Chapter 695: Insisting I Die

Chapter 695: I Must Die

Boom!

A celestial track star exploded in mid‑air, its scattered fragments like a meteor shower of fire, blossoming into a gorgeous fireworks display beneath the night sky.

The figure darting across the ground burst with a speed that left onlookers gasping, colliding and crossing, the earth trembling and cracking, rolling up clouds of dust that surged in all directions.

Sharp Force!

Collapsing Force!

Conceal the Divine!

A bone‑white fist slammed forward, wind fierce, punch heavy; Zhang Hiji could no longer spare a thought for his lost fortune, slipping sideways by a hair’s breadth to dodge Li Jun’s straight punch.

The piercing force, like a blade thrust, raked a bloody gash across the Taoist’s brow, crimson streaming, adding a touch of madness to his fury.

Zhang Hiji thrust his arm from his waist, aiming for Li Jun’s ribs; pure flesh‑and‑blood power squeezed out a visible ripple of shock at the fist’s tip.

Bang!

Li Jun’s body shuddered, the ground beneath him splitting and collapsing; he bore the opponent’s counter‑attack head‑on, baring a tooth streaked with blood, his eyes brimming with wild arrogance as he drove an elbow sideways into Zhang Hiji’s cheek.

That elbow sent Zhang Hiji reeling, yet compared to the bodily pain, the suffocating frustration inside him was harder to bear. With hair standing on end from rage, he simply stopped dodging and defending.

The two silhouettes entwined, fists and feet flying, producing a crackling burst of explosions in the air.

Thud!

A series of crisp snaps was cut off by a deep, muffled roar.

A fine mist of blood exploded in the wind—Zhang Hiji was flung backward. The Taoist’s face twisted in savage glee; he gritted his teeth and drove his hovering feet deep into the earth, tearing a winding trench over ten zhang long before he could finally regain his footing.

Rolling dust clouds drifted down, coating the ravaged ground with a thick layer of loose soil.

The shattered relic trailed a scarlet flame tail, striking the earth just then; within the fierce blaze rose the earth’s anguished wail.

The two, temporarily separated, presented equally pitiable sights.

Li Jun was drenched in blood, his body covered in horrifying wounds that laid bone bare, especially a depression in his chest that made the flesh crawl.

Zhang Hiji’s arms trembled incessantly; from the backs of his hands outward, the skin split inch by inch, porcelain‑like cracks spreading up to his shoulders.

This body, forged from untold amounts of old‑path Daoist flesh and essence, had reached the limit of a third‑order herdsman sovereign’s strength; its only flaw was the lack of true qi reinforcement, and after a relentless storm of blows it now teetered on the brink of disintegration.

As one of Zhang Hiji’s most vital trump cards seized in the new‑old Daoist conflict, this old‑path vessel had been nurtured for years within the celestial track star ‘Kunlun’.

Although it could not perfectly replicate the might of the former Wudang patriarch, years of experimentation let Zhang Hiji decipher, from the myriad techniques left by Wudang, how to command this Daoist body.

With divine thought as his wearer, he donned this bloody Dao armor.

This is the Dao armor method he forged for the new Daoist order, designed to compensate for close‑combat shortcomings!

From the outset of this battle, Zhang Hiji’s purpose in revealing this trump card was to unleash a single, furious strike that would kill Li Jun. Yet he ultimately underestimated how thick‑skinned and tough Li Jun truly was.

Moreover, because the fervent belief had been exhausted, Zhang Hiji’s own ‘position and karma’ ceased to be stable; with his divine thought damaged, the bloody Dao armor could no longer withstand Li Jun’s ferocious, peerless onslaught.

Crack!

As a succession of tiny cracks rang in his ears, Zhang Hiji’s heart inexplicably turned cold.

In his sight, Li Jun’s body crackled with violent lightning shadows, his eyes seeming to overflow with thunder‑fire, black‑red arcs coiling and wandering across his hair.

The next instant, the figure vanished from where it stood.

Zhang Hiji’s hairs stood on end; his bodily instinct urged him to leap backward, but he was a step too late.

Li Jun’s heavy fist descended, carrying collapsing force that smashed straight through Zhang Hiji’s blocking arm, devoid of any finesse; he seized the opponent’s head and pressed down.

Thud!

A knee strike crushed Zhang Hiji’s facial bones, blood spraying instantly; as if plunged into a swoon, the fingers he had sunk into Li Jun’s flesh suddenly slackened, hanging limp upon Li Jun’s body.

Pfft!

Li Jun’s hand‑knife flashed down, cleanly severing Zhang Hiji’s two arms that were already on the verge of collapse; he gripped the throat and whipped it like a lash, the sound of shattering bones chaining together like summer rain hammering tiles.

Huh.

Zhang Hiji tumbled like a stone skipped across a river, flung high into the sky; Li Jun shot upward, hot on his heels.

