At the same moment, at the other end of the Thousand-Degree Mirror World, the demonic beast let out an earth-shattering roar—
Time shattered between its fangs, space tore under its claws, and tens of thousands of mirrors turned to dust, erupting in a magnificent white light reminiscent of the dawn of creation!
“Can’t take it anymore?” The Snow Mountain Goddess clutched the wisp of blood-red soul fragment, a mocking smile on her face amidst the hurricane. “What a pity, you haven’t even seen the more exciting parts yet.”
The demonic beast suddenly paused, its massive, hook-like claws tightening inch by inch. The void seemed to suddenly solidify into a dark substance, twisting and deforming under its claws, then erupting in a shriek sharp enough to pierce eardrums, shattering into countless fragments in the raging tide!
The Snow Mountain Goddess’s expression changed drastically, but before she could react, the demonic beast shot through the air like lightning, sending her flying!
—Boom!
Shakti’s entire consciousness seemed to go blank. For several minutes, she only felt herself being constantly knocked and tumbled through the air, and then the ground beneath her gave way.
She opened her eyes. The Thousand-Degree Mirror World had completely collapsed. In reality, the earth had suddenly caved in, falling into a huge, empty pit!
The burning hot soul fragment in her hand was gone. Not far away, the demonic beast suddenly transformed back into a human. Zhou Hui held the soul fragment in his left hand and a long saber in his right, looking at her coldly.
“…In such a rage, you still have to snatch back the Phoenix’s soul first?” Shakti stood up shakily, brushing back her messy silver hair, and smiled. “You are truly too…”
“None of your business, Shakti,” Zhou Hui said coldly. “Give the Phoenix back to me, then get lost. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The fierce wind had not yet subsided. Droplets of blood from an unknown source splattered on his handsome profile. His eyes were deep and gloomy, his powerful and imposing presence enough to make one’s blood run cold.
“—It’s too late now, Zhou Hui.” Shakti narrowed her eyes, a charmingly cold smile on her face. “Do you know how I suddenly regained my divinity?”
She extended her hand towards the depths of the tunnel, her black robe sliding down her snow-white arm.
With this gesture, the sound of countless flapping wings came from behind Zhou Hui, followed by tens of thousands of crows cawing and swarming out, a sky full of black wings and falling dark feathers.
“The Heavenly Dao needs the Phoenix to return to Mount Sumeru. You are his obstacle. Do you know? From the birth of the Peacock Wisdom King and the Golden-Winged Great Peng, from the moment you knelt on one knee to propose during the great war between gods and demons, even from many years before that, from the moment the Phoenix privately released you from the Vajra Bell of the Thirty-Three Heavens—your existence has been the biggest obstacle in the thirty-thousand-year Buddha’s tribulation…”
The crow wings stirred up a great wind, the black feathers falling like a blizzard. Death qi silently spread out into a thick fog at their feet.
Zhou Hui lowered his head, his pupils constricting slightly.
“I am still very honored to be chosen to send you on your way,” Shakti curtsied and smiled faintly. “Although your attitude towards your old lover is indeed a bit harsh.”
—The fog suddenly paused. Black water gushed up from the ground, instantly submerging Zhou Hui!
As if in a matter of seconds, the clouds covering the city began to rotate rapidly, forming a magnificent and terrifyingly rare celestial phenomenon.
A pillar of black smoke, like a giant dragon, erupted from the crack in the earth, roaring as it shot into the nine heavens. The death qi enveloped the city where tens of millions of people lived and worked. From the ends of the earth, the sharp and distant wails of countless vengeful spirits could be heard.
In residential areas, in office buildings, countless pedestrians on the streets looked up, staring at the sky in stunned silence.
—What no one knew was that at this moment, beneath this city, a crisscrossing network of tunnels was being filled with the seawater of death qi. Countless drains were being washed out and collapsing, and the deadly black water was silently welling up from countless manholes in this huge metropolis.
Zhou Hui sank deep into the water. A mouthful of blood gurgled from his throat and quickly dispersed in the water.
His chest, back, and thighs throbbed with unbearable pain. He raised his hand to look at his palm. In the dim visibility, his palm was as charred as if it had been burned by fire.
“…Sea of Death Qi…” he murmured.
He gathered his energy and kicked upwards. Just as he broke the surface of the water, a huge black shadow leaped out from the depths behind him, roaring as it lunged at Shakti with a torrent of bloody water!
Zhou Hui only took one look and said in astonishment, “Hou San?!”
It was a gigantic jiangshi, covered in golden fur, its eyes blood-red, its ten fingers bent and over a zhang long, like ferocious, gleaming blades, as it pounced on the Snow Mountain Goddess, about to pierce her throat!
The Snow Mountain Goddess said coldly, “—Just you?!”
The next second, she raised her hands flat. Countless crows erupted from the ground, covering the jiangshi in a dense swarm!
