Final Battle - 3
The last monster's body crashed onto the ice, sending up a shower of tiny ice crystals.
Ten breaths, no more, no less.
Ji Wang sheathed his sword, slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, and was about to say "thank you for your hard work" to Bu Jiu and Huai Qing when he saw Bu Jiu quickly walk up to him.
Bu Jiu's gaze immediately fell on his previously injured left shoulder, and his voice was a little more urgent than usual: "Is the injury alright? Did the intense circulation of spiritual energy just now cause it to break?"
Ji Wang hurriedly smiled and said, "It's nothing, don't worry. Thanks to Huaiqing's previous advice to use the Dao Source to repair myself, I've been carefully nurturing it along the way, and the wound has already healed."
He moved his left shoulder to show he was alright: "It's just that the skin and flesh are newly grown, leaving a shallow scar."
As he spoke, he glanced at Huaiqing beside him, clearly finding it difficult to say the second half of his sentence with Huaiqing present.
Huaiqing was putting a pill into her mouth when she saw this and immediately raised her hands to cover her ears, saying gently, "...Don't worry about me, I can't hear you."
He adopted a "do not look at or listen to what is improper" attitude, resolutely avoiding getting involved in the young couple's sweet nothings.
Seeing this, Ji Wang looked at Bu Jiu, deliberately slumped his shoulders slightly, and said with a hint of grievance in his voice, "Sigh, I just don't know if this scar will look bad here?"
He even raised his hand and gently pressed that spot through his clothes, his brows furrowed slightly, as if he were genuinely troubled by it.
Bu Jiu: "..."
After a two-second silence, Bu Jiu spoke somewhat stiffly, his voice lower than before: "It's good that you're alright. Whether it looks good or not... who cares about that?"
No sooner had he finished speaking than Huaiqing, as if she had timed it perfectly, suddenly raised her voice and asked, "Are you done—?"
Ji Wang immediately obliged, raising his voice and responding with a smile, "That's all!"
The two of them, singing and dancing back and forth, looked like they were performing some kind of street drama, instantly shattering the previous romantic yet awkward atmosphere.
Huaiqing then lowered her hand, which had been covering her ears, and said, "It's good that you've finished."
He then handed two more pills to the two of them, saying, "The cold and dampness ahead is even more intense. You need to keep your spiritual energy abundant and your meridians warm."
Ji Wang caught a glimpse of Huai Qing's amused expression as she handed him the medicine. He hesitated for a moment before deciding to change the subject: "By the way, before you found me, did Yue Yuan make a move?"
Bu Jiu walked ahead, scouting the way: "Before you appeared, there were only a few small-scale conflicts. In retrospect, it was speculated that they might have been related to them, but they were all vague and unsubstantiated. They were all pawns like Ling Gu who made their moves."
Bu Jiu carefully discerned the aura emanating from the fork in the road: "As for Yue Yuan himself, he has never appeared in the past few hundred years—let's go this way."
Huaiqing followed behind and added, "His target has always been only you, or rather, the innate Dao source within you. Apart from that, nothing else in this world is worth his attention."
Ji Wang was slightly taken aback, and said in a strange tone, "Huaiqing, what you're saying... sounds a bit odd."
“That is the truth,” Huaiqing replied, accepting the reproachful glance that Bujiu cast at her with composure.
Seeing this, Ji Wang immediately smoothed things over and steered the conversation back on track: "I just want to know more about who else he has under his command that we need to be wary of, besides Ling Gu. We're going deep into the lion's den this time, so we need to get a clearer picture of the situation."
Bu Jiu pondered for a moment: "Aside from Ling Gu, who was personally cultivated and entrusted with important tasks by him... there aren't many others. His subordinates each have their own strengths, but most of them work alone and don't have deep connections with each other. The ones we know of are 'Po Suo,' who is skilled in poisons and witchcraft, and another who is skilled in weapon crafting and mechanical formations, and is known as 'Hundred Craftsmen.'"
Huaiqing added from the side, "When you went to Wuwangyuan, a person with an extremely concealed aura came to the valley. He was suspected to be a specialist in assassination, and his code name was never revealed."
As the three talked, the ice path grew increasingly deep and cold, and even their breath seemed to freeze.
A faint resonance began to emanate from ahead, and Ji Wang felt his Dao source being drawn in, causing a slight tremor.
Deep within the icy abyss, Ling Gu suddenly turned around. He sensed an aura similar to his own, piercing through layers of ice barriers and approaching his location.
He blinked slowly, his pupils reflecting the faint light emanating from the ice wall in the darkness.
"What's wrong?" A soft, alluring voice drifted from the shadows of the icicles behind him. "The person you're waiting for has arrived?"
The shadow twisted a few times, and the figure of a woman dressed in an elaborate dark purple dress with strange bone ornaments in her hair slowly appeared.
Ling Gu immediately denied it: "...I didn't wait."
Po Su chuckled softly, "You're so stubborn. Your thoughts are written all over your pale face."
