Chapter 156: 200 000 Yin creatures devoured

" I will not lose you, BaiShe... " She clenched her fists until her nails pierced her gloves, letting streams of purple blood flow onto the dented metal. " Not after everything I have done... everything we have built. "

A guttural growl pulled her from her thoughts. Three powerful Yin creatures, attracted by the smell of her fresh blood, emerged from the fissures in the basaltic ground. Their overly long limbs scraped the stone, their empty orbits fixing the templar with a devouring hunger. They were smaller than the Guardian that had wounded BaiShe, but their number and aggressiveness made them just as dangerous.

Zhi Mei wiped away with the back of her hand the tears beading at the edge of her lashes. Her face, usually so gentle and filled with piety, froze into an expression of cold determination. She drew her blade, the azure light of her Qi making the darkness crackle.

" You will not stand in my way, " she spat. " Nothing will stand in my way. "

She leaped forward, not with the perfect coordination of a trained warrior, but with the raw rage of a lioness whose cub had been stolen. Her first strike split the nearest specter from groin to skull, cutting it in two in a spray of black fluids. The monster did not have time to scream before she was already pivoting, her blade tracing a deadly arc that severed the limbs of the second.

The third tried to take her from behind, its black bone claws aiming for her nape. Zhi Mei ducked at the last moment, feeling the icy wind of the attack brush her hair. She thrust her blade downward, the tip emerging through the creature’s skull in a wet sound of viscous liquid that splattered onto her armor.

" He is alive! " she screamed while shredding the specter’s corpse with a furious kick. " I know it! I feel it! "

But deep inside her, the voice of doubt whispered. She had seen the ebony scythe pierce BaiShe’s shoulder. She had seen his silver blood spray the ashen earth. And she had seen the cloud of Yin Qi engulf him, carrying him into its swirling abyss.

No one could survive such exposure to death Qi, not even an Overlord. Not even the one she had crowned Executor.

’ No. I do not want to believe it. ’

She pushed these thoughts back, locking them in a remote corner of her mind. Believing in his survival was the only thing keeping her standing. The only thing preventing her from collapsing, from letting the darkness consume her as it had consumed so many others before her.

She continued to advance, scrutinizing every shadow, every crevasse, every pile of rocks. Her armor was now more black than azure, covered in a layer of dried Yin fluids and her own sweat mixed with her blood. Her wings, tired, now projected only a flickering glow that threatened to extinguish at any moment.

" Where are you, BaiShe... " she moaned, her voice now nothing more than a hoarse breath. " I beg you... do not leave me alone... do not leave me with this lie I created... "

She tripped over a petrified root, collapsing heavily onto her knees. Her gloved hands sank into the ash, bringing back a handful of gray dust that she let flow between her fingers. For the first time in hours, she stopped. Not because she had chosen to, but because her body refused to cooperate.

The tears she had held back for so long finally flowed, tracing clear streaks on her face streaked with soot and blood. She sobbed, head bowed, shoulders shaken by spasms. The full weight of her guilt, her fear, her forbidden love crashed down on her like a hammer of divine justice.

" I am sorry... " she cried into the void. " I am so sorry for dragging you into this... You should never have been the Executor... It was just a role... It was just a fucking role... "

She remembered his narcissistic smile, that predator’s grin he displayed when he knew he was superior. She remembered his cold gaze behind the monocle, analyzing the world with implacable logic. She remembered his hand on her cheek, his warm breath murmuring words of validation that had made her dependent, addicted to that overwhelming presence.

’ He manipulated me... ’ she suddenly realized. ’ He has always manipulated me. And I loved him for it. ’

This realization, instead of breaking her, straightened her up. She stood up, wiping her tears with a furious gesture. It did not matter who had manipulated whom. It did not matter what the truth was about the Executor’s role. The essential thing was that he was alive, somewhere, lost in this labyrinth of ashes and death. And she would find him.

" I will find you, BaiShe... " she swore, her blue gaze burning with a new intensity. " And when I have found you, you will answer me. You will tell me why you let me believe in this lie. Why you let me love you. "

She picked up her blade, wiped the mud covering the guard, and resumed her walk. Her steps were slower, heavier, but they no longer faltered. Behind her, the darkness closed in, swallowing the traces of her passage. Before her, the Immortal Grave stretched out, infinite and threatening. But she was not afraid.

For deep in her heart, she knew. She knew that BaiShe was alive.

***

Meanwhile... 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

BaiShe’s face no longer showed any trace of the pain he had feigned in front of Zhi Mei. His jade features regained a sovereign rigidity as he raised his head, a narcissistic and cruel smile stretching his lips.

His heterochromatic eyes faded to reveal his true nature: the white of his eyes became absolute black, and his pupils ignited with an evil violet. His long silver hair, whose tips were already dark, turned jet black, absorbing the faint ambient light like a black hole.

