Volume 3, Chapter 83 – Suppression (Two-in-One)

Judging purely by the sense of oppression it gave off, this human-faced, insect-bellied, serpent-bodied monster was extremely strong—among all of Bai Xiang’s past experiences, it was second only to “Shiling.”

But unlike Shiling, which specialized in phantom-god methods, this thing gave Bai Xiang an intensely nauseating feeling the moment it appeared. It was clearly using a more physical form of pollution, spreading outward with every rise and fall of its chest.

“Divine Envoy! Divine Envoy!”

While the two sides faced off, the people of Diming along the street were still eagerly dropping to their knees toward the monster.

You couldn’t really blame them for switching sides so quickly. The monster’s appearance just happened to perfectly match the “Eight Brahma Heavens” of the local Buddhism—one of the “Eight Brahma Heaven Hosts” beneath Namo Buddha’s seat, known as “Ena.”

But as they kept kneeling and kneeling, a sudden mutation occurred.

The one closest to Ena was a yao man, fat-bodied, with two great fan-like ears like an elephant beast. This form made every bow a serious effort; he had to use all his strength just to struggle back up each time.

He didn’t mind. In his view, almost nothing could compare to worshiping the faith in his heart through action… He trembled all over with excitement, chanting sutras praising the “Eight Brahma Heaven Hosts,” repeating Ena’s deeds in myth over and over, praying desperately for even the slightest response.

His body seemed to be getting heavier and heavier…

After a few rounds of bowing, the yao man felt something was wrong. His stamina was draining far faster than he’d expected. When he pushed himself up again, he suspiciously reached to touch his chest and vaguely felt a prick of pain in his ribcage every time he drew in a breath of air.

His head was a little dizzy… his vision a little doubled… Something cold seemed to be flowing out of his nostrils. He reached up to wipe—and it was all blood…

This was bad. He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten hurt. Maybe he’d been hit by shrapnel earlier when Xingshui Corporation bombed the street.

His hand shook as he reached for the phone in his inner pocket. Even that one motion was incredibly difficult.

His limbs were heavy. His breathing whistled and leaked.

The fog in his brain grew hazy and indistinct. He was certain he must have internal bleeding in his chest. He coughed once—and a mouthful of blood sprayed out at once.

The yao man realized he needed to call his servants to save him immediately, otherwise he would lose his life very soon.

But…but… Just as he finally spent the last of his strength to fish the phone out, he realized the entire screen of the device was jumping and flickering, like an old television from decades ago with a bad connection: horizontal flickers, plus dense, mottled “snow” across it.

What on earth…

Thump!

Still confused, the yao man collapsed heavily to the ground. His head was turned toward Ena, and even at the moment he lost his life, he still didn’t understand how he had actually died.

Thump! Thump!

Similar sounds began echoing one after another around and behind him. More and more Diming citizens who had been drawn by Ena’s appearance died under that formless, intangible harm. Some of them were yao, some were pure humans, but regardless of what they were, regardless of wealth or poverty, at this moment they were all granted equal death—and even the poses of their corpses were almost identical.

From the air, it was an incredibly spectacular scene. More and more people collapsed face-down toward the monster, as if they were believers from myth devoutly offering up their lives.

In the helicopter, Dr. Judy couldn’t help curling her lip at the sight. She told the pilot to climb higher, and even then she still didn’t feel safe. On top of a full protective suit, she put on a radiation helmet as well.

Yes, this monster she and her team had designed to match Ena’s template was also a phased product of Project “Tyrant.” Its power source wasn’t just the Augu particles excavated through the Augu Project, but also one of the greatest forces humanity currently possessed—nuclear energy.

Why did she worry she might be caught up in it even when they released it from dozens of li away?

Why could she confidently say that even if “Tyrant” went out of control, it could still destroy a city?

What was happening below was the reason.

This thing’s outer Aspect power…

Bai Xiang quickly sensed that something was off in the atmosphere. To put it bluntly, not even a Demon Pool phantom god could reap this many lives in such a short time. Combined with the intense discomfort she felt and the sight of weeds by the roadside withering… a guess surfaced in her heart.

So that’s what it is…

Come to think of it, this really is their favorite way to court death…

“Alai,” she said immediately. “Can you hear me over there?”

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[Can…a bit…zzzt…zzzt…]

“That thing is putting out heavy radiation. Get out of here now. The farther, the better.”

