Chapter 129: Die

Chapter 129: Death

Li Huowang swayed unsteadily as he gazed at the "six men" in the distance; now, they too had undergone a drastic transformation in his eyes.

Their bodies remained the same, yet their facial features were utterly twisted and elongated, spliced and reassembled into distinct tiles of flesh and blood mahjong.

"Stop! We will help you purge Danyangzi right now!"

Hearing these words, Li Huowang, on the verge of a breakdown, laughed; it was merely an instinctive reflex, for his heart felt no joy whatsoever.

He ought to have been overjoyed at this moment, yet the Li Huowang of now, tormented by the ultimate dual agony, had completely lost the capacity to perceive joy.

All his strength was devoted to resisting his overwhelming urge to end his own life.

In a daze, Li Huowang saw one of the Three-Striped elders speak.

"Xuanyang, cross your legs! Cup your hands over your dantian, form the Crouching Dragon mudra, and guard your heart!"

Li Huowang did his utmost to comply, and the blood talismans around him trembled in tandem with his swaying body.

Immediately after, Li Huowang watched as the six elders approached, sitting cross-legged in a circle at a distance of three zhang.

As the six spoke in unison, to his surprise, what they uttered was no obscure decree or bizarre incantation, but a rhetorical question laden with heavy echoes.

"What is the Way of Sitting and Forgetting?"

"Let go of your limbs, dismiss your hearing and sight, shed your form and abandon your knowledge, thus becoming one with the Great Thoroughfare; this is called Sitting and Forgetting!"

As they chanted to themselves, the garments of the six began to billow in the wind and levitate into the air, while the colors of everything around them started to shift and misalign.

"Nay!" A voice from an unknown source instantly seized the hearts of all present, and in an instant, everything around them lost its luster.

"Nay!"

"Nay!"

"Nay!"

"Nay!"

"Nay!"

"Nay!"

The six elders repeated in unison, and the sound instantly magnified countless times.

The fractured sky began to be shrouded by a certain dark cloud, and Li Huowang's merged sensory perception of his facial features gradually returned, yet it felt somewhat different from before.

"To sit is to move. To forget is to contemplate. Not sitting halts one's toil, not forgetting ceases one's thoughts. When toil does not cease, the spirit is still. When thoughts do not cease, the mind is at peace!"

As these words left the mouths of the six elders, Li Huowang seemed to sense something, instantly raising his head, and right then he saw Danyangzi hidden within the black clouds.

This time, Danyangzi was somewhat different from last time; a semi-transparent, umbilical-cord-like appendage protruded from his abdomen, connecting directly to Li Huowang.

Danyangzi's three heads turned toward Li Huowang simultaneously, and six pairs of eyes glared at him with extreme hatred.

"Treacherous disciple! Seeking others to deal with your master again? Hmph! Did you think you could hide? Your master is already an immortal!"

"Immortal... immortal... heh heh heh..." On the brink of collapse, Li Huowang gazed at the nauseating tentacle-like organs on Danyangzi's body.

Li Huowang drew a deep breath and roared at Danyangzi, "A creature like you can be an immortal? What right do you have to be an immortal? Is there no justice left in this place?!"

"Hmph! You have killed no fewer people than I have; what right do you have to speak such words!"

Danyangzi's right child-like head swayed slightly, and a sword of flesh and copper coins was coiled by his three tentacles.

Bearing his deformed body, he swooped down upon the six elders below like a falcon treading on black clouds.

Ignoring Danyangzi above entirely, the six elders simultaneously formed mudras with their hands and pointed at Li Huowang in the center.

"The gathering of three flowers at the crown is but an illusion, the clouds rising beneath the feet are equally unreal. A grand dream must eventually awaken, without root or pole, all returns to dust."

As these words were spoken, Danyangzi in the air seemed struck by a great mountain, plummeting straight to the ground with a trailing afterimage.

Immediately after, Li Huowang, engulfed in flames, began to feel an anomaly in his belly, as if something was thrashing about.

Perhaps it was agonizing, but Li Huowang could no longer feel it at this moment.

He only saw that the "umbilical cord" connecting him to Danyangzi had grown thicker and darker, so much so that it seemed he could grasp it with his hands.

Tentatively reaching out with both hands, he found he could indeed touch it, and even the flames on his hands caused the "umbilical cord" to sizzle and hiss as it burned.

"This... this is impossible!! I am an immortal now! Who dares stop me!!" Danyangzi, having crashed heavily to the ground, struggled to rise.

The six elders sighed in unison and began to recite in chorus.

"Thus, when physical forms become prominent, the mind grows bewildered; when principles and matters arise, emotions and thoughts are overlooked. Moreover, the Ultimate Dao transcends color and taste, the true nature is separated from desire; how can one hear the subtle and suspend belief, listen to the formless and remain unconfused? As when one hears the method of Sitting and Forgetting..."

As this fluctuating volume of sound rang out, Li Huowang suddenly realized that everything around him had become misaligned.

He should have been sitting cross-legged in the center of the crowd, but now he was tilted and stuck in mid-air.

This was not just his plight; everyone else was the same, with some even having half their bodies stuck in the dirt and the other half protruding outside.

Compared to them, Danyangzi's transformation was even greater; surrounded by the chanting, everything on his body began to melt, and his ethereal, floating immortal sash fell limply to the ground, stained by the mud of the mortal realm.

"Within the Ultimate Dao, there is silent nothingness; the spirit's application is boundless, and the substance of the mind is the same. Tracing the substance of the mind..."

As the chanting continued, Li Huowang saw a trail of white smoke drift from the mahjong heads of the six elders, intertwining into a hemp rope and drilling into the earth.

"This... impossible... this... impossible! I am an immortal...!!" These were Danyangzi's final words.

After uttering these last words, Danyangzi completely collapsed.

Everything of his body turned into masses of black clouds, drifting into the sky, but before reaching halfway, they dissipated entirely.

Almost at the same instant, Li Huowang began to retch violently, and with a "Ugh!", he vomited out half a face entangled with tentacles.

It was half of Danyangzi's face; this half was pale and foul-smelling, evidently dead.

Li Huowang stared at this half-face before him, as if he were dreaming.

With trembling hands, he cupped it, watching helplessly as Danyangzi's half-face burned to ashes in his grasp.

Danyangzi was gone; the entity that had constantly plotted to assimilate him was finally gone.

As for how happy he was at this moment, Li Huowang felt no such thing; he only felt an emptiness in his heart.

The excruciating pain of body and mind left him unable to contemplate any other complex emotions.

The six elders exchanged a glance and simultaneously formed another mudra, pointing at Li Huowang once more.

The hook-shaped blood talismans around him slowly descended, returning to the ground.

The dark clouds in the sky parted, and the extremely distant and high Bahui, like a sun, illuminated everyone once again.

Li Huowang stood frozen on the spot, ignoring everything around him; he paid no heed to what the six elders were doing, nor did he wish to know.

Merely holding himself back from taking his own life was already an immense struggle.

He did not even know when he had fainted; the last scene Li Huowang saw was the charred ashes of Danyangzi on the ground.

(End of Chapter)