The first strike of the Deity Transformation battle exploded above Myriad Beast Forest, tearing the sky into two halves.
It was not a figure of speech—it was literally two halves.
Yun He’s palm that shattered the void collided head-on with the formation power of Yin Su’s century-old grand formation.
The burst of light swept out from the core of Myriad Beast Forest in all directions.
Wherever it passed, tree crowns were cut off at the waist, ancient trees exploded into powder, and low-level demonic beasts were vaporized into clouds of blood mist before they could even scream.
Shen Mo was thrown to the ground by the shockwave, his eardrums deafened.
He only saw Chu Yi pounce toward him and press him under her, using her own back to shield him from the first wave of splintered wood and gravel.
A ringing buzzed in his ears; he could hear nothing, only feel Chu Yi’s body trembling.
She lay over him, face buried in the hollow of his shoulder, her breath rapid and burning hot.
The calm she had shown moments ago while commanding the corpse puppets to form ranks against the enemy was completely gone, replaced by a trembling that surged up from deep in her marrow.
“Gone.”
Her lips moved against his collar.
Shen Mo could not hear her voice, but he read her lips.
He raised his head and looked in the direction she had just been staring.
Chu Yang’s corpse was directly crushed by the shockwave because it was too close.
Every cell instantly burst into countless tiny ice-crystal dust particles!
That perfect skin that had once captivated countless people dissipated amid the violent chaotic currents under this power that surpassed limits!
Along with the surrounding rocks, it evaporated completely.
Nothing was left.
In an instant, Shen Mo understood where Chu Yi’s trembling came from.
A thousand years of hatred and obsession were reduced to nothing, not even residue left in the ashes!
In the sky, the second strike followed close behind.
Their battle had long surpassed the scope of ordinary spells and divine abilities, more like two completely opposite sources of the Great Dao annihilating each other!
Golden spiritual pressure and silver formation light wove into a destructive net of light above Myriad Beast Forest.
Every aftershock that fell to the ground was a disaster!
Ancient trees shattered into powder, soil was thrown up dozens of zhang deep, and the horde of demonic beasts fled in all directions, trampling one another.
Yin Su’s laughter never stopped from beginning to end.
The formation continuously drew spiritual meridian power from all directions into her body.
Each wave of her bony, stick-thin arm brought up a formation blade capable of splitting mountains.
Shen Mo pulled Chu Yi through a field of ancient tree wreckage overturned by the blast wave, when the ground suddenly gave way under his feet.
The entire ground was sinking downward.
He reached out to grab something, but only caught a broken tree root.
Then his wrist was seized by someone.
That hand reached over from the other end of the slanted ground, with long fingers and distinct joints, the fingertips bearing thin calluses from years of gripping a sword.
Before Shen Mo even raised his head, he recognized that hand.
Qin Shuying knelt on one knee on the slanted muddy ground, her white clothes covered in mud stains splashed when the maze formation was torn apart.
Her hair was disheveled, and there was a shallow scrape on her cheek.
Her gaze was as cold as ever, but the flame burning beneath that icy shell seemed about to burst through her pupils.
She had chased for how many days and nights, from Jinyun City to the Southern Wilderness, from Boundless City to Myriad Beast Forest, fighting from the outer edge of the maze formation to the core, her blade chipped, seventy percent of her spiritual power spent, and finally at the last moment of the earth-splitting she caught him.
She was not alone.
Two figures landed almost simultaneously in front of Shen Mo.
Su Wan’er jumped down from her magical tool, her robes still flapping, and rushed a step toward him, but when she saw Chu Yi beside him and Qin Shuying gripping his wrist, she forcibly stopped in her tracks.
The sword in Lin Jingzhe’s hand was already half-drawn.
Her gaze turned a few degrees colder.
She wanted to say something, but in the end did not, only clenching her teeth.
“Let go.”
Domineering demonic qi slammed into the ground with these two words, condensing a layer of dark purple frost on the soil.
Chao’er’s hair was loose and disheveled, bloodstains still at the corners of her eyes.