" The comedy has lasted long enough... " he murmured in a hoarse voice that made the bony stone of the ruins vibrate.

Simultaneously, he released the entirety of his Khaotic Qi. The shockwave was so brutal that the first rows of Yin creatures were instantly reduced to gray dust. BaiShe did not content himself with a simple attack.

He used his understanding of spatial laws to divide himself. In a fraction of a second, his silhouette fragmented. Where a single man had stood, ten identical forms of Xuan BaiShe appeared, each surrounded by an aura of death capable of eroding reality.

[Ding ! Activation of the Primordial Devourer Physique: 100%. Ability: Demonic Division of the Ten Judges activated.]

’ I must devour the Yin creatures as quickly as possible.. ’ thought BaiShe, while his ten clones simultaneously raised their hands toward the violet sky.

The space behind each form tore open grotesquely. These were not simple fissures, but gaping wounds in the fabric of the dimension. From these rifts emerged hundreds of thousands of skeletal hands, of sickly thinness, whose gray and parchment-like skin fell in shreds on the bones. The palms of these emaciated limbs opened, revealing circular mouths lined with sharp teeth, ready to bite into the very essence of existence.

[Arts: Abyss of the Thousand Hungry Hands]

The carnage began in a deathly silence, soon replaced by the sickening sound of torn flesh and crushed dantians. The skeletal hands deployed like bone tentacles, seizing the Yin entities by the dozens. A massive ghoul tried to bite one of BaiShe’s clones, but three hands surged from the shadows to rip off its jaw and limbs. One could hear the dry crack of calcified bones and the hiss of Yin Qi being sucked in with monstrous voracity.

The skeletal hands did not content themselves with killing; they devoured. They plunged their fingers into the specters’ chests to extract the core of hatred, immediately carrying it to the mouths located in their palms.

The black and viscous blood of the monsters gushed in fetid fountains, spraying the ten forms of BaiShe who remained motionless, hands behind their backs, observing the massacre with intellectual fascination.

" Hmmm... this Yin Qi is rancid, saturated with useless regrets, " commented one of the BaiShe while adjusting his monocle stained with dark residues. " However, for my Omega Heart, it is just more fuel toward the stabilization of my Overlord stage. "

Consequently, the ten forms set themselves in motion, walking calmly amid the hundreds of thousands of monsters that tried in vain to flee.

But there was no escape. The skeletal hands had woven a dome of intertwined limbs above the plain, imprisoning the Yin creatures in a giant stomach made of bone and void.

One could see specter heads exploding under the pressure of the emaciated fingers, releasing a grayish cerebral substance that evaporated into violet smoke.

The entrails of the ghouls dragged on the basaltic ground, forming a carpet of viscera that the Devourer Physique absorbed by simple contact. BaiShe felt every particle of energy rise along the skeletal arms to nourish his Dantian. His Omega Heart beat like a war drum, pumping torrents of Khao to transmute this death Qi into pure power.

[Ding ! 100 000 Yin creatures devoured. Ding ! 200 000 Yin creatures devoured. Stabilization of the 2nd Overlord stage imminent.]

The air had become so saturated with the smell of corrupted divine blood and burned flesh that even the wind no longer dared to blow. The psychic moans of the hundreds of thousands of victims formed a macabre symphony that BaiShe savored with tranquil narcissism.

" Look at yourselves, " he said, addressing the last survivors crawling in the ashes. " You have spent eons waiting for liberation. This young scholar has come to offer it to you in the most absolute form there is: nothingness. Thank me before being digested. "

In a final gesture, the ten clones merged back into a single silhouette. BaiShe raised his right hand, and the millions of skeletal hands converged toward a focal point, creating a vortex of bone and teeth that sucked in the last thousands of monsters in an apocalyptic whistle.

Silence fell brutally over the Immortal Grave. Nothing remained of the hundreds of thousands of Yin creatures, not even a fragment of bone.

The plain was now perfectly smooth, vitrified by spiritual pressure. BaiShe remained alone, his violet eyes shining in the darkness. He felt his cultivation firmly anchor itself in the second Overlord stage, his meridians now wider and more resistant than those of a millennial expert.

He took a white silk handkerchief from his sleeve and meticulously wiped a drop of black fluid from his thumb.

" Chong Da should not be very far, " he murmured with insatiable hunger. " He fled thinking he was leaving me to the wolves, but he only isolated his own chance. Fifty thousand points... a much more refined main course than this cattle. "

Adjusting his repaired monocle, Xuan BaiShe leaped into the mist, once again becoming the predatory shadow at the heart of the domain of the dead, ready to hunt the blind monk to the gates of hell to claim his due.