Made It

The sudden turn caught everyone off guard.

Free again, Danyangzi did not hesitate. He stepped onto his black cloud and lunged down the mountainside like a tiger, straight at the three figures in the distance.

Li Huowang, meanwhile, stood exactly where he was, watching the whole thing like a spectator at a play.

Seeing the ten thousand eyes staring at him in disbelief, Li Huowang’s face filled with feigned remorse. He slapped his hands together in exaggerated regret.

“Ah! Look what I’ve gone and done! How could I let Danyangzi slip away like that? I’m nothing but a junior—no experience at all. Please, senior, forgive my incompetence!”

“You dared to trick me!”

Hearing those words, Li Huowang let out a snort that turned into a full laugh.

“I think I’m starting to understand why you Zuowandao enjoy this so much. Tricking people is fun! Hahahaha!”

No matter what anyone else thought, the situation had already slid past the point of no return.

And when one of the Zuowandao had his skull split in two by Danyangzi’s sword—

Three Xi Shen [Joy Spirits] squirmed out from the smooth wall of the cavern.

Three clots of chaotic, viscous matter, like translucent things stitched together from clusters of rotting grapes.

The moment they appeared, the Ao-Jing Sect followers watching from the sidelines had no chance to flee. Every mortal in the hall collapsed to the ground, laughing like madmen.

The louder they laughed, the more horrific they became. Blood flowed from their seven apertures, and within moments they dropped dead on the spot.

The Xi Shen paused briefly to orient themselves, then immediately charged toward Danyangzi and Li Huowang.

With yet another faction joining the fray, the chaos grew even more tangled.

But Li Huowang had no desire to move anymore. Watching Danyangzi tear apart another Zuowandao in the distance, he felt he had already done what he needed to do. It was time for this to end.

Suddenly the light above him dimmed. The Xi Shen had wrapped around him.

As its layered body scraped over his own, Li Huowang felt something being pulled away from him.

Most of the emotions inside him—the will to die, the despair, and a faint trace of reluctance—were all taken.

A rustling sound came from his chest. A few lifeless worms slid down and fell weakly to the ground.

Staring dully at the dead insects, Li Huowang understood: the Intercalating the Five Phases was almost over.

A clicking noise came from above. The Xi Shen’s next attack was about to land. If nothing changed, that would be his death.

But Li Huowang no longer planned to dodge. Without those worms, stripped of his organs, he was going to die anyway. Sooner or later, it was all the same.

Still, it wasn’t so bad. Danyangzi’s plan to seize his body had failed completely.

“Ah… I’m so tired. Time to rest.”

The wind above rustled his hem as it swayed. He slowly closed his eyes, ready to meet his end.

“GET OUT!”

A thunderclap of a shout. Li Huowang looked up in confusion and saw Danyangzi’s back, his body wrapped in grotesque, malformed flesh.

Shrouded in black cloud, he hovered directly above Li Huowang, pressing back against the Xi Shen. At this very moment, he had chosen to save him.

Li Huowang scratched at his own chest; a few more dead worms slid to the ground. The lost sensation of pain began to trickle back.

“What’s the point of saving me? You think that means I won’t die?”

Having said that, Li Huowang stood there, bored, watching the show.

As expected, Danyangzi’s situation didn’t look good either—he could already see the other two Xi Shen swimming over.

Just as Li Huowang was settling in to use his final moments to watch Danyangzi get torn apart, a thought struck him. He turned his head toward where the Zuowandao had been.

Corpses lay scattered everywhere across the ground. Everyone else was dead—except one.

A man with a tile-shaped head was clutching his stomach, staggering along the cavern wall as he fled forward.

“Shit! One got away!”

A Zuowandao surviving was worse than dying himself. That was something Li Huowang could not tolerate.

The death wish that had filled him moments ago vanished like a fleeting burst of life. He charged after the last Zuowandao.

The Zuowandao seemed to have been wounded in the fight with Danyangzi—he wasn’t moving fast.

And Li Huowang couldn’t move fast either, because the pain was returning. Every step felt like needles stabbing through his hollowing body. It was falling apart.

One chased, one fled. Then the Zuowandao dodged around a corner and vanished from sight.

When Li Huowang staggered around that same corner, dragging his crumbling body, he froze.

It was a dead end. Some women clutching children huddled against the far wall, trembling.

These had to be the dependents of the Ao-Jing Sect—hidden here for safety.

The Zuowandao who had fled must have changed his appearance and slipped in among them.

Hunched over, Li Huowang dragged himself toward them, the tip of his sword scraping against the ground in a piercing, grating sound.

To these people, that sound was a death knell. Everyone began to cry and scream.

Li Huowang’s eyes swept over them one by one, searching for the hidden Zuowandao.

But it wasn’t easy. There were too many people.

With a shhhhhhlop, Li Huowang’s left arm collapsed. It fell to the ground and became a pile of scattered, broken red bamboo slips.

“I can’t wait anymore. I don’t have time to look! If you won’t come out, then I’ll kill every last one of you!”

Gritting his teeth, Li Huowang raised his sword over the women and children.

“Wait! Daoist, what are you doing?! They’re good people! They’ve done nothing wrong!” The hallucination of the monk beside him suddenly tried to intervene.

Hearing that, a flicker of hesitation appeared in Li Huowang’s eyes—but then he tightened his grip on the sword and swung down.

Blood and screams filled the air. Amid the constant weeping and cries of agony, Li Huowang’s Daoist robe was stained even darker red.

Watching the horrifying scene, the monk was frantic with tears. He stomped his feet beside Li Huowang, as if trying to stop him, but the monk could not touch him at all.

In the middle of the carnage, a woman twisted her body. Her face quickly shifted into a new one, and she was about to flee in the chaos.

But before she could take more than a few steps, several worms flew out of the blood on the ground and burrowed into her body.

She fell to the ground, screaming in agony as something pushed her skin up from inside.

Her struggles stopped. With a pffft, crooked red bamboo slips drilled out of her mah-jongg-tile face like screws being turned.

And so the last Zuowandao died. All six who had once tricked Li Huowang were now dead.

Li Huowang stopped his slaughter. The monk, furious beyond words, ripped a piece of cloth from his own sleeve and threw it to the ground.

Pointing a trembling finger at Li Huowang, he shouted: “Daoist! I was wrong about you! We’re through! The Li Huowang I used to know could never have done something like this!”

Hearing that, Li Huowang—barely alive, at the very end of his strength—slowly raised his head to look at him.

As if the understanding had come late, a sudden clarity dawned on his face.

He first looked down at his own ruined, broken body. Then, in the next moment, his expression burst into wild, delirious joy.

“That’s right! Li Huowang would never do something like this. But I would! Danyangzi would! Hahaha! This Daoist has made it!”