Your Turn to Choose

Under the setting sun, Heaven's Lament Pass looked even more battered.

Outside the pass.

The roars of beasts shook heaven and earth. Exotic beasts swept past, carrying scraps of flesh and dust with them, while corpses piled into mountains.

The man stood with a staff in one hand, his expression calm.

Countless exotic beasts surged in like a tidal wave, their claws and fangs tearing into the surviving soldiers. Flesh and blood flew everywhere, and screams rose and fell without end.

He took a deep breath. His blood and vitality churned throughout his body, and the carved staff in his hand hummed and trembled. Golden patterns emerged along its shaft, its light coiling like wandering dragons.

"Ganwu Dynasty, Lu Wushuang goes forth to die!" His voice boomed like a great bell, echoing in every direction. "May our dynasty know peace in generations to come, and may all people live in health and safety!"

With that, he stomped on the ground. The earth instantly cracked apart, and he shot into the air like a flood dragon plunging into the sea, diving straight into the heart of the beast tide.

"First form of the Heaven-Splitting Staff, Circling-Heaven Star River!" Amid his furious roar, the carved staff cast countless afterimages. Each staff shadow crashed down like a falling meteor, erupting with continuous thunderous blasts.

The exotic beasts within a hundred meters instantly turned into blood mist, and the earth trembled.

Yet the beast tide before him was endless, closing in again in the blink of an eye.

Lu Wushuang flipped through the air, his face as calm as still water, his eyes brimming with boundless fighting spirit.

He poured all the blood and vitality in his body into the staff. Every carved pattern upon it lit up, blazing with golden light like the scorching sun.

"Final form of the Heaven-Splitting Staff, Earth Dragon Turns the Heavens!"

With his thunderous shout, the staff shadow came crashing down like a mountain crushing all beneath it, carrying the force of heaven and earth splitting apart!

"Rumble!"

The ground shattered like a mirror. Centered on the staff's tip, countless cracks spread swiftly like lightning.

The fissures were several yards deep. Scorching lava erupted from beneath the earth, and waves of blazing heat distorted the surrounding air. Wherever the cracks passed, exotic beasts were either swallowed whole or burned into ashes by the lava.

The entire battlefield became a hell of molten lava, bringing the beast tide's assault to a halt.

From atop Heaven's Lament Pass, Zhou Ming leaped down from the walls and, in moments, swept to the center of the battlefield.

A Jade Bone stood upright with a staff in hand, refusing to fall. The carvings on its shaft were stained with blood, as though Lu Wushuang's final fighting spirit had solidified within them.

In the distance, the beast tide bypassed the battlefield and continued surging toward Heaven's Lament Pass.

"So he died just like that... was it worth it?" Zhou Ming stared at the Jade Bone before him, his brows tightly furrowed and a complicated expression on his face.

The time he had bought—ten breaths at most—was negligible to the retreating people behind them. It could even be said to have been utterly worthless.

From the moment Lu Wushuang left the city, Heaven's Lament Pass had been breached by the exotic beasts. Of the million defenders, only a little over a hundred battered soldiers remained within the pass, escorting the last of the civilians as they evacuated.

"If I think it was worth it, then it was." A clear voice sounded from within the Jade Bone, and Lu Wushuang's phantom slowly took shape.

Zhou Ming's gaze shifted slightly, but he said nothing.

He knew that, like himself, the man before him was a consciousness spirit body, currently standing outside the events.

Lu Wushuang turned to look toward the pass, a trace of melancholy flashing through his eyes.

Zhou Ming suddenly asked, "Aren't you going to take a look?"

Lu Wushuang shook his head and walked in the opposite direction. There was an indescribable heaviness in his steps, yet his figure seemed to carry a sense of release.

Zhou Ming silently followed.

Before long, the two arrived before a river as black as ink.

Lu Wushuang smiled. "Do you know why this river is black?"

He then lightly tapped the river's surface with his carved staff, sending ripples spreading across it. "Because beneath it lie the corpses of hundreds of thousands of exotic beasts."

Zhou Ming bent down to inspect the river, but Lu Wushuang stopped him.

