Wu Gou sized Chen Zhou up for a long while. “That's not right. Your aura is still at the fifth symbiosis contract. You shouldn't have broken through to Siming yet, right?”
Chen Zhou said frankly, “Indeed, I am not at Siming.”
“But I am no longer as powerless as before.”
“My overall abilities have undergone a breakthrough. Wait, what is that look on your face?”
“It is not the first time I have broken through in the heat of battle. What is there to be so shocked about?”
Hearing this, Wu Gou raised an eyebrow and stared at him for a few moments.
Then again, Chen Zhou harbored far too many secrets. When had anything concerning him ever made logical sense?
In fact, his speed of breakthrough was actually the least remarkable of them all.
Wu Gou had caught Xuandu's eye and won his favor primarily because of his one-year soul age.
Yet his own one-year soul age was highly inflated, largely thanks to the Myriad Herbs Life-Death Realm.
But the Big Demon possessed a genuine, uninflated one-year soul age. Sometimes, Wu Gou seriously wondered if Chen Zhou was the illegitimate child of the Heavenly Dao. How else could he be such a freak?
Calming himself, Wu Gou asked, “So, what is your next plan?”
Chen Zhou replied with absolute confidence, “None.”
Wu Gou's expression froze on his face. “...?”
“No particularly detailed plan, that is.”
Chen Zhou explained slowly, “Qingzhou is neither particularly large nor small. It is merely an outer province formed when the ruins of the Ancient Kingdom of Southern Tang split off.”
“Xuan Cai invited me here, yet he has not shown his face to this day. In his territory, the Graveyard of Ten Thousand Beasts, there is only a bronze gate, behind which three Mansions are locked.”
“Yet traces of Bai Xing are everywhere throughout Qingzhou.”
“Even the Western Seven Mansions can openly roam Qingzhou and set up arrays within the realm barriers.”
“They wouldn't deploy such a complex array in such a specific location unless they were after something, right?”
Squatting on a tree root, Plague Rat chimed in, “Could what they are after simply be to convert Mao Ri Ji and the others into the same wretched state as Lou-Metal Dog?”
“And what happens after the conversion?” Chen Zhou countered. “Conversion is merely a means to an end. Bai Xing wouldn't go to all this trouble without an ultimate purpose.”
Plague Rat blinked. “Doesn't converting them make them stronger? Isn't that a purpose in itself?”
Chen Zhou shook his head. “You and Huaishuang didn't go to the bronze gate beneath the Celestial Maiden Spring, so you aren't familiar with the situation there.”
“I can tell you with absolute certainty that the white slime seeping out of that bronze gate is identical to what is on Lou-Metal Dog.”
“Nü Tu Fu, who guards the bronze gate, was also polluted. Lian lacked the strength to fully open the gate when she tried, so we have not yet seen Wei Yue Yan or Xu Ri Shu. We also don't know what exactly those three Mansions are guarding inside the gate.”
He paused before continuing, “However, Bai Xing's ultimate goal is likely whatever is inside that gate.”
Plague Rat scratched his head. “Why?”
Jian Huaishuang took over the conversation. “Does My Lord mean that the pollution on Lou-Metal Dog and the pollution leaking from the bronze gate share the same source?”
“If the thing inside the gate can completely pollute the Mansions, to the point of being identical to the pollution on Lou-Metal Dog, could it mean that their original pollution also originated from within the gate?”
“Perhaps even Bai Xing himself carries this pollution. The object inside the gate must be extremely beneficial to him, which is why he wants to obtain it.”
“In other words, there is something inside the gate that Bai Xing wants but cannot reach,” Chen Zhou added.
Plague Rat suddenly understood. “No wonder we ran into six Mansions working together the moment we arrived in Qingzhou!”
“That wicked bastard Bai Xing was afraid someone would disrupt his plans.”
He paced a few steps, his thoughts growing clearer. “So after we escaped the Sunlight Array and entered the Graveyard of Ten Thousand Beasts, Lou-Metal Dog kept a constant eye on us.”
“Because if someone else beats him to the very thing he covets, he'll be absolutely furious, wouldn't he?”
Wu Gou nodded with a chuckle. “Not bad, not bad. The little rat has grown smarter.”
Plague Rat glared at him and curled his lip. “No way! Isn't that Lian's stuff? We can't let that wicked Bai Xing get his hands on it!”
Chen Zhou nodded. “I think so too.”
“Xuan Cai's objective seems to be stopping Bai Xing. Judging from all the current signs, he appears to want the items inside the gate returned to their rightful owner.”
“For now, our goals align with Xuan Cai's.”
“Since Xuan Cai wants to stop Bai Xing, the place he is most likely to appear is—”
Plague Rat immediately blurted out, “The Myriad Ghost Array!”
Chen Zhou nodded. “Yes, that is the most likely location.”
“That should be where the Western Seven Mansions are hiding their true bodies.”
“Shall we set off right now, then?”
Before Plague Rat's voice could fade, a rustling sound suddenly echoed from the distant ruins.
