Chapter 479: Wu Xu (Two-in-One)

The roaring flames died down in an instant, shattering into a sky full of sparks beneath that punch before extinguishing completely.

The woman flew backward for thousands of meters, crashing heavily into a cliff face. Half the mountain collapsed in an instant.

A split second later, a dazzling red light bloomed from the collapsed cliff. Countless boulders rapidly turned red as if seared, then violently exploded, swallowed by the flames erupting from within.

The woman stepped out of the fire. She took a deep look at Yan Jing.

And then...

She turned and ran.

Her usually expressionless face was beaded with sweat, terror surging in the depths of her eyes.

Just a simple strike.

It was enough to make her realize she had absolutely no chance of winning.

Her opponent was terrifyingly strong. It even felt as if his physical body had already stepped into the Celestial Immortal Realm. Even with the power of a divine soul, there was no way she could win under these circumstances.

Running was her best option.

But Yan Jing took a single step forward. His figure seemed to transform into a streak of rainbow light, closing in on her at terrifying speed.

Seeing this, the woman bit her lower lip hard. Her red skirt fluttered like a ship's sail, and her long, snow-white legs pumped frantically. She wished she could cross three steps in two, desperate to get just a little further away.

But soon, she looked up and saw Yan Jing blocking her path.

From the moment she started running to the moment he caught up, only a few short seconds had passed.

The woman raised her head and looked at the man across from her.

The two faced each other in silence.

"I... I surrender."

She hesitated for a moment before finally speaking. She hadn't conceded defeat in thousands of years, but today, she said it directly.

But opposite her, Yan Jing shook his head.

"Surrendering is useless."

"You said it yourself just now. The loser dies."

What now?

The woman was at a complete loss.

She couldn't win the fight, she couldn't outrun him, and surrendering still meant death.

What could she do?

She didn't want to die.

She had only just awakened a few days ago, having endured through so many long ages.

Yet she truly couldn't think of a better solution.

"Is there no room for negotiation?"

The woman looked uneasy.

Yan Jing shook his head again.

"..." Left with no other options, the woman ultimately chose to fight.

Crimson flames instantly ignited the night sky, incinerating everything in sight. Even the stars and the bright moon seemed to catch fire under the inferno, pouring down toward Yan Jing like a reversed waterfall.

The battle erupted in an instant.

A few seconds later.

The woman was sent flying backward once more, slamming into the earth and carving out a massive crater.

She lay at the bottom of the pit, trying to get up. Her blood-soaked arms scraped against the dirt several times, leaving only a few deep, bloody streaks. In the very next second, Yan Jing appeared before her.

"I... I don't want to die..."

Looking at the man whose face was as cold and indifferent as a block of ice, the woman used all her remaining strength to speak.

"Nobody wants to die."

Yan Jing looked down and said softly, "You can't just say you don't want to die only when you realize you can't win."

As his voice fell, Yan Jing reached out and thrust his hand straight into the woman's neck.

His fingertips were harder than the vast majority of metals in this world; they cleanly severed her windpipe.

However, due to her formidable vitality, the woman didn't die immediately.

Instead... she felt the blood leaving her body drop by drop, entirely powerless to stop it.

Yan Jing now "embraced" her in his arms, as though wrapping her in a casing of solid steel.

She could only feel death approaching inch by inch, unable to even struggle or resist.

Fear slowly spread through her entire body, swallowing her consciousness.

Someone, save me...

Anyone...

Within her hazy consciousness, a silhouette genuinely seemed to appear.

It was a figure she felt very familiar with.

He walked up to Yan Jing and spoke softly, even his voice exactly as she remembered it:

"Give her to me."

"No. She has to die."

Yan Jing's voice was like solid ice.

"Let's make a deal." Compared to Yan Jing, the figure's voice was as gentle as flowing water.

"Give her to me, and I will refine medicine for you. Although your body has stepped into the Celestial Immortal Realm, you progressed too quickly and left behind many hidden ailments."

"I have healing potions."

Yan Jing stated coolly.

Hearing Yan Jing's words, the tiny sliver of hope that had just risen in the woman's heart was instantly snuffed out.

"Healing potions won't..."

She couldn't hold on any longer, and her consciousness plunged completely into darkness.

She didn't know how much time had passed before she slowly woke up, looking at the figure in front of her.

"You're awake."

An incredibly gentle face entered her vision. Her pupils trembled, thinking she was still dreaming.

"No... Wu Xu..."

"How... how is this possible..."

"My name isn't Wu Xu," the figure said slowly.