He said, "This world was constructed from my consciousness. You can't touch it."

Zhou Ming tried, and it was indeed exactly as Lu Wushuang had said.

Zhou Ming straightened up and asked, "Where's the divine art? You old-timers really aren't much good, huh? You didn't even leave your divine arts behind for later generations before you died?"

Lu Wushuang froze.

Were youngsters these days all this arrogant?

Zhou Ming frowned slightly and continued, "Are you giving it to me or not? If not, send me back. I'll try getting another divine art."

Hearing this, Lu Wushuang extended the carved staff in his hand, his gaze profound. "The Heaven-Splitting Divine Art. If you can take it, then take it."

Zhou Ming raised a hand and gripped the carved staff.

Feeling its solid touch in his hand, Zhou Ming was delighted. Then he exerted force.

The sudden pulling force from the carved staff made Lu Wushuang instinctively tighten his grip.

For a moment, the two simply stared at each other.

The veins on Zhou Ming's arm bulged as he used all his strength to yank the carved staff.

Yet Lu Wushuang's hand remained firmly clenched around it, showing no intention of letting go.

Zhou Ming shouted, "What, you're a general, and you're going back on your word?"

The moment those words left his mouth.

Lu Wushuang released his grip and looked at Zhou Ming with an odd expression.

As he let go.

The entire space shattered into fragments like a mirror.

Then everything vanished completely, and Zhou Ming returned to the white space.

Staring at the vanished carved staff in his hand, Zhou Ming shouted, "Where's my staff?"

"Combat replay of the Heaven-Splitting Divine Art has been completed."

"Heart-Trial Pass has opened."

Yet that voice did not answer his question.

It simply continued opening the trial on its own.

Zhou Ming fell silent.

This was the combat replay?

That was it?

What happened to the promised insights into martial arts?

And was Lu Wushuang dead or alive?

Why were those earth-shaking, roaring exotic beasts nowhere to be found on the Vast Sea Continent now?

And what era had the Ganwu Dynasty belonged to?

Countless questions tangled around his heart like thorns. Before he could ask them, the space shattered, and everything vanished into the void.

When the scene changed again, Zhou Ming was already standing within Heaven's Lament Pass.

The city was in ruins. The bricks were covered in the claw marks of exotic beasts, and the nauseating stench of those beasts filled the air.

He followed the trail of blood. A quarter of an hour later, a retreating party of one hundred came into view.

The old, weak, women, and children huddled behind armored Martial Artists, while over a hundred exotic beasts had encircled them like an iron wall, thick drool dripping from their mouths onto the ground.

"Save them, and you die while they live! Will you save them?"

The voice from the space echoed in his mind.

Its words were as piercingly cold as ice.

Zhou Ming sneered and immediately cursed, "Are you fucking stupid? Save my ass!"

As soon as he spoke, the beast tide pounced.

That evacuation party was torn to pieces in an instant, their screams ringing through the sky.

The space suddenly broke apart, and he was once more back inside the pass.

This time, Zhou Ming took another route at full speed. But no matter what he chose, he encountered an evacuation party. Whenever he chose not to save them, the group became food for the exotic beasts.

After more than a hundred such encounters, the party before him had grown to a thousand people. The old men's white hair, the children's cries, and the Martial Artists' trembling were all vividly clear in the twilight.

Zhou Ming sat down on a huge boulder nearby, waiting for the curtain to rise on a drama whose ending was already certain.

After a long while, he raised his head and questioned the void. "Why aren't you asking anymore?"

"Will you save them?"

"No!"

Only after the thousand-person party had all died and the exotic beasts had left did that voice sound in Zhou Ming's mind.

"You did not save the party of ten. You did not save the party of one hundred. Even with a party of one thousand, you still did not save them. Why would you not trade your one life for a thousand lives?"

Zhou Ming thought for a moment, then said, "They were already dead. How could I save them?"

The space shattered.

Zhou Ming found himself in the white space. He sat down cross-legged.

"I'll give you a choice. One person dies, and a hundred live. A hundred die, and one lives. Come on, now it's your turn to choose."