Chapter 624: The Long Night Fades Away (3)

Chapter 624: The Long Night Fades (3)

"Blinded by greed, he thought himself able to snatch chestnuts from the fire. Bereft of reason, he insisted on bargaining with a tiger for its skin."

Though he had already witnessed Long Sheng’s fate and suspected as much, it was only when his own Wisdom Root fell into the same loss of control that Shiyi truly understood the depth of Long Sheng’s agony and despair at death.

"All this obsession was only to seek a path to survival, but in the end, I became another's field, planting another's fruit. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous! Hahahaha..."

Shiyi’s figure stood frozen midair, a bitter, self-mocking smile on his bloodstained face. His aura rapidly decayed, as if this scene had extinguished every last shred of his spirit.

In the midst of his mad laughter, Shiyi suddenly raised his hand and grabbed the Wisdom Root that had burst forth from his own face.

Amid a sickening crackle, Shiyi tore his Wisdom Root out by force and held it before him.

From his mangled eye sockets, crimson blood streamed as he stared blankly at the writhing, struggling mass of flesh in his palm.

"How could such a filthy, loathsome thing exist within my body?"

A faint Buddha thought sent a warning: a sword light was howling toward him from afar.

"Enough, enough."

Shiyi gripped the shrieking mass tightly, slowly extended his arm, as if offering it to the approaching sword light.

Clang!

The long sword, like splitting bamboo, pierced Shiyi’s unresisting palm and the struggling Wisdom Root within it, its momentum unstopped, tearing the entire arm apart and bursting out through the shoulder.

"Chen Qisheng, beware of Yin Ji. He is the true leader of Sheji, the real hand behind the disaster in the borderlands!"

The flying sword turned in an arc and mercilessly pierced through the back of the skull, exiting the forehead.

"If she truly succeeds in her ascension, Chen Qisheng, please tell her..."

The dying monk’s lips quivered, his voice faint as a mosquito’s hum, filled with ineffable sorrow.

"Tell the Bodhisattva... White Horse Shiyi has failed the Buddha, failed the borderlands."

Squelch!

The flying sword twisted and spun within the skull, and a Fire Seal sorcery burst forth, washing Shiyi’s corpse into ashes.

Chen Qisheng raised his hand to brush away the black ashes drifting toward him, and with that, he dispelled the remnants of Shiyi’s last words still lingering in the air.

Such meaningless confessions, Chen Qisheng naturally would not relay for him.

As a Buddha guarding a region, could he truly be so naive as to be completely unaware of the latent danger Sheji had left within him?

Shiyi’s deathbed awakening, in Chen Qisheng’s eyes, was merely a different agenda.

Who knew whether Yuan Mingfei, after achieving the Second Order of Buddha, might have other means to resurrect him upon hearing this confession?

They were all wolf-like and tiger-like figures; trading lives in desperate straits was the norm; everything else was nonsense.

If not for the sudden loss of control of the Wisdom Root, leaving Shiyi defenseless and trapped in a deathbound situation, Chen Qisheng believed he would never have begged the Bodhisattva for forgiveness.

He would have made the Bodhisattva kowtow at his feet!

"But I am still a bit short of fully breaking into the Third Order Shepherd Lord..."

Chen Qisheng stood in the air with his sword, carefully feeling the surging true energy and divine thoughts within him.

In Zhao Yanlong’s cave heaven, he had already fulfilled all the requirements for ascension; the only shortcoming was that the fusion between the True Martial Spirit and himself was still incomplete.

This was a gradual process; no amount of urgency from Chen Qisheng would help.

But now it was only a step away; he could cross it at any time.

"Who is this Yin Ji he mentioned?"

Chen Qisheng recalled Shiyi’s words, and doubts arose in his heart.

During the previous confrontation, the only one from Sheji who had shown himself was a fat man called Feiyi; there was no one else.

"It seems there are still others hiding in the shadows."

Just as Chen Qisheng was deep in thought, a familiar cry of alarm came from behind him.

He whirled around and saw that on the mountaintop plaza, the silent fields of flesh were stirring again, surging and spreading forward.

