Five minutes ago.
Wu Bei was hit by an oncoming bullet. He paused for a moment, and then the bullet ricocheted off his forehead with a ping and fell to the ground.
“Wh-what are you…” The Self-Defense Force soldier who had fired the shot retreated, his face filled with terror. “What kind of monster are you?!…”
Wu Bei casually grabbed two Esoteric School disciples who were charging at him, twisted their necks, and threw their bodies behind him. Then he walked up to the terrified soldier, kicked him in the chest, and sent him flying three or four dozen feet like a cannonball, where he landed motionless.
“Leader!” The young hairdresser from Group Two had commandeered a vehicle, which screeched to a halt in front of him. He leaned out of the window. “Deputy Yu ran toward the magic dragon! What do we do?!”
Wu Bei scanned the surroundings. Most of the Self-Defense Force soldiers had been dealt with; the rest had scattered and fled. Even the Esoteric School disciples were lying on the ground in disarray. In the distant night, Zhou Hui was likely dealing with his son. In another direction, in the mountain forest, the magic dragon was engulfed in cyan flames, letting out deafening roars.
“We don’t need to worry about Leader Zhou. Go support Deputy Yu.” Wu Bei opened the car door and was about to get in when he caught a glimpse of two golden meteors rising from the direction of the magic dragon.
Wu Bei turned his head.
The meteors streaked across the sky, reflected in his trembling pupils.
“Get down…”
Wu Bei suddenly roared, “All of Group Two—! Get down—!!”
—BOOM!!
The first wave of the explosion created a shockwave that radiated in all directions, sending countless curved ripples across the land.
Zhou Hui and Maha, their blades locked, both turned to look.
“Zhou Hui!” Chu He was pushed rapidly by the fierce wind. He grabbed Zhou Hui’s arm. “The peace talismans! Your peace talismans exploded, both of them—!!”
Zhou Hui was stunned. The next second, the shockwave hit, like a heavy vajra hammer, flinging him over a hundred meters away.
With a loud crash, Zhou Hui fell to the ground. He stumbled several steps before grabbing the ground to steady himself, still holding tightly onto Chu He. “Are you okay?!”
Chu He, having swallowed a lot of dust, shook his head while coughing.
Not far away, the mound had lifted off the ground, like a pot of exploding chocolate sauce, completely shooting into the air. Further in the distance, a second explosion was glowing within the cloud of earth, illuminating half the sky.
“Don’t worry, they’re not two positive talismans—!” Zhou Hui shouted into Chu He’s ear. “I gave him a positive and a negative talisman. Their effects will cancel each other out. It will stop after two or three more explosions at most—!”
Chu He finally spat out the mouthful of dust he had unexpectedly inhaled. He pointed to the distance and said hoarsely, “What about Wu Bei and the others?!”
In the open ground far away, everyone was lying on the ground. The bright light of the explosion showed them all covered in a thick layer of dust, making it impossible to tell if they were alive or dead.
Even if Wu Bei was invulnerable, it would be difficult for him to withstand two or three more explosions of this magnitude. Besides him, there were several other members of Group Two, all of whom were flesh and blood. If the shockwave, carrying large rocks, swept directly over them, it would be one thing for the Esoteric School and the Self-Defense Forces, but it would be a terrible injustice for the brothers of Group Two.
“Wait, help me open a spacetime gate!” A flash of inspiration hit Zhou Hui, and he said quickly, “I’ll take the explosion source with me. We’ll go to the Sea of Blood!”
Chu He was taken aback, then realized it was indeed a good idea.
Although the principle was complex, the execution was very simple: just charge over, grab the source of the explosion, and go through the spacetime gate to the Sea of Blood and throw it in. But this required perfect timing and coordination, with no room for error. Otherwise, if it exploded in Zhou Hui’s hands, it would be very troublesome.
There was no time to delay. Zhou Hui shot like lightning toward the magic dragon. Chu He leaped into the air and instantly transformed into a phoenix. A second before the second wave of the explosion swept toward them, he grabbed Zhou Hui, crossed the battlefield in mid-air, and, braving the countless trees and rocks shooting into the sky, landed in front of the magic dragon.
“Where are Deputy Yu and little brother Yan—!” The phoenix landed and transformed back into a human, his roar inaudible even to himself amidst the deafening noise.
As far as the eye could see, the area was blindingly white. The mound had become a giant pit. Two figures could be vaguely seen pinned to the center of the pit’s bottom—it was Deputy Yu and Yan Lanyu.
Just as the phoenix finished speaking, a translucent figure slowly stood up in the void in front of Deputy Yu.
—It was a young man, his chest, arms, and thighs had muscle gouged out, revealing grayish-white, rotting bones. It was an exceptionally terrifying sight.
