Zhou Hui instantly shot back, but a cold sensation followed by heat bloomed on his chest as blood suddenly burst forth.
Zhou Hui roared in fury, “Fan Luo—”
In the next second, a swift wind came from behind. Chu He’s figure appeared before him like a bolt of lightning. With a sharp “CLANG!”, he blocked the Demon Lord!
Blades clashed, and sparks flew from the silvery-white long spear in Chu He’s hand. At the same time, the mask on the Demon Lord’s face tore, revealing half a face that stared at Chu He with a cold smile.
The demonic aura that erupted from him at that moment was as terrifying as toppling mountains and overturning seas. Chu He’s wrist trembled, and his opponent’s blade immediately pressed forward!
—Anyone else might have had half their face sliced off on the spot, but the Phoenix Wisdom King, after all, had been tempered in countless life-and-death battles. In a flash, he threw his head back, and the Demon Lord’s blade skimmed past his throat and jaw, which were almost horizontal to the ground.
“Why must we meet with weapons?” The Demon Lord’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “I have come to take you away.”
Chu He’s pupils constricted slightly. In the next second, however, the Demon Lord suddenly turned his head, swung his blade horizontally, and heavily blocked Zhou Hui, who was descending from the sky!
Chu He staggered as he landed. Zhang Shun cried out, “Bro!”
Chu He’s slender back seemed to tremble slightly. He then turned, extended a hand towards him, his expression in the dim light looking somewhat unusual. “Do you remember…”
Zhang Shun was stunned. He heard a loud boom from mid-air. As Zhou Hui and the Demon Lord clashed, a shockwave rippling with electricity spread out rapidly, smashing the mangled half of the train into pieces!
“You’ve found out, Zhou Hui?” Fan Luo’s voice was filled with unconcealed mockery. “The half-seal you placed back then has now been completely undone. Do you know why?”
An ear-piercing screech sounded as their blades ground against each other. The blades reflected a crisscross of cold light, making Zhou Hui’s handsome face look gloomy and frigid.
Back when they had besieged the Hell Path, the Sixth Division had paid a great price. At the very last moment, Zhou Hui had had the chance to completely seal the Demon Lord’s divinity, but Phoenix had turned traitor on the battlefield. Halfway through the sealing, he had broken out with Fan Luo, and they had vanished without a trace ever since.
The extremely weakened Demon Lord had relied on Phoenix’s heart’s blood to survive. When he clashed with Zhou Hui again in H City, although his condition had recovered somewhat, he was still at an absolute disadvantage. At that time, half of the seal on his divinity was still intact.
—However, after only a few short months, the seal had completely disappeared. The Demon Lord Fan Luo, at this moment, had actually returned to his peak condition!
“Phoenix…” Zhou Hui muttered the two words.
Fan Luo’s lips curled. “Yes. I killed Trailokyavijaya (Conquerer of the Three Worlds) Wisdom King.”
On the ground, Zhang Shun clearly saw that in that instant, Chu He closed his eyes.
His pale face was indescribable, as if he had been struck in the chest by some immense force. However, the momentary pain was immediately replaced by an ice-like, expressionless resolve.
—It was a forced resolve, without foundation, one that would shatter at a touch.
Zhang Shun said, “Bro…”
Chu He opened his eyes and said calmly, “Come to my side.”
·
“So what?” Zhou Hui said coldly from mid-air. “Are you trying to say our little Phoenix plans to remarry?”
A strange light flickered in Fan Luo’s eyes. “Whatever you say.”
The two blades suddenly withdrew. The Demon Lord then plunged towards the ground, rushing towards Chu He like an arrow released from its string. In the next second, however, Zhou Hui appeared at his side, and a heaven-cleaving horizontal slash nearly cut Fan Luo in two in mid-air!
With a loud “CLANG!”, the Demon Lord blocked the attack with his blade and said mockingly, “You should let go when it’s time to let go. It’s so ugly to be indecisive—”
Not far away, Chu He said sternly, “Shut up!”
Before the Demon Lord could reply, in that instant, the hand Zhou Hui held his blade with transformed into the sharp claws of a demonic beast. The claws scraped against the blade, creating a dazzling spray of electric sparks. Wrapped in furious flames, he sent the Demon Lord flying!
With a deafening boom, the Demon Lord crashed into the mountain wall, causing countless rocks to rain down like a storm!
Amidst the tremor, Zhou Hui let out a roar of fury. “Phoenix—!”
Zhang Shun, unsteady from the continuous vibrations, nearly fell. He managed to kneel by the wall for support and saw Zhou Hui in mid-air, looking at Chu He, his face a chilling mask of fury and gloom. Chu He had his back to him, his eyes closed wearily. He then opened them and walked towards Zhang Shun.
