chsdbacks Chapter 134 Illusion
Chapter 134 Illusion
Wang Feng remained standing in the same spot—or rather, the dozens of blood shadows remained standing in the same spot, surrounding Nie Lingfeng. Wang Feng's true form was hidden within one of the blood shadows, or perhaps… each blood shadow was his true form.
One of the blood shadows—which looked no different from the others—had a cat-and-mouse smile on its face. Its right hand lightly traced lines in the air, leaving faint bloodstains wherever its fingers passed, as if it were painting.
"Nie Lingfeng," the blood-red figure spoke, his voice gentle yet tinged with a hint of mockery, "your martial arts are a mixed bag. Wind God Leg, Cloud Dispelling Palm, Heavenly Frost Fist, and that strange, all-devouring three-colored vortex... It's clear you've mastered each one to a considerable degree. But it's a hodgepodge without any real mastery, lacking any coherent system. It's like a big pot of mixed stew; though the ingredients are plentiful, ultimately... it's not up to par."
He paused, then drew a strange rune in the air with his finger:
"How long can you last against my 'Divine Transformation'? Ten rounds? Twenty rounds? Or... until you die from exhaustion?"
"I'll hold on until you die," Nie Lingfeng replied calmly, shaking his slightly numb arms and adjusting his breathing and the flow of his internal energy.
"Stubborn to the end." Wang Feng laughed, a smile that looked particularly eerie on Xue Ying's face. "Then try this—let me see if your 'heart' is as stubborn as your mouth."
He clenched his right fist tightly!
The crimson runes in the void suddenly lit up, and then... exploded!
"Buzz—!!!"
The entire world suddenly went dark.
It wasn't that it was dark—the moon was still shining dimly through the clouds, and the stars were still twinkling in the night sky—it was that the "painting" had changed.
The dark red, ink-wash painting-like afterimage that had enveloped the entire Wangjia Village suddenly came to life.
The landscape in the painting begins to collapse and recombine, transforming into distorted and ferocious mountain shadows that press down on the ground.
The water in the painting begins to overflow and boil, turning into a thick, foul-smelling, blood-red river that pours down from the sky.
The flowers, birds, insects, fish, figures, and animals in the painting all twisted, deformed, and swelled, transforming into countless ghostly figures with blurred faces, missing limbs, and exuding intense resentment. They surged out of the painting like a tide and rushed towards Nie Lingfeng!
It wasn't a physical attack, but... a mental erosion.
It was the Divine Painting Array that used "blood" as ink, "resentment" as soul, and Wang Feng's "divine thought" as brush to paint directly in the depths of Nie Lingfeng's consciousness.
Divine Painted Scroll: Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts: Heart-Eating Illusion!
Ghostly figures covered the sky, like a black, viscous tide, instantly engulfing Nie Lingfeng.
There was no physical contact, no energy collision, but Nie Lingfeng felt as if his "consciousness" had been dragged into a bottomless abyss filled with malice and despair.
The scene before my eyes began to distort, deform, and break apart.
The archway disappeared, the bluestone road disappeared, the corpses and bloodstains on the ground disappeared, the blood-red shadows surrounding him disappeared, and even the night sky and the moon disappeared.
Instead, there was a scene of... mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Nie Lingfeng stood on a boundless "plain" made up of corpses.
Beneath my feet lay a thick, ankle-deep pool of blood, emitting a strong, nauseating stench. Countless severed limbs, broken entrails, wide-open eyes, and distorted faces soaked in the blood…
The sky was dark red, like congealed blood, pressing down low, seemingly within reach. There was no sun, no moon, only a blood-red, dripping eyeball hanging in the sky, coldly gazing down at the earth.
The wind was icy, carrying the smell of rust and decay, blowing across the mountain of corpses with a mournful sound, like countless wronged souls crying.
Nie Lingfeng looked down at his feet.
He stepped on a corpse.
The corpse was dressed in a flashy white suit, pale-faced, with wide-open eyes and a look of terror and disbelief still lingering on its face—it was Wang Bing.
He moved his foot and looked to the side.
It was Wang Xiao, the young man who had spouted nonsense in the hotel suite. Now, he had a huge bloody hole in his chest, revealing his shattered internal organs.
Next to it was Ghost Hand, its chest caved in and its arms twisted; it was Blood Blade, its head severed and rolling to one side; it was Shadow One, its body torn in two...
One after another, they were all people he had killed.
No, not only that.
Nie Lingfeng raised his head and looked into the distance.
On the edge of the mountain of corpses, even more people lay.
Zhang Chulan was covered in blood, a knife was stuck in his chest, and his eyes were still open, filled with confusion and resentment.
Feng Baobao lay on the ground, her hands and feet severed, looking like a human pig, but her face still had that blank expression, as if she didn't understand what had happened.
Xu San and Xu Si sat back to back, already lifeless, their bodies covered in wounds.
The old Celestial Master sat cross-legged, head bowed, white hair disheveled, a charred palm print on his chest, and no longer breathing.
Tian Jinzhong, Lu Jin, Feng Zhenghao, Lü Ci, Master Jiekong... everyone he knew, everyone he cared about, everyone who was kind to him...