[Got it…zzzt zzzt…]

A second ago, the three in the car at the end of the street had still been happily watching the battle. When Bai Xiang’s broken voice crackled through their equipment, all three faces instantly changed.

We need to go, now!

Just watching this is going to shave years off our lives!

“Grrr-rurururu…” Up ahead, the monster still wasn’t making any big moves. It seemed to be getting used to the feeling of freedom, not quite accustomed to having no restraints on its limbs.

Of course it had noticed Bai Xiang standing off against it. It could vaguely sense that she could threaten it, and was reluctant to rashly start this fight.

The scent of human blood drifted constantly through the air. Its Buddha head’s expression didn’t change, but the dense blood-meat skulls on its chest smacked their mouths. Red light shone from within one black eye socket after another as if they were about to rip free from the flesh to go hunting for delicious blood on their own.

Driven by that instinct, its attention slowly shifted away from Bai Xiang and toward the fallen crowd along the street. Its thick serpent body writhed and crawled over; with its human hands it picked up a corpse—the elephant-beast yao who had fallen first.

Splat!

The yao man’s head was ripped off, his spinal column coming out with a wet, slurping pull.

One second, the Buddha head had still been solemn and dignified, eyes closed. The next, a pair of scarlet beast eyes snapped open. Its lips split all the way to its ears as it opened a massive, fang-filled maw.

First it held the spinal column connecting to the head like a lollipop, putting the far end of it into its mouth. Its facial muscles writhed. When it drew the bone back out, not a scrap of flesh remained.

“Crrrk…”

The deliciousness of the flesh made its eyes squint with pleasure. The next moment, it suddenly grabbed more corpses, chest thrust out, two enormous arms squeezing them like wringing a rag. Flesh and blood burst and splattered at once, raining down with wet splats.

Blood, viscera, and filth poured down over it in a drenching shower. The blood-meat skulls on its chest squeezed and jostled madly for it, mouths open, tongues like tentacles lashing out to scoop up the blood. At the same time, they howled from their throats with wails like ghosts.

There were nearly a hundred skulls on that chest. So many howls together were pure demonic sound. In that instant, they burst out a qi membrane powerful enough to visibly warp the air, blasting away gravel and dust, while the plants and grass nearby shriveled rapidly.

Xingshui Corporation had actually been hiding something like this?

From the top floor of a nearby building, Xibo was overlooking the battlefield. He couldn’t help feeling a chill of fear at the sight, but at the same time he was tense and exhilarated.

This power was terrifyingly strong… He had seen the abilities of Great Yu’s cultivators. He dared to bet none of those cultivators could match this thing’s oppressive presence. Those foreigners had basically dragged a mythic monster into the human world!

In the middle of his excitement, he suddenly felt a heat in his nasal cavity, and twin streams of blood ran down.

What the…

He instinctively touched his face and came away with a hand full of blood. His body swayed—and then he toppled under the baptism of that demonic sound.

“Crrrrk~~~~aaah—!”

Ena abruptly raised its pitch, unleashing an even more overwhelming demonic sound from its chest. It pushed that wave of sound outward along every crack between the streets. Every life caught in it—human, yao, or plant—was subjected to a terrible, lethal erosion of pollution!

This was freedom!

It was no longer bound!

It was going to mark out its territory this way!

Screee—~~~~~~

A clear, piercing cry suddenly cut in sideways, like a sharp wedge stabbing straight into this song of deathly Sanskrit, completely breaking its spread.

Ena snapped its head around just in time to see Bai Xiang lower her sword from the salute position, the blade slanting down toward the ground.

Clang!

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Shff…

Shff…

With her left hand she tossed the scabbard aside. Her boots stepped on the soft, silty mud left by the stream as Bai Xiang walked toward Ena, one step at a time.

You’re a bit too disgusting.

Under the brim of her cap, golden eyes locked onto the monster.

Perfect chance to try out my new sword on you…

Bang, bang!

Ena planted both hands on the ground, twisting its body around to face Bai Xiang.

Its massive snake body acted like a spring beneath it, launching it from where it crouched. It surged toward Bai Xiang like a black cloud falling out of the sky.

Bai Xiang neither dodged nor retreated. Golden divine light flowed in her eyes as a constantly-circulating, constantly-cutting qi membrane spread over her whole body.

Whoosh!

