Chapter 239.2: Hell and Origin Part 2

Just as he was about to speak, Lü Yingyue cast him a cold glance.

“Don’t worry, I have authorization. Under the Federation’s precedent, when a governor falls in the line of duty during a crisis, the cities of that province may hold their own vote to elect a successor. All the signatures are here.” She tossed him a thin sheet of paper. “If the format is wrong, I’ll have Xu Chaoxian write you another one!”

The envoy hurriedly caught it and examined it carefully with trembling hands. As he looked over the signatures, all of which had clearly been prepared in advance, he couldn’t even speak. By the time he reached the name and official seal at the bottom, he nearly coughed up blood. “Isn’t this... somewhat... improper?”

Lü Yingyue turned to look at him in puzzlement. “Is it?”

Beneath her foot lay a freshly severed head. Under the dirt coating its face, traces of a young woman’s features could still be seen, but the eerie allure that had once bewitched minds and distorted reality was gone.

“Given the situation, does Central City still have any insights to offer regarding the situation in Haizhou?” Lü Yingyue asked. “Please, Special Envoy, speak freely.”

The envoy fell silent, too terrified to utter another word.

“That’s what I thought.” Lü Yingyue nodded and waved everyone away impatiently. “Since none of you have anything to say, there’s no need to trouble yourselves over a remote province like ours.”

The creature’s head shattered beneath her boot. Lü Yingyue pushed open the door and strode toward the battlefield, where blood surged in torrents, leaving only one final declaration behind. “Haizhou will decide its own affairs!”

***

“Hah... hahahahaha! Die, die, die, die, die! Just die already!”

The blood mist and torrents of corruption writhed, split, and exploded. Maniacal laughter echoed without end as an enormous altar collapsed among the ruined buildings. A maimed figure reached up, and a boundless sea of lightning gathered, taking shape through the transformation of spirit matter before tearing through the air.

Amid the drifting dust, the sacred statue shattered. Corrupted figures blocking the way were reduced to ash by the torrent of lightning. The blessings and pillars left behind by the Upper Abomination were completely demolished beneath the relentless bombardment!

But the wild laughter never ceased. Condensed, crystallized lightning flew from her hand until everything within sight had been reduced to ruins and vaporized into ash and dust. As she drew closer, a shrill, terrified cry rang out from beneath a collapsed wall.

“Lou... Lou Yanyue!!!”

“Hmm? You know me?” Lou Yanyue’s “footsteps” came to a halt. She looked down contemptuously at the dying, corrupted man, studying the fear, despair, and disbelief in his eyes, and she couldn’t help but grin. “What? My face is only disfigured. Surely I don’t look so different that you can’t recognize me anymore?”

Both her legs and her left arm had been severed at the root, but, miraculously, they had been restored. The forms reconstructed from her spirit matter resembled pure white crystal, with the flow of blood faintly visible inside. The vicious scar still ran across her face, which retained traces of youthful innocence.

Her eyes, the most important part for Spirit Morph, had returned to their original positions. Even though they still looked ever so slightly... out of place. Bloody tears caused by the crude transplant slowly trickled from the corners of her eyes, making her youthful smile look savage, like that of a wild beast.

“I may be a little uglier now, but after more than twenty years of sniveling, that useless nephew of mine finally managed to act like a man. As his aunt, I can hardly let all his effort go to waste.” She raised a finger and tapped the pair of borrowed eyes before abruptly asking, “Where is Jian Yuan? Where is Ji Jue?”

The half-buried face beneath the rubble froze for a brief second before lighting up with delight. “I—”

Boom!

Lightning converged into a blade and slashed downward. In an instant, nothing remained of him, not even his bones.

“Liar.”

Lou Yanyue looked away indifferently and surveyed her surroundings. They weren’t here, but that didn’t matter. There were still plenty of places left in the city. She would slaughter her way through until she reached those who deserved to die, and search them until she found the person she was looking for.

Amid the swirling dust, she raised her head and strode toward the escalating war and chaos in the distance. Everywhere she passed, all was stained crimson.

***

“Shan, what do you think we should do when we get back?”

The sound of dripping water echoed through the corridor. Tong Shan’s footsteps faltered for a moment. He wanted to tell Jiang Xuan that he should address him by his title while on duty. When they were working, they could call him Sir or even use his codename. He had emphasized it countless times, why did none of them ever listen?

