Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)
chapter-662

Chapter 662 – Autumn Slaying

By the stream near Xining Village’s old temple, the starry sky was obscured. All was dark and quiet.

The Tianhai Divine Empress’s soul stood between heaven and earth, the occasionally appearing star like a speckle on her clothes.

She looked down upon the monk by the stream, her expression indifferent as if she was gazing at an ant.

The stream bank was very quiet, as was the mist-shrouded solitary mountain. At this moment, it was close to a deathly stillness.

On the still surface of the stream were blazing pieces of blood lotus. On the monk’s body, there were also many pieces of blood lotus. His monk robes were tattered, his flesh was cracked, and Sacred Light burst out like a flower.

An indescribably divine might descended from the heavens and crushed the Sacred Light exuding from the monk’s body like the light of a firefly.

The dimmer the Sacred Light became, the more serene the monk’s expression was.

Heavily wounded by the Tianhai Divine Empress’s soul, his body was covered in blood, his face covered in blood, yet his two serene eyes were devoid of emotion, other than pity.

Just who was he pitying? This world that he had not returned to in so long or his clansmen still on that distant other continent?

No, at this time, he was looking at the Tianhai Divine Empress, so the pity in his eyes was for her.

……

……

In Luoyang, Daoist Ji was also looking at the Tianhai Divine Empress.

Mist flitted about the darkness, seeming both like a fairyland and the kingdom of the dead, but there was no sign of her body.

Her supreme Daoist technique was in the mist, flying through the air in the form of a Phoenix.

The misty Phoenix’s claws had fallen on his Daoist sword, its beak pecking at his face like a thunderbolt.

His face was covered in countless lines, each line a law of the world.

As the beak fell, a sound carrying fear resounded high up in the sky.

The clear light dissipated, the Daoist technique was shattered, and the lines on his face bent like wrinkles or old wood. Blood appeared from nowhere and splashed into the darkness.

Daoist Ji gazed at the misty Phoenix with no emotion on his face. No wariness, no pity, only calm.

This sort of extreme calm was very frightening because it was like he was looking at a corpse.

……

……

The southern part of the capital outside the Mausoleum of Books was still a vast stretch of water. Trash and stone rubble floated atop the filthy water, as well as many corpses.

The Pope stood in the water, letting the filth submerge his knees and soak his Divine Robe. His face was pale as if transparent, and his wrinkles made him seem particularly sorrowful.

He held the Green Leaf, his gaze looking through the lotus sea surrounding the mausoleum and ultimately falling on the figure standing at the peak.

The vast sea of stars in the Pope’s eyes quickly dimmed from the shock and then became even more sorrowful.

……

……

By the stream outside Xining Village’s old temple, the starlight suddenly somewhat brightened. The stream waters also brightened and then began to flow.

The tree branches by the stream also began to sway in the wind. The blood lotuses on the monk’s body fell to the stream and continued to burn, gradually transforming to ash.

All that was still began to move from the moment the stars brightened.

There was still not much sound in the world. The uncountable number of beings living around the solitary mountain were all bowing on the ground, shuddering, not even daring to look towards the stream, so they naturally did not know why the starlight had brightened.

The reason the starlight had brightened was that the figure that had extended from heaven to earth had become cracked, thus revealing a few stars.

This crack was very large, enough to hold a few mountains. Looking up from the ground, it was as if a great hole had been torn through the night sky.

The radiance of the stars seeped out of this hole, looking just like blood.

……

……

In Luoyang.

The Daoist monastery was still a ruin.

Daoist Ji stood amidst the ruins, the countless lines on his face already bent and on the verge of collapsing, also looking just like a ruin.

There was still no emotion on his face. He only calmly gazed at the Phoenix in the mist.

The misty Phoenix’s two wings were completely unfurled, spanning across two long streets. As they swayed, roofs and stones were sent flying, and then they turned still.

The lightning in the night sky vanished, the beak left the sword, and Phoenix eyes seemed to be faintly crumbling.

Perhaps it was because in the center of the misty Phoenix’s body, beneath those two wings, a large hole had appeared.

The white mist, the hot mist, the cold mist, slowly flowed out of this hole, looking just like blood.

……

……

The peak of the Mausoleum of Books.

This green leaf left the surface of the Heavenly Tome Monolith, slowly and heavily retreating into the darkness like some immortal bird heavily injured and finding it difficult to fly.

Only a few people could clearly make out that the green leaf had been heavily damaged. Two thirds of the leaf had already crumbled away, only the thin veins of the leaf keeping everything connected. It looked extremely wretched.

No one looked at this green leaf because everyone was staring in shock at the Tianhai Divine Empress.

The Tianhai Divine Empress gazed tens of thousands of li at Xining Village, gazed at Luoyang, gazed at the capital, and a faint sense of confusion appeared in her beautiful Phoenix eyes, which transformed into a tiny hint of pain.

Her Black Phoenix wings were already unfurled, slowly beating in the air.

The lotus sea, those lotus blossoms, the ancient aura, had just now reached her and then been scattered by her black wings to beyond the nine heavens.

Even at this moment when she was using her most powerful methods to deal with the most powerful attacks of three Saints, she had still had a backup plan, not leaving her opponents a single gap to attack.

But she had not expected that Bie Yanghong and Wuqiong Bi, the couple that had resolved to die, had not been the final strike of her enemies.

To be more precise, she had not expected just who her final enemy was.

The slight confusion and pain in her eyes vanished, leaving only indifference.

She gazed at her own body.

A spear had run through her body, tearing a gaping hole through her abdomen.

This spear seemed very ordinary. It was pitch-black, with no carvings on its surface.

This was naturally no ordinary spear, or else how could it pierce through her body?

Blood surged out of the wound, like mist and like starlight.

The spear began to burn, spurting out countless enchanting fragments of stars, simultaneously emitting an extremely profound aura of autumn chill.

The Tianhai Divine Empress lowered her head to gaze at this spear that ran through her body, saying, “This is Autumn Slaying?”

Not waiting for an answer, she continued somewhat emotionally, “It has been many years since last I saw it.”

……

……

Whether it was the Tianhai Divine Empress on the peak of the Mausoleum of Books or everyone below the mausoleum, they all knew that this spear was the Frost God Spear, ranked first on the Tier of Legendary Weapons.

The Autumn Slaying the Tianhai Divine Empress spoke was naturally not the name of the spear.

This was the spear technique of the Frost God Spear, the supreme divine technique which Emperor Taizong used to stride across the world.

After Emperor Taizong returned to the sea of stars, the Frost God Spear had remained in the Imperial Palace. As for Autumn Slaying, it had never appeared again in the human world.

Until tonight, it finally reappeared in Han Qing’s hands.

As it turned out, this spear which brought life and death together was not going to the depths of the lotus sea, nor into the green leaf, nor to the old monastery in the ancient capital, nor that old temple tens of thousands of li away.

The spear went to the peak of the Mausoleum of Books.

To kill Tianhai.