633: Chapter 633 Five-Finger Cage

"So—" Luo Xiaojiu's voice sounded softly, like a feather landing on a frozen lake, yet it exploded like silent thunder within the entire space of the palm print.

She raised her right hand, her five fingers slowly curling inward.

The movement was very slow.

It was as elegant as plucking an invisible flower in the Void Realm, or perhaps as casual as picking up a grain of inconsequential sand.

Yet everyone within the palm print could clearly feel it—every movement of those slender, jade-like fingers was measuring the final moments of their lives.

"You all can go die now."

She said it so calmly.

It was as if she were stating something as ordinary as tomorrow's weather, as casual as saying the tea had gone cold and should be replaced.

Inside the palm print, the bodies of the dozen or so Cultivators stiffened abruptly.

It was not being frozen by a binding Spell—that kind of Spell would have fluctuations of spiritual power and a tangible feeling of restraint.

It was not being imprisoned by pressure—pressure is the suppression of Aura, a heavy weight on the spirit.

What descended upon them at this moment was a more fundamental, more thorough imprisonment.

The space around them was contracting.

It was not the folding of space, nor the distortion of the Void Realm. It was space itself being gripped by some existence, tightening inch by inch.

It was like an invisible palm closing in from all directions toward the center.

And they were the ants in the palm.

The pupils of the Sword Tiger Clan Prodigy, Hu Lie, shrank to needle points.

He felt it.

It was not spiritual power.

It was not a Divine Ability.

It was not a Law—these were things that Cultivators could understand, resist, and comprehend.

What was seeping into every inch of his skin and every drop of his blood at this moment was Qi and blood.

It was the pure, extreme power of Qi and blood from the Desolate Ancient Sacred Body.

When this palm fell, the majestic power did not dissipate.

These golden, sacred, yet primeval-scented Qi and blood did not leave after crushing them; instead, like billions of invisible threads, they silently infiltrated the hundreds of feet of heaven and earth.

They wove into a net, took shape, and turned the entire area of the palm print into a huge, invisible cage.

And they had already entered the cage the moment the palm print fell.

Only now, as the net closed, did they realize they were doomed.

"You—"

Hu Lie wanted to struggle, wanted to roar, wanted to question.

But his throat felt as if it were being gripped by a cold hand, and he could only squeeze out a broken syllable.

He discovered with horror that the spiritual power surging like a river within him was now frozen in the deepest part of a glacier, completely unresponsive.

No, it was not frozen—it was suppressed. Suppressed by that golden power of Qi and blood in a way so tyrannical it defied reason.

This was not a confrontation of spiritual power, not a collision of energy.

This was a crushing of levels and essence.

This power was like a mountain burning with golden flames, pressing down on his Dantian, his Meridians, and deep within his Soul.

He was even deprived of the ability to mobilize a sliver of spiritual power or condense a bit of True Essence.

The Feather Clan Woman was at the other end of the palm print, light golden blood still gushing from the wounds of her severed wings.

The excruciating pain was like thousands of needles pricking her nerves, but at this moment, the fear of death overwhelmed everything.

She desperately flapped the pair of wings that were now nothing but stumps—like two tattered flags, fresh blood sprayed from the stumps, drawing a tragic arc in the air, staining her snow-white back and the cracked ground beneath her red.

"Fly... let me fly..."

She screamed in her heart, using every ounce of her life's will to catalyze the last bit of Feather Clan power in her Bloodline.

She had once used these wings to fly over the sea of clouds, once believed the sky was the eternal territory of the Feather Clan.

At this moment, she only wanted to be three feet off the ground. Even one foot, even an inch—as long as she could leave this land of death that was contracting.

She struggled in the air for three breaths.

Three breaths. As short as a single breath, yet as long as an era.

Her body swayed and left the ground by half a foot, the stumps of her wings flapping uselessly against the air, making a "poof, poof" sound like a broken bellows.

Then, gravity grabbed her again.

