Chapter Forty-Five: Bone Rust

Rain lashed the scorched earth like a whip, raising a hot, bloody mist. Zhou Xiaoxiao, one-armed, held aloft his bone scythe; his hunched silhouette stood like an old, lightning-scorched boulder that refused to fall. On the blade, thick dark-red bloodlight flickered uncertainly; with every pulse, a little more color drained from his face.

“Guihai Seven-Nine! Betrayer of your master, traitor to the Way—you’ll die a thousand deaths and never atone!” The one-eyed leader wiped away the blood and ice from his lips, his voice laced with venom. Nearby, the last surviving Hunter pressed a bloody hole in his neck, ghostly blue blade gleaming in the rain, every breath a rasping, blood-flecked hiss.

Lin Mo knelt in the mud, his left palm impaled by the tip of a rusted, dark-gold sword. The blade bit into the chaos seed buried deep in his flesh; with every throb, it was as if a white-hot iron was stirring his marrow, twisting the void vortex in his core into spasms. The pain nearly blinded him, but sharper still was the sting between his brows—the star of extinction, embedded there when the No Return sword spirit shattered, was being wrenched by the sword-ruin in his left hand, burning like a brand.

The sword-ruin was feeding.

Inside the chaos seed, fragments of Su Li’s soul screamed, the inverse seed’s evil flared, and the broken scroll of the Void Heaven Sutra wailed—all that frenzied power was being devoured and ground to pieces by the rusted tip! An icy, deathly sharpness—one that cut all life—poured into the meridians of Lin Mo’s left arm through the sword-ruin!

A guttural growl rolled from Lin Mo’s throat. He struggled to suppress the chaos, but the dormant swordmark on his right arm suddenly leapt! As if drawn by its kin, a savage force of devouring burst from his right arm, colliding violently with the newborn extinction swordstream in his left!

Boom!

Two sword intents of the same origin, utterly different in nature, clashed within him! The agony tore Lin Mo’s vision black; his left arm split open with countless bloody gashes, gray-green ichor mixed with blood erupted forth!

“Kill!” The one-eyed leader seized the opening. His ghostly blue blade tore through the rain, slashing straight for Lin Mo’s head! The last Hunter, like a wounded wolf, swept his blade viciously for Lin Mo’s knee!

“Get back!”

A thunderous roar! Zhou Xiaoxiao darted like a specter, swinging his bone scythe in a desperate crimson arc—not to block, but to trade blow for blow! The scythe came down on the leader’s sword arm with suicidal force, ignoring the blade slicing toward his own waist!

“Madman!” The leader’s pupils shrank, blade veering, blue light hastily forming a shield. Clang! Metal shrieked—bloodlight and blue steel exploded together! Zhou Xiaoxiao staggered back, the leader’s momentum broken.

Shhk!

The other blue blade seized its chance, ripping across Zhou Xiaoxiao’s waist! His dark-scaled armor split like paper, a gash deep to the bone opened, blood flooding with the rain!

“Argh—!” Zhou Xiaoxiao howled, body bowing from pain, but he used the force to sweep his scythe backward!

Clang!

The blade struck aside the fatal knife aimed at Lin Mo’s knee! The shock split the Hunter’s hand, his blade flying free!

“Yiyi—!” Zhou Xiaoxiao roared, voice breaking with agony. “Get him out! Open the box!”

Behind the blackened rock, Chen Yiyi’s small body jolted. She bit her lip until it bled, eyes wild with terror—and a resolve that drowned even that terror. No more hesitation. She tore open the long wooden box wrapped in blue cloth.

The lid sprang up, and a wave of indescribable decay and death swept out, as if a coffin sealed for ages had burst open!

Inside the box was no talisman, no magic weapon—only a lamp.

An ancient bronze oil lamp. The base was wrapped in withered roots, the lamp itself empty of oil, holding only a shriveled, blackened wick. Beneath the wick, a pinch of dark red earth exuded the stench of blood and the unique, herbal death-scent of the Greenwood Sect’s back mountain.