Zhang Shun had no time to think and subconsciously reached out to Chu He.
But Zhou Hui seemed to have suddenly realized something and cried out, “Don’t go over there!”
Zhou Hui suddenly rushed towards Chu He amidst the rain of gravel. But at the same time, the Demon Lord let out a earth-shattering roar, manifested his Dharma-form, and descended from the sky, sending Zhou Hui flying with a single blow!
At the same time, Chu He reached Zhang Shun and extended his hand to him. “Do you remember what I said that day?”
“When the dark journey begins, will you trust me unconditionally and entrust your life to me?”
Zhang Shun’s eyes widened in astonishment. Before he could answer, he felt a bone-searing heat in his palm. He looked down and saw a brilliant, changing golden light emerge from his palm, visibly transforming into the shape of a swastika.
It was the Buddha Seal he had cut off back then!
“Th-this is…”
Then, Chu He bent down and took his hand. Zhang Shun, still in a half-kneeling position, looked up blankly.
He saw Chu He looking down at him, his gaze seeming to bore deep into Zhang Shun’s eyes as he said, word by word, “I will protect you at all costs, until the moment you rightfully return to heaven…”
Behind Chu He, a brilliant fiery light exploded in the darkness. Countless huge rocks crashed down, and the ground cracked open in large swaths, emitting a dull, distant roar like an ancient beast awakening.
“I…” Zhang Shun said, stunned. “…I trust you, brother.”
The moment the words left his mouth, an unimaginable heat swept through his entire body from their clasped hands. Zhang Shun let out a sudden, tragic scream in the bone-searing pain!
“Ahhhhhh—”
A shockwave expanded from Zhang Shun’s rapidly melting body, grinding the falling rocks to dust and instantly scattering them with the hurricane-force winds!
·
On the other side, Zhou Hui finally lost his composure and roared, “Phoenix! Don’t!”
He slammed his blade against the Demon Lord’s, sending him flying, and lunged towards Chu He. But then, from behind him, came the Demon Lord’s furious shout, “Zhou Hui! One more step and I’ll kill him!”
Zhou Hui whipped around and was horrified to see Fan Luo pull a blood-soaked figure from the void—it was Wu Bei!
Wu Bei was covered in blood, but he was still breathing, even conscious. His neck was held by the Demon Lord, causing him to choke violently, coughing up blackened blood—he was poisoned.
This was not a consequence that could be caused by spatial torsion. He must have fought the Demon Lord head-on before being captured. But the highly toxic air of the Hell Path could kill an elephant in just a few breaths. It was conceivable that he would be defeated and captured.
Zhou Hui froze in his tracks, his face ashen. “Fan Luo…”
He was about to curse, but at that moment, Zhang Shun’s tragic scream behind him rose to a piercing shriek that almost shattered their eardrums, then stopped abruptly, like a snapped bowstring.
Zhou Hui turned his head and saw Zhang Shun’s body, in the strong light, shockingly transform into a segment of golden bone. It then extended, stretched, and, grasped in Chu He’s hand, became a short, bone-white blade about half a meter long!
—The Buddha Bone Blade.
It was, shockingly, a one-of-a-kind Buddha Bone Blade, forged in the Phoenix’s fire, for slaying demons and breaking magic.
Zhou Hui’s mouth opened, and he barely managed to force out a disbelieving sound from his blood-tinged throat. “You… want to leave me that badly?”
Even Zhou Hui, whose cultivation was enough to make all the gods and Buddhas wary, and the Demon Lord Asura King, the master of the Four Evil Paths, were both, in essence, Great Demons. Even if they represented the strongest opposing forces of the Heavenly Dao and the Demonic Path, they were difficult to resist before the true Buddha Bone.
And now, this weapon, the only one in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths that could be fatal to him, was held in Phoenix’s hand.
—The only person in this world who could truly kill him, completely destroy him.
·
Chu He slowly turned his head and looked deeply at Zhou Hui.
Although the timing was wrong, and the place was wrong, the moment their eyes met, countless images, like a fast-forwarded film, flooded Zhou Hui’s mind.
He remembered Phoenix’s resentful gaze when Maha suffered the heavenly retribution. He remembered Phoenix’s shocked and stunned expression when he was imprisoned by the iron chains. He remembered that after he had forced himself on him in a fit of rage, the next day Phoenix had softly said, “It doesn’t matter.” He also remembered those warm afternoons, when he sat on the sofa and recited Turandot with emotional tones, the ice-cold princess on the city wall announcing that the prince’s name was Love—in that moment, the slight, soft, and hidden smile that had appeared on Phoenix’s lips.
