Abyss Corridor.
Chu You stood still, coldly staring at Ayane Hanyu across from her.
The dagger in her hand emitted a faint clear light, isolating the sticky, malicious aura that tried to corrode her from within three feet around her.
She could clearly feel that this isolation was being slowly and steadily dismantled.
What made her heart palpitate even more was that pervasive sense of corrosion.
It didn’t act on her flesh, but directly eroded her energy, her spirit, and even her most fundamental existence itself.
It was as if countless tiny, cold borers were gnawing at the roots of her soul, trying to hollow her out from within and assimilate her into part of this abyss.
“Can you feel it, Miss Chu You?”
Ayane Hanyu strolled across the cracked black earth.
Where her wooden clogs stepped, they left footprints burning with dark red sparks.
“The abyss is not destruction. It is return. It is assimilation.”
“All things will eventually return to the abyss. The difference is only a matter of time, and… whether the posture of return is graceful.”
She lightly snapped her fingers.
The black earth beneath her feet suddenly shook violently.
From countless fissures, densely packed, twisted limbs stretched out!
They were the remains or imprints left after various creatures were corroded and captured by the abyss.
There were giant beasts with only bones yet burning with soul flames, humanoids with melted skin revealing flesh and sinew, and indescribable things entirely made of shadows and grudges…
They let out silent howls, their eye sockets or similar positions burning with the same deep darkness as in Ayane Hanyu’s eyes.
Then, like a tide, they surged toward Chu You from all directions!
Chu You’s eyes sharpened.
The clear light of her short blade flared.
She didn’t choose to hold her ground, but instead took the initiative to attack!
Her figure turned into an erratic stream of light, darting through the tide of monsters.
Her swordsmanship was extremely exquisite.
Every strike was simple and efficient, directly targeting the energy-converging core or structural weak points of these abyssal creations.
A cold saber flash passed, and the head of a bone beast was precisely split open; its soul flame extinguished.
The blade spun, and a humanoid monster’s chest was cut open; the writhing dark core inside was shredded.
She sidestepped to avoid the entanglement of a shadow tentacle, then struck back with her blade to sever another monster’s head…
Her movements flowed like clouds and water.
Under the siege of countless fearless monsters, she actually seemed to move with ease, even carrying a sense of the art of slaughter.
In a short time, not a single monster could break through her blade net.
Ayane Hanyu did not join the siege.
She only watched from afar, the smile on her face growing more brilliant, and even clapped.
“Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!”
Her voice was filled with admiration.
“Perfect combat skills, judgment calm to the extreme. As expected of the prey the Fate Apostle has set his sights on~”
Chu You slashed the three monsters in front of her in half at the waist, then retreated half a step, panting slightly.
It seemed she had the upper hand, but her heart kept sinking.
These monsters seemed endless.
Once she killed a batch, more immediately crawled out from the cracks.
Moreover, what she consumed was not just stamina and energy.
With every sword swing, every time she mobilized power to resist erosion, the feeling of her soul being gnawed empty grew stronger by a degree.
More terrifyingly, she felt her fighting spirit and killing intent being quietly weakened and diluted by something invisible.
A deep fatigue and a sense of futility—‘why bother struggling?’—slowly soaked into her will like ice water.
“It’s useless, Miss Chu You.”
Ayane Hanyu seemed to see through her heart.
Her sweet voice was like the hiss of a venomous snake.
“Here, what you are fighting against is not me, nor these toys, but the abyss itself.”
“Your resistance, your killing, even your existence—they are actually providing nourishment for the abyss, accelerating the process of your assimilation.”
She lightly raised her hand and pointed at Chu You.
“Look, isn’t your light a little bit dimmer than just now?”
Chu You looked down.
The clear light of the short blade in her hand had indeed weakened by a barely perceptible amount.
It wasn’t a lack of energy, but the essence of that light seemed to be contaminated and diluted by the surrounding darkness.
“What exactly do you want?”
Chu You’s voice remained cold, but upon closer listening, one could detect an extremely faint tremor.
“What do I want?” Ayane Hanyu tilted her head, looking thoughtful.
“I want you to… become complete.”
The smile on her face, for the first time, shed its innocent brilliance, revealing a deep, almost mad craving.
“Your bloodline, your soul, your struggles and pain… they are all such beautiful traits.”
“Yan has a unique eye and brilliant ideas. As a fellow apostle, I am happy to help him complete those interesting experiments.”
“Chu You…”
Ayane Hanyu spread her arms.
The sleeves of her kimono danced in an invisible current of air.
The darkness in her eyes began to spin like a whirlpool.
“Come on, give up that futile resistance!”
“Open your heart, feel the embrace of the abyss. That is not an end, but… sublimation!”
A denser darkness burst from her body, turning into countless pitch-black, translucent arms that grabbed at Chu You from all directions.
At the same time, the number of monsters surging from the ground cracks increased dramatically, and their attacks became even more frenzied.
Chu You felt the pressure around her suddenly increase.
The stinging pain of her soul being corroded instantly intensified several times over.