All dead.
Lying amidst this mountain of corpses and sea of blood, they resembled a pile of carelessly discarded trash.
"..."
Nie Lingfeng stood still, motionless.
He felt his heart pounding, his breathing becoming heavy, and his blood surging wildly in his veins like boiling water. A cold, violent emotion, filled with a destructive desire, welled up from the deepest part of his heart, like a ferocious beast that had been imprisoned for too long finally breaking free of its chains.
"Did you see that?"
A voice sounded behind him.
Nie Lingfeng slowly turned around.
He saw...himself.
Another "Nie Lingfeng".
That "Nie Lingfeng" stood atop the mountain of corpses, his feet resting on the bodies of the Old Celestial Master and Tian Jinzhong. He wore tattered black clothes, and his hair, instead of being gray, was pure white, like snow, like frost, like the bones of the dead. His eyes were crimson, like burning lava, like congealed blood; they held no reason, no emotion, only pure, insane killing intent.
On his chest, the Qilin tattoo was fully revealed. It wasn't a faint, pale gold, but a dazzling, scorching blood red, like a red-hot branding iron, exuding a terrifyingly fierce aura, as if a ferocious beast might burst out of his body at any moment.
He held the Snow Drinking Blade in his hand, but the blade was no longer a bright blue; instead, it was pitch black, and the edge dripped with thick, dark red blood.
That was... Nie Lingfeng who had fallen into demonic possession.
He was the monster he almost became when he was corrupted by the blood of the Qilin and the memories of the Demon Blade in Biyou Village.
It was the inner demon that he forcibly suppressed while healing Chen Duo in the Southwest...
It is the darkest, most violent, and most unwilling part of himself deep within his heart... that part of himself.
The "inner demon" looked at Nie Lingfeng, grinned, and revealed a ferocious, mocking smile.
That smile was exactly the same as Nie Lingfeng's usual smile—the curve of his lips, the angle of his squinting eyes, even the number of teeth showing were exactly the same. But when put together, it was chilling.
"See that?" the inner demon spoke, its voice identical to Nie Lingfeng's, but more hoarse, more sinister, and filled with mockery and malice. "This is you. This is the real you."
He stretched out his foot and kicked the old master's corpse at his feet, the movement as casual as kicking a stone.
"You kill without blinking an eye, show no mercy to your family, and act solely on your own likes and dislikes. Wang Bing deserved to die because he wanted to kill you, so you crippled him. The Wang family hunted you down because they wanted to kill you, so you came to wipe out their entire family. The Celestial Master was kind to you, taught you martial arts, and gave you a jade pendant, so you respected him. Lu Jin helped you and protected you at the Luo Tian Grand Ceremony, so you saved him."
The inner demon paused, then his smile became even more mocking:
"But in the end... what's the difference between you and Wang Ai? Aren't you both... those who obey me prosper, those who defy me perish? Aren't you both... those who are good to me, I'm good to them, those who want to kill me, I'll kill them? Aren't you both... acting solely on your own 'heart,' never caring about any bullshit 'justice,' 'morality,' or 'rules'?"
"You're talking nonsense!" Nie Lingfeng roared, his voice hoarse and his eyes bloodshot.
"Bullshit?" The inner demon laughed, pointing to the mountain of corpses and sea of blood at his feet. "Then how did these people die? Wang Bing deserved to die because he attacked first, I admit that. But what about Wang Xiao? He was just a spoiled brat who uttered a few boastful words; his crime didn't warrant death, did it? What about those ordinary Wang family members? They were just following the family's orders, some even forced into it; did they deserve to die? What about those servants, women, and children coerced by the Wang family? They were powerless; they were just born into the Wang family, or married into it; did they... deserve to die?"
Nie Lingfeng remained silent.
His teeth were grinding together, his fists were clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, drawing blood.
"When you killed them, did you... even hesitate for a moment?" The inner demon took a step closer, its blood-red eyes fixed on Nie Lingfeng. "Did you ever think that they might also have parents, wives, and children, people they cared about, and... reasons not to die?"
"..."
"No, right?" The inner demon finished for him, his smile full of malice. "Because in your heart, there is no 'good or evil,' only 'strength and weakness.' You are strong, so you can decide the life and death of others. Wang Bing is weaker than you, so he deserves to die. The Wang family is weaker than you, so they deserve to be wiped out. Just like now, you are stronger than the Wang family, so you can stand here, looking at the corpses all over the ground, and maybe even think—'Serves you right, who told you to mess with me.'"
He paused, then his voice suddenly rose, like a sharp knife piercing Nie Lingfeng's heart:
"But what if one day, someone stronger than you appears, takes a dislike to you, and wants to wipe out your entire family, kill everyone you care about, just like you're doing to the Wang family now...? What would you think?"
"I……"
"You'll feel anger, resentment, and hatred for the injustice of fate; you'll ask, 'Why?'" The inner demon finished for him, his smile full of mockery. "But have you ever considered that those you killed, those corpses lying at your feet, before they died... didn't they also think the same thing? Didn't they also cry out in their hearts—'Why?'"