Prince of Yuzhang

"Your mother!"

Zhu Yuanzhang watched the "Consort Ding" before him get knocked back, a vicious glint flashing in his eyes.

Rip!

A sharp sound rang out.

His right arm, corroded by corpse poison, was torn clean off by Zhu Yuanzhang.

He looked toward the "Giant Specter," suspended in midair by strands of white silk, its expression twisted in a grimace.

"No matter what you are..."

"With all the Buddhist teachings I, Minghe, have studied throughout my life..."

"Come and fight!"

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the figure that had returned.

"Fixed-Light Manifestation! Ancient Buddha Dropping Radiance!"

As another ten years of his life went into the flames of true fire,

the two flames burning on his body surged ever more fiercely.

At the cost of pouring everything into it, Zhu Yuanzhang had once again kindled a second flame of true fire.

Unfortunately, as Hou Jing laid siege to the city,

the effects of Xiao Tong's essence blood and the dragon aura of Xiao Liang—which had always sheltered Zhu Yuanzhang, allowing his cultivation in Taicheng to proceed almost without hindrance—were also rapidly fading.

This time, Zhu Yuanzhang could not see the "Bitter Sea."

Naturally, he could not comprehend a new dharma form from the Bitter Sea either.

Once the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire dispelled the strange, eye-blurring candlelight streaming from the rooms on either side of the road,

the true form of "Consort Ding" appeared before him.

It was a highly decomposed corpse. Its skin was a vivid dark green, covered in deep-black patches.

Its belly had swollen high with gas, revealing the dark blood vessels beneath its skin, long since clotted.

Its head had rotted and bloated like a spoiled apple. It had already reached the bloat stage of decomposition, its features too decayed to recognize.

Zhu Yuanzhang had to admit that carefully examining such a highly decomposed corpse up close was truly horrifying, even if the deceased might have been exceptionally beautiful in life.

The Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire had dispelled more than just the haze concealing things' true appearances.

It had also raised a question in Zhu Yuanzhang's mind.

Faced with such a badly decomposed corpse,

how could Fu Qi have been so certain it was "Consort Ding"?

Unfortunately... Fu Qi was already dead.

Zhu Yuanzhang glanced regretfully at the dried corpse, shattered into pieces on the ground.

Facing "Consort Ding," who was once again staring at him with cold, hateful eyes,

Zhu Yuanzhang assumed the stance of the Mountain-Shrinking Fist once more.

He said calmly, "Golden Threads Adorning Afar! Stone Shadow Floating Light!"

A sizzling sound, like fish roasting over a fire, rose from all around Zhu Yuanzhang.

At this point, the Great Wisdom Zen Technique, bolstered only by the [Holy Wish-Fulfillment], could no longer reconcile the conflict between the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Technique and the Mountain-Shrinking Fist.

A flash of pain crossed Zhu Yuanzhang's face, wreathed in immense radiance.

But his fighting spirit only grew stronger.

"Consort Ding" was wounded.

Looking at the Xiao Yan consort clad in white gauze and singing a lament,

Zhu Yuanzhang spotted lingering traces of the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire on the corpse.

There were also large patches charred by the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire.

"The Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire works!"

"Turn it up!"

The smell of roasting fish wafted from Zhu Yuanzhang's body.

He had yet to inflict a thousand wounds on his enemy, and had already suffered eight hundred himself.

But Zhu Yuanzhang was oblivious to it.

He had great confidence in the physical toughness of the [Deep One].

If they kept hacking at each other, wearing each other down to the end, the victor would surely be...

"Crack—"

An icy chill surged in from all sides, as if it were about to freeze his entire body solid.

A sound like that of some sharp, brittle metal snapping rang out.

A shadow darted from the government office at the end of the road.

It floated into the sky and spread out without pause, like a gigantic eye.

It silently watched over everyone in Hualin Garden.

Zhu Yuanzhang's vision shifted.

He saw himself—or rather, his lower half.

