Chapter 172: Chapter 129: The Mighty Man’s Descent
Zheng Xiu returned alone to the dark pleasure-dungeon.
He focused his mind, sinking into the Heart Prison.
A deep, boundless gray mist swirled like tentacles, held back beyond the bars.
Without any delay, Zheng Xiu sat on the Bone Chair. On the Game Table, the figure of Zheng Baimei opened its eyes.
’So you want to play for keeps, do you?’
He truly wasn’t flustered.
Zheng Xiu gave a cold smile. The way his opponent kept calling Feng Bei a "monster" had thoroughly ignited his rage.
Recalling all the moments he had shared with Feng Bei on their journey, he knew she was just a kind-hearted girl who had suffered a great misfortune. She didn’t deserve any of this condemnation.
Humans just seemed to be the kind of creatures who ostracized those they deemed "different."
This was what they called "discrimination."
As his gaze fell, Zheng Xiu noticed something strange.
’What’s going on?’
To the south of the center, in the region of Shuzhou, the miniature figurine representing Post Station Feng Bei was flickering, as if it might disappear at any moment.
Zheng Xiu’s heart lurched at the sight.
’Something’s happened to Feng Bei?’
’That’s impossible.’
Without hesitation, Zheng Xiu jabbed his finger at the face of the Feng Bei figurine.
He intended to descend directly as the Ancestor and activate his ultimate self-destruct ability.
However, it failed.
For the first time, Zheng Xiu, who knew this process like the back of his hand, was shut out from Post Station Feng Bei.
A dark vortex began to form, but the black portal within—the one for "teleportation"—flickered erratically.
’Feng Bei is in trouble!’
Zheng Xiu’s heart sank. His inability to teleport directly to the Post Station all but confirmed it.
’Did she enter a Ghostly Realm?’
A possibility suddenly occurred to Zheng Xiu.
If a Mystic’s inherent Ghostly Realm was overlapped by another, could it create an effect akin to "signal jamming"?
On their way down the mountain, Zheng Xiu had secretly brushed his hand against the scroll on Feng Bei’s back.
The action had caused Feng Bei to turn and shoot him a strange glance.
She hadn’t known what Zheng Xiu was up to.
Based on his experience, if the painting truly contained an innate Ghostly Realm, merely touching it should have generated "Ghostly Realm coordinates" on his Game Table, along with a prompt saying "Discovered X Ghostly Realm."
But that hadn’t happened.
Now that Post Station Feng Bei was blocked, Zheng Xiu could only surmise that the painting did hide a Ghostly Realm, but entering it required taking an unconventional route.
It seemed the signal from Post Station Feng Bei was indeed being jammed; that was the only way to explain this phenomenon.
’What do I do?’
Feng Bei was in Shuzhou, thousands of miles away, while he was in the Imperial City, too far to be of any help.
He stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down again.
After getting up and sitting down a few times, Zheng Xiu quickly calmed himself. A moment later, he switched to a different Incarnation.
It was still the Mighty Painter.
He jabbed his finger at the face of the miniature Feng Bei figurine again. This time, the gray, misty vortex formed, and the dark portal within was much more stable than before.
A thin thread, almost invisible to the naked eye, connected Zheng Shan and Feng Bei.
’Hm?’
’What the hell is that thin thread?’
Zheng Xiu paused.
[You will now forcibly enter ’Post Station Feng Bei’.]
Zheng Xiu didn’t have time to wonder for long. His vision went black as a wave of vertigo hit him. His consciousness was swept into the vortex and through the dark portal.
...
「Shuzhou.」
「General Town.」
「Dawn was approaching.」
"HAHAHAHA—"
At this moment, Xu Shu’s mood had been on a true rollercoaster—a great high followed by a great low, and now, it was soaring once again.
Leaping down from the rooftop, Xu Shu cautiously approached the scroll lying on the ground.
Before him, Feng Bei was gone.
