Chapter 405
The World Is Truly Beautiful
Chapter 405 The World Is Truly Beautiful
Stone turtle!
Chen Ji seemed to have spotted the stone turtle.
He cleaved down with his sword from the air, but the force dissipated halfway through, losing all its former power, like a dragon stirring the sea or a tiger roaring through the mountains.
The centurion frowned: "What's wrong?"
After landing, Chen Ji remained in place, lost in thought.
Just as the centurion was about to swing his sword, Chen Ji called out to him, "Wait a minute."
Wait a moment.
Chen Ji called out "Wait a moment," and the centurion actually waited in place, slowly sheathing his broadsword.
Chen Ji dragged his long sword to the edge of the mountaintop, where a group of Five Witches soldiers had formed a circle. He pushed them aside as if they were no one else, and the Five Witches soldiers were indeed pushed aside by him.
The five soldiers looked at each other and then at the centurion, who gently shook his head.
After gazing south, Chen Ji dragged his long sword and ran north. This time, the Five Witches' troops blocking the north made way for him, allowing him to look at the northern mountains.
Chen Ji suddenly turned around and asked, "What are the ancient sayings about the stone tortoise and the bixi?"
The centurion was silent for a moment, and then actually answered: "The Bixi has five toes on its front claws which are yang, and four toes on its hind claws which are yin, so it is of great use in yin and yang."
Chen Ji turned his head again to look at the northern mountains. The low outline of the distant mountains looked exactly like the five fingers of a stone tortoise.
He looked south again, where the outlines of Yingluo Rock and Furongping resembled the four toes of a hind claw, the western mountains resembled the raised back of a tortoise, and Xianglu Peak resembled the head of a bixi (a mythical tortoise) raised towards the sky.
Chen Ji looked down at the mountaintop paved with square stones.
He tossed his longsword at the centurion, saying, "Help me split this ground open."
The centurion didn't understand, but he did as he was told.
He took the long sword and slashed at the square stone with each strike. A fierce wind swept through, causing the clothes of everyone on the mountaintop to flutter wildly.
The stone was thick and heavy, and it wasn't until more than ten cuts that cracks appeared.
It wasn't until the thirty-second strike that a deafening roar was heard, the long sword shattering mountains and splitting rocks, carving a ravine into the mountaintop.
Smoke and dust filled the air.
Chen Ji held his breath until the smoke and dust cleared, revealing a half-foot sword hilt protruding from the ravine.
He glanced at the Five Witches soldiers around him, hesitating whether to use his sword to nurture the sword at this moment, but then he saw the centurion use his longsword to lift the hilt of the sword and bring the divine sword hidden on the ground into Chen Ji's arms.
The longsword was ochre-yellow, as new as ever.
The centurion casually asked, "You've run through several mountains just to find this sword, haven't you? If you want to use a sword to nourish another sword, this one is indeed the most suitable."
The traces of the past remain silent.
He had initially sought this sword to fight against the Five Witches' army, but now that he had found it, he was unsure whether he should continue fighting.
At this moment, a mountain wind swept through, ruffling Chen Ji's clothes.
As dawn broke, the three mottled lines beneath the tattered clothes of the deceased were faintly visible.
The fire in the eyes of the Five Witches' soldiers flickered wildly, as if they had witnessed something unbelievable, or as if a huge weight had finally been lifted from their hearts. All their previous doubts were now answered by the markings on their faces.
The centurion said softly, "You're back."
These four words carried immense weight, leaving Chen Ji at a loss for words.
He glanced at the centurion's longsword: "Want to continue?"
The centurion glanced back at the sky and saw a ray of golden light bursting forth from the outline of the distant mountains, just as a red sun was about to peek over the ridge.
The centurion smiled and said, "No need, I have no regrets."
Chen Ji was silent for a moment before asking, "Those I killed earlier..."
The centurion didn't care at all: "You gave us our lives, so what's wrong with letting you kill us once? There's no time left, so let me do you one last thing before I go. How about you say it yourself: you owe us a bowl of wine?"
Chen Ji was taken aback: "I owe each of you a bowl of wine."
The Five Witches' soldiers burst into laughter, and the centurion also laughed heartily: "No regrets!"
After saying that, he suddenly picked up his long sword and walked towards the edge of the mountaintop. The Five Witches soldiers seemed to understand his thoughts and followed him.
As they were about to descend the mountain, the centurion turned back, and the Five Witches' army also turned back in unison. The golden sunlight illuminated their silhouettes on the edge of the cliff, making them appear both indistinct and majestic.
They adjusted their bone masks together: "Victory!"
The next moment, the centurion led the Five Witches' troops to jump down the mountain and charged down the mountain like a thousand horses.
The centurion dragged his long sword, which resembled a giant plow, cutting through the soil and decaying leaves on the hillside and carving a deep furrow behind him.
The Five Witches' army followed closely behind, and four horns sounded in unison.
The three hunters were faster than the centurion, leaping between tree trunks as if walking on flat ground. When they reached the mountainside, they suddenly discovered a pile of faceless corpses of the Eastern Palace assassins. They then followed the tracks on the ground and continued their pursuit down the mountain.
Until they saw Mr. Liao in his brown robe, and at the same time, they fired a whistling arrow into the sky.
The sharp whistling of the arrows guided the army to its doom.
Mr. Liao looked astonished. He didn't know why these ghosts, who had been chasing Chen Ji, had suddenly come to kill him. Was Chen Ji dead or alive?
Just as they were pondering, a sword's cry suddenly rang out from the top of Incense Burner Peak, a cry that seemed to resonate in the hearts of everyone.
Mr. Liao's expression changed. What was that sound? Before he could figure it out, the three hunters had already arrived.
