pjbooks Chapter 167 Saying Goodbye
Chapter 167 Saying Goodbye
The demon guards on the city wall began to retreat as he approached.
It wasn't fear, it was instinct. It was the uncontrollable tremor that surged from the depths of the genes of lower life forms when facing higher beings. In the eye sockets of those guards, dark red flames flickered wildly under the seven-colored light, like lamps about to go out. The battle axes in their hands trembled, and the scabs on the blades peeled away in the seven-colored light, revealing dark metal soaked in blood beneath.
Jiang Chen walked to the city gate. The gate was black, cast from a single massive piece of abyssal black iron, its surface covered with densely packed abyssal runes. The patterns of the runes flickered, twisted, and crumbled under the illumination of the seven-colored light.
He raised the Primordial Sword, its tip touching the city gate.
Seven-colored light surged from the sword tip, spreading in all directions along the runes. The runes began to shatter from the edges under the erosion of the seven-colored light, and dark red specks of light emerged from the cracks, drifting in the void.
The city gate was shattered.
Black fragments peeled off the doorframe and crashed to the ground, creating deep craters in the dark red soil. The sound of shattering echoed under the gray sky, like a deep, long sigh.
Jiang Chen stepped into the city gate.
Behind the city gate lies a city.
The street was black, paved with rough, irregular flagstones, the gaps between which were filled with dark red, dried blood. On both sides of the street stood low houses built of black stone, without windows, only narrow, prison-like ventilation shafts. Dark red light shone through these shafts, and figures could be vaguely seen within the light.
Jiang Chen stopped and spread his divine sense.
There are living people in this city.
Hundreds of humans were imprisoned in low houses lining both sides of the street, their hands and feet chained with rough iron chains, and their necks engraved with runes around their necks. Their bodies were covered in wounds, some knife wounds, some burns, and some teeth marks left by some kind of creature. Their eyes were empty and numb, as if they had been in darkness for too long and had forgotten what light looked like.
Jiang Chen tightened his grip on the Primordial Sword slightly.
He walked to the nearest house, raised the Primordial Sword, and slashed the iron lock on the door. The door opened inward, and in the darkness, a pair of empty eyes stared at him. It was a woman, who looked to be under thirty, but her hair was completely white. She was wrapped in a tattered, colorless cloth, and her exposed skin was covered with old and new scars. Her hands and feet were chained, the other ends of which were embedded deep in the wall.
Jiang Chen entered the house, crouched down, and touched the iron chain with the tip of the Primordial Sword. Seven-colored light surged from the sword tip, and the iron chain began to shatter from the point of contact, scattering dark red fragments all over the ground. The woman's hand was freed from the iron chain, but she didn't move. She just looked at Jiang Chen, her eyes gradually changing from empty to blank, and from blank to confused.
"Who...are you?" Her voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.
"Human." Jiang Chen stood up, put the Primordial Sword back into his palm, and reached out to pull her up from the ground. Her body was incredibly light, like a bundle of dry firewood, weighing less than half the weight of a normal person.
"Can you still walk?"
The woman looked down at her hands, now freed from the chains, at the deep, bone-revealing wounds inflicted by the chains, and remained silent for a long time. Then she looked up at Jiang Chen, her lips twitching slightly.
"able."
Jiang Chen nodded, turned and walked out of the house. The woman followed behind him, her bare feet treading on the black stone path, her steps unsteady, like a fawn that had just learned to walk.
In the other houses lining both sides of the street, the imprisoned people began to stir. Some shouted in hoarse voices, some pounded on the iron gates, and some wept in the darkness. Jiang Chen walked through each house, breaking every lock. One by one, people emerged from the darkness and followed him. Their eyes changed from empty to blank, from blank to confused, and from confused to something long forgotten, strange yet familiar.
hope.
When they reached the city gate, there were already 237 people following behind them.
Jiang Chen stopped and turned around to look at his compatriots who had been rescued from the abyss. Their faces were all different, and their ages ranged from teenagers to people in their fifties or sixties, but their eyes were the same—they held light. The light of human civilization that had never been completely extinguished in the darkness of the demon race's rule for three hundred years.
