/

Ch126 - To Die for the Way




“Mm…” Zhuang Lingxiu hesitated for a long moment before saying, “Have you considered that if the tower truly collapses, the Three Realms would be plunged into carnage? The World‑Honored One is compassionate; he wouldn’t abandon all living beings.”
Su Hansheng waved a hand. “You don’t know him.”
Zhuang Lingxiu: “?”
Who doesn’t know whom?
Su Hansheng figured Chongjue’s good and evil halves were nearly merged. Judging by the evil half’s way of doing things, he didn’t care about ‘all living beings’—as long as he got what he wanted. But Zhuang Lingxiu had a point—the good half wouldn’t allow it.
Smug for only a moment, Su Hansheng fell into thought again.
Right… if Chongjue won’t actually make the tower collapse, then what is this formation for?
As the array arced toward them, Zhuang Lingxiu sensed something wrong. He grabbed Su Hansheng by the waist and lifted him outside the array’s boundary.
Su Hansheng clutched Zhuang Lingxiu’s sleeve, watching the formation whoosh by in front of him, then suddenly remembered: “Senior Brother Zhuang, weren’t you with my senior brother? Where is he?”
“We got separated after entering the tower.”
Worry tugged at Su Hansheng. He took out his disciple token, only to find it unusable, and felt a creeping unease.
Zhuang Lingxiu didn’t understand Su Hansheng’s baseless anxiety over Xu Nanxian. Seeing his face scrunch up, he let out a helpless chuckle. “Bubei isn’t some fragile glass. Why are you so worried?”
And with your Golden Core cultivation, shouldn’t you be worrying about your own little life first?
A Spirit Transformation cultivator like Xu Bubei wasn’t going to run into trouble so easily.
Su Hansheng knew the logic. He just had shadows on his heart.
In a short time, the immense array within the tower had joined into a complete whole. With a ringing clang like blades striking, strange lights bloomed densely across the ground.
With a thunderous surge, a pillar of light shot straight to the tower’s apex.
Su Hansheng looked up.
That sigil‑laden pillar of light was extremely familiar—he’d seen it somewhere before.
Zhuang Lingxiu pulled him along and murmured, “Something’s off. Come on, I’ll get you out of the tower first.”
A shiver ran through Su Hansheng. Dazed, he muttered an “oh” and let Zhuang Lingxiu tow him forward.
Maybe it was an illusion, but after that pillar appeared, his phoenix bone seemed to sense something. It didn’t rage and burn as before, but it kept buzzing inside him…
Like a low sob.
Heat washed over Su Hansheng. He staggered a few steps, a dizzy spell hit, and he pitched forward.
“Xiaoxiao!”
The formation rose out of nowhere. The sky‑piercing pillar of light was etched all over with sigils.
Qifu Yin sat cross‑legged at the array’s heart. His ears rang with all manner of sounds—as if the anguished screams of his clan were rising from the depths of Infinite Hell.
Blood‑tears trailed from his eyes down his pallid face.
Pressing his fingers to the ground, he closed his eyes and listened to the wails of the kin whose souls had fallen into Infinite Hell because of him. His pale lips parted in a murmur.
“This time it will end completely.”
ZQgEIIw NIGbt GVJ aI aGH YGQSIH. TaQt EQhI, aI LJkSH HbGV EaGE aIGAIw‑vSQhiQwV HIhJw HJLw QwEJ EaI QwYIbwJ.
GCJ AODt INhtJz OglJhmI EJtJ yOm mCJ OtfqfyNL IJm oJNym mO hOyzJyIJ N “zfFfyJ gOze,” gJhNDIJ mCJ RCOJyfP gOyJ ENI ofIIfyq; fm CNz gJJy tJRLNhJz ge mCJ mEO‑mCODINyz‑eJNt‑OLz uNyXJ wJhOtz.
TJ tkrrJbE G taISS, EaI uGwBI nIvJbH’t tQVQSt vJkSH tIbAI Gt iJwI.
bJIRfmJ mCJ DRCJNFNL, mCJ gODLzJt‑ImfLL nNLLJy sgeII btNqOy OyLe htNhXJz Ny JeJ LNpfLe. nJJLfyq mCJ IfqfLI hOfL OFJt CfI gOze, CJ NhmJz NI fA yOmCfyq EJtJ CNRRJyfyq Nyz ENI tJNze mO zOpJ NqNfy.
EITJ AfPTfJT GLPT GYfAT LJB YLQB L ILJB fJ IQA GfYB AGLYTA.
That aura was very familiar.
Zhuang Lingge’s dragon pupils narrowed to slits, and he looked over, slow as ever.
Zou Chi had arrived at some point, sitting cross‑legged at his side, idly stroking the dragon’s scales.
He didn’t look as mild and sluggish as usual. On the contrary, the vice‑dean seemed delighted, like something rare had set him at ease; even his brows smoothed, and a soft, gentle smile appeared.
Zou Chi had even changed into fresh robes, as if going to meet someone.
Zhuang Lingge watched him for a long time before remembering, belatedly, that three years ago it had been Zou Chi who took his blood.
But it no longer mattered. Sensing the shared origin in Zou Chi’s aura, knowing he meant no harm, Zhuang Lingge simply shut his eyes and drifted back toward sleep.
Zou Chi leaned against the Fallen Abyss Dragon’s cold flank, gazing at the distant pillar at the tower’s heart, his pupils reflecting a scatter of lights.
Two thousand years ago, it had been the same.
The pillar rose, and a phoenix, wings spread, hurled itself toward it.
After a sea of fire, only he remained to scrape by in the world.
Two millennia had flown by. Today, it was time to put an end to it.
—
Boom—
Flames raced up at once. The familiar phoenix bone fire climbed slowly over Su Hansheng’s body, burning away his stupor and snapping him awake.
