The high sky of the city was shrouded in lightning. Amidst the dense forest of electrical pillars, a cluster of even brighter light suddenly erupted.
The explosive energy it contained was so intense that its brightness far exceeded that of the lightning. It then rapidly expanded, sweeping in all directions like a hurricane.
In the midst of the huge explosion and strong light, the Demon Lord’s Dharma form was torn to pieces, then silently dissipated into nothingness, leaving only the divinity wrapped in a gray soul at the heart—a fist-sized mass of black light that swirled like thick ink.
Chu He’s cheeks, back, and arms were covered with dense wounds from the lightning. His palms were a bloody mess, and the bones of his little and ring fingers were even exposed.
He grabbed the ball of black light and did his best to raise his head to track Zhou Hui’s direction, but all he could see was lightning everywhere, like tens of thousands of crisscrossing whips mercilessly lashing the earth.
…It’s for the best, Chu He thought, a mixture of regret, self-mockery, and relief flashing through his heart.
I must look terrible in such a wretched state.
It’s better not to let him see.
Chu He staggered to his feet and, taking a breath, charged towards the higher heavens. Behind him, the lightning converged into a torrent and followed closely, grinding countless Asuras who didn’t have time to scatter into minced meat. Tens of thousands of hell demons were reduced to a powder of mixed flesh and blood.
The phoenix’s wounded body accelerated to its maximum in the strong wind. The next moment, the Great Asura divinity in his hand played a crucial role—a time-space fissure opened at the end of the sky. In a flash of lightning and flint, Chu He plunged into it!
·
At the same time, in hell, at Mount Buzhou.
The smooth red demon’s eye was like a spherical surface embedded in the abyss, with a diameter of tens of kilometers, staring straight at the void of the sky.
What no one could see was that there were four bottomless cracks in the earth around the demon’s eye. One of them was completely still, while the other three were constantly emitting pure energy mixed with cyan-gray electrical currents into the void—they corresponded to the people born from the demon’s eye. The one with no demonic qi flowing out was the phoenix, while the others corresponded to Sakyamuni, Zhou Hui, and the Great Asura King, the Demon Lord.
The beam of energy corresponding to Fan Luo flickered, the electrical current sparked, and then the earth crack split with a crack!
The energy flowing from this fissure into the void disappeared, and correspondingly, the energy circulation in the other two earth cracks suddenly accelerated, the cyan-gray electrical current sizzling.
·
Above the human city.
Zhou Hui roared, “—Phoenix!”
Behind him, several Asuras were crashing down from the sky. The moment they were about to hit his back, a tide of pure energy suddenly erupted from around Zhou Hui. The wind speed, like countless sharp blades, swept past, instantly tearing the Asuras apart in mid-air!
The bones and chunks of flesh vanished in a flash in the wind. Zhou Hui looked down at his own hands in astonishment, stunned for a moment before he realized—the Demon Lord’s Dharma form had been destroyed, and now only Sakyamuni and himself were sharing the demonic energy of the demon’s eye. He had, in effect, instantly gained half of the Demon Lord’s original energy!
If he had completely swallowed the Demon Lord’s Dharma form just now, then the Demon Lord’s divinity, soul, and power would all belong to him now. In that case, he might even have had a chance to fight Sakyamuni head-on.
However, in the end, it was Chu He who had destroyed the Demon Lord. He had taken the Great Asura King’s divinity and headed straight for hell, his target being the straight path to the Formless Heaven by the demon’s eye at the foot of Mount Buzhou.
Zhou Hui abruptly charged towards the time-space fissure in the high sky that had not yet completely closed. Suddenly, his shoulder was grabbed from behind. “Father!”
Zhou Hui turned his head and saw that Jia Louluo looked rather wretched. The bandages on his face and hands were loose, and he had been scratched by flying debris, his whole body wrapped in the fierce, bloody aura of battle that had not yet faded. “What are you trying to do, Father?! Maha is in the five decays of a deva, waiting in hell…”
Zhou Hui’s reason snapped with a bang. His first reaction was to raise his hand to hit his son, but when he caught sight of Jia Louluo’s now-adult face, so similar to his own, and the golden blood flowing down his cheek to his neck, he suddenly found it hard to strike. “You think your mother is playing this big just to save your sinner of a brother?! Get lost! Go down and find a safe place to hide yourself!”
Jia Louluo asked doubtfully, “Isn’t that it?”
