He extended his right claw, the Void point at its tip pressing against the upper edge of Wang Xiuyuan's left collarbone.
"So I'll take my time, and take you apart properly."
With that, the claw tip pierced the muscle above the collarbone. Then Chaisang began advancing inward at an unimaginably slow pace.
With every inch it advanced, the flesh and blood it touched on Wang Xiuyuan's body withered and shrank at a visible rate, turning into grayish-white scraps.
The process was agonizing, pain piercing into his marrow, into the depths of his soul.
Wang Xiuyuan's teeth ground together with a creak. The veins at his temples bulged like winding rivers.
Yet his lips remained tightly pressed, and not a single scream escaped him.
Chaisang's claw tip advanced into the chest cavity beneath the collarbone, touching Wang Xiuyuan's first rib.
With a light hook, he snapped that rib in two. The edges of the break rapidly withered into grayish white.
Wang Xiuyuan's body jolted violently, and bloody froth seeped through the clenched gaps between his teeth.
"The second."
Chaisang's voice carried an almost kindly gentleness, as though soothing a sleeping infant.
His claw tip continued onward, grinding apart the second rib.
Wang Xiuyuan's chest began to cave in. The left side of his ribcage slowly sank inward beneath that lingering devastation.
"The third, the fourth, the fifth..."
Like counting treasures, Chaisang crushed Wang Xiuyuan's ribs one by one.
At the same time, he slowly recounted the years each rib had borne, every breath, every pulse of Taiji's circulation.
He spoke in exquisite, unhurried detail, as though reviewing every road Wang Xiuyuan had walked—then personally breaking those roads one by one.
Half of Wang Xiuyuan's chest had already been shattered. His breathing became shallow and rapid; with every breath, bloody froth spilled