pjbooks Chapter 108 Deadly Strike
Chapter 108 Deadly Strike
The pale golden figure opened its eyes.
A burst of golden light erupted, illuminating the entire Gobi Desert in daylight. Under the golden light, Balsalon's colossal abyssal form began to turn to ash from its edges. First, the eight twisted, gnarled goat horns dissipated inch by inch, turning into golden specks of light. Then, the three-meter-long energy right arm severed cleanly at the shoulder; no blood flowed from the cut, only a continuous stream of dark green mist, which rapidly evaporated under the erosion of the golden sword light. Next, the bone spurs piercing the skin along its spine shattered, peeled away, and vanished into nothingness, one by one.
Balsalon let out a scream that was unlike any living being, a scream that pierced the roar of the abyss rift, the howling winds of the Gobi Desert, and the eardrums of every soldier guarding the city walls. With his remaining left hand, he frantically gathered corrupting power, attempting to reopen a rift in the abyss, to escape back to its depths, and to use the power of the abyss's very essence to repair his crumbling body. But his corrupting power was like ice thrown into a furnace before the golden light, evaporated before it could even get close.
"Jiang Chen—" His three dark green eyeballs all ruptured, and dark green liquid gushed out from the cracks, flowing down the wrinkles of the withered old man's face. "You can't kill me! The Abyss is immortal! The Demon God is indestructible! Even if you shatter my Abyss Body, my soul core will return to the bottom of the Abyss and re-form! I will return in a hundred years—"
"century?"
Jiang Chen stood in the very center of the golden sea of light, his school uniform fluttering in the glow. His right hand remained in the hand seal position, his ten fingers spread out in the same way as when Qingyunzi taught him his first sword technique a thousand years ago. His expression remained calm, but a genuine ripple finally appeared in his eyes, which were like a deep pool for a thousand years.
"You think I'd let you go back?"
His ten fingers suddenly clenched together. In the same instant, the golden sea of light collapsed towards its center, and countless swords of severing thoughts pierced Balsalon's crumbling body from all directions. The blades pierced the three eyeballs on his withered old man's face, pierced the dark green mist on his goat's skull, and pierced the wildly pulsating abyssal core in his chest. The abyssal core ceased pulsating under the piercing of countless blades, and the dark green light flowing across its surface dimmed, extinguished, and shattered at a visible speed. Cracks spread from the center of the core in all directions, each crack emitting a continuous stream of dark green light, which evaporated into nothingness under the illumination of the golden sword light.
"you--"
Balthazaron's final voice was drowned out by the roar of the abyss's core shattering. His colossal abyssal form, large enough to tower over the city walls, began to collapse inward from its core. The collapse was incredibly rapid; so rapid that his goat horns were torn to shreds before they could even break off at the base, so rapid that his spinal spurs were crushed into powder before they could even peel off. His entire abyssal form, like a crushed soda can, was squeezed, shattered, and vanished into nothingness layer by layer.
Then he vanished into thin air.
The last chasm in the Gobi Desert slowly closed, like a vertical pupil of the sky finally shutting its eyelids. The dark green corrupting power had completely dissipated, replaced by the pale golden morning light spreading from the eastern horizon. The light was soft, as soft as a thin veil, falling on the pitted alloy walls of Liangzhou Fortress, on the blank band of sword marks stretching for miles, and on the faces of every surviving soldier on the walls.
Jiang Chen stood in the center of the wasteland, which had been eroded by the power of the abyss and then leveled by his sword intent. His right hand slowly released from its hand seal. The Severing Thoughts Sword emitted a very soft hum in his palm, then transformed into a wisp of pale golden light, starting from the tip of the sword and merging into his palm before disappearing completely. He looked down at his right palm; the golden sword mark on it was slowly fading away, as if the sword strike had never been made.
The battlefield was deathly silent.
On the city wall, the dulled blade of Zhao Tiecheng's sword finally slipped from his grasp, crashing against the alloy wall with a clang. The sound was exceptionally crisp in the silence, like a stone finally settling on the ground. The young communications soldier behind him had stopped crying; he simply stared, mouth agape, at the figure in school uniform below with an expression that seemed to have utterly shattered his worldview.
