Zhang Shun shut the door and turned back to look at his brother curled up on the hospital bed. It felt like someone had struck his heart with a hammer.
He knew it was his own cry for help that had jolted his brother awake from his coma.
That was the terrifying power of human potential. A mortally wounded mother might wake at the call of her child; a wife might lift a car to save her husband. People would gamble with their lives for those they truly wished to protect—it was a terrifying, unimaginable strength.
In that moment, Zhang Shun suddenly recalled Chu He’s desperate plea: “Give Maha’s life back to me. Please?”
Who was Maha? Zhang Shun’s mind was flooded with questions, but he was certain of one thing: if Chu He truly wished it, Zhang Shun would give up everything to make it happen.
Li Hu had spoken with great confidence—but her arrival was absurdly delayed. Over an hour passed with no word. Zhang Shun tried calling out, but the hospital’s internal phone line was nothing but static—as if the signal had been cut off. All he could do was sit in silent fear, staring at the door.
Just when he thought Li Hu would never come, a distant explosion shook the building.
Zhang Shun’s pupils contracted. The sound drew closer and closer—then BANG! A deafening crash rattled the door like something massive had slammed into it.
Zhang Shun leapt up. “Li Hu? Is that you?!”
“Don’t open the door!” Li Hu’s frantic scream came from outside. “Whatever you do, don’t open the door!”
“Are you okay?! What happened?!”
“I’m fine—Aah!!”
Li Hu’s scream cut through the air—so raw and inhuman that it chilled Zhang Shun to the bone. Before he could ask anything else, she choked out: “Don’t… don’t open the door. Stay with your brother. Don’t come out… Aahh—!!”
Zhang Shun had never seen a woman suffer like that right in front of him. He was just about to rush out when a deep, icy male voice echoed from the hallway—so cold and cruel it made Zhang Shun’s blood freeze:
“Forty-nine demon-suppressing nails. Let’s see how long you last.”
Swoosh—a sharp whistling sound, then another twisted scream from Li Hu.
“Feng Si! Feng Si, I know you’re in there! Wake the hell up, damn you—!!”
BOOM!
The impact shook the floor. Zhang Shun couldn’t take it anymore. He rushed to the door and yanked it open.
In the next instant, a freezing wind surged into the room. Before he could even react, a monstrous force slammed into his chest and hurled him backwards.
Crash! Zhang Shun slammed into the wall, then struggled to his feet, gasping in pain. A tall man in black robes stepped through the doorway, gripping Li Hu by the throat.
She was dressed in red—it was impossible to tell whether the color was from her clothes or from blood. Her long hair streamed behind her, and her legs trembled uncontrollably. Judging by the way she shook, she had only minutes left to live.
Zhang Shun saw red. He grabbed a broken chair leg and charged at the man with a furious shout.
But the man in black merely raised his blood-red eyes and looked at him.
Zhang Shun froze.
An indescribable chill spread through his body, freezing his blood in his veins. The chair leg clattered to the ground.
And then he recognized him.
Zhang Shun had seen this man before—on the night of the haunting. After Chu He arrived and the ghost vanished, a figure had briefly appeared in the corner of the room.
He’d given Zhang Shun the same cold stare, then vanished without a word.
Zhang Shun had thought it was a hallucination—or just another ghost.
But now, a bolt of clarity struck him. “You… you’re…”
Li Hu choked out a guttural rattle. The man tightened his grip as he casually glanced at Zhang Shun.
Zhang Shun gasped, voice full of disbelief: “You’re my brother’s… boyfriend?!”
The man: “…”
Li Hu: “…”
The black-robed man paused—then, shockingly, he smiled. He actually seemed amused. In that instant, Zhang Shun saw it—he really smiled.
He changed his mind about killing Li Hu and casually flung her aside like a sack of potatoes.
“Boyfriend,” he repeated, as if savoring the word.
Thud! Li Hu hit the ground hard, her hair disheveled, clutching her throat and coughing violently.
