Chapter 425: The War God, Never Yielding to Age
Plop.
Qiao Xingjun knelt down, propping himself up with his divine sword, and looked at his old rival approaching from ahead. He chuckled softly, "Old Human King, you and I are both puppets, toys of the true gods. Even if you fight to the death to block us here, what good will it do? Two groups came from the High Heavens. We were just here to distract you. The ones truly going to activate the celestial phenomena artifact are others. Yankang is doomed to destruction..."
Across from him, the enormous primordial spirit behind the Village Chief blazed fiercely, like a burning deity wreathed in flames. But now, even this god was battered and barely holding together.
His primordial spirit gradually dimmed, on the verge of extinguishing at any moment, yet suddenly it flared up again, bright and vigorous, repeating this cycle several times. Clearly, he was exhausting the last of his blood and qi to maintain his peak state.
"Qiao Xingjun, where is the other group?"
The Village Chief walked forward, ignoring everyone else on the battlefield, his gaze locked tightly on him. "You and I have been old rivals for a long time. When a man is about to die, his words are kind. Do you truly want to see the countless living beings of Yankang destroyed?"
Suddenly, a cracking sound came from within Qiao Xingjun's body. The handsome deity's face turned ashen, and he chuckled darkly, "What do I care whether these lowly creatures live or die?"
He looked up at the sky, murmuring, "The star that belongs to me is finally about to fall."
Crack.
A faint fissure appeared in his sword, followed by another crack, then more, faster and faster, while the cracking within his body also grew increasingly frequent.
The primordial spirit behind the Village Chief dimmed. He tried to stir his blood and qi to restore it to its peak, but he could no longer ignite it.
Now, his physical body was like a broken bellows leaking air from every hole. He wanted to rekindle his vitality, but his body was too damaged to ignite.
He was crippled. Losing his limbs had greatly affected his physical form and combat ability. But more critically, he was old.
He was so old that his lifespan had reached its end. He originally had a little over a year left. If he had quietly retired, cultivated diligently, he might have repaired the Divine Bridge before his death, entered another realm, and become a deity.
But this battle had drained the last of his blood and qi from his body.
Now, he could no longer reignite his vitality.
"Tell me, where did the other group go?"
The Village Chief called out loudly, "Qiao Xingjun, where do you come from? Were you not once like these people—the lowly, base creatures you speak of?"
Qiao Xingjun had already closed his eyes, waiting for death. Suddenly, his body trembled. He opened his eyes, which were hollow, devoid of any life. Sword wounds appeared on his body, one after another.
The wounds deepened steadily, as if invisible blades were slowly cutting and slicing through his divine flesh.
The Village Chief's final strike had severed his vitality. His divine repositories were collapsing, his body tearing apart. He was doomed to die here.
"What use is it?"
Qiao Xingjun lowered his head, sneering. "Do you still have the strength to stop them? You're dying too, old friend. Calm down. Sit down. Come with me on this journey. On the road to the Yellow Springs, we'll travel together..."
The Village Chief said solemnly, "Tell me, which path did they take?"
Qiao Xingjun glanced at him, his dull eyes slowly shifting to look at the darkness of the Great Ruins. His breathing suddenly quickened. "They should be almost there... *cough, cough*... If you still have the strength, then go stop them."
His expression changed drastically. He grabbed the Village Chief's clothes, his voice hoarse. "I see the karmic fire! The karmic fire born from the countless living beings of Yankang after their deaths—they're coming to claim my life! Stop them! Don't let the deaths of these commoners become my sin... Don't come near me, don't come near me! It's not my fault! I was just following orders... The grievance has its source, the debt has its debtor! It wasn't me who wanted to kill you!"
The Village Chief broke free from his grip and vanished into the air.
Qiao Xingjun's eyes grew more hollow, as if he saw something terrifying. He screamed madly, "It's not my fault! I had no choice! Don't come to claim my life!"
"I see countless paper boats, so many paper boats, sailing from Yankang into the darkness... Oh heavens, what is that? The horns of Tubo... Hell! This is hell!"
"Save me! True gods, where are the true gods above me? Come save me! You promised me you wouldn't let Tubo take me away to judge me... Save me—"
...
After a moment, Qiao Xingjun's face froze in endless terror, and his breath stopped.
Snap.
The divine sword in his hand suddenly turned to powder, scattering on the ground. Qiao Xingjun's lifeless body pitched forward, and the sword wounds erupted, tearing his corpse apart.
The Village Chief charged into the darkness of the Great Ruins, running at full speed. His primordial spirit flickered between bright and dim. He struggled to stir the last of his heart's blood to keep his body alive and his will from fading.
He could feel death's call. His body was increasingly unable to hold his soul, and death drew nearer.
He felt something chasing him. In fact, he had often felt this in recent years—it should be the call of the Netherworld, the binding of its heavenly laws, trying to take his soul.
As his body gradually died, this binding grew stronger, and the call from that other dark world intensified.
The Pact of Tubo—every person signed this contract at birth. Once the body died, the soul belonged to Tubo, sinking into the Netherworld.