Zhou Hui kicked off and charged upwards, but was immediately stopped by Jia Louluo again. “What on earth is going on?! Mother told you to protect yourself before he left!”
“Protect my ass!” Zhou Hui grabbed his son’s collar and poked his shoulder hard with his finger, saying angrily, “Your mother has gone up with a super nuclear bomb to kill a Buddha! The Buddha in the Formless Heaven is a fake! I’m telling you, adults have problems that only adults can solve. You don’t need to interfere, you little brat! Get down!”
Zhou Hui’s roar almost blinded Jia Louluo. The next second, Zhou Hui pushed his son away and shot up towards the time-space fissure, which was now just a sliver away from closing!
Behind him, Jia Louluo staggered a few steps and stopped, a clear shock showing in his eyes, which were usually as indifferent as the Phoenix Wisdom King’s.
At this time, in the high sky of the city, the giant thunder triggered by the Phoenix Wisdom King’s tribulation had almost dissipated. The time-space fissure above his head was rapidly closing, leaving only a tiny bit that was about to disappear. Jia Louluo abruptly raised his head and looked at his departing father. After a few seconds of hesitation, he leaped up and followed.
·
In hell, at Mount Buzhou.
Under the hazy sky above the abyss, a black cavity in time and space, several kilometers long, suddenly tore open.
The void in the black cavity was deep. Lightning suddenly burst forth with light, then poured down like a torrent, landing with a roar and shaking the entire majestic Mount Buzhou on the spot.
Chu He’s figure was wrapped in the waterfall-like torrent of falling lightning, landing on the cracked earth with a bang.
The heavenly tribulation was not over yet. Wherever he went, the lightning followed, and it was no different even in hell. The wind and clouds above Mount Buzhou instantly changed. Lightning emerged from the red, dark clouds, and a few seconds later, the first bolt of lightning struck down fiercely, erecting a huge pillar of light in hell that connected the heavens and the earth.
Chu He’s entire body was bathed in the baptism of the electrical current. His steps were staggering, leaving a trail of bloody footprints on the crumbling earth.
The golden-red phoenix’s true fire floated around him, protecting him to the greatest extent. However, that was a power that came directly from the soul. Once used, it was gone.
Will I undergo nirvana? he thought, exhausted.
If I undergo nirvana, I’ll turn into a phoenix egg, right? I wonder where it will fall this time. The best possibility is that Zhou Hui will pick it up, put it in the microwave to hatch it, and it will turn into a little bird with sparse head feathers…
But since Zhou Hui said he doesn’t want me anymore, maybe he’ll find a tree on Mount Buzhou, build a bird’s nest, and leave the phoenix egg in it.
In a daze, Chu He imagined the scene of himself naturally hatching from the shell on Mount Buzhou tens of thousands of years later. The newborn phoenix, facing the eternally gray sky and land of hell, would drag its tail feathers and fly across the long gray river, surely feeling a sense of confusion about where to go.
He couldn’t help but shiver and suddenly had another whimsical idea: it was said that a phoenix egg looked like white jade and was exceptionally beautiful. If, after nirvana, it rolled to Zhou Hui’s feet, maybe he would pick it up as a very beautiful stone and casually put it in his pocket to take away… Wait, no, that’s not good. What if he was casually given away as a gift later? Wouldn’t that be very tragic?
Chu He walked down into the abyss step by step, and finally, the blood-red demon’s eye embedded in the earth appeared before him. Only up close could one truly feel how large this hemisphere was. It covered several square kilometers of ground in the valley, forming a curve like a red lake, connecting from one end of the mountain range to the other in the distance.
Chu He stood still at the edge of the demon’s eye, looked at the sky that was exceptionally bright amidst the thunder and lightning, and took a deep breath.
Within the phoenix’s true fire that surrounded his entire body, a more bright and clear, moon-like, thin mist suddenly separated. This mist swirled up from in front of him, came to the center of the red demon’s eye, and suddenly resonated with some substance in the void, sparking a crackling sound.
—That was the divine power of the ancient divine bird, the phoenix, truly the last resort, the final and strongest power buried deep in the bone marrow.
The time and space of hell were finally forcibly torn open a crack under the induction of this divine power, just wide enough for two fingers to pass through. The unpredictable void inside could be glimpsed, as if in the shape of a passage. However, the tearing process then stopped. The divine power was exhausted, causing the crackling sound to become weaker and weaker, and finally, the crack stopped at a width that a hand could pass through.
