Chapter 130: Escape Route 24

Chapter 130: Escape Route 24

In the face of survival, all else is meaningless.

With a mere tap of his folding fan, Yan Qiling sent a crimson tide surging towards Yuangong Baiyu.

Flipping open his fan, he chuckled at the gray crane that Yuangong Baiyu had instantly transformed into:

"Paimon has never won in a direct confrontation with me."

"At first, when you aimed to seize the Yan family's silk factory, you had to wait for an opportune moment, and if not for a traitor within the Yan family, you would have had no chance of victory... Now, finally, we can compete fairly and squarely based on our own abilities."

"Isn't that right, Yuangong Baiyu?"

Yan Qiling's words carried the power of a turbulent sea, resonating throughout the entire space and forcing those who had attempted to break through the domain's boundaries to spiral down and land forcibly.

Yuangong Baiyu's clothes had burst apart, his blood flowing like threads. He knelt on the ground, defeated, his previous arrogance and composure vanished.

Yan Qiling, seeing that he had stopped running around, finally approached him with a smile on his face. From thin air, he casually plucked a completely black wakizashi.

"Would Paimon forgive you if you can't retrieve Patland's power?"

Yuangong Baiyu looked up, and there was a hint of vulnerability in the corners of his crimson eyes.

"...Teacher, I'm sorry for what happened before. But didn't you get your revenge too?"

"The 'Master Yan' address is gone, Yuangong. Unfortunately, it only brings disgust to me now."

Yan Qiling's smile faded, and his noble features and delicate black hair seemed shrouded in an endless gloom as they floated in the air.

"Revenge? No, we've never needed such a term between us. The perpetrator may forget, but the sins you left behind won't be erased. Someone will always remember them for you."

Handing the wakizashi to Yuangong Baiyu, who was kneeling before him, Yan Qiling's downward gaze was filled with indifference.

"I'm glad you still remember that I'm your teacher, but I hope you also remember whom you owe your life to."

"Should you commit seppuku, I can return Patland to Paimon."

Yuangong Baiyu raised the blade, drawing it out with a brilliant flash of light reflecting in his pitch-black eyes.

A momentary shock flickered across his gaze:

"This… This was the one I gave to Teacher back then…"

Yan Qiling stood with his hands behind his back, his expression devoid of joy or sorrow:

"Yes, this is the short sword you once gave me for self-reflection. Now, it's time for you to reflect upon yourself."

With a fleeting hint of ruthlessness on his face, Yuangong Baiyu plunged the short sword into Yan Qiling's heart with lightning speed!

But in the next second, he himself let out an earth-shattering scream!

The torn gray feathered wings on his right side were severed as if by a blade, cutting diagonally through the gushing blood and falling into an endless abyss together!

The sharp short sword that Yuangong Baiyu had been holding somehow transformed into a snow-white folding fan at some point!

Untouched, Yan Qiling held the bloodstained short sword while holding a harmless fan against his chest. Lowering his gaze, he looked at Yuangong Baiyu, whose face was filled with disbelief.

"I didn't swing my blade. I merely reflected your sword qi back at you. If you had no intention of killing me, this sword qi wouldn't have appeared, and you wouldn't have lost your wings either."

"Yuan Gong, I gave you a chance."

A colossal array suddenly emerged beneath their feet, causing the oriental illusion to fade away, revealing the original domain of black water.

Yuan Gong spat out a mouthful of blood, feeling a terrifying sense of threat from the frenzied loss of power. It was a situation that almost never occurred since he became a Heaven Rank Unbounded Ruler.

Yan Qiling wiped the blood off his wakizashi and let the tip of the blade touch the ground.

Bending down, he touched the array patterns with his hand. The crimson patterns seemed to come alive, curling up to stir a crimson storm!

Countless illusory figures emerged around the array, quickly condensing into towering mountains made of countless resentful spirits, forming a horrifying scene reminiscent of a corpse whale!

Yuan Gong Baiyu stared in disbelief at the array, yet unable to move.

"You... You activated the array to awaken Yan Hesheng... How is this possible..."

Yan Qiling rose, revealing a brilliant smile amidst the mountain of corpses and sea of blood:

"Why is that impossible?"

"… When Yan Hesheng wakes up, your control over the Lotus Tower will weaken. To unlock the remainder of his power, you chose to personally awaken an equal-level Infernal Lord like yourself!"

"Who says I want his power."

Yan Qiling maintained his last vestige of a smile, speaking without emotion:

"What I want is for him to pay the price."

Extending his wakizashi, he slashed. Yuangong Baiyu rolled away, but his wings were still pierced by the sharp blade!