"Go three hundred li east from here, and you'll reach the border of the human-controlled zone." Jiang Chen raised his right hand, and the Primordial Sword appeared in his palm, its blade shimmering with seven-colored light. He drew an arc in the air with the tip of the sword, and the arc condensed into a golden curtain of light that stretched across the heavens and earth. The curtain of light extended eastward from the edge of the city wall, cutting through the gray-white mist to reveal a straight, golden passage leading to the human world.
"Follow this light barrier. It will protect you; no monster can get close."
From the crowd, an elderly man with white hair stepped forward. His left arm was gone, the severed area a healed, twisted scar. He pointed at Jiang Chen with his only remaining right hand, his voice trembling.
"Young man, you—you're not coming with us?"
Jiang Chen looked at him and shook his head.
"I'm going to continue west."
The old man's hand froze in mid-air. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end he just nodded vigorously and turned to walk towards the golden light screen.
Two hundred and thirty-seven people, within the golden light curtain, staggered eastward. Some walked slowly, some needed assistance, and some stumbled after a few steps, but no one stopped. Their figures grew smaller and smaller in the golden light, receding further and further into the distance, until they finally disappeared at the edge of the light curtain.
Jiang Chen stared at those figures for a long time.
Then he turned around and continued westward.
At the western end of the city lies a dark forest.
The trees were black, their trunks covered with twisted, vein-like patterns. The leaves were dark red, shaped like hands, with fine, sharp serrations along their edges. A strong, rotten, sweet smell permeated the air, like the nauseating aroma of some overripe fruit decaying.
Jiang Chen walked into the forest.
The ground beneath my feet was no longer dark red soil, but a soft, resilient carpet woven from countless fine, hair-like black roots. With each step, the roots would sink slightly under my feet and then slowly bounce back, like stepping on the skin of some living thing.
Deep in the forest, something was watching him.
Jiang Chen's divine sense spread out, piercing through the black tree trunk, through the dark red leaves, and through the twisted, vein-like patterns. He sensed it—in the very center of the forest, there stood a gigantic, entirely black tree. Its trunk was so thick that ten people couldn't encircle it, its canopy blotting out the sky and shrouding the entire forest in darkness. The surface of the trunk was covered with densely packed abyssal runes, their patterns gleaming with a dark red light in the darkness.
A person was sitting under the tree.
No, it wasn't human. It was something that looked human. Its skin was pale, almost transparent, revealing the dark red blood flowing slowly beneath. Its hair was silvery-white, long enough to drag on the ground, the ends winding through the woven roots like countless sleeping snakes. Its eyes were closed, its eyelashes thick and long, casting fine shadows on its cheeks. Its lips were slightly pursed, a faint, ambiguous smile playing at the corners.
It wore a long robe woven from dark red vines, the surface of which was covered with fine, barbed thorns. The thorns pierced its skin, and dark red blood seeped from the punctures, slowly flowing along the veins of the vines.
Jiang Chen stood under the tree, looking at the thing sitting on the tree root. The Primordial Sword floated beside him, with seven-colored light flowing on the blade.
The thing opened its eyes.
Its pupils were dark red, the same color as the flames of the demon race, but deeper, more profound, and closer to some unspeakable essence. Its gaze swept over Jiang Chen, over the Primordial Sword, over the light blue ribbon in his right wrist, and then stopped on his face.
"Immortal Emperor," it spoke, its voice low and hoarse, like the rubbing of tree bark, "you have finally arrived."
Jiang Chen gazed at it, his divine sense penetrating its body, scanning the flow of every strand of power within it. It possessed no dantian, no golden core, and none of the energy core a cultivator should have. Its power emanated from the black tree beneath its feet.
"Who are you?" Jiang Chen asked.
That thing smiled. The smile was very faint, so faint that it was almost invisible, but the curve of its lips was definitely moving.
"I have no name. Three hundred years ago, the Apostles descended, and black ice flowers covered this land. The chaotic power of the abyss merged with the plants of this forest, and I was born. I am the consciousness of the forest, the will of the plants, and the aggregate of all the grasses and trees on this planet that have been corrupted by the power of chaos."