Chu He gritted his teeth and reached his hand in. Amidst the sky full of lightning strikes, he let out a loud cry of excruciating pain.
—BOOM!
The thunder tribulation, unseen for ages, flowed into the fissure with a roar under the guidance of his palm, and then erupted with a world-creating strong light!
The sealed time and space finally collapsed under the immense force of the thunder tribulation. The invisible barrier split and shattered, and the broken remnants rushed into the void, turning into a distant faint glow on the horizon.
Tens of thousands of years ago, the passage that the Buddha had taken from the Formless Heaven straight down to Mount Buzhou, that divine realm hidden in the void that no one had ever set foot in again, finally, before the phoenix, revealed its mysterious, ancient gate.
·
After this round of frenzied eruption, the sky-full thunder tribulation finally showed signs of weakening. However, Chu He was already so exhausted that he had no energy to perceive this fact. He knelt on the ground, trembling all over. After a long while, he spat out a mouthful of hot, bloody air, stood up, and swayed towards the ethereal entrance in the void.
Just at this moment, a strong wind brushed past him from behind, and in an instant, the Demon Lord’s divinity he was holding was snatched away!
Chu He abruptly turned his head. Before he could see who it was, his entire person was lifted up by the throat, flew across the entire demon’s eye, and was heavily pressed onto the shattered mountain rock!
—Bang!
Chu He’s body bounced back from the impact, and then he was once again pressed against the mountain wall by the throat. He opened his mouth and only then managed to make a hoarse sound, “Zhou… Zhou Hui?”
Lightning poured down. Zhou Hui’s handsome side profile was crisscrossed with bloodstains, and in the intertwining strong light, it had an extremely oppressive feeling.
—Why is he here?!
Chu He had no time to think. He tried to raise his hand to struggle, but the hand on his throat was like an iron clamp, making it difficult for him to even breathe. Zhou Hui’s cold, downward gaze drained him of his last bit of strength, as if even the last bit of warmth in his blood vessels and bone marrow had been burned to ashes, leaving only a little cold dust.
“Let me go…” Chu He said desperately, his expression showing an unconcealable shame. The sound of his voice had just left his mouth when it trembled and dissipated in the crackling electrical light.
“Let me go, Zhou Hui… you will… be…”
You don’t have the divinity to withstand the thunder. You will be struck by the thunder tribulation, even fall down severely injured in front of me, all bloody and mangled.
Chu He did his best to extend his hand. His fingers, wounded to the bone, gently touched Zhou Hui’s cold, hard side profile.
This action had almost cost him all his courage. In fact, it was meant to be a caress, but because he was too weak, it became a light touch like a dragonfly skimming the water. Then his wrist drooped, and he desperately reached for the Great Asura King’s divinity that was tightly clutched by Zhou Hui.
However, Zhou Hui’s hand, which was holding the gray-black divine light, moved back half an inch, a hair’s breadth away from Chu He’s fingertips.
“Have I ever said,” Zhou Hui said slowly, “that every time I see you injured, I’m in a particularly bad mood?”
Chu He looked at him, panting, seeming not to understand.
A thick pillar of lightning fell from the sky, splitting into countless fine electrical currents, like the branches of an upside-down large tree, striking the mountain ground beside Zhou Hui, and splashing up tens of thousands of powdered fragments of rock amidst a tsunami-like roar. At that moment, the light finally illuminated half of Zhou Hui’s body, while the other half was hidden in the shadows. His whole body was covered with wounds and the smoke of battle, but he looked like a towering, high and mighty celestial god.
From a long time ago—from the first time they met under the golden bell shield, from the time when he was the only one who stood unbowed after the sea of blood was crossed, from the time when he advanced across the battlefield despite the thousands of people; Zhou Hui was like a true celestial god without a divinity, steadily bearing the full weight of the phoenix’s faith, yet never wavering in the slightest.
No matter what kind of plan or calculation, it could not make this man change his pace of moving forward.
Chu He lowered his eyes wretchedly, his thick eyelashes closing in pain.
—However, the next moment, a scorching sensation was imprinted on the corner of his lips. It was actually a kiss.
