Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 139: Sudden Turn
The practitioners immediately sensed something was wrong. A few of them stopped chanting curses, trying to help the soldiers, but were sternly stopped by Zhuang Feng.
“Hold your formation! If you break ranks now, all will be lost!”
Many of these cultivators were righteous folk, dressed in clean robes with dignified faces. At his command, they didn’t dare hesitate. They circled around the tent that was blowing out golden wind, forming layers of concentric battle arrays, as if surrounding the world’s only source of warmth. Their chanting grew more synchronized, beads of sweat forming on their brows.
The still-conscious victims huddled behind the cultivators, while the soldiers continued pushing forward. Now they had to save not just civilians, but their own deranged comrades.
But the trees kept spreading.
In the shadows, more and more blackened trees bearing “white fruits” multiplied. People were disappearing. The trees spread across the scorched ground, gradually forming a dark forest.
An invisible pressure grew heavier. The soldiers advanced, the practitioners attacked, but the air was thick with confusion and helplessness.
Only Zhuang Feng remained confident, commanding with unwavering calm. With the divine technique of Zhuang Guiqu backing him, everyone followed his lead without question.
The black Taoist didn’t join the spell-chanting. He stayed beside the orphaned child, staring dazedly at the mountainous shadow rising in the distance.
“This has never happened before,” he murmured. “The God of Calamity… has never appeared like this.”
Faced with such an absurd scene, his mind seemed to shut down. Black characters began to drip from the corners of his mouth again.
“This has never happened before?” Fang Xiu asked.
He was crouching beside the Taoist, hiding within the range of Zhuang Guiqu’s magic, not far from the ruined shrine. Fang Xiu had noticed something interesting—the Taoist’s memory of the God of Calamity wasn’t as confused as A’Shou’s. It was more like a preserved insect in amber, intact and unchanged.
The Taoist glanced at the shattered idol in the shrine.
“Yes. I used to think it was just some great evil spirit—watch out!”
He shouted and grabbed the child, who had stumbled forward.
Another thunderous crash echoed through the mountains. A torrent of murky water surged down from above. The great flood swept past Fang Xiu’s group, nearly dragging them away.
This time it didn’t carry debris. The river surged straight through the forest and hurtled toward Zhuang Guiqu tent.
Zhuang Feng didn’t move. He raised his sword toward the water. Hundreds of practitioners behind him stayed put and continued casting spells with full trust.
Then, in the next moment, Zhuang Feng sprang lightly into the air and leapt into the tent glowing with warm light.
His sword sliced the tent open—inside was empty. Only a scroll emitting golden light floated in the air. It flew into Zhuang Feng’s hand, and the golden wind instantly contracted, wrapping only around him.
Hundreds of practitioners were immediately washed away by the flood, utterly exposed to the God of Calamity’s corruption. Before they could even scream, their eyes and tongues bulged grotesquely, and their chanting stopped.
“Fish, fish.”
They let out faint, broken whispers. Their bodies rapidly shriveled and twisted. Limbs burst like soap bubbles and were swept away by the water. Only their bouncing heads remained.
“Fish, fish.”
Their voices grew muffled as the heads floated on the filthy river, resembling white stones from a distance.
Even with the practitioners gone, the mountain fires in the distance still burned green. The dark shadow surged with fury and the river didn’t stop.
They needed to relocate.
Fang Xiu turned and tapped the Taoist on the shoulder. At the touch, the man’s entire arm detached at the shoulder and quickly melted into filthy foam.
But the Taoist didn’t notice. He clutched the child tightly. As soon as the golden wind vanished, the child’s body crumbled on the spot, leaving only a twitching head behind.
The child clearly didn’t understand what was happening. He writhed violently in the Taoist’s collapsing embrace, inching toward the water.
“Fish, fish,” the head squeaked.
Panicked, the Taoist clung to it, as if that could return the child to normal. But the harder he held on, the faster his arms withered and snapped. At last, he looked at Fang Xiu with wide eyes and opened his mouth to ask for help—
“Fish, fish,” he said.
Fang Xiu couldn’t respond. The golden wind had vanished. Darkness fell. He only had time to glimpse the tear at the corner of the Taoist’s eye.
That was the final trace of his humanity. Fang Xiu suddenly realized, he still didn’t know the Taoist’s name.
Maybe the story hadn’t recorded it, which subtly clouded Fang Xiu’s mind and made him forget to ask. But now it was too late.
In just a few seconds, the two heads—one large, one small—hit the ground. They squirmed like live fish, greedily inching toward the river.
Splash.
Two warm, living humans disappeared from the world. Everything was surreal and twisted, like a ridiculous dream.
Fang Xiu had dreamed this exact scene before.
A horizonless mountain range. Trees filled with hanged corpses. Endless rivers of black water. And heads drifting through it all.
