Old Grudges and New Feuds

"A difference? An exception? Hahaha, hahahahaha—" Wen Su bared her teeth, her smile drenched in blood and dripping with venom. "You're still so naive, Sister. Is there really any difference between you and me? "It was determined the moment we were born. The blood flowing through our veins belongs to the Saintly Fool, and our souls will ultimately sink beneath the Vortex. No matter how many good deeds you do, how many games of house you play, or how much you try to gloss over it, none of it can change the final outcome. "This is our nature!" "Shut up!" Wen Wen's face was ashen. The Spear of Minerva hummed as crystals spread from it, yet it could not tear that smile away. "No wonder Father was so disappointed in you. Heh, heheheh—" Wen Su stared into her eyes, her mouth brimming with toxic blood, her gaze pitying yet cold. "A choice has already been made, Sister. A new seed..." In that instant, Wen Wen froze as if struck by lightning. She even forgot to thrust her dragonfire that final inch. She stared at that twisted face in disbelief. "Do you finally understand? Heh, you didn't think this spiritus plague was my handiwork, did you?" Wen Su chuckled hoarsely. "Ah, sure, I stoked the flames a little and prepared a small surprise for you along the way. But as for its core principles—where did the void of the Abyssal Depths, the distortion of the Arm Lord, the filth of Defilement, and the allure of Huaxu and Huangliang come from? "Don't you find it familiar?" She savored Wen Wen's shaken expression before delivering the finishing blow: "Fourth Brother has already been let out." "Impossible!" Wen Wen's eyes flashed crimson as she flatly refuted, "Back then, I personally—" "Father was there. So what if you killed him with your own hands?" Wen Su coughed and laughed wildly, rocking back and forth. "He's not dead yet, Sister. For all these years, his soul has been tortured day and night in dreams. Back then, you abandoned everything, thinking you could start over from scratch, but nothing stops just because of you. Even without you, the trials of the bloodline dispute won't end. Everyone's already grown impatient, Sister. "How much longer can you keep lying to yourself and hiding?" In those pitch-black eyes, crimson hues swirled. She glared fixedly at Wen Wen, greedily drinking in the fragile reality beneath her facade, and roared with laughter. A sound of fracturing rang out. From the void, within the contaminated spiritus environment, a majestic force came howling down, descending and manifesting as a reflection. Endless corpses drifted within the surging tide, gathering to encircle a desolate island made of bones. Atop the high tower at the island's center, wisps of eerie shadows squirmed and coiled around one another, morphing into the grotesque shape of a three-headed giant serpent. The serpent's body was riddled with cracks and stitch marks, bone spurs overgrown across its flesh, giving it an even more twisted and violent appearance. Now, as if awakening from a dream, it raised a single eye and cast its gaze tens of thousands of li away. "Ah, looks like someone noticed I was making trouble," Wen Su sighed softly. In that instant, the final barrier shattered with a deafening crash. The nightmare flooded into reality, instantly swallowing the ruined waterworks—and far beyond. Outside Yacheng, over Xinquan, the sky abruptly darkened. Clouds manifested and intertwined out of thin air, forming an eerie vortex. Right after, countless moths swarmed together, taking the hideous shape of a giant serpent looking down with disdain. "...Stop running, Sister." Wen Su reached out, finally closing the remaining distance to touch Wen Wen's cheek, offering one last smile. "This world is full of different hells. Where could there ever be any paradise or peace?" Phantoms and illusions vanished into ash. Beneath the giant claw extended by the serpent, her figure disappeared. Only the descending shadow of the giant serpent remained, looking down. "It really was that little bitch Wen Su ruining my plans!" The fractured serpent's eyes contracted, staring coldly at the figure before it. "And you... it's really been a long time..." The screech of grinding steel sounded as crystalline wings involuntarily unfurled, dragonfire reigniting. Wen Wen's face was livid, and her voice squeezed through clenched teeth: "Wen Sheng!" The giant serpent laughed silently. It lowered its gaze, relishing the wretched state of the bitch before it, and was just about to speak when its expression suddenly froze. As if jammed. Immediately followed by spasms of distortion— For a moment, Wen Wen's expression turned complicated, and she hesitated to speak. Seeing him look as if he had swallowed poison, she seemed to understand. What else could it be? *One after another, coming to settle grudges with me is one thing—why the hell did you have to go to Xinquan to seek death?!