Chapter 291 Cause and Effect Converge

The horizon ignited in crimson. It was not clouds, but the monster flames of the Burning Heaven Demon King. He did not take human form, but descended in his true form: a crimson-scaled Qilin coiled across the horizon.

He was hundreds of zhang long, his scales glowing with a dark red luster in the night, and every scale was burning with undying monster fire. Just by hovering in mid-air, he made the entire Jingzhou Prefecture feel as if it were placed inside a furnace.

The air began to distort. Someone screamed, crouching down while clutching a face blistered by the heat. Chen Mu stood on the city wall, looking up at the Qilin, the tips of his hair already beginning to scorch.

He did not plan to run, nor could he.

"Killing my subordinate demon generals, slaughtering my Beimang clansmen—Chen Mu, you have truly made me look at you with new eyes."

Chen Mu frowned slightly.

Beimang?

He knew of his feud with Beimang, or perhaps the Beimang clan was also a vassal of Burning Heaven.

No wonder they dared to be so rampant around Jingzhou Prefecture; it turned out that behind them stood this Demon King who had coiled in the Southern Wilderness for decades.

But that didn't matter anymore.

Just now, killing that black-flame demon general had exhausted his strength. The stinging pain in his Meridians told him that even swinging his blade once was difficult.

Furthermore, a demon general and a demon king were not on the same level.

Chen Mu turned to look.

The city was already a sea of blood and corpses. The demonized citizens had broken through the city gates at some point, flooding into the city like a tide.

The brothers of the Demon Suppression Division were still resisting desperately, but the numbers were too skewed. Lu Dachuan was dragging his injured leg, hacking away at the monsters with his blade, covered in blood—he couldn't tell if it was his own or the enemy's. Feng Qing's quiver was empty, and he was currently using his bow as a club.

Zhuifeng had somehow reached the city gate, being held by Ling Xiaoning as they stood on the ruins, looking toward him.

Ling Xiaoning's young face was covered in blood and grime, his eyes red. He was waving frantically at him, shouting something.

"Chen Mu, run!"

Run?

Chen Mu smiled bitterly.

Run where?

He turned back to look at the Qilin. Burning Heaven was looking down at him, his pupils full of mockery and playfulness, as if looking at a struggling ant.

Just then, a memory suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Heiyan Post, the girl named Lin Xiuer, and her incoherent words.

"Three years at most... The world turned upside down... Dragons and snakes rise... Rivers of blood..."

Chen Mu thought it was nonsense at the time, but now?

Three years? Three months was more like it.

Those girls with yin-evil fates, the citizens implanted with demon seeds, the endless stream of demon soldiers and demon generals, and now the Burning Heaven Demon King coiled in the sky.

Every word she said had come true, just much earlier than expected.

Chen Mu closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, there was no ripple in his gaze.

He drew his soul-slaying blade. The blood from killing the demon general was still on the blade, now scorched black.

Burning Heaven saw his action and let out a low scoff.

"Chen Mu, are those ants behind you the people you are desperate to protect? Once my monster flames fall, they won't even have ashes left. Chen Mu, what will you block it with?"

Chen Mu did not speak. He just looked back at the people behind him.

Lu Dachuan was still fighting, hacking tirelessly, nearly dragged down by monsters several times. Shen Suning was running out of herbs, crouching beside a heavily injured brother, rummaging through her medicine box in a panic, her eyes red.

Ling Xiaoning was still waving at him, shouting, his voice cracked.

And there were those whose names he didn't know: those from Team C, those from Captain Ding, the little medicine boys from the Medicine Demon Division who followed Duan Shenxing around, and the chubby manager from the Bureau of Affairs, who was currently leading a few clerks to desperately transport logs to the city wall.

No one retreated.

Chen Mu looked at them and suddenly smiled.

It was not relief, nor despair, but a realization.

He had always thought he wanted eternal life.

Since the day of his Transmigration, he knew his Lifespan was short and he had to plunder to survive. He killed Li Feiyu, the White Tiger, the fox demon, the snake demon, the Bat King, the demon generals—killing all the way. Every time he plundered Lifespan, he felt he was one step closer to eternal life.

He had always thought he was fighting so hard just to live.

But at this moment, he suddenly understood.

He didn't want to just live; he wanted to live standing up.

Like Jiang Xiong, begging for mercy, living in disgrace, selling everything for eternal life and power, stepping on the bones of innocent people for eternal life—he didn't care for that.

He looked down at the soul-slaying blade in his hand, then at the Qilin coiled in the sky, the smile on his lips deepening.

The "Karma and Common Destiny Technique," entangling one's own Karma with the enemy's. If I kill you, I bear the burden; if you kill me, you must also bear it. Then, detonate it.

This Secret Manual that Chu Jiangli had asked Xie Baizhou to deliver—he had always looked down on it. He thought it was for fools, dying together with the enemy, sharing the same Lifespan as heaven and earth—how stupid! Is living not good? Only by living can one become stronger, go further, and live longer.

But now he understood. It wasn't the Cultivation Technique that was stupid; it was that he hadn't calculated the cost correctly before.

Chen Mu gripped the soul-slaying blade. The blade vibrated slightly, as if sensing his resolute intent.

The System panel appeared before his eyes. He stopped looking at the numbers and poured all his plundered Lifespan, along with his own life-bound Lifespan, into the "Karma and Common Destiny Technique."

The System prompt sounded abruptly. The text strings formed a chain, but he had no time to look.

