“You wait for me. I’m coming with you.”
The moment Mo Xi finished speaking, the cultivators on the distant battlefield suddenly heard a deafening roar. Then, as though the heavens were collapsing and the earth splitting apart, a colossal whale that blotted out the clouds and sun suddenly leaped from the corner tower of the royal city.
The giant whale roared and howled furiously, its spiritual form more tangible and more enormous than it had ever been before.
Hua Po’an, who was locked in fierce combat with Jiang Fuli, abruptly looked up.
“This is…”
Swallowed Heaven, now completely released by Mo Xi, was no longer in its divine-weapon form. Within the magnificent clouds and radiant sky, it gradually condensed into its true form, dazzling beyond compare. With every breath and movement, rain fell over the entire city, golden light flooded the heavens, and a rainbow bridge pierced the sun.
“A Sacred Immortal Beast?!”
Hua Po’an’s expression changed drastically.
“When did Chonghua refine a spiritual beast like this?!”
Jiang Fuli was gravely wounded, yet he still gritted his teeth and thrust his sword at him.
“I’m afraid it was refined long ago. Hua Po’an, you’ve always underestimated the human heart.”
“…The human heart?”
Hua Po’an gave a sinister laugh. A nearly crazed shadow hung over his face.
“In my life, I’ve been a slave, a monarch, a grand preceptor… I’ve changed identities countless times, tasted every flavor of life, and witnessed all the injustice in this world! What is the human heart? Nothing but a layer of gold paint brushed over the heart of a beast. Vile and contemptible!”
He narrowed his eyes.
“The human heart has never been any different from that of a beast. The victor becomes king, the defeated become outcasts. Just because my ancestor made one wrong choice, his descendants became slaves for hundreds of years. That is why I, Hua Po’an, believe firmly in slaughter and bloodshed! I’ve never underestimated the human heart. It is you—! Palace Master Shen, you are the one who places too much value on the human heart! You think far too highly of these people!”
He swept a palm across Jiang Fuli’s chest. He had originally aimed for his heart, but his hand suddenly twisted, and instead he struck viciously at Jiang Fuli’s shoulder.
Seeing that Jiang Fuli could no longer hold out, Su Yurou cried out in anguish from the battlefield.
“Fuli…!”
Hua Po’an’s expression was terrifyingly cold, his eyes gleaming with a sea of blood as he looked down upon her.
“Shut up, you bitch! You were the one who secretly seduced him into betraying me. I haven’t even settled that score with you yet!”
Su Yurou said sorrowfully, “My lord, please let him go… Back then, I was the one who helped him escape. I was the one who erased his memories. He doesn’t remember anything… yet he still remembers the sword manual for the Broken Water Sword that he once gave you… One sword changes the seasons after five years, one sword reverses the vicissitudes of ten years. This sword is peerless enough to sever water, yet in a lifetime, it could never sever a heart devoted to you… It wasn’t him who betrayed you. It was me…”
Hua Po’an’s expression shifted slightly, as though he were hesitating.
Su Yurou was desperate for Jiang Fuli’s sake. Seeing his hesitation, she continued, “He… he has always remembered you in his heart. Please, don’t hurt him anymore… Please…”
Jiang Fuli said sharply, “You don’t need to beg him!”
“…”
At that moment, Jiang Fuli could no longer suppress his internal injuries and suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood. He retreated several yards, using his sword to support himself as he raised his head and gasped for breath.
“Hua Po’an. Listen carefully. It is true that I… can still remember fragments of the past, but that’s because I loathe you. I hate you! The only reason I remember you is because… I hate you… so much that I’ve hated you to the bone.”
Hua Po’an narrowed his eyes slightly and stared at him in silence.
If one looked closely at Hua Po’an’s eyes at that moment, beneath the madness and brutality, there was actually a flicker of panic.
Jiang Fuli took a breath before continuing.
“In this lifetime, whether I am Jiang Fuli or Palace Master Shentang, in the end, there is only one thing left to say to you.”
That flicker of panic flashed again.
Hua Po’an’s expression changed violently, and he shouted furiously, “Shut up!”
He vaguely knew what Jiang Fuli was going to say.
Those words were what Shentang had never managed to say when his soul scattered a hundred years ago. Yet throughout the rise and fall of these hundreds of years, Hua Po’an would often hear them deep within his nightmares.
The precarious fortress in his heart had stood through storms for hundreds of years.
And today, it seemed that bolt of thunder would finally come crashing down upon it.
Jiang Fuli gazed at him through the rustling wind. His eyes held both Jiang Fuli’s own coldness and Shentang’s sorrow.
Hua Po’an’s hair stood on end. He almost screamed the words.
“Shut up! Shut your mouth!!”
Jiang Fuli’s lips parted.
