Chapter 68: Farewell
The extraordinarily muscular white creature sat entirely motionless in the deep mud, its blind, featureless head tilted slightly as it processed the command.
The concept Evan had just proposed, ripping away a piece of an immortal organism’s fundamental anatomy, was nothing short of absolute madness.
The beast seemed to understand what Evan was saying and shook his head, which obviously meant NO.
Before Evan could even open his mouth to demand compliance or figure out a workaround, the air between them vibrated with a bizarre, high-frequency frequency.
Then, suddenly, the beast starts to talk, which was an unexpected thing, obviously. It did not possess a mouth, yet the sound resonated directly from the hollow spaces within its broad chest, defying every law of biology Evan knew.
"Yer sole izz nut setrong enuff," the beast rumbled, [ your soul is not strong enough] though the actual tone of the sound was completely absurd. It had a squeaky, high-pitched voice that clashed horribly with its massive, terrifyingly muscular frame.
Evan, obviously, was very shocked, his mind stalling entirely as he stared at the submissive titan.
’How in the hell is he talking?’ he thought, his hand involuntarily twitching toward his waist. An entity capable of splitting mountains with a casual handclap was currently speaking to him like a broken, malfunctioning toy.
"Me well bin yer kaloty," the squeaky voice resonated once more, the creature’s smooth head nodding toward Evan’s chest.
Evan blinked, translating the strange, broken dialect in his mind until the true meaning clicked. [I will be in your clothes.] It was offering a compromise. Since Evan’s mortal soul and aperture were far too weak to handle an immortal organ without instantly imploding, the beast was choosing to nest itself directly within his immediate vicinity to survive.
"Guess so," said Evan, exhaling a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
The moment the words left his lips, the massive white entity dissolved into a brilliant flash of condensed spiritual energy.
The towering muscles vanished, and the beast turned into a butterfly, its pale, damaged wings fluttering through the damp air.
It glided forward, slipping seamlessly through the heavy fabric of Evan’s tunic, and got inside the inner pocket of Evan’s clothes.
The moment it settled against the warm linen near his chest, it shifted its shape one final time and turned into a caterpillar, entering a deep, metabolic hibernation to preserve its remaining twenty percent of fractured law.
The immediate vicinity fell completely silent once more, save for the crackle of the split mountain in the distance.
Peaker, who had been watching the entire exchange from twenty meters away with a completely shattered psyche, finally forced his limbs to move.
He stumbled through the mud, his dark eyes wide and bloodshot, staring at Evan as if he were looking at a ghost. He stopped just two paces away, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
"Who the hell are you?" Peaker asked, his voice trembling violently as he pointed a shaking finger at Evan’s chest pocket.
"What... what did you just do? What was that thing?"
Evan’s mind immediately went into overdrive.
Evan started to think of more than a hundred excuses, running through complex political lies, fabricated secret techniques, and ancient heritage myths that could explain away the sudden appearance of an unclassified immortal entity.
But as he looked at Peaker’s exhausted, blood stained face, he realized none of it would stick. In the end, he just sighed and shook his head.
"Sorry, I can’t tell you," Evan said plainly, his voice hardening with absolute serious intent.
"And you shouldn’t be telling what happened here either. If a single word about an immortal beast gets out to the higher sects, we won’t just be executed. We will be dissected."
Peaker swallowed hard, the cold reality of their situation cutting through his confusion. He looked back at the horrific carnage, the vaporized remains of the supreme elders, and the massive fissure in the hill.
"Then what are we going to report?"
"I’ll think about it..." Evan muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose as the adrenaline began to fade, leaving his body aching from the residual spiritual pressure.
Peaker simply nodded, accepting the silence because he knew, deep down, that knowing the truth would only put a massive target on his own back.
He looked around the ruined, blood soaked field, the rain finally beginning to slow to a dull drizzle. But then, after thinking for a bit, he turned back to Evan.
"What do we do now?" Peaker asked quietly.
"We did kill Shu Hui," Evan said, his eyes scanning the mud where the clan leader’s severed torso lay silent.
"So let’s just go back to the sect... oh yeah, alright, we have to bury Ghost."
Evan said after understanding the meaning behind Peaker’s words. He could see the lingering, heavy sorrow in his eyes. Ghost had been a traitor, a man who had sold them out to the Shu Clan for his own advancement, but to Peaker, he had still been a comrade who had shared bread and fought alongside him for years.
"No, I think we should burn his body..." Peaker murmured, his gaze fixed on the massive, ruined torso of the giant merchant tunic.
"Leaving him in this mud... it’s not right. The beasts will defile what’s left."
Evan simply nodded.
They walked together across the ruined field, their boots heavy with muck, and carefully picked up Ghost’s body.
The weight was immense.
Evan picked the torso, his hands staining with the cooling blood of the traitor, while Peaker held the legs.
Together, they carried the two halves of him over to a relatively dry patch of earth near the tree line. They spent the next twenty minutes collecting damp logs and broken branches from the edge of the forest, stacking them methodically until they put his body in it, creating a crude, solemn pyre.
When everything was set, Peaker stepped forward, his head bowed as he prepared to say the traditional words of the departed. He raised his hands, his voice carrying a deep, melodic solemnity that echoed through the quiet woods.
"May the Father of Land grant you Heaven," Peaker recited, his voice cracking slightly. "May the Lady of Wisdom grant you wisdom. May the Lord of Shadows give you shelter. May the Goddess of Soul and spirit grant you a pure soul. May the god of body grant you a new body."
He paused, the silence of the forest heavy around them.
"Farewell, old friend," Peaker said. He turned around immediately, went into the back, and covered his face with his hands, his shoulders trembling silently as the weight of the betrayal and the loss finally broke through his hardened exterior.
Evan looked down at the dead giant, his expression entirely neutral.
"Farewell, Ghost," Evan said softly.
He struck a flint, sparking a small, concentrated spark of his remaining fire Qi into the wood.
The dry kindling beneath the logs caught instantly, and within moments, a bright, roaring orange flame consumed the pyre.
The body of Ghost turned into ashes after he puts the fire, the thick gray smoke rising up toward the dark, weeping sky.
Evan turned away from the flames, walking over to where Peaker stood in the shadows. He placed a firm, steady hand on the man’s shoulder.
"Let’s go, Peaker," Evan said quietly, looking back one last time at the ruined territory of the Shu Clan. "To home."