Beside the lamp, a withered, blackened finger bone lay quietly, its joints rugged, circled by a faint blue glow—the aura of the Greenwood Patriarch!

“A soul lamp?!” The one-eyed leader caught sight of it, blood vessels bursting in his eye, horror overwhelming him. “You dare steal the guardian soul lamp? Zhou Xiaoxiao, you—”

He didn’t finish. Chen Yiyi’s trembling finger jabbed the old bone.

Crack!

The finger bone shattered to black powder. At the same instant, Chen Yiyi bit her tongue, spitting a mouthful of blood and broken incantations fiercely onto the lamp’s charred wick.

“With my blood… ignite your remnant soul… Patriarch… clear the way!”

Bzzzz—

The blackened wick burst with dazzling blue light—cold and grave as a tomb. The pinch of red earth boiled, thick black smoke roiling with countless twisted, wailing faces, enveloping the burning blue flame.

Whoosh!

A pillar of twisted blue, black, and blood-red light shot skyward from the lamp! Where it passed, the raging rain instantly vaporized, and the air filled with the stench of scorched decay and ash!

The pillar didn’t strike anyone; like a drill, it drove straight at the thinnest, most corrupted spot behind Lin Mo—where the death of the Immortal Refining Furnace had soaked the space through!

Screee—

The space ripped with a sound that set teeth on edge! A fissure, just wide enough for one person, its edges oozing black slime, was forced open by the light. From deep within came chaotic winds and distant, warped howls.

“Go!” Zhou Xiaoxiao’s voice was a beast’s dying roar. Blood gushed from his waist, his face ashen, but his one arm held the scythe steady, bloodlight braced against the two incoming Hunters. Blade and blue steel clashed madly, sparks flaring in the rain like dying fireflies.

“Go!” Chen Yiyi sobbed, clutching the soul lamp, its light faltering. She cried out to Lin Mo.

Lin Mo’s bloodshot eyes were locked on Zhou Xiaoxiao’s blood-soaked back. The void in his core torn, the clashing sword intents in his arms, the burning star between his brows, the agony of the chaos seed impaled by sword-ruin—all his pain became a poisonous fire consuming his heart.

“Aaaargh—!” He threw back his head and howled.

He couldn’t suppress it any longer. He had to cut! To tear it all apart!

Instinct drove him to raise his left hand, still impaled by the sword-ruin. In his bloodied palm, the illusory blade formed from chaos seed and sword-ruin suddenly solidified—gray, gold, and green light roiling into a single, concentrated, light-devouring black sword aura!

No longer pure extinction, but laced with the void’s dissolution, the inverse seed’s evil, the chaos seed’s vengeful spirit—a destructive, chaotic sword pressure exploded forth!

“Cut!”

His hoarse roar shattered wind and rain! Lin Mo’s left arm, as if swung by an invisible giant, came down in a cleaving blow—targeting not the attacking Hunters, but the heart of the battle, where Zhou Xiaoxiao fought the enemy!

The black sword aura shot forth, swelling instantly. It devoured the rain, made space groan. Within it, Su Li’s screaming specter, the inverse seed’s green core, broken shadows of the No Return sword flickered.

“You—!” Zhou Xiaoxiao’s pupils shrank; he barely had time to raise his scythe in defense.

Boom—!!!!!

The black sword aura crashed into the melee, detonating with annihilating force.

Ghostly blue blades shattered like brittle glass. The last Hunter didn’t even have time to scream before being torn to bloody mist and icy shards. The one-eyed leader’s dark-scaled armor erupted with glaring runes, but against the sword aura, it melted like butter under a hot knife. He spat blood, body flung back, half his flesh mangled, charred bone exposed.

Zhou Xiaoxiao bore the brunt. The bloodlight on his scythe was scattered by the black sword aura; the rusty shaft screamed, splitting with web-like cracks. The force smashed into his chest.

Crack!

The sound of breaking bone, sharp and clear.

Zhou Xiaoxiao, like a severed kite, spewed blood and fragments of organs, crashing into the charred rock wall behind. Stones flew, dust billowed.