Ena slashed down with its talons. Midair, they collided with the qi membrane, spraying out golden-red sparks, followed by the shriek of air being torn apart.

But what happened next was clearly beyond its understanding. The qi membrane billowed in the wind, and in the blink of an eye it swelled into a hundred-meter-tall sword-Qi Buddha. Like Ena’s Buddha head at the start, it was solemn, dignified, and wore a compassionate face.

Boom!

The hundred-meter Buddha dropped its arm, smashing down in a huge hammering motion, striking squarely on Ena’s bulging Buddha head.

Splurt!

In a single blow, the Buddha head was driven down into its abdomen by the massive force.

But Ena’s counterattack came at the same time. All the skull eye sockets in its chest flared with bloody light. The glow rose to a blaze and, in an instant, flashed through its entire body.

It arched its back. The flesh on its back burst open with wet pops, hardening midair into a sculpted mass of blood and meat, forming a relief of twisting, struggling human resentful spirits.

In the next instant, all that flesh was sucked back into its spine. Its waist snapped straight and its chest thrust out—and every skull on its chest fired red light in unison.

In slow motion, you’d see that the condensed red beam was wrapped in a layer of rainbow halo. The towering Buddha was forced toward collapse the moment that red light slammed into it, and at the contact point, another thunderous impact sounded.

Boom!!!

It finally triggered an outright explosion. A massive mushroom cloud rose from the spot, making distant onlookers’ hearts pound in terror.

Whoooosh…

A howling wind quickly blew the smoke and cloud apart, revealing Bai Xiang… She still looked completely unscathed.

The sword-Qi Buddha, on the other hand, was in a miserable state. Over half of its hundred arms had been blasted off, its Buddha head was gone, and the left half of its body was missing. At a glance, it had lost this clash.

“It should be over.”

Far from the battlefield, Dr. Judy watched the mushroom cloud rise and showed a faintly satisfied look in her eyes.

She was a perfectionist. The “Tyrant” warrior still seemed imperfect to her at this stage, so she had never wanted to reveal the results so early.

But as for whether “Tyrant” could take down that woman from Great Yu, she had never harbored the slightest doubt.

Who could possibly tank a nuclear blast at that close range?

Even if it was only a small one… By the standards of a nuclear explosion, its energy level was on the low side, but it was more flexible, more concentrated, and it could even erupt suddenly during close-quarters combat.

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Dr. Judy didn’t know whether cultivators of Great Yu could withstand a nuclear blast, but in her mind, if such weapons failed to kill high-level cultivators, the reason would simply be that they dodged.

Cultivators could fly.

At such short ranges, they could push their speed very high, get out of the blast radius quickly. Unless you used chained nuclear explosions in combination, killing them with this method alone was unlikely.

But “Tyrant” was different.

It looked like a mutually-destructive style of fighting—but you didn’t have its regeneration.

The intensity is very high.

Bai Xiang silently commented to herself.

That level of explosion… Did they simulate a reactor in that chest cavity using biological structures?

Then that thing I just took point-blank should have at least comparable energy to a small nuclear blast…

“Grrr-rururu…”

She looked at Ena and found its condition was even worse than her own.

All its flesh had been blown to shreds. Aside from a bit of meat still hanging on its chest and the three red-glowing, beating hearts visible there, even its giant serpent body had been blasted apart, and the rest of its bones had vaporized.

But very quickly—with a pulse of red light from those three hearts, its entire body began to swell with bubbling flesh again, and in the blink of an eye its body regenerated. It pounced at her once more!

This time, it didn’t immediately fire a second red beam. Instead, the red glow flowed beneath its skin, spreading across its body and gathering at the ends of its arms, extending into a layer of bloody qi membrane along its claws.

Whoosh!

Its talons swung down like blades of light.

Clang!

Bai Xiang raised her sword to block the slash, her knees bending slightly under the force.

“Gah!”

Ena’s chest suddenly lunged in close, countless skulls extending tongue-like tendrils to sweep toward her.

Shenming Sword: Sky-Shaking Blossom.

Bai Xiang shook her sword, sending ripples out that formed warped, petal-like membranes in the air, blocking the tendrils.

This “Sky-Shaking Blossom” wasn’t the same as before. After the first clash, its form rapidly shifted, changing from pure sword Qi into explosive lightning, and detonating forward along the contact point.

Bang!

