Chapter 509: I Am Very Glad to Join

The gloom slowly dissipated.

A few bright rays of sunlight fell from the sky, filtering through the dust to land around Yan Jing, draping him in a faint halo of light.

Absolute silence reigned across The Plains, even among the several domain lords.

A few seconds later, the young girl finally reacted, letting out a piercing scream:

"Mo Luo!!!"

She lunged forward, her petite frame as agile as a rat. In the blink of an eye, she reached the larger chunk of flesh. Mo Luo had nothing left but a head, his crooked, peeled-back lips exhaling more air than he drew in.

Taking a deep breath, she conjured several vials of potion and poured them into his mouth.

On the other side, an ape-faced man with a pointed snout rushed to the limbless young girl's side. Weird energy surged frantically in his palms, manifesting as pale white scriptures that sank into her body to stabilize her injuries.

"Is this still a competition?!"

The man turned his head, his face trembling with rage.

As he spoke, the faint phantom of a monkey-like creature surfaced from beneath the skin of his face.

"I intentionally spared the lives of your two successors, and I didn't even completely cripple them." Facing the man's accusations, Yan Jing's expression remained unchanged. He smiled.

"I imagine that if I had been the one to lose, the two of you would have struggled to do the same."

"You—!"

The man choked on his words, clenching his fists so hard in anger that the veins bulged on the backs of his hands.

The young girl beside him, who had been sitting with her head bowed, suddenly looked up. Her expression was so dark it seemed to drip gloom:

"Good. Very good."

"Didn't you want to fight the four of us next?"

"Then let's do it."

"I'll go first."

With that, the young girl threw off her grayish-yellow bamboo hat and cloak, revealing her casual clothes underneath.

The outfit used an absolute minimum of fabric, leaving nearly all of her skin exposed to the air save for a few private areas. Yet, it was far from an enticing sight.

Her skin was covered in scars and welts of various colors, having absolutely nothing to do with the word "beauty." Some areas even featured abnormal bulges. Under her right armpit, for example, hung an infant-sized arm, a sight that sent a chill down the spines of everyone watching.

"Come on, let's start."

The girl shot a chilling glare at the ape-faced man.

His face darkened as he scooped up the limbless girl's body and withdrew from The Plains.

Clearly, the girl's pride would not allow him to intervene in this battle.

Yan Jing laughed:

"Now that's more like it! Dongcang domain lord!"

The girl sneered coldly:

"You'll soon find out whether it is or not."

"You really think you can throw your weight around just because you beat Liu Xiaoyue? Today, I'm going to teach you a lesson. And... you'll never want to touch a livestream again."

In the distance, the expressions of Wang Yu and Long Quezhou finally shifted from relaxed to grave.

"Damn it, that wretched girl really did find a way to get Yan Jing's data."

Wang Yu's expression was grim:

"His combat footage with Liu Xiaoyue was completely locked down. How could she..."

"Too many people saw it," Long Quezhou said calmly:

"Many of them were ordinary civilians. If she really set her mind to it, she was bound to get her hands on it."

"We specifically invited her because we knew she didn't get along with Liu Xiaoyue. We thought she wouldn't try anything, but we didn't expect her to set her sights on Yueyin to take complete control of it."

"Fuck, we should have given Yan Jing more information in advance." Wang Yu clenched her fists.

"We don't know much about her either. It's been so many years since we last saw her..." Long Quezhou let out a heavy sigh. "We're in a very passive position now. In a battle between high-tier cultivators, the information gap is far more crucial than anyone imagines."

In the center of the battlefield.

Hearing Wang Yu's words, Yan Jing chuckled:

"Is that so? It seems you've reviewed some of my past material. In that case, I'll show you something different today."

As he spoke, a pure white Crown materialized above his head. Beneath its white, jade-like bone, streaks radiating an ancient aura spread outward, and drops of dark blood seeped from the mottled cracks.

The young girl's expression shifted slightly. Yan Jing had never displayed a method like this in the video.

Based on what she currently knew, Yan Jing had two enhancement abilities (tentacles and mist), an ability to summon Thorns, a technique akin to teleportation, and a cloning ability.

Coupled with his terrifying physical body, these abilities were enough to unleash utterly destructive combat power.

But now... Yan Jing had pulled out a completely new ability.

Was it because this method had only appeared at the very end of the video? The girl frowned. At the end of the recording, the clash between Yan Jing and Liu Xiaoyue had been so intense that the footage had dissolved into static, just like earlier, obscuring any useful information.

"The more you expose, the worse it will be for you," the girl sneered.

"That's why I said I'm going to use something different this time."

Yan Jing smiled.

Then, under the girl's shocked gaze, a single drop of blood slowly dripped from the Crown and sank into the center of his forehead.