By the time his awareness fully cleared, the distant pillar of light still blazed.
But somehow, something had changed.
Su Hansheng felt as if he were lying in a pool of blood. He could just make out lurid red—and a face reflected faintly.
—A woman’s face.
He blinked.
His consciousness seemed to float up slowly. Looking around the vast interior of the tower, he saw the four sacred objects at the quarters, all soaked in blood, their breaths completely gone.
Stunned, he looked over them one by one.
He didn’t recognize the two female cultivators, but the other two were Zou Chi and Qifu Yin in their youth.
Zou Chi and Qifu Yin had perished. Their bodies were turning translucent, as if something were erasing their existence.
Until a soft laugh.
Su Hansheng looked up and saw a figure slowly step out from within the pillar of light.
The person’s presence was overwhelming; before Su Hansheng even saw his face, the pressure drove him to bow down.
Cold sweat streamed as a strange realization surged up in his heart.
That was…the false Heaven’s Will, now with a “divine body.”
Forged from the four sacred objects—a “divine body,” actually completed?
Then how did Qifu Yin and Zou Chi survive?
A divine body wrought from the four sacred objects could not be viewed directly by mortals.
But Su Hansheng’s consciousness still lingered. He vaguely sensed that “Heaven’s Will” did something, then a deafening roar filled his ears.
The Heaven‑Reaching Tower, which had stood in the Three Realms for countless years—
Collapsed with a boom.
In an instant, more than half the Three Realms were crushed to ruins; even cultivators of immortal rank could not escape.
For a time, the vast human world became a purgatory.
Listening to the wails of wronged souls, Su Hansheng’s lips trembled. He knew this wasn’t real, yet his body still flinched to flee that earthly hell.
Suddenly, a phoenix’s cry split the air by his ear.
Su Hansheng plunged from ten thousand fathoms; after a startled shout, his soul floated midair. He looked around—and his pupils shrank.
This was the strange space he had arrived in after dying in his previous life.
Confusion filled him. Why was he here again?
Had he died in a daze?
Just then, the soul of a female cultivator drifted near. Her beauty was nearly aggressive, her brows and eyes edged with a cutting chill.
“I want to go back.”
She spoke.
Su Hansheng was taken aback.
She lowered her gaze; two lines of tears slid down, and she whispered to the void, “Even if I perish, I will return to the moment before entering the tower.”
Su Hansheng finally understood completely.
This was a memory left behind by the previous Phoenix Bone…
He watched with his own eyes as the Phoenix Bone stepped, resolute, onto a road of no return, returning to the point before the tower’s collapse.
A sacred object bestowed by Heaven’s Will could overturn fate.
Even if the false god had obtained a “divine body,” it still failed because the Phoenix Bone rewound time.
In this life, the Phoenix Bone tried to stop everyone from entering the tower—rightly so—but did not expect the false Heaven’s Will to strike with all its might and truly smash the tower.
A false illusion became reality. If the tower wasn’t stabilized, the Three Realms might be destroyed again as in the previous life.
The four sacred objects had no choice but to enter the tower.
The Phoenix Bone’s “second life” is this very lifetime.
Even knowing everything from the past, it still could not stop “Heaven’s Will.” In the end, it could only die for the Way—become a phoenix and ignite a fierce, magnificent phoenix fire within the Heaven‑Reaching Tower.
Even so, of the four sacred objects, only Qifu Yin survived.
The Fallen Abyss Dragon, Zou Chi, had his body completely destroyed; only a remnant soul remained in the world, barely shielded by Chongjue.
After that, because the false Heaven’s Will feared the still‑living Qifu Yin revealing the truth to the Three Realms, it found a pretext—“slaughtering three sacred objects”—to cast the entire Qifu clan into Infinite Hell, never to return to the human world.
Thus came the name Fuli.
The previous Phoenix Bone perished from that moment on.
Su Hansheng jolted awake from the memory, eyes unfocused and heart still pounding. He stared blankly at the distant pillar of light, dimly feeling as though a phoenix was circling within it.
He even…
Didn’t know the name of the Phoenix Bone who died for the Way like a moth to the flame.
Su Hansheng had always thought himself profoundly selfish—just as he’d never believed Su Xuanlin’s sacrifice was worth praise, he never believed he would sacrifice himself for the beings of the Three Realms.
But now, looking up at the pillar where a phoenix seemed to spread its wings, he suddenly grasped just how heavy those four light words “die for the Way” truly were.
So heavy that merely watching felt tragic.
Zhuang Lingxiu had been badly frightened when Su Hansheng suddenly lost consciousness. Seeing him open his eyes, he finally relaxed.
He patted Su Hansheng’s cheek. “Xiaoxiao! Can you hear your senior brother?”
Su Hansheng’s mind was blank. After a long moment, he mumbled, “Senior brother…”
Zhuang Lingxiu helped him sit up and quickly felt his head.
Earlier, when Su Hansheng collapsed, Zhuang Lingxiu hadn’t reacted in time and let him face‑plant; his forehead was flushed red.
“No injuries? Does your head hurt?”
Guiltily, Zhuang Lingxiu rubbed his forehead and prayed inwardly.
He wasn’t that bright to begin with—please don’t let the child be concussed.
Su Hansheng stared hazily at the pillar of light on the horizon. After a while, he fully sobered and shook his head. “Doesn’t hurt.”
Zhuang Lingxiu set his worry down.
…Only halfway down, because Su Hansheng suddenly gripped his hand with grave solemnity and said, “Senior brother, if none of you meet a good end today, I will die for the Way to save you!”
Zhuang Lingxiu: “…”
Finished—he’s really hit his head; he’s talking nonsense now.
##