Persimmons and Hands

Everything that unfolded, before and after— Every single bit of it completely defied everyone's expectations! There had been no defense, no resistance, not even enough time to take any measures. In just a few snaps of the fingers, under the coordinated siege of more than eight workshops, the entire mountain-carved workshop—along with the mountain itself—had been smashed to pieces! It was unbelievable, yet somehow completely natural... What else could have happened? What other outcome could there possibly be? Tongxie Workshop had poured its full power into establishing the Kunwu Lock, drawing upon the combined forces of heaven and earth to sever the interior from the exterior. Five Flowers and Five Leaves' Earth Axis Armillary had taken root within the ley lines, beckoning boundless magma to breach the crust in a volcanic blowout. Inside Dragon Heart Workshop, countless knots were unraveled one after another, unleashing a relentless gale of decay. Within Qichuan Workshop, a cataclysmic roar like heaven itself shifting shook the air as the Path of the Desolate Ruins manifested, raining down countless meteorites... In that fleeting instant, the coordination between everyone had been wordlessly sublime. Spurring their reserves without the slightest restraint, they had gone all out—from crowd control to burst damage, maxing out every single metric! What was more, backed by the Embers lineage's deep-rooted doctrine of workshop demolition—a trade drilled into them practically from the womb—every competitor was targeted to death from all 360 degrees without a single blind spot. Never mind one Ji Jue, even ten Ji Jues should have been dead beyond all doubt. Even if he survived the demolition of his workshop, what waves could a Celestial Chosen stripped to mere armor and a blank slate hope to make in this melee? That was how it should have been. Or rather, that was how it had to be! The moment the detection arrays registered the complete collapse of Ji Jue's workshop structure, everyone let out a breath in spite of themselves. And then, their next breath was almost their last... From the brief, dead silence, a muffled, boiling rumble erupted from the depths of the earth. A torrential surge of silver light burst forth, erupting in all directions. Vaporized quicksilver billowed from the shattered mountain like a storm. Like the gentle exhalation of a monster freed from its chains. Resounding tremors echoed through the earth. From beneath the scorched earth, shattered rock, and twisted metal frame, a colossal hand slowly emerged from the dirt. Then a second, a third, a fourth... In an instant, countless giant hands forged of shifting, flowing quicksilver thrust out from the scorched earth toward the sky. Fingers splayed outward like branches spreading from a colossal tree. Hanging from them were innumerable carcasses of aberrations, dangling like plump, ripe fruit. When the wild wind blew, the fruit swayed back and forth. Drops of blood as thick as syrup dripped from the fruit, and a sickly sweet stench of decay wafted past everyone's noses like a shared hallucination. In a flash, bloodcurdling wails and shrieks rolled outward like a tidal wave! "What the hell?!" Inside Dragon Heart Workshop, cold sweat instantly drenched Lin Ke's back. His years of study and mastery over Knot Subjugation had made him intimately familiar with curses and feral spiritus. Yet at this moment, it felt as if he had uncapped a geyser of pure despair. Spirits of despair, condensed almost into solid blackness, surged into the heavens like a deluge, rolling outward to engulf everything in their wake. As the countless giant hands flexed in the wind and their innumerable fingers curled inward, the whole, unrefined aberrations dangling from them were squeezed into pulp like fruit tossed into an industrial press. Blood, bones, souls—all were extracted to the very last drop! In the end, only shriveled husks were left to fall from the branches, plummeting into the scorched earth and shattering into worthless fragments. Before everyone's very eyes, he sucked every single scrap of spiritus reserves dry in one breath! A chilling heartbeat echoed from the depths of the earth. Boundless corrupted spiritus flowed over the quicksilver like black-and-red blood vessels, instantly spreading throughout the construct. A monstrous pollution capable of turning the entire island into a demon realm in an instant, yet powerless to taint the essence of those countless giant hands. The peerless mastery of Purification in Fluid Alchemy was revealed! In the reincarnation