"My name is Wen Xu."

"You belong to me now."

As if sensing something, the woman lowered her head. Her pupils shrank when she saw her darkened skin and the runes etched across it.

The Wizard Transformation Arts.

"Starting today, you are a Wizard."

Wen Xu said softly.

Space Rift.

"What do you think the relationship is between that Wizard and that human?"

Bing Yao asked, looking at the three people playing Fight the Landlord outside the ice block.

"I don't know." A man wearing white silk stared intently at the cards in his hand.

"Neither of them are anything good, anyway."

"I prefer the human's looks." A woman with long black hair, who was the landlord this round, spoke slowly.

"That Wizard looks a bit too immature. And besides... a three."

The fat man sneered.

"What the hell does it matter if you like him?"

"You didn't ask what he thinks of you."

"Pass."

"It's just a three and you pass?" The man in white silk was shocked.

"Mind your own business," the fat man snapped, turning to look at the woman with long black hair.

"Were you trying to say that guy looks a lot like Wu Xu?"

"...Yes." The woman with long black hair admitted cleanly.

"My tribe was involved when that guy was killed back then. Even if they just look alike, I'm worried he might deliberately take revenge on me."

"I can't blame you, they really do look alike." The man in white silk played a four.

"I was shocked when I saw him."

"How could someone look so similar? Have you guys really never suspected that he didn't die and specifically came back to mess with us?"

"I wouldn't know about that." The woman with long black hair played a six and said,

"I reckon only that woman knows. After all, she was the one who did the deed back then."

Bing Yao nodded.

"True, Huo Tong didn't hold back back then. A monstrous inferno—I still remember it even now. She made her move above the Sangu River, didn't she? The waters of the Sangu River dried up for a full week."

"That much is true, I was there too." The fat man passed again.

"Which is why I think that guy definitely isn't Wu Xu."

"You have no idea how big that fire was. The entire sky burned red. Plus, Wu Xu was famously terrified of pain; his screams made my scalp tingle."

"He brought it on himself. He originally thought he could avoid disaster by doing nothing, but who could have expected..." The man in white silk didn't elaborate further, as he had only heard it through the grapevine himself.

There were too many hidden details regarding that incident; nobody could figure out exactly what had happened.

But at this moment, Bing Yao spoke up again, offering a slightly different perspective from the rest:

"I actually feel that even if that guy isn't Wu Xu, he definitely has some connection to him."

"Why?"

The three card players all froze in surprise.

Bing Yao smiled smugly, as if she knew something they didn't:

"Because after I was captured, that human came to ask me about Wu Xu."

"He asked me who killed Wu Xu, and how he died."

"He also asked me if Wu Xu had a woman he was very close with back then."

"I am not Wu Xu."

Yan Jing stood up and looked at Huo Tong, his expression gentle:

"My name is Wen Xu."

He reached out a hand, but Huo Tong didn't take it immediately. Instead, she stared blankly at the man in front of her, as if trying to discern whether the person before her was truly the one from thousands of years ago.

She had personally set that fire back then, and the man who died looked practically identical to the man standing before her.

How old had she been then? Not even thirty.

But now, if she were to really count, she was at least several thousand years old.

But the thousands of years that followed were far too thin for her. It was like a book where the first thirty pages were filled with rich illustrations and a sincere story—complete with annotations, foreshadowing, climaxes, and plot.

And the subsequent thousands of pages were nothing but blank paper.

So as she passed through all those blank pages, her thoughts had remained fixed on the events of those first thirty pages.

Whenever she was conscious, she replayed those events in her mind over and over again to resist the erosion of time and the torture of loneliness.

Among them all, the fire she had set left the deepest impression.

The young man in the fire could be considered a very good friend of hers.

In the end, he was reduced to ashes within the magnificent flames. Even his bones were scattered into the dried-up Sangu River, with no one to collect them.

She looked at the man before her, scrutinizing him carefully, and finally let out a sigh.

"I actually thought I was seeing things back then."

She was referring to the day she awakened, when she and the Wen Xu before her had gazed at each other across the wilderness.

At the time, she thought she was just going mad from loneliness, but looking at it now, it was real.

"I believe that you aren't Wu Xu," she said.

"Because Wu Xu is already dead."

"I even brought his tiny, remaining fragment of soul in here with me."

She reached into her tattered red skirt and pulled out a red bead.

The bead was like a soul, hovering between the corporeal and the ethereal.

It was hard to clearly explain why the "executioner" before him would bring the soul of the friend she had killed inside with her. The woman carried an aura of "foolishness"—the kind of foolishness that came from being naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world.