His scythe spun free, stabbing into the mud, its last trace of bloodlight dying, leaving only lifeless gray.

Such was the power of this one strike—frenzied, violent, heedless of friend or foe.

Lin Mo’s left arm hung limp after the blow, veins writhing like poisonous worms beneath the skin, an ominous gray-green crawling its length. He gasped for breath, each one burning his chest, darkness edging his vision.

“Zhou… Brother Zhou!” Chen Yiyi screamed, voice rending the air. She stumbled toward the rock wall, clutching the soul lamp whose flame now flickered on the verge of extinction.

Lin Mo’s bloodshot eyes locked on the half-buried figure in the rubble. A cold, chaotic satisfaction began to spread from the sword-ruin in his left hand, only to be crushed by fresh agony and a sharper, inexplicable dread.

“Go…go…” came Zhou Xiaoxiao’s faint, bloody whisper from the rubble.

Chen Yiyi froze, glanced at Lin Mo, then at the dying lamp and the shrinking spatial rift behind her. Grief turned to mad resolve in an instant.

“Go!” she shrieked, refusing to look back at the rock wall. With all her strength, she hurled the dying bronze soul lamp at the closing rift behind Lin Mo!

Hiss—

As the lamp struck the oozing rift, its last blue-black flame exploded. A chaotic force slammed into Lin Mo’s back.

He was flung into the cold, sticky fissure, its space-tearing currents snatching him away. As darkness swallowed him, his bloodshot gaze burned past the narrowing rift, fixed on the charred rock below—

The dust thinned. Zhou Xiaoxiao’s body lay half-buried, chest crushed, blood soaking the black earth. His only remaining hand clawed deep into the mud, fingers straining hopelessly toward the spot where Lin Mo had vanished—outstretched in a final, defiant gesture. That hand was caked in mud and blood, no longer deft or nimble, but frozen, unyielding, and forever reaching.

The fissure closed.

Rain lashed the ground, washing blood and shattered bone into pale red streams. Beneath the rocks, the hand reaching into emptiness grew cold in the storm. The broken bone scythe, lodged in the mud, was rusted and dull, its edge forever lost.

Chen Yiyi collapsed into the icy mud, staring at the empty wasteland and the shattered, extinguished soul lamp. Rain and tears mingled on her face. In her arms, only the empty wooden box remained.

At the edge of the Tomb of Immortals, only torrential rain mourned this fresh grave. In the distance, new dark-armored figures flickered in and out of the downpour.

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At the Tomb’s edge, the rain began to abate.

Beneath the charred cliffs, a boot armoured in fine metal scales kicked aside rubble. Guihai Thirteen knelt, his dark-scaled armor glinting coldly in the dim sky. He reached out a gloved hand, probing the neck of the ruined corpse.

Cold rain streamed down Zhou Xiaoxiao’s crushed chest, washing away clotted blood. The body was stiff and cold, that hand—buried in mud, fingers pointing at the vanished rift—purple and twisted from death’s final effort.

Guihai Thirteen’s fingers lingered at the neck, then moved to the caved-in chest. No heartbeat, no breath. The great wound at the waist was pale and ragged from the rain, exposing torn muscle and shattered bone.

“Target confirmed dead.” Guihai Thirteen rose, his voice metallic and flat behind the mask. His gaze swept over the broken bone scythe lying in the mud, its edge cracked and dull. “Traitor Guihai Seven-Nine, executed.”

The armored figures behind him stood silent as iron.

Guihai Thirteen turned his gaze to Chen Yiyi, collapsed in the mud not far away. She clung to the empty box, shivering in the cold rain, her face a hollow mask of despair that the storm could not wash away. She stared, soul lost, only at Zhou Xiaoxiao’s corpse.

Guihai Thirteen strode forward, heavy armored boots squelching in the mud.

“Take her,” came the cold order. “She touched the soul lamp. She saw where the ‘key’ went. Pry open her mouth.”

Two dark-armored figures approached without a sound, cold metal hands reaching for Chen Yiyi’s thin shoulders.