cycle of the Border Realm, across more than five hundred years of loops, not even the subtle, insidious erosion of the Crucible of Stagnant Rot had been able to compromise the Sage's essence—let alone these chaotic, impure aberrations! Now, as the innumerable giant hands intertwined and shed their former shell, they cast a shadow over the earth that blotted out the sky. Countless palms converged, contracting inward and expanding outward like a swirling vortex, shifting and flowing ceaselessly without fixed form, never pausing for an instant. Even as the heavens shook once more amid deafening roars, Blazing streaks of light reappeared across the vault of the sky as dozens of radiant meteorites plunged toward the earth, locked onto the form of the myriad hands. Yet before they could even hit the ground! The moment they appeared, giant hands reached into the heavens, their fingers splaying wide before clamping shut with effortless ease, like plucking fruit from a branch. Wrists twisted, gripping the meteorites—hotter than molten rock and fire—tight in their palms. And hurled them down at the nearby workshop! Explosions followed in rapid succession. Blistering shockwaves erupted as the workshop's defenses were smashed to pieces in an instant, ripped open as easily as a snack wrapper. Giant hands reached mercilessly inside, rummaging, sorting, plundering. They grabbed every core component in a single fistful! Clutching them in their palms. And yanked them out like pulling radishes, tearing out countless shattered spiritus circuits with them! Crucibles, spiritus vaults, defensive emplacements, armaments, and even automata... As fingers tightened, deafening crunches echoed one after another. Vast amounts of spiritus erupted from the ruptured Crucibles, only to be greedily, ruthlessly swallowed down by the giant hands! Held high in one of the raised palms, an artisan's wails and shrieks echoed through the entire world. Then, with a sickening squelch... Gore burst out between the fingers! Less than half a minute into the battle, the first elimination had occurred. At Ji Jue's hands! What now stood revealed before all the combatants was Ji Jue's ultimate creation! "—Who said a workshop can't count as armor?" At the core of the vortex of myriad silver-gleaming hands, two giant palms with interlocked fingers slowly rose and unfolded, revealing a menacing, cockpit-like seat and the artisan seated upon it. Living quicksilver had driven into his limbs and bones like roots, taking over the functions of his heart, organs, and blood vessels, binding the artisan directly to the entire workshop. Just like an offering. Pouring everything he was—his life, his spiritus, and even his soul—entirely into the workshop! Turning his workshop into an extension of his own two hands, bringing everything within sight under his absolute control. To achieve this, he had not hesitated to burn through every last point, completely discarding the numerous ancillary facilities and works he had built over time, even dismantling and recycling Assault Niuma down to the last scrap. Using the framework of Quicksilver's former workshop as a reference, he had rebuilt it upon that foundation in synthesis with the structure of the Sage's remnant phantom. Finally, with Fluid Alchemy and Solid Alchemy as its twin pillars, he had recreated a single ten-thousandth of that supreme, majestic power! Even if it was merely a single thread, it was more than enough! Enough to bring down the final gavel and decide the entire contest! "Did you guys really think I was stalling for time to charge a cast bar?" Ji Jue sighed softly and extended a hand once more. "My apologies, but that was just some nonsense to mess with you..." The true creation had already been completed before the battle even began! In that instant, accompanying Ji Jue's motion, one hand among the myriad swelled dramatically, plunging into the riddled, scarred mountain. It closed around the workshop's main axis, rooted beneath stone and soil. Immediately, accompanied by an ear-splitting screech of grinding metal that resonated between heaven and earth, a load-bearing column hundreds of meters long was torn up by its roots, kicking up a storm of dust. Dozens of hands clamped onto it, forcibly bending the warped axis straight. Lifting it like a massive club, they raised it to the zenith. Quicksilver surged upward against gravity, wrapping around it in tight layers, rapidly hardening as spiritus circuits shifted and reconfigured into a blood-red, double-edged blade. One edge gleamed with an eye-searing crimson sharpness, while