Chapter 218: War Ghost Trap (1)
A tinge of blood stained the black blade, and the bandage on the handle slowly fluttered. Longing, long silenced, suddenly surged, piercing Chu Hengkong's heart along the handle. The long-dormant blade came alive again at this moment, and Chu Hengkong's determination was the key to awakening it. But it would not awaken, because the man holding the handle was not its master.
Therefore, the long knife was angry, it made a long and shrill cry, and pierced into the killer's heart, dragging his life into the knife.
Dragged into the past hundreds of years ago.
Vision faded, space faded. Before the bloody longing buried deep within the knife, individual existence seemed infinitesimal, like a small boat in the vast ocean. The surging waves pierced the boat, drowning it to the depths of the sea. A sound rose from the endless darkness: the demon king's mad laughter. The roaring laughter of the Nightmare King.
Chu Hengkong saw the warrior's back. Before him lay hymns, nooses, and a mountain of corpses. Purple lightning illuminated the demon king's unspeakable form. It stood atop a mountain of bones, emitting a terrifying, shrill laugh. In the final moments of the desperate battle, a deep shadow obscured everything. Then the warrior drew his sword.
A bloody sword light was slashed out to tear apart the nightmare!
The Kingdom of Despair crumbled in a hail of blood, everything fading into an ominous, sinister hue. The hymns and laughter faded, leaving only the corpse of the evil god and the sword that had slain him...
"—The blade light hidden in the shadows will one day illuminate the sky."
A hoarse voice sounded, and everything that had happened faded away. The bystander's overlooking perspective disappeared, and the perception returned to Chu Hengkong.
Chu Hengkong heard a series of rustling sounds, as if mice were running quickly past. He was watching the dispersing corpse, holding the murderous knife in his hand.
Now, he has become the man who slew the devil.
“——!”
At the same moment his senses returned, the most horrific pain of his life erupted from every part of his body. Chu Hengkong practically screamed. The torture he'd experienced upon entering the Kingdom of Despair, the agony of his flesh melting with poison, the pain of his spine shattering, the agony of his eyeballs being shattered... all the pain he'd ever experienced combined couldn't compare to what he felt in that instant.
His flesh was rotting, his bones were melting, and his heart was screaming furiously. The agony could no longer be described as pain, but more like unimaginable torture. Finally, the pain turned into a screaming, and he took a deep breath, trying to calm his collapsing sanity.
The pain suddenly disappeared. Everything was dark.
He is dead.
——
The corpse, the murderous knife, the warrior slowly stood up, holding the hilt of the knife. Everything that happened a few seconds ago reappeared, and Chu Hengkong was back to the beginning. Then the pain deep in his body erupted again. Without a chance to breathe, the same predicament struck again!
Chu Hengkong was almost at a loss for words. He realized he had been "resurrected," but he had no idea how "last time" had ended. He endured the excruciating pain, screamed, and breathed—all in less than a second! There were no other creatures around, and he hadn't been attacked. So how had he died?
The excruciating pain stripped him of any remaining energy for thought. Chu Hengkong knew he had to move, at least do something to distract himself, or he would die in agony. He mobilized his muscles, adjusted his bones, roared and breathed at the exact same time. This time, Chu Hengkong forced himself to focus; he had to find the cause of death.
He opened his mouth, and blood-scented air flowed through his mouth. The concentration of magic in the air was extremely high, but not enough to kill him instantly. Time slowed down in the extreme tension, and the gas rolled through his throat and into his respiratory tract...
The heart in his chest suddenly contracted, like a living thing being stimulated. It expanded at an astonishing speed, and the moment Chu Hengkong took a breath, it exploded! His entire body was blasted into bloody foam!
The broken ghost pupil captured the last moment of death. The blood on the ground burned due to the high temperature. Black stones crashed down, and the entire mountain collapsed.
——
This time, it seemed like almost three minutes had passed before the third torture began again. The long sword trembled in his hand, and Chu Hengkong realized that it was the shaking of his own collapse.
He was completely dumbfounded. His final glance had revealed the soldier's condition. The agonizing pain continued because to describe this man's body as riddled with wounds was an overstatement. His nerves had long since rotted away, his bones were hollow, riddled with old wounds, and all that moved was rotten tissue. He was a mere corpse, a straw man made of bones and flesh.
The corpse was still able to move because it possessed an extremely powerful heart, condensing immense light and heat. However, this heart was also damaged. Its energy was so dense that even a breath of air would trigger a massive explosion.
If Chu Hengkong, who transplanted the Heavenly Demon Core, was like stuffing a jet engine into a motorcycle, then this soldier was like stuffing a leaking nuclear reactor into a garbage bag. Let alone making the bag move, it would be a miracle if it could exist for even a second!
Did the Allied soldiers kill Vansalar with a body like this?
Now he wants to use this body to... fight?
Pain, excruciating pain, unimaginable pain. As Chu Hengkong pondered, the pain intensified, driving his spirit body mad with fear. His heart began to contract again. He would die if he stayed still. He raised a hand and pressed it to his chest, moving extremely slowly, for the garbage bag would explode if he wasn't careful. Then Chu Hengkong opened his mouth again, his muscles moving in sync with his breathing.
