Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Chapter 654 – Killing in a Single Breath

Wuqiong Bi collapsed into the puddles on the ground.

Her Daoist robe had already been burned into tatters. Her face was pale, her body completely drenched. All in all, she presented an extremely miserable figure.

Yet she cared for none of this, screaming with all her might.

She knew that her husband had used the red flower to protect her life, that he must have paid a massive price.

The situation was now plain to see: the person that the Tianhai Divine Empress had originally intended to kill was not her, but…him.

Bie Yanghong heard his wife’s words and he was naturally even more aware of the situation. The annihilation of the red flower had put him at his weakest moment.

But he could not leave, because the Tianhai Divine Empress had already arrived.

The black Phoenix wings appeared in the darkness like the shadow of death.

Nothing could be faster than her, not Wuqiong Bi’s warnings or Bie Yanghong’s thoughts.

A pure, seemingly rather delicate fist appeared in front of Bie Yanghong.

This fist seemed to contain all the energy of the world, completely encapsulating his surroundings.

Bie Yanghong had a feeling that no matter which way he went, he would find it impossible to escape unless he could ascend to the heavens or sink into the earth.

Yet the great earth was firm, and the restrictions of the Mausoleum of Books prevented even experts of the Divine Domain from flying, so how could he avoid it?

His pinkie finger lightly flicked, and the string that had originally been tied to the red flower rose upward.

An invisible string seemed to extend down from the starry sky all the way to the Mausoleum of Books, tied to his body.

Through some incomprehensible manner, his body flew upwards.

Just when his two feet left the ground, the pure white fist arrived.

It seemed that his struggles had amounted to nothing, but they were actually quite critical, because the fist landed not on his face, but his stomach.

Right at that moment, the thin string tied around his pinkie swung in front of his stomach.

An enormous boom akin to thunder exploded in the Mausoleum of Books. Countless cracks appeared on the stone plain and all the waters in the canals boiled into the air, transforming into mist.

A clear path appeared in the mist, extending into the dark forests of the Mausoleum of Books.

A clear path also appeared in the dark forest, the ground completely covered in toppled trees.

The end of this path was the river outside the Mausoleum of Books. In the long-dry river bed, a huge hole appeared. The fake Heavenly Tome Monoliths lay in pieces within it.

Bie Yanghong lay in front of those broken monoliths, his stomach caved in, his body covered in blood.

The black Phoenix wings dispersed the darkness and the pure white fist appeared once more. It exploded towards Bie Yanghong, clearly not prepared to give him any time to catch his breath.

Wuqiong Bi screamed and madly rushed in that direction.

The snowstorm was still fighting against the shooting stars at the end of the Divine Path. A tinge of sternness appeared on Guan Xingke’s ordinary face.

He had not expected that even Bie Yanghong, with his level of cultivation, was still not a match for even one fist of the Tianhai Divine Empress.

He could not allow this situation to continue. If the Tianhai Divine Empress truly could kill Bie Yanghong in a single stroke, then it would assuredly be his turn next.

The countless tiny shooting stars made a sudden turn in the night sky. With a sky full of starlight, they surged towards the river outside the Mausoleum of Books, striking right at the Divine Empress’s back!

The snowstorm swept over him, instantly covering Guan Xingke’s body in tiny cuts, all wounds sliced out by sword intent.

There was a faint connection amongst the stars, which was fate. Within the domain of stars, there was a path, and this was change.

In a moment, the shooting stars enveloped the riverside and struck at the Tianhai Divine Empress. They seemed dense and profuse to an indescribable extent, but they were not the true sea of stars; there were naturally cracks within them.

No person could find the crack in these shooting stars in such a short time.

Guan Xingke was very confident of this fact, so he firmly believed that the Tianhai Divine Empress had to turn to receive his full-force attack.

He had chosen to use his valiant cultivation to resist the snowstorm of Han Qing’s sword and sent his sky of shooting stars towards that side precisely so that he could leave Bie Yanghong a chance to live.

From any angle, this choice was courageous and wise, yet in hindsight, it was the greatest mistake he made in this battle of the Divine Domain.

Because the Tianhai Divine Empress’s goal had always…been him.

The Tianhai Divine Empress did not turn. Instead, she continued to fly into the night sky, and then vanished.

Two streams of black light suddenly made their way through innumerable shooting stars, the black Phoenix wings tearing through.

The vast sky of stars was riddled with paths. Even fate could be reversed; how could she not see through the cracks in these shooting stars?

An extremely clear and incomparably arrogant Phoenix cry rose up from the Mausoleum of Books.

A true Phoenix cleaved a path through the stars and arrived in front of Guan Xingke.

This was a Black Phoenix, utterly enormous, seemingly able to obscure half the sky.

With a grim shout, Guan Xingke could no longer care for the sword intent in the blizzard. He flipped his right palm and sent it up to meet the night sky.

With this single palm, the countless stars in the night sky grew brighter. These were all the stars he had seen in his many years at the shores of the Western Sea. They were all his companions.

It was only a pity that the two wings unfurled by the Black Phoenix obscured his eyes and also obscured those stars.

The darkness of death descended.

There was a light clap.

The Tianhai Divine Empress’s palm fell on Guan Xingke’s palm.

Silently.

Guan Xingke’s palm was pristine, but his wrist bones were shattered.

He was an expert of the Divine Domain who had observed the stars for centuries, and whose flesh and bone had long since transformed to jade, their strength comparable to that of ordinary divine artifacts.

But now, they shattered like rotted wood.

Right after, Guan Xingke’s hand shattered, then his shoulder shattered.

His crystal-like flesh, his jade-like bones, his blood glistening with fragments of stars, sprayed everywhere into the night.

Guan Xingke’s body incessantly grew shorter, incessantly crumbled away.

Boom!

The palm hanging in the darkness also finally shattered.

Guan Xingke became a pile of shards on the ground.

With the howling of the night wind, these shards were scattered in all directions, all the way into the night sky, their final destination unknown.

In the night sky, the massive Black Phoenix gradually dispersed its body.

The Tianhai Divine Empress returned to the peak of the Mausoleum of Books.

She stood on the edge of the Divine Path and slowly clasped her hands behind her.

She closed her eyes, then opened them to once more look upon her world.

She was very calm as if nothing had happened at all.

Thus, the entire world turned silent.

In the moment when the Tianhai Divine Empress closed her eyes and opened them again, her soul once more traveled tens of thousands of li away, returning to the stream near Xining Village’s old temple.

The tree branches were still gently swaying in the breeze.

The blood lotuses in the stream drifted off in all directions, guideless.

The monk was still sitting by the stream, his bare feet still in the water.

“This is Our world. Your coming means you can no longer leave.”

The Tianhai Divine Empress gazed at him and said, “And We can come and go however We please.”