In disbelief, he turned back. As Wuling licked its tongue, their encounter was a chilling sight. The lake-blue eyes shimmered with excitement:

"Hey, I'll take these wings as a reservation."

Wuling revealed a terrifying grin, then exerted force abruptly, severing the wings clean!

Amidst the torrential blood rain, the gravely injured Yuangong Baiyu astonishingly managed to take flight.

"You've lost your mind, Yan Qiling, how could you...!"

Number 50 appeared behind him, yet Yuangong Baiyu astonishingly picked up Patland's shattered remains and hurled them at Number 50 like trash!

In the blink of an eye, Wu Lingyi split open the young boy's mutilated body. Yuangong Baiyu had already transformed into a grey crane in mid-air and fled without a trace.

The Blackwater Realm began to crumble at this moment.

A Profound Rank spatial realm was not supposed to withstand such terrifying power collisions. However, after Yan Qiling intentionally leaked his power to Patland, he elevated his own space to the level of an Heavenly Rank Boundless Ruler to counter Yuangong Baiyu.

Later on, when Yuangong Baiyu drained the power from Patland's embrace, the entire Boundless World had actually lost its source of strength.

It should have collapsed on the spot, but it was Yan Qiling's deliberate infusion of vitality into Patland that trapped Yuangong Baiyu for so long.

However, no matter how much he sustained it, the moment Patland willingly became a vessel for power,

As a pawn on the chessboard of two Heaven Rank Incarnations, a peaceful end was never in the cards for him.

Regardless of who lost, these injuries would not be shouldered by the Heaven Rank Incarnations. His ultimate fate would be to end up shattered and ashes, devoured into fragments.

Essentially, he was no different from the hunted flesh in this world.

There were no morals in the Realm of Chaos.

Survival was the most fundamental need.

The array beneath their feet still functioned adequately. Number 50 picked up the broken remains of the gray crane's wing from the ground and scratched his head:

"Did you really just let him know the plan? What if he tells Paimon? If they find out that your intention is to perish together with them, won't they go all out to eliminate you?"

Yan Qiling took two steps back in the collapsing space and sat back down on the armchair:

"Do you think they wouldn't try their hardest to eliminate me if I were with them?"

Number 50 shrugged.

Indeed, their moral standing is questionable. Even if they dominate the order within the Lotus Tower, they can't fully control its rules. They still rely on that good-for-nothing Yan Hesheng, who's been asleep for nearly a century, to intimidate you."

"However, they probably assume that you'll inevitably restore Yan Hesheng's power to its peak. Only then will your strength be doubled."

The spirit cultivators in the Yan family belong to two branches known as "Conjoined Rebirth." It refers to the fact that within the main family line, there are only two children born on the same day, month, and year.

Yan Qiling and Yan Hesheng are a classic example of Conjoined Rebirth, which means they have twice the power of an ordinary spirit cultivator.

In this pair, the child born first takes the lead, wielding all their combined power, while the second-born can only access a limited portion.

Both children are indispensable; should one of them die, their shared power would immediately wither to a level below that of a regular spirit cultivator.

Yan Qiling was fortunate to be born first.

His life's mission is to protect Yan Hesheng until one of them naturally withers away.

Eventually, both became Rulers of the Unseen Realm.

Yet, the rule of Conjoined Rebirth persisted.

To regain his full power, he had to awaken Yan Hesheng at the height of his strength.

But he didn't do that.

The Soul Seeking Formation he set up required a Vesper Lord of the Profound Rank or above as a sacrifice.

The rank of the sacrifice determined the extent of power the "person" awakened would regain.

And after much searching, he aimed to find a newly ascended Vesper Lord of the Profound Rank to serve as the sacrifice, thus allowing Yan Hesheng to regain his minimal strength.

Moreover, he replaced the blood needed to activate the formation with Yuangong Baiyu's blood.

The one who activated the formation would be bound to the one awakened, life and death intertwined. This meant that if Yan Hesheng were to fall into a deep sleep or die again, Yuangong Baiyu would follow suit.

This was one of the reasons why Yuangong Baiyu had left in panic.

However, this was merely the beginning.

Yan Qiling picked up his tea.

The tea was still warm, steaming when the lid was lifted.

He had forsaken the pursuit of overwhelming power in exchange for a frail Yan Hesheng.

He wanted to see how Paimon would maintain the operation of the Hellbound Train under such circumstances.

Everything in the Black Water Realm faded away. A prismatic rift opened behind Yan Qiling, and the floating fragments around them swirled into it, centering on this newfound core.

