Ch. 1083 - The Reaper & The Stone Stele

“Then let’s split up,” Xu Zimo said. “You take the ancient tree, I’ll take the stone stele.”

“Just don’t die, at least not before the formation is broken,” Bai Tihe chuckled.

“Even if you die, I won’t,” Xu Zimo replied.

The two parted ways. Xu Zimo headed southeast.

He soon realized the so-called labyrinth only existed in the central region.

The further he went, the more open the terrain became.

Light began to appear ahead.

Stepping out of the tunnels, the oppressive atmosphere vanished, replaced by a desolate, abandoned land.

Looking up, Xu Zimo saw a dark sky, shrouded as though by heavy black clouds.

Ahead, beneath his feet, stretched a barren wasteland of yellow earth, deathly still.

A few claw-like trees stood there, eerie and sinister. Their trunks seemed long dead, peeling bark dropping away in flakes.

Several crows, with gloomy eyes, glared sternly at him.

They rustled their wings, scattering black feathers that drifted down.

Xu Zimo advanced. Dry leaves crunched beneath his boots.

In the next instant, the crows lunged at him like death itself.

Their wings were like blades, their feathers like razors.

Each slash through the void was like cutting tofu, space splitting into fragments.

Xu Zimo drew Shadow Tyrant, slashing out.

Shrieks filled the air as countless crows were annihilated under his blade.

But in the next moment, the black mist of their remains condensed into new crows.

One became two. Two became four.

Endless, multiplying, impossible to kill off.

Xu Zimo couldn’t be bothered to waste time. He sprinted forward, aiming for the stele.

Behind him, the swarm of crows pursued. Ahead, towering pines began to rise.

Each tree stood over ten meters tall, with ferocious faces on their trunks.

Upon seeing Xu Zimo, they tore free from the ground, surging toward him.

It seemed that in this Nine Heavens Ten Earths Interwoven Formation, all Lich were truly unkillable.

Xu Zimo ignored them.

The Nomological Truth of Space-Time surged. His right hand clenched tight, seizing the surrounding void.

In the next moment, time froze.

Silence fell all around.

Xu Zimo stepped through the still void, bypassing the layers of encirclement, and pressed forward.

Behind him swarmed the crows and claw-trees.

At last, he reached the end of this small world.

He stopped before a field of graves.

Thousands of tombs stretched into the horizon.

From them, bloodstained hands clawed out of the earth.

Soil split open as corpse-like monsters crawled forth, mangled flesh, horrific visages, eyes like bloody holes.

They shrieked and rushed at him, joining the pursuit of the crows and trees.

“Truly undying?” Xu Zimo snorted coldly.

He clenched his fist again, freezing the void.

Then, with one hand, he summoned the infinite power of fire.

Casting it into the sky, flames engulfed the heavens.

The blaze consumed everything in sight.

No matter how many times they revived, the flames burned them down again and again.

…

Xu Zimo walked forward toward the gravestones.

There were thousands of them. Searching one by one would take too long.

So he took out the Heaven-Derivation Astrolabe.

Starlight spread across the land. He didn’t need the exact stele, only its general range.

With a sudden boom, a mass of black fog struck the star disk in his hand.

It fell to the ground.

Xu Zimo looked up.

The flames above were torn apart, and from the sky descended a creature like the Reaper itself.

It had a human body, but the head of a dog.

It wielded a scythe, the Dao of Death surging around it.

“An Emperor?” Xu Zimo muttered in surprise.

Sensing the terrifying aura, his brow furrowed.

It seemed like an Emperor, but something was off.

Death’s power poured outward in waves.

The dog-headed creature wasted no words, lunging at Xu Zimo.

Its scythe fell, harvesting countless unseen lives.

Shadow Tyrant clashed against it. The ground split, soil exploding into the air.

The vortex of power within Xu Zimo spun wildly.

The shadow of the Heaven-Shattering Giant roared, charging the dog-headed Lich.

Explosions thundered through the void.

“You’re not enough,” Xu Zimo said firmly.

Shadow Tyrant erupted with power, blasting the creature backward.

He advanced in a flash, blade gleaming bright.

Each step cracked the air with sonic booms.

The curved blade fell again, lightning flashing, thunder roaring.

The dog-headed beast raised its scythe to block.

But Shadow Tyrant’s blade flared with the Aryan-Swastika God-Seal.

The vast mark branded its body, then detonated.

The Dao of Death around it grew denser.

Xu Zimo smiled faintly, his own aura of Death erupting as well.

His strikes came faster, each slash more domineering than the last.

The beast could only retreat, fresh wounds carved into its body each time.

At last, Xu Zimo’s blade-work overwhelmed it, hacking its body into minced flesh.

Death’s energy wrapped the pieces, carrying them away until nothing remained.

“A false Emperor,” Xu Zimo scoffed. “Just a remnant shadow dares block me?”

He picked up the fallen Astrolabe.

Starlight spread again, bathing the stone steles.

He approached one, sheathed Shadow Tyrant, and grabbed it with both hands.

With a mighty pull, he uprooted it completely.

The stele rose into his grasp.

But as soon as it was removed, another appeared in its place.

Xu Zimo understood. This was the nature of the Nine Heavens Ten Earths Interwoven Formation.

The next person to escape would also need to collect these medium objects.

As long as the formation endured, the mediums would never vanish.

Carrying the stele, Xu Zimo stepped through the void toward the rendezvous point.

…

This time, no Lich blocked his way.

He arrived smoothly at the appointed place.

Bai Tihe was waiting.

But he wasn’t alone, beside him stood a Lich.

Clad in black robes, the figure stood calmly.

“You’ve come,” the Lich said with a smile, looking at Xu Zimo.

Comments