High above, the Horse King, having finished with all the celestial track stars, heard a strange rumble from below and instinctively lowered his gaze.

He saw a black‑red lightning bolt weaving through the void; Zhang Hiji tumbled and flew sideways, like a torn sack unable to hold its flesh and blood, utterly powerless to strike back.

Boom!

Another barbaric head‑on blow stretched Zhang Hiji’s silhouette into a blurred black line, which slammed deep into the ground.

"Finally, damn it"

Li Jun landed, gulping ragged breaths, his blood‑shot eyes locked on the distant crater that had collapsed.

Pa.

The sound of a foot landing snapped his muttered words.

Amid the swirling dust, a shadow shifted; Zhang Hiji rose, a skeleton draped in shreds of meat, staggering out of the pit.

"Zhang Fengyue"

The hollow, ethereal voice seemed to drift from the gates of the dead, like a summoning, like a call for one’s life.

Li Jun snatched a breath of the frigid air before him, forcing down the mountain‑weight fatigue that clung to him, his aching lungs squeezing out the last shred of strength.

But before his bent knees could straighten again, Zhang Hiji’s stepping figure lurched, his rotting flesh spasming and trembling, blood spurting like arrows, shooting several feet high.

"Do you want me to make way!"

Zhang Hiji’s lips moved, but before he could finish, the remaining muscles exploded one after another; in an instant he was enveloped by a diffuse blood‑mist, stark white bones tracing cracks through it, then, like a branch unable to bear snow, they snapped with a crisp ‘crack’, scattering into a pallid ash across the ground.

It was merely a final flicker of life!

Li Jun’s taut nerves suddenly slackened; the breath he had been holding in his chest was about to escape.

At that very moment, the heavens and earth erupted with a thunder‑like roar!

"Who dares to demand that this Heavenly Master make way!"

The earth quaked, dust and smoke shooting up ten zhang, whirling and condensing into an armored, whip‑wielding Daoist spirit official.

Radiant light burst from the void; a white‑haired, youthful‑faced green‑robed Heavenly Master appeared atop the dust‑shrouded official, his gaze icy and inhuman.

"After years of clinging to life, this old ghost sure has plenty of trump cards,"

Li Jun squeezed a low curse from his throat, spat a mouthful of blood‑tinged air, slumped shoulders, bent back, his sinews and bones drawn tight as a bowstring about to release.

But in the next instant, an endless sea of blood surged into Li Jun’s vision.

Severed limbs, white bones piled like forests, broken spears and shattered halberds, a landscape of ruin—collapsed mountain gates, burning green hills, blood‑streaked stone steps, charred silhouettes falling from mid‑air.

An indescribable aura of carnage swept across decades of memory, striking Li Jun’s face and shaking his soul to the core.

At this moment, the pure divine thought manifesting as Zhang Hiji was unmistakably the very Dragon‑Tiger Heavenly Master who once led the new Daoist order to slaughter the Wudang mountain gates.

Boom‑rumble!

From the heavens rolled rolling thunder; the Kunlun fragment that Zhang Fengyue had blasted apart, hanging like a crescent moon in the sky, was now dragged by an invisible force and began to fall toward the earth.

Violent friction cloaked the massive mountain in a fiery red-gold edge, the deep night scorched into a blood‑red sunset. Li Jun’s pupils snapped shut, the gene’s shriek filling his mind entirely, drowning out every other sound.

If that celestial orbit star were to fall, let alone this mere hundred‑li radius, even the distant Jinling city would surely be obliterated.

"Zhang Fengyue, you have ruined my station, destroyed my Dao state—such a deep blood‑sea hatred—from now on, I, the Heavenly Master, will have no rest with your Confucian order!"

The heavy clouds shattered, the world grew ever brighter, like an apocalypse scene filled with terrifying oppression that rends heart and spirit.

"What future is left?"

Under the broken eaves, on steps piled with dust, the old man’s face wore fatigue, his pupils reflecting the sky‑wide crimson, murmuring softly.

Just as his voice faded, a chill wind that ought not to appear in this season swept over the ravaged land.

Beneath a sky of fire‑red, boiling‑water intensity, the ochre ground was everywhere glazed with frost.

Roar!

Amidst the sudden, flying snow, a colossal ape shaped like a mountain rose from the earth, its arms as thick as heavenly pillars thrust skyward, as if it could single‑handedly hold up the waning moon about to fall.

Bright Geshan flowers, borne on wind and snow from distant realms, drifted down to blanket the entire form of the earth‑dust spirit official.

Black hair flowing over shoulders, white robes purer than snow.

Yuan Mingfei appeared before Zhang Jiji, raising a hand; a white frost instantly stained the hem of his Dao robe—"Even with Zhang Fengyue’s aid, you remain a false semblance, forever trapped as a mud bodhisattva in the barbaric wilds—dare to act wanton before this Heavenly Master?!"

Zhang Jiji sneered, flicked his sleeve to shatter the chill, then heaved forward with a fierce swing.

