Unworthy

When, within a few short seconds, reverberating layers of flame and destruction had plowed across it again and again, the entire Kingdom of the Woods had become a crucible of hell in the most literal sense. Yet Ji Jue felt neither pain nor discomfort. Instead, he felt as jubilant as a fish in water; even his protective suit had gone unused. From the Hole left behind by the past Tide of Flames disaster, black flames surged, engulfing his body of steel. Faint wisps lingered across the ground in his wake, leaving behind a line of slowly spreading pitch-black footprints. He strode forward through the sea of fire, step by step, feeling the thorns upon his chest growing at an unbelievable speed under the feedback from the Kingdom of the Woods. In that single instant, just how many had been slain? Hundreds? Thousands? Or tens of thousands?! Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that his hands would one day be stained with such thick bloodshed. Yet just as unimaginable was how calm he felt right now. He gazed coldly upon the inferno before him. Blood red gradually seeped into the Seven-Horned Crown. Amid the mad surge of the Wolf Blood Oath, it siphoned the bounty of the Kingdom of the Woods. Scarlet thorns spread and crept, spilling into the void. In an instant, amidst the burning shadows of the dense forest, every tree was wound tight in the icy, phantom light of thorns... He could even faintly sense a famished gaze directed at him from within the void. The so-called Wolf of Great Sin! Ji Jue paid it no mind. He simply strode across the scorched earth in silence, looking ahead toward the manifestation of Shangri-La, the foundation of the burning tree... riddled with cracks, bursts of phantom light dissipating like blood flowing into the void. Having suffered such catastrophic destruction at its core, even Shangri-La, as a purely mental domain, could hardly hold together. Its collapse was merely a matter of time. What surprised him even more was... "Still alive?" Ji Jue let out a dry laugh, lowering his gaze toward the bottom of the deep crater. There, in the scorched earth already turning into magma, lay a bizarre, contorted stone. It was a charred corpse, burned nearly to ash. Shehri. Now, beneath the fissures, dried blood fell away like dust. With the cracking of the outer shell, Shehri, mutilated and reduced to a mangled mess of flesh, crawled out slowly. No telling what staggering price he had paid, how many precious treasures he had sacrificed, or how many trump cards he had played... He was still alive. He was actually still alive! "How truly touching, Mr. Shehri!" Ji Jue could not help but clap in mock admiration. "When it comes to pure survival, I'd name you the strongest. I just wonder who's better at it—you, or His Excellency the Sower?" "Lu... Lu... Chang..." The ruined face lifted. His eyes, long since burned to cinders, could see nothing at all. Yet his soul seemed to hear the mocking greeting. His torn lips parted, letting out a venomous, bone-deep rasp: "I... I will..." *I will kill you!* He had been so close to the birth of the true third wolf, so close to truly becoming the third wolf... Just like back with the Imperial Seal of the Realm, when everything had been well in hand, this person had appeared before him and snatched it all away! "You can hardly blame me for that, can you?" Ji Jue looked down, studying Shehri's wretched writhing. "Why keep up the act, Shehri? Right now, you still have plenty of strength left, don't you? What did the Sower give you? You're actually bound together with the Kingdom of the Woods as one... Ah, so that's how it is. Catalyzing the Priest-King was merely bait thrown out to draw attention. Once the third wolf was complete, it would be indestructible. When the Priest-King died, you would naturally become the true Wolf of the Woods. Hmph, quite an exquisite design!" Shehri's scarlet pupils shrank for an instant. A shiver of terror ran through him. "You... you're not Lu Changsheng!" Shehri's eyes widened, tears of blood leaking from his charred eyeballs. "Who on earth are you?! Who... who are you..." "Ha, maybe not. But who I am—what does that have to do with you?" Ji Jue sneered with derision. "Besides, even without me, could you have succeeded? Does that Sower behind you really love you that much? Why hasn't he made a single move even now?" "Silence!" Shehri shrieked, raging in denial. "How could someone like you presume to fathom the holy master's designs?! I... I..." *Pop!* Ji Jue merely extended a finger and prodded forward. The phantom before him shattered silently. A fake. Ji Jue shook his head, sighed, and turned to look behind him... The real Shehri was dragging his mangled body forward, crawling with a single hand, paying no heed to the scorching earth and molten rock beneath him. Toward the altar whose core had miraculously survived beneath Shangri-La's protection, he climbed once more up the iron-hot, glowing steps! At blinding speed! A dying struggle, after all. Ji Jue watched coldly without lifting a finger, quietly bearing witness as Shehri crawled upward out of hell once more... disregarding pain, disregarding humiliation, casting aside shame and dignity, squirming wretchedly. Toward Shangri-La. *There's still hope! There's still a chance! Still... still...