But Nüba was different.
She was both gentle and powerful, needing no means to prove her own existence; just by standing there, she would be surrounded by countless believers and auspicious beasts.
She did not need the approval of others, nor did she need their understanding. She was complete, independent, and her own self without any conditions attached.
Lian felt a trace of envy toward Nüba.
She envied her status, her power, and even more so, her completeness.
She was a complete deity.
Possessing a past, a name, a mission, and a final home.
After truly empathizing with Nüba, Lian suddenly felt waves of strange emotions welling up from the bronze gate. They began to constantly erode her feelings, cutting the connections between her and the world one by one.
A black-robed man carrying a stone coffin emerged from the depths of her memory, only to quickly fade away.
His face blurred, his features like ink soaked in water, bleeding out and dispersing.
Lian remembered that he was very important, that the stone coffin on his back was very heavy, and that he was always quiet and taciturn, always standing at the edge of the crowd.
But who was he? What was his name? What had he said to her? Suddenly, she could not remember any of it.
A wave of panic seized Lian.
Immediately after, a little paper girl with crudely drawn features was also stripped from her memory.
Her face was drawn very casually—two dots for eyes, a crooked arc for a mouth.
Lian remembered how that arc would curve upward when she smiled, and how she loved to tug at the hem of her clothes, calling out “Sister Lian” in a tiny voice.
She seemed to especially love eating... eating what?
Lian's head throbbed with a splitting pain; she could no longer remember at all.
The paper girl's voice also grew fainter and more distant in her mind, as if separated by several walls, completely unintelligible.
She tried desperately to grasp the two gradually fading figures, chasing their receding footsteps like someone possessed.
“Don't go—” Lian cried out, not even knowing herself whom she was calling for.
“Wait for me—”
Her voice echoed in the chaos, yielding no reply, as if swallowed by something.
After running for a while longer, the silhouette of the coffin-carrying man vanished completely, and the white dots of the little paper girl disappeared as well. Nothing remained around her but an empty expanse of white—nothing at all, not even the sound of her own footsteps.
Lian stopped, bending over, gasping heavily for breath.
She looked around blankly, then down at her own hands.
What was she chasing?
Suddenly, she could not remember.
The thing she had been chasing just a moment ago had left not even a shadow behind, and she could not even recall why she had been chasing it.
It only felt as if something incredibly important had been hollowed out from her heart, leaving a void through which a chilly wind whistled.
She stood up straight, frowning as she tried hard to remember.
She couldn't.
She could not remember anything at all.
She only knew that she had been very anxious and frightened just now, as if she were about to lose something.
But what had she lost? Who had left?
Her mind was a blank. Lian stood lost in the white chaos, her lips trembling slightly, but no sound came out.
She suddenly felt so cold. Strange—she had long been immune to heat and cold, so why did she feel cold now? Cold to the point that her soul felt as if it were about to freeze.
And why was she here? Who was she again?
Oh, right. She was a monster, the filth that had grown from Nüba's remains after she was polluted.
She was not Nüba, not Nüba's reincarnation, nor Nüba's successor.
She was more like Nüba's scar, the ugly filth left behind after she was polluted, a blemish she did not want to face but could not erase.
Lian suddenly understood.
No wonder. No wonder she was so terrified of this door; it was because there was something inside that would prove who she was.
She was the part of herself that Nüba did not want to face—her weakness, her fear, her pain, her despair.
White tentacles surged madly out from the crack in the door, wrapping around Lian's limbs and neck like countless snakes.
She was lifted off the ground and suspended in midair, like a marionette.
The tentacles cut into her withered flesh, and the white pollution began to spread from the points of contact.
Lian opened her eyes, watching the white tentacles wrapping around her arms, and suddenly smiled.
“So, I am you.”
“Your scar.”
“Your blemish.”
“The part of you that you didn't want.”
“No wonder you're so afraid of me.”
“No wonder you shut me outside.”
“No wonder you won't let me go back.”
Lian fell into a state of extreme self-destruction.
The bronze gate shuddered.
More and more white slime gushed from the crack in the door, bubbling out viscously.
The slime flowed down the door panels, pooling into a massive puddle on the ground before starting to squirm, swell, and deform.
A white beast rose from the slime, shook its head, and lunged toward Chen Zhou.
Chen Zhou raised his hand, and a bone spike shot out from the void, striking the beast dead center in the face.
The bone spike pierced through its head, but the beast did not stop, continuing its forward charge. The bone spike inside its body began to turn white, and within a few breaths, it turned into a soft white noodle and slid out of its body.
