Blood Rain and Bashe

At first, it was merely a desolate wail in the gale, like intermittent sobbing and weeping, heralding an omen of wicked sin. Yet the moment the crack-riddled bottle completely shattered, boundless darkness boiled and surged toward the sky like a blow-out from the Vortex. Corruption taint, practically tangible, rose into the vault of heaven and merged into this harsh, narrow world. And then, everything became utterly different. When the last glimmer of light was completely blotted out, not even the flashes of lightning flickering within the clouds could illuminate the gloom before them. Only the shrill screech of wind echoed brazenly across the dead, silent mountains. Even the calamity beasts hunkered down in their caves, unwilling to show themselves—or perhaps, sensing a threat... The once-overwhelming, dense curtain of rain had begun to thin without anyone noticing, yet brought no hint of warmth or respite. Amid the pattering rain lingered an increasingly bizarre, mournful wailing; the raindrops fell like shed tears. The rainwater spilling across the earth turned pitch-black. Within the blackness, wisps of crimson surfaced. Falling upon a person's flesh, they brought a bone-chilling dread, blooming on fingertips into an indelible layer of scarlet. As though alive, the rainwater fell into Ji Jue's palm and swiftly began to squirm. Gathering together, an eerie chill and aura rapidly crept along his skin, eroding inward toward fascia, bones, and viscera. Pure malice seeped in drop by drop, eating away at the soul. It was as if, in an instant, he had left the mortal realm and plunged beneath the Vortex. Ji Jue closed his fingers expressionlessly. The heat of Crucible Blood flashed and vanished, burning away all the chill and erosion, yet he felt the omnipresent malice and covetous hunger permeating the entire world. The sky, the earth, the mountains, and even the oncoming wind seemed to have been endowed with grotesque mutations by the downpour's nourishment, thirstily longing to prey on any catch. Within the curtain of falling raindrops that resembled wriggling maggots, bizarre silhouettes flickered in and out of the darkness—like wailing children, weeping women covering their faces, or twisted, bizarre inhuman things. Everything once drowned in disaster reemerged from the catastrophe. Malice and curses circulated through the rain, entangling themselves in myriad strands around all traces of Sovereign Virtue aura, longing to drag everything down into the same hell as themselves. The whole world had become his enemy. "Brother Ji Jue, be careful—" By now, An Ning had already leapt onto the vehicle, all her hair practically standing on end. The pure aura of the White Stag manifested from her soul, resisting the erosion of corruption. Yet right after, she saw Ji Jue actually take the initiative to step out of the cavern and into the bloody rain! "It's fine. This level of taint is still within tolerable limits." Amid the rain of blood, Ji Jue felt the curses and resentment swirling around him. His breathing remained steady as he casually caught a drop of rain. The matrix of Non-Offensive manifested from his palm, spreading outward. Barehanded alchemy. Within the invisible flame of Crucible Blood, the raindrop hovering above his palm swiftly evaporated and dissociated, then swelled eerily, surging and spreading like an endless spring of crimson blood. "The Vortex is still far away, and the stability of the mortal realm hasn't been shaken. Which means they didn't tear open a rift to the Vortex directly from the mortal realm. Instead, some piece from beneath the Vortex was somehow relocated here?" No, not even a Celestial-Human would be that insane, and the barrier between the Vortex and the mortal realm wasn't so easily crossed. Moreover, there was also the 'Lock' that old bastard Tianlu had spoken of... In his brief contemplation, he had already deduced it: "It's likely a disaster that originally occurred in the mortal realm, sealed away by a Celestial Chosen of the Eternal Gate and released anew now... Matching its characteristics, could it be the Calamity of Blood Rain that struck northern Mid-Continent over forty years ago?" Forty-three years ago, the Massacre of the Iron States—a slaughter launched by the Priest King of the Red States—saw over a million non-humans across three cities subjected to genocide within six days, followed by four long years of organized butchery. Corpses clogged river channels, bloody water breached dams and overflowed, and thick smoke from incinerators