But the expression on his pale face was very calm. His eyes looked straight ahead, and in his hands, he held an irregularly shaped round bronze mirror.
In the snowy light, the bronze mirror suddenly transformed into a shield of light, like a guardian deity standing between heaven and earth, firmly protecting Deputy Yu and Yan Lanyu within!
The magnificent light of the pentagram reflected in Zhou Hui’s eyes. He said, stunned, “Is this… the Yang-World Soul?”
“The Yang-World Soul is sacrificing itself to the Yata Mirror!” Chu He shouted. “Quickly! I’m opening the Human Realm Stele!”
Aside from a few great Buddhas in the Formless Heaven, the ability to travel freely between the six realms was the exclusive privilege of the Great Asura King. But this didn’t mean no one else could travel between the six realms. Ancient divine beasts like the phoenix, the black tortoise, and the white tiger could temporarily travel back and forth between the human, divine, and demonic realms by distorting space, though the passages were unstable.
Zhou Hui raised his hand to the sky.
In a flash of light, two golden meteors flew back against the void, intertwining as they returned to his hand. Then, the space in front of Chu He vibrated violently, as if the air had been split open by a ferocious rift. The clear cry of the phoenix echoed from all directions on the ancient wind.
The image of the Human Realm Stele flashed in the void, and the massive stele’s body boomed open.
Zhou Hui grabbed the two meteors and turned to charge into the spacetime rift!
At the same time, in the Sea of Blood of hell.
A rift tore across the sky of red, steaming smoke, like the fangs of a beast shattering and collapsing.
Then, behind the fangs, the sky opened a dark, giant maw. Zhou Hui’s figure shot down from the throat of that maw, throwing the two rapidly pulsing golden stars toward the Sea of Blood!
Whoosh—
BOOM!
The golden stars let out a sharp whistle as they fell, then exploded with immense power. The entire Sea of Blood was like it was being dragged into the air by an invisible giant hand, the monstrous waves shattering!
Just then, an angry, shrill cry suddenly came from the black spacetime cavity above Zhou Hui’s head. The Peacock King lunged forward, the Kusanagi sword in his hand wreathed in countless bolts of lightning.
Zhou Hui looked back, stunned for a moment, then understood.
Maha had a deep demonic nature and enjoyed living in the Sea of Blood. He had claimed the surrounding thousands of miles as his own territory. After the Great Asura King’s demise, the Asura tribe was severely weakened, and almost no one in the Four Evil Paths could restrain the Peacock King. Hell had practically become his domain.
And those two peace talismans, comparable to atomic bombs, had just been thrown into his Sea of Blood.
“Go to hell—!”
The Kusanagi sword came crashing down. Zhou Hui blocked with his fist, and a sweeping hurricane erupted in the sky!
If the phoenix’s combat power had been in a slump for hundreds of years due to heavenly punishment and nirvana, then his eldest son, the Peacock King, was now at his absolute peak.
These divine beasts with lifespans in the hundreds of millions of years were like this; they only entered their prime a few thousand years after birth. Compared to Maha, even Jia Louluo had not yet fully entered his best state. And Zhou Hui had dominated the six realms for many years, extremely rich in both combat awareness and experience. The moment he clashed with Maha, it triggered a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami.
Zhou Hui bit his ring finger, summoned a demonic seal, and instantly sealed the rolling thunder. “Da Mao—! It was indeed daddy’s fault for messing up your home. How about I pass on my property on Mount Buzhou to you, okay—!”
Maha said coldly, “No thanks, you can keep it as your own morgue.”
“Now that’s not right, Da Mao—! You’re a proper Wisdom King, how can you be so disrespectful to your parents?!”
Maha thrust his sword. Zhou Hui dodged like lightning. The blade grazed his cheek, and the searing heat instantly evaporated the collapsing seawater around them.
“You call yourself my dad?” Maha mocked. “Haven’t you always wanted me dead?”
Unexpectedly, Zhou Hui didn’t retort with a wisecrack, nor did he show his usual nonchalant, slightly mocking expression.
His gaze darkened, but only for a moment.
“…No,” he said faintly. “Not always.”
Maha sneered, flipped his sword, and stabbed at Zhou Hui from an extremely tricky angle, reaching him in a flash!
At this moment, the wind was overwhelming, the sea and sky merged, and the world tumbled up and down like beans in a sieve. Zhou Hui raised his eyes, his gaze moving from the sword point aimed at him to Maha’s face, and tightened his grip on his saber’s hilt.
In that instant, the sound of the wind suddenly stopped, and the tsunami fell silent—
Maha’s sword stopped in mid-air.
The peacock narrowed his eyes and, following the cold and powerful aura at the back of his head that felt like a needle prick, looked back.