Chu He looked up in astonishment and saw Zhou Hui break away with a single touch. He raised his head, his deep pupils reflecting each other’s reflection. “If I can come back from the Formless Heaven,” Zhou Hui wiped away the slight wetness at the corner of his lips with his thumb and asked in a low voice, “will you still want me?”
“…” Chu He’s face changed drastically, his pupils constricting violently in an instant!
At the same time, the light of the divine realm’s gate in the center of the demon’s eye went from bright to weak, on the verge of disappearing into the void.
Holding the Great Asura King’s divinity, Zhou Hui took half a step back, gave Chu He one last deep look, and abruptly turned to rush towards the entrance in the light.
Chu He roared hysterically, “Zhou Hui—!”
Chu He ignored the intense pain all over his body and kicked off to chase, but there was a figure faster than him. In an instant, it flashed past him from the side—it was Maha!
Maha’s hair had completely turned silver, flying wildly in the strong wind. As he rushed into the entrance of unpredictable light, he drew his twin swords with a flick of his wrist and directly slashed at Zhou Hui’s back.
Chu He had no idea where he had come from, perhaps from the sea of blood, or perhaps he had been waiting on Mount Buzhou like a patient hunter. What was undeniable was that the peacock, as a proper King of Light, had extremely terrifying combat power. At this time, he was in peak condition, and even Zhou Hui might not be his opponent.
Chu He said sharply, “Maha!”
Maha’s movements paused. The next second, Zhou Hui mercilessly swung his sword back, and the impact pushed his eldest son heavily back several steps!
At the same time, Chu He caught up, pressed on his eldest son’s shoulder, and directly pushed him out of the divine realm’s gate.
“I need that thing,” Maha staggered half a step and was pushed out of the door. He maintained a confrontational posture with Chu He, one inside and one outside the door, but his gaze went past him to Zhou Hui, and he said coldly, “Give me the Demon Lord’s divinity.”
His appearance was simply an unexpected turn of events, but Zhou Hui answered with practical actions—he snorted with a laugh, turned and swept towards the depths of the divine realm’s passage, and in the blink of an eye, only a receding back was left.
Maha’s hand on his sword hilt tightened. Just as he was about to chase, he was stopped by Chu He. “Wait! You can’t!”
“Why?” Maha’s posture towards the phoenix was very restrained, but he also revealed a trace of unconcealable anxiety and firmness. “You said you would give me the divinity to suspend the five decays. Where are you going? What was that thunder tribulation just now?”
“I indeed… won’t watch you die, but not now.” Chu He couldn’t explain. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I will give you another divinity, but not now, perhaps a thousand years later. Parents have things they must accomplish…”
“What on earth are you going to do?!”
Chu He was silent for a few seconds.
Just as he was unable to answer, the energy that had been keeping the divine realm’s gate open finally ran out. The entrance suddenly began to distort and crack, and the surroundings emitted a trembling sound of imminent closure.
Maha looked at all this in surprise. He wanted to enter but was blocked by Chu He, who then gave him a hard push.
“Mother!”
“My divinity is for you,” Chu He finally told the truth. “If I am lucky enough not to die this time, after Zhou Hui… after Zhou Hui is gone in the future, I will give you my divinity.”
Maha was completely stunned.
The gate of the divine realm finally closed with a roar. When Maha came to his senses and rushed forward, he saw Chu He’s figure flash and disappear in the passage. Then, the entrance vanished before him, dissipating with a high heat into the thick demonic qi above the demon’s eye.
Maha was simply furious. “—Mother!”
“Stop calling.”
Maha turned his head and saw Jia Louluo leap down from a large, cracked mountain rock not far away. His face and arms were covered with scrapes. After landing, he roughly wrapped a torn bandage around his hand.
“Why are you in such a mess?” Maha frowned. “Do you know what Mother is going to do?”
Jia Louluo did not answer immediately. He stomped the smoke and dust from his pant legs, then leaned against the mountain wall and sat down. He took a handful of demonic tobacco from his pocket and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing it exhaustedly a couple of times, then shook his head. “They’ve gone to the Formless Heaven to kill a Buddha… they might not come back.”
An extremely absurd feeling suddenly rose in Maha’s heart.
Jia Louluo swallowed the tobacco and was silent for a moment, a complex expression on his face. He seemed very tired of this long-drifting fate, yet helpless. After a long while, he finally let out a breath.
“If they don’t come back, you can take my divinity…” He paused and said listlessly, “I’m already tired of it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