This was the method of suppressing his heartbeat that Qingxia had taught him before the Yixin Ceremony. He was going to take a gamble with it.
Boom. Boom. He used his muscles to control the contraction of his heart, as if trying to protect a drop of water with a lighter. The attempt finally succeeded, his heart temporarily calming. He inhaled air ever so gently and exhaled the foul air. Breathe. Not fast. Breathe.
Perhaps some secret technique the warrior had cultivated had taken effect; Chu Hengkong felt better. At least the pain had subsided to a point where he could barely bear it. He loosened his grip on the knife, because his second priority was survival. The warrior's body was covered in wounds, more numerous than his pores. He had no doubt he would die within two steps.
The warriors of that time must have had a way to heal their wounds...either through help from others or a powerful relic...otherwise he would have been buried with Vansalar, and it would have been too late for him to draw his sword...
His vision was severely impaired, and it was faster to use his mind and energy to sense things than to open his eyes. The warrior wore tattered purple armor, composed primarily of overlapping armor plates, somewhat resembling the great armor of Earth warriors. An unnatural bulge nestled within the armor, right in front of the warrior's heart. Chu Hengkong groped nervously, fearing his movements would provoke that frantic heart again.
He grasped the bulge, pulled it out, and saw the envelope stained with black blood. The paper had long since changed color, but it was clearly of high quality, and the wax seal was shaped like a childish lion's head.
Inside the envelope lay a handwritten note.
"Just in case you're in a hurry to go out and forget to take your belongings, I've stuffed a roll of bandages into your armor.
Of course, no one is worried that you will be killed by outsiders. But we are all worried that you will kill yourself :D"
The note unfolded and transformed into a golden bandage. Chu Hengkong heard an impatient sound coming from his own mouth.
"Shut up."
At this moment, Chu Hengkong lost control of his body and returned to the perspective of a bystander, watching the soldier haphazardly wrap a few bandages around his severely injured upper body. That image made Chu Hengkong feel an uncanny sense of familiarity.
“No way…”
The healing was complete, and control returned to him. This time, Chu Hengkong finally managed to pull the knife out and sheath it. He turned and began to walk slowly and with difficulty. He passed a puddle of blood and saw "his" face in the blood.
A thin face wrapped in bandages, with a frighteningly gloomy look between his brows, like a world-weary bandit.
He was very familiar with this face; he had seen this man every day since he came to the Wilderness of Despair.
Chongming.
·
The bandage took effect quickly, stretching Chongming's tattered body back to the point where he could walk. Chu Hengkong walked along the wall for nearly half a minute, his mind a mess.
In his heart, he had always respected Chongming, not only because he had saved his life, but also because he knew he must have been a powerful figure in the past. However, he had never expected that the person who killed Fansalar would be Chongming. This matter itself was too absurd.
The evil god who was killed long ago was resurrected and dominated the Heavenly Prison, but the man who killed the gods could only exist as a powerless man in the fog?
Fan Salar, newly resurrected, would be furious if he knew about this. What logic exactly was behind the establishment of the Heavenly Prison Border? Furthermore, Chongming had already triumphed over the evil god; even if he died, he shouldn't have died here...
Chu Heng couldn't figure it out, nor did he have time to think about it. Judging from his current dire situation, his current goal should be to get Chongming out of the cave and back to the battlefield. Now that he could finally breathe regularly, he wanted to curse. No one could be in a good mood in this damn situation.
The cave wasn't much different from "reality." The terrain was nearly identical to when he entered. However, the concentration of magic in the air was frighteningly high, and the intertwined auras of various unorthodox sects made it resemble a cemetery. The ochre-red rock was incredibly smooth, and the cave didn't seem to have formed naturally. Perhaps the Zanxin and the gods had fought here, and Chongming had stabbed Fansalar, pushing it into the mountains, thus creating this path...
If that were the case, there shouldn't be any other life in the mountains. The only sound in the cave should be his own breathing. But he had clearly heard the noise made by the mice earlier.
There was another breathing sound at this moment.
From the front came the occasional sigh of a departed soul, the faintest of breaths. Chu Hengkong gripped the hilt of his knife tightly, thankful he had closed his eyes, for his spirit sensed the appearance of the newcomer.
It was a hideous, tumor-like sphere, about four meters tall. Its surface was covered in brown "tumors," which burst with the sound of breathing, oozing petroleum-black blood and revealing greedy eyes. The tumors were actually the eyelids of a strange beast, a beast with a hundred eyes, following the scent of blood.
The other party's information naturally emerged in Chu Hengkong's mind.
The path to destiny and unity, Sephiroth 5, Secret Sky Eye. This is the Level 5 alien beast, the Afraid Eye Stone Demon, specializing in releasing petrifying rays with its gaze. The slippery black blood reveals another truth: this alien beast is tainted by the Black Moon and possesses the immortality of the Fallen.
In two seconds, the Stone Demon would see him. He had to think of a way to kill the enemy within one second.
Chu Hengkong would die even if he took a deep breath now.
How is he going to kill?
(End of this chapter)
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