the other was elusive as a shadow, impossible to pin down. Amid the flow of blessings, the ferocious aura of Ex-Wife and Stepmother reappeared. Toward another workshop—slash! An ash-black gale of decay howled forth, permeating and swallowing the construct of myriad hands. Everywhere it touched, silver light dimmed, aged, and decayed, its material properties deteriorating rapidly. Inside Dragon Heart Workshop, Lin Ke's face was deathly pale. He had thrown everything he had into this strike. Unraveling over sixty knots of Knot Subjugation all at once, countless curses transmuted from the spirits of aberrations manifested, becoming the world's most terrifying tide of decay. As if tens of millions of years had passed in a single heartbeat, aging everything in its path. Yet decay failed to shake the silhouette of the myriad hands. A momentary dimming and flecks of rust appeared, only to be washed clean and renewed in the swirling silver light! It was like the tempering of time. Instead, it accelerated the heat of Fluid Alchemy... Under the erosion and pressure of the wind of decay, the essence—already refined to the extreme—actually underwent further Purification. In an instant, it shook off countless flecks of rust and dust, expelling the last lingering traces of corruption along with them. Its volume shrunk by a negligible fraction, yet its dazzling radiance burned all the more furiously! Inside Five Flowers and Five Leaves Workshop, the colossal Earth Axis Armillary spun with violent ferocity, manipulating the earth. The artisan intended to tear open a massive chasm in an earthquake, burying the gargantuan construct within the rift to crush it to dust. Yet before the seismic tremors could even gather force, a single hand slowly reached out from the floating vortex of myriad hands and pressed against the ground. A gentle touch! And then, an explosive force far fiercer than any earthquake erupted. The earth groaned. A colossal shockwave surged outward in all directions, birthing a brand-new storm. Before the geological shifts could even begin, they were violently interrupted by this overwhelming power. Inside Five Flowers and Five Leaves Workshop, the Earth Axis Armillary let out a sudden shriek of distress as its intricate interlocking bronze rings warped and distorted in an instant. And throughout it all, fracturing sounds rang out incessantly in the empty air. The suppression of the Kunwu Lock was torn to shreds layer by layer by countless unfurling palms, powerless to constrain the operation of this colossus! Just like that, right before everyone's eyes, under their horrified gazes—the blade of ten thousand jun carved an arc across the heavens. Aimed directly at another workshop. Like an Absolute Sentence descending from the sky! Boom! With crushing ruin, it pierced through layer after layer of defenses and force fields in the void, plunging straight through the roof! From the vortex of myriad hands, arm after arm extended, fingers splaying wide to grip the hilt and the blade, twisting it with effortless ease as if turning a valve! A tide of spiritus erupted from the victim's workshop alongside fire and dense smoke. Blood-red quicksilver flowed down the blade, plunging into the workshop like a straw and swiftly slurping up every last scrap of spiritus reserves. Only when an awkward gurgle echoed from the mangled workshop—like an empty milk carton—did the sword slowly pull free. And finally, just like dealing with an actual milk carton, Fingers clenched into a fist. And smashed it mercilessly to bits! Debris and flames scattered amid the final wails and screams. The second one! In that moment, as the construct of myriad hands leaned upon the colossal greatsword and turned slowly around as if casting a backward glance, every participant finally felt, quite literally, a bone-chilling dread as if plunging into an icy abyss. "What a hassle," A regretful sigh resonated across the heavens and the earth. "They say you should pick the softest persimmons to squeeze... but honestly, you all look equally soft to me." "How about—" The crimson greatsword was wrenched free once more amid shaking earth and trembling mountains, sweeping across the gaze of everyone present as Ji Jue extended his final invitation. "Clock Tower, Dragon Heart, Five Flowers and Five Leaves, Qichuan, Tongxie, Flowing Silver, Nine Seals, Phantasm Realm... Well, since you're all already here anyway." Ji Jue looked down upon everything beneath his feet, countless hands unfurling behind him like blooming lotus petals: "—Why don't all of you just come at me together!"