She approached gracefully, bringing with her a scent mingled with the sweet fragrance of decay and the aroma of exotic herbs, and stopped beside Ling Gu: "His Majesty specifically instructed me to 'take good care' of you. You... your mind is the most unstable, easily swayed by the past. Let me see if that's truly the case?"
Ling Gu remained silent and took a half step back, hiding himself even deeper into his outer robe and shadows.
Seeing this, Po Suo pursed her lips: "What a spoilsport. Who in the Hunter's Abyss Division doesn't know that you are my favorite little trinkets? I went through a lot of trouble to get this opportunity to travel with you, hoping that something fun would happen."
The snake coiled around her arm writhed restlessly: "And what about you? You've been so distracted since you received the mission. In all those years before, why didn't you care about anything else like this, for example, me?"
Ling Gu said curtly, "You talk too much."
"Heh." Po Suo sneered, "You think I talk too much? If I get bored and do something to your beloved younger brother, don't blame me for not giving you a heads-up."
The fingers hidden in his sleeves clenched suddenly. A mere instant later, the turbulent emotions surging in his eyes were suppressed: "Under the great cause... everything can be sacrificed. If necessary, then of course it is the right thing to do."
Po Suo stared intently at Ling Gu's reaction, her interest growing even stronger. Far from giving up because of his words, she moved even closer:
"Speaking of which, I've always been curious. Last time outside Yinchen Temple, besides looking at you with eyes that seemed to want to skin you alive... what else did your precious little brother say to you? I noticed that you seemed to have lost half your soul after you came back."
Ling Gu's Adam's apple bobbed; he really needed someone to confide in, whoever it was: "He said he was going to kill me."
Posuo scoffed as if she had heard the biggest joke in the world, lightly covering her red lips with her nail-painted fingers: "What's so new about that? Didn't his eyes tell you the answer hundreds of years ago? Kill you? He's wanted to do that for far too long!"
Her laughter was full of mockery, and she felt that Ling Gu's reaction was making a mountain out of a molehill.
“This time is different.” Ling Gu raised his head, meeting Po Suo’s mocking gaze for the first time. “Before, he hated me, resented me, and perhaps even wanted to clean house. But this time, I not only killed an innocent cub of my own kind, but I also personally crushed the last bit of affection he had for me, his so-called ‘brother’.”
His voice trembled: "I'm a complete beast. I not only harmed those children... but I also completely lost my brother."
The mocking smile on Po Suo's face froze for a moment. She looked at Ling Gu and suddenly felt that her previous methods of provoking him by not blaming him had lost most of their fun.
What's the point of threats when someone has extinguished even the last vestige of self-deception?
But that makes it even more interesting.
A puppet destined only to fulfill its final mission may be easier to use than a pawn harboring resentment.
Her expression brightened again, and she clapped her hands: "Oh my, I'm almost moved to tears. Since you understand so well, what are we waiting for? For the sake of a great cause, everything can be sacrificed, right? Including your life that should have been lost long ago."
Ling Gu turned his head away and stopped speaking.
As silence spread through the ice cave, an unusually clear sound came from the depths of the intricate ice passages above, like a muffled echo deliberately suppressed after a powerful force forcibly broke through some kind of sophisticated barrier from the outside.
The aftershocks traveled down the veins of the ice layer, causing even finer ice crystals to fall from the top of the ice cave.
The languidness and playfulness on her face vanished instantly. She suddenly stood up straight and listened intently: "Oh? You got past those little toys left in the ice crevice by the Hundred Craftsmen so quickly? It seems your brother and the reincarnated Daoist are more impatient and capable than expected."
“They’re very close.” Ling Gu didn’t know if she was reminding Po Suo or telling herself.
Po Su stretched her limbs: "Perfect timing. The stage is set up, the lead actor is almost here, and it's time for you, the most important opening act, to prepare to take the stage."
With a flick of her finger, a pale green light drifted toward Ling Gu and hovered in front of him: "Swallow it. It can temporarily suppress the messy backlash and emotions within you, so that you don't collapse on your own before completing the mission and ruin the Venerable's important matters."
The light emitted a sweet, fishy smell, clearly indicating that it was a product of some kind of mixture of Gu worms and secret medicine.
Ling Gu knew what this was and the consequences of swallowing it. It was just another form of control and paralysis, allowing him to act like a more competent puppet.
Without hesitating for long, he reached out and put it down his throat.
"Very good." Posuo nodded in satisfaction. "Then, go to your place as Your Majesty has arranged. Remember, your task is only to guide; do not do anything unnecessary, and do not have any unrealistic expectations."
Ling Gu did not respond, but simply walked step by step in a specific direction within the ice cave.
With a flicker, Posuo disappeared back into the shadow of the ice pillar, as if she had never existed.
Above, Ji Wang and his two companions broke through the last obstacle and stepped into the relatively open heart of the Ice Abyss.
Below, Ling Gu, like a prisoner walking towards a predetermined execution ground, was heading towards the designated coordinates at the core of the formation.
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