# 192
Chapter 192 – Brother Shen…
“Pay with your life?” The man sneered. “And how is a punk like you going to make me pay?”
Shen Qingzhu said nothing. He simply unrolled the Seal Scroll in his hand, tore off a strip, and pressed it over his wound.
“Actually, before that fat bastard arrived, I was ready to die with you…” He spoke calmly while patching himself.
“In a vacuum, the pressure inside the human body differs from the outside. Tiny bubbles in the blood expand, creating foam that blocks vessels. But if the body is already covered in wounds, that pressure difference forces the blood to surge even faster…”
The man hoisted his axe, utterly bewildered, as if listening to a foreign language.
“You’re River Realm. The wounds I gave you earlier weren’t fatal, but in a vacuum those shallow cuts become real death warrants.
Originally, you were hurt and so was I. If we shared that vacuum, I’d have to drag you down with my own life…
But now, things are different.”
When every cut was sealed, Shen Qingzhu tucked the scroll away.
“Under the Seal Scroll I’m completely isolated from outside pressure, so there’s no risk of blocked vessels…
You thought the earlier vacuum wasn’t exciting enough, right?
Then let me show you what true suffocation is.”
He drew a deep breath and snapped his fingers in mid-air.
—Clap!
A crisp sound; every wisp of air within three hundred metres vanished. A perfect hemispherical vacuum formed around him.
The man felt suffocation like never before.
He merely bared his teeth, unimpressed, unslung his axe, and charged.
Without hesitation Shen Qingzhu spun and sprinted the opposite way.
Normally the man would reach him in seconds, but the moment it became a chase, those seconds stretched. Still, the brute grinned—ten seconds at most to catch a fleeing foe; that was a River-realm’s confidence.
Eight seconds in, fingertips almost brushing Shen Qingzhu’s back, something felt wrong.
His strides turned leaden, vision blurred, limbs as though filled with molten metal—every movement sluggish.
He glanced at his chest: the tiny cuts were now crimson fountains, foamy blood oozing endlessly. His head swam.
Frowning, he stared at Shen Qingzhu—only a dozen metres ahead and also slowing—then swung the axe with every shred of strength.
The blade sliced silently; Shen Qingzhu remained unharmed.
In a vacuum there was no medium to carry the force; splitting rocks from afar was now impossible.
Realisation dawned. He whirled and fled in the opposite direction—he had to escape this void or he would die.
Shen Qingzhu wouldn’t allow it. The vacuum moved with him; as long as he could keep the man from the boundary, escape was impossible.
Now Shen Qingzhu chased him.
Predator and prey reversed.
Those myriad cuts were death certificates in this airless dome. An ordinary man would already be dead; only a River-realm’s monstrous physique kept the brute alive.
But however monstrous, he was still human. Stay in vacuum long enough and death was certain.
A race against time: whoever endured longer would survive.
The man’s speed plummeted to a commoner’s stumbling shuffle.
Oxygen starved and bleeding out, his mind dimmed, body swaying.
Shen Qingzhu fared little better; the suffocation was real even if pressure imbalance was not. Yet he kept pace—deliberately.
He wanted the brute to taste despair drop by drop.
And he smiled.
At last the fingers around the axe loosened; the heavy weapon fell soundlessly. The man lurched, dropped to his knees, palms bracing against earth, a final flicker of awareness left.
Mouth gaping like a drowning sailor, he sought air that wasn’t there—eyes wide with terror.
He was about to die.
Shen Qingzhu’s grin widened. He stepped forward, picked up the axe, grasped the man’s hair and forced their gazes to meet.
In those dull, vacant eyes he saw fear.
—Your head is ripe too.
He mouthed the words silently, hefted the axe—
And brought it down!
Blood fountained across Shen Qingzhu’s black greatcoat. He dropped the axe without expression; air began to seep back.
Inhaling too much oxygen after extreme hypoxia can unbalance internal pressure, even cause brain damage.
As thin air returned, Shen Qingzhu’s mind blurred from prolonged deprivation. He lifted his face to the ashen sky, rain trickling over cold cheeks, fingers reaching for something unseen.
“Li Jia… your Brother Shen… has avenged you…”
The hoarse whisper left his throat; the taut string inside him snapped, and he collapsed.
The ravaged wasteland sank into silence.
Long moments later a mud-caked fat man staggered up, stared, then rushed to Shen Qingzhu’s side.
After confirming a pulse, Baili Pangpang exhaled in relief, glanced at the headless corpse, and muttered:
“Brother Shen… you’re freaking awesome.”