Even her sword-swinging movements began to show extremely slight pauses.
She clenched her teeth.
The clear light of her short blade burst forth again, dancing so densely that not a drop could penetrate, cutting apart the attacking dark arms and monsters.
But with every slash, her complexion grew paler by a degree, and the light in her eyes seemed to dim by a degree.
On all sides, there was a dark tidal wave devouring everything.
At this moment, Chu You was being pushed, bit by bit, toward the abyss of destruction.
…
…
Dead Realm Fissure.
In the space where gray mist surged, the confrontation between Gu Qiancheng and Mirror Lake had already turned into a one-sided suppression battle.
Gu Qiancheng’s situation was even more perilous than the other two battlefields.
In this Dead Realm Fissure, the spatial rules were extremely chaotic, suppressing his Divine Oracle to an unbelievable degree.
Activating the Divine Oracle had become incredibly sluggish, like swinging a ten-thousand-pound hammer underwater.
Not only was the consumption enormous, the effect was also greatly diminished.
At most, he could maintain an extremely thin spatial distortion shield around his body to deflect and weaken attacks, and perform extremely short-range, highly unstable spatial flickers—this was even slower and less reliable than moving with his physical explosive power.
Mirror Lake, on the other hand, was like a fish in water.
His attacks were not flashy, but every punch and every kick carried the power of the gray mist, heavy and containing a strange property that eroded space’s stability.
His speed was also astonishingly fast.
He darted through the gray mist, sometimes solidifying, sometimes dispersing, appearing and disappearing unpredictably.
Gu Qiancheng could only rely on his well-honed martial arts and combat instincts, coupled with the Divine Oracle that had been suppressed to its limit, to maneuver.
He twisted and turned, barely avoiding Mirror Lake’s fatal fist strikes by a hair’s breadth.
Bang!
Gu Qiancheng was again hit in the ribs by Mirror Lake’s tricky side kick.
Although the spatial shield weakened it, the force still made his qi and blood churn.
He slid back more than ten meters, plowing a trail in the gray mist.
Mirror Lake did not pursue.
Instead, he stopped and brushed off non-existent dust from his clothes.
The face that belonged to Zhao Zhenwu on his face was now filled with a complex expression of mockery and almost pity.
“Do you see now, junior?”
Mirror Lake’s voice came through the gray mist, echoing.
“What use is resistance?”
He walked forward slowly, the gray mist pulsating with his steps.
“Your proud Divine Oracle is like scrap metal here… Your tenacious will is nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot before the predetermined fate.”
“Your companions are also struggling bitterly on their respective stages at this moment, heading toward their destined endings.”
Gu Qiancheng panted as he adjusted his internal energy, but his eyes remained as sharp as ever, without a trace of wavering.
“Controlled destiny will not change its course because of a person’s temporary bravery or persistence,” Mirror Lake continued, his tone as if stating an irrefutable truth.
“Just like this play, the script has long been written, the roles long chosen. No matter how tortuous or unexpected the process in between, it will ultimately lead to that single, long-determined endpoint.”
He extended his hand toward Gu Qiancheng, palm up, making an inviting gesture.
“Accept it. Embrace it.”
“Admit your own powerlessness. Acknowledge the great power of fate. Then…”
Mirror Lake’s voice came to an abrupt pause here.
His eyes, roiling with darkness, stared straight at Gu Qiancheng.
Deep in his pupils, an extremely sharp and cold glint seemed to flash, so fast it might be mistaken for an illusion.
But that glint of coldness was almost instantly covered and submerged by another, more complex emotion.
“…Then, find a chance…”
Mirror Lake’s voice dropped.
The last few words were indistinct, as if swallowed by the gray mist, or as if he himself couldn’t say them, or was unwilling to say them.
He shook his head violently, then put back on that slightly manic smile of someone in control of everything.
“Forget it. It’s still too early to talk about this now.”
Mirror Lake’s aura rose again.
The gray mist gathered toward him, vaguely forming a huge, distorted vortex phantom behind him.
“Let us first finish this warm-up between lead dancers, junior.”
“Let me see what light you can still burst forth in dire straits—even if that light is destined to be brief, destined to be swallowed by darkness.”
As his voice fell, Mirror Lake’s figure abruptly vanished from where he stood.
All of Gu Qiancheng’s muscles instantly tensed.
The Divine Oracle power, suppressed to the limit, struggled to spread its perception outward.
He heard Mirror Lake’s unfinished words and caught that fleeting complex look in his eyes.
‘Accept?’
‘Embrace?’
‘Then… find a chance? What chance?’
Doubts flashed through his mind like lightning, but there was no time to ponder now.
Because Mirror Lake’s attack had already come like a violent storm from all directions!
This time, his attacks were even fiercer, the corrosive power in the gray mist even stronger.
Every blow carried a terrifying will to shatter and assimilate Gu Qiancheng along with the surrounding space.
Gu Qiancheng clenched his teeth, cast aside all distracting thoughts, and elevated his mind to the utmost.
Under that almost despairing suppression, he searched for that faint, almost non-existent… glimmer of life.
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.