"Of the seventy-two demon kings, how many have died?" Zhao Tiecheng's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against sheet metal.
"There's no time to count." Lieutenant Chen Yan had somehow appeared behind him, blood still seeping from the bandage on his left arm, but his eyes shone with an eerie light. "But after those two sword strikes, there are no more than ten Demon Kings still standing. And they all ran away."
"They ran away?"
"They escaped." Chen Yan's voice trembled with barely suppressed emotion. "After Balthalon was shattered, the remaining demon kings turned and rushed into the abyss rift, which was not yet fully closed. Several of them were slower and had their wings clipped by the rift, falling onto the Gobi Desert where they were captured by our people."
Zhao Tiecheng fell silent. He had guarded the western border for twenty years, rising from a lowly soldier to the commander of the Liangzhou Fortress, witnessing countless hordes of demons assaulting the city walls. Each time, it was a scene of carnage, with lives piled high on the walls, and people writing death notices until three or four in the morning. He had never imagined that one day, the seventy-two demon kings of the abyss would flee into the rift like stray dogs, running even faster than they had come.
"Where is Jiang Chen?" Zhao Tiecheng asked.
Chen Yan raised his hand, pointing to the desolate plain below the city, now illuminated by the morning light. The figure in the school uniform was walking at a leisurely pace towards the gates of Liangzhou Fortress. The hem of his uniform fluttered gently in the morning breeze, adorned with tiny, dark green specks of light—fragments of the abyss left in the air after Balthalon was shattered. He stopped after a few steps, gently patted the hem of his uniform twice, and the dark green specks vanished like dust.
Someone on the city wall laughed. The laughter wasn't loud, but it carried a hoarseness from surviving a catastrophe and an indescribable sense of pride.
The city gate slowly opened. The rusted hinges made a grating scraping sound, but at this moment, no one found the sound grating. Behind the gate was the inner city of Liangzhou Fortress, the streets empty after the evacuation of 120,000 civilians, the bunkers still emitting smoke, and the shell casings scattered all over the ground. Further in was the buffer zone between the first and second city walls, where rows of military tents were pitched, filled with wounded soldiers who had been carried down since the previous night.
Zhou Tianze stood at the city gate. His bare upper body was wrapped in bandages, with several charred marks from the flames of the abyss. His broken spear rested on his shoulder, the silver metal foil on the blade gleaming coldly in the morning light. Seeing Jiang Chen approach, he grinned, a smile carrying a ruggedness and relief that had finally been released after ten years of suppression.
"Two sword strikes." Zhou Tianze held up two fingers. "One strike killed more than forty demon kings, and the other killed the seventh pillar demon god, Balsaron. When Old Ye stormed the Apostle Hall, he didn't exhaust his spiritual power until he reached the thirty-seventh floor. You didn't even break a sweat with those two strikes."
Jiang Chen stopped in front of him, his hands in his school uniform pockets, his posture as casual as if he were bumping into a neighbor at the entrance of his own neighborhood. "Balsalon isn't completely dead. He's right, as long as the Abyss exists, the Demon God will never die. My sword strike just now only shattered his Abyssal true form and the manifestation of his soul core in the material world. He used the corrupting law of the 'Thousand-Eyed Plague'—at the bottom of the Abyss, his soul core was enveloped by the corrupting law into millions of dark green eyes, each eye representing a life. As long as the Abyssal body isn't completely destroyed, he still has a chance to reassemble somewhere."
Zhou Tianze's smile froze for a moment, then returned to its rugged curve. "Then we'll just kill him again next time."
Ye Wuhen emerged from the shadows of the city gate. He was still wearing that dark gray robe, the hem torn by the claws of the abyss demon soldiers, but his back remained ramrod straight, like a sword thrust into the heavens and earth. In his hand he held the broken sword, now only the hilt remained, his thumb tracing the thirty-year-old wear mark on the hilt. He looked at Jiang Chen, his lips moved, but in the end, only three words came out: "Thank you."
Jiang Chen glanced at him and nodded. Then he stepped into the city gate.