Several days and nights of sleepless, relentless running had turned the whites of her eyes almost entirely crimson, yet deep in her pupils two faint purple glimmers still shone.
“Peak Master Qin, you’ve squeezed my Master’s Husband’s wrist red.”
Qin Shuying did not let go.
Instead, she gripped even tighter.
Shen Mo felt his wrist bones ache from the grip, and for that instant the voices of the several women seemed completely cut off; his ears still rang, and all sounds were like they came through a thick layer of water.
Dazed, he saw Su Wan’er’s tears fall silently onto the muddy ground, Qin Shuying’s lips moving as she said something he could not hear, Chao’er approaching with a sweet and ferocious smile, and Lin Jingzhe having drawn her sword 3 inches—the four of them pushed Chu Yi to the side.
Chu Yi grabbed his other wrist with her backhand and held on desperately, pinning his entire body in place.
They began to pull.
The first to act was Chao’er—she slapped away Qin Shuying’s fingers gripping Shen Mo’s wrist, then hooked her five fingers like claws into Shen Mo’s left shoulder and pulled him inward.
Qin Shuying’s wrist locked onto Chao’er’s wrist pulse, and she turned sideways to wedge between Chao’er and Shen Mo, blocking hard with her shoulder, while one hand hooked around Shen Mo’s waist and scooped him into her arms.
Su Wan’er finally broke free from her hesitation about not being able to snatch him, rushed up, and clung to Shen Mo’s other arm, her voice so hoarse the words were almost unrecognizable.
Lin Jingzhe did not dare touch Shen Mo’s body, yet was unwilling to let anyone get ahead of her, so she could only grip his right arm tightly and pull in the opposite direction from Chao’er, toward herself.
Five hands.
Five forces.
Five people.
“Let go—” Chao’er roared, the nails of the hand gripping Shen Mo’s arm piercing his sleeve and drawing a few drops of blood, as she tried to tear him out of Qin Shuying’s arms.
Qin Shuying kept a death grip on Shen Mo’s waist, pressed down against his back, and shouted low: “Come with me, they—”
Before she finished, Su Wan’er grabbed her wrist and twisted it aside.
Su Wan’er clung tightly to his arm, her whole body trembling, her voice almost pleading: “He is my husband, what right do you have—”
“Because you’re too weak!” Chao’er chopped her forearm with a knife hand, forcing her to let go for an instant, and Chao’er seized the chance to snatch Shen Mo’s left arm back.
Lin Jingzhe wanted to let go but could not bear to; if she did not let go, she felt she was no different from those madwomen.
Chu Yi held his wrist desperately from the other side and would not let go, her gaze never leaving his face from before until now, as if not looking at him would let her be completely swallowed by emptiness.
Five people.
All were talking.
All were shouting.
All were using force.
Shen Mo felt as if he were tied to five fierce horses pulling in different directions, every tendon being stretched alive, every inch of skin being constantly torn.
He did not remember what he said, perhaps nothing at all, perhaps he had cried out in pain.
But they could not hear him.
Because they were hearing each other.
Chao’er was cursing Qin Shuying for being a fake prude, saying that in Boundless City she had not refrained from acting but had not dared to.
Qin Shuying was telling Chao’er to let go, questioning whether she had not touched him enough times already.
Su Wan’er was crying, repeating that he was her husband, her voice growing softer but never letting go.
Lin Jingzhe and Chao’er were trading insults, mocking each other for being shameless.
Chu Yi said nothing, only pulled Shen Mo outward; her strength, made blind by the collapse of losing her father, was abnormally powerful, and he could no longer tell whether she was dragging a person or clutching at driftwood.
In that moment, he truly began to split apart.
Then all sounds abruptly ceased.
Not stopping—but swallowed by a deeper lament surging up from the deepest depths of the earth.
That lament was not human; it was the earth.
Deep in Myriad Beast Forest, the sixth head-on clash between Yun He and Yin Su smashed through one of the grand formation’s main meridians, and the ground within a ten-li radius suddenly collapsed!
