Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

"Now, no one will disturb us."

After the Demon Lord said this, he began to cough.

His coughing was like the echoing of a waterfall in a deep valley, very deep and very far. As he coughed, the landscapes covering his face slightly deformed.

Chen Changsheng looked at him and said, "Your injuries are much more serious than they were at Mount Han."

Countless years ago, the Demon Lord was defeated by Zhou Dufu and was heavily wounded, and his injuries had still not recovered. He had infiltrated Mount Han that year for the express purpose of drinking Chen Changsheng's blood and curing his wounds. In Mount Han, he and the Elder of Heavenly Secrets came into conflict, resulting in the Demon Lord's consuming a great deal of mental power. While returning to Xuelao City, he encountered the White Emperor, who had been patiently waiting for quite some time, on the snowy plains.

In that battle which shook the heavens and earth, he and the White Emperor had both lost, inflicting serious wounds against each other, and it was these wounds that directly led to that rebellion two years ago.

In this rebellion, he was knocked by the combined might of Black Robe and the Demon Commander into the abyss. Although Nanke had placed herself at enormous risk to save him, his injuries had still worsened.

For the past thousand years, he had always been the Demon Lord, but in reality, for the past thousand years, he had been a casualty, an invalid.

His current level of strength was not even a fifth of his peak. Earlier, he seemed very elegant and natural when he waved his sleeve to defeat Hai Di, but in the past, would have even needed to stretch out his hand? Most crucially of all, the state of his injuries was so awful that he might die at any moment, causing him to hurriedly seek out Chen Changsheng…to eat him.

The Demon Lord indifferently said, "Even if my injuries are worse, there are still few that can fight against me in this world."

Chen Changsheng knew that this was the truth. As he glanced at his sheath, he said, "But now you have no means of threatening me."

He had already stowed An Hua and the deputy general in the Garden of Zhou. Even if he now died, the Demon Lord had no means of killing them.

This fact and the fact that he temporarily did not need to worry about Zhizhi's safety made him even calmer.

Tonight, the demons had lost an expert like Hai Di. As long as he made sure to completely burn all the blood in his body into smoke before he died, the Demon Lord's death was assured.

He was the Pope, but he was still incredibly far from the Divine Domain, and this plan would assuredly bring a profit, at least to the Human race.

The landscapes on the Demon Lord's face suddenly became utterly frigid, like watercolor transforming into ink. "You plan to commit suicide?"

As he watched a panicked ant clamber out of a hole in the scorched earth to the right and about three feet in front of him, Chen Changsheng said, "It's all I can do."

The Demon Lord pointed at the string of stone pearls on his hand and noted, "You still have another choice."

Chen Changsheng knew what the Demon Lord was speaking of and shook his head.

At the start of the battle, he had thought that he might be able to temporarily hide in the Garden of Zhou or the Green Leaf World, but he had already given up on the notion.

Firstly, this might easily lead to the Demon Lord finding traces of his traversal through space and following him in.

This might not be much of a risk with any other opponent, but he was currently facing the Demon Lord. He knew that many years ago, the Demon Lord had entered the Garden of Zhou and snatched away a Heavenly Tome Monolith, presumably that broken monolith that Hai Di had just been using. By this point, it had already returned to being that small stone seal tied to the Demon Lord's waist.

Secondly, he had already received confirmation in Mount Han that at such a close distance, crossing through space in front of the Demon Lord was extraordinarily difficult.

Finally, Chen Changsheng was not willing to take this risk.

Even if there was only a tiny risk of being captured alive by the Demon Lord, he could not accept.

He could only negotiate. Of course, the basis of these negotiations lay in the fact that he was truly resolved to die and that the Demon Lord could clearly sense this.

Thus, he could not even carry the notion of hiding in the Garden of Zhou, not even allow himself to harbor the smallest thought of it.

The Demon Lord declared, "I will not let you die."

Chen Changsheng replied, "I became well-versed in the Daoist Canon as a child and have also cultivated for a few years, going through many hardships. Now, I can at the very least guarantee that though I don't know where I came from, I know where I am going."

The Demon Lord asked, "Even if I kill many people to vent my anger after you die?"

Chen Changsheng answered, "I said before that I've never harbored any absurd notions of saving all living beings. I only care about the people that I can see."

"Is that so? Then you've apparently forgotten a few things."

The wind suddenly gusted and a stretcher drifted out of the ruins by the lake. Via some extremely ingenious method, it passed through the dense sword array made of several thousand swords and descended at the Demon Lord's feet. The young array master on the stretcher was still in a coma, a faint green barely visible beneath his dark skin.

"This is real, a specific person that you can see." The Demon Lord did not even glance at the stretcher, only stared into Chen Changsheng's eyes as he spoke.

As he spoke, the darkness covering his face gradually deepened, but the landscapes actually gained a few colors.

Chen Changsheng felt rather helpless.

He originally thought that this negotiation would go as Tang Thirty-Six had once described. The two sides would propose their conditions and then he would see what came next.

He had not expected that the other party would reveal his bottom line at the very beginning for him to see.

He was truly not very good at negotiations, and was even less skilled at taking care of this sort of complex problem while being threatened.

Thankfully, this complex problem was a multiple-choice question, so he could solve it by elimination.

This question had four choices.

He found it impossible to just watch as that injured person on the stretcher was killed by the Demon Lord, or perhaps subjected to the cruelest of tortures, as he could not endure such a thing.

He also could not really cast aside his sword and surrender, convert his body into a pill, and offer it to the Demon Lord to take just because of this person.

So only two choices were left.

He was not at his final and most hopeless situation, so he could push the choice of burning his blood and suicide back a little, leaving the last choice.

Attack.

His mind worked very quickly to reach this decision, using the simplest method to resolve this complicated problem.

Attacking, fighting, and then dying was very simple, much better than struggling about how to choose and growing increasingly apprehensive as time dragged on.

He threw the dagger in his hand.

It was called Stainless and it truly was Stainless. It was absolutely smooth and absolutely sharp, its body able to reflect all sights.

It reflected the shredded frost, the floating embers, and the slightly deformed stars.

A stream of light tore through the night sky as it shot towards the Demon Lord.

Several thousand renowned swords followed, appearing just like a dragon.

At this sight, Nanke's eyes narrowed. She very naturally recalled that battle in the Garden of Zhou.

At the time, she had relied on the Soul Pivot to become one with the Golden-winged Great Peng, her cultivation level reaching the Divine, yet she had ultimately been handed a miserable defeat by this sword dragon.

The current Chen Changsheng was naturally much stronger than he had been back then, but the circumstances had changed. This sword dragon undoubtedly did not have the might it had back then, but she was still a little worried. This was because her father truly had been severely injured all this time, and it was also because this sword dragon was clearly different from the sword dragon in the Garden of Zhou.

Upon careful examination, one would realize that those several thousand swords were all vibrating, their might not yet unleashed.

What was not unleashed yet was not sword energy, but sword techniques.

Those several thousand swords were all vibrating and giving off a feeling of might not yet unleashed because Chen Changsheng had not yet truly attacked.

He had bestowed a sword technique upon each sword in the night sky and was still building power.

When these several thousand swords simultaneously unleashed their sword techniques, how much momentum would they have?