billowed day and night. The flames of burning never ceased, filling hundreds of li with a nauseating stench of scorched flesh that lingered for decades. And the terrifying disaster born out of such a living hell was an endless rain of blood flowing amid shrieks and weeping. What lay before his eyes now was merely a tiny fragment of it, one ten-thousandth at most. Yet what could be better suited as a weapon than a disaster of corruption like this? It was truly an ingenious idea. Ji Jue couldn't help but marvel in admiration. Now, as the disaster was resurrected in the mortal realm through this torrential storm, the whole interior of Kunwu was enveloped in endless bloodiness, leaving no escape. All Sovereign Virtue aura would be targeted and suppressed, and every living creature would be warped beyond recognition by the erosion of corruptive mutation. No matter how formidable an opponent might be, faced with this overwhelming rain of blood and erosion, they could only struggle in vain and slowly sink... As for the endless fallout? They didn't care in the slightest! Only... "How strange," Ji Jue murmured softly, looking up in puzzlement. "Why would anyone buff their opponent before a fight?" In that moment, amid the echoing wails and weeping of the falling rain, he gazed up at the blood-weeping vault of heaven. Across that calm, indifferent face, a faint smile suddenly curled. It made An Ning instinctively hold her breath. She felt chilled to the bone. Though he looked full of joy, it held neither warmth nor substance. It was like a slowly spreading fissure, revealing a bottomless void behind it. Crack! It felt as though another invisible chain had been unlocked. Frail illusions and disguises shattered and dissolved under the wash of the rain. Tangible Great Sin aura manifested from the void, descending and swirling around Ji Jue. From within that body, blazing flames seemed to rise, blood-fire dancing, expanding, and erupting outward. Dormant within the Sheath of Dragon Blood, Pan Ying shook violently without warning, ringing with a hum whose mixture of excitement and trembling was hard to tell apart. An Ning instinctively stepped back. By the time she came to her senses, her hand was pressed against Bitter Day in her arms, every hair on her body standing on end. Abyssal Depths, White Pavilion, Frenzied Slaughter, Stagnant Rot, Youshuang— At this moment, as blood-fire swirled around Ji Jue's body, tangible Great Sin auras materialized from the void, tracing out bizarre emblems that flickered and shifted through multiple layers. The divine favor that ordinary sin-worshipers could only dream of was unexpectedly manifesting upon the body of a Sovereign Virtue Chosen. Even including the Unborn Tower that seemed to pierce heaven and earth in the shadows, and the bizarre beast looking back hungrily in the long night of the wilderness. —The Wolf!!! Yet in the next instant, everything vanished. The blood-fire and Great Sins withdrew completely, as though it were all an illusion. Only the skyful of bloody rain suddenly parted down the middle, wailing and myriad phantoms scattering in terror, as if daring not approach the returning figure. "Don't worry, just a minor matter." Ji Jue reached out and ruffled her hair. "A mere rain of blood won't hinder me." For a moment, An Ning hesitated, words catching in her throat. Yet the touch of the palm resting atop her head felt so familiar, completely unchanged. Its warmth remained, causing her shock and unease to melt away without a trace. Soon, quicksilver flowed between Ji Jue's hands, restructuring and interweaving into a delicate bracelet that clasped around her wrist, bearing the erosion of taint in her stead and sealing off mutation and corruption. "Get ready." Ji Jue let go, a smile appearing on his face where a trace of blood-red still lingered. "It's been a long time since I felt this relaxed," he said. "I can hardly wait to thank them." In the deepest depths of the blood rain, the earth shook and the mountains trembled. Amid the commotion of countless calamity beasts, a bizarre, ferocious silhouette rose from between the peaks, hissing shrilly! Three minutes earlier, when the disaster in the bottle had been unleashed in full, even Gao Cheng, the instigator, couldn't help his expression changing as he witnessed the scene. Even in his countless imaginations, the most exaggerated scenarios could not compare to the monstrous spectacle of this downpour of blood. "Your turn." He looked back at Lü Yang behind him, and at the heavily secured box in Lü Yang's hands. "The