Choice

At this critical juncture, An Ning's retreating body suddenly braced itself. With a flick of her hand, she launched a brazen counterattack, shattering the spinning sickle-sword with effortless ease! Tricks of an amateur, preaching to the master! Cuauhtli could hardly suppress his laughter. This was why the whelps of the Hunting Finger house were simply too green. As the sickle shattered, the wolf's shadow flickered abruptly, materializing before her out of thin air. His speed accelerated once more. It was even faster than that unfathomable burst from before—fast enough that even a hunter's nearly nonexistent reflex window failed to register it. Faster than any imaginable limit! Fast enough to catch An Ning completely off guard. The sickle blade had already pierced the skin of her neck. In the instant their eyes met, An Ning finally realized where the unease that had been welling inside her all along had truly come from. The traits he had deliberately concealed from the start, even that hidden speed... Going to such lengths all this time, there was only one thing he had wanted to hide: —This bastard wasn't a wolf of the White Nation at all! As if noticing the shock in her eyes, Cuauhtli grinned soundlessly. *Noticed, did you? Too late!* Actually, it wasn't too late. At this pivotal moment, An Ning still had three choices. She could choose to give up. The second she surrendered, a washing machine or refrigerator would drop out of the sky, arriving late yet striking first to smash this dog bastard's skull to pieces. After all, Grandpa doted on her most. She could choose to endure it. If she held him off for just a fraction of a second, Ji Jue's support would arrive immediately, and together they would smash this dog bastard's skull to pieces. After all, Brother Ji Jue was the most reliable. Or, she could choose to press on— —To uphold the dignity bestowed upon a hunter by the White Stag! And so, just as Cuauhtli grinned, An Ning smiled as well. Ignoring the sickle at her neck, a hiltless, colored-glass-like dagger materialized out of thin air between two fingers—Bitter Day! Yet she did not project it; she gripped it tight. And thrust it toward the wolf right before her! Just as the wolf had dared to contest her in projection a moment ago, she was recklessly pitting her claws and fangs against the beast in front of her! She couldn't win. She could never win this clash. But she could lose—and drag him down with her! Mutual destruction! One for one. A green hunter traded for a seasoned beast—absolute fairness, absolute death. Smiling, An Ning's eyes lit up, brimming with joyful, gleeful light. She didn't retreat in the slightest; instead, she took a proactive step forward, advancing straight into death. —*With this final quarry, an offering to the White Stag!* Now it was Cuauhtli's turn to choose: an honorable death, or a shameful survival? He had no choice. From the very moment he was reduced to a beast, he had long severed all ties with honor. For a wolf, only the survivor was the victor—the downward-thrusting sickle jerked sideways, turning from a stab into a savage cleave, brutally severing half of An Ning's neck and windpipe. Before the blood could even spray, An Ning felt a lightness at her wrist. The hand gripping Flying Light separated from her arm. Severed! Feeling not the slightest regret for her severed hand, nor caring about the blood about to erupt from her shoulder, An Ning chose cold indifference in the face of the blade cleaving down once more. She merely turned her torso slightly to the side. Revealing Ji Jue, several hundred meters behind her. *Well done, An Ning!* Ji Jue would have praised her with a smile. From the moment Cuauhtli surged forward to right now, not even 0.01 seconds had passed. The tempo between the White Stag and the wolf was simply too fast—so fast that even with Transcendent Vision frantically accelerating his perception, Ji Jue could only barely catch blurred afterimages. Such a fleeting sliver of time had barely sufficed for Ji Jue to raise his hand. Yet it was already enough. At this moment, in his raised palm, his index finger was pointed from afar at the spot An Ning had occupied. No aiming, no locking on—all problems were left to the bullet. Left to his own Heart... An invisible trigger was pulled. Ji Jue's heart ceased beating. Zhanlu, unsheathe! And so, within this nearly frozen, static time, a joyful song rang out. Countless arcs of lightning expanded; the hum tore through the air; sparks soared, and bursts crackled as flames danced and incinerated the dust. For the first time since its forging, it served truly as a weapon, holding nothing back, giving its all to annihilate an enemy. Zhanlu howled in excitement, its spiritus chiming. Within the Thunder Pool, vast torrents of lightning and flame were drained dry. Immediately following, a wisp of purplish-black glimmer leaped from Ji Jue's fingertip, crossing the negligible distance at the speed of lightning. Straight into the wolf's heart. Only then did the delayed thunderclap of broken air erupt, a stark white Mach ring bursting from Ji Jue's fingertip, completely vaporizing the melting flesh of his finger. In midair, Cuauhtli's body abruptly ballooned. His eyes bulged in terror. From his eyes, ears, mouth, nose, limbs, bones, and every single pore across his body, purplish-black bolts of lightning surged outward—savage rays of light, straight as swords. Before a scream could even tear from his throat, he detonated into a cloud of blood mist. Countless corpse shells geysered out like a fountain, yet the substitution deaths of one remnant molt after another could not quell such colossal destruction. At most, they bought him merely the briefest snap of a finger. Just enough time to reconstitute his original body. Hardening his resolve! He gripped his blade, drove it into his own heart, brutally gouged out the organ along with the surrounding tissue, and went so far as to cleave his own lower body in two, catapulting himself away with every ounce of strength. He watched helplessly as the light of Zhanlu reduced the greater part of his body to flying ash in an instant, hungrily and violently pursuing him. Amid this unprecedented terror, he couldn't help but feel a flicker of relief. By some miracle, he had seized this crucial chance. As long as he severed the link between soul and flesh, breaking this destruction's tracking, he could once again reg— *Crack—!