Mo Qijing flapped his enormous, wall-like wings, but to no avail; he could not stop the all-pervading fields of flesh. Instead, the scales on his wings were constantly corroded and fell off by the adhering flesh.

Yuan Mingfei’s brow had split open at some point, and a writhing Wisdom Root emerged from it. Her tightly shut eyes snapped open, and deep within her pupils, characters slowly surfaced.

It was the character "Yin"!

"Hahahahaha..."

Feiyi’s frenzied laughter rolled through the surging sea of blood, his fat-folded face filled with an indescribably eerie aura.

At this moment, half of his body was fused into the shoulder of Qianzu, his fingers interlocked before his chest, squinting at the fierce figure before him.

"Li Jun, you are truly fortunate, to have someone willing to sacrifice themselves like this for you. Knowing full well that Lin Jiapo left behind a fiery pit, she still jumped into it without hesitation."

Feiyi clicked his tongue and said, "But don’t worry, she won’t die so easily. On the contrary, she will attain true immortality. She will become the mother tree of our Jichang, ceaselessly producing fields of flesh for us until they cover the entire borderlands."

"Shut up!"

Li Jun’s brows shot up, and his whip-like leg viciously swept against the rib cage of the flesh Buddha before him, producing a sharp sonic boom.

Pfft!

The leg shadow, sharp as a blade and carrying fierce force, carved a huge gash in Qianzu’s waist. Steaming organs and innards spilled out with a splash, writhing and twitching in the air.

Qianzu seemed oblivious to such horrific injury. On his back, blood tendons as thick as a fist connected to the fields of flesh covering the mountain, drawing in massive amounts of flesh with each surge, rapidly healing the wound at his waist.

"Hmm?"

Li Jun raised an eyebrow. Though the fleshy body Feiyi had condensed for Qianzu still couldn’t block his sharp force, its strength and regenerative ability had improved significantly; he could no longer destroy it with the same overwhelming ease as in Xin’an City.

This feeling was as if this Ji was gradually adapting to the characteristics of his force.

In an instant, Qianzu’s injuries were fully healed. He quickly closed in, his massive fist punching toward Li Jun’s head.

Bang!

Li Jun stomped his foot in the air, producing a piercing boom, and charged forward, crashing into and shattering Qianzu’s fist head-on.

Amidst the splattering flesh, Li Jun reached for Feiyi on Qianzu’s shoulder. The latter reacted swiftly, directly shrinking into Qianzu’s body.

Having failed in his sudden attack, Li Jun directly grabbed Qianzu’s shoulder, tore off an arm thick as a beam, swung it in his hand like a long staff, and swept it forward, exploding Qianzu’s head with a crash.

Filth scattered everywhere, the stench of blood thick enough to choke.

Injuries that would have killed an ordinary man were not fatal to Qianzu at this moment. Li Jun was clearly aware of this and had no intention of stopping.

Punch shadows splattered like a rainstorm battering the body; the continuous explosive sounds made one’s heart feel suffocated.

The collapsing force blasted Qianzu’s tough flesh into patches of crimson mist. The regenerating and re-shattering pulp spread out, like a blood cloud enveloping the two.

Qianzu’s upper body was completely torn apart by Li Jun. The blood-tendon pipe connecting to the distant fields of flesh was also severed, spewing massive amounts of blood as it flailed wildly in the air.

Li Jun burst through the blurring blood mist but before he could turn around, Feiyi’s nauseating laughter rang out again.

"Our Sheji has operated the Jichang for decades, and it is now all buried in this Sangyan Buddha Land. Li Jun, do you think you can kill it all?"

Sharp sounds of piercing air came one after another. Li Jun whirled around and saw that the exploding blood mist was suddenly contracting inward, condensing into a terrifying silhouette with a hundred arms. Countless arms shot out and bound Li Jun’s limbs tightly.

Sharpness and Collapse, two martial disciplines, surged wildly within Li Jun for an instant, only to cease abruptly the moment they left his body.

Then, from the newly condensed hundred-armed Buddha of Ancestor Qian, faces began to emerge one after another—some were Ancestor Qian himself, others were Feiyi.

