Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Chapter 1128 – The Unbridled Spear and Heartbreaking Arrow

Chen Changsheng’s hand got closer and closer to Xiao Zhang’s face, all the way until it touched the edge of the paper.

Perhaps because it had been soaked by sweat or stained with too much blood, the edge of the white paper was not at all sharp. It was like a pastry that had been left on the humid banks of the Tong River for three days.

The moment his finger touched the white paper, the two black holes in the paper suddenly lit up.

Xiao Zhang had opened his eyes.

He had woken up.

Of course, it was also possible that he had never fallen unconscious in the first place.

No shock was visible on Chen Changsheng’s face, so he probably knew of this already. He asked, “Have you rested enough?”

Xu Yourong did not turn around. She calmly gazed at that mountain in the sky.

The South Stream Temple sword array was getting closer and closer to the ground, pressed down by the heavy Qi of that mountain.

The Wutong tree was shedding more and more leaves, the trunk creaking more and more. The bark had begun to crack in several places, revealing the white underneath.

Xiao Zhang looked at Chen Changsheng and said, “No one has ever dared to tear off this piece of paper. There was no one in the past, and there’s certainly no one now.”

His voice was cold and emotionless, just like the look in his eyes.

In the past, he had been an expert of the Proclamation of Liberation. This coupled with his reputation as madman and murderer naturally meant that no one dared to provoke him.

Now that he had successfully entered the Divine Domain, there were even fewer people who dared to provoke him.

Chen Changsheng completely ignored the threat in his words, saying, “If you’re not willing to wake up, I might as well tear that paper off.”

Xiao Zhang said, “I”m a little sleepy. Can you not even hold on? Truly useless.”

Only a madman like him would dare to use this tone with the Pope and Holy Maiden.

Chen Changsheng still did not care. He said, “Even if we took shifts in enduring, there will still come a moment in which we can’t hold on anymore.”

Xiao Zhang understood what he meant and froze.

Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong had unexpectedly decided to no longer delay, instead preparing to fight and kill.

Where did their confidence come from?

“Since it’s between fighting and getting killed, we naturally have to fight.”

Chen Changsheng smiled at him. “Perhaps we lose or perhaps we win. Who knows?”

His smile was the clean, pure and warm smile of a youth.

Xiao Zhang found it horrifying.

In a serious affair like this, they had casually decided to fight?

Both the Tong Palace and the South Stream Temple sword array could still resist Mountain Man Yanzhi for some time.

Though heavily injured, he was still a newly ascended expert of the Divine Domain.

In this situation, Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong had decided to no longer wait and go straight to fighting and killing Mountain Man Yanzhi!

Did not they not understand that Mountain Man Yanzhi, as an ancient expert of the Demon race, was much more powerful than those Demon Generals, was perhaps even on par with the Demon Commander? Did they not understand that if the Pope and Holy Maiden of the Human race, along with the newly ascended Divine Domain expert that was him, all died in battle tonight, history really might change? They clearly could continue to wait, so why the need to fight and kill? And why was Chen Changsheng even smiling right now, his smile so clean? And Xu Yourong was still in the mood to hold her hands behind her back and look at the stars?

The common people said that Xiao Zhang was a madman, but he felt that Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong were even crazier than he was.

What was the reason for this?

He suddenly understood the answer.

This was drive.

The drive of youths.

He was several decades older than Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong, but in the lifespan of cultivators, he still counted as young.

His gaze turned sharp like a silver spear washed in autumn waters, glimmering with an icy chill.

“How much longer do we have?”

He walked to Xu Yourong’s side and asked.

Xu Yourong answered, “Forty-seven seconds.”

Xiao Zhang’s hoarse voice once more pierced through the white paper.

“I’ll go and break his mountain’s momentum.”

He raised his spear and walked to the darkness in the north.

He did not even glance at that mountain range over his head.

The true mountain several li away was where he was prepared to go.

A few days ago, he sensed the signs that he was about to break through and immediately concluded his life of hiding and fighting on the snowy plains, beginning his journey back south on the path he had arranged for back then. Just when he was about to return to the land of humans by passing through the grassland, he saw three massive mountains suddenly rise out of the wilderness.

Mountain Men Yanzhi, Jingbo, and Yichun.

In the face of these terrifying experts from ancient times, it was simply impossible for him to escape. His death seemed inevitable, but unexpectedly, this unprecedented pressure actually led him to cross that threshold and break into the Divine Domain ahead of time. Experiencing danger after danger, he finally managed to escape, though he suffered serious injuries in doing so.