Not far behind him, a whirlwind lifted Chu He’s collar and hair. The pure cyan arrow nocked on his bow was aimed directly at Maha’s back.
At Ise Shrine, in the now-ruined mountain forest, Deputy Yu took half a step back, holding Yan Lanyu horizontally in his arms.
“So you’re the agent that Xiao Lanyu let go back then.” The Headmaster sized up Yu Jingzhong with great interest. “Xiao Lanyu waited foolishly for over two years. That was very unkind of you.”
The muscles in Yu Jingzhong’s cheeks tensed, and his gaze couldn’t help but sweep down to the person in his arms.
Yan Lanyu was unconscious, his body temperature cold, and blood was constantly trickling from the corner of his mouth. His condition was already very bad.
He had to leave this place as soon as possible, or Yan Lanyu wouldn’t last until the phoenix returned to save him.
“Let me introduce myself. I am the ex-boyfriend with a dark heart and ill intentions, always lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity. I am the villain you must defeat on your path to clearing the game.”
The Headmaster blinked, looked at the instantly ugly expression on Yu Jingzhong’s face, and finally laughed. “Hey, I’m just kidding. Don’t be so tense. Sit down and let’s chat like men.”
Deputy Yu didn’t move, just stood there staring at him.
In the dark night, Yu Jingzhong’s eyes were like those of a lone wolf. He might not have noticed it himself, but at this moment, no matter how deep the darkness, it couldn’t hide the terrifying light of desperation in his eyes.
The Headmaster ignored it and leaned leisurely against a half-broken dead tree, patting his pocket. “Oh, no cigarettes… Being a demon has its downsides.”
“What do you want to say?” Yu Jingzhong asked in a low voice.
“Nothing special. Do you want to know what happened after you left the Esoteric School back then?”
“…”
“Xiao Lanyu waited for you all night, every night. He thought no one knew. He sat on the long corridor every night, watching the moon rise from one side of the sky and set on the other… He waited like that, motionless, for many repetitive nights. Sometimes I even thought that if he couldn’t wait for you any longer, he might slowly die in that spot he guarded every night.”
The Headmaster made a very regretful gesture.
His tone was actually a bit frivolous, even as if he were joking, but for some reason, it suddenly caused a huge wave of bitterness to well up in Yu Jingzhong’s heart, as if his heart had been fiercely seized by sharp claws, even causing his throat to spasm.
He could have guessed it was like this, but guessing was one thing, and hearing it with his own ears was another.
“I really wanted to see how long he could last, when he would break down. I’ve been curious about that for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it in the end…”
“…You pervert…” Yu Jingzhong gritted out hoarsely.
“Hey, that’s going too far. I was just curious,” the Headmaster said with a smile. “Curiosity is human nature. You should be respectful of a villain’s curiosity. It’s often the key to the protagonist defeating the villain in the story.”
Yu Jingzhong’s Adam’s apple bobbed, as if using the action to forcibly suppress some emotion.
He held Yan Lanyu with one hand, while his other hand secretly reached for his lower back.
The Headmaster rubbed his chin, looking puzzled. “Actually, I’ve wanted to know since back then, hmm…”
“—What?”
“I wanted to know what special skills you have, Mr. Agent, to make our Xiao Lanyu so head over heels, and whether his life would have been better if he had become a demon with me without you?”
Yu Jingzhong said coldly, “Becoming a senseless monster that kills on sight, you think that’s good?”
“You, who have no pursuit of power, certainly wouldn’t understand, which is why I want to know. Have you never considered whether the story’s ending would change if a certain event didn’t happen? All cause and effect in this world are interlinked. The slightest change at the beginning could lead to a completely different ending.”
Yu Jingzhong gripped the cold gun handle at his lower back, his hawk-like gaze fixed on the Headmaster’s face.
But the Headmaster seemed oblivious, looking up at the sky thoughtfully with his chin in his hand.
“Sometimes I ponder such complex propositions. For example, if on a certain day nineteen years ago, I hadn’t gone out with that kid Aida… or for example, if I hadn’t been so bored later and gone out drinking every day…”
“Even just obediently attending the New Year’s Eve celebration might have been much better than this desolate situation.”
The Headmaster sighed with great interest.
In that instant, Yu Jingzhong drew his gun and pulled the trigger without any warning!
—BANG!
The bullet, inscribed with red talismans, spun as it left the barrel. If slowed down, you could see a golden light凝聚ing around the bullet and impacting in all directions the moment it was fired.
Then, the bullet passed through the Headmaster’s throat, the loud sound echoing far into the night!
Success?
Yu Jingzhong stood in place. The next moment, his pupils constricted, and he clutched his own neck like lightning!
