Chapter 699
Chapter 699
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 699
>Chapter Title: Ascending the Steps
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Chapter 699: Ascending the Steps
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> Not long after those Bai family members appeared, the Second God immediately sensed the unstable emotions from the upper half of their shared body on the other side.
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> “These are all fake! All illusions! We’re still inside the Earth Dragon’s belly! It’s all hallucinations caused by this place!!” The Second God frantically persuaded in their mind while sensing the other’s matching feelings.
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> “Don’t doubt the Unborn Old Mother! Have you forgotten? The Unborn Old Mother saves all beings! Return to the Vacuity Home! Your whole family is there! They’re all fine! These are illusions! All fake!”
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> After the Second God finished speaking, Bai Lingmiao’s sorrowful voice rang in her ears. “I know, I know! I know they’re fake. I just...”
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> Immediately after, the Second God felt an overwhelming wave of extreme grief crashing over from the other side once more.
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> “Even after becoming the White Lotus Saintess, you’re still so useless!” The furious Second God peered through the hazy red veil at the chaos surrounding them.
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> Her hand, with its black nails, gently pressed against her abdomen, feeling the wriggling maggots beneath her skin.
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> The Second God looked toward Li Huowang at that moment. Seeing that he had no way to deal with the situation, she knew they were in deep trouble.
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> If even Li Huowang couldn’t resolve it, then the situation had likely reached its most critical moment.
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> There was no time to worry about anything else now. If they didn’t think of a solution soon, they would all die here!
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> Clutching onto a sliver of hope, the Second God placed her hands in the lotus mudra over her abdomen. Her mouth, lined with sharp fangs, opened wide as she chanted rapidly, “In chaos’s dawn, spirit light gleams first—Unborn Old Mother born, then Heaven appears. Unborn births the Taiji Mother, Taiji adds the Two Polarities. Two Polarities birth the Four Images, Five Elements and Eight Trigrams complete...”
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> As she chanted, the conjoined lotus mark between their brows flashed rapidly. The Second God tried to summon the Unborn Old Mother through spirit mediumship, but there always seemed to be a hazy layer blocking it—she could never quite connect.
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> As time ticked by, the Second God felt her link to the Unborn Old Mother growing weaker and weaker.
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> The two shared one body, so Bai Lingmiao felt the Second God’s sensations as well. Her voice trembling, she said to the Second God, “I have a way to escape.”
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> Hearing the choked sob in her mind, the Second God snapped irritably, “If you have a way, why didn’t you say so earlier?!”
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> “But this method requires us to die.”
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> “Then what’s the point?! You might as well not say anything!”
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> “But at least this way, Senior Brother Li and Sui Sui can live, right? I don’t want them to die.”
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> “...Fine!”
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> Pain—endless agony yanked the Second God back from her thoughts.
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> Surrounded by evils, she felt them wildly tearing at her hair, prying off her nails, gouging out her eyeballs, and savagely biting into her body.
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> Regret? The Second God didn’t feel any. Once she’d done something, no matter the cost, she never regretted it. She just felt a little unwilling.
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> “Miaomiao!” Li Huowang’s muffled shout came from beyond the layered evils.
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> “Shut up and hurry up with the Cang Qiang Ascending Steps to escape! If even my death can’t get you to ascend, then Li Huowang, you really deserve to die!!”
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> The Second God’s mouth snapped open wide, viciously biting into an evil’s face. Her razor-sharp fangs pierced through, chomping off its head entirely.
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> Meanwhile, Bai Lingmiao, her eye sockets empty, shed bloody tears. As she felt her body slipping away piece by piece, for some reason, that pain made her heart feel inexplicably better.
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> At this moment, Li Huowang had charged into the horde of evils. Ignoring those gnawing at him from all sides, he frantically searched for Bai Lingmiao.
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> But after circling through, all he found were Bai Lingmiao’s two eyeballs and half a mangled body. He let out a heart-wrenching roar.
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> Everything they’d been through since leaving Clear Wind Temple flashed through Li Huowang’s mind. For the first time, he truly understood what it meant to have his heart cut by knives.
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> Bai Lingmiao was dead—the girl he’d sworn to take home and marry was dead.
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> Even at the very end, she’d valued his life more than her own!
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> The Great Thousand Record lay spread on the ground. Li Huowang’s expression collapsed as his trembling hands clenched, his teeth grinding with a creak.
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> He gripped the long awl embedded in his abdomen, twisting it hard to the left before yanking it out fiercely.
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> Chunks of flesh-wrapped maggots sprayed out in a massive gush.
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> “Aaahhh!!” Li Huowang raised the awl, slick with his own shredded flesh, and slammed it into the bamboo slips glowing with eerie red light before him.
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> “Clang clang~!” Aberrant black flames erupted in a spray.
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> At the same time, over a dozen tentacles wrapped around various torture implements and thrust them into Li Huowang’s body, then yanked them out.
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> Blood, flesh, and maggots splattered through the air together.
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> When his heart and body plunged into ultimate agony simultaneously, Li Huowang felt a familiar gaze from below him.
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> Li Huowang’s facial features began melding back together. Suddenly, his body split open in scales like a fish’s, then vibrated at high frequency like insect wings.
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> As this unprecedented change occurred, Li Huowang finally sensed Ba Hui once more in the extremely high and deep sky above, catching the alluring aura emanating from its form.
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> Under Ba Hui’s aura, the pain in Li Huowang’s body and mind began transforming, coalescing into another kind of substance.
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> The next moment, an intensely terrifying agony radiated from Li Huowang, infecting everything around him.
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> Maggots, evils, and even the other survivors all collapsed to the ground, writhing in despairing torment, emitting waves of wails.
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> The nearby walls seemed to come alive, cracking open into twisted faces that screamed and sobbed.
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> Then the entire ground began to quake, low rumbling voices echoing from all directions—the Earth Dragon’s voice. It too felt the ultimate pain.
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> “Aaahhh!!” The shattered Li Huowang stood, his body arching straight as he screamed at the gaze shooting up from the ground. His hands plunged straight into the floor.
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> Li Huowang’s head swelled larger and larger. Boom! One head exploded outright, followed by a second.
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> Just as the central third reached its limit, the ground finally cracked open under Li Huowang’s wrenching. They tumbled outward through the fissure.
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> The descent was swift; wind howled past almost immediately. Li Huowang glimpsed the profound night sky beyond his lower end.
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> For some reason, while inside the Earth Dragon’s belly, they’d ended up inverted.
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> The group with Li Huowang showed no sign of slowing, plummeting at breakneck speed toward that expanse of black.
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> Amid it all, Li Huowang smelled Ba Hui’s presence. He also heard something else—that bizarre crane cry.
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