The beast pounced in front of Chen Zhou, opening its massive maw to bite him.
Chen Zhou sidestepped to avoid it and expanded his Ghost Domain, wrapping the beast in gray-white mist.
The mist was filled with death qi and Withering Venom, causing the beast's body to corrode and black spots to appear all over its form.
But the spots quickly reverted to white.
It was rapidly adapting.
Chen Zhou frowned, striking a punch against the beast's head and sending it flying.
The beast crashed into the ruined wall, its body shattering into several pieces, scattering white fragments all over the ground.
Yet those fragments squirmed on the ground for a bit and pieced themselves back together, restoring to their original state within a few breaths.
“Tsk.”
Chen Zhou cursed inwardly.
A regeneration ability was always the most disgusting thing to deal with, no matter the situation.
The bronze gate was still vibrating.
The white slime gushing from the crack grew increasingly voluminous, and the speed at which the white beasts were born accelerated.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of white beasts of various shapes and sizes filled the ruins. They surrounded the bronze gate like guards, shielding it in the center.
The frequency of the gate's vibrations grew faster and faster.
Chen Zhou could feel that something on the other side of the gate was awakening.
Chen Zhou's brow furrowed deeply. Whatever was inside was clearly coming with ferocious intent. Was trusting Dou Mu Xie and opening the bronze gate truly the right choice?
Dou Mu Xie felt it too.
No longer entangling itself with the tentacles stretching from the crack, it immediately retreated to Chen Zhou's side, lowering its head and pointing its horn at the bronze gate.
Silvery-white moonlight surged from the tip of its horn, forming a beam of light that shot toward the crack.
When the moonlight hit the white slime, the slime began to evaporate, emitting a sizzling sound.
However, the crack was too narrow, limiting the area the moonlight could cover. More slime gushed from both sides of the crack, evading the moonlight.
Dou Mu Xie growled low, and the range of the moonlight doubled.
The rate of the slime's evaporation accelerated, and the birth rate of the beasts slowed down.
Yet the vibrations of the bronze gate still did not stop; instead, they grew increasingly violent.
The door panels began to bulge outward, the crack widening as a white light spilled from it, as blinding as the sun.
Chen Zhou squinted, peering through the white light into the crack.
Behind the gate was a long corridor, its walls on both sides embedded with countless white beads that emitted a soft white glow, illuminating the entire corridor.
At the end of the corridor lay a massive chamber.
The chamber was packed with white cocoons of all sizes, hanging like silkworm pupae from the ceiling, piled on the floor, and stuffing every single corner.
Floating right in the center of the chamber were three massive white hearts.
The hearts were beating, and with every throb, a stream of white slime would gush out, flowing along the floor into the corridor and toward the bronze gate.
The surfaces of the hearts were covered in black blood vessels.
Those vessels were rooted deep into the hearts like tree roots, drawing something out of them.
Chen Zhou stared at those black vessels for a few breaths. Before he could think further, the bronze gate suddenly shuddered violently, the door panels springing open by half a foot.
And then it jammed.
The tentacles stretching from the crack tightened abruptly, as if pulling the door back with all their might.
A deadlock formed between the door panels and the tentacles. The gate could neither close nor open, hanging there half-open and half-closed.
Yet this half-foot crack was more than enough for the things inside to emerge.
At the end of the corridor, one of the white hearts throbbed violently.
Then, a massive white beast burst out from within the heart.
Its body was more than ten times larger than the previous beasts, shaped like a bat, and entirely covered in a smooth white carapace.
Its wings were vast, and the wing membranes were as thin as paper, allowing one to see right through them.
The beast's eyes swept across the ruins, quickly locking onto Dou Mu Xie. It opened its mouth and let out a sharp, piercing shriek.
The sound was incredibly piercing, like a needle stabbing straight into Chen Zhou's brain.
Chen Zhou's Ghost Domain trembled violently, the death qi at its borders beginning to dissipate.
The shriek continued, its frequency rising higher and higher, the sound becoming increasingly sharp.
Chen Zhou felt his skull vibrating and his bone marrow itching, while Dou Mu Xie's situation was even worse.
Yet this familiar attack immediately allowed Dou Mu Xie to recognize its former colleague, Nü Tu Fu.
Dou Mu Xie let out a low growl and, hoofs treading on the moonlight, charged toward Nü Tu Fu.
Its horn pointed at Nü Tu Fu's head, the silvery-white light condensing into a beam that shot toward Nü Tu Fu's eyes.
The moonlight coursed through Nü Tu Fu's body, attempting to awaken its consciousness.
Nü Tu Fu's struggles paused momentarily.