She fell heavily back to the ground, making a dull thud.

It was not the sound of flesh hitting the ground, but the sound of something heavier shattering—it was dignity, pride, and the final stubbornness of being a Feather Clan member.

She lay in the rubble and dirt, her face pressed against the cold ground, eyes wide as she looked at a crack inches away.

The depths of the crack were pitch black, as if leading to another world, or perhaps mirroring the emptiness in her heart at this moment.

The Lion-headed Powerhouse could no longer maintain the majestic true form of the hundred-foot golden lion.

Under the invisible pressure of the golden Qi and blood, the massive demon body that once made a hundred beasts bow its head was like a deflated balloon, rapidly shrinking and collapsing, finally turning into the size of an ordinary lion, lying on the ground trembling.

The golden mane was completely soaked with sweat, sticking to his body in strands, looking as wretched as a wild cat with nowhere to hide in a rainstorm.

It lowered its head, a whimpering, broken breathing sound coming from its throat. In the lion eyes that once burned with the majesty of a king, there was only the most primitive fear of an animal facing a natural predator.

The Vajra Monk sat cross-legged in the center of the palm print. This was the only person who still maintained a decent posture—if the word "decent" had any meaning in this situation.

He pressed his palms together, his knuckles white from the effort, chanting scriptures rapidly.

This was the most profound "Vajra Indestructible Sutra" of the Buddhist sect; it is said that upon reaching Major Achievement, one's Physical Body becomes immortal and immune to all Spells.

Golden Buddhist light surged from his body, more pure and solid than when he had resisted the giant palm earlier.

The Buddhist light transformed into a faint, translucent golden bell phantom around him, attempting to prop up the constantly contracting space and win a moment of respite for this small plot of land.

The moment the Buddhist light touched the golden Qi and blood, a "hissing" sound was emitted.

It was not a collision of energy, not a confrontation of Laws, but a more cruel scene—this Buddhist light, which was enough to withstand the full-force strike of a Nascent Soul Cultivator, melted and vaporized the moment it touched those golden, seemingly gentle threads of Qi and blood, like early winter snow meeting a hot iron, without even a sliver of resistance.

The golden bell phantom trembled violently, countless cracks appearing on its surface, and then with a "bang," it shattered into dots of light, dissipating in the increasingly oppressive air.

The monk opened his eyes abruptly. In these eyes that had seen through the Mortal World and understood life and death, a feeling called "despair" appeared for the first time.

He lowered his head to look at his pressed palms. In the center of his palms, two charred marks were spreading—this was the proof of the backlash on his Physical Body when the Buddhist light was forcibly annihilated.

"Amitabha..."

He whispered a Buddhist chant, his voice trembling with unprecedented fear.

This chant was not to deliver others, but to deliver himself.

In the deepest part of the palm print, the Demonic Path Cultivator curled into a ball, hands tightly clutching his head, his whole body trembling like a withered leaf in a storm.

He had cultivated the Heavenly Demonic Path for six hundred years, drunk the blood of countless living beings, devoured the Divine Souls of countless Cultivators, seen the cruelest massacres, and experienced the most desperate situations.

He had once thought that death for him was just another long slumber, perhaps even a stepping stone to a higher Realm.

But never before had he felt so clearly—death was right in front of him.

Not that he might die, not that he perhaps would die.

It was that he would definitely die.

And not being killed, not being defeated.

It was being crushed to death.

Just like when a person is walking and inadvertently steps on an ant crawling by their feet.

The ant doesn't even have time to think about what happened, doesn't have time to feel pain, doesn't have time to make any reaction, and in an instant, it changes from a three-dimensional life into a two-dimensional smudge on the sole of a shoe.

And the person who stepped on it wouldn't even notice what was under their feet, wouldn't linger a second of gaze on that smudge when cleaning the sole of their shoe afterward.

This realization was more terrifying to him than death itself.