* Tens of thousands of li away, amid the convergence of endless moths, the shadow of the giant serpent descended from the heavens! Heaven and earth plunged into darkness. All of Xinquan was completely swallowed, engulfed within. The dark clouds seemed to turn into scales, shifting and opening to outline the colossal body of the giant serpent, blotting out the sky and sun! The massive head lowered, looking down on everything. In an instant, it read all the memories recorded by the moths, locking onto the rabble that had dared interfere with its plans. Its crimson eyes opened and fixed on Ji Jue. Ji Jue's vision went black. The instant he noticed the entity, Chunjun triggered an immediate alarm. The Blessing of Premonition vibrated continuously, pulling at his instincts as his sense of danger skyrocketed. There was no time to react—just a single glance! Alarms blared endlessly throughout the workshop. Before he could even process it, a spiritus blast saturated with unimaginable corruption and despair coalesced into a beam of pitch-black light, shooting out from the serpent's eyes. In an instant, it pierced heaven and earth, descending from high above the vault of the sky! Though it was immaterial spiritus, after endless collapse and catalysis, that thin line was denser than all physical matter. Like a hot knife through wax, it effortlessly tore through every obstacle in its path, descending to pierce the spot where Ji Jue had just been standing. Only after plunging deep into the ground did it detonate, unleashing a majestic, roaring blast of blazing light. The corruption of the Abyssal Depths surged outward. No, it wasn't just the corruption of the Abyssal Depths—there was also the tampering of Defilement and the distortion of the Arm Lord! Effortlessly weaving together the divine essences of all three, wielding and commanding them at will—even though it had merely descended as an avatar through the gathering of tens of millions of moths, it was still terrifyingly powerful! Unfortunately, Ji Jue had already vanished from the spot. Before the final strike landed, the Blessing of Ascendance to Truth completed the spiritus conversion of his entire body. Breaking free of the target lock, he flashed several dozen meters away. By a hair's breadth, he had dodged the blow! In his bewilderment, he found it completely incomprehensible—what was this? *You beat the child, and the parent shows up?!* *I just stepped on your tail, and you immediately jump up hissing?* *One after another, rushing to Xinquan to show off your presence like you're taking a fucking stroll—did you really think my workshop was an open restaurant?!* Ji Jue was almost angry enough to laugh. He began to wonder if he had spent too much time being civilized and well-mannered. Had his public image turned into some spineless pushover who just smiled and wiped spit off his face, so every stray ghost and ghoul thought they could step on him? "Isis!" "I am here, sir." A silver storm answered the summons from the edge of the wilderness. Boundless quicksilver shifted in its surge. Massive wings manifested out of thin air, unfurling and flapping as torrential jets of spiritus erupted, carving a dazzling streak of blazing light across the sky. Only after a long while did the vast silver glow slowly diffuse, tinting the air with brilliant rainbow hues. In mere moments, it crossed the remaining distance! High above the darkness of the heavens, blanketing the giant serpent, an endless rain of metal poured down, drenching everything. Was it useful? Empty form! The giant serpent shot it a contemptuous glance, not even bothering to laugh. With such a fragmented consciousness, such a heterogeneous spiritus composition, and such a fragile quicksilver base, it didn't even need to attack. A slight movement from its avatar in the sky would be enough to completely shat... shat... shat— *Why the fuck isn't it shattering?!* In its shock, the serpent froze. It swelled its body continuously, releasing the corruption of the Abyssal Depths and whipping up a spiritus tempest. Yet the structure that had seemed frail and loose just moments ago transformed abruptly, like glass turning to steel in an instant, manifesting mountains out of phantoms! The clouds that should have dispersed in the wind had become a genuine iron curtain! Everything seemed to have changed completely, and its internal architecture and spirituality were climbing and surging without limit! The moment hundreds of millions of quicksilver raindrops linked into a single line, binding heaven and earth together, the watch on Ji Jue's wrist glowed faintly. [Workshop control, connection complete.] [Registered name: Crown of Isis. Integrated into control sequence. Calibration complete.] [Spread of Abyssal Depths corruption detected. Initiating quarantine mode and commencing hazard elimination.] [Full sequence architecture revision. Workshop expansion module activated. Myriad Phenomena Engine preheating complete. Spiritus output: 17%... 