Chapter 553
Chapter 553
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 553
>Chapter Title: Death
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
Facing such a bizarre attack from Xuniang, the dragon vein showed no intention of letting things slide. It struggled desperately, tangling with Xuniang's crimson afterimage.
As Li Huowang was about to crash into the dragon vein, over a dozen dragon claws stood erect, waiting for him.
But this was merely a feint from Li Huowang to mislead them. Peng Longteng instantly appeared in front of him, steadily catching him before hurling him viciously toward the Daqi little emperor.
This figure could no longer be called a little emperor. He had completely transformed into a palm-sized, nearly transparent premature infant.
Li Huowang suddenly thrust out his hand, yanking the purple-tasseled sword from the dragon vein with one grip, and slashed toward the little emperor.
“Brother Li! You can’t kill it like this! Sever its link to the dragon vein first!”
Hearing Zhuge Yuan’s words, Li Huowang, teeth gritted, shifted the blade of his sword down three inches.
With a ripping “slash,” the little emperor’s back, connected to the dragon vein, was torn open in a bloody mess.
In the next instant, Li Huowang flicked the purple-tasseled sword upward, its razor-sharp tip piercing straight through the other’s chest.
The grotesquely formed Daqi emperor let out a struggling wail before his slender fingers clutched at the air behind him. His head lolled to the side, and he moved no more.
As Li Huowang plummeted to the ground with the little emperor’s corpse impaled on his sword, the dragon vein—now bereft of its little emperor—began to swell madly.
Viscous blood, bizarre organs, and all manner of twisted dragon scales, claws, and horns burst through the dragon robe from within.
The swollen eyes of all sizes atop it fixed dead on Li Huowang, brimming with sickly craving.
Those clustered dragon claws strained with all their might toward Li Huowang—or more precisely, toward the little emperor’s corpse on his sword.
“Brother Li! This won’t work! The dragon qi will revive this little emperor again! Don’t let them touch it! Hurry and toss him into Da Liang!”
Li Huowang fiercely shook his sword in midair, flinging the corpse into the crimson phantom beside Xuniang.
He swiftly drew his spine sword and slashed hard toward it. The rift in history pierced through Xuniang’s red form, carrying the little emperor inside to Da Liang.
By the time he’d dealt with all this, the hard ground was mere inches away.
Li Huowang took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. In the next moment, he felt his body slam heavily into an icy water surface.
Sensing the water sliding over his skin, he didn’t swim upward immediately. Instead, he kicked his legs, skimming along the riverbed toward the left.
He swam like this until he was nearly out of breath before struggling toward the surface. As his head throbbed more intensely, the water grew thicker and stickier, the pressure from all sides mounting heavier.
With a “thud,” Li Huowang burst through the earth, flipping out from the soil. He opened his mouth and vomited up chunks of dirt.
Ignoring the agony racking his body, Li Huowang instinctively looked up, ready to scan toward the dragon vein.
But before he could make anything out, the ground began to quake violently. “An earthquake?!”
In the darkness, sand and stones flew, the heavens and earth shifting dramatically. With his severe injuries, there was little a battered Li Huowang could do. He could only sprawl on the ground, mustering his strength to wait out the quake.
He didn’t know how much time passed. Only when the wounds on his body had begun to scab over did the intense trembling finally subside.
Propping himself on his sword against the ground, Li Huowang shakily stood and cautiously peered into the dust-choked surroundings.
“Wait, why is it so bright? Has the heavenly disaster passed?” Li Huowang probed carefully for a moment before jerking his head up, realizing the darkness overhead had indeed vanished!
But before his joy could settle, Li Huowang noticed something off about the sun hanging high in the sky. The sphere that should have blazed brilliantly now bore black blotches upon it.
“Wow, Daoist, this heavenly dog really ate the sun.” The monk shaded his eyes with his right hand, tilting his head to gaze at the bizarre spectacle in the sky, remarking with deep emotion.
“What... what in the world is going on here? Is this world even real?” A flicker of doubt sent a chill shuddering through Li Huowang’s heart.
“No, you can’t doubt it. You’re a heart elemental! If you start doubting, things are going to go really wrong!” Li Huowang clenched his fist and smashed it into his own head.
After several hard blows, Li Huowang stopped—not of his own will, but forced by a surging sense of mortal peril.
“Thud~!” A massive beastly paw slammed into the ground, scattering the surrounding dust. Xuniang then emerged from it in her enormous form.
The previous fierce battle had clearly drained Xuniang greatly as well. Though her fur was now patchy and the cracks on her face more numerous, compared to Li Huowang’s wretched state, she was infinitely better off.
Li Huowang gripped his sword hilt with all his remaining strength and looked up at that tattered woman’s face, clenching his teeth without betraying a hint of fear as he asked: “Even in this state, you still want to fight me? Since you can understand human speech, you should know there’s no grudge between us to begin with, right?”
Xuniang didn’t respond immediately to Li Huowang’s words. Gradually, a profoundly complex expression, almost human, formed on her torn face, as if she wanted to say something to him.
Li Huowang had no intention of waiting for her to deliberate. He began retreating step by step. Just as Xuniang’s colossal body sank back into the yellowish dust, a woman’s voice laden with countless emotions echoed from within.
“To send a colored letter with fine silk. Mountains stretch long, rivers flow wide—who knows where.”
It was almost a knee-jerk reaction as Li Huowang raised his weapon. “What su?! Has she figured out I’m a heart elemental?”
After waiting a while and realizing Xuniang had truly departed, Li Huowang realized he’d misunderstood. These two lines seemed to carry some other meaning.
“Fine silk? Brother Zhuge, what did Xuniang mean by that just now?” Li Huowang asked puzzledly in his mind.
Zhuge Yuan gazed in the direction Xuniang had left, pondered for a moment, then said offhandedly: “Xuniang’s always been one to mimic speech. It means nothing, Brother Li. In your current state, you should hurry back to Da Liang and rest up.”
Li Huowang glanced at him, then down at his own wrinkled, injured leg. “How am I supposed to chase the rift like this? Better to recover some strength here first.”
With that, Li Huowang leaned on his sword, retrieved his red Daoist robe and draped it over himself, then slowly sat down on a nearby rock.
Gradually, the dust stirred up by the earthquake settled around them. The sight that emerged left him utterly stunned—the quake had utterly reshaped the terrain.
What had been a plain moments ago was now a sheer cliff, and he was perched right on its precarious edge.
What in the world was going on? Li Huowang glanced down at the jumbled wreckage below the cliff, then up at the black-and-yellow sun. His mind reeled in chaos, gripped by a dreamlike illusion.
Zhuge Yuan beside him silently took in the scene alongside Li Huowang. After a long pause, he slowly said: “I wouldn’t know either...”