Everyone turned to look in that direction at once.
A white tide surged forth once more. An overwhelming tide of beasts squeezed out from among the ruins, jostling and trampling over one another, their eyes clouded and fanatical.
There were easily over ten thousand of them.
Plague Rat's fur immediately stood on end. “Again? Just how many descendants does that dumb dog have?”
Jian Huaishuang closed his eyes to sense the surroundings for a brief moment. When he opened them, his expression relaxed slightly. “The numbers are similar to last time, with no significant increase. I suppose that is good news.”
“Good news my foot!” Plague Rat cursed. “It's over ten thousand at once! Who can hold out if this happens a few more times?”
As he spoke, he prepared to charge forward, pressing his hands to the ground. A gray-green toxic mist seeped from his fingertips as he readied to deploy his Great Plague Heaven.
Chen Zhou grabbed his tail in a tight grip.
Plague Rat stumbled from the yank, turning back to glare. “My Lord, what are you doing?”
“Sit this one out,” Chen Zhou said, releasing his tail. “There are too many of them. It would take you too long to fight them all.”
He turned to look at Shen Liang. “Shen Liang.”
Shen Liang was currently huddled in a puddle of water, pretending to be nothing more than a wet patch. Shivering violently at the call, he stood up from the puddle and answered dryly, “Young Palace Master...”
“You go,” Chen Zhou said.
Shen Liang's face instantly drained of color.
He stammered, “Young Palace Master, this... this subordinate's strength is lacking. My waters will only be turned against me by that white-furred monster. I will only cause trouble for you then.”
He spoke in a frantic rush, his tone thick with excuses.
Plague Rat could not bear to watch from the sidelines any longer. “Our thin ghost brother really can't do it. His water is completely countered by Shen Shui Yuan. If it gets turned against us again, it'll only be more dangerous.”
“And look at the bald ass—he doesn't even have a single patch of intact flesh left on him. Let him rest a bit. We can't have him cleaning up the thin ghost brother's mess again at the end.”
“So it's better to let Lord Rat handle this. Though it'll be a bit slow and tiring, at least it's safe and steady.”
Wu Gou offered a brilliant smile, his tone relaxed. “This monk doesn't mind. It is of no consequence.”
Chen Zhou replied, “It is fine. Go ahead, Shen Liang. I will back you up.”
Shen Liang did not dare to bargain further. He could only brace himself and take two steps forward. Behind him, a murky, yellowish-brown current seeped out from the cracks in the ground, washing over his ankles and beginning to spread forward.
The tumbling waves surged toward the pack of white beasts, dragging the frontmost few hundred into the depths.
Shen Liang stood atop the water, his tall, gaunt figure appearing exceptionally frail under the moonlight.
His arms began to grow longer and thinner as ghostly hands reached up from beneath the surface, grabbing the submerged beasts and crushing them with a series of sickening cracks.
His movements were swift, clean, and remarkably practiced.
Although massive waves of beasts were being drowned, Shen Liang still felt an intense sense of unease.
He did not know why, especially since the Young Palace Master had already guaranteed that he would have nothing to worry about.
Yet Shen Liang still did not want to face it. He did not want to face that white-furred monster who, for some inexplicable reason, could make him lose control and turn him into a sinister, savage creature.
He wanted to run away.
Just like last time, only moments after Shen Liang's floodwaters spread out and before he could eliminate many of the white beasts, the surface of the water began to change color.
A deathly pale hue surged upward from the depths, rapidly devouring the yellowish-brown currents and transforming them into a murky, solid white.
The beasts drowned by Shen Liang floated back to the surface, their crooked limbs snapping back together. Covered in a layer of white slime, they scrambled back to their feet on the water's surface.
Then, the figure of Shen Shui Yuan slowly rose from the white ripples.
He had a squat, stocky build, long arms that hung past his knees, and was covered in long white fur. A single, pale, solitary eye peered out, staring dead at Shen Liang.
Shen Liang's breath caught in his throat.
That dusty, ash-like stench drifted over once more, riding the currents straight into his nostrils.
He felt his limbs beginning to swell again.
A violent, savage emotion was slowly awakening, surging up from the depths of his soul in an attempt to drown his sanity.
Shen Liang clenched his teeth.
His hands trembled, his nails digging into his palms. His ten pale, swollen fingers practically gouged into his own ghost body, but the impulse was too overwhelming. It was like a drowning man desperately trying to break the surface—he could not suppress it no matter how hard he tried.
He did not dare to step forward any further.
He did not want to face that white-furred monster again.
Shen Liang took a step back. The floodwaters swirled around his feet, wrapping his ankles, but he did not dare let them spread forward any further.
Turning his head, he looked at Chen Zhou with a pleading gaze.
“Young Palace Master... this subordinate...”
Chen Zhou did not make things difficult for Shen Liang, immediately taking a step forward.
He bypassed Shen Liang, walking past the whitening floodwaters as he calmly made his way toward Shen Shui Yuan.