The air went off like a bomb. Ena’s massive body was blasted from the spot, skidding more than ten meters before crashing down, making the ground quake.

“Roar!”

It bellowed in rage. The Buddha head pushed out once more from the caved-in chest. That maw packed with fangs yawned toward Bai Xiang and spat another thin beam of red light.

Bai Xiang raised Feixiang Heaven upright. The red beam struck the blade and flowed aside like water.

The two split beams of red light were like laser swords cutting through the high-rises to either side. One sweep sliced straight through them.

The high-rises tilted and collapsed with a thunderous crash.

Beneath the rain of dust was a figure pushing forward into the red light. Bai Xiang’s pace grew faster and faster… With a flick of her sword she severed the beam entirely, then closed in to Ena’s Buddha head, right hand lifting the sword in an upward slash.

The formless sword Qi began to transform the moment it left the blade. Unknown energies in the air were pulled in on the fly, even including the radiation left behind by the red beam’s earlier blast. In an extremely short span of time, they became water vapor, air currents, fire, and lightning—

All of it converted into energy akin in nature to sword Qi and poured into the strike in one gush, sending its power surging severalfold.

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Slash!

With a single stroke, a cut opened in the Buddha head’s brow.

Under the bombardment of the violent sword Qi, even the tissues to either side of the cut were ground into powder. At the same time, a deep sword mark a full meter wide carved out from behind it, extending thirty to forty meters before finally fading.

The monster wasn’t dead yet, still trying to struggle.

Using its insect limbs at its waist, it clawed its way upright, arms stretching toward Bai Xiang.

Boom!!!

The claw strike wreathed in light-blade crashed fully into the qi membrane barrier, and with the explosive roar of air, the giant Buddha reappeared.

It looked a size smaller than before, but the sword Qi circulating within it, after absorbing and converting that energy, was even more violent.

Whooosh!!

Feeble resistance only earned even more brutal suppression.

The condensed sword Qi turned into giant fists that hammered down by the hundreds and thousands. The shockwaves that burst out mingled with flashes of lightning. Every impact tore at the air, twisting light and shadow as explosions rang out.

Boom boom boom boom boom boom—

After countless strikes, Bai Xiang had the Buddha haul up Ena’s remains.

Somehow, it still wasn’t dead. Even with all three hearts blown apart and only a broken frame of bones loosely connecting its scraps of flesh, it genuinely wasn’t dead. Tiny strings of blood kept trying to ooze from the marrow, attempting to regrow organs and meat.

“So the source of the reactor isn’t the heart?”

Riiip—

The Buddha extended a few more arms, grabbed multiple parts of Ena’s remains, and tore them apart by brute force.

The cruelty of it stunned the few survivors who’d escaped by sheer luck. They stared, slack-jawed, as that devilish monster was ripped to pieces by Bai Xiang—each scrap of remains she tore free was ground to pulp, bone and flesh together, by sword Qi. It really did look like “feeding,” as if she were devouring the thing.

“Hm?”

When she tore into the center of the spine, the Buddha’s movements paused under Bai Xiang’s control, its grip easing slightly.

The sword-Qi hand rubbed, and that segment of bone broke free, revealing a length of blood-red substance inside, like a piece of condensed blood jade.

She reached out and caught the blood jade out of the air. Giving it a squeeze and a feel, she could clearly sense the vigorous vitality pulsing from within.

It was a special kind of energy—violent, but distinct from nuclear radiation.

Casually plucking a tuft of grass from the roadside, Bai Xiang sprinkled it over the blood jade. She watched as some of the blades that touched it rapidly grew, even blooming into a tiny white flower.

“So it’s with this thing’s help that they can form a reactor?”

Once it lost the blood jade, Ena finally couldn’t regenerate anymore. The Buddha soon ground it down and “devoured” it completely, leaving no obvious trace.

Pull the shot wide: the two high-rises cut by the red light were slanting toward each other, leaning together. Amid the ruins, in a scene like the end of the world, only this sword-bearing woman still stood… Only her trench coat and ponytail still fluttered in the wind.

The sight was almost too overwhelming. Not far ahead, a yao child with a bloody nose stared in a daze.

Bai Xiang turned her head and saw him too.

Under his nervous gaze, the lips behind her mask curved slightly.

She walked over and tossed the little white flower down in front of the child, then, under the shifting stares around her, continued down the road, farther and farther away.