Zhou Hui swung his saber fiercely. The swirling airflow slaughtered and scattered a large portion of the crows. Black blood mixed with feathers and flesh splattered on the water and the stone walls, as if a storm had broken out underground. But it was too late for Hou San. The jiangshi’s already heavily injured and charred body was turned into a bloody mist by the pecking of tens of thousands of crows. It let out a final, unwilling roar and fell heavily into the Sea of Death Qi!
Zhou Hui violently pulled back his saber and shouted, “Situ—”
The force of that strike was not spent. The airflow rampaged through the tunnel, and the irresistible push even sent the Snow Mountain Goddess crashing against the stone wall!
With a loud bang, Shakti spat out blood. She looked down to see that her abdomen had been completely pierced!
Zhou Hui dove into the Sea of Death Qi, rapidly descending towards where the jiangshi had sunk.
In the black water, his breathing became more and more difficult. It felt as if a fire was burning in his lungs, and his internal organs were being sliced by a thousand blades. The skin on his neck and chest slowly turned black and charred, becoming more and more brittle as he went deeper, floating away in all directions under the water pressure.
The skin on his fingers was completely gone, revealing the blood vessels and bones beneath the red flesh. At the bottom of the water, he reached out and grabbed the massive, now-silent jiangshi.
The next second, he turned, waved his hand, and a forbidden spell erupted in golden light under the heavy pressure of the Sea of Death Qi, forcefully creating a semi-circular, enclosed space!
“An eighty-thousand-zhang demonic barrier?” Shakti stood on a rock, murmuring as she looked at the bottom of the water.
In the depths of the water, Zhou Hui dragged the unconscious Situ Hou San to the center of the demonic barrier and looked up at the top of the tunnel.
It was a crack in the earth above. Through the gap, one could see the gushing death qi and a sliver of the dim sky.
“You want to kill me?” The corner of Zhou Hui’s mouth curled into an undisguised, mocking smile.
“There is only one person in this world who can kill me. No one else can take my life. You lackeys are just nameless nobodies. The thunder tribulations sent down by the Heavenly Dao are completely worthless. Even the supreme gods and Buddhas of the heavens cannot make me truly bend these knees…”
“In the nine heavens and ten lands, in the great chiliocosm, the only one who can take my life is that one person. The rest are just ridiculous, jumping clowns.”
He spread his hands, chanted a spell, and in an instant, the thick black qi that the Sea of Death Qi was emitting towards the sky suddenly paused—
The next second, the black qi surged back wildly with him as its target, all of it being forced back into the boiling dead sea!
“—You’re insane!” Shakti cried out. “You want to draw all the death qi back?! Impossible!”
The black water shook violently, even causing the city’s ground to tremble and rumble.
As the black qi was rapidly drawn back, the speed at which the clouds in the sky were rotating gradually slowed. The fierce wind created by the death qi rampaged through the city, rushing up into the sky, and then let out a sharp, whistling sound as its strength waned.
—And at the bottom of the Sea of Death Qi, the demonic barrier was on the verge of collapse, creaking under the violent assault of the dead sea.
Shakti couldn’t believe her eyes. She stared at Zhou Hui’s stern face in the reflection and, after a long while, hissed through her teeth, “You want to draw all the death qi of the entire city back, to press it down around you… This is impossible. Your demonic barrier will soon collapse, and you along with it will be crushed to dust…”
“Then you can try,” Zhou Hui said coldly.
He covered his mouth and coughed up a mouthful of blood, then casually wiped it away. He stabbed his long saber into the ground and sat down cross-legged in the center of the demonic barrier.
The skin on half of his face had peeled off. Every inch of his exposed muscles was torn and ripped, revealing scarlet blood vessels and stark white bones. His appearance was so ferocious and terrifying, yet the sharp, knife-like lines of his profile had not changed at all. In his eyes was a powerful force capable of suppressing everything.
It was a belief that would not waver even if he were to be crushed to pieces. A single glance was enough to make one’s heart turn cold with fear.
“—What are you doing? Are you insane?” Shakti gritted her teeth and retreated. By the time she realized it, she was already pressed against the stone wall.
Her mind was swept away by extreme anger, shame, and an indescribable resentment, so much so that her voice trembled slightly. “Are you hoping the Phoenix will come to save you? He can’t. He’s already—”
…Wait for the Phoenix to save him?
Make him rush into such a dangerous situation, dive into the deadly water that could melt flesh and blood, to save him?
There was not a trace of expression on Zhou Hui’s face.
He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
At the same moment, the Thousand-Degree Mirror World suddenly disintegrated with a deafening crash.
Chu He swept his long spear horizontally, his grip tearing. In a spray of blood that was vaporized before it could even splatter, he sent Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King flying out of the void with one strike!