Keeping the body alive was the key to escaping the Pact of Tubo. Deities cultivated their bodies to the divine realm. In the last divine repository, there was a Divine Bridge. The primordial spirit crossed it to become a deity. At that point, the body became divine, and the primordial spirit was no longer bound by the Pact of Tubo.
The Village Chief had once had this possibility. But Qiao Xingjun's dying strike had cut off that path.
Now, he could only hope to find the other group of gods and demons from the High Heavens who had gone to bring disaster. But even if he found them, he didn't know if he would still have the strength to fight.
"I really am old..."
The Village Chief felt his blood and qi surging, unable to restrain his primordial spirit. It suddenly shook violently, trying to leave his body. Still, he dared not stop. Perhaps if he stopped, he would fall forever.
He charged forward madly. In the darkness, countless monsters stirred restlessly, following him along the mountain slopes, waiting for the moment of his death.
When he fell, these monsters would swarm in and tear him apart.
He ran slower and slower, feeling his limbless body grow heavier. A wave of sorrow washed over the Village Chief. He smiled bitterly, wanting to stop. "I think I'm really about to die..."
Just then, he saw a large bird flapping its wings in the darkness, flying ahead of him and landing on a hilltop. The bird flapped its wings, folded them, and transformed into a bird-headed, human-bodied deity, leisurely preening its feathers with its beak.
"Time's up," the large bird said in a human voice.
The Village Chief continued forward, his pace slowing.
"Wait a little longer!"
He heard his own voice, as if coming from a hundred thousand miles away—distant, hazy.
"Wait a little longer! I still have things to finish!"
The bird-headed deity looked at him with a strange gaze and repeated, "Time's up."
"Wait, please."
The Village Chief heard himself say, his voice choked with tears, "Wait just a bit longer. I don't want Yankang to become hell. I can still fight. I am, after all, the Human King of this land. I still have responsibilities and burdens..."
An owl's hoot came from the darkness, as if the bird-headed deity was laughing. The Village Chief's hair bristled with rage. "How dare you mock me? I may be old, but my ambition has not changed!"
The bird-headed deity flapped its wings and took flight, driving away the monsters in the darkness. It circled around him, then landed on a branch ahead, laughing. "I laugh at a hero in his twilight years, lamenting his white hair in poverty, yet lacking strength."
The Village Chief ignored it, staggering onward. After a moment, he saw the bird-headed deity stop ahead of him again, calling out, "It's time to go. If you don't leave soon, Tubo's underworld messengers will come! An old friend of yours is waiting for you in Fengdu."
"I can still fight..."
The Village Chief saw that his face had turned black. Deathly energy had spread to his head, pushing his brain toward death.
His divine repositories began to collapse. Yet his primordial spirit still stood on the Magpie Bridge. Below the bridge was endless darkness, bottomless darkness.
This was his Divine Bridge divine repository. There should have been nothing external here. But in the darkness, something from outside was encroaching—another world, the Netherworld.
As his body entered death, the Netherworld invaded through his divine repository.
In the endless darkness, a paper boat drifted from the depths of his repository, approaching his primordial spirit.
It was time for him to go. If he didn't, Tubo would take his primordial spirit.
The Village Chief's primordial spirit looked across the Magpie Bridge to the other side, where the Mysterious Leading Bridge of the Heavenly Court lay. But there was still a gap between the two bridges. He needed to master the Divine Crossing Technique to cross that distance and enter another mythical realm.
But his blood and qi were completely exhausted. His vital energy could no longer flow through his dying body. He could hardly activate the Divine Crossing Technique.
"As the Human King, I must fight again!"
He let out a roar, but he could no longer hear his own voice. Then, he saw a ship—a ship sailing from the darkness.
That ship was like a three-legged toad made of a mountain. Moonlight flowed over its entire hull. On that ship, a giant was swinging a half-moon crescent, smashing it into a god or demon, nearly crippling it with one blow!
The Village Chief froze, stopping in his tracks.
The Moon Ship.
He had seen this ship before. When he went searching for Carefree Village, Qin Mu had once piloted this ship through the darkness to find his trail.
He hadn't expected to encounter it here again.
The gods and demons from the High Heavens were fighting this ship. Compared to Yan Jingjing, Qin Mu was far too violent, swinging the half-moon crescent without caring about the consequences!
Besides him, the Dragon Qilin was also on the ship. On the Dragon Qilin's back were the Little Fox and Si Yunxiang, and a sapphire-blue Flood Dragon King deity was flying around the great ship, locked in battle with another High Heavens deity.
"Mu'er..."
Tears streamed from the Village Chief's eyes. His heart suddenly relaxed, slowly ceasing to beat.
The bird-headed deity tilted its head, looking at him, and said, "You can rest easy now, can't you? Come with me. King Yan is waiting for you."
The Village Chief's heart beat one last time. He smiled faintly. "I don't yield to age."
His primordial spirit leaped up from the Magpie Bridge, charging toward the Heavenly Court on the other side.
"I was born a War God! I will never yield to age!"
His primordial spirit laughed, sword aura sweeping in all directions, charging toward the radiant Heavenly Court. In that moment, it seemed eternal.
But his white-haired, aged body fell.
Qin Mu followed the sound and saw the Village Chief's form gradually solidifying into a stone statue as it plummeted from the sky.
—Second update!