As if trapped in a nightmare, unable to extricate himself, Tianjue trembled violently from head to toe.
"That's right, I killed them all!"
"Qin Tang, Xiaochong, Fuyun..."
"I killed every last one of them!"
Even the Master found this answer hard to accept for a moment.
"Wh-why..." he asked blankly.
Just then, Tianjue's expression abruptly shifted.
"No..."
"That's not right!"
"That wasn't me at all!"
Tianjue snapped his head up, glaring viciously at the Heavenly Physician. "It's all your doing!"
"Those memories in my head are entirely fake!"
"Ever since that encounter with you that day, everything became bizarre."
"Everything spun out of control..."
The Heaven Slayer Sword pointed straight at the Heavenly Physician. "Was it you or not?!"
Faced with Tianjue's interrogation, the Heavenly Physician's expression did not change in the slightest.
"I thought that this time, you two might have made some progress."
"Who knew you would still be the same as ever."
He shook his head with a touch of regret.
"What do you mean by that?" Tianyu suddenly asked, catching the unusual undertone in the Heavenly Physician's words.
The Heavenly Physician did not answer, merely speaking to himself: "I've explained it to you many times. Sometimes, even what you see with your own eyes isn't necessarily true."
As he spoke, he withdrew a set of nine silver needles from somewhere and suspended them one by one in midair.
"Everyone wants to kill me, like madmen."
"Left with no choice, I can only resolve this in my own way."
Seeing the nine silver needles the Heavenly Physician had produced, Tianyu's face darkened drastically.
Refusing to listen to any more of the Heavenly Physician's explanations, he struck without hesitation.
"The Law is inviolable!"
"Bind!"
It was as though something bound the Heavenly Physician's body, causing his movements with the silver needles to hitch slightly.
"Weaken! Wound! Immobilize! Maim! Impair!..."
A succession of distinct words spilled relentlessly from Tianyu's mouth.
With every additional word, the Heavenly Physician's movements grew a fraction slower.
Meanwhile, Old Man Yufu, his eyes bloodshot as he glared fixedly at the Heavenly Physician, gripped the Heaven Slayer Sword.
His body dissolved into black baleful qi, melding into the blade.
Like a sharp arrow, it shot straight toward the Heavenly Physician.
Constrained by Tianyu, the Heavenly Physician seemed entirely stripped of the power to resist, unable to budge.
A breath later, he let the black sword qi pierce straight through his chest.
The black baleful qi surged furiously, engulfing the Heavenly Physician like a tidal wave and swallowing him whole.
In an instant, the Heavenly Physician, who had looked so calm and composed, vanished into the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
*The Heavenly Physician is dead?*
Hiding in a corner and watching the three battle, Zhou Qing'ang froze in shock.
The clash between the Heavenly Physician, Tianyu, and Tianjue had unleashed no aftershocks whatsoever.
Thus, the clone observing from the shadows was temporarily safe.
Yet the scene before his eyes had clearly defied his expectations by a mile.
He had assumed the Heavenly Physician was formidable, yet under the combined assault of Tianyu and Tianjue, he hadn't even fended off a single move before perishing outright...
*With his power, there is no way he could be this pathetic, right?*
*Wait...*
A heartbeat later, Li Fan seemed to realize something.
He snapped his head up and looked toward the sky.
The entire Cloud Water Heavenly Palace began to shudder violently.
Gradually, two dark clouds appeared upon the vault of heaven.
When he saw clearly what they were, Li Fan's breath caught in his throat.
They were a pair of colossal hands descending through the heavens from the outside world, plunging into the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
The Master and Yufu both looked up in astonishment at the two massive palms above.
They tried to resist, only to find that their bodies were already firmly pinned in place.
Expressions of terror could not help but surface on their faces.
"It's fine. This operation will be over very soon, just like before."
A rumbling voice echoed from high above—it was unmistakably the Heavenly Physician's voice!
Li Fan's heart pounded wildly, his thoughts grinding to a near halt.
Indeed, the one confronting Yufu and the Master from beginning to end had merely been a statue of his.
Only now, with these colossal hands, had the Heavenly Physician revealed his true form!
Tianjue and the Master, figures whose strength faintly surpassed Dao Integration, were now like insects pinned to an operating table before these giant hands, devoid of any strength to resist.
They could only allow the hands to seize them and arrange them in midair.
Then, the Heavenly Physician's giant hands summoned the nine silver needles that the statue clone had set out earlier and began to "treat" the two of them.
Watching this from afar, Li Fan felt a chilling dread that he could barely keep in check.
*The Heavenly Physician... what on earth is he...*
At this moment, a single thought consumed Li Fan's mind.
Danger! Utter catastrophe!
The Heavenly Physician's true strength far exceeded his estimates.
Even if he had not attained the Longevity realm, he was not far from it.
*Discard this clone immediately! I cannot let the Heavenly Physician trace the connection back to my true body!*
*Hurry!*
Driven by a desperate survival instinct, Li Fan almost reflexively initiated the process.
Yet, moments later, he jolted awake.
*No!*
The Heavenly Physician had clearly realized that someone had orchestrated this from behind the scenes.
However, the first suspects that would come to his mind would be those on par with his own strength.
He would never search for a culprit among the ants observing nearby.
That was the natural constraint of preconceived notions.
Yet if, at this critical juncture, an insect happened to perish inexplicably...
It would be a blatant attempt to cover up the truth!
An absolute, utter giveaway!
Before the Heavenly Physician's terrifying might, not only would it fail to erase the trail, but it would almost certainly draw suspicion upon himself and invite the Heavenly Physician's gaze!
*What should I do?*
In a split second, countless thoughts flashed through Li Fan's mind.
Yet in the next instant, he made his decision.
*Stay put!*
He would gamble on whether the Heavenly Physician still retained a "human" way of thinking, or if he had already transcended it to the point where common logic no longer applied.
If his gamble paid off, then although this round was a crushing defeat, it would at least not be entirely fruitless.
If he lost the gamble...
It would still take some time for the Heavenly Physician to trace the connection from the clone back to the true body.
Right now, his true body was not in the Congyun Sea, but far away in the heartlands of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
He believed that even if the Heavenly Physician sensed a clue and tried to locate him, it could not be accomplished in an instant.
There would be ample time for Li Fan to use True Reversion!
This calculation was grounded in his experience from his previous contact with the Heavenly Physician.
And so...
Li Fan made his bet!
Bearing the immense dread in his heart, Li Fan suppressed the urge to snuff out his clone.
With wide eyes, casting aside all extraneous thoughts, he stared intently at the Heavenly Physician's surgery.
With Li Fan's current vision and discernment, he still couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening.
He saw only flashes of silver light as Tianyu's and Tianjue's curses grew weaker and weaker.
Eventually, they faded into near silence, as if both had sunk into a deep slumber.
When the surgery concluded, Yufu reverted to his previous dazed, amnesiac state.
He surveyed his surroundings, his face a picture of bewilderment.
Ignoring the hands in the sky, he strode directly out of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
As for the Master, he once again harnessed his ox cart and vanished amid the resonant sound of chanting.
Having finished all this, the two giant hands put away the silver needles.
Then they pressed down gently.
The Cloud Water Heavenly Palace, where wails of agony had risen one after another, fell instantly silent.
Chapter 598