In that nightmare, he had wandered helplessly, his feet slowly gnawed away, searching for his lost ghost hand.
That was when he had met Bai Shuangying.
Bai Shuangying…
Fang Xiu instinctively looked toward his ghost.
In the first instant, he didn’t see the familiar white robes. His mind went blank and cold sweat drenched him.
The second instant, he felt Bai Shuangying’s icy hand. But his robe had dulled, fading nearly to charcoal gray.
The third instant, he realized Bai Shuangying’s face had lost all features again. Only the blood-red birthmark remained. Beneath that blank surface, something was writhing frantically, about to burst through the skin.
For the first time ever, Fang Xiu gripped Bai Shuangying’s hand tightly, and Bai Shuangying didn’t respond.
This was bad.
“Tell a story about Xushan! Anything related to the God of Calamity!” Fang Xiu shouted to A’Shou.
Bai Shuangying was an evil spirit, proficient in manipulating karma. Fang Xiu had considered every possible failure point, except this one. That Bai Shuangying might succumb before he did.
They couldn’t stay. They had to escape the story now.
A’Shou didn’t waste time. She began speaking with suppressed fury.
“All civilians perished. The garrison was wiped out. Zhuang Guiqu claimed it was the work of the God of Calamity and rallied soldiers from all corners to march on Xushan.”
“The disaster lasted forty-nine days. Ten thousand troops went in, none came out. The frontier was already short on food and soldiers. The chaos only deepened! Back in the day—”
As expected, black characters fell from her mouth as she spoke.
Another story portal.
Just as Fang Xiu had predicted.
Each time these black words appeared, people had been discussing Xushan and the God of Calamity. That topic could link stories together, allowing transitions between them.
Fang Xiu grabbed Bai Shuangying with one hand, reaching for the floating characters with the other. He planned to repeat the same escape method.
“What are you all doing?”
A cheerful voice spoke up behind him, along with the flare of a flaming sword.
Zhuang Feng.
Zhuang Feng had arrived at some unknown point, glowing with golden light. A’Shou reflexively drew her soft sword, shielding Fang Xiu from the hostile blade.
As a result, the scattered black characters dissipated, and the story portal vanished.
Still, A’Shou held her ground and repeated in a low voice.
“All civilians perished. The garrison was wiped out…”
But barely a few words in, golden light blanketed the area again. Under the brilliance of the divine Heaven-Breaking Divine Art, the newly formed black characters vanished like melting snow.
This wasn’t some makeshift imitation. It was real divine magic. Even a ghost immortal of the Underworld couldn’t withstand a weapon of the Heavens.
“Fascinating magic,” Zhuang Feng remarked leisurely. “You all must be quite accomplished. Unfortunately, you shouldn’t be here.”
“You’ve seen too much. It’s better if you don’t leave the mountain. Forgive me.”
He weighed the sword in his hand. The flames had gone out, revealing its unnaturally sharp edge.
Even though her powers were sealed, A’Shou showed no fear. She readied her stance, shielding the “delicate” Fang Xiu.
“Spouting so much crap. If you want to fight, then fight.”
And then she saw Fang Xiu crawl out from behind her sword and step toward Zhuang Feng.
Zhuang Feng, A’Shou: “?”
“Sorry, this girl was just someone I hired on the road. She doesn’t know the rules,” Fang Xiu said politely.
“I’m only here to help. It’s all a misunderstanding.”
Zhuang Feng was stunned by his audacity. “…Help?”
“I’ve studied ‘E’s’ a bit,” Fang Xiu said casually, looking like he actually meant it. “You’ve gone to great lengths with all this. Isn’t it all to nurture an E?”
Zhuang Feng narrowed his eyes. His sword lowered slightly.
“Set fire to the mountains. Enrage the God of Calamity. Then wake the victims so their suffering draws in outside aid—first your own people, then nearby practitioners. You wanted all of them to die here.”
Fang Xiu spoke fluidly, though his palms were slick with sweat. His mind raced, stitching everything he’d seen and heard into a coherent bluff.
“Now the God of Calamity is in a frenzy. The massacre is done. You’ll petition the court, citing the people’s suffering, and request more troops. When this is over, over a hundred thousand will have died here.”
“Think of that karmic weight. If properly harnessed, you could nurture an E of terrifying scale.”
Zhuang Feng didn’t reply. He just let out a quiet hum, and his expression turned mildly intrigued.
Good—he had bought them some time.
Fang Xiu glanced at Bai Shuangying out of the corner of his eye. As long as he could stall Zhuang Feng, they might still find a way to escape…
“Ah.”
Bai Shuangying suddenly made a sound.
A crooked mouth began forming on his blank face. The shape was all wrong, twisted and grotesque.
“Xushan…”
Even beneath the divine light of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art, the word still fell from his mouth.
The author has something to say:
Anyway, Xiao Bai’s vest is falling off _(:з」∠)
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