The two no longer faced each other, their backs to each other. The air was stiff, almost unmoving.
"You..." Lin Ming's expression was bewildered, distorted, and changing Indefinitely as his eyes saw a large, basketball-sized gaping, bloody hole in his chest and clothing, piercing through his inner armor and heart guard. His free hand moved to quiveringly pushed his hand through the empty portion of his chest, the warmth of his blood dripping on his fingers. He felt the taste of his own blood leaking from his throat into his mouth.
It was oddly sweet.
Holding the heart, its color as white as the light of dawn, Zuhei whispered to himself: "A heart for a heart." He lifted the heart refined by the qualities of Elemental Origin Energy to his face, visual memories flashing across its fleshy surface. As if he was a spectator, he saw Lin Ming and himself, their final attack decades ago, as Lin Ming drove his spear through his chest, obliterating his heart in a single move.
All those years began to flash after, all those years of hatred, shame, and anger. When Zuhei finally gripped the beating heart, feeling its desperate desire for life, fragile and at his mercy, all those negative emotions swept through his thoughts in an incomparably violent manner, only to begin to melt like snow on the hottest summer day.
Zuhei's eyes solidified into a pair of pure intensity, his body began to exude the aura of savagery, blood, battle, death, time, and the spirit! He viciously opened his entire maw, revealing four incomparably sharp canines that felt as if they could pierce into the entire world, and his mouth chomped into the beating heart!
The heart gushed with copious white-colored blood and primal, physical power!
"Hah!" Tang Xingyun felt as if her mind were deceiving her, unable to believe her eyes for even a second. Within the blink of an eye, beyond her perception's capabilities, the two switched places, and she saw Lin Ming standing quietly there with a gaping hole while Zuhei held onto a throbbing heart. She instinctively, without even needing to confirm, knew whose heart that was!
But when Tang Xingyun saw Zuhei bite into it, she felt as if her own heart was being eaten! She gasped so deeply that she felt as if she couldn't breathe, her knees grew weak, her mind rumbled, and her heart lost its strength to beat!
"No..." She cried out dryly, her voice hoarse, dripping with unimaginable disbelief and abyss-like despair.
Lin Ziyan hadn't expected any of this, but her heart and mind were incredibly calm despite the horrific, stomach-churning scene before her. Whenever she saw Zuhei exert his feral presence, she strangely felt as if there was a warm halo emitting from him, as if even if he devoured the entire world, his fangs and claws would never bear themselves against her in the slightest, only toward those that dared to threaten her. The feeling was inexplicably trustworthy! She would even bet her life on it.
Zuhei devoured the heart in three seconds and three bites, eating it entirely as a splash of white painted his lower jaw and upper torso. A look of utter euphoric relish flashed across his wild eyes, rippling chaotically as his soul reached a state of radically profound enlightenment. The white-colored heart contained Lin Ming's entire lifetime of physical cultivation, containing the purest, most condensed physical energies Lin Ming had ever cultivated. The Elemental Origin Energies had refined his heart to a point where even Ascended Beastmen's cultivated hearts would pale in comparison.
Thud!
Lin Ming's right knee slammed against the marble floor, inducing a strangely hollow sound, blood from his body leaking across his pants to the floor, staining it a bright harmonious white. With his Origin Spear as leverage, he barely kept himself upright as the feeling of weakness and pain swept against his body and spirit.
Zuhei hadn't just snatched Lin Ming's heart, but ravaged his insides, disintegrated his spine, crushed the nearby organs, and violently clawed against his spirit. This feeling was unbelievably painful! The urge to cry out in agony swelled within his True Soul, but desperately, he kept it bottled with gritted teeth. However, that urge won out in the end as scarlet rays of light flashed across his skin, digging into his flesh ravenously, as if tiny canine predators were incessantly biting into it.
"AHH!"
Unbeknownst to Lin Ming, this feeling was almost the exact sensation that Zuhei felt at the precipice of death. The spear that ripped through his heart, the Elemental Origin Power that ravaged his inner organs and flesh, dissipating his lifeforce brutally without the slightest hesitation.
°Am I dying?0 Was the only thought that hung on Lin Ming's mind as he tried to circulate his cultivation base, only to receive a startling pricking sensation of pain throughout his body.
"Gurgle!" He spat out a gargantuan amount of blood, almost impossible for the size of his body. The feeling of his throat being filled with blood wasn't unfamiliar, but this sensation felt noticeably different. It felt as if this blood was his lifeblood, signifying the last flight of his blazing will to live. Without his Astral Soul's strength, he couldn't regulate his energies to heal.
"HAA!" Tang Xingyun cried out as her stifled breath and suffocating body finally breathed out alongside Lin Ming's scream. She stepped toward Lin Ming but her weakened legs stumbled and she collapsed halfway to the floor, her body bent over as she tried to reach out.
Lin Ming wasn't far, but in her vision, she felt as if there was an unfathomable type of distance between them. If best described, it would be as if the road of life and death now stood before them.