A trace of clarity flashed within its cataract-like eyes.
But it lasted only an instant. In the next second, white pollution surged from within its body, drowning that trace of clarity.
Nü Tu Fu opened its mouth and bit down on Dou Mu Xie's front leg.
Crack.
The sound of bone fracturing.
The white pollution spread from the wound, climbing up Dou Mu Xie's leg bone.
Dou Mu Xie grunted, using its horn to push Nü Tu Fu away as it retreated several steps.
It looked down at its leg; the white pollution had already climbed to its knee. The polluted section was twisting and deforming, with bone spurs growing out of the bone, altering its original shape.
Dou Mu Xie shook its leg forcefully, but it could not shake it off.
The white pollution clung to the bone like gangrene, creeping upward inch by inch.
Dou Mu Xie raised its head, the silvery-white flames in its eye sockets flickering as it stared at Nü Tu Fu.
Nü Tu Fu hovered in midair, its wings slowly flapping as it stared back, but there was no anger in its eyes, no hatred, nothing at all.
Only emptiness.
Just like the things bitten by Lou-Metal Dog, it had turned into a pure, emotionless monster.
Dou Mu Xie let out a low, mournful wail.
Nü Tu Fu did not give it much time for grief. Flapping its wings, it lunged at Dou Mu Xie, its sharp claws tearing toward Dou Mu Xie's skull.
Dou Mu Xie ducked to avoid it, thrusting its horn toward Nü Tu Fu's abdomen.
Nü Tu Fu twisted its body, evading the horn tip, and flapped its wings to whip up a gale.
The gale was laced with white powder, which began to corrode Dou Mu Xie's bones upon landing on its body.
The moonlight on Dou Mu Xie's horn flared, burning the powder to ash, but Nü Tu Fu had already circled behind it, biting down on its tail.
Crack.
Its tail snapped.
The white pollution flooded in from the break, climbing up its spine.
Dou Mu Xie turned and rammed its head into Nü Tu Fu's face.
Nü Tu Fu let go of its grip, retreating several zhang, and continued to generate the noise.
Dou Mu Xie's tail had turned completely white, and the coloration was still spreading upward, already passing its lumbar vertebrae.
It glanced down at its hind legs; the white pollution on its front legs had also spread to the base of its thighs.
Half of its body was now white.
It began to divert more of its moonlight to suppress the whitening, and its combat strength plummeted instantly.
On the other side, Chen Zhou's situation was not optimistic either.
Nü Tu Fu's shrieking caused continuous damage to his Ghost Domain. The death qi at the domain's edges was dissipating, and the gray-white mist grew thinner and thinner.
The small white beasts took advantage of the weakness, frantically devouring the death qi at the edges of the Ghost Domain.
With one side growing weaker and the other stronger, in less than half a cup of tea's time, the Ghost Domain was compressed to a mere three feet around his body.
Chen Zhou raised his hand, summoning over a dozen skeleton Ghost Servants.
The moment the skeletons landed, they rushed toward the white beasts.
But there were too many white beasts, packing the area and surging forward like a tide.
The skeletons brandished their bone blades, cutting down a few, but they were quickly submerged by the white beasts.
Chen Zhou could clearly sense that under the biting of the white beasts, the skeletons' bone quality began to turn white, soften, and deform.
Within a few breaths, they became part of the white beasts.
Chen Zhou's expression darkened.
With things like this, he did not dare to easily unleash his bone spikes or Hate Prison. If even his Ghost Servants could not withstand the pollution, ordinary bone materials would stand even less of a chance.
The pollution from the bronze gate wasn't this strong earlier, was it?
Is it because the gate has already been opened?
Chen Zhou gritted his teeth.
His offensive methods suffered too much against the white pollution, being completely countered.
The characteristic of the white pollution was contamination; anything that came into contact with it, living or dead, energy or matter, would be converted into a part of the white pollution.
Meanwhile, his Ghost Domain, Ghost Servants, and Withering Venom were essentially forms of energy as well—different ways of utilizing death qi—and would likewise be assimilated.
Unless he could find a power that could not be assimilated, or overwhelm the assimilation speed of the white pollution with an absolute numerical advantage.
But a numerical advantage?
Looking around, there were already over a hundred white beasts, and they were still pouring out of the bronze gate in a steady stream.
No, it was too risky. If the summoned Ghost Servants could not achieve overwhelming numbers, they would quickly become part of the enemy force and backfire on him.
Chen Zhou quickly dismissed the idea of continuing to summon Ghost Servants to hold the line.
Rate on N.U.
