# Chapter 1091: Disappearance
"I can agree to that." The Azure Dragon said. "But I have a condition too."
"Whatever..." The Earth Dragon coughed again and said, "As long as you agree... the rest has nothing to do with me."
The Azure Dragon smiled and nodded: "Indeed, you can die now. What comes next is between me and Qi Xia."
Upon hearing this, Qi Xia furrowed his brow and looked at the Azure Dragon: "What do you mean? This involves me too?"
"That's right, I can let these people go." The Azure Dragon said. "But the 'Cangjie Chess' must continue, the 'Life Gamble' must continue. Only now the game is between you and me."
Qi Xia let out a light laugh after hearing this: "In other words, you just want a legitimate opportunity to kill me, don't you?"
"Oh? Is it that obvious?"
"It's far too obvious." Qi Xia nodded. "Killing me directly with force would feel meaningless to you, so you're using this 'Life Gamble' to get rid of me instead. You can modify the game rules as you please, and then use the referee to blow the whistle unfairly, making you look like you won with dignity."
The Azure Dragon grinned after hearing this, then walked step by step to stand before Qi Xia, and said: "That's right. I want to defeat you using the very thing you're most proud of. On my home turf of 'Cangjie Chess', do you dare or not?"
Qi Xia shook his head: "Excuse me, please move aside."
"You...?"
Qi Xia walked around the Azure Dragon, approached the Earth Dragon, and looked into her eyes once more.
"You've worked hard." Qi Xia said quietly.
The Earth Dragon could no longer speak, only grinned slightly. Those bright yellow snake eyes gradually lost their vitality.
Qi Xia felt an aching pain surge in his brain. He reached up and grabbed his own hair.
This agonizing sensation had returned after a long absence, violently and roughly shielding him from the emotion called 'sorrow'.
Wanting to cry but unable to shed tears, wanting to shout but unable to make a sound—all the grief instantly transformed into excruciating pain.
This was the path he had chosen with his own hands.
At that moment, a cascade of black hair fell like raindrops around Qi Xia as the Black Tortoise descended from the stands.
Qi Xia sensed something was wrong and tried to stand, but the intense headache felled him, forcing him to merely clutch his hair in an attempt to alleviate the pain.
"How bold. Suicide. Foul." The Black Tortoise's clear, chilling voice drifted over, reaching everyone's ears along with the falling hair. "Foul. Accept punishment."
"Stop..."
Qi Xia lifted his head with difficulty, only to see the Black Tortoise had already raised her hand.
A bright red, shattered heart that had just stopped beating appeared in the Black Tortoise's hand. She looked at the crimson object in her hand with some curiosity, as if she didn't understand why it had stopped beating.
"Dead... even dead, must be punished." The Black Tortoise paused for a moment, then said again. "Death is a foul. Foul means death."
With that, she raised her hand again and kept pulling out internal organs from the Earth Dragon's corpse. Qi Xia gritted his teeth, trying to stand, but he could do nothing.
Like crashing waves, the overwhelming pain rampaged through his brain, completely immobilizing him.
Most of those around him had never witnessed the Black Tortoise's methods before. They were frozen in place by the sight, even forgetting where they were.
A corpse that was already dead... yet its organs could be extracted out of thin air.
Why was the Black Tortoise doing this? And how was she accomplishing it?
If the Earth Dragon were still alive, what kind of living hell would she have experienced?
A minute passed. Qi Xia watched with his own eyes as the Earth Dragon's chest and abdomen deflated like a punctured balloon.
Wasn't this also good news...?
The Earth Dragon had chosen her own death. She hadn't suffered. And what the Black Tortoise was doing now, in Qi Xia's eyes, was nothing more than impotent rage.
She was merely helplessly, numbly, like a machine, carrying out the orders given by the Azure Dragon.
"Enough." The Azure Dragon said expressionlessly. "There's no need."
The Black Tortoise nodded upon hearing this, shook the bloodstains from her hands, dragged the long hair across the ground a few steps, and stood back behind the Azure Dragon.
A moment later, the Azure Dragon looked at Qi Xia again with contempt.
"Headache." The Azure Dragon smiled. "Unbearable pain, isn't it?"
Hearing this, Qi Xia's expression finally began to settle back to calm.
Yes, unbearable pain.
But now was not the time to be swayed by 'sorrow'. With the Earth Dragon's death, everything was truly just beginning.
It seemed that neither the Azure Dragon nor the Black Tortoise had discovered the enormous secret hidden within the Earth Dragon.
Zheng Yingxiong, who was in the Red side's 'Preparation Zone', paused at this moment, looked up at the sky, then sensed something was off a moment later, turning to look toward the opposite side's 'Preparation Zone', then looked back up at the sky several seconds later, his expression full of confusion.
"What's wrong, Brother Hero?" Tian Tian crouched down to look at him.
"Good heavens..." Zheng Yingxiong said. "I've never felt this before... What is this feeling?"
"Do you feel unwell somewhere?" Tian Tian asked. "The game will be over soon. Rest properly then. Does your nose hurt?"
"No... It's not that I feel unwell." Zheng Yingxiong lifted his nose and sniffed sharply. "Sister, something in the 'Terminus Land'... seems to have disappeared."
Everyone was slightly startled upon hearing this, as if they didn't quite understand.
"Something disappeared...?" Chen Junnan raised an eyebrow beside him, but quickly shook his head and said, "Kid, in this damned place, something disappears every day, every hour, every moment. Even people disappear."
"No..." Zheng Yingxiong looked up at the sky again, but he seemed unable to discern the direction of the sky, feeling somewhat dizzy. "This feeling is so hard to describe... It's like something that had been covering us from above the sky suddenly disappeared."
"Huh...?"
Chen Junnan also looked up following Zheng Yingxiong's gaze, but what 'sky' was there here?
Look up, and all you saw was endless darkness.
"I don't know how to put it..." Zheng Yingxiong struggled to use his limited vocabulary to describe the current feeling. "It's like the lid that was covering the sky has been taken away. But that lid was already very thin, and now it's even thinner... No, it should be that it has directly disappeared..."
"So someone lifted the lid off our pot?" Chen Junnan asked, tilting his head back. "We got capped, huh?"
"This scent has always been there!" Zheng Yingxiong hurriedly explained, afraid others wouldn't understand. "No, I should say it's been there ever since I can remember! It was like a part of this place... I originally thought it was a part, but now it's gone. That means it wasn't one with this place! It just coexisted for a very long time!"
Zheng Yingxiong wished right now that everyone around him had the 'Supernatural Smell', so he could forcefully implant his thoughts into their minds. Relying on his own words to describe this abstract feeling was far too difficult.
That thing existed in the sky, long melded with the 'Terminus Land', but now it was dissipating.
Chen Junnan and Tian Tian exchanged a glance. The two knew that although Zheng Yingxiong often said startling things, he had never lied so far.
If what he said was true—that there had always been a faint, massive thing looming over the 'Terminus Land' that only Zheng Yingxiong could notice—then it could only mean that thing wasn't a 'physical object'. Otherwise everyone should have noticed it, not just Zheng Yingxiong.
So it must have been an invisible 'ability' that was continuously in effect.
And now that thing was beginning to dissipate...
What reason had caused its dissipation?
(Sorry everyone, I've always taken personal leave and rarely sick leave. Recently I've been feeling unwell and may need to take a day off. No update tomorrow, but I'll try to recover soon and resume updates.)