Those words of eternal farewell that had been held back for a hundred years were finally spoken on this day, amid the reenactment of the tragedies of the past.
“Hua Po’an, I am utterly disgusted by you.”
Hua Po’an suddenly pressed his lips together. His expression twisted into something strange, as though he wanted to burst into wild laughter, yet also as though Jiang Fuli had touched a wound that had never healed in a hundred years. His face abruptly turned deathly pale.
His pupils contracted as he stared at Jiang Fuli with an uncanny intensity.
Seeing this, Su Yurou hurriedly cried, “Fuli, don’t say anything more!”
But Jiang Fuli ignored her.
“That year, Shentang redeemed you from slavery, took you as his disciple, and gave you the name Hua Po’an. At this moment, I am going to take that name back for him.”
“From this moment onward, you can be the grand preceptor of Liao, its ruler, an immortal demon, or anything else you wish to become or declare yourself to be. But…”
“You can never be Hua Po’an again.”
“Among Shentang’s disciples, there is no one like you.”
Hua Po’an’s eyes were blood-red, crimson veins webbing through them. He gritted his teeth and growled,
“Master…!”
Jiang Fuli said woodenly, “I cannot accept that.”
“…”
Hua Po’an’s fingers clenched until they cracked.
“Shentang! Do you really intend to drive me this far?!”
Jiang Fuli said, “I am not Shentang. I am merely a living corpse you dragged back from the underworld. And you are not Hua Po’an. You are merely that… thing he mistakenly trusted back when he was studying at the academy…”
He paused.
His white teeth trembled ever so slightly, yet every word was perfectly clear.
“…vicious dog.”
The moment those words left his mouth, Hua Po’an suddenly froze, as though he had been viciously struck by an invisible whip.
On that face where nothing but malice had ever seemed capable of growing, there flashed an expression of pain.
After a long moment, he suddenly threw his head back and laughed wildly.
“Good—good, good!”
After the three repetitions of “good,” he abruptly erupted into fury and was about to strike again when, above the corner tower where the enormous whale was churning the winds and clouds, Swallowed Heaven suddenly rose into the heavens.
Then, amid everyone’s astonished cries, it erupted in a dazzling, magnificent radiance.
The whale’s cry swallowed the heavens; its enormous tail brushed the sun.
Immediately afterward, it plunged violently into the surging Blood Demon Pool!
“A Sacred Immortal Beast! It really is a Sacred Immortal Beast!”
“Marshal Mo can summon a Sacred Immortal Beast!!”
By now, Hua Po’an was nearly berserk, every move aimed at Jiang Fuli with ruthless precision.
Hearing the cries of the others, he paid them no mind and said coldly, “So what if he can summon a Sacred Immortal Beast? Even if he summons one, at most it can protect Chonghua Royal City and allow it to survive in one corner. This youngster wouldn’t possibly…”
He wouldn’t possibly sacrifice himself for a kingdom that had already lost the person he loved.
He wouldn’t possibly die for this Nine Provinces, where deceit and political struggles were everywhere.
He wouldn’t possibly give his life for a nation that had once accused his lover of being a traitor and a rebel, dying together with it in the end.
But before he could say any of those words, Mo Xi had already detonated the Sacred Immortal Beast’s dazzling celestial radiance and sent it plunging toward the boundless sea of blood!
“BOOM!”
The force swept outward like a tidal wave, shaking heaven and earth!
The soldiers of the Northern Frontier Army could not help crying out in grief.
“Lord Xihe!!!”
“Marshal Mo!!”
Hua Po’an was utterly shaken. He could hardly believe his eyes.
Crazy?!
Was this man insane?!
After enduring so much suffering, losing everyone he loved and every relative he had, suffering so much cruelty at the hands of fate—and yet he had still chosen this path of sacrificing himself to fulfill others?!
What could he possibly gain from it?
Why?!
Did this person… have no hatred, no selfishness, no desires?!
Why would he make such a choice?!
In his moment of stunned disbelief, Jiang Fuli seized the opportunity and swung his sword!
Hua Po’an was a fraction too slow in his shock. The blade slashed across his shoulder, spraying blood into the air.
He grunted and retreated rapidly.
Looking down, he saw a deep, savage gash running across his shoulder, with the white bone beneath the flesh clearly visible.
Jiang Fuli held his sword and, amid the bloody winds of this final battle, looked toward Hua Po’an, the demon who had remained alive for a hundred years.
His bloodstained lips moved as he said hoarsely,
“…You can’t understand it, can you? You never will. But…”
He paused, raising his hand and slowly sharpening the gleam of his sword.
The fierce wind whipped around them as he prepared for his final battle with Hua Po’an.
Jiang Fuli said, word by word,
“A hundred years ago, you were defeated outside Chonghua City in exactly the same way you will be today. Shentang was never the only person in this world willing to stop your ambitions. Those willing to protect their nations and their people with their own flesh and blood have never… been limited to Shentang alone!!”