Over four thousand years of Lifespan were exhausted, but there was no pain in his eyes, only calm.

In his palm, a ball of invisible gray light was condensing. It was all his Karma. From the day of his Transmigration, every person he killed, every demon, every bit of Karma—all condensed here.

Not enough.

He looked up at Burning Heaven. The Qilin seemed to sense something, frowning slightly, a flash of doubt in its pupils.

"You..."

Burning Heaven spoke, but before he could finish, Chen Mu had already moved.

He raised his hand, fingers clawing at the void. An invisible force surged from his palm like thousands of unseen threads, sweeping towards Burning Heaven.

Those threads pierced the Void Realm, hooking onto the Karma wrapped around Burning Heaven. He had slaughtered countless living beings; that Power Of Will, that Karma—all condensed into an impenetrable giant net.

And now, Chen Mu entangled his own Karma with this giant net.

"What are you doing!"

Burning Heaven was shocked and angry. He felt something wrong. Those Karma threads were hooked; the killing Karma he had committed over his long years was all being drawn out.

He struggled desperately, monster flames sweeping out to burn those invisible threads. But could such Karma be burned by monster fire? The threads wrapped tighter and denser, binding him and Chen Mu together.

Blood spilled from the corner of Chen Mu's mouth.

The backlash of those Karma threads was too powerful. His Meridians were breaking inch by inch, his internal organs enduring unimaginable loads, but there was no pain in his eyes, only calm.

"Burning Heaven, you have lived for ten thousand years. How many living beings have you killed?"

Burning Heaven stared at him, saying nothing.

"Those citizens you slaughtered, the children you treated as blood food, the villages turned to ash in your monster flames—their resentment, their will, all recorded on you."

Chen Mu smiled.

"Now, I have recorded myself on it too."

As he said this, the ball of gray light in his hand suddenly brightened, and then, he detonated it.

There was no sound; the world suddenly fell into dead silence.

The silence lasted for a moment, and then, BOOM!

A blinding white light exploded from the horizon, instantly lighting up the entire night sky as if it were day.

Then came the overwhelming heatwave, carrying all the Karma between the two, crashing onto the earth. People on the city wall were knocked to the ground by the heat, curling up, shivering. Even the demonized citizens were knocked about.

Ling Xiaoning was knocked to the ground, desperately lifting his head to look at the horizon.

He saw the Qilin twisting and struggling, torn and swallowed by an invisible force. Its scales peeled off one by one, flesh stripping away piece by piece, causing it to howl in agony.

But its howling was drowned out by the white light.

Ling Xiaoning stared fixedly at the fading figure, his eyes red, his lips trembling violently, finally shouting with all his might.

"Chen Mu!"

The sound was shrill and piercing, penetrating all the noise in the world, yet it could not reach that person's ears.

Cheng Xiaoqing knelt on the ground, head bowed, shoulders shaking violently. He made no sound, just clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his flesh, drawing blood.

Those who had once fought side by side with Chen Mu could only watch helplessly as that figure became fainter and fainter in the flames...

Faint like a lingering shadow, faint like a dream, faint as if it had never existed.

Finally, the figure completely dissipated, and the world suddenly became quiet.

The white light faded, the night sky returned to its usual darkness. The moon rose at some unknown time, illuminating the devastated city. Cracks crisscrossed the city wall, corpses piled up like mountains outside the city, and countless houses had collapsed inside.

But the demonized citizens suddenly stopped.

They fell one by one, the distortion on their faces gradually dissipating, finally fixing into faces as pale as paper—they were the faces of ordinary citizens.

Karma and Common Destiny.

Chen Mu didn't just detonate his Karma with Burning Heaven, but also the Karma between Burning Heaven and those citizens implanted with demon seeds. The demon seeds originated from Burning Heaven; once Burning Heaven died, the demon seeds vanished.

...

Ling Xiaoning didn't remember much of what happened later. He didn't know what happened to the Jiang Family or the remaining monsters. He only knew that Jingzhou Prefecture still stood, and the people of Jingzhou crawled up from the blood and erected a monument on the city wall.

The monument was simple, a rough bluestone with only two words carved on it: Chen Mu.

No official title, no place of origin, no dates of birth or death, no praise, only the name.

But Ling Xiaoning felt it was enough.

He recognized it. He would bring Zhuifeng to sit before the monument, sometimes talking, telling him what he ate today, that new people had joined the team, that Lu Dachuan's leg had finally healed, and that Shen Suning was engaged.

Sometimes he said nothing, just sat there watching the sunrise, watching the sunset, watching the moon rise and fall.

Zhuifeng gradually grew up, becoming an imposing Big Black Dog, following Ling Xiaoning to lie before the monument every day, occasionally looking up at that bluestone, a flash of golden light in its eyes.

Qi Huan would occasionally come, bringing a pot of wine to pour before the monument, remaining silent for a long time, saying nothing, then turning to leave, though his back was more stooped than before.

Days passed like this.

Ling Xiaoning's Wind Chasing Steps became better and better. Lu Dachuan said his movement technique was even faster than Chen Mu's back in the day. Ling Xiaoning just smiled when he heard it, saying nothing.

Only he knew that every full moon, the soul-slaying blade he had dug out from the battlefield and kept close to him would become slightly warm.

The heat came suddenly and went quickly, as if someone still had their hand on his shoulder.

Or like a very low exhortation, coming from very, very far away.

"Xiao Ning, keep practicing."