Chapter 951: Flesh Fate

Chapter 951: The Incarnate Deity of Flesh

Having explained everything to Li Huowang, Xuan Pin felt a sudden sense of relief; after all, this moment had been long in the making.

Xuan Pin turned his head to survey the surroundings, noting that the White Lotus devotees had cordoned off the area, granting them the privacy they required.

It was clearly at Bai Lingmiao’s behest, though she had not wandered far, standing nearby and stifling her sobs.

Evidently, she had overheard everything he had just said, which was for the best; it spared him the trouble of repeating himself.

"Let us leave it at that, then. Now, let us discuss the distribution of the dragon veins." With personal matters settled, Xuan Pin turned to business.

"The Dharma Sect destroyed many veins, so the Great Liang must be compensated for its losses."

"Rest assured, I have considered other regions. The Great Liang shall receive only two. The Dice took one, and the remaining twelve will be split between the Great Qi and the Tian Chen."

"Six for each. Though six hours a day is a meager allotment, it will suffice; at worst, the people in those lands will simply live their lives a bit faster."

"With the Fusheng Heaven deity watching us like a hawk, we need as many people as we can muster."

Xuan Pin received no response. Li Huowang was utterly consumed by the despair and grief of his daughter’s disappearance, indifferent to the fate of the dragon veins.

Seeing Li Huowang clutching his chest in agony, Xuan Pin refused to wait. He reached out and wrenched the spine-sword of the Heart-Plain from Li Huowang’s back.

With a sharp "shing," Li Huowang’s hand clamped onto the blade, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at Xuan Pin. "No! There is still a chance! Li Sui is not dead!"

"Li Sui is not dead! She has merely become a part of you! She is still within your body!" Li Huowang repeated, his gaze resolute and obsessive.

"If she became this way because she possessed others, then we only need to find a way to make her disgorge every soul she has taken over these past hundred and sixty years, and she will live again!"

"Yes! There is a way! There must be! I am Ji Zai! I am the deity who governs bewilderment!"

Li Huowang repeated this over and over, as if only by believing it could he find a shred of solace.

Xuan Pin, shrouded in his crimson robes, sighed. "Li Huowang, stop deceiving yourself. This will not bring Li Sui back, and it will only lead to my death."

"If I poured a basin of water before you, could you tell me which drop was the first?"

With that, Xuan Pin yanked the spine-sword from Li Huowang’s grip, uncaring as the blade shredded the man’s flesh.

Xuan Pin swung the sword with force, and a rift between the Great Liang and the Great Qi tore open before them.

Yet, at that very moment, a strange, rhythmic pulsing surged from the rift.

"Trouble! Something is wrong!" Xuan Pin grabbed Li Huowang and plunged through the rift into the Great Qi.

Upon arrival, Xuan Pin immediately noticed the abnormality in the heavens; the Great Qi, a land that knew neither dawn nor dusk, was now smothered by a dense, overgrown forest.

The Youdu City, only recently established by the Mohists, was almost entirely buried and lost from sight.

"Li Huowang, focus! This is no time for sentimentality; the situation is dire!"

Li Huowang took a deep breath, suppressing the tempest within his heart. "The deity governing the Dao of Growth, Zuo Qiuyong, is dead. Natural disasters are to be expected."

He would not give up so easily; Li Sui could still be saved! She had to be! He simply hadn't found the method yet.

"No, this is not a natural disaster." Xuan Pin led Li Huowang forward until they reached a clearing, where they beheld a flesh-Buddha as massive as a temple.

The appearance of that colossal Buddha shattered Li Huowang’s grief; the matter was far from over.

Every protrusion on the Buddha’s head contained a monk, and Abbot Chandu sat at the center of its brow—it was the Buddha of Zhengde Temple.

The mountain-sized Buddha of flesh sat cross-legged outside the hall, its entire body covered in countless mouths, chanting sutras in a rising and falling chorus.

As the chanting echoed, a blood-red halo flickered behind the Buddha’s head.

Opposite the Buddha, the very air had split into an expanding fissure, from which all manner of growing things erupted and spread across the land.

At a glance, it looked like a gargantuan centipede writhing in mid-air.

Li Huowang could feel that the Great Qi’s rampant growth was caused by the endless seepage of the Dao of Growth from that rift.

The chanting transformed into tangible, fleshy scriptures, binding the rift like chains.

Clearly, the Buddha of Zhengde Temple sought to seal the rift, but the entity on the other side would not permit it.

"Shing!" A giant eye pushed through the rift, fixing its gaze upon Li Huowang.

As the eye appeared, the very heavens of the Great Qi were pulled taut. Everything within the land, living or dead, began to grow with frantic intensity.

The next moment, the fleshy scriptures snapped. The rift in the sky shattered, spreading upward and downward, tearing the world asunder.

A foot as large as a mountain stepped out, followed by another.

Finally, a true giant of flesh, towering between heaven and earth, stood upon the soil of the Great Qi. It was none other than Zuo Qiuyong, the emissary of the Tian Chen whom they had just killed!

Watching this, Li Huowang finally understood the true nature of the Incarnate Deity of Flesh, and why the man had rushed back when Li Huowang had deceived him.

The Zuo Qiuyong he had killed was merely a convenient avatar; his true body had been lying in the Tian Chen all along! Only one who grew to such proportions could command the Dao of Growth with his own flesh! This was his true form!

As Zuo Qiuyong stood there, the world of the Great Qi buckled like a crushed painting, everything collapsing toward him against its will.

"Li Huowang!" Zuo Qiuyong spoke, and a gale-force wind whipped across the sky. "I shall let you die with clarity today! I shall let you know exactly what you have provoked!"

Zuo Qiuyong lowered his head, thrusting it through the clouds to stare at Li Huowang.

In the next instant, Li Huowang felt a sharp pain in his soles. Before he could react, a searing, tearing agony flooded his body as several bloody bamboo shoots pierced his throat and erupted from his mouth.

With a crackling sound of rapid growth, Li Huowang’s body was skewered by the bamboo shoots sprouting from the earth, pinning him suspended in mid-air.

The bamboo shoots within him did not cease their growth, continuing to tear through his flesh from the inside out.