The hunters reached into their stomachs, broke off a rib, and turned it into a bundle of bone arrows. They held the bone arrows in their bow-wielding hands and fired them in rapid succession, forcing Mr. Liao to dodge and weave.
In an instant, the spot where he had stood was studded with bone arrows, which tracked his every move, leaving people overwhelmed. But Mr. Liao was, after all, a Grand Master of the Seeking Dao Realm, and had just broken through to the third level by devouring twelve assassins; he was at the peak of his vitality.
The three hunters with bone arrows consistently missed him by mere millimeters.
Mr. Liao angrily asked, "Is there some misunderstanding?"
They wandered around hunting, ignoring everything else. The three surrounded the enemy but didn't hunt, until the main army arrived.
But then the centurion charged forward, dragging his long sword, and immediately brought down a slash—the very same slash Chen Ji had just delivered to him.
This strike wasn't something he learned recently; he'd known it for ten thousand years.
They were taught by the same person.
Mr. Liao dared not take the blow head-on. He flicked his sleeve, donned a red-faced, fanged mask, and vanished into the distance as a wisp of black smoke. But the centurion pursued him relentlessly, like a shadow.
The black smoke flew out for more than ten feet before landing. Just as Mr. Liao's figure appeared, he saw the centurion's sword already slashing down on his head.
Amidst the raging waves, he had no choice but to transform into black smoke and flee once more. Just as he was about to land again, a bone spear shot out and struck precisely where the black smoke had landed.
Mr. Liao had no choice but to force himself to escape again.
The centurion sneered, "Your escape skills are truly remarkable!"
Mr. Liao transformed into black smoke, binding the soul and imposing a prohibition.
Thick black smoke billowed, causing the Soul-Collecting Imprisonment to struggle incessantly, but after three breaths, it was completely unharmed. His method of seizing faces from the officials was ineffective against these Five Witches' soldiers.
The Five Witches were originally faceless people.
Left with no other choice, Mr. Liao had to flee again. Holding the severed head in his hand, he spat and said, "What the hell is that?"
Mr. Liao then entangled with another hunter who was out hunting in the mountains, but he was just as helpless against him.
These Five Witches soldiers seemed to be born with the ability to counter his methods.
The Five Witches' army surrounded and hunted Mr. Liao. Whenever Mr. Liao transformed into black smoke and tried to land, the Five Witches' army would immediately surround and kill him. Two Soul Collectors and Guardians held white bone banners to drive him away, preventing him from breaking through the encirclement for a long time.
The methods of a Dao Seeking Realm Grand Master were ineffective, and he was forced to flee in a sorry state by this group of Five Wrathful Soldiers.
The centurion, sword in hand, drew his sword and approached: "You rely too much on your official skills and have long forgotten how to fight."
Just as the black smoke landed several times without success, the centurion suddenly closed in—now.
As Mr. Liao landed, the centurion swung his longsword, using the hilt as a pivot, and twisted it towards the spot where the black smoke had landed. Mr. Liao's expression changed drastically, and he once again transformed into a wisp of black smoke and fled into the distance.
But this time, it was too late.
The centurion's longsword fell at the perfect moment, striking just before Mr. Liao could transform into black smoke. A shrill scream echoed from the fleeing black smoke as an arm, along with half a shoulder, tore out of it, blood splattering everywhere.
In an instant, Mr. Liao no longer held back, and immediately transformed the black smoke into eight plumes that flew in all directions.
The black smoke in the mountains and forests was dazzling, and the Five Witches' army was momentarily at a loss as to where to pursue them.
Eight plumes of black smoke enveloped the mountains and rose into a black fog. When the fog dissipated, a much smaller plume of black smoke was seen fleeing eastward, already dozens of feet ahead of the Five Witches' army.
The Soul-Summoning Demon shouted loudly, "Chase!"
The centurion calmly replied, "There's no need to pursue."
The five warriors looked up together, and a golden sun peeked out from behind the mountain ridge. The line where sunlight met darkness surged toward them like the tide line of the ocean.
Shouhun Lijin stood still, watching Mr. Liao's departing figure, and asked, "What about the thief?"
The centurion looked back up the mountain and saw Chen Ji rushing down the mountain, chasing after Mr. Liao: "Leave it to him, let him kill his own enemies."
The Soul-Summoning Immobilizer asked in confusion, "But he is still very weak."
The centurion laughed as if he'd heard a joke: "You haven't been beaten enough."
“Aren’t you curious about how he cultivated the sword seed? That’s Xuanyuan’s skill.”
Aren't you curious about how he returned to Earth?
"Back then, he was..."
The centurion suddenly raised his hand and clenched his fist, and everyone fell silent.
He gazed at the distant mountains and rivers and sighed softly, "The world is truly beautiful."
Only the sound of the wind and birdsong remained in the mountains and forests; no one wanted to disturb this rare tranquility.
As the centurion watched the line between sunlight and darkness approaching his feet, he turned to the crowd and said, "Gentlemen, I apologize for not being able to bring you the finest wines this time. I'm leaving now."
The next moment, sunlight shone on the centurion's toes, calves, and entire body, and he turned into a ball of fire, burning into a wisp of white ash that drifted away in the wind.
"gone."
"gone."
Handfuls of white ash drifted down, and the fire in their eyes flew into Chen Ji's body like shooting stars.
A total of eighty-two people, one hundred and sixty-four wildfires, flew into Chen Ji's body and ignited the furnace fire, six hundred and ninety-one, six hundred and ninety-two... seven hundred and thirteen, seven hundred and fourteen.
When the 714th furnace fire ignited within Chen Ji's body, the Five Witches' army vanished completely.
Chen Ji suddenly felt a pang of sadness, as if he had lost eighty-two old friends in one breath.
(End of this chapter)