She croaked, “Demon Lord Fan Luo…!”
“You really are a nine-tailed fox from Yunnan’s Unit Six,” Fan Luo said with interest. “That sealing formation you put up was cute. Too bad this idiot broke it wide open without even realizing it.”
He gave Zhang Shun a once-over. “Kid, if you’d just kept that door shut, I’d never have gotten in here—even with her dead. Real shame.”
“Who are you?! What do you want?!” Zhang Shun shouted.
Fan Luo didn’t answer. He turned and walked toward the bed.
Li Hu had been hacking blood a second ago, but now she surged up like she’d just chugged an energy drink. “Let him go! You won’t get away! Zhou Hui’s on his way!”
Fan Luo replied calmly, “And?”
“You might kill me—but you think you can kill Zhou Hui too?!”
He gave her his answer by action—scooping Chu He up from the bed in his arms and walking toward the door.
“Even if he follows the trail from that little zombie servant, realizes the Japanese man’s a decoy, and finds the hidden place… it’ll still take at least two hours. You think that’s not enough time for me to skin a fox and wear it as a shawl?”
Li Hu’s face turned ghostly pale. She stared hard at Chu He and cried, “You’re just gonna let your lover threaten me like this?!”
Chu He remained unconscious in Fan Luo’s arms, unable to respond.
Fan Luo chuckled. “First I’m his boyfriend, now I’m his lover. You two insult each other so much, but you’re both willing to die for each other. Funny kind of relationship…” He turned toward her.
Even Zhang Shun could see it—the “fox pelt shawl” bit wasn’t a joke.
“Yunnan Unit Six, nine-tailed fox,” Fan Luo murmured. “Time to settle an old score from the Hell Realm siege.”
Still carrying Chu He in one arm, Fan Luo reached for the trembling, bloodied Li Hu with the other. Crimson runes spiraled out from his hand, crackling with serpentine lightning.
Li Hu froze in horror.
But she wasn’t done. She suddenly leapt back and shouted, “Feng Si!”
Chu He didn’t react.
Fan Luo vanished and reappeared behind her like a ghost—then slammed a fist into her back.
Cough! Blood sprayed from her mouth as her body was launched across the room—right into Zhang Shun. They both crashed to the ground, then slammed into the wall, cracking it open like glass.
Fan Luo landed and walked over slowly. Li Hu coughed, weakly tried to stand, failed, then in desperation grabbed Zhang Shun and bit the back of his neck.
“AAAH!” Zhang Shun screamed. “What are you doing?!”
“Your sister!” Li Hu snarled. “Go! You can’t let him take your brother! If he gets possessed, the Heavenly Dao is doomed!”
“But I—!” Zhang Shun froze. Suddenly, he could move again.
That bite had apparently hit some acupuncture point.
He scrambled to his feet and dashed forward—only to freeze again, panicked. “I—I don’t know how to fight!! What am I supposed to do?!”
Li Hu shrieked, “Are you stupid?! Your brother gave you back the Buddha’s Breath! He wants you to fight the Demon Lord!”
Right then, Fan Luo’s expression changed.
It was subtle—almost imperceptible in the dust—but Zhang Shun noticed it instantly.
Guided by sheer instinct, he charged in. One hand blocked Fan Luo’s path, the other reached for his brother.
It all happened in a flash, like a movie in fast-forward.
As soon as Zhang Shun’s hand touched Fan Luo, a golden swastika symbol flared from his palm, clashing with Fan Luo’s crimson demonic runes and erupting in crackling blasts. Fan Luo grabbed him and flung him aside—Zhang Shun’s flying body slammed right into the barely-rising Li Hu again.
Li Hu: “Your sister—!!”
A moment later, golden Buddhist light overwhelmed the demonic power. Fan Luo’s entire arm burst open.
—To be fair, for a being of Fan Luo’s Asura King-level, this wasn’t a serious wound. But it stunned everyone—even Zhang Shun himself.
