Stranger Danger

“Thank you, Qingyou.”

Meng Feixue smiled from the bottom of her heart. “Now then, it’s time for you to leave. It wouldn’t be much longer before the Heavens’ Eye finds us.”

“There’s no hurry,” Feng Qingyou made a puzzling remark. Then, a miniature, delicate-looking tower suddenly appeared on top of her head.

The tower looked exquisitely designed, and it was half concealed behind a puff of cloud and mist. Overflowing with red dust and manifestations of nature, the signboard at the front entrance of the tower said: “Tower of Smoke and Life”.

The next moment, the Tower of Smoke and Life flew into the sky and grew into a normal-sized tower. The clouds surrounding it also expanded at a rapid rate. It wasn’t long before it enveloped the entire Nanjiang Royal Court.

“Huh? The people are disappearing.” Ye Qing could sense the citizens of the Nanjiang Royal Court disappearing one after another.

By the time the clouds finally dissipated, the three of them were the only ones left in the Nanjiang Royal Court.

After that, the Tower of Life and Smoke gradually shrank back to its original size and landed on Feng Qingyou’s palm.

“Is this… the sixty-first Strange Artifact on the ‘Strange Artifact Register’, the tower said to be overflowing with red dust and capable of accommodating life, the Tower of Smoke and Life?” Ye Qing exclaimed in astonishment.

A Disaster-class Strange Artifact, the Tower of Smoke and Life boasted an internal world that could accommodate life. Not only that, did the Strange Artifact provide all the necessities a human might need to survive and even thrive inside the internal world, those inside the Tower of Smoke and Life were immune to all sickness as well. It was quite the mysterious and powerful Strange Artifact.

Of course, this accommodation was only temporary. If a human stayed inside the Tower of Smoke and Life over forty nine days, then they would become a part of the Tower of Smoke and Life. Although the human themselves would, at first glance, appear to be perfectly fine—in fact, they would be healthy, long-lived, and happy for as long as they lived—but as soon as they tried to step out of the Tower of Smoke and Life, they would immediately perish as if they had aged decades in a single moment.

On the other hand, nothing would happen so long as they left the tower before forty nine days were up.

In conclusion, the Tower of Smoke and Life was one of the stranger Strange Artifacts.

“That’s right.” Feng Qingyou looked at Meng Feixue. “Now, you have nothing to worry about.”

Meng Feixue’s eyes lit up at first, but it dimmed when she remembered something. “But the Nanjiang Royal Court…”

Feng Qingyou said seriously, “The Nanjiang Royal Court, while precious, is ultimately just an object. Your people are the true roots of your country. There is no country without a people. So long as the people of Nanjiang still lived, anywhere you go is the Nanjiang Royal Court, and vice versa.”

Meng Feixue was silent for a few breaths before she finally broke into a smile. ‘You’re right, Qingyou. I nearly missed what is truly important to me.”

“As long as you understand.” Feng Qingyou nodded approvingly. “Now then, time is running short. Feixue, please enter the Tower of Smoke and Life and speak with the citizens. I’m sure they would like to know what just happened.”

“Yeah.” Meng Feixue nodded and flew inside the Tower of Human and Life without hesitation.

“Let us be gone,” Feng Qingyou said to Ye Qing next and waved a door into existence. Feng Qingyou stepped through the door first, and Ye Qing was right behind her.

The next moment, the duo found themselves outside the Nanjiang Royal Court. She didn’t stop though. Feng Qingoyu would continue to conjure a door for them to pass through until they were several hundred kilometers away from their original position.

“Qingyou! Are you alright?”

After the last teleportation, Feng Qingyou had become as pale as a sheet. She was wobbling on her feet as well. Ye Qing hurriedly went over to her side and supported her. It was clear that the repeated teleportation consumed quite a bit of energy.

“I’m fine.” Feng Qingyou shook her head and looked up into the sky. “Here it comes.”

Before she even finished, what looked like endless columns of light abruptly descended from the sky. They were so bright, so brilliant, so dazzling, that not even Ye Qing could look at it directly. Literally, Ye Qing’s mind was hurting like someone had stabbed him with needles, and his eyes were bleeding a little.