Flying a kite over the mountains, he saw Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong. His mind instantly relaxed, his injuries and fatigue exploding at the same time and instantly sending him into unconsciousness.

After resting for a while, though his injuries had not recovered, he had recovered from much of his mental fatigue.

The most important factor of all was still the appearance of Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong.

The two Saints of the highest status in the Human race had come together to pick him up.

This was something to be very proud of. Even someone as arrogant as him thought so.

For this, he was willing to fight another battle.

But he had said ‘I’ll go and break his mountain’s momentum’, not ‘I’ve broken his mountain’s momentum’.

He did not believe that he could break through Mountain Man Yanzhi’s defense, or even leave alive.

The somber winds caused his white paper to flap. It seemed inauspicious.

But his figure was not at all somber.

Because his spear stood straight, its red tassel fluttering in the breeze.

Because his will to fight was soaring to the heavens.

……

……

Xu Yourong drew back her gaze and looked toward that darkness several li away. “There’s only one chance.”

Chen Changsheng understood what she meant.

By suppressing his wounds, Xiao Zhang could use his strongest strike once. Even if he was still capable of fighting afterward, none of his attacks would be as strong as this one.

In other words, if they wanted to charge head-on and break through Mountain Man Yanzhi, they only had one chance.

The wind swept across their faces. It was a little chilly, but it could not be described like a knife. It was more like the water in the stream outside Xining Village in the early spring.

Chen Changsheng clenched his left hand into a fist, as the stone pearls that were the Heavenly Tome Monoliths dropped from his sleeve and onto his wrist.

The weight of these stone pearls steadied his mind, but he needed to take a deep breath to truly calm down.

……

……

In the darkness, Mountain Man Yanzhi really did look like a mountain.

Not a mountain range in the distance, but a real and authentic mountain of rock.

It was not a particularly large mountain, but it seemed to be one with the rocks of the earth, making it unmovable.

Xiao Zhang walked up to the mountain and stopped.

The starlight fell on his face and reflected off the white paper. It appeared even whiter, somewhat like the Moon behind Xuelao City.

Strangely, the fluttering red tassel had actually managed to snatch up the starlight.

The starlight seemed to become real, forming into strands and threads.

The world was relative.

If the illusory could become real, what of the real objects?

In the starlight, Xiao Zhang’s body began to flicker as if about to vanish.

If one only relied on their eyes, it was simply impossible to pin down his exact position.

This was the manifestation of one’s Dao once one was thoroughly linked with the laws of the world.

He had only broken into the Saint Realm tonight, so he still did not have sufficient understanding of these laws, much less any mastery, but it was clear that he had already progressed a great deal.

This was the ability of a Divine Domain expert. Whether fighting or sleeping, they could deepen the understanding between them and the world.

The two flames at the top of the mountain were cold and serene.

A deep and indifferent voice emerged from the mountain.

“Purely in terms of the strength of your will to fight, you could be ranked in the top three from the last few centuries.”

Mountain Man Yanzhi seemed to know that Xiao Zhang still had the strength to fight, but he did not care.

Even though Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong were also present, he still did not care.

He had a very indifferent attitude and was even in the mood to evaluate Xiao Zhang.

Given his experience, this sort of evaluation could be considered high praise.

Xiao Zhang seemed ungrateful. “For a monster, you’re rather talkative.”

The Demon race had always called themselves the Divine race, but they were not angry at being called demons. This was the reasoning behind the saying ‘demon and god in one body’. However, they loathed being called monsters, because this term was easily associated with the Demi-human race, and in the long river of history, the Demi-human race had spent the majority of the time as slaves to the Demon race.

Mountain Man Yanzhi’s eyes grew even colder, even more serene.

Xiao Zhang sneered, “What? You’re covered in stone from top to bottom, so you have to be a monster. Are you not convinced?”

Mountain Man Yanzhi said, “I am a mountain man.”

Xiao Zhang laughed, “Hahahaha! What mountain man? You’re just an old monster in a black mountain!”

His scratchy laughter echoed over the grassland.

The laughter suddenly stopped.

Xiao Zhang thrust his spear.

The starlight spilling over the grassland looked just like the shallow waters of a stream.

As the spear thrust forward, this starlight suddenly moved, transforming into a cloth.