All the images swirled into a vortex of color, finally settling on the image before him: Chu He, standing not far away, gazing at him from a distance.
Zhou Hui’s hand moved, as if to raise it, but then a cold sensation bloomed on his chest.
—He looked down. A blade tip was protruding from his own chest, dripping a string of blood beads onto the ground.
·
It was as if an erupting volcano of rage had been frozen by this cold blade. The fierce fire was rapidly compressed, turning into the blood-red pupils that appeared in Zhou Hui’s eyes.
He raised his hand and grabbed the tip of the blade. Instead of pushing it out of his body, he suddenly released a burst of azure electricity from his palm, which traveled through the blade, through his own chest, and up the blade’s length.
Behind him, the Demon Lord’s face changed dramatically, but he had no time to withdraw his hand and was immediately sent flying back by the electric shock!
Zhou Hui turned in the wild wind, letting out a heaven-shaking roar of fury. He appeared before the Demon Lord like a meteor and then, with a single punch, smashed him into the mountain wall!
Amidst the tidal wave of sound, the mountain shook violently, and rocks disintegrated and fell. The Demon Lord threw away his shattered blade and fought Zhou Hui with his bare hands. Every blow caused a large-scale collapse of the mountain rock, completely burying the twisted train. The underground river system overturned, and the falling boulders created monstrous waves.
Fan Luo let out a deafening roar. “—It’s over, Zhou Hui!”
Behind the Demon Lord, the Asura King’s Dharma-form manifested. The gates of Hell slowly opened amidst a long, drawn-out chant. Countless skeletons emerged, letting out shrill, tragic cries in the rolling poisonous smoke, scrambling to extend their greenish, poisonous bone claws.
Zhou Hui was entangled by countless vines extending from the gates of Hell. In the thick smoke, the heads of countless ancient dragons seemed to appear, all opening their gaping, fanged maws at him!
“Go to hell,” the Demon Lord said coldly.
But at that very moment, Chu He appeared behind him, his face expressionless in the wild wind. “—The one who should end is you.”
The next moment, the Phoenix Wisdom King manifested his Dharma-form. The pure cyan lapis lazuli prayer beads danced in the wind, and his white robes opened up like a giant lotus. Chu He raised his hand, gripped the Buddha Bone Blade, and, at the dragon vines entangling Zhou Hui, brought it down with a world-splitting slash.
—In a silent, tremendous explosion, the gates of Hell shattered into pieces, falling into the void amidst fierce flames.
BOOM—!!
The mountain collapsed from within. The walls of the mountain detached, slid down, and turned to dust upon hitting the ground. The underground dark river was cut off, its channel destroyed and buried. The earth let out a roar like thousands of horses and soldiers stampeding.
In the hurricane, Zhou Hui held Chu He tightly. The two of them fell onto a ledge on the mountain wall. Above their heads, large chunks of mountain rock shattered and rained down as gravel a few steps away from them.
Zhou Hui’s back was against the rock. Phoenix looked down at him, his long, water-like hair falling on his face and body.
Phoenix was trembling.
The frequency was so unconcealable that, even through their robes, Zhou Hui could clearly feel this slender body, pressed tightly against his, shaking violently.
“Zhou Hui…” he panted, gently stroking the blade wound on Zhou Hui’s chest with trembling fingers.
The blood had already clotted. The wound was gruesome, the flesh turned inside out. His fingers brought a clear coolness upon contact.
Zhou Hui didn’t move. He just lay there, staring unblinkingly at Chu He.
How strange, he thought.
—The wound is clearly on me, yet he shows such a sad, such a pained expression.
“…Will you wait for me to come back?” Phoenix asked, very, very softly, tears welling up in his beautiful eyes and sliding down his cheeks.
“Will you… will you abandon me, Zhou Hui?…”
The glistening tears fell onto Zhou Hui’s chest, then soaked through the blood and flesh, seeping into his blood vessels and heart.
They were the rare and precious tears of a phoenix, capable of bringing the dead back to life.
Zhou Hui didn’t know why. He felt no pain when pierced by swords, no fear when entangled by Hell. Even when the shadow of death loomed over him, he felt nothing at all.
Yet, in this moment, Phoenix’s tears caused him an excruciating pain, as if his very heart was tightly clenching into a ball.
Zhou Hui couldn’t breathe. His chest ached as if suffocating, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to feel more pain, more despair. The hatred he felt for himself erupted with such violence that he desperately wished he would die from the pain right now.
“…No,” he said, each word bringing a self-abusive, twisted pleasure. “If you leave… I won’t want you anymore.”