But, at the moment, he didn’t dare raise his head.

“Anything will do,” he replied dully.

Jiang Xuan smiled. “When we return, let’s all have a few drinks together.”

“Mm,” Tong Shan replied after a long pause.

“Give the plants on my balcony to Xu Guan. And when you get the chance, thank Jue for me. I’ve saved up some money, too. Donate it to the orphanage, or give it to Ji Liu. Consider it charity.”

Jiang Xuan rambled on disjointedly as he leaned against the wall and forced himself upright. Blood slowly streamed from the gaping wound through his chest, dripping onto the floor and gathering into a shallow pool that snaked away from him.

The corner of Jiang Xuan’s mouth twitched. Softly, he said, “I can’t go on anymore. I’ll leave the rest to all of you.”

Tong Shan merely listened as his friend bid him a final farewell.

“You should go, Shan,” Jiang Xuan said. “You’ve still got a long way to go.”

The moment Tong Shan turned away, he couldn’t stop himself from looking back. Despite the terrible wounds that marred his face, he wore a bright, untroubled smile. His farewell was lighthearted and peaceful, as if it was a casual goodbye exchanged between coworkers at the end of a shift.

After a few seconds, Tong Shan nodded slowly. “Goodbye.”

Jiang Xuan smiled, listening as the footsteps faded into the distance. He closed his eyes and waited in silence.

At last, hurried footsteps came thundering from the other end of the corridor. They were chaotic and relentless, like a downpour closing in. When the corrupted beings burst inside, they saw Jiang Xuan wearing a bold, carefree smile as he raised a hand and waved to them one last time.

Today, I’ll be the rock that stops you in your tracks. This is as far as you go!

A violent explosion blasted all the way into the sky. Steel fell down like torrential rain, piercing everything in its path and shredding all before it. The deafening blast reverberated through the raging wind and carried far into the distance.

Elsewhere, bones could be heard breaking.

“Die!” Tang Qian roared as he wrenched his axe from a shattered skull. He spun around and swept it sideways, cleaving an enemy in half, then seized a blade that thrust straight through him. His six maimed arms no longer held a single weapon, and one of his legs was broken.

That didn’t matter. A grin split his bloodstained face as he sank his teeth into an unprotected throat. The Swarm shrieked and drank deep, crushing the last enemy’s neck between its jaws. Blood burst like rain, staining his pale face crimson.

“Boss, the whole damn road ahead is crawling with ambushers.” Tang Qian panted, clutching a crudely forged gold coin of his own making. “Let’s pull back. I can still summon two more of my ancestors. They’ll get you out safely!”

Tong Shan merely staggered over without saying a word, leaning on the shattered flagpole for support. He pressed a bloody fingerprint onto an IOU he had prepared long ago, then placed it in Tang Qian’s hands. “Please take care of Ji Liu and Ji Xue for me.”

Tang Qian glanced at the brother and sister lying behind him, both barely alive, then gritted his teeth and nodded. Tong Shan smiled.

“Keep them safe.” He turned and looked toward the sanctuary shrouded in shadow. “I’ll be right back.”

Within the vast sanctuary, a violent aura swelled into the air. The alarm had gone out. Chosen Ones arrived one after another, fully prepared for battle, gathering to defend the Great Abomination Incarnation’s pillar that guarded Spring City.

With his eyes closed, Tong Shan could sense the Heart Core Abomination, Evermore; the Entropy Abomination, Shadowfrost; the Aether Abomination, Blightborn; as well as the others. There were three Chosen Ones in the Rebirth Realm, seven in the Metamorphosis Realm, and twenty-nine in the Resonance Realm!

Good. That seemed fair. It was one against one: one man of Origin against one whole nest of vermin!

He laughed and strode toward the darkness, dragging the flagpole behind him. The darkness swallowed his figure, never to be seen again.

The earth shook violently. High above the sky, the Burning Star Manifestation burned away the darkness and rose once more. A moment later, the scarlet wheel of stars shuddered. Drops of pitch-black ink spread rapidly, warping and rewriting the Burning Star Manifestation until it collapsed completely.