* The last thing he heard was a crisp sound. Entering from the back of his head, driving forward, and bursting out through his forehead. *?* Spinning in utter bewilderment, his eyes widened in vain, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Yet his gaze instinctively drifted toward the figure standing right before him. An Ning. Blood gushed like a spring from the gash across her neck, and her left wrist was empty. The Jade Horn Shadow manifested for a split second. She lowered her gaze, looking down at the bewildered wolf, devoid of joy or sorrow. What brimmed in her pupils was a cold, indifferent light, as though gazing down upon life and death across the wilderness. The battle was decided. Everything had been settled the moment she drew Bitter Day. The projection of Bitter Day had already been completed when her resolve took shape; severing her wrist had accomplished nothing. Cuauhtli believed he had made a choice, but there had never been a choice. Not for the hunter, nor for the wolf. At the very end, all that surfaced before Cuauhtli's eyes was an iridescent, dreamlike radiance, fleeting as spring light. That dazzling, brilliant luster, arriving from who knew where, gently embraced him. And then carried everything away. *Fallen blossoms on running water; spring is gone.* The fading light had passed. Dead. The falling corpse rapidly bloated, coarse greyish-white hairs sprouting from the flesh. As the mangled remains hit the ground, they quickly decayed and dissolved, returning to the earth to become nourishment for the wilderness. "Sorry, Brother Ji Jue," An Ning said with a regretful shrug, grinning broadly. "Couldn't really hold back, you know." Cracking a dry joke at a time like this. Exasperated, Ji Jue smacked her on the head. He reached out, thrusting his fingers roughly into her wound to pinch off severed blood vessels and scrape out the wolf poison. When he withdrew his hand, the wound knit closed beneath the vitality of his Regeneration form. He did the same for her severed hand, reattaching it once more. Right then, destructive rain fell from the sky once more, reducing every living thing in the marketplace to ash. Amid the roaring flames, Ji Jue slowly turned his head and walked toward the other wolf he had cast aside and ignored earlier. The wolf whose flesh had been usurped by the bone blade had a contorted, ever-shifting face. He struggled fiercely, yet could barely command even a single finger. All he could do was stare with wide, despairing eyes as Ji Jue approached step by step. "I... I..." His expression twitched as he forced out a twisted smile. "Spare—" BOOM! An iron fist smashed down. The Dragon Mountain armor crouching nearby raised its hand mercilessly, shattering his skull in an explosion of blood, bone fragments, and brains. Then, amid continuous booms, it ground his bones to powder inch by inch. Ji Jue retrieved a syringe from his pocket, tapped the liquefied life inside, and aimed it at the mangled wolf, squeezing out a negligible drop. It fell. Soon, nourished by the surge of vitality, the wolf rapidly recovered. His eyes widened in terror. Before he could speak, the iron fist smashed down again! Ruthlessly, it ground him into paste inch by inch, followed immediately by another injection to forcibly catalyze him back to wholeness, before smashing him again. Once, twice, again, and yet again! Until, amid the despairing wails, a cold voice spoke: "Alright. Now you can talk." Ji Jue asked, "Where is Shehri?" The wolf's face contorted, twitching. "I-I don't kno—" "That's not what I want to hear." Ji Jue shook his head regretfully. The iron fist crashed down, the sound of breaking bone echoed, followed by healing, then smashing again—repeating, repeating, repeating, until it finally stopped once more. This time, without waiting for Ji Jue to ask, the half-conscious wolf shrieked: "He's hiding with a band of foreign corrupted ones in the old capital in the northern Scourge Mountains! Shehri wants to resurrect the White King! He needs to gather blood sacrifices for the ritual, so he sent us out to hu—" BOOM! Dragon Mountain's fist, smeared with minced flesh and blood, crashed down again in a relentless onslaught. The ground shuddered violently, sinking into a crater, its cracks filled with blood and pulp. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Again, and again, and again. Until finally, after who knew how long, it stopped once more. "Wh-Why..." Having mutated and proliferated into a bizarre mass of flesh, the wolf screamed, weeping tears of blood. "I already... I told you..." "That's my fault. I shouldn't have expected much from someone like you. Still, I was just looking for an excuse to vent my temper anyway. Whether you know a lot or a little doesn't really matter." Manipulating quicksilver, Ji Jue traced an intricate occult ritual across the fractured ground. Finally, he crouched down and looked at the mangled wolf. "Considering you cooperated honestly, I'll give you a choice." He asked out of nowhere: "So, between the Tower and the White Manor, which do you prefer?"