The Hellbound Trains, which had been operating according to the laws of the Boundless World, suddenly lost their driving force.

The "passengers" in the train carriages awoke one by one, astonished to find the train at a standstill.

In the next second, they dissipated into glowing particles, just as they did every time they were checked out of the Boundless World by the ticket inspectors.

The ticket inspector in the carriage also melted like butter, leaving behind only a piece of burlap with a blue question mark.

-

The three people who had been struggling in the abandoned factory, their faces covered in blood, burst through the original door. They fled desperately, pursued by the swarm of rats, rolling and crawling forward!

The true exit from this factory, the very door that the conductor had initially shut, was the key to their escape.

Other doors led to lava furnaces, cliffs, or traps, such as a horde of rats that could devour a living person within a minute if released by accident. Yet, often, once survivors realized the main door was inaccessible, they would abandon all hope of using it for escape.

Moreover, this place was the domain of two sadists, instilling fear from the start.

The sinister aspect of the design lay in the fact that the last person standing would eventually discover the hidden key location - a terrifying underground level riddled with traps and complex mechanisms.

Upon opening the final "treasure chest," the survivors would find a so-called "escape map." It would reveal to those seeking riches that there had never been a killer at all. From the beginning to the end, everything had been preordained mechanisms.

The killer was but a joke not worth pondering over. The key hung on the kitchen wall near the exit, disguised as a small knife, thus easily overlooked.

Now, the survivors could retrace their steps and head back to where they started.

More heart-stopping still, it would come with a friendly reminder: If you lose the key, no worries. Tie a large kitchen knife with a hook, then push it towards the door. The pendulum force of the swaying knife will be enough to shatter that front gate.

These words were mocking, almost taunting.

Taunting human beings' futile efforts and their inclination to bring suffering upon themselves.

Upon the towering blue iron bridge, Yan Qiling, dressed in a black silk robe, gazed at the three figures fleeing in the distance.

Bloodied Mobis, the limping Hu Gaoming, and the dirt-covered Dolly.

Human nature.

Both magnificent and dark.

Longing for freedom yet fraught with insecurity, striving for fairness while harboring selfishness, yearning for beauty yet unable to abandon wickedness.

History repeats the essence of human nature time and again, in an endless cycle.

This is a Mobius loop, a true cycle of destiny.

Not even the Ruler of the Abyss can escape this fate.

As the three survivors vanished beyond the horizon, Yan Qiling leaped off the iron bridge.

In the next instant, he materialized in a dusky, decaying wilderness.

And in the following second, he stood before an exit marked with an open-eyed symbol.

The last prison train, carrying the survivors, had already departed, leaving behind an empty space filled with a murky black smoke that swirled amidst the ruins.

Yan Qiling opened his folding fan and tapped his palms gently three times with its tip.

A new prison train roared into existence from nothingness.

But it was not any of the twenty-one known prison trains.

Its number was "Zero."

Train Zero stood before him, and he entered its carriage, selecting a seat by the window.

Here, there were no ticket collectors. The train whistled loudly as it rushed toward an endless, bottomless sea of darkness.

-

Amidst the rippling water, a man emerged, breaking the surface.

Fresh water dampened the clothes and hair, carrying with it the distinct fragrance of lemon detergent.

Yan Qiling lay with his eyes closed against the chill of the bathtub's ceramic wall, endeavoring to soothe an unnamed turmoil within his heart.

After a while, he opened his pristine eyes.

The bizarre hue of red and blue in his irises had vanished, replaced by a normal deep black, making his appearance even more ethereally handsome.

His voice carried the unmasked sharpness of frozen ice:

"Towel."

Pan Hu silently handed him the towel.

Yan Qiling draped a towel over his face, sensing that Pan Hu was unusually quiet today:

"Why aren't you speaking?"

After a few seconds, he heard a soft chuckle.

The man asked,

"What do you want me to say?"

His fingers, gripping the towel, tightened slightly.

Yan Qiling slowly removed the towel from his face, turning his head for a subtle glance.

The silver-haired youth with white eyelashes sat on a high stool by the bathtub, looking down at him with an air of superiority.

This man's dark eyes were more profound than the night itself, filled with enigmatic shifts and changes.

Thunder boomed outside the window, while the pitter-patter of rain grew suddenly louder.

As if by design, the warm orange glow of the bathroom lights abruptly faded, leaving only fleeting flashes of electric light slicing through the darkness to illuminate their faces.

In the stillness, a deluge of rain poured down fiercely.

They stood facing each other, their silhouettes swaying in the gloom.