Blood erupted in a geyser, dyeing Fan Luo completely red, like a demon god rising from Hell.
“…Impressive,” Fan Luo said, eyes narrowing at Zhang Shun. “The Buddha’s Bone indeed.”
He began walking toward Zhang Shun. “Kid… maybe I should take you more seriously now.”
And that’s when Zhang Shun noticed the black mist behind him—a door, swirling with ghostly fog and white bone patterns, slowly opening as Fan Luo approached. From within came piercing, tormented wails.
Li Hu, still coughing blood, grabbed his leg and gasped, “Run… run!”
“My brother’s still with him!”
“He brought this on himself! Let him die! He’s about to summon the Asura King’s Dharma Form—!!”
At that moment, Fan Luo reached into the void. A blinding streak of electricity took the shape of a sword, roaring straight for Zhang Shun’s back—
And then Chu He opened his eyes.
He caught Fan Luo’s wrist mid-strike and, though his face was deathly pale, his voice was colder than ice:
“Who gave you permission to touch my brother?”
BOOM!
A gale erupted from the ground beneath Chu He. Zhang Shun turned, stunned.
At the center of the storm stood his brother. His white robes billowed. His long hair flew like a phoenix soaring through the skies. His sleeves snapped open to reveal a string of jade Buddhist beads in one hand—and a spear in the other.
With unstoppable force, Chu He slashed the weapon down upon the Demon Lord.
CRASH!
Zhang Shun was thrown across the room by the shockwave, smashing into a wall and nearly spitting blood on impact.
As he groaned and struggled to get up, he saw Li Hu crawling beside him, pulling out her phone and… recording.
Zhang Shun: “???”
“Aren’t you recording?” she wheezed through bloody lips. “Your brother’s Dharma Form is one of the top ten heavenly sights. Rare opportunity.” She opened WeChat and started posting.
Zhang Shun: “……”
__
Li Hu opened a WeChat group and shakily typed a few sentences. After a while, a reply chimed in. Zhang Shun glanced over, but the angle was too off to see what was written on the screen, though he seemed to see several different people replying. The light from the phone screen made Li Hu’s face look a bit eerie. She looked up at Zhang Shun with a faint, unsettling gaze.
Young Master Zhang felt a chill down his spine from that look. Fortunately, after that glance, Li Hu ignored him and said hoarsely into her phone, “Don’t joke around, Feng Si is gambling his life out there. What do we do, Boss Zhou is still on his way?”
A voice message came through with a Cantonese accent. Li Hu was too weak to lift the phone to her ear, so she put it on speaker. He heard a voice say, “You’re the one joking, Fox Six. I just spoke to Beijing. Zhou Hui has been guarding the Qiankun formation under the Great Hall for three days now, okay?”
Zhang Shun saw Li Hu’s face instantly turn ashen, and she trembled, “What did you say?!”
On the other side, the long spear and sword edge clashed, making a chilling, clattering sound. The Demon Lord narrowed his slender eyes, a movement that made him appear even colder and more ruthless. Suddenly, with a flick of his wrist, he forced Chu He back several steps!
Zhang Shun cried out, “Brother!”
Zhang Shun stumbled forward, not even feeling the intense pain from his dislocated elbow as he moved, but then his brother raised a hand, abruptly blocking him. Chu He was still facing away from him, the exposed side of his cheek beneath his temple hair was almost bluish-white, and he was breathing rapidly as if on the verge of collapsing.
The Demon Lord stared at Chu He’s face, saying word by word, “Your true body is now destroyed, your primordial spirit exhausted, and your vital blood almost gone. Yet you still dare to fight me with your Dharma Form. Do you want to die that badly?”
—The Demon Lord was clearly truly enraged. Chu He gasped for a while before barely managing to steady himself, then straightened up and looked at him, saying tiredly, “Then come and kill me.”
