"How long have we been fighting?"
"I don't know."
"Are we at our limit?"
"Perhaps..."
"Missing an arm really gets in the way. What a pity—we were just one final step away..."
"If only Creation Immortal Venerable were a bit more diligent."
The voices gradually faded into murmurs, yet Jun Weizhi refused to accept it, struggling to lift his head.
The thousand-fathom beast was covered in wounds, several massive gashes nearly severing it in two. Less than half of its dozen-odd pairs of slender, segmented limbs remained, its body riddled with gaping gashes of every kind. Its aura fluctuated wildly, hovering on the brink of death, clinging to its very last breath.
Most importantly, after countless attacks, everyone had pinpointed the location of its spiritual pivot. Shattering it would truly slay the beast once and for all. Yet...
Jun Weizhi sighed once more, and then his entire body was whipped into the air.
At this moment, he was impaled on one of the monster's segmented limbs. Only his left leg remained; both arms and his right leg were gone. A massive wound gaped through his chest and abdomen, the tip of the limb having pierced in through his back and burst out from his chest, smeared with mangled bits of internal organs.
Jun Weizhi's aura had sunk to rock bottom. His eyes fluttered half-shut, and just as he was about to drift into an eternal sleep, a faint shimmer of light swept across his body, infusing him with a spark of life.
Jun Weizhi opened his eyes and saw Fuyao darting across the ground in flickers of movement, dodging the sharp limbs stabbing down one after another. Sweat drenched her forehead as she sprinted with gritted teeth. Then she raised both hands, and another faint shimmer flashed over Dugu Cangqiong—who was likewise impaled on a limb—dragging him back from the gates of death.
"You... just run..." Jun Weizhi muttered, but his voice was far too faint, barely audible even to his own ears.
Across the ground lay the corpses of numerous cultivators scattered in disarray. Long Wushuang's body had been cleaved through the middle, leaving only a strip of skin and flesh connecting his upper and lower halves.
Han Li was also impaled upon a limb, his head hanging motionless, unknown whether he was alive or dead.
Fuyao had originally torn open a rift in midair and had already slipped half her body into it. Yet she had looked back at everyone impaled on the limbs, dashed back into the fray, and sealed that rift behind her forever.
Yet she did not excel at slaughter; she had the power to save lives, but lacked the might to slay enemies. Even so, she gritted her teeth and held on bitterly, clinging to something unseen. By now, the outcome was already sealed. As her spiritual power gradually ran dry, she would inevitably fall to the monster sooner or later.
Jun Weizhi let out a sigh, unable to bear watching her any longer. He, who prided himself on computational power unrivaled under heaven, could not calculate what lay in this woman's heart. They had only known each other briefly, and she had clearly escaped—why turn back to embrace death?
The intervals between Fuyao's infusions of vitality grew longer and longer, the vitality bestowed dwindled, and eventually even carried a faint scent of blood.
Darkness gradually engulfed Jun Weizhi's consciousness, as if the end of the world were calling him.
Just then, Jun Weizhi felt his spirits inexplicably surge, and he snapped awake once more. Sensing the sudden spark of vitality arising within him, he had no idea where it had come from.
Yet Jun Weizhi's reaction speed was second to none within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Han Li and noticed vitality welling up within Han Li as well, while the thousand-fathom beast seemed to have weakened slightly.
In the span of a single spark, Jun Weizhi channeled his Dao art. His sole remaining leg exploded, and channeling that sacrificial power into his eyes, he saw right through to the monster's spiritual pivot, marking and igniting it with his divine sense!
Han Li regained consciousness at that exact instant. Without a second thought, he unleashed his final natal flying sword straight at the mark, piercing right through the monster's spiritual pivot!
The beast suddenly unleashed an excruciatingly shrill shriek, flinging off all the people impaled on its limbs. Its remaining legs thrashed frantically as its colossal body rolled across the ground, slowly curling into a ball.
As they were flung through the air, Jun Weizhi and Han Li exchanged a glance. Both saw the question in each other's eyes: just moments ago, they were lamenting that they lacked only the last bit of strength to slay the beast, only for an extra spark of vitality to appear at the critical moment—could it really be a coincidence?
If it truly were a coincidence, why would the monster just happen to weaken at that exact moment?
Before either could puzzle it out, both crashed into the mud-like earth, nearly passing out from the impact.
Inside the corrupted grand hall, Wei Yuan suddenly let out a startled shriek. "My origin power! Why is it suddenly gone?! Who is it? Who cut off my origin power?!"
Inside the hall, the temperature soared violently. A bookshelf abruptly caught fire and was reduced to ash in the blink of an eye! Flames of diverse colors ignited throughout the hall. In an instant, several weak points were burned clean through, and pillars of fire spewed by the grand formation surged directly into the interior.
