[Death] Reappears

Eerie Tiger Splits the Earth, Eerie Tiger Howls at the Heavens, Eerie Tiger Descends the Mountain.

Li Baiyi was swung through the air, then went on a killing spree.

Smack!

Xu Chunliang stomped on a Human Worm's head, driving its face into its belly.

Squelch!

The worm's belly burst instantly. White fluid sprayed everywhere, staining the dark stone floor white.

Xu Chunliang leaped again. In front of him, a worm with Brother Dao's face came crawling over. Without hesitation, Xu Chunliang swung Li Baiyi in a wide arc and snapped his body in two with one blow.

Xu Chunliang planted another foot on the ground and twisted, spinning three times like a discus thrower before hurling Li Baiyi from his hands.

"I... won't... in... tro... duce... my... sis... ter... to... you... any... more..."

Leaving those halting words behind, Li Baiyi shot into the sky like an arrow loosed by Xu Chunliang. In the blink of an eye, he arrived before the enormous skeleton, now completely bare of white worms.

Slash!

Li Baiyi slashed out with his sword.

His sword unleashed a burst of moonlight-like radiance, and Li Baiyi entered Moon Glow Grade. The radiance struck the giant skeleton's face, shattering its snowy white skull.

Li Baiyi had no time to celebrate. He felt a pain in his chest.

He looked down to see a knuckle, white as jade, pressed against his chest.

It instantly shattered his heart.

"I, you..."

The Buddhist pearl between his brows continued to shed warm Buddhist light, but it could not hold on to his life.

Li Baiyi slowly turned his head, wanting to take one last look at Xu Chunliang amid the human-worms behind him, but he had no strength left...

He could only lower his head slowly...

Brother-in-law, in the end, we still failed...

It's a shame I never got to introduce my sister to you. What a shame...

Li Baiyi died.

Seeing Li Baiyi kneeling motionless on the ground with his head bowed, Xu Chunliang felt a ripple stir in his tranquil heart.

The ripple surged, then his heart grew still as an ancient well.

Letting the Human Worms pounce on him, Xu Chunliang burst out laughing.

He reached out and seized the face of a Human Worm lunging at him, digging all five fingers into it.

Ignoring its agonized roars, Xu Chunliang planted a foot between his waist and abdomen and pulled upward with all his strength...

Rip...

Tear...

With a grating sound, Xu Chunliang pulled the Human Worm's spine out of its body.

Holding the head, he raised the pale, blood-seeping spine horizontally, then closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his eyes instantly turned pitch-black.

"Although I never admitted I was his brother-in-law. Although I haven't met his sister yet. Although I haven't even come to regard him as a friend..."

"But what right did you have to kill him?"

Xu Chunliang's words traveled through the worms to the Buddha skeleton. Though Li Baiyi had shattered its skull, Xu Chunliang could still feel it laughing disdainfully.

At the same time, it raised its right hand and clenched it into a fist, leaving only its little finger extended to point downward.

Its little finger was white, so very white!

A purer white than anything Xu Chunliang had ever seen.

Like jade, like clouds.

The little finger slowly pointed down. Li Baiyi's kneeling corpse instantly shattered, turning into pink minced flesh.

"So people are pink when they're smashed to bits... Brother Li, you're so pink..." Xu Chunliang murmured. Endless loneliness rose in his heart.

Pain, coldness, disbelief, regret...

Countless emotions surrounding death churned within him.

A wind sprang up, rippling a pool of spring water.

Xu Chunliang raised the spine and slashed down.

His five senses merged. Pain, hearing, touch, taste, and every other sensation fused completely in that moment, becoming a unique perspective far beyond that of a human.

Once again, he sensed death high above the heavens.

Above his head, the darkness over the Ruin Realm tore open in an instant. Together with the sky, it split into an enormous rift beyond description.

In the endless depths above the sky, layers upon layers of darkness opened wide. The dark abyss, home to countless suns and galaxies, split apart, and an incomparably cold, silent eye quietly opened. Its gaze pierced endless space and fell upon this Ruin Realm.

With Xu Chunliang at the center, every creature in the Ruin Realm, every being living or dead, raised its head. They opened their eyes and looked toward the heights above.

In that moment, they too [saw] death.

Their mouths split open all the way to their throats, revealing blue or white vocal cords. Then they cried out toward the sky like cranes.

Welcoming [its] arrival.

Xu Chunliang [saw] death again. No, he met death's gaze.

Under [its] gaze, the aura within Xu Chunliang began to change rapidly: towering, profound, cold, dark.

He was coming into resonance with [it].

The white skeleton in the distance began to flee without hesitation. He wanted to escape, to get away from [it], even though [its] aura was so much like the Buddha's.

So powerful, so terrifying, so indescribable...

Xu Chunliang flipped the spine blade in his hand and drove it into the ground.

With him at the center, death spread in every direction.

Slowly, steadily, irresistibly.

The Human Worms, the black river water beneath Naihe Bridge, the great blue eyes in the distant darkness, the Buddhas in the forest of pagodas, the fleeing white skeleton...

One by one, they were swallowed by death, then reduced to nothingness...

Xu Chunliang raised his head and [watched] the rift in the sky slowly close, feeling the changes taking place within his body.

He smiled cruelly.

"I said no one can control me."

"Not even you!"

The rift in the sky opened again, and the instant an incomparably cold aura of death descended, Xu Chunliang turned the spine blade around and drove it between his own brows with a squelch.

Then he twisted it viciously!

Xu Chunliang died.

The will high above the heavens [looked] at the ground, then departed with regret.

Crack!

Like a pane of glass shattered by a bullet,

the whole expanse of space and time shattered, and everything rolled back once more.

"Brother-in-law, why haven't you thrown me over there yet?"

"We're already so close!"

"Don't you believe in my strength? Just throw me out there, and I can shatter his head with one strike of my sword..."

"I have a very powerful sword move called Flying Immortal from Beyond Heaven. It'll definitely work..."

"Could you be a little more careful? My head's made of flesh. Stop smashing it into the ground with Forcefully Cleaving Mount Hua..."

Amid the Human Worms, Li Baiyi chattered on while doing his best to keep his face from colliding with theirs, so as to avoid any unnecessary kissing.

Strangely enough, he had already grown somewhat accustomed to Xu Chunliang using him as a sword.

But Xu Chunliang simply kept swinging him in wide arcs, hacking and killing with sweeping movements.

Several times, he accidentally smashed Li Baiyi's head against the stone floor.

Although the Buddhist light protected him from serious injury, even a battered face was undignified...

He spoke up again, asking Xu Chunliang to throw him out.

Then he suddenly discovered that, when they were only three meters from the white skeleton, Xu Chunliang had flung him toward Naihe Bridge instead.

Then he grabbed the face of a Human Worm beside him.

As he flew backward, Li Baiyi saw Xu Chunliang brutally yank the Human Worm's spine out and hold it as a blade.

He shuddered and could not help thinking:

Brother-in-law does consider me one of his own. At least he didn't pull out my spine to use as a blade...

Pah, pah, pah! Li Baiyi, I won't let you be this pathetic!