Even Zhang Shun could hear the despair in his words. He instinctively wanted to say no, but then he saw the Demon Lord turn to him, revealing a very obvious cold sneer. “Why would I kill you? But the life of this Buddha relic, I’ll take it today.”
Zhang Shun immediately felt a bad premonition. In a thousandth of a second, he considered whether to turn and run or face the challenge, when he saw ten thousand bolts of lightning descend upon them, reaching them instantly!
Everything happened so quickly that Zhang Shun didn’t even have time to react before he was pushed away with great force, sent flying. Then, a person flew behind him, catching him in mid-air and landing heavily on the ground, pressing his head down to the ground!
The next second, a stream of fire, like a dragon’s breath, swept past the back of his head with a roar, instantly charring the broken bricks and rubble behind him!
Zhang Shun’s hair at the back of his head was completely scorched. He knew that if he had been a hundredth of a second slower, his entire head would have been incinerated. He coughed up a mouthful of hot, acrid blood, feeling excruciating pain in his ribs and unable to move. He turned to see that the person who had caught him in mid-air was Li Hu, and the one who had pushed him away was his brother.
—Chu He took the final blow, crashing heavily into the wall. The force of the push was so strong that his slender body actually bounced back, and then he directly spurted out a mouthful of blood!
With a thud, Chu He fell to the ground, his cheek pressed against the floor. He tried to get up several times but failed.
The Demon Lord walked forward, looking down at him.
“How pathetic…” he muttered, seemingly with a smile, then bent down and grabbed Chu He’s chin.
From Zhang Shun’s angle, the Demon Lord’s strong back blocked his brother’s face. He could only see the crumpled white robe and long hair intertwined on the ground, his brother’s face slightly tilted upwards, presumably held up by the Demon Lord’s grip on his chin.
Although Zhang Shun would be an idiot to still think this man was his brother’s “boyfriend,” the action and angle still gave him a strange and ambiguous feeling.
“I know you don’t want to die, otherwise you wouldn’t have come to me, borrowing my power to avoid heavenly tribulation.”
The Demon Lord leaned into his ear and whispered, “I’ll give you two choices now. First, come with me. Although I can’t revive Mahā for you, I can at least keep you alive. As long as you’re alive, anything is possible. Second, kill your brother.”
Chu He’s face was pale and bloodless, his eyelashes lowered, breathing with faint, painful gasps. It was truly rare for such an expression to appear on this face that had always been as cold and emotionless as an ice sculpture. The Demon Lord admired it for a while before smiling into his ear, “I advise you to make a decision quickly… if I watch you gasp like this for much longer, I’ll get hard.”
Chu He stiffened slightly, stopping his breathing. It was incredibly difficult for him to do so; his throat was choked with blood several times before he finally managed to swallow a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva and said, “I…”
“He’ll definitely choose the first option,” a lazy voice came from the doorway. “But I’ll choose the third option for him.”
Chu He suddenly squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and after a moment of blankness, Zhou Yi laughed, turning back to ask, “What’s the third option, Zhou Hui?”
Zhang Shun, enduring the severe pain in his ribs, abruptly turned his head.
At the same moment, he felt Li Hu let out a long sigh of relief, her entire body almost instantly slumping down.
Standing at the door was a young man in a motorcycle jacket, tall and lean. He took off his sunglasses, revealing an extraordinarily handsome face with his usual slightly rogue, nonchalant smile.
Zhang Shun used to find that smile annoying, but at this moment, it was so reassuring, making that handsome face seem infinitely more pleasing.
“The third option is for him to stay, his brother to live, and you to go back to the Asura Path. Don’t think that just because I came alone today, I can’t kill you. I just exhausted too much energy dealing with that Yin-Yang Master’s little beauty earlier, so I don’t really feel like playing with you today.” Zhou Hui said, waving to Zhang Shun, and asked very sincerely, “How is it, now that you’ve seen your brother’s boyfriend, have you realized that I’m still better?”