A pitch-black earth fissure extended like lightning from the center of the battlefield to Shen Mo’s feet, the ground suddenly split where he stood, and everyone lost their footing at once—the five people and Shen Mo fell into the rift valley together.
Falling.
A long, endless fall.
Nothing could be seen in the darkness, only the sound of soil and rock breaking echoing ceaselessly by his ears.
The five hands still had not let go during the fall.
Three of them came loose for a moment due to impact, then immediately grabbed him again.
He could not tell whose hands they were, only that someone was calling his name.
Very close, yet very far.
Shen Mo wanted to answer, but a sweet, fishy liquid welled up from his throat and blocked his voice.
His back suddenly slammed into something hard.
Not the ground, but a slanted rock wall covered in sticky, wet moss.
The five hands finally let go.
In intense pain, he slid down along the rock wall and landed in an underground hollow of unknown depth.
He heard someone groaning not far away, someone coughing, someone struggling to climb up.
But he had no strength to care.
His consciousness felt like it had been soaked in ice water and then fished out; every bone in his body felt disassembled.
He lay on the cold stone ground, his vision darkening again and again. Then he heard his own name.
“Shen Mo.”
It was not the voice of any of them.
This voice was very light, very faint, like wind passing through a bamboo forest, or like a bell tolling from the bottom of the sea ten thousand years ago.
He barely forced his eyelids open, but could see nothing.
There was not a trace of light underground.
“Shen Mo.”
The second call.
He was certain he was not hearing things.
This voice was unfamiliar yet familiar.
He had never seen the voice’s owner, but the voice carried a frequency extremely similar to his own.
Like a mirror speaking to him in the darkness.
“Who?” He used all his strength to squeeze out a single word.
There was no form in the darkness, only an extremely light sigh.
“I am Chu Yang.”
Shen Mo’s consciousness felt as if it had been violently yanked by something.
“Like you, a sacrifice, a plaything, an object fought over.”
No sorrow or joy could be heard in Chu Yang’s voice, only a faint melancholy diluted by time.
“The Cold Pool is shattered, my corpse is destroyed. I was trapped in that ice layer for a thousand years, and today, well—not even a speck remains, but instead I am freed.”
Shen Mo opened his mouth but did not know what to say.
“Your daughter is nearby.”
“I know. I sensed her spiritual breath. She looks very much like her mother, and is even more stubborn than her mother.”
Shen Mo did not reply.
Right now his whole body ached; the joints pulled by five people at once were still protesting, and the torn sleeve was still seeping blood.
And a ghost who had been dead for a thousand years was quietly speaking to him in the darkness.
“I do not have much time. Listen to me.”
Chu Yang’s residual soul halo fluctuated and became even more transparent.
“Yi’er’s obsession runs too deep. She took the wrong path—resurrect me? Heh… In my day, I was tired of this world where heaven and earth are inverted, where yin flourishes and yang wanes, and I tried to do something, which is why I ended up like this.”
“Yun He, after all, is one of the staunchest defenders of this world order.”
“Shen Mo, in order to escape your fate, please accept my final ripple!”
Shen Mo felt something touch his forehead in the darkness.
That wisp of spiritual breath, the moment it touched his brow, merged into his sea of consciousness.
“This is the method I created with my life’s painstaking effort, combining an ancient fragmentary scroll and my own insights—. Do not be deceived by the surface name; its core is absolutely not one-sided harvesting and plunder!”
The opening introduction, every word like gold and jade interlocking, resonating with weight:
[Heaven and earth divide into yin and yang; yin and yang are called the Dao. Yet the female flourishes and the male wanes, heaven and earth are inverted—this is not the natural order.]
[This method goes against conventional order, using the yin body as the foundation and taking yang essence as the guide; through the union of body and mind, it draws life essence to nourish the self.]
“With this method as the foundation, and proceeding step by step, it is not impossible to revive men’s prestige in this female-dominated world and carve out a place in the sky. This is my… my unfinished dream…”
His words carried endless regret and resentment.
“Men’s… prestige? Male rights?”
Shen Mo’s consciousness was struck.
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