"Get out!"

The vast divine thought instantly pulverized the blooming flower sea, tracing sigils in the void, brush strokes coiling like dragons, as if myriad Dao sequences simultaneously unleashed formless arts, each seal script pouring forth.

Boom!

A Buddha sequence two, the Ten Directions Bodhisattvas.

A Dao sequence two, the Sovereign of Station and State.

Having reached this rank, one is no different from immortals; the myriad apparitions half‑air rose and fell like moving a xianxia fantasy’s millet dream into the mortal world.

The cold wind extinguished the fiery sigils, the turning sutra blocked the golden sigil swords, the flower sea trapped the wooden sigil green woods, the divine mountain severed the earthen sigil turbid waves, the red temple suppressed the spirit sigil Dao canon.

Every art and law had a counter, yet compared to Zhang Jiji’s effortless ease, Yuan Mingfei’s lips already bore a winding trace of blood, dripping onto his chest—clearly he was straining to hold on.

"Yuan Mingfei, since heaven offers a road you refuse to walk, today this Heavenly Master shall forge another Buddha armor!"

Freed, the earth‑dust spirit official shook off his heavy armor, stepped forward and launched a fist straight at the blood‑stained Ten Directions Bodhisattva.

"Old thing, have you lost your wits from defeat? In this world there is no longer Mount Longhu, thus there will be no more damned Heavenly Master!"

Even bearing the title ‘Bodhisattva’, Yuan Mingfei could not shed the fiery spirit in his bones.

"I am here, and Longhu remains. Your myriad subjects will eventually become fervent disciples beneath this Heavenly Master’s throne—like pigs, dogs, cattle, sheep—to be slaughtered at will, erasing every trace of your Buddha sequence’s existence."

"Self‑overestimation."

"Nuisance!"

Zhang Jiji’s hair bristled, his divine thought surged like a tide, rushing toward Yuan Mingfei.

Ripples sprang in the void; Yuan Mingfei’s figure resembled moonlight stirred in water—twisted, dissipating, perilously fragile.

At the same instant, the spirit official’s massive fist loomed within arm’s reach.

Suddenly, a black‑blade tip erupted from Yuan Mingfei’s blurred, illusory form, piercing the earthen fist, its force erupting, tearing the official’s arm, the momentum unabated—it cleaved his entire body to nothing.

Within the Buddha’s ripple, a stalwart figure burst forth with the Spring‑Autumn blade, his black hair crowned with a pallor like snow‑white Buddhist light.

Clang!

Zhang Jiji seized the incoming blade with both hands; the transcendent immortal posture now revealed its hideous ferocity.

"Li Jun, you deserve ten thousand deaths!"

"Then let’s see—just who is going to die!"

Li Jun roared, his white hair whipping wildly in the wind.

In the blink of an eye, the erupting divine thought became hundreds of invisible blades, ripping flesh, piercing force, drilling into bone!

Blood filled his eyes; Li Jun released the hilt of the Spring‑Autumn blade, his bare chest lunging forward— the blade grasped by Zhang Jiji shattered into dark‑gold shards that enveloped Li Jun’s form, a scarlet lone eye set into his brow!

The warrior donned armor, his mad cry piercing the heavens.

Though the change was swift and fierce, the Daoist’s divine thought was no slower!

"Li Jun, you walk alone; I, Zhang Jiji, am no different!"

Zhang Jiji’s vision filled with a single fist; the divine thought he had cherished all his life now poured forth completely.

"Die!"

"Die!"

Boom!

After the tremendous roar, heaven and earth fell silent.

Li Jun’s eyes held only a chaos of darkness; his unfocused pupils showed no trace of consciousness, only instinct driving his body to keep throwing punches forward.

Hundreds, thousands, millions of punches.

An endless barrage of fists—Li Jun, like an ancient god who cleaved heaven and earth, sleepless and tireless, hammered sparks into the boundless dark, each impact ringing like shattering mirrors in the voiceless void.

"Die!!!"

The enraged ape raised its fist, shattering the fallen moon!

The warrior raised his fist, piercing the heavenly sovereign of mankind!

A fist reduced nearly to white bone punched through the Daoist’s chest.

"To smash divine thought with flesh alone, to rend the solitary innovator—what an absurd sequence!"

The hoarse, weathered voice sounded right before him, yet Li Jun focused his remaining strength on the black characters appearing in his sight.

[Obtained Mastery Point]

This is both the final verdict after the coffin is closed and an exhilarating gain.

At last he is dead!

But before Li Jun could fully exhale, a sudden mighty force away like a fan hurled him flying.

Zhang Jiji drifted down from midair, landing beneath the tottering broken eaves.

He gazed down at the old man seated on the ground; his eyes held resentment, bewilderment, reluctance— a tangled, ineffable mix.

"Why must you insist on my death?"

Zhang Jiji spoke slowly, his tone tinged with helplessness and grievance.