Calamity of Blood Rain... complements this bait quite nicely." The expression of the Entropy navigator beside Lü Yang shifted. He instinctively wanted to dissuade him, but found no words. Things had come to this; there was no turning back. Either win, or die! That was all. What was left to hesitate about? Snap! The sound of shattering rang out as Lü Yang crushed the pitch-black box in his grip, revealing its contents—a bizarre, foul-smelling, rotting flesh tumor! Countless mutated tissues had intertwined and grown together to form this repulsive shape. A rotting stench mixed with sickly sweetness diffused into the wind, making everyone else take an instinctive step back. Even more chillingly, beneath that fist-sized flesh tumor, tissues were still squirming slowly, as though it were not yet dead. In the squirming of flesh and blood, they faintly formed wailing faces that could not be seen clearly, constantly shifting as if countless evil spirits were gestating within. Yet from such a grotesque appearance radiated waves of utterly pure life aura. Smelling that rotten stench for long enough, it even seemed to gradually turn fragrant and sweet. On one hand, there was an instinct to vomit and flee; on the other, an uncontrollable appetite and craving welled up inside, urging them to devour it in huge bites. Two completely opposing feelings clashed within the mind, enough to drive anyone utterly mad if they lingered for too long. But at this moment, amidst the countless falling raindrops, everyone froze on the spot, rigid. Wisps of shimmering ripples surfaced out of thin air, like the disturbance on an invisible water surface. The moment the bait appeared, the fish was drawn to it. Across the deep, murky ripples in the void, a gigantic bulging eye seemed to gradually surface and draw near. Its lusterless, bizarre pupil was completely hollow, yet appeared to carry an eternal hunger and greed. It looked down silently. That was... a goldfish?! At this moment, merely revealing a single eye from the distant darkness across the water's ripples, it seemed to fill all of heaven and earth. Its gaze alone imposed an absolute suppression from the pinnacle of the food chain, making all living things tremble uncontrollably. And as a Vortex Celestial Chosen, Lü Yang could barely keep his footing before this strongest—and sole surviving—[Sin of the White Pavilion] in the mortal realm, on the verge of losing his sanity. The only thing he could do, the sole action available, was to do as he had told himself countless times before: trembling, he mustered his courage and lifted the 'bait' in his hand toward the rippling water in the void. The fish's eye was indifferent, coldly looking down. After a long moment, it seemed to draw close. It opened its mouth— Snap! The bait in Lü Yang's hand vanished into thin air. Vanishing along with it were his hand, his shoulder, and more than half his torso, devoured entirely in an instant! Yet there was no spurting blood, no splintered bone—not even a wound. Mutilated, Lü Yang collapsed to the ground wailing, the missing portion of his body completely smooth without any injury, as if he had been born that way! Thus it partook of the tiny offering from a mortal creature, swallowing it whole without even seeming to savor it. The fish finished the bait. Amid shimmering ripples, the colossus in the darkness swayed its body and departed without a backward glance. Only in the earth-shattering surge behind the light on the water, when that colossal tail that seemed to fill heaven and earth rose and swished, did a tiny phosphorescent speck shed from it, flying out and landing upon Lü Yang. Like a bestowal of grace. The instant the palm-sized fish scale made contact with flesh and blood, a shrill roar and wail rose into the bloody rain. His mutilated body inflated like a balloon, flesh and blood endlessly proliferating and spreading like a fountain erupting from a mountain of meat, ballooning at a jaw-dropping speed! Echoing at the same time were the wails of massive calamity beasts. Under the shroud of blood rain, countless beasts withered into shriveled skeletons out of thin air, dying where they stood, sucked dry by an unseen maw! Through successive surges of growth and flesh detonations, vast amounts of plasma and tissue gushed forth. Within a few snaps of a finger, bizarre limbs had already sprouted from his body—thousands of hands and feet shifting unpredictably. Scales grew, spread, and extended. In the end, it formed a giant egg that burst apart with a deafening roar. Amid flying chunks of