These faces were either glaring with fury, sneering with contempt, leering with greed, or grinning with madness, sending a chill down the spine of any onlooker.

A Buddha-thought of overwhelming force charged head-on, and even with the 'Sky-Deceiving' guarding his mind, Li Jun was stunned into a momentary daze.

At the same time, the fields of flesh covering the mountain suddenly erupted into monstrous waves, surging into the sky and wrapping tightly around Li Jun’s powerful frame.

A rumbling sound, like a hungry stomach growling, echoed across the heavens in an instant.

“Feiyi, eat him!”

Ancestor Qian’s frantic shout came from within the hundred-armed flesh-Buddha.

“I’m eating, I’m eating!”

Feiyi’s head emerged from Ancestor Qian’s chest, eyes burning with desire, drool spilling from the corners of his mouth.

The veins on the mass of flesh enveloping Li Jun bulged one after another, crisscrossed like a net, trying to contract and squeeze inward, only to suddenly expand outward, seeping large amounts of blood, repeating the cycle in relentless tremors.

“Ah, what a pity. Still can’t bite through.”

Feiyi looked at the chunk of flesh before him, where veins kept snapping, and a deep regret spread across his face.

“Ancestor Qian, it seems you’ll need to put in more effort.”

“What did you say?!”

No sooner had Ancestor Qian spoken than the flesh mass exploded with a deafening roar.

A sudden flash of black-red lightning shot across the sky, reaching Ancestor Qian in the blink of an eye.

A fist, wreathed in wisps of white smoke, burst from the lightning and slammed into Ancestor Qian’s hundred arms, raised in a cross-block.

Martial essence hidden within the spirit, the five organs brought to a boil!

Boom!

The force behind this punch was far greater than before; Ancestor Qian had no power to resist. Ring after ring of circular shockwaves exploded behind him as he was sent tumbling and flying backward into the high air.

Lightning flared again, instantly appearing behind Ancestor Qian.

His tattered hundred arms lifted in a futile gesture, but like a patch of wild grass bent by a fierce gale, they snapped one after another under Li Jun’s fists. The stark white, splintered bone stumps sent a shudder through the heart.

Ancestor Qian shot down from the sky like an arrow, crashing straight into the mountain.

Dust burst everywhere, rubble rolled; in the ten-foot-wide crater, cracks spread as thick as three fingers, and the residual force carved the surrounding fields of flesh into a pulpy ruin.

“Feiyi, think of something quickly! I can’t hold on much longer!”

“Ancestor Qian, I’m just a commune lord of the third agricultural rank. I’ve used every trick I have. What other options are left? This Li Jun truly cannot be overpowered.”

“Stop playing dumb with me! Feiyi, I’m warning you—if you keep holding back, don’t blame me for dragging you down to die with me!”

“Fine, fine. But when we divide the meat later, you’ll have to give me an extra share.”

A savage gale burst from the pit. As the dust cleared, a battered figure stood at the bottom, its shattered hundred arms lying like useless scraps of flesh at its feet.

Blackish-blue meridians spread and intertwined; white bones grew at a rapid pace; writhing flesh filled the hollows of the body, reforming Ancestor Qian’s complete features. Black hair sprouted from pores, coiled into a topknot, and golden skin covered his surface.

Scriptures of the Buddhist order, red as blood, were carved into every inch of his body, radiating an overwhelming pressure like mountains and peaks, condensing into a true Buddhist golden body!

Ancestor Qian’s eyes half-closed, like a Buddha descending into the mortal world. Surging power torrented within him, and his swelling Buddha-thought stirred the broken arm bones on the ground, gathering behind his head to form a ring of white bone Dharma.

“Above the heavens, below the earth…”

Ancestor Qian’s expression turned solemn. He pointed with both hands, one toward the sky, one toward the ground.

“…I alone am honored!”

Boom!

The deep pit suddenly sank further; the newly split cracks were wide enough to swallow a grown man whole. The towering mountain seemed to tremble under this terrifying force.

Ancestor Qian shot into the sky. His golden body blazed with dazzling radiance. Buddha-thoughts tore through the air, and a majestic Buddha’s chant resounded.