The sea boiled, the mountains collapsed, and power surged in all directions.
He lunged fiercely at Hua Po’an!
At the same time, a vast wave of blood surged up around the corner tower.
Under Swallowed Heaven’s protection, Mo Xi plunged into the depths of the Red River Blood Sea.
“Physician Jiang!!”
“Marshal Mo!”
The battlefield erupted in cries of alarm.
But Mo Xi could no longer hear them.
He had already thrown himself into the sea of blood.
Strangely enough, even though this was the final moment of his life, he suddenly felt that everything had become so peaceful and serene.
As though guided by some sudden intuition, amid the overwhelming crimson of the blood sea, he quickly saw the Blood Demon Beast’s heart resting at the bottom.
He knew that as long as he destroyed this heart, everything would end.
The sea of blood would become a clear lake.
Hua Po’an would lose his power and fall into the state of an ordinary mortal who could be killed.
But as for himself—
The Reverse Stone Guardian God’s words seemed to echo right beside his ear:
“Once the Nine Provinces are saved, you will perish together with the Blood Demon Beast. From then on, you will be forever beyond the cycle of reincarnation, unable to be reborn.”
Mo Xi smiled faintly and did not hesitate again.
He reached out and touched the beating heart of the Blood Demon Beast.
Gu Mang had merged with the demon beast, while he had merged with an immortal spirit.
Yet in the end, they had still arrived at the same destination by different paths.
Mo Xi slowly settled at the bottom of the blood pool.
In a low voice, he said to the heart,
“This is the path I have chosen in the end, Gu Mang. Wait for me. I’ll accompany you.”
He placed both palms upon it.
Radiance surged.
At that moment, Swallowed Heaven’s spiritual power and Jingchen’s spiritual power collided, yet not with the savage violence he had expected.
Perhaps it was because the two hosts who had once been connected to their spiritual beasts had been so deeply entwined with one another.
Though violent waves surged and furious winds raged in the depths of the blood sea, Mo Xi felt no pain at all.
He only felt his vision growing increasingly blurred, his body growing lighter and lighter, like a long-delayed release.
Around him, the blood gradually faded into clear river water.
As the Blood Demon Beast’s heart was destroyed, the crystal-clear water spread outward like ink soaking through paper.
Slowly, the sea of blood was no longer a sea of blood.
The crimson that had threatened to devour the Nine Provinces became flowing water nourishing fertile earth.
Suddenly, Mo Xi coughed up a mouthful of blood.
His spiritual power dispersed.
The river water rushed into him, and gradually he could no longer breathe.
He raised his head.
He knew this was the end of his fate.
The Reverse Stone had given him two paths—one leading to life, one to death.
He had chosen the latter.
Gu Mang had merged his soul with the Blood Demon Beast and could still burn through the entirety of his life to illuminate the world.
As someone who had merged with a Sacred Immortal Beast, how could he… how could he possibly lose to his Gu Mang-gege?
He smiled with a sense of release.
At that moment, the light of the heavens streamed down through the surface of the water, as though countless threads of golden rain were falling around Mo Xi.
The radiance grew brighter and brighter, as if the heavens and earth themselves had poured down a torrential rain of golden light.
A gentle sweet rain descended.
Fine misty droplets drifted through the water.
Everything seemed to become so peaceful at that moment.
And deep within that gentle curtain of rain, Mo Xi suddenly saw a figure slowly appear.
Mo Xi froze.
That person wore elegant wooden clogs, a blue-and-gold heroic headscarf fluttering in the wind.
As he drew closer, Mo Xi could see his handsome, youthful face and dazzling smile.
His eyes were dark and bright.
There wasn’t a single wound on him.
From the deepest part of the lake and river, he walked toward Mo Xi with a radiant smile.
Gu Mang…
Mo Xi had thought he would never hurt again, never suffer again, never have anything left to cling to.
Yet at this moment, his throat suddenly tightened with a sob.
It was Gu Mang…
And yet this Gu Mang seemed not to be walking toward him from the bottom of the lake.
Instead, he was like that first time they had reunited on the battlefield more than a decade ago, when Senior Brother Gu had walked toward him from beside the campfire and extended a hand to the lonely young man he had been.
Mo Xi’s eyes reddened.
In a hoarse voice, he whispered,
“Senior Brother…”
Is it you?
Is this your phantom, your soul, or merely an illusion brought on by my impending death?
No one answered him.
This Gu Mang simply did what he had done so many years ago, just as they had when they were both young.
He walked all the way to Mo Xi, opened his hand, and held it out to his lover sinking beneath the water.
His voice was gentle.
“Mo Xi, we’re going home.”
The war was over.
It was all over.
Let’s go home.
We’re going home.