* Amid agony unlike anything he had ever felt, Shehri forgot the flaming shadow behind him. He stared fixedly at the phantom light of Shangri-La, his pupils illuminated by that magnificent glow. Yet, for some reason, the moment he climbed onto the steps, he recalled the figure who had once walked down them. The White King! "If you can't do it yourself, why didn't you abdicate sooner and make way for someone better?!" the Shehri of the past had demanded with venom. "What you couldn't achieve—why couldn't you entrust it to me?!" The White King had not answered. He had merely looked at him as they brushed past each other. Calm and aloof. As though looking at a speck of insignificant dust. Answering with contemptuous silence. Dragging himself onto the second step, Shehri convulsed. For reasons unknown, he remembered once again the sight of himself climbing the altar dressed in white robes. In the prime of his youth, he had spread his arms and held his head high, basking in the cheers. Yet when he looked back, he had met his mentor's gaze. So utterly disappointed. "...Shehri, you cannot be the Priest-King." Before drawing his final breath, the dying old priest had closed his eyes, denying his student's humble plea. "From the very beginning, there was no faith in your heart... No matter how sumptuous the white robes you wear, you will never cast a single glance at the crowds cheering for you." *Bullshit!* *It's all fucking bullshit!* *Did I not do the work?! Have I achieved no merits?! Did I not love all of this?! Why couldn't I...* *Crack!* A crumbling step gave way and crashed down upon his head. Boiling blood streamed from his fractured skull. Shehri roared, clutching the red-hot stone tightly as he pulled himself up once more. Another step. One step further! He had to press forward. No matter what hell he fell into, he had to... "What a pity, Shehri. You cannot be the Wolf Lord." The Sower's back surfaced in his memories. Kneeling on the ground, Shehri had trembled, instinctively looking up, yet unable to see his expression. He had only heard that regretful voice: "Because your heart is hollow. No matter how much you covet and plunder, all you will ever reap in the end is nothingness." *Why, Holy Master? Why do even you say that?!* *I... I clearly...* "If you wish to try, I won't stop you." In that instant, the Sower had seemed to turn his head, looking down at him with an inscrutable gaze. "I leave all of the White Nation in your hands... But in Shangri-La, the land of resolve and realization, will you truly realize anything?" *Realize?* *Realize what?!* *Realize this bullshit world and everything in it?!* Shehri howled. Upon the torturous steps, he screamed with everything he had, clutching that wisp of Shangri-La's phantom light. Unable to restrain himself any longer, he burst into wild laughter. *I've long had no need for such things!* He ruthlessly unleashed the power of Shangri-La, marshaling the endless despair and suffering within it, coalescing them into form and bringing them crashing down upon the flaming shadow behind him. *Die!* A moment of dead silence. Because nothing happened. Shehri froze. He called out again, channeling his power once more. A boundless torrent of malice and despair surged like a flood, sweeping toward that figure—yet the raging deluge split right down the middle?! As though parting around him! In fact, as Shehri repeatedly tried to invoke it, it gradually ceased responding to his calls, falling completely silent. His expression twisted into sheer hysteria. A shrill shriek tore from his throat: "Why?! Why?!!" "What else could it be? You've been abandoned. By Shangri-La." Ji Jue smiled, reached out, and pulled the wisp of phantom light straight from Shehri's grasp, effortlessly triggering resonance. "What a shame. It seems you never did achieve realization after all..." Shangri-La was a realm of enlightenment. No matter how much it was corrupted, this fundamental nature would never change. Everything was a trial; everything was a process of realization. And once realization was attained, Shangri-La held no further meaning or purpose. From the moment Ji Jue stepped back into this place, the power of Shangri-La could no longer affect him... The vanished King of Benevolent Relief was living proof. Under the bombardment of the fusion bomb, stripped of its original anchor and foundational ritual, Shangri-La would never pay any heed to Shehri again. What's more, Ji Jue, as a sin born of self-nature, was fundamentally equivalent to Benevolent Relief. Taking command of all this was second nature to him. *You want to use what's mine against me?* "Do you know why?" Ji Jue reached out, pressing his palm against that twisted, shattered face, delivering the final verdict: "—Because you're not worthy!" BOOM! Black fire erupted from that broken body like a geyser, consuming everything. No wails or shrieks could be heard from his soul; perhaps he had already died before that. At the moment he realized he was doomed never to succeed, the wolf of ambition known as Shehri—the once-illustrious priest, the true mastermind behind all of this—met the most utter despair. And an unavoidable death! With Shehri's demise, the colossal tree flared with sudden brilliance. The teetering Shangri-La shuddered in waves. Amid the billowing darkness, countless scarlet thorns erupted from the earth, coiling around every burning tree. The Kingdom of the Woods was now in his grasp! Ji Jue closed his eyes, feeling the bloody light pouring into the Hole of the Sin Fiend like a deluge. He felt closer to the Wolf of Great Sin than ever before. If he wished, he could easily take Shehri's place. Once the White King died, he would become the true Wolf of the Woods! Yet he felt nothing at all... He only realized that perhaps Shehri was truly the most suited for it. It was precisely because of his inner void that he plundered so greedily from without; precisely because of that insatiable craving that he seized endlessly, only to end up with nothing in the end. Never satisfied, eternally starving, forever trapped in nothingness—the Wolf of the Woods chased in vain after phantoms on the horizon, doomed never to know a day of contentment. How pathetic. "There's no need for any more wolves." Ji Jue gripped the phantom light in his hand and spoke to it softly: "Today, no wolf will be born here..." More phantom light gathered, wrapped in layer upon layer of scarlet thorns, until it condensed into a wisp of purest, abyssal luminescence. He raised the sword of wolf blood, pointing it toward the Wolf of Corpse and Bone high in the sky. He was ready to bring all of this to a final close. The torment and suffering had already gone on far too long.