I'm Already the Richest Man, Why Did My System Just Arrive?

Chapter 217: Chapter 150: Life and Death Struggle, Heartless Ultimate Sword

When the old man uttered the word "Monk," his tone and expression made Ruchen mentally add another two points.

A ninety percent resemblance!

He was the spitting image of an older version of the Mighty Man!

"Brother Zheng? You... you’ve exhausted your lifespan?"

Ruchen couldn’t believe two strangers could look so alike. In the blink of an eye, he understood, and his eyes welled up with tears.

’To save me, Brother Zheng didn’t hesitate to exhaust his lifespan, using a Krypton Life Miracle Technique!’

"I am not the person you know! Remember, I am Zheng Baimei."

Zheng Xiu said calmly, not sparing Ruchen another glance. With a light push of his toes, he floated into the sky.

He’d almost blurted out that he was using a cheat.

The Crow Fosterer spread its wings in the night sky.

The faint beam of light shone on the Crow Fosterer, searing it like a flame. Foul-smelling black smoke billowed from its entire body.

’Its weakness is sunlight, then.’

This was the Crow Fosterer’s "Restriction"!

Zheng Xiu’s white eyebrows rose. No wonder the Crow Fosterer turned its surroundings into night when it assumed such a terrifying form.

It created something akin to a "Ghostly Realm" in the area.

And yet, it wasn’t a Ghostly Realm.

It was more like a scene-altering Ability, enveloping Jingtang Town in a "Dark Curtain" and plunging it into night.

As Zheng Xiu looked at the Crow Fosterer’s hideous form and the nocturnal Dark Curtain, his thoughts raced, and he suddenly understood.

Rules, mediums, and Restrictions.

By stretching his imagination and broadening his perspective, Zheng Xiu realized his understanding of the "Crow Fosterer" perfectly corresponded with the theories of Path Mystic Skills.

’The Crow Fosterer... it’s actually a Miracle Master?’

’Is this also some kind of Path?’

’A Path I’ve never seen before?’

The core of entering a Path was the acting method.

But with the limits of Human imagination, most roles one could play were merely the various characters found in common society.

The Crow Fosterer... the role it was playing... was a Raven!

A species of bird!

In other words, from the very beginning, the Path the Crow Fosterer walked was not one an ordinary person could take!

It had become a Raven!

It had abandoned its Human body, taking on an ominous form!

In both form and temperament, the Crow Fosterer had become a "Raven" through and through!

Since ancient times, ravens have been seen as birds of ill omen. Due to their carrion-eating nature, they were once known by the moniker "Omen Bird."

The implication being, wherever a flock of ravens gathered, death was sure to follow.

To play the role of a Raven, it had to learn to caw like one, imagine spreading its wings, act like one, and even... eat corpses.

During the brief standoff, Zheng Xiu figured out the principle behind the Crow Fosterer’s existence.

As if sensing the boundless Sword Intent radiating from the old man before it, the red cloth on the Crow Fosterer’s face peeled away, revealing six bloodshot eyes.

Its face, covered in scars, resembled that of a Human, bearing the marks of many stitches. Two eyes were in their normal positions, with an additional pair above and below them, creating a "six-eyed" visage. Yet, Zheng Xiu felt those six eyes had been crudely sewn on through some form of surgery, creating a deeply unsettling and unnatural look.

"Monk, turn around and close your eyes!"

"KYA!"

Just as Zheng Xiu finished warning Ruchen, the Crow Fosterer’s six eyes suddenly erupted with a terrifying red light.

Immediately after, the eye on the right side of its forehead burst, splattering crimson blood.

In an instant, an icy chill spread throughout Zheng Xiu’s body, giving him the sudden illusion of being submerged in ice water. His limbs grew numb and cold, the color drained from his face, and he turned deathly pale in the blink of an eye.

[DEATH]!

Although Zheng Xiu had intentionally faced the Crow Fosterer’s eyes, the bizarre sensation he felt the moment he was "hit" still surprised and unsettled him.

He looked down at his own palm. It was like weathered rock, first becoming hard and pale, then quickly beginning to flake away along the lines of his palm, turning to ash.

Zheng Xiu’s Incarnation was turning to ash, piece by piece!

At this moment, one of the six eyes on the Crow Fosterer’s face had burst, leaving only five.

’So this is what Chu Susu was talking about. Inflicting absolute death at the cost of permanent Blindness. No wonder the Crow Fosterer has six eyes. This sinister Miracle Technique of his, which brings "certain death," requires one eye to burst with each use. To maximize the number of uses, the Night Lord must have done something to give the Crow Fosterer six eyes.’

The large hole he had blasted through the Dark Curtain sealed up in an instant, and the scene before him once again became a lightless night.