The Mystic was no more.
Xu Shu’s gaze upon the scroll was filled with an unconcealable, feverish excitement. For years, all he had hoped for was Feng Bei’s death.
The Night Lord had once said that under certain fortuitous circumstances, when a Mystic and a non-Mystic walking the same Path killed each other, there was a possibility of a "Possession Deceitful Object" being created.
The prerequisite was that he needed to gain the approval of the "Executioner’s Deceitful Object."
Most Miracle Masters walk their Path for an entire lifetime without ever knowing which Path it is, let alone who stands at its end.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say. It was best not to know. After all, the "Mystic" for any given Path was unique. There might be hundreds, even thousands, of people walking the same Path in the world, but they were all more or less the same.
But as fate would have it, Xu Shu walked the [Executioner] Path, and he knew that Feng Bei was the "Mystic" born standing in the deepest reaches of that same Path.
In other words, without some other twist of fate, he would spend his entire life groveling at "Feng Bei’s" feet, never able to rise above her.
This had become a thorn in Xu Shu’s heart.
Xu Shu had understood this profoundly from the moment, many years ago, that he had cast aside all dignity to kneel and beg for mercy before Feng Bei.
He had personally experienced Feng Bei’s terror, along with the powerlessness and fear that came from the depths of his heart when he faced her.
When Feng Bei tore Lower Six to pieces with her bare hands, Xu Shu had thought he was a dead man.
But then, in a shocking twist, Feng Bei had vanished.
"Hahaha! I’ve won! Truly worthy of the Night Lord! So that was how it worked!"
Xu Shu strode toward the scroll on the ground, letting out an irrepressible, gleeful laugh. The towering mountain named "Feng Bei" had weighed on his heart for too long, and his laughter seemed to be venting years of repression and anger.
At last, Xu Shu finally understood the Night Lord’s plan.
It turned out that it never mattered who came, or who died.
What mattered was that Feng Bei, carrying the scroll on her back, had made her move.
The whole affair was both tragic and wonderful.
The tragic part was that all of them, including Gu Qiutang, Jun Buxiao, and Zhou Bashi, were nothing more than the Night Lord’s "bait."
The wonderful part was that, in the end, he, Xu Shu, was not the one who had served as bait.
"Stop!"
After a moment of internal struggle, Dou Xie decided Xu Shu looked entirely too much like a "villain." Recalling his experience in the Immortal Maiden Temple, he couldn’t believe that Feng Bei had simply been devoured by the Cannibal Painting. Shouting angrily, Dou Xie rushed forward to snatch the scroll as the pages of his book flipped open, and he began to recite lines he had already written.
Characters danced in the air around him, transforming into his exquisite Miracle Technique.
"Let’s ignore the facts for a moment. Don’t you think being this arrogant is just a little bit wrong?"
BOOM!
The words transformed into power, flying toward Xu Shu like an invisible, colorless haymaker.
"Are you really going to fucking defy Ye Weiyang?"
Xu Shu blocked with his blade, staggered back a few steps from the impact. A little surprised that the kid had some tricks, he closed the distance and began to fight Dou Xie.
Dou Xie walked the [Scholars] Path; all his Miracle Techniques were in his book. But before going into hiding, Xu Shu had been a ruthless man with blood on his hands. He had Dou Xie down on the ground in just a few exchanges.
"You don’t know what’s good for you!"
Xu Shu’s heavy, saw-like blade left a bloody gash across Dou Xie’s back, and blood streamed out.
Xu Shu had never taken Dou Xie seriously. He planted a foot on him, glanced at the wound on his back, and then, right in front of Dou Xie’s face, hooked the book Dou Xie treasured as his own life with his blade. With a single tear, the hand-copied book scattered into loose pages on the ground. Dou Xie stared blankly, his heart feeling as if it were bleeding as he watched the book he had spent so long copying be destroyed with a single slash.