Boom!

Golden Buddhist light and black-red lightning exploded in midair. The thunderous roar shook heaven and earth.

“Ah, now there really are dead bodies everywhere, above and below.”

Feiyi’s figure emerged from somewhere on the summit plaza. Watching the golden blood rain down slowly from the sky, he sighed in lament.

“We’re all Third Rank, so why are you lone walkers so ridiculously strong? Aren’t you afraid of repeating the past, of being devoured by the world all over again?”

In midair, Li Jun coughed up a mouthful of blood. Ancestor Qian, who had seemed like a divine Buddha moments before, was now held in his right hand—eyes hollow and vacant, flesh torn, white bone exposed.

Rip!

Li Jun’s left hand clamped onto Ancestor Qian’s face, his right hand seized his neck. The muscles in his arms bulged as his savage power slowly poured forth.

“Ah!!!”

In a heart-rending scream, Ancestor Qian clearly felt his spine being pulled from his body inch by inch.

An indescribable agony instantly drowned his mind, yet no matter how wildly he struggled, he could not break free from Li Jun’s grip.

Crunch!

A complete spine was ripped out by Li Jun. The spiritual root attached to it writhed uneasily in the air, and its silent scream stabbed painfully at the eardrums.

Li Jun flicked his wrist, and the spine along with the spiritual root turned to ash.

[Obtained 150 Proficiency Points]

[Remaining Proficiency Points: 252]

[252 Proficiency Points spent, Martial Art ‘Collapse’ upgraded.]

From martial learning to martial technique, then through refinement into martial art, it had reached its limit.

Beyond this lay nothing but the endless refinement of force.

No guidance was needed; Li Jun’s instinct had already told him what to do.

The points consumed gave a significant boost to the force of Collapse within him. Li Jun had a faint premonition: if he continued to advance, his force would eventually undergo a qualitative transformation.

But now was not the time for such thoughts. Those who deserved to die were not all dead yet!

Li Jun descended to the ground and took in the full scene of Yuan Mingfei’s transformation.

The sea of galsang flowers around her had thinned to a shallow layer, depleting rapidly as bloom after bloom sank into her eyes, trying to suppress the character ‘Yin’ that was growing increasingly clear.

Sweat dripped like beans along her temples. Within the crack at her brow, the spiritual root kept extending and retracting, her aura oscillating between fury and calm.

“Li Jun.”

An aged voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

Li Jun turned coldly to see that the flourishing fields of flesh had nearly consumed the entire summit plaza.

From the writhing ground, human-sized lumps of flesh sprouted one after another. Figures emerged from them and lined up in a row ten yards away.

Zheng Chu, Di Yuan, Tian Chou, Wu Ci, Tian Jing—the Four Scourges…

The faces of these figures were unmistakably those of Ministry members. Now ‘resurrected,’ they had become the farmbeasts of this sacrificial field, stark naked, their bloodshot eyes seething with hatred so thick it was almost tangible.

The lumps kept forming, revealing a man and a woman with unfamiliar faces.

"What a fucking beast, even eating his own people."

Zou Sijiu and Zhang Siyuan opened their eyes at the same time, waking from the dream.

"Brother Jun, this old thing is—"

Before Zou Sijiu could finish, he was interrupted by a continuous series of cracking sounds.

This time, a large number of figures emerged from the flesh and blood, among which one face was so familiar that Li Jun's pupils suddenly constricted.

It was Yi Huang!

"Fuck your mother!"

Shen Li's eyes were about to split asunder, his wide-open pupils reflecting those faces etched into his heart; the voices and smiles of the past were still before him.

The Tianque members who had died at Sheji's hands had now become Sheji's enslaved farm beasts.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Li Jun's eyes narrowed, and the words that sprang from his mouth were bone-chillingly cold.

Surrounded by farm beasts, Feiyi stood deferentially behind an old man with a hunched back, like an aged farmer.

"I am Yin Ji, the Heavenly Time of Sheji."

The old man smiled slightly: "Of course, you may also call me Lord Yin of the Eastern Palace."