In just a few short breaths, Zheng Xiu’s arms and legs showed varying degrees of disintegration.

He was rapidly "approaching" death!

But!

As death drew near, Zheng Xiu’s Incarnation was rapidly cracking, weathering, and disappearing.

This was the first time Zheng Xiu’s Incarnation had been killed in the real world, and a strange, indescribable feeling quietly surfaced.

The Raven People’s movements grew slower and slower.

Ruchen’s breathing grew slower and slower.

The wind stirred by the Raven People’s flapping Meat Wings grew gentler.

The beating in his chest grew calmer and calmer.

At this moment, Zheng Baimei was rapidly approaching death.

Until...

...the very instant that his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose—his sight, touch, smell, and hearing—everything he could feel and perceive, came to an abrupt halt.

When the body of Zheng Baimei had weathered away, his limbs painlessly obliterated, leaving only his head.

At this precise instant, this very moment—

"Zheng Baimei" entered a state of Life and Death Struggle, hovering on the verge of death but not yet gone.

One moment he was "alive," the next he would be "dead."

There was only this fleeting "instant"!

Just one instant!

Zheng Xiu’s whole being felt light as he "floated" out.

All was silent. Heaven and Earth stood still.

The version of Zheng Xiu that floated out was weightless.

He wasn’t deliberately using his Divine Travel Ability, nor was he using any clever trick.

And yet, at this moment, he was simply suspended in mid-air, floating between Heaven and Earth.

Standing proud and alone, as if he had ascended to immortality.

Looking back, he saw that only the head of "Zheng Baimei" remained, its eyes closed.

Ruchen’s expression was also frozen in time, incredibly complex. It was a mixture of shock, regret, and anxiety, with a hint of deeply hidden suspicion.

It was an expression as complex as a pie chart, and only in this instant, when all things were still, could Zheng Xiu discern it with such clarity.

’Time stopped?’

Zheng Xiu frowned in thought for a second, then shook his head with a smile.

’No. It’s me. I’ve been infinitely accelerated.’

’Right now, I am only a Human Soul.’

’Only pure Spirit remains.’

In this state, Zheng Xiu felt an impulse. He beckoned lightly, and the space beside his hand collapsed, compressed, and solidified into an exquisite golden sword.

Golden flames flowed along the sword.

It appeared solid, but on closer inspection, the longsword was not corporeal, flickering between illusory and real.

Before he had condensed the golden sword, he hadn’t known what to do.

But when Zheng Xiu reached out his hand, he suddenly understood, as if something had been poured into his consciousness.

’This is the "Heaven and Earth Sword Intent," the Golden Trait born from the Inner Rulebook.’

Zheng Xiu suddenly froze.

Only when he extended his hand did he realize it wasn’t the wrinkled palm of "Zheng Baimei," but his own—Zheng Xiu’s palm.

Fair, delicate—the hands of a wealthy man.

In other words, the Zheng Xiu who had appeared in the form of a Human Soul was the Human Soul of his Main Body!

This new discovery made Zheng Xiu’s hand pause.

With his Spirit infinitely accelerated, this pause had no effect.

It was only then that Zheng Xiu noticed a conspicuous hole in the chest of his Human Soul, as if a piece had been scooped out.

’What’s going on?’

No one in the world could ever have the fortune of witnessing their own Human Soul.

If not for deliberately entering this state of "Life and Death Struggle" to activate the [Heaven and Earth Sword Intent], Zheng Xiu would never have had the chance to see himself in this state of near-death.

His Human Soul was missing a piece.

’What does this mean?’

This new discovery sent ripples through Zheng Xiu’s lake-like calm.

The sword distorted, its surface rippling, and Ruchen’s mouth twitched.

The Crow Fosterer’s wings trembled a fraction of an inch.

The nearly "stopped" Heaven and Earth began to stir again.

With a sense of resignation, Zheng Xiu playfully swung the sword toward the distant Crow Fosterer.

"Heartless Ultimate Sword."

WHOOSH!

That was the sound of the wind.

"Senior is dying!"

That was Ruchen’s voice.

"KYAAAA—"

The Crow Fosterer’s shriek.

FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP!

The sound of countless Ravens flapping their wings.

The moment he swung the sword, the silent world erupted in sound once more.

Returning to his dying Incarnation, Zheng Xiu opened his eyes for one last moment, just in time to see countless illusory sword gleams pierce the heavens, tear open the Dark Curtain, and pass through the Crow Fosterer’s body.

In just an instant, the Crow Fosterer’s body was utterly shredded into fragments by the tens of thousands of sword gleams.

At that very moment, the last sliver of the setting sun’s light, visible as the Crow Fosterer’s body disintegrated, finally sank completely behind the mountains.

Night fell.