Instantly, a terrifying, massive force surged in his hands, tearing open two giant, pitch-black rifts in space around his left and right palms. Across The Plains, the gale that had previously died down erupted once more!!!

Seeing this, a dark red Ritual flared around the young girl.

It took the shape of an incredibly filthy petri dish.

As the light flickered around her, the skin all over her body actually began to grow.

Those dark scars condensed into mass after mass of flesh and blood. In a mere moment, an identical copy of her emerged by her right side.

And the transformation didn't stop there. One divided into two, two divided into four... growing, dividing, slicing...

This pattern looked exactly like some kind of cell; the girl was treating her entire body as a single organism undergoing "division." "A sharp combat choice," the dark-skinned Wanli domain lord, whose eyes burned like candles, observed coldly:

"She did fight her way out of the Inner World, after all. Her combat intuition remains just as keen."

The heavily bearded man next to her remained silent, tacitly agreeing with her words.

It was obvious at a glance that Yan Jing's ability required time to charge up. While the girl's division would lower her individual combat strength, it would all be useless if he couldn't pinpoint his target.

Once this strike was over, it would be the girl's turn to counterattack.

Only the ape-faced man realized something was wrong.

Watching the gradually darkening sky, the ominous premonition in his heart grew heavier and heavier.

This scene felt incredibly familiar to him.

Where was it from...

Suddenly, his heart skipped a beat as he thought of a horrifying possibility.

It couldn't be...

He looked at the rapidly changing sky, his heart suddenly clenching as he screamed at the dozens of petite figures on The Plains, "Rat, it's a copy!!!"

"His method is a cop—"

Halfway through, the ape-faced man froze.

Because the terrifying vortex in the sky had already formed.

As Yan Jing slammed his hands firmly together, countless streams of light shot out from his palms. Blinding radiance flared from the vortex in the sky, a maelstrom large enough to blanket all of The Plains.

Clouds of qi slowly descended from that vortex.

This scene was exactly the same as when Mo Luo had unleashed this ability just moments ago.

In fact, it was even stronger.

The terrifying vortex seemed to crush the entire sky and draw it into its depths. The azure firmament shattered, transforming into a spectral ocean that slowly crashed downward.

The scope of the vortex had already exceeded The Plains, covering—

"...copying."

Only then did the ape-faced man finally finish the rest of his sentence.

But it was already too late.

The countless figures of the young girl on The Plains all looked up at the sky at the same time, their pupils trembling.

What kind of spectacle was this? If Mo Luo's previous attack had felt like an apocalyptic scene from a movie, leaving everyone with their hearts in their throats but powerless to stop it, then Yan Jing's current move had completely transcended the screen. Everyone witnessing this scene felt as if they were right there in the epicenter, their breathing grinding to a halt.

The vortex that covered the entire sky descended with unstoppable momentum, raining down countless streams of qi in varying shapes, all taking aim at The Plains below.

It was impossible to run away.

Even if the girl had countless more clones, she could not escape this "judged" area of The Plains under these circumstances.

Buzz.

A Ritual flared around the young girl, this time manifesting as a small scrap of human skin.

The surface of that skin was covered in densely packed blisters, looking incomparably soft and putrid, as if it had been soaked in water for a very long time.

At the same time, the skin on the girl's actual body also began to sag and melt like wax, just like the phantom behind her.

A split second later, those invisible streams of qi came crashing down.

The livestream screen instantly flared into blinding white static. When the broadcast recovered, everyone realized that the camera angle on Yan Jing and the girl—who were originally on The Plains—had somehow dropped significantly lower.

The ground beneath the two of them had forcibly caved in by hundreds of meters.

The boundless expanse of The Plains... had actually been hollowed out into a basin-like terrain by Yan Jing's single strike.

Blood gushed steadily from the girl's body. Half of her figure hung limply, as though stripped of all structural support. Every single one of her myriad clones had vanished, and even her main body looked noticeably smaller than before.

"This is... Mo Luo's technique..."

The young girl whispered, unable to hide the sheer disbelief in her tone.

Yan Jing smiled:

"It should be a technique you're quite familiar with."

"Heh... hehe..."

The girl's voice sounded like a ghost's. It was clearly a laugh, yet completely devoid of mirth, chilling to the absolute bone instead:

"You think you've won."

"But everyone who fought me before thought they won, too."

"But is that really the case?"

As her voice fell, Yan Jing glanced at the back of his right hand. A small patch of red, blister-like spots had broken out across the skin there. They didn't itch, and they didn't hurt. They looked nowhere close to life-threatening.

But Yan Jing frowned.

These "blisters" weren't the problem.

The problem was that they had grown on him.