Luo Xiaojiu's five fingers had already closed halfway.

Her hands were slender, fair, with distinct knuckles, and nails trimmed clean and neat.

Such hands should have played the zither, held a brush, plucked flowers, and been stained with the fragrance of ink, tea, and flowers.

But at this moment, these hands were closing slowly in the Void Realm, as if gripping the throats of a dozen lives.

In the palm print, the changes began.

It was not the Cultivators themselves deforming—it was space itself compressing, and their bodies were caught between the increasingly narrow layers of space, like two invisible, irresistible walls pushing in from all directions.

First, the bones made a "creak, creak" sound.

This was not the sound of breaking, but a slow, continuous, teeth-aching crushing sound, like a heavy millstone grinding something hard.

Everyone's bones were protesting, wailing, making a futile resistance against that irresistible force.

Muscles began to deform, like clay figures being kneaded by invisible hands.

Hu Lie's sturdy chest caved inward, ribs bent inward one by one, lungs compressed, and every breath became a torture.

The Feather Clan Woman's slender waist was crushed until it was almost folded in half, the stumps of her broken wings were pressed into her flesh, and blood seeped out from every pore.

The monk's crossed legs began to twist, his knees turning inward at an angle that violated human anatomy.

Blood seeped from his seven orifices—eyes, nose, ears, mouth.

These blood beads flowed slowly at first, but as the space contraction intensified, they were squeezed out and condensed into scarlet, perfect spheres in the air, suspended in the solidified air, as if time had been pressed on the pause button.

Hundreds of blood beads floated in the palm print space, reflecting an eerie luster in the dimming daylight, like a bloody rain frozen in the air.

Hu Lie could clearly feel his spine being crushed inch by inch.

This feeling was strange—not the sharp pain of being cut by a sword, but a dull, slow, omnipresent crushing sensation.

It was like being pressed under a mountain, and that mountain was still sinking bit by bit, using billions of tons of weight to slowly and firmly erase every trace of your existence in this world.

You can hear the crisp sound of your own bones breaking, feel your internal organs being squeezed, deformed, and ruptured, and realize that your life is slipping away in the most humiliating way.

But you can do nothing.

You can't even scream—because the air in your lungs is being squeezed out bit by bit.

You can't even think—because fear has occupied every corner of your consciousness.

"Why... why..."

He struggled to squeeze these three words out of his compressed throat.

Every word was mixed with blood foam, the voice hoarse, broken, no longer like a human voice, but more like the whimpering of some beast before death.

He wanted to ask, why?

Why them?

What did they do wrong?

Why did he encounter such an invincible, peerless Prodigy in the Secret Realm?

Luo Xiaojiu tilted her head slightly and looked at him.

The golden pupils were like two burning flames in the darkening sky, beautiful, sacred, yet cold without a trace of human temperature.

Her gaze passed through the suspended blood beads, through the twisted space, and landed on Hu Lie's face, which was distorted by pain and fear.

"Because you wanted to kill him."

She said softly. Her voice was as calm as if stating a simple fact.

Then, she raised her left hand and pointed behind her—at Blood Butcher, who was covered in blood, leaning on a broken blade, barely standing, yet still staring fixedly this way.

Hu Lie looked in the direction of her finger.

Blood Butcher stood there.

Like an Asura who had crawled out of a sea of blood, there was not an inch of intact skin on his body, and the wounds were deep enough to see the bone.

But his eyes were still burning with a flame that refused to go out.

This was hatred.

It was unwillingness.

It was the madness of wanting to bite off a piece of the enemy's flesh even when in a desperate situation.

"Because you think you are righteous in acting on behalf of heaven."

Luo Xiaojiu withdrew her finger, her gaze falling back on Hu Lie. She paused, as if thinking, or perhaps remembering something.

Then, she shook her head lightly. Golden hair fluttered in the breeze.

"Because you made me very unhappy."

She said.

The moment the last word fell, her five fingers continued to close.