meat and spreading blood mist, a bizarre creature several meters tall stepped out. Six limbs spread wide, and a head resembling both human and serpent lifted toward the sky, hissing at the top of its lungs. It looked like a blend of human and giant serpent, its slit pupils shooting forth gloomy light. A high-ranking evil entity recorded in the Annals of the White Pavilion manifested here. —The [Bashe]! Amid the squirming flesh across its body, Lü Yang's face slowly surfaced on that mutated visage. In his element, he inhaled the stench in the blood rain deeply. The blessed artifact on his neck shone with light, preserving his reason and soul. "How does it feel?" Gao Cheng asked, looking up. "Good, wonderful!" Lü Yang narrowed his eyes, savoring the nearly inexhaustible life and power within him, a manic grin spreading across his mouth. "Just... a little hungry!" —Hungry! Hungry! Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!!!!! Blood-red eyes opened across the Bashe's mutated form, glaring in all directions. Immediately after, an arm abruptly morphed, shooting out like a tentacle across several li to wrap around a giant serpent writhing and hiding in the mud, yanking violently. A giant serpent hundreds of meters long was actually dragged right before him. Next, the flesh on his arm squirmed as mouthparts surfaced, mercilessly sucking the violently thrashing serpent into an empty husk. Then, with voracious gulps, he quickly devoured it whole, yet remained unsatisfied. His ravenous gaze swept over his teammates, but fortunately a sliver of intellect remained, keeping him from snapping his jaws—or perhaps it was purely out of dread for Yue Chen, who watched coldly from further away. Only thick saliva continued to ooze from his mouth, sizzling as it hit the ground. "Where is that artisan?" Lü Yang sniffed the blood scent on the wind, burning with hunger. Not just hunger, but fear. The fish's scale was assimilating him... Unlike other Great Sins with numerous subordinates, the abomination of the White Pavilion was solitary—to be exact, there was only one fish. The fish was eternally hungry; the fish was undying. There were millions of fish in the world, but of abominations like it, there could only ever be one. If a second White Pavilion abomination were to be born—no, before it could even be born—the fish would sense it, devour it, and integrate it into that boundless life that was fundamentally a curse. Even while imprisoned beneath the Vortex, it still could not tolerate the existence of anything resembling itself. An 'immortal' entity was destined to be unique. Besides, if one were truly immortal, what meaning was there for any other living creature to exist? The bait was merely a temporary transaction; the virtually boundless vitality in his body right now did not belong to him at all, but was merely the residue of a single scale. The longer time passed, the more severe the assimilation would become, until he could no longer resist and was thoroughly dissolved and devoured once more, becoming one of hundreds of millions of scales. Now, suppressing the life and power within him that threatened to detonate, Lü Yang gave a bizarre cackle: "I can't wait to show him some color!" Gao Cheng lowered his eyes, his matrix activating. His perception expanded along with the natural disaster of blood rain he had unleashed, blanketing everything in an instant. Effortlessly, he caught the traces left behind in the cavern. Yet immediately after, he sensed an unexpected blank. The pervasive erosion of the blood rain had actually failed there. No matter how he urged and drove it, it refused to close the gap, instead sending waves of an indescribable dread back toward him. It was as though the moment the blood rain fell, it was annihilated by some terrifying entity! Without the slightest concealment, like a scorching crucible, it incinerated all corruption and taint to ashes, erasing every mutation and carving out a bone-chilling void within the Calamity of Blood Rain. That position was... In that instant, he froze on the spot, turning his head in a daze. —Behind him?! BOOM!!! Lü Yang's head suddenly exploded. Right behind them, atop the blood-drenched mountains, Ji Jue lowered his gaze, pulled the trigger, and watched the headless corpse twitching on the ground through his scope. Immediately after, as the head burst, broad splashes of scarlet, pale white, and jet-black diffused from the blood, gushing out and collapsing into the mire of the earth. "Mediocre colors," Ji Jue sighed in critique. "Not very pretty."