But Yan Jing didn't bother trying to figure that out. He asked the question he wanted to know—the same question he had once asked Bing Yao:

"Regarding Wu Xu, what exactly happened back then?"

Inside the crater at the peak of the volcano, one corner of a suspended triangular mark suddenly went dim.

This was a mechanism set up jointly by Huo Tong and the other two, a method of restriction intended to prevent themselves from being devoured by the power of the divine souls.

The principle was very simple.

Each of them needed the power of the divine soul, so they couldn't suppress it with their subjective consciousness. But if they allowed the divine soul free rein, it might overtake their minds.

Therefore, their choice...

Was to suppress one another.

But now... this balance had failed because of Huo Tong's defeat.

Deep in the dense forest, a man enveloped in swirling grit let out a muffled groan. Sensing the divine soul within his body beginning to gradually run out of control, he hastily forced that starlight out of his body.

But the moment the starlight disappeared, a bright white beam flared before him and slammed into his chest.

Squelch!

A very shallow bloody gash appeared on the man's chest.

Seeing this, Wan Yicheng's eyes lit up across from him, and he immediately yelled:

"The enemy's technique has timed out!"

"Everyone! Surround him!"

"Yes!" The crowd, who had been pushed nearly to their limits, simultaneously found a renewed light in their eyes.

The hills.

The young girl hugging the Dragon Doll was already covered in wounds. She could barely hold onto the toy in her hands, on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.

She looked at the figure beside her, who wasn't faring much better, and said,

"Sis, you go first."

That short-haired figure was actually the girl's older sister, and also the top ranker of Tianzi. Hearing the girl's words, her face showed an unprecedented resolve for the first time:

"You go first."

"Leave this to me."

But the girl's mind was made up. Between her brows, a piece of dragon-patterned jade emerged and sank into the doll in her hands.

In the next instant, the doll transformed into a giant dragon and lunged at the tower-like man opposite them.

Taking advantage of this opening, the girl gave the short-haired figure a fierce shove and yelled,

"Sis, hurry up and go!"

The girl screamed until her voice went hoarse, but she hadn't expected the tower-like figure to suddenly let out a muffled grunt after being struck by the giant dragon, blood leaking from his mouth. Seeing this, the two sisters exchanged a glance, both catching the spark of joy in each other's eyes.

Bai Ya strolled unsteadily along a single-log bridge, his gaze occasionally drifting into the distance.

There should be a major battle going on.

He just didn't know why no one had come to fight him.

But this seemed normal as well. If it were up to him, he would also save the stronger opponents for last.

Yet just as he was controlling his bodily strength and slowly crossing the bridge, a group of people suddenly appeared on the opposite side.

"Inner World Residents?"

He frowned.

He hadn't expected that aside from their several human squads, there would actually be a team from the Inner World.

Looking at the unified uniforms they wore, his brow smoothed out.

"The others have all finished fighting, huh?"

"Then come at me."

He beckoned to the six people opposite him with his hand.

"Back then, Wu Xu was considered the hope for the rise of the Wizard Tribe."

"He didn't come from a good background, but his potential was quickly discovered. Right after coming into contact with Wizard arts, he mastered everything. He possessed a photographic memory for all knowledge. Because of this, the Wizard Alliance quickly took him in as a key target for cultivation."

Huo Tong rattled off the history like she was reciting family treasures:

"At that time, the exchanges between the various Domains were very close. He and I attended the same training academy for several years."

"He was a very nice person, just a bit cowardly at times. He usually turned down many of the more radical plans for fun. Our relationship was pretty good back then. I... wasn't very good at a lot of daily life matters, and he was the one who helped me."

"He would often tell me back then that he had an older sister, and that once he made a name for himself, he would find a good family for her."

"Unfortunately, he didn't succeed in the end."

Her voice lowered a bit.

"The next time I saw him was five or six years after the academy. When I first laid eyes on him, I almost couldn't recognize him. I heard from my family that he had been subjected to severe suppression."

"Those Wizards seemed afraid that he wouldn't submit to authority later on. They wanted to keep a firm grip on someone like him who lacked background, so everyone, from the management down to the teachers who taught him, employed oppressive education tactics."

"Of course, it wasn't all stick; sometimes they offered a carrot."

"For example, they found a girl for him."

"I met that girl. She was very... feisty."

"He was kept completely under her thumb, looking far removed from the boy he was back at the academy."

"I asked him out for a meal once and asked how his sister back home was doing."

"But he didn't say a word. He just drank."