Amid the blazing inferno, space itself within the hall warped and collapsed. The entire grand hall shrank at a speed visible to the naked eye, while the Wei Yuan inside was compressed and twisted until, in the blink of an eye, he no longer resembled a human.
He only had time for one final shriek—"We will never let this go!"—before he and the entire grand hall collapsed into a single point, transforming into a pitch-black, perfectly round elixir that dropped into the hands of Maiden Yin-Yang.
Maiden Yin-Yang swallowed the elixir in a single gulp, then lifted her head to gaze at the sky above. Freed from the suppression of the corrupted grand hall, countless figures rose from the earth and the oceans, flying toward the speckles of purple festering blemishes across the heavens.
Some of these figures had already assumed humanoid form, while others retained their appearance as spiritual plants. The most striking was a colossal tree measuring a full ten thousand fathoms tall, which slammed straight into the largest purple blemish, causing it to melt away rapidly.
Now that the inner demon was destroyed and the monster from beyond the heavens had been slain, the purple blemishes were reduced to mere rot, trees without roots. Under the united efforts of the immortal plants, blemish after blemish dissolved, until the firmament once again became clear and pristine.
When the immortal plants returned from the heavens, there were surprisingly two new humanoid figures among them. One was a cold, handsome male cultivator with flowing long brows; at the center of his forehead grew several long streamers that fluttered in the wind like phoenix crest feathers. The other was a maiden clad in a platinum robe, with crimson brows.
The immortal plants gathered around the male cultivator, bowing in greeting and offering congratulations one after another: "Fellow Daoist has undergone tribulation and gained rebirth; this is truly worthy of celebration."
The male cultivator gave a wry smile. "Though I am myself, I am no longer myself."
The immortal plants replied, "Essence returns to Unity; you are still you."
The male cultivator's brows smoothed out, and he cupped his hands to return the salute. "Indeed. The Immortal-Devouring Vine was me, the Immortal-Swallowing Grass was me, and I am still me. In this lifetime's great karmic cause, may we strive together."
Having exchanged pleasantries with the male cultivator, the immortal plants moved together before the crimson-eyed maiden and bowed in unison. "Greetings, Star Lord."
The maiden paid no heed to the immortal plants, only staring blankly at her hands. Only then did the immortal plants notice that her left sleeve was missing a piece for no apparent reason, revealing an arm as pale and tender as a lotus root.
Suddenly, her crimson brows shot up in fury, and her roar reverberated through heaven and earth: "Who stole this lady's karmic luck?!"
The immortal plants were all stunned, wondering who could possibly be bold enough to touch something belonging to this one. Before her awakening, it would not have mattered as much, but now that she had awakened, she would naturally draw back the scattered spirituality from across the myriad heavens and worlds unto herself. Aside from her true form in the heavens, this was her only true manifestation in the mortal realm. Moreover, she was notoriously difficult to get along with, so touching her belongings carried catastrophic consequences.
Just at this moment, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World suddenly began to tremble. Deep within the earth, spirituality surged forth, while primordial qi cascaded down from the void like a tidal bore, nourishing the long-parched world.
The sea surged against the land, the earth rose and fell, and the entire Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World came alive, flexing its long-rusted body.
The two previously motionless grotto-heavens slowly stirred into motion, operating once more. Yet their reactivation stirred up wave upon wave of natural disasters throughout the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
This earth-shattering upheaval instantly caused the immortal plants' faces to change.
In the firmament, Maiden Yin-Yang appeared, descending toward the earth like a falling star. Wherever she set foot, the landscape transformed in the blink of an eye, giving rise to changes as vast as the shifting of oceans into mulberry fields!
The immortal plants looked on dumbfounded. This was no passage of time; Maiden Yin-Yang was ordering the heaven and earth at an unfathomable speed, comparable to reconstituting earth, fire, water, and wind.
For a moment, none of the immortal plants knew what had happened.
Inside the quiet rooms of the Battle Saint Hall, Han Li, Jun Weizhi, and Fuyao slowly opened their eyes, finding themselves sitting sound and whole within the quiet rooms, cultivating. The life-and-death battle of before seemed like nothing more than a grand dream.
Before they could shake off their confusion, they felt a terrifying, blazing divine sense sweep across the entirety of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. As soon as this divine sense passed, it instantly turned the entire Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World into midsummer. Though there was no sun in the sky, blazing sunlight poured down from on high. Rolling waves of heat dispelled even the chill hidden deep within human hearts.
Then, a booming voice resounded through heaven and earth, as if a heavenly pillar were toppling: "Hahahaha! Yours truly is finally back!"
That blazing divine sense, bright as a scorching sun, carefully swept through every corner of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World once more, and then said, "Not much has changed! Good, good! I knew it—who could ever touch my Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World!"
The myriad living beings in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World silently and instinctively reined in their spirituality.
Chapter 935