As the spear struck the mountain, the starlight followed, bursting apart into countless flecks of silver.

It was a display of breathtaking beauty, appearing like both fireworks and a flower blooming.

……

……

A silver flower suddenly bloomed in the darkness several li away.

Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong knew that this was the spear clashing with the mountain.

Soon after, a yellow dragon appeared over there, streaked with a hint of red, howling as it rose into the air.

The clash of these two powerful Qis caused all the gravel in the several li surrounding them to rise, dimming the starlight and making it difficult to see.

Mountain Man Yanzhi truly did have an unfathomable cultivation level. While dealing with the terrifying might of the spear, he had not forgotten to continue suppressing Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong.

The mountain range in the night sky suddenly pressed downward, the five finger-like mountains plunging straight into the South Stream Temple sword array.

The air was filled with grating screeches.

The swords hacked countless rocks off from the mountains. They rustled down and scattered into specks of light in midair.

The mountainous palm had gotten even closer to the ground.

The Wutong tree was now severely bent and could snap at any moment. Its green leaves were almost completely exhausted.

Xu Yourong had already prepared herself for this. With her habitual calm, she softly said, “Go.”

In a flash of light, the Earth Monkey disappeared.

Chen Changsheng sent it back into the Garden of Zhou before gripping her hand.

A pair of pure white wings unfurled in the night breeze, blazing with golden flames.

A stream of light flowed through the grassland as two streaks of Phoenix flame pierced through the darkness.

A hole was punched in the screen of dust and grass formed by the fierce winds.

Xu Yourong and Chen Changsheng appeared in front of Mountain Man Yanzhi.

Two sword glows appeared, dazzlingly bright, then they fused into a striking sword rainbow.

The spear appeared again, traveling together with the sword rainbow to strike the mountain in a supremely unbridled fashion, causing a most arrogant flower to appear in the darkness.

The ground quaked as an explosion reverberated through the world.

Countless stones shot out, tearing through the darkness like arrows. Countless beasts in a radius of several dozen li were smashed to death.

As the dust settled, Mountain Man Yanzhi’s figure gradually appeared.

Two extremely deep scars had appeared in the center of the mountain. From the look of it, they seemed about a foot deep.

These two scars intersected so that they looked like that constellation familiar to all the demon nobles of Xuelao City, the Southern Cross.

Their place of intersection was even deeper, the hole it made very round and smooth, like an artisan had bored it out with a tool. It appeared to extend far into the mountain.

This was the mark left by the spear.

If this mountain was a person, the place where the swords intersected and the spear had left a hole was a person’s chest. Just a little to the left was where the Ethereal Palace was located.

The unbridled spear and harmonious pair of swords had finally broken through Mountain Man Yanzhi’s defense.

That place was Mountain Man Yanzhi’s only flaw.

This had been calculated by Xu Yourong.

The question was, had the hole completely pierced through the mountain?

……

……

The grassland’s surface was scored with holes, the black soil and grass mixed into an inseparable mess.

Xiao Zhang lay on the ground, the paper on his face soaked in blood, his eyes fixed on Mountain Man Yanzhi several dozen zhang away.

Chen Changsheng had also been severely wounded. He sat cross-legged on the ground, his face pale as he constantly coughed.

The holes in the paper were black and Xiao Zhang’s eyes were also dark and deep. His voice was as hoarse as a broken bell.

“Damn, was this still not enough?”

Chen Changsheng sighed.

They had broken through the mountain, but they had failed to flatten it.

Xu Yourong stood up and once more drew her longbow.

Her face was very pale, and as she pulled on the bowstring, it paled even further, becoming as white as snow.

Her black hair drifted over her cheeks, contrasting so starkly that it frightened the soul.

A stream of blood spurted out of her mouth.

The spots of blood on her white robes looked like crumpled petals.

The Qi she exuded was even stronger.

The bowstring moved without a sound.

A small and delicate arrow flew through the darkness, silently shooting toward the mountain.

Without the smallest error, it shot into the hole.

There was a light pop like something had broken.

Xiao Zhang and Chen Changsheng felt a terrible pain in their chests.

Because they had heard that sound.

It was the sound of the heart breaking.

Xu Yourong’s face was as white as a sheet of paper. Her body swayed as blood trickled down the corners of her lips.

Even she herself had been injured by that small and delicate arrow.

Mountain Man Yanzhi had naturally suffered the worst wound.

A howl of supreme pain and anger rose from the mountain.