570: Chapter 570 I Don't Blame You

"Look at the state you're in now."

The voice came from Wufa's mouth, but it was no longer Wufa's voice.

The vibration of the vocal cords was the same, and the curve of his lips opening and closing was still vaguely recognizable—but every syllable had been thoroughly corrupted by an inhuman quality.

The voice seemed to seep in from the end of the starry sky, from the rifts in time and space, carrying an empty echo that made one's teeth ache.

It was as if the speaker were at the bottom of an unfathomably deep ancient well of ten-thousand-year black ice. As the words climbed upward, they shed a layer of warmth and gained a layer of distortion with every layer of the Void Realm they passed through. By the time they reached the ear, they had frozen into ice shards—sharp-edged and bone-chillingly cold.

"To save your brother, you Cultivated with all your might, grew stronger with all your might, and desperately wanted to achieve Ascension to the Immortal Realm... How touching."

"Wufa" laughed.

This smile was like a rusty saw, dragging back and forth across Wutian's nerves.

The curve of the grinning mouth had completely transcended the scope of human expression, as if something under the skin was pushing and squeezing, forcibly twisting this familiar face into an alien and terrifying totem.

This was not a smile. It was the grimace of an alien entity revealed after the mask had been torn away.

"But you have no time left." The voice was measured, carrying the mockery of one who sees all. "You will never have time again."

"Wufa" tilted its head, its neck bones emitting a faint, unsettling crack.

It examined the fragile prey in its hand with the posture of a pure observer and great interest—its gaze like cold fluid, slowly flowing over the trembling on Wutian's face, which was a mixture of blood and dust, flowing over his fingers, which were torn and with nails upturned from overexertion, finally coming to a rest on his chest.

There, his robes had long since been soaked into a deep brown by blood, and every weak heartbeat only seeped out more heavy despair.

This look was like evaluating a piece of porcelain about to be crushed by hand. It carried the amusement of a creator toward an ant, a mixture of pity and cruelty.

"Do you know?" It suddenly spoke, its tone lowered, carrying a predatory intimacy.

"Do you know what your brother was thinking... when he was last conscious?"

Wutian's pupils suddenly contracted to the size of needle tips. He even forgot how to breathe.

As if responding to his reaction, in the deepest part of "Wufa's" purple-black eyes, that faint golden light—belonging to the real Wufa—suddenly trembled violently!

Like a thin reed in a storm, being whipped frantically by an invisible, immense force, the light flickered, now bright, now dim, as if it might go "poof" at any moment—and be completely extinguished.

"He was begging me." The voice was kept extremely soft, like a lover's whisper, yet every word was tempered with deadly poison, precisely piercing Wutian's deepest wound.

"Begging me... not to harm you."

"He knelt before me."

The smile on "Wufa's" face spread, deepening until it twisted the muscle texture of his entire face—this was no longer an expression a human could make, but the manifestation of the pleasure of some evil existence.

"Your brother, the noble Second Prince of the Demon Race, the heaven's favorite with the supreme Chaos Thunder Demon Bloodline flowing in his veins... he knelt down."

It paused deliberately. It was enjoying the world instantly collapsing in Wutian's eyes.

"Crushing all his pride, dignity, and backbone... discarding it all. Like a stray dog with a broken spine, crawling in the quagmire of consciousness, his forehead pressed against the void ground, over and over again, his voice raspy like an old bellows... begging me—"

It leaned in closer. In its purple-black pupils, malice surged like boiling water.

" 'Do not kill my brother.' "

Boom! Wutian's eye sockets instantly turned red.

It was not because of the flames of anger, nor because of the burning of humiliation—something deeper had shattered.

He could see. He could see that scene with absolute clarity—

In the boundless Sea of Consciousness of darkness where only despair existed, his Wufa, that brother who was once as proud as a little sun, how he slowly bent his knees, how he pressed his forehead, which symbolized all his dignity, heavily against the cold "ground."

He could see his brother's clenched teeth, see his fingers spasming from extreme pain, and see how the last light in his eyes was eroded inch by inch by despair as he repeated that plea over and over.

His brother. Knelt for him.

Knelt before an evil will from beyond the realm that took pleasure in destruction, abandoning everything—dignity, pride, backbone, his once arrogant spine—all shattered, all discarded.

Just to trade for a chance so slim it was laughable—do not kill his brother.

"Wufa" satisfiedly appreciated the shattered light in Wutian's bloodshot eye sockets—an emotion that pleased it more than any wail.

It reached out with its other free hand, its movements as gentle as if touching fragile butterfly wings, its cold, lifeless fingertips lightly brushing against Wutian's blood-stained cheek.

The sensation was not like a touch. It was more like erosion.

"However," its voice suddenly changed again, becoming extremely soft and gentle, like a wisp of toxic smoke drifting up from the bottom of the abyss, threading its way into Wutian's eardrums, "I've changed my mind."

"Keep your life and let him watch you slowly rot and die... or, let you live, live well, and then let him watch you—"

It tilted its head again. Deep within its purple-black pupils, malice congealed into near-substantial, viscous darkness.

"—kill him with your own hands."

"Tell me," it said, like an innocent yet cruel child asking about the most interesting game rules, "which one... is more fun?"

Wutian's pupils contracted violently. The blood in his entire body seemed to freeze into ice shards at this moment!

The hand gripping his throat suddenly tightened!

It was no longer the teasing, loosening-and-tightening playfulness from before—this time, it was pure, absolute, killing force!

"Crack... creak..." The teeth-aching sound of bones being crushed by immense force clearly emanated from Wutian's throat, like a withered branch groaning in a giant's palm.

His complexion rapidly shifted from the cyan-purple of near-death to a deathly grey-black, his lips were dark purple, and his protruding eyes were now covered in terrifying bloodshot veins, almost popping out of their sockets!

The instinct for survival made him subconsciously want to struggle, to pry open that life-taking hand—but his arms were as heavy as if filled with lead; he couldn't even lift them an inch.

The exhaustion of spiritual power after his Golden Core shattered had long since drained every ounce of his strength.

As he was now, even controlling the tremor of a single finger was extremely difficult.

But... his hand still moved.

It was not a struggle, not resistance. This right hand hanging at his side, mangled and bloody, used every last bit of strength from the depths of his Soul, extremely slowly, with uncontrollable trembling, lifting up bit by bit. His five fingers opened slightly—

The posture was actually like a gesture of wanting to touch, wanting to comfort.

His eyes were still locked, unblinkingly and fiercely, on the face right before him, the one possessed by the demon.

His gaze pierced through that layer of purple-black evil mist, stubbornly and firmly anchoring itself in the depths of the pupils—that faint golden light that was swaying wildly and seemed like it would fall into eternal darkness the next second.

His lips moved with difficulty. His throat was strangled, unable to make any sound.

But in those eyes, which were gradually losing focus yet still persistent, the slightly opening and closing lip shape clearly conveyed silent, final words.

The evil existence possessing Wufa's body "heard" it. It understood the lip-reading.

It was not a curse, not a roar, not even a plea. It was five words.

Exhausting all the remaining life and tenderness of a brother:

"Wufa..." "Brother doesn't blame you."