It stood up from the tree roots, its long, silvery-white hair rising from the ground, the ends of which swayed gently in the air.
"You can call me... Mori."
Jiang Chen looked at it and remained silent for a moment.
"Mori. Are you a demon?"
Sen shook his head.
"No. I am not a demon, not an apostle, not a human, not any being you know. I am this forest itself. For three hundred years, I have watched demons crawl out of the abyss, build cities on this land, slaughter humans, and erode the earth. I have watched them cut down my trees, burn my branches, and use my roots to bind the humans they have captured."
It raised its right hand, fingers spread, palm facing up. In its palm, a dark green light was gathering.
"Three hundred years have passed, and I have been waiting. Waiting for someone who can end all of this."
Jiang Chen looked at the dark green light in its palm and felt his heart racing.
"Sen." Jiang Chen raised the Primordial Sword, its tip aimed at Sen's brow. "What do you want me to do?"
Sen gazed at the tip of the Primordial Sword, at the seven-colored light flowing across its blade, and at the emerald green light belonging to the Immortal Emperor of Life that slowly swirled along its surface. The smile on its lips deepened.
"Kill this tree," Sen said. "Killing this tree will kill me. But my consciousness will not dissipate; it will merge into your Life Fruit and become part of your power. For three hundred years, I have accumulated three hundred years of plant life energy, enough for you to advance your Life Fruit to the fourth stage."
It took a step forward.
"Then, use this power to purify this land that has been eroded by chaos for three hundred years."
Jiang Chen looked at it, at this plant will born from chaos, belonging to no known existence, and remained silent for a long time.
"Do you know you'll die if you kill this tree?"
Sen smiled. This time, the smile was no longer a half-smile, but a complete, relieved smile that he had waited three hundred years for.
"I know. But I have waited too long. Three hundred years, I have watched the land beneath my feet rot inch by inch, watched my people die one by one, watched those humans I protected slowly lose hope in the darkness. I am tired."
It turned around, walked to the tree trunk, and placed its hands on its surface. Dark green light surged from its palms, spreading in all directions along the runes on the trunk. The dark red runes on the trunk began to crack from the edges under the erosion of the dark green light, and dark red specks of light emerged from the cracks, drifting away into the void.
"Jiang Chen, let's do it."
Jiang Chen gripped the Primordial Sword, stared at Sen's back for a moment, and then raised the sword.
A seven-colored beam of light exploded from the sword blade, piercing through the black tree trunk.
The tree trunk shattered in the center. Black fragments drifted in the void, while dark red light surged from the cracks, rapidly evaporating, dissipating, and returning to nothingness under the illumination of the seven-colored light. Sen's body began to dissipate from the edges, turning into dark green specks of light, first his feet, then his legs, then his torso, and finally his smiling face.
Before the last glimmer of light dissipated, it uttered its final words.
"Jiang Chen, this forest is now in your hands."
The dark green light spots dissipated completely. The black forest, from the moment the tree trunks shattered, began to turn emerald green from its edges.
Jiang Chen stood there, watching the emerald green buds sprouting from the black tree trunks, the tender green leaves blossoming from the dark red foliage, and the colorful wildflowers emerging from the ground woven from roots. In the palm of his right hand, the emerald green Life-Giving Fruit pattern was pulsating at an unprecedented frequency.
Sen's consciousness is merging with his Dao Fruit.
The life energy of three hundred years of plants surged into his dantian like a tide, merging, solidifying, and sublimating with the emerald green light of the Immortal Emperor of Life. At this moment, his golden core broke through its limits, changing from six colors to seven, and the surface patterns changed from complex to perfect.
The fourth stage of the path to enlightenment.
Jiang Chen opened his eyes and looked down at the seven-colored flame pattern slowly flowing in the palm of his right hand, and at the newly formed dark green light that was deeper, more profound, and closer to the essence of life than emerald green.
He turned around and continued westward.
Behind me, the lush green forest swayed gently in the morning light. The newly sprouted leaves rustled in the wind, as if the forest was saying goodbye.