The [Deep One]'s tough body let him remain alive even after he had been frozen into an ice sculpture and cut in half at the waist by that devastating blow.

Though only for a few seconds.

In his field of vision, he saw the black smoke billowing from the government office take shape in the sky as a gigantic black eye.

"My son's blood."

Looking at Zhu Yuanzhang, severed in two, "Consort Ding" let out a shrill cry.

Then the Giant Specter raised its head in fury.

"Old Xiao Yan!"

"You killed my son!"

"And harmed my grandson!"

"You devoured my great-grandson!"

"I curse you to be abandoned by all your kin! The dynasty you usurped will crumble to pieces! And you, too, will die of hunger and cold!"

"Ahhh!!!"

Amid one frenzied shriek after another,

hundreds upon hundreds of slender white arms reached out from the Giant Specter.

The scattered figures by the windows, holding candlesticks in the buildings along either side of the road, instantly transformed into hideous, terrifying ghosts.

Together with the Giant Specter, they smashed through the windows and lunged at the enormous black eye in the sky.

"Well, would you look at that. The boss unlocked its second form after its lair got broken into."

As the many-eyed, many-armed, many-legged monsters trampled him into ice shards,

Zhu Yuanzhang watched everything unfold and thought,

The Deep One's excellent night vision let him make out details in the black eye in the sky that his former self could never have noticed.

The black eye hung in the air.

With a gaze as cold as ice, it looked down on all of Taicheng.

Zhu Yuanzhang, frozen solid in an instant,

"Consort Ding," the garrison, the eunuchs, and the palace maids were all reflected in its pupil.

Its eye was like a mirror,

reflecting all of Taicheng.

And yet, something seemed to stand out in it, something that shouldn't have been there—something different from reality.

Zhu Yuanzhang focused the last of his sight on the center of that enormous eye.

There, a panic-stricken young man was running aimlessly through the ruins of Hualin Garden.

He wore a golden-threaded python robe.

Thinking of "Consort Ding's" earlier words—"You devoured my great-grandson"—

and recalling Fu Qi's description of Xiao Tong's grandson,

this was probably the target of the mission.

He was also a key person Zhu Yuanzhang needed to open the Grand Marshal Gate.

Prince of Yuzhang, Xiao Dong.

The moment Zhu Yuanzhang noticed Prince of Yuzhang Xiao Dong trapped inside the black giant eye,

a huge foot as thick as an elephant's stomped across his head.

He shattered into bloodstained ice shards.

[You died]

"Rest assured, Uncle Faci. I will honor the Sangqiwo Jataka Secret Mantra as the foremost foundational teaching of Tongtai Temple."

At the spot where Faci's skeletal dharma body had disappeared, Zhu Yuanzhang planted three sticks of incense. After reciting a passage from a rebirth sutra, he rose and walked toward the hitching post in the courtyard.

The donkey had been gnawed down to a skeleton three days ago, and that wasn't why Zhu Yuanzhang had come.

He picked up the bags lying atop the donkey's bones. Some roasted grain powder and dried flatbread spilled onto the ground.

Zhu Yuanzhang grabbed a handful of the roasted grain powder.

Roasted grain powder was made by grinding toasted rice, wheat, and beans into flour, then mixing in salt, soy sauce, wine, and other ingredients for flavor and preservation.

It was also one of the main kinds of dry rations carried by the Southern Dynasties' armies on long marches.

Zhu Yuanzhang dipped his index finger into some and placed it in his mouth, tasting it carefully.

"As I thought."

Zhu Yuanzhang swallowed calmly.

"There's not the slightest hint of salt."

After reaching that conclusion, he bent down

and picked up the cloth bag Huzi had used to store salt.

It was completely empty. Not a single grain of salt remained.

It was as though the bag had been empty from the very beginning.

Zhu Yuanzhang sighed.

Although he was shaken,

the result did not surprise him in the least.

"What an incredible divine ability."

Facing the brightly lit Jiankang Palace in the distance, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but marvel.