Pinning Dou Xie’s head to the ground with his foot, Xu Shu sneered, "If you had just behaved, I wouldn’t have wanted to make things difficult for a junior like you. But you just had to be stubborn. When you die, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself." Xu Shu lowered his voice and chuckled. "Do you know what my Miracle Technique is?"
Dou Xie’s already battered face was crushed into the ground, leaving him unable to make a sound.
"Wounds left by my blade bleed ceaselessly. Have you ever seen a chicken being butchered? They use a knife to cut its throat and let the blood out. The chicken screams and struggles in pain at first, but as more blood flows, it starts to twitch. Finally, it gets colder and colder... *Gak!* And just like that, it’s gone!"
After speaking, Xu Shu ignored the terrified, trembling Dou Xie and carefully picked up the scroll.
Suddenly, a pale hand appeared out of thin air. In a flash, the scroll vanished.
Chu Susu clutched the scroll to her chest, stumbling away as she tried to flee.
A high wall of shadow blocked her path. Chu Susu ran around inside the bizarre space like a fly in a jar, unable to find an exit.
Playing with her like a cat with a mouse, Xu Shu strode down the street, caught up to Chu Susu, and kicked her to the ground from behind.
Chu Susu coughed up blood, and the scroll fell from her grasp.
Xu Shu wasn’t falling for it this time. He tied the scroll securely to his own back.
"The Thief Sect?"
Xu Shu recognized Chu Susu’s Path at a glance. Surprised, he raised his serrated greatsword and swung it down at her back.
"I can’t believe you’d still side with her after witnessing the Omen surrounding that monster, Feng Bei. From this day forward, there will be no Mystic named ’Feng Bei’ in this world! I, Liang Yuan, will become the true ’Executioner’ Mystic!"
"Is that so?"
Suddenly, a cold, indifferent voice sounded from behind Xu Shu.
Chu Susu turned at the sound of the voice and beheld a terrifying scene.
The scroll on Xu Shu’s back had suddenly opened into an illusory vortex. A towering figure descended from the vortex, landing on Xu Shu like a Mighty Man descending from the heavens.
KRAK!
The illusory figure rapidly solidified. As the astonished Xu Shu turned to look, the Mighty Man reached out and twisted his neck around to face his back.
His head, which should have been facing forward, was twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees by the Mighty Man, until it was looking behind his own rear.
His neck snapped.
Reflected in Xu Shu’s slowly dilating pupils was the Mighty Man’s puzzled face.
"What the hell? He was that brittle?"
Zheng Xiu had expected a difficult fight. He hadn’t thought he would emerge right behind Xu Shu, see his neck, and overhear his declaration of betrayal. Zheng Xiu acted without hesitation, twisting his neck cleanly and decisively.
’What a coincidence,’ he thought. ’My entry point was perfect. Incredibly convenient.’
Xu Shu was dead. Half his face was frozen in disbelief, the other half in arrogance. It was an expression worthy of a masterpiece.
’In the future, I could try painting some ’kill-shot close-ups.’ It might grant me a lot of Experience Value.’
Zheng Xiu emerged fully from the painting as Xu Shu’s body slumped to the ground. Wary that the Miracle Master might have some strange "revival" Miracle Technique, Zheng Xiu stomped on the corpse several times, utterly crushing its head and chest, before silently picking up the scroll.
The rapid turn of events left Chu Susu stunned. Before she had time to offer thanks or ask questions, she pointed at Zheng Xiu’s body in shock.
"Uncle Zheng, your body..."
In Chu Susu’s eyes, Zheng Xiu’s body was like a guttering candle flame. One moment it was solid and real, the next it was transparent, as if he might vanish at any second.
When Zheng Xiu gripped the scroll, his body solidified slightly.
"Feng Bei is in the painting!"
Zheng Xiu tied the scroll tightly to his back. He could feel a faint, barely perceptible "connection" coming from within the painting.