With his current physical constitution, any disease or plague should have been instantly smothered in the cradle.

But these "blisters" were different. They had breached his currently powerful, near-inhuman immune system and actually manifested.

Which meant he was actually already severely ill.

"This is my path."

Blood trickled from the corner of the girl's mouth, but her eyes were brimming with absolute madness:

"The stronger the abilities you use, the greater the toll they take on your body, regardless of whether you are a human or a god."

"When the physical damage reaches a certain threshold, sickness takes hold."

"You've already lost."

The girl's mouth curled upward.

Under the effects of her power, the stronger the force Yan Jing exerted next, the worse his sickness would become.

If Yan Jing stubbornly persisted, the only path awaiting him was to be completely consumed by the plague.

But to her surprise, Yan Jing laughed:

"A decent ability."

"But only decent."

With that, he brushed his left hand over the back of his right.

Miraculously, the red rash vanished.

As if it had never appeared.

Replaced by perfectly smooth skin.

The young girl stared blankly.

"H-how is that possible...?!"

Everything happening before her shattered her entire worldview, ultimately boiling over into a frantic roar:

"How is this possible?!"

"Nothing is impossible," Yan Jing smiled:

"So, are you ready to receive my next strike?"

An indescribable terror gripped the girl's heart. Without a shred of hesitation, several Rituals flared to life behind her as she turned and fled into the distance. But a second later, she felt as if she had been trapped within this basin.

The deep crater seemed to be constantly sinking. The steep cliff walls stretched from dozens of meters to thousands, then tens of thousands of meters.

It was impossible for her to escape.

Holding onto that thought, she couldn't even lift her legs.

It's over...

Cold sweat drenched her entire body.

Bang!

Yan Jing threw a punch that he had spent exactly one second charging.

Half of the girl's body was instantly obliterated into nothingness, while the remaining half was sent tumbling into the air by the impact.

Then, it crashed heavily back down.

Smashing a crater directly into the center of the basin.

Silence fell once again.

But compared to the mere shock from before, the emotion welling up in everyone's hearts now was deep-seated dread.

The methods Yan Jing displayed were those of a completely unreasonable tyrant, no matter what kind of tricks you had up your sleeve.

It didn't matter what abilities you used.

If you couldn't kill him instantly.

Then it was his turn to punch.

And as for the consequences of that punch... The domain lords looked at the girl's bisected remains, shivering involuntarily.

The young girl was no different from them.

If she could be reduced to this state, they wouldn't fare any better.

At that exact moment, every single gaze subconsciously darted away from the gray-coated figure standing in the center of the arena, the same thought rising in all of their minds.

Just where... did this monster come from...?

Buzz.

A stream of light surged from the girl's remains, sinking straight into the Crown floating above Yan Jing's head.

Yan Jing turned around, looked at the crowd, and smiled:

"Who's next?"

Silence. Deathly silence.

Even the ape-faced man felt as if the bone club strapped to his back weighed a full thousand jin, crushing him so thoroughly he didn't dare meet Yan Jing's eyes. It felt exactly like an ordinary person who had just been targeted by a ravenous beast.

He couldn't possibly respond.

Nor did he have the courage to respond.

The opponent was simply too terrifying, completely different from the intel they had received.

"No one?"

Seeing that no one was going to answer, Yan Jing's expression darkened. He hoisted up the girl's mangled half-body and slowly stepped toward the crowd. "You! You! And you! The three domain lords! Weren't we supposed to be having an assessment?"

Yan Jing's gaze swept over the ape-faced man, the woman with burning eyes, and the heavily bearded man as his face sank into an icy scowl:

"This is a domain-wide broadcast."

"You're not going to back out at the last second, are you?"

"Do you have any idea how many resources I expended, how much effort I poured into preparing for our meeting today?"

"I'll ask one last time. The three of you together, a fight to the death. Are you willing?"

The ape-faced man's fingernails bit into his palms, his tightly clenched fists drawing blood.

Humiliation. A monumental humiliation.

Their opponent wasn't giving them the slightest way out.

It was true, absolute humiliation.

But...

From the corner of his eye, he glanced at the other two.

Neither of their eyes held a single ounce of fighting intent.

This wasn't a joke.

It was genuine life and death.

An eternal departure from the world.

This was supposed to be a simple assessment.

If they took one wrong step, they would lose everything they had spent most of their lives striving for, without even the chance for regret.

The ape-faced man roared and bellowed inside his own mind, wanting to throw caution to the wind, accept the death match, and completely tear this arrogant man to shreds.

But in the end, he said nothing.

In the end, none of them said a single word.

Yan Jing smiled and nodded:

"Since that's the case, I thank you all for the assessment."

"I am very glad to join the Zodiac."