Chapter 208 Waiting by the Stump for a Hare
The aura emanating from Wang Shouzhi suddenly began to climb frantically!
But the next moment—
A figure as black as ink stepped through the air, her skirt fluttering.
She was a woman—or rather, a fairy who had stepped out of an ancient painting.
Her skin was like snow, yet it carried the chill of cold jade. Her brows were like distant mountains holding ink, and a small, dark mole at the corner of her eye added a touch of the demonic.
Her lips, naturally red, curved slightly upward with a mockery that looked down upon all beings.
Her three thousand strands of black hair were unbound, cascading behind her like splashed ink, with the tips entwined with tiny purple star-sparks.
"I knew you would place the array's eye here."
Her red lips parted slightly, her voice incomparably cold.
She looked down at Wang Shouzhi, whose cultivation had just reached the Celestial Human Realm:
"One hundred thousand years, and you've truly made no progress at all."
Hearing this, Wang Shouzhi abruptly raised his head.
When he saw the woman's face clearly, his ferocious expression instantly froze, and a broken sound was squeezed from his throat:
"You... who are you?!"
Ji Hongli didn't even spare him a glance.
She slowly raised her hand and gently drew a line in the air—
"Shhh—"
The space tore like silk, and a silent, black rift bloomed open.
She reached into it, and the moment her slender five fingers grasped the hilt, the entire world suddenly darkened.
It was a sword, entirely black, its blade carved from obsidian, yet deeper than the night itself, as if it could devour light.
—the Heavenly Cloud Gathering Sword.
Wang Shouzhi's pupils contracted sharply. He instinctively felt an intense danger, and a broken roar was squeezed from his throat: "No...!"
A slight smile touched Ji Hongli's lips, but it did not reach her eyes.
The next instant—
The sword light was like ink, a line traversing the void.
There was no earth-shattering momentum, no dazzling brilliance, only a pure, ultimate black, like the thread of fate, gently passing by.
Wang Shouzhi's head still maintained its terrified expression, but a bloodline as thin as a hair had already appeared on his neck.
His lips were still moving, as if he wanted to say something, but the next second—
"Plop."
The head rolled off. Before the blood could spurt, it was frozen into dark red ice crystals by the chilling aura entwined around the sword.
Ji Hongli's wrist turned lightly, the sword's blade pointing diagonally at the ground. A drop of blood slid down the black sword blade, and before it could hit the ground, it dissipated into a wisp of black smoke in mid-air.
"Blame yourself for being too slow in raising your cultivation."
She glanced down at the corpse on the ground, her expression as indifferent as if looking at an ant.
Then, with her left hand forming a virtual grip, a wisp of dark purple flame rose from her palm. The flame had no temperature, yet it caused the void around it to burn and distort.
With a light wave of her fair hand, the purple fire transformed into fireflies, enveloping the corpse.
In just an instant, Wang Shouzhi's existence seemed to be erased by the Heavenly Dao itself, not even leaving a speck of ash behind.
...
...
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Upper Realm, Celestial Sound Palace.
The sea of clouds churned, and immortal mist swirled. On a white jade chessboard, black and white pieces interlocked, as if the unchanging eons had solidified here.
The old monk's withered fingers held a black piece, suspended, not yet fallen.
Suddenly—
"Crack."
A faint, crisp sound.
The black piece between his fingers had developed a thin crack.
Immediately, the pieces on the chessboard shattered one after another. The black pieces turned to dust, the white pieces cracked inch by inch, and even the entire white jade chessboard collapsed with a loud crash, breaking into fragments all over the floor.
The middle-aged monk's hand, holding a piece, froze in mid-air. He frowned slightly: "The pieces are broken, the board is destroyed. How... should this game continue?"
The old monk slowly withdrew his hand. His face, covered in wrinkles, remained calm, but a coldness gradually seeped into his turbid eyes.
"It seems, we have failed again this time."
The middle-aged monk was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice: "The reincarnation of the Buddha Son has failed. His Primordial Spirit must be damaged, and I fear he can no longer maintain his cultivation at the Immortal Venerable Realm..."
The old monk did not answer, merely staring at the shattered jade on the ground, his gaze as deep as an abyss.
After a long while, he suddenly laughed.
The smile was no longer compassionate or peaceful, but carried a bone-chilling coldness.
"On the chessboard, we have indeed lost this time."
He slowly rose to his feet. His wide monk's robe fluttered without wind, and an invisible pressure suddenly descended, causing even the sea of clouds in the Celestial Sound Palace to freeze.
"But those ants in the lower realm have forgotten—"
The old monk raised his withered hand, and a black lotus, as dark as ink, slowly materialized in his palm. Its petals bloomed layer by layer, each entwined with a twisted power of causality, as if it could devour time itself.
"We are willing to play chess, so they have the opportunity to become chess players. And now that we are no longer willing to play, we still have the ability to flip the table!"
Before his words faded, he clenched his five fingers, and the black lotus suddenly burst apart, turning into countless wisps of black energy that merged into the void.
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...
...
At the same time,
Ji Hongli's brow suddenly furrowed.
—Something was wrong.
The night wind wailed, and the strange phenomenon in the sky above had not yet dissipated.
Even the moon in the sky had, at some unknown time, turned blood-red.
Black clouds swirled like a vortex, as if brewing something even more terrifying.
She slowly raised her gaze, purple flames burning silently in the depths of her pupils.
"The Buddha Son is dead, the array's eye is broken..." she murmured to herself, "Why has the celestial phenomenon not changed?"
Suddenly, her fingertips trembled.
—The blood on the ground was flowing.
Not flowing aimlessly, but... tracing some kind of pattern.
Wang Shouzhi's headless corpse still knelt on the ground. The blood from the gash in his neck crawled like a living creature, weaving into strange runes on the ground. These lines of blood gathered more and more, gradually forming a huge inverted pentagram, and in its center—
A black lotus had appeared at some unknown time.
Ji Hongli's gaze turned icy cold. The Heavenly Cloud Gathering Sword instantly slashed horizontally, its sword energy like ink, tearing the earth apart!
"Boom—!"
The blood array was cut open by a chasm-like fissure, but the next second, the scattered petals eerily floated up and reassembled.
They actually slowly gathered into a complete head.
Wang Shouzhi's head.
A twisted smile slowly spread across the lips of the head.
"You thought... it was over?"
A hoarse voice came from all directions, as if a million vengeful spirits were whispering at once.
Ji Hongli's pupils contracted slightly.
—This was not Wang Shouzhi's voice.
"One hundred thousand years..." the voice grew louder, the light from the blood moon suddenly intensifying, dyeing the distant city walls of the Immortal Spirit City a scarlet red. "You thought... we have truly made no progress?"
The earth began to tremble. Countless white bones broke through the soil, assembling in the air into a giant skeletal Buddha.
And that blood moon—
It slowly opened an eye.
Ji Hongli gripped the Heavenly Cloud Gathering Sword tightly, her black dress flapping wildly in the fierce wind.
"So what if you have..." she sneered.
The skeletal Buddha raised a hand, and a bone palm that blotted out the sky slammed down!
Ji Hongli leaped into the air—
...
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