lightning. Your body will shatter…”
And then—on the day the divine retribution struck, it wasn’t Maha who burned.
It was the Phoenix.
He soared into the sea of lightning, true form unveiled, feathers and wings burning away like shooting stars, sacrificing himself to shield his child.
Maha felt a bitter, absurd laugh rise in his chest.
Do you regret it now?
Do you regret putting your faith in me? Regret that the child you burned yourself alive to save has become the very thing you feared?
He lifted his trembling hand toward Chu He.
But before he could reach him—
Chu He raised his hand for the third time.
And just as the slap was about to land—
Smack!
Someone caught it.
Chu He froze.
The golden-red phoenix tattoos were gone. His body trembled faintly with the effort of restraint.
He looked up—and met the eyes of the newcomer, his voice hoarse, syllables rasping out like shattered glass:
“…Fan Luo.”
The Demon Lord Fan Luo floated above the ground, gripping Chu He’s wrist, smiling faintly.
The Demon Lord Fan Luo leaned down from mid-air, caught his hand, and chuckled, “Since it’s just an ordinary slap now, it doesn’t really matter if it lands, does it?”