Lin Ziyan caught Tang Xingyun instinctively, awed by how chaotic the Tang Clan's Saintess' body and cultivation were acting. °She must really love him,° Lin Ziyan thought. She couldn't help but recall her feelings when she heard that Long Chen had died at Wei Wuyin's hands. In comparison, it was incredibly lacking.
Was she too cold-hearted? Or was this just a sign of the truth that Long Chen was never her destined lover, and it was Wei Wuyin all along? Shockingly, she felt this verified her belief even further, and her emotional attachment toward Wei Wuyin grew to another level. Just the thought of something happening to Wei Wuyin, no matter how little, was enough to bring her panic and fear.
Would she be like this if she heard of his death?
If she saw it?
She pitied Tang Xingyun. Unfortunately, it wasn't strong enough to interfere. In fact, she was thinking if she should eliminate this woman to prevent any future issues. Killing intent flashed across her ocean-blue gaze, directed at Tang Xingyun. The target was completely unaware, her thoughts and mind focused on Lin Ming.
The last vestiges of life within Lin Ming were flickering out as Zuhei's power and Intent kept ruthlessly ravaging his body.
He was on his last breaths, chaotic thoughts of his past flashed before his teary eyes. All his attempts to resist that calling of the abyss of death failed.
All of them.
"He...lp...m...e..." Lin Ming's desperate words echoed in the air.
Doosh!
His body lost its ability to stay upright, falling face first into the marble.
With that sound, Lin Ming, the Archaic Chosen, life came to an end at the age of 86.
The Origin Spear stayed upright, pointing to the sky as if embodying Lin Ming's unwillingness to collapse.
Zuhei's state of enlightenment came to an end. While short, his eyes once contained endless death, focus, and brewing savagery that could shake God's began to merge and be infused with a unique light of life and soul.
"I did it," Zuhei closed his eyes as he felt the heart of Lin Ming be refined thoroughly by his own. The terrifying power within the heart granted Zuhei an unimaginable change. His life aura could now be felt.
The Fangs and Claws of the Ascendant Emperor had redeemed himself, regaining his purpose and the right to possess it. His cultivation base converged, his mind sublimated, and his soul was enlightened, all unified together to establish a resonance with the heavens! A resonance with three Three Thousand Worlds of the Heavens!
Approval!
Natural, seamless approval!
Zuhei's cultivation base was fundamentally a Sirius Soul of Blood Force, but over the decades, his Intents began to grow and develop, naturally infusing itself into his body, spirit, and soul. All of its hidden effort began to converge at this moment.
The first was the Intent of Battle; Zuhei had an undying will for conflict, inextinguishable and eternal. He rose within the Myriad Yore Continent due to his terrifying potential for battle, allowing him to stand out amongst his peers before Wei Wuyin had ever discovered him.
The second was the Intent of Slaughter; Zuhei had lost his family, and, enraged beyond imagination, he forcefully slaughtered through the sect, cleaving and clawing through all obstacles to find those murders! He earned the title: The Silver Wolf of Slaughter!
The third was the Intent of Necros; Zuhei delved into a state of death several times, hanging at the verge, unwilling to die, and experiencing a rebirth, not once...but twice! This Unique Intent was incredibly strange, as it didn't simply embody death, but concepts so profound that it was hard to truly grasp, not the slightest bit inferior to the Nirvanic Flames that could interact with the Dao of Void and the cycles of life itself!
The Necros Intent was incomparably pure, far greater than anything within the eighteen regions, and not even Trueborn could replicate it!
The fourth was the Intent of Predation; an equally terrifying Unique Intent born from the Ethereal Dao, strangely unique to Apex Predators! It harbored the will to devour and thrive! When Zuhei consumed Lin Ming's heart, he grasped this Intent thoroughly! The cycle of redemption and hunting had come to an end, all his preparations and patience gathering for a single moment.
At the core of these four Intents was a Bestial Will of his Ancestor! Sirius! The Silver Wolf! It was this will that was established that resonated with the heavens!
Within his True Soul, a seed was born!
The Conception Phase!
But it didn't stop there!!
Zuhei's blood began to churn, draining into the seed ferociously! From within Zuhei's Mind's Eye, a Solar Star of silvery and sanguine soulful radiance, resembling a luminescent full moon more than a solar star, began to send light to his soul! Soul Light!
Within moments, the seed entered the Nurturing Phase, as ravenous as a hungry infant wolf! It devoured and devoured and devoured!
"Oh? What's this?" A voice resounded. Lin Ziyan was taken aback as she turned around, finding two figures slowly walking toward them. One of them was a swordsman with a lazy expression and the other was beautifully handsome, almost peerlessly so, with an unfathomable presence. Wei Wuyin's unearthly masculine handsomeness had distorted her sense of aesthetic so she found this type of beautiful handsomeness a little underwhelming and uncomfortable.
Tian Yinwu!
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Author's Note: This was a Zuhei dedicated chapter. Hundreds of chapters and his role as Wei Wuyin's Fangs and Claws, worthy enough to do so, will finally reach its completion! If you think Wei Wuyin is abnormal, none of the Prime Ascendants will be ordinary!
Erdiul Note: o7 Lin Ming, was not nice knowing you.