48%... 79%!] In just a brief moment, the workshop concealed within the Doomsday Express had fully anchored to the returning Crown of Isis. There was no need for Ji Jue to ostentatiously drive the Doomsday Express out and ram things to death anymore! In the snap of a finger, the workshop's domain expanded straight into the sky. Accompanied by the torrent of spiritus, countless circuits circulated through every drop of rain and the heavy clouds, connecting and assembling out of thin air as if shedding their mortal skin to inject brand-new power into this vessel! As Ji Jue spread his hands slightly, the matrix of Non-Offensive slotted into the workshop's core like a key, completing the final authorization. Immediately after— [Form dissociation. Structure remodeling.] [Structure confirmed.] Above the giant serpent, the clouds shifted abruptly. Amid rising rainbow light, they expanded once more as endless quicksilver rose and fell, reshaping into a brand-new form. Countless limbs extended outward, aligning with the operation of Fluid Alchemy to construct the most suitable form— [Hands.] And so, Isis reached out her hands. Thunder erupted and lightning raged. The myriad hands reaching from the clouds seized the colossal body of the giant serpent in an instant. Countless fingers contracted one by one, forcefully taking hold of this temporary descending avatar. The corruption of the Abyssal Depths surged like a tidal wave, but to no avail. The once-fragile quicksilver was like a reef standing against the ocean tide, effortlessly crushing the spiritus counterattack to pieces. Had this been anywhere else, Ji Jue might have felt apprehensive. But this was his fucking workshop—and a workshop that already had sixteen percent of the Sage System laid out! Against the Heart Pivot avatar just now, he hadn't even needed to boot it up. Now, running at merely preliminary capacity, it completely suppressed the intruder! In just a few short moments, the giant serpent that had been acting invincible was reduced to a puppet in their grasp, stripped of all autonomy, useless for anything beyond futile resistance. All that remained was its death throes. Amid the hovering rain of silver light across the sky, Ji Jue raised his eyes. Looking toward those pitch-black pupils, he could no longer hold back a cold sneer. *You think you're tough?* *What fucking good is being tough?!* *To run in the streets, you need influence, you need background!* *Let me see what back-alley gang you crawled out of!* Ji Jue took out the Mirror of Contained Forms and shone it toward the avatar in the sky. In an instant, the world shifted, and all things revealed their true essence. The writhing serpent quickly dissociated and shifted within the mirror's reflection, turning into a three-headed, rotting giant serpent. Countless moths rose and fell ceaselessly from its flesh and blood. It was roaring in fury, looking toward this place and pouring in double the power, brewing a counterattack. Its composition was truly astonishing—the Abyssal Depths, the Tower, Defilement... the essences of multiple Great Sins circulated within it. It actually combined the strengths of three aspects, and there was also a heavy entanglement of Weiyang and Heart Pivot auras. It was practically a grand convention; it was already on the verge of completing its transformation into a vile fiend! Yet seeing how fragmented and half-dead it looked, Ji Jue couldn't hold back a laugh. *Ha, turns out you're just a little three-aspect mongrel!* "One after another, I thought some grand master had come to Xinquan to beg for scraps. Gave me quite a fright, but you're just a foul beggar." A scornful voice echoed around the giant serpent, brimming with malice and mockery. "Come, that other one just had her fill, so Uncle will feed you some good stuff too!" "Roar—!" The serpent's avatar struggled in fury, but giant hands descending from the sky clamped onto it tightly, then forcefully pried open its massive jaws. Then, within the giant hands under Ji Jue's control, the countless impurities of spiritus and aberrant desires purged from the Haizhou wilderness gathered together, collapsing rapidly. Time to give it a heavy dose! On top of throwing in the Abyssal Depths corruption spread by the serpent, he added the stockpiled reserves from the Ring of Poison Heart, blended in a massive heap of Frenzied Slaughter offerings, and finally threw in