Wu Gou called out from behind, “Can you handle this? That thing can even seize control of Shen Liang's River of the Underworld dead water—”
“The River of the Underworld?” Chen Zhou did not even look back. “Can his single measure of Wanchuan even be called the River of the Underworld?”
Wu Gou was taken aback.
Utilizing the single measure of Wanchuan water mixed within Shen Liang's dead water, Chen Zhou established a connection with the River of the Underworld slumbering inside his sea of consciousness.
A few moments later, an extremely dark stream of water rapidly seeped out from the cracks in the ground beneath Chen Zhou's feet.
The water was as deep and black as ink, its surface shimmering with an incredibly faint, ghostly light, as if it had flowed from some unimaginably distant place deep underground.
The stream was very narrow, barely two fingers wide, winding forward close to the ground, almost completely silent.
The moment it merged into the floodwaters, the bodies of the white beasts began to disintegrate.
Their flesh melted away in an instant, exposing the bones beneath, which then rapidly weathered and shattered in the flowing water, dissolving into fine powder that settled to the bottom.
Before the beasts could even struggle, they were reduced to disjointed skeletons, sinking deep into the water.
As those skeletons entered the water, illusory human figures slowly emerged from the depths. Semi-transparent and resembling blurry clusters of light, they drifted along with the current.
Soon, a dense swarm of phantom souls rose to float within the dark stream.
Shen Shui Yuan stood in the water, his solitary eye staring fixedly at the stream beneath his feet.
He attempted to command the white floodwaters to corrode the dark stream.
White waves surged forward to crash against the black current, but the instant the two collided, the white floodwaters were rapidly assimilated.
The black water widened, continuing its unhurried advance, relentlessly eating away at the white floodwaters as it flowed straight toward Shen Shui Yuan.
Shen Shui Yuan let out a hoarse roar and slammed both hands onto the water's surface, attempting to force the entirety of the white floodwaters down upon the black stream.
However, the black water quickly washed over his body, and his flesh began to dissolve.
A trace of bewilderment flashed in his single eye. He looked down at his feet, then looked up at Chen Zhou.
His body began to disintegrate from the ankles up, the white flesh peeling away. The entire process took only a few breaths.
Piece by piece, Shen Shui Yuan's body collapsed, dissolved, and sank into the water.
His head was the last to remain floating on the surface. His solitary eye was still open, a lingering trace of confusion and bewilderment reflecting in his pupil, before his entire head sank beneath the waves.
He could not comprehend it at all. Whose water-control technique could possibly surpass his own?
A few bubbles rose to the surface, and then the water fell completely still.
As for the white beasts that had been drowned by Shen Liang and risen again, once the black water swept over them, they too melted away one by one, turning into bones that sank to the bottom and transformed into phantom souls.
Standing before the dark stream, Chen Zhou looked down at the black river at his feet.
The current swirled around his feet. The phantom souls floating beneath the surface seemed to sense something; they gathered around him, lingering near his feet for a long while before slowly dispersing.
Standing behind him, Wu Gou stared with wide, unblinking eyes.
“So, this move of yours is...?”
Chen Zhou did not look back. “The actual River of the Underworld.”
“The Underworld has only recently opened, and the Abyss has just begun to appear. The River of the Underworld has not fully awakened yet, so I can only project this single shadow of it.”
When he finished speaking, his tone was calm, betraying neither pride nor regret. “Still, it is more than enough to deal with this sort of amateur ditch water.”
Wu Gou let out a sigh. Tsk, he's showing off again.
Chen Zhou looked up into the distance. The curtain of water was slowly receding, and Shen Liang's floodwaters were reverting to their yellowish-brown state.
Shen Shui Yuan had vanished completely, leaving only a layer of white dander on the ground that was slowly dissipating.
“My Lord's death qi...”
Plague Rat stood in the back, his crimson eyes bulging. “My Lord's death qi has become so strange!”
Jian Huaishuang felt it too. “The aura of My Lord's death qi has changed. It feels much deeper... and far more ancient.”
Chen Zhou looked down at his palm. The newly formed godhead throbbed gently within his sea of consciousness, and the shadow of the River of the Underworld lay quietly in the depths of his divine soul, as if asleep.
When he summoned that shadow of the River of the Underworld just now, he had felt an unprecedented sense of seamlessness.
His death qi flowed through his godhead, through his meridians, and through his palm, before being released as the breath of the River of the Underworld.
The entire process was completely smooth, without a single trace of resistance or rejection.
When the white pollution came into contact with his death qi, it could no longer violently corrode and assimilate it as it had before.
This was because the source of his power had shifted to the Underworld itself. Even though the power he could currently muster was not even equivalent to a single drop of water, his status was clear.
So what if Shen Shui Yuan could turn Shen Liang's dead water against him? Chen Zhou could simply take control of it right back.
How could ditch water ever hope to compete with the vast ocean?
Excellent.
This was the strength he was always meant to possess.
Rate on N.U.
