Chapter 84
"YOU—!" Ling Xu shouted, her voice no longer cold as when she threatened Huan Zheng with eternal departure, no longer harsh as when she compared The Singer's saliva to animal filth, but shattered, erupting like a volcano that remembers it once erupted and still harbors lava deep within its core.
And without a second thought, without considering that the Silent One was one of the Three Wheels of Cultivation, that he had stood at the peak of Humanity since before Ling Xu was born, that he might possess power no newly transformed girl could resist, she shot forward, her light body moving like lightning tearing across a sky that never knew rain.
Her fist clenched, gathering all the hatred she had long suppressed, all the resentment she had hidden in the darkest corners of her consciousness, all the pain she had endured because she refused to appear weak before Huan Zheng, before the Singer, before anyone—and she swung it toward The Silent One's face, toward the satisfied smile still stretched across his lips, toward the dark, blazing eyes that had never shown regret, toward everything that had taken her mother from her, that had stolen her childhood, that had robbed her of the ability to believe the world was not entirely cruel.
But before Ling Xu's fist could reach his face—even before the distance between them shrank to an arm's length, a span, an inch—something happened.
It was not a devastating counterattack, not a deafening explosion of Qi, not a loudly cast incantation, but a vibration, an incredibly subtle, rapid, absolute vibration that emanated from The Silent One's body without him needing to move a finger, draw a breath, or change the satisfied smile on his face—a vibration that struck Ling Xu's chest like an invisible colossal hammer.
In an instant, Ling Xu's body—light because she had abandoned everything she had once built and chosen emptiness—was thrown backward, past the black flames that reignited at her presence, past the cracks in the stone floor that gaped like silent screaming mouths, past Huan Zheng who still stood motionless with his hands in his pockets and an unreadable expression, until she finally crashed near a bone wall fractured in several places, dust swirling around her and blood beginning to drip from the corner of her lips that were no longer pale.
With movements neither rushed nor uncertain—because she was Ling Xu, slayer of Gods, executioner of civilizations she had devoured whole, and she would never allow herself to appear weak before an enemy, no matter how violently she was thrown, no matter how much blood flowed from her lips, no matter how much her chest ached from The Silent One's lingering vibration that still felt like being crushed by a giant hand.
She rose, brushed the dust from her robe now torn in several places, and straightened her body with a firm back, a lifted head, and the third eye on her forehead fully activated.
Not merely opened as before, but blazing, shining, radiating a grayish-green light so intense that the black flames around them turned white, that the bone walls began to melt like wax under heat, that the endless screams turned into silence—a silence more terrifying than any shriek, a silence declaring that the Cancer plague dwelling within Ling Xu had fully awakened, that it was hungry, that it was ready to devour the prey it had awaited since the moment it chose Ling Xu as its vessel in that dark, damp cave.
And so began a battle that would never be recorded in any history.
Not because it lacked importance, but because its horror would shatter the mind of anyone who tried to comprehend it, like a cracked mirror that could never reflect a whole face, like a polluted river that could never run clear again even if it flowed for a thousand years.
The Singer, who moments ago had stood frozen with her hand covering her mouth in disgust, now lifted her green flute to her lips.
Not with hesitation like a novice, but with certainty born of thousands of years of warfare, of countless nights training beneath undying starlight, of thousands of lives that had fallen to her melody.
"First song, The Silent One," she whispered between breaths, her voice no longer broken or wet, but cold, like ice that never melts under the sun's gaze, "for every tear you drank from helpless Goddesses."
And the first note flowed from the green flute.
Not a beautiful sound as usual, not a melody as graceful as the one she once played in the bamboo pavilion at the edge of the universe when Huan Zheng slept in her lap and The Silent One secretly watched from behind a thin bamboo curtain, but a sharp sound, piercing, tearing through the air like a dagger stabbed into the heart of reality—a sound carrying corrosion invisible to the naked eye but deeply felt by The Silent One.
Corrosion that began eating away at his robe from the edges, from the sleeves, from the collar, like acid slowly dripping onto fine silk, like time that never forgives anyone, not even those who stand at the peak of Humanity.
The next two notes followed swiftly, without pause, without breath, like waves relentlessly crashing against cliffs, and each note intensified the corrosion, transforming it from a faint erosion into gaping wounds across The Silent One's skin—wounds that did not bleed yet burned, boiled, and tore as if clawed apart by countless unseen hands.
"Fourth song," The Singer continued, and this time her voice vibrated through the flute, making the bone walls around them tremble, crack, and collapse like endless falling ash, "for every small body you crushed beneath your towering strength."
And the fifth song—the final note of her relentless sequence—burst from the green flute in a silent explosion felt only by those who stood within the realm of Humanity, sending waves of corrosion across The Silent One's entire body, enveloping him from head to toe like a shroud woven from fire, tears, and unending hatred.
At nearly the same moment—with a precision unattainable by ordinary beings, but natural for Ling Xu and The Singer who had died eleven times and breathed in the same rhythm, for two women who loved the same lazy man who never took love seriously, for two victims of the depravity of the man standing before them with his unwavering satisfied smile—Ling Xu unleashed her attack.
To be continued…