some extracts from fish scales—the mixture churned like boiling lava. The transmutation of Non-Offensive began in the sky! Under the catalysis of Corruption Alchemy, violent reactions erupted continuously. The mash-up and collision of massive amounts of materials and spiritus yielded no stable result. With such crude overloading, the only possible outcome was the complete collapse of material properties and the violent dissociation of spirituality. "Child, you're done!" Ji Jue grinned. Cradling the spiritus aggregate that was shining brilliantly like a furnace about to explode, he ignored the serpent's thrashing and shoved it forcefully down its throat. "This is what they call: 'A golden pill swallowed into the belly, my fate is mine and not heaven's!'" *Smack!* The serpent's massive jaws were forcefully clamped shut. Layers of quicksilver wrapped around it, sealing it tight to ensure not a single speck leaked out. Immediately after— There was no earth-shattering thunder, nor any fire or unusual phenomenon. There was only the colossal body of the giant serpent suddenly swelling, swelling, and swelling again. It was on the verge of bursting, yet the hands pinning it down refused to let it explode. They even turned around and crudely reinforced it with Corruption Alchemy, ensuring it digested everything it had vomited back into its stomach in one piece—until those wisps of spiritus went completely dim, and cracks rapidly surfaced across the avatar. Total collapse. Until the very end, those pitch-black pupils glared fixedly at Ji Jue, their venomous hatred practically spilling over. "Do come again!" Ji Jue smiled and waved farewell as if greeting a gentle breeze. "Or maybe next time I'll come over to your house to play!" Regardless, he had already gathered the spiritus of both the big and small monstrosities. Once he finished making his soul compass, he'd go scatter the ashes of these two bastards' entire family! *Wash your necks clean at home and wait for me!* *Boom—!* The instant the giant serpent avatar was about to disperse completely, he heard thunder that echoed across nearly all of Haizhou. It came from behind him— *Yacheng?* A rainbow light of crystal soared from the earth, shooting straight into the sky! Such a spectacle was unmistakably familiar. Minerva! Before Wen Wen's eyes, the sneering giant serpent suddenly froze. Slowly, its face twisted, twitching as it hissed uncontrollably and roared at the top of its lungs. Amid the rolling waves, the entire waterworks shook violently. Cracks split across the dreamscape, making it impossible to maintain, and its anchor to reality was on the verge of being severed completely. The giant serpent manifested by Wen Sheng couldn't help opening its mouth, vomiting out a torrent of black blood mixed with chunks of flesh-like fragments, its face contorting in mounting madness. Yet its form was rapidly fading. With the massive annihilation of the moths of the dream-loss disease, it no longer had an anchor for its projection. It only had time to cast one final, hateful glance at the figure before it, its venom etched to the bone: "Keep running, you foul whore... One day, I will repay everything you did to me a thousandfold, ten-thousandfold!" In that instant, the projection was about to fade, fade... fade... It wouldn't fade! Pinned down? The physical matter originally eroded by the dreamscape had turned around, firmly pinning down the dream that was about to disperse, as well as the serpent's projection. When he turned his head, he finally saw that expressionless face. Wen Wen! "Did I say you could leave?" At this moment, there was no longer any anger on that face—nor was there any smile. All human emotion seemed to have drained away into the vortex. What remained was the desolation and eternity carved out by ten thousand years of oceans drying up and stones turning to dust. The essence of the Barren Ruins manifested from this point on! Wen Wen controlled her Bounded Domain, pinning the dream firmly in place, and unhurriedly rolled up her sleeves. "There's no need to wait for 'one day,' Wen Sheng," she said. "Why not right now? "Just as well. Twelve years later, let's settle the score once more—and let me see what progress you've made!" A sound of shattering echoed from within her body. As if breaking free of shackles. She picked up her walkie-talkie, activated it, and spoke into the other end: "Old Zhang, register an emergency room visit for me. I'll be there shortly." "Is it that ridiculous?!" The other side went quiet for a moment, then sounded shocked: "Hey, Xiao Wen, calm down! Listen to me—" *Snap!* The walkie-talkie was crushed to powder beneath her foot! Calm down? *It's precisely because I can't calm down!