In response to the divine essence of the Upper Abominations, viscous rain of corruption poured from the heavens and fell across the entire area. The raindrops stretched into countless threads, forming a curtain that concealed everything. Just then, some form of power tore through the curtain, sending fierce ripples across its surface until it broke and turned to pieces.

“He already got the first one? That was fast.” Tang Qian turned back in surprise. Then his expression changed, giving way to shock.

No, that’s the second one.

Boom!

The sanctuary crumbled. A blood-red tornado tore out from within and spread across the sky, staining a vast swath of it scarlet as countless shards of bone and chunks of flesh rained down.

Under the suppression of the Upper Abominations, Tong Shan’s exhausted telekinesis unexpectedly surged once more like a sweeping tide. He no longer demanded precision or finesse; he unleashed it with reckless abandon, even if it meant being caught in the crossfire. Even if his body was torn to pieces, he would not hesitate!

The entire world seemed to freeze. The rain of corruption stopped in midair, suspended motionless across the sky. Then came a crack.

The third!

The vaulted ceiling of the dark sanctuary collapsed with a deafening crash. Countless fragments poured down like torrential rain, and flickering lights illuminated a hellscape of blood and carnage. Everything was stained crimson.

Wherever the eye could see, there were only severed limbs, shattered remains, splattered blood, and collapsed ruins. It was as though a storm had swept through the sanctuary, trampling every vile abomination in its path into pulp!

The last surviving priest sat frozen on the floor. Scrambling backward on all fours, he paid no heed to the blood pouring from his grievous wounds and retreated until his back struck the foot of the sacred statue. There was nowhere left to run.

No matter how desperately he called out, the divine power of the Upper Abominations never reappeared, as if they had abandoned him completely, or as if the gods he worshiped had cast him into a true hell! All he could hear were cracks that seemed to rise from the depths of a nightmare.

With grim, methodical precision, he pulverized every last enemy, tearing them apart piece by piece until nothing remained.

“Hm? There’s still one left...”

From the darkness, the hunched figure staggered forward. With two broken blades still embedded in his body, he trudged step by step across the corpses.

His body was riddled with wounds, and his gait was unsteady. He practically crawled through the blood, clambering over the dead as he made his way toward the priest one agonizing step at a time.

At last, the fading light revealed his gruesome condition. It looked as though his shattered corpse had been forcibly stitched together with telekinesis, barely preserving its shape and forcing it to continue functioning. There was no telling how many times he had been broken apart or how many times he had pieced himself back together. Beneath the intersecting cracks, his ruptured organs had long since shifted out of place. Lengths of rebar braced his twisted, broken legs upright.

Under the effects of the aberration contamination, black blood slowly seeped from the gash in his neck, dripping onto the floor with an angry hiss. With the exposed bone of his ruined face, only his eyes still burned, fiercer than the flames of purgatory. They remained fixed on the last enemy before him.

“One more.”

“Agh... Ngh...”

The priest struggled wildly, his eyes bulging. His neck was gripped by an invisible iron vise, tightening bit by bit until his wails and choking gasps turned to nothingness.

Then, there was silence.

As the corpse exploded, the sanctuary gave a mournful groan, and its final pillar collapsed. Fragments broke loose, piling up and crashing down around Tong Shan, yet he didn’t stop. Using both his hands and feet, he climbed the mountain of shattered corpses and debris.

At last, he stood atop the broken sacred statue, atop the highest point of the sanctuary. Turning around, he looked over the ravaged world behind him.

Beneath the projection of the vortex, corruption poured down like rain, filling the city and swallowing everything in its path.

The deserted, decaying city had once again been engulfed in chaos. Cries and wails rose everywhere, as though the apocalypse of the past were unfolding all over again. Everything was slowly sinking, falling toward a hell where no light could ever reach.

For one fleeting moment, his lips twitched, and he tried to scream with all his might, but even when he did, no echo answered him.

And so, he held his breath. Using the last of his strength, he raised the flag once more toward the darkness and the lawless world before him. Like a nail, he drove the broken flagstaff into the sacred statue.

The wind howled and the rain of corruption poured down, but the tattered flag, stained red with the blood of aberrants, unfurled once more. It snapped in the wind like a flame, blazing with brilliant light.

There, it proclaimed to all, The flag of Origin still stands tall upon this world!