Chapter 35

In the end, Lan Changsheng was a step faster. He did not go to Tang San, merely glancing at him from afar before turning his back on them. He went to wait along Bibi Dong's path.

Ten li behind him, three figures with altered faces were following a trail over the small hill before them.

Ahead of him, a deep purple aura rose from the horizon, slowly but inexorably staining the sky. The aura was not intense; it even carried a deliberately restrained reserve, as though saying, "I'm here."

Purple-black clouds pressed toward him as though the heavens were collapsing. Lan Changsheng could sense the signs of life gradually fading beneath them, the escaping energy being absorbed by that magnificent figure in the air as she advanced without pause, growing ever stronger.

The advancing aura carried an obsession that would not rest until its goal was reached, like a beast that had already locked onto its prey and was slowly closing in, leaving its quarry ample time to feel fear.

A moment later, that silhouette stopped a hundred zhang away. Her robes snapped in the wind, her deep purple hair blown loose, dancing behind her in a blurred afterimage.

Lan Changsheng stood on that grassy slope, which was covered in Blue Silver Grass speckled with fluorescence. A dividing line formed between them.

Beneath Bibi Dong's stately, magnificent figure lay a withered yellow world. Beside Lan Changsheng, who stood casually, lay a newborn grassland. The two formed a stark contrast.

Lan Changsheng stood motionless on the grassy slope. He looked up at Bibi Dong in the air. What followed would prove who was the hunter and who was the prey.

Bibi Dong smiled, a smile of release, her voice calm. "So it really was you. Then, is that one named Tang San that child?"

Lan Changsheng did not respond. The moment he appeared before her, that question already had its answer.

Bibi Dong approached step by step, stopping about ten meters from Lan Changsheng. An extremely thin purple-black halo began to rise around her, like a suit of armor condensing into shape. Lan Changsheng kept the withered yellow world behind her outside the boundary, but he could not stop the power ceaselessly devouring around her.

She was like a black stone surrounded by white stones, yet she was fearless and unafraid.

Bibi Dong raised her right hand. Six slender scarlet threads of light condensed at her fingertips, slowly revolving around her wrist as though weaving something.

Then she spoke, her voice quiet, as though speaking to herself, yet also to Lan Changsheng. "If you don't devour yourself, how can you devour others?"

As her words fell, the six scarlet threads abruptly burst apart, transforming into six scarlet pillars of light several zhang wide. They crushed toward Lan Changsheng from six directions at once, sealing off every angle of escape. The air wailed, and space itself trembled.

Lan Changsheng did not dodge. With a wave of his hand, six Blue Silver Emperor Spears condensed before him. He seized one and thrust it straight out, striking the exact center of a pillar of light. Under his control, the other five spears each attacked another pillar. The six pillars were cleaved apart, tearing open the ground beneath his feet. Lan Changsheng stood behind the cracks, his expression calm.

The next instant, both moved at once.

Bibi Dong's six Spider Spears abruptly spread from her back. Scarlet killing intent coated their surfaces, forming elongated blades, and her entire body became a purple-black afterimage as she cut in front of Lan Changsheng.

Though she used no Soul Skill, she carried the momentum to tear through everything. Lan Changsheng swung his spear across to block, and light burst in every direction where its shaft collided with the Spider Spears.

Lan Changsheng could feel that Bibi Dong's power was more concentrated than last time, and every strike carried the intent to devour everything.

Where her Spider Spears scraped the shaft, an almost invisible layer of purple-black mist clung to it, slowly spreading up along the shaft. It tried to corrode the silver-blue spear's vitality and use it as a bridge to contaminate Lan Changsheng.

Lan Changsheng sensed it, but paid it no mind. Instead, he poured even more Life Divine Power into the shaft, forcibly squeezing out that layer of purple-black mist while bringing the spear crashing down at Bibi Dong.

Bibi Dong turned sideways to evade it, but when the shaft struck the ground, the Life Divine Power within burst apart, transforming into dozens of silvery-white vines that wound toward her.

Her brow creased slightly. The Divine Slaughter's Domain abruptly lit up across her body, and that gray-white armor instantly solidified, blocking all the silvery-white vines outside it. When the vines touched the armor's surface, it was as though they had touched a black hole that ate everything. They withered and curled one after another.

During a gap in their close-quarters exchange, Bibi Dong spoke, her voice as calm as if she were describing the day's weather. "Such delicious divine power."

Lan Changsheng retreated half a step, releasing the spear in his hand at the same time. The instant he let go, the Blue Silver Emperor Spear disintegrated into thousands of silvery-white grass filaments as fine as needlepoints, spreading into an impenetrable curtain before Bibi Dong.

Bibi Dong's Spider Spears crossed as they slashed toward it, trying to tear the curtain apart. Yet the grass filaments did not dissipate when severed. Instead, they became even more numerous, finer threads. Each avoided her Spider Spears like a living creature, turning to coil around the joints of her armor.

This was Lan Changsheng's new insight. Every blade of grass was like a person. Throughout a person's life, people gathered, parted, and left, yet those ties could neither be cut nor untangled. His grass could be the same.

Bibi Dong's expression turned serious. She had not expected Lan Changsheng to improve so greatly in such a short time as well.

The silver grass filaments wrapped around her kept wriggling toward the gaps in her armor. Although every filament evaporated instantly upon touching it, fresh filaments continually surged up from elsewhere, like the next wave always following after the tide receded.

Bibi Dong gritted her teeth. The Divine Slaughter's Domain abruptly expanded outward, crushing every silvery-white grass filament within three zhang of her. Then she leaped high, the tips of her six Spider Spears converging at a single point in the air. Scarlet divine light gathered at their tips, compressing inward into a fist-sized sphere of light, which she then hurled down from above.

"Rakshasa: Meteor."

Lan Changsheng sensed the power contained within that sphere of light. Before it even fell, the earth beneath his feet had already begun to crack, and the blades of grass around him were withering yellow and curling. Everything nearby was being drawn toward it, waiting to be crushed by Bibi Dong.

Sensing the disappearance of the surrounding vitality, Lan Changsheng resolutely reached out toward that sphere of light.

A mass of golden light welled from his palm, gentler than ever before, holding all his understanding of life. The golden light enveloped his entire hand.

Lan Changsheng stepped forward to meet that sphere of light, pressing his golden-lit hand over it.

There was no explosion, no collision, only a crack.

Like a piece of ice placed in water, the scarlet sphere of light slowly shrank and melted away in his palm, finally dissipating completely, leaving only a wisp of smoke drifting out between his fingers.

Bibi Dong landed, her toes scoring a deep groove in the ground. Her pupils contracted slightly.