“…” Zhang Shun asked, “Can you maintain your pretentious pose for two more minutes?”
The Demon Lord laughed, effortlessly picking up Chu He with one hand.
From beneath his black robe, adorned with bone chains, his other hand raised a sword, its blood-dripping blade pointed at Zhou Hui, and he said mockingly, “Your esteemed wife is excellent in every way, but his taste in men is truly… There are few people who can watch their own flesh and blood be obliterated by heavenly tribulation and remain unmoved. You are truly unique among the six realms.”
Whether it was Zhang Shun’s illusion or not, he felt Zhou Hui’s spine stiffen. But Zhou Hui controlled his expression well, showing no abnormality, only his gaze shifted to Chu He.
Since he had entered, Chu He hadn’t made a single sound or movement. His face was buried in the Demon Lord’s arms, so his expression couldn’t be seen. But from the caked blood on his robes and the five fingertips that were dripping blood, it was clear he was truly at the end of his rope.
Zhou Hui’s breathing became deep and heavy. Demon Lord Fan Luo chuckled, “I choose the first option. Do you want to try and see if you can stop me?”
As soon as his words fell, Zhou Hui took a step forward, and a fierce wind suddenly erupted beside him without warning!
This wind, unlike the tight spiral of the phoenix Dharma Form just now, was extremely unrestrained and wild, crushing the entire hospital room within seconds! Zhang Shun, holding onto the dying Li Hu, quickly retreated to the corner of the room, only to see the floor where he had just stood instantly crumble. Zhou Hui manifested his ten-foot-tall golden body out of thin air, wielding two fearsome swords, and struck down at the Demon Lord like the sky itself collapsing!
—Boom!
Half of the hospital building collapsed easily and completely, like dominoes. Amidst the torrential downpour of large bricks and stones, Zhou Hui’s Dharma Form, like an ancient divine beast propping up the heavens and earth, opened its massive, blood-red maw, large enough to swallow the sky, and devoured the Demon Lord—
And behind the Demon Lord, the Hellgate, suddenly ten zhang taller, opened, and countless vengeful ghosts and souls, accompanied by vast seas of blood, rushed straight into the sky!
Zhang Shun gripped the edge of the broken wall, his pupils dilated with extreme shock. “This… this is Zhou Yi…”
“This is Boss Zhou’s Heavenly Dao Dharma Form,” Li Hu said weakly. “Don’t you think it’s extremely terrifying, completely different from Feng Si?”
Zhang Shun didn’t know what to say, and nodded.
—Chu He’s Dharma Form was entirely human. The Demon Lord was still half human. But Zhou Hui, though called the Heavenly Dao Dharma Form, was completely a terrifying monstrous creature from ancient myths that dominated heaven and earth. Its ferocity and cruelty were such that even tens of thousands of people before it would be nothing more than a plate of flesh and blood on the vast earth.
“The Heavenly Dao Dharma Form, it can transform in countless ways according to one’s will. A complete Dharma Form is a thousand times larger than this,” Li Hu said tiredly. “I had a terrible day running into the Demon Lord. Someday when I have energy, I’ll show you my true form. My true form is… Wait, what is this?”
Li Hu suddenly stood up, stumbling towards the floor that was broken in two, revealing countless steel bars, and facing the mid-air.
Zhang Shun turned in astonishment, only to see Zhou Hui’s massive Dharma Form suddenly pause in mid-air, as if frozen, then rapidly shrink back into a human.
The wind and rain ceased, the ghost cries ended.
Zhou Hui stood on the devastated ground, his expression indescribable, only his body strangely trembling. Chu He stood opposite him. Chu He had retracted his Dharma Form, returning to his familiar appearance, one hand gripping Zhou Hui’s blade.
Blood flowed from his arm like a cut water pipe, drenching his entire body, but he didn’t even move, looking at Zhou Hui, his face indifferent, without a trace of emotion.
—He stood in front of Demon Lord Fan Luo.