If even he, a warrior protected by the Profound Yellow Mother Qi, was like this, then everything else within Vile Water could only fare worse. As the light came closer, the plants withered, the water ran dry, the Strangers perished, and the ground split asunder.

Everything within a radius of hundreds of kilometers was being annihilated into dust.

Even the city that had survived for over a thousand years and witnessed both the golden age and the dark age, glory and shame of Nanjiang was disintegrating under the awesome light like a piece of rotten wood caught within an inferno. Inch by inch, the city disintegrated into nothing.

“Motherfucker! He’s not holding back at all!” Ye Qing yelled.

The dazzling light did not disappear even though it had annihilated the Nanjiang Royal Court. In fact, it kept spreading and growing in power as if the Heavens’ Eye was going to wipe out this entire land from the map, forever.

Emperor Jing Run clearly wasn’t one to do things by halves. He was going to make sure that every last trace of the Meng Clan remnants was wiped out.

“Earthly Sovereign Bell!”

Ye Qing stopped hesitating and summoned the Earthly Sovereign Bell on top of him and Feng Qingyou.

Ripples of dark yellow immediately emanated from the Earthly Sovereign Bell and formed images of mountains and rivers. The dark yellow light looked pitifully weak compared to the all-destroying light of the Heavens’ Eye—it was like the difference between a firefly and the moon—and yet, the dark yellow light never faltered even a little as the Heavens’ Eye’s light washed over it. It felt as dense and heavy as the earth itself.

The light of the Heavens’ Eye would last another dozen breaths before it finally faded. When all was said and done, everything within hundreds of kilometers had been wiped clean from existence, leaving behind only a gigantic pit that was at least several hundreds meters deep, if not thousands.

Everything within the pit had disintegrated into fine powder. An indescribably terrifying power permeated the air and continuously ate away at all things as well.

In one blast, the Heavens’ Eye had boiled five hundred kilometers of land into nothing and annihilated all living things inside it. Its power and force could not be understated.

“Phew… it’s finally over.”

Inside the Earthly Sovereign Bell, Ye Qing could not help but let out a sigh of relief.

However, Feng Qingyou refuted him with a mysterious smile on her lips. “Wrong. The show has just begun.”

“What do you mean?” Ye Qing looked puzzled.

“You’ll understand very soon,” Feng Qingyou replied enigmatically.

Meanwhile, the Heavens’ Eye had turned into a beam of light and was flying back to Chu after destroying the Nanjiang Royal Court and all life within five hundred kilometers of it.

It was at this moment a gigantic hand made of water suddenly appeared above the nine heavens and made a grab for the Strange Artifact. The water was dirty, blackish yellow, and crawling with bones. Countless ghosts wailed inside the water as if it was a domain of the ghosts.

“Great Emperor of Fengdu, you dare!”

Emperor Jing Run rebuked the hand with an imposing, dignified voice, and the Heavens’ Eye released its boundless light once more.

“Argh!”

A bloodcurdling scream resounded throughout the sky, and the giant hand created from Yellow Spring instantly disintegrated to dust.

However, before the mirror’s light could fade to nothing, a blood-soaked pocket streaked across the sky and swallowed the Heavens’ Eye before anyone could react. Then, it escaped toward the west.

Unfortunately, the pocket had just traveled about five hundred kilometers when a finger appeared out of nowhere and pointed toward it. Blood immediately spilled out of the pocket like crazy and dyed the entire sky red.

Despite the pocket’s immediate response, the finger still pierced right through the sea of blood without any resistance. Then, it split into three, nine, eighty one, infinity and poked the pocket from every direction.

Rumble!

The pocket exploded like a waterskin, and an unbelievable amount of blood and fluid poured toward the ground like rain. At the same time, a furious, flustered voice pierced through the air, “You dare ruin my opportunity, Baili Shouyue?!”

“You speak as if you deserve to have our Heavens’ Eye, Faceless King!” A cold hmph resounded in response.

“If he doesn’t deserve it, then what about me?”

A new voice appeared, and it sounded tyrannical and brutish. At the same time, a gigantic demon god with no head and four arms manifested into existence. A sea of demonic qi was jetting out of the demon god’s neck and polluting the world while its four arms struck the space around it, shattering both the rain of blood and the infinite fingers into pieces.

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