* One after another, running up to her, talking to themselves, acting so clever, and seeking their own deaths, shamelessly blabbering about old grudges, smugly trying to drag her back into that cesspool. "It really has been years since I've been this furious!" She gritted her teeth and ripped off the wristband that had appeared on her wrist. The label, looking like a paper wristband for a hospitalized patient, was torn away with ease. Erupting from her body immediately after was a freezing crystalline glow that broke through the confines of the Bounded Domain and soared into the Yacheng sky, piercing from heaven to earth! Countless crystals rapidly condensed, grew, and extended from the air, completely transforming the entire waterworks into a magnificent realm resembling a crystal cavern. So dazzling, yet so cold. No life, no soul, no future, and no dreams. Only the original form of all matter. The crystal grown from eternity—the essence of Minerva! When she extended her hand again, cruel crystals gradually grew from the dragonfire, falling into her grasp to become a plain, austere spear. Before the spear, all things turned ethereal and indistinct. It was as if the only pure and existing thing in the world was right here; beyond it, everything was nothing more than an illusory dream, a reflection in a mirror, a flower in the void. "As you wish, Wen Sheng." She finally smiled. Sharp crystals grew from beneath her collar, creeping up her face as if taking root in flesh and bone, piercing through her smile and staining her eyes with blood. "Now, we can settle who's superior!" Within the Bounded Domain, amid the illusory light reflected by countless crystals, cold eyes snapped open one by one, like eternity manifesting an avatar, looking down upon the fragile phantom dream before them. And all the radiance in the world had already converged in Wen Wen's hands. With the eruption of dragonfire, she thrust! Soundless, traceless. In dead silence, the final remnants of the dream evaporated and annihilated in an instant. Only the continuous sound of shattering crystals lingered. No destruction could be seen, for that vast and majestic power had long since surged away along with the dream. Meanwhile, enveloped in thick fog and surrounded by countless corpses on the desolate island, an earth-shattering roar suddenly erupted. "Wen Wen—!" The giant serpent hissed in agonizing pain, blood gushing like a spring. Across its mangled body, aside from the lingering erosion of Frenzied Slaughter, sharp crystals suddenly burst through its flesh. They even extended along its body to cover the entire island, piercing upward continuously. Until, amid violent tremors, a massive fissure cracked across nearly the entire island. Beneath the churning soil, countless corpses fell into the sea along with the blood, washing away into the rolling waves. The three-headed giant serpent coiled atop the tower, writhing violently and twitching. Its hissing sounded like the shrill wails of an infant, echoing over and over. A heavy blow! Only after a long time did it gradually awaken beneath the kowtows and praises of shadowed figures. Yet within the mouth of the central Abyssal Depths head, cracks had already split across a radiant, smoke-wreathed orb. The Relic of Huaxu was on the verge of losing control—infuriating! Of all times, it had to happen at this critical juncture! The three heads of the giant serpent lifted, cold light gleaming in their eyes. *Wen Wen... and that little bitch Wen Su. But who was the remaining one? The aura of a Great Sin, so pure... Where did such a vile fiend come from?* *Heh, after leaving home for so many years, for all her talk of benevolence and morality, her skill at hooking men has certainly improved!* *She sure found quite a helper... Is this your test as well, Father?* The giant serpent looked up indifferently toward the sky. The sky was empty, devoid of sun, moon, and stars, holding only pure darkness. The mist began to churn once more. He slowly closed his eyes. That night, among the countless islands between the Thousand Islands and the Mid-Continent, fanatical believers received a beckoning and an order from their god. "The Day of Revelation for the destruction of all things draws near, and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is about to appear!" "Only with piety may one cross the end of days!" And so, ecstatic believers opened their eyes and mouths, scrambling to swallow the sacred wine laden with insect eggs. Soon, sky-blotting moths manifested between the islands once more, spreading wildly. Using these endless displaced dreams as a ladder, the Realm of Huaxu was already in sight! The giant serpent coiled atop the high tower raised its eyes, glaring fixedly at the silhouette growing clearer within the phantom dream. Soon. Very soon!