“Phoenix—” Trailokyavijaya let out a roar that overwhelmed everything. In an instant, he reappeared in front of him, suddenly transforming into his three-faced, eight-armed Dharma form, holding a battle-axe!
“If you do not submit, today will be the day you die—!”
With a loud clang, the silver spear and the battle-axe clashed fiercely, creating a dazzling shower of sparks that could burn one’s retinas!
“—You have it backwards,” Chu He said lightly, looking straight at him amidst the hurricane.
The intersecting lightning and the crisscrossing air currents all turned to silence at this moment. In the silence, the tide receded like white light. How many years ago, in the six realms of hell, the white-robed youth had also stood high in the sky, drawing his magnificent longbow at the tens-of-thousands-of-zhang-deep boiling Sea of Blood and the Asura King below.
At that moment, the youth’s fearless face overlapped with the present one. The years of resentment and tears in between had disappeared with time.
“—If I submit, today will be the day I die.”
Chu He’s hand holding the spear split at the five fingers, but it did not move an inch. In his other hand, the pure azure prayer beads transformed into a single saber. At the same time, the clear cry of a phoenix echoed through the void from all directions.
All three of Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King’s heads were horrified. He was about to retreat, but his battle-axe was held firmly in place by the silver spear.
The next second, Chu He swept his single saber horizontally, and with one strike, he severed its left head!
The head exploded in a fountain of blood, instantly shredded into countless fragments by the raging airflow!
In the tunnel, Shakti suddenly looked up in shock, staring at the stone wall at the top of the dead sea.
Then, the stone wall, covered in the seals of the Heavenly Dao, shattered before her eyes. The Phoenix, his white robes billowing, descended from the sky, plunging towards the water’s surface amidst a rain of rubble and blood!
“—Zhou Hui!”
At the center of the demonic barrier at the bottom of the water, Zhou Hui suddenly looked up, looking up through the black, smoky Sea of Death Qi.
Their gazes met. Chu He desperately reached out his hand in the hurricane.
However, Zhou Hui just watched him. The skin from his cheek to his neck had fallen off, his blood vessels exposed, pulsating with the beat of his heart. There was not a trace of expression on his face.
“Go back,” he said.
His voice passed through the waves, light and resolute, like the final chime of a clock at midnight.
Chu He’s pupils widened slightly. At the same instant, his left arm suddenly tightened.
“Stop—” Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King fell from the sky, grabbing Chu He’s arm with one hand and raising his battle-axe with the other, stabbing down fiercely!
Chu He’s expression changed drastically. In a flash of lightning, he twisted in mid-air. The pure azure blade of his saber let out a loud clang as it firmly blocked the sharp tip of the battle-axe in a shower of sparks!
“Pure Azure Lapis Lazuli Heart…” Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King, his body flowing with black blood from the loss of one head, his muscles bulging, stared down at Chu He with his ferocious vertical pupils. “The legendary, incomparably resolute petrified phoenix heart. Do you want it to be shattered into pieces today?”
He pressed down with the tip of his battle-axe. With a sharp ding that pierced the eardrums, countless cracks appeared on the saber’s blade!
The fragments instantly cut bloody gashes on Chu He’s cheeks, but he gritted his back teeth and did not retreat a single step. He saw Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King show a mocking sneer. “Carrying the legendary phoenix heart stone, are you constantly repenting for your brother who died innocently in the womb?”
The airflow swept up the blood droplets flowing from Chu He’s cheek, instantly turning them into countless fragments.
“Regret?” Chu He smiled faintly, and the smile was surprisingly gentle. “I’ve never known what that is.”
He fiercely pulled back his saber, and in Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King’s incredulous gaze, with one strike, he severed his own captured left arm at the shoulder!
At that moment, time froze frame by frame. In the slow passage, Chu He’s blood spurted out wildly as he fell into the Sea of Death Qi.
The burning hot blood of the phoenix turned into a blazing fire in the air, a dazzling golden-red, flowing like a waterfall, and with a roar, it set the entire tunnel ablaze!
The black qi was mercilessly devoured by the great fire. A huge pressure difference was created inside and outside the crack in the earth. The external black qi rushed back even more frantically, letting out a sharp, long whistle—
The impact was so great that even the crack in the earth began to collapse. Chunks of dirt and huge rocks hailed down into the Sea of Death Qi like hailstones.
At the same time, the seawater of death qi evaporated and dissipated. The thick, nightmare-like darkness quickly cleared.
Zhou Hui suddenly stood up. He saw a scarlet-red bloody mist under the water. Chu He was swimming towards him, reaching out to push down the collapsing demonic barrier.
Zhou Hui was furious. “You—”
The moment the demonic barrier collapsed, the water rushed in. Chu He extended his remaining right hand towards him and gently caressed Zhou Hui’s scarred profile. “I’m here.”
Chu He showed a faint smile, looking at him gently in the dark water.
