Chapter 36: The Last Laugh

Boom! The two monsters collided once again, locked in a frenzied battle. Beneath the clouds, an area spanning several miles had been almost razed to the ground.

Both of them had suffered heavy blows.

The massive Wei Ting had been drained until he was little more than skin and bone, his height shrinking from three and a half meters to less than two.

The Empress Dowager was missing an arm, and there was a gaping hole in her body where white, ghastly bones were exposed, blood flowing incessantly.

Half an hour later, Wei Ting suddenly fled.

Clearly, he had regained his senses and realized that if he continued to fight, he would die there.

The Empress Dowager searched for him in vain, then returned to the ruins of the Empress’s mausoleum. She crawled into her golden-nanmu coffin, which had remained intact thanks to her protection. With a deep intake of breath, countless clods of earth swarmed over her, and within a quarter of an hour, she had become a mound of dirt.

The fleeing Wei Ting ran across the ground and took to the sky by turns, acting like a headless fly, until he finally collapsed in a forest.

"Damn that Force Gu; it clouded my mind. Otherwise, I would never have done something so reckless," Wei Ting wheezed.

Due to the meddling of a certain nameless, handsome fellow who preferred not to be mentioned, a flock of birds in the nearby woods suddenly took flight in alarm.

"Not good." Wei Ting’s heart sank as he braced himself.

Duan Hu and Feng Gou, who had just been hiding in the woods preparing for a shameless ambush, exchanged puzzled looks. The birds here were far too perceptive for their own good.

"Feng Gou, Duan Hu, come out. Do you really think you can hide from my spiritual senses?" Wei Ting’s disdainful voice rang out.

Old Master Qin didn't care much for that. If it hadn't been for his intervention, would someone looking like a mangled bear—whom even his own mother might not recognize—have been able to spot Duan Hu and Feng Gou?

Whoosh! Two figures appeared outside the forest. One was the imposing, tiger-like Duan Hu, and the other was the somewhat scrawny Feng Gou. Their eyes were filled with malice as they looked at Wei Ting.

"Do you think that just because I’ve fallen on hard times, I can’t deal with you two?" Wei Ting stood up once more. He was confident that, at a certain cost, he could easily eliminate these two traitors. Of course, if they begged for mercy, he wouldn't mind letting them live a few more days.

Duan Hu and Feng Gou exchanged a smile.

In the next moment, they both transformed into monsters. One became a three-zhang-tall black tiger with wings on its back; the other became a three-headed demonic dog standing five zhang tall.

To think these two traitors had reached this level by relying on the Five Animals Diagram. Wei Ting suddenly regretted not studying the diagram more thoroughly.

Duan Hu and Feng Gou attacked from the left and right. In his flying tiger form, Duan Hu was fast and could discharge lightning, while the three-headed dog form sprayed venom. The severely wounded Wei Ting had almost no power to retaliate and was forced to retreat repeatedly. During the struggle, vast swathes of forest were leveled, and a small creek was diverted from its course.

Just as he was about to meet his end, Wei Ting erupted, transforming into a giant insect.

His strength was astonishing. Feng Gou, who was slightly weaker in brute force, was struck so hard his bones protruded. Duan Hu, who possessed wind and lightning power, fared no better; one of his wings was nearly snapped, and his internal energy was thrown into utter chaos.

Just as the two were about to flee, Wei Ting grabbed Duan Hu with one tentacle and Feng Gou with another, smashed them around violently, and then flung them away. He then turned and ran toward the south, ignoring everything else.

"Where do you think you're going?" Duan Hu and Feng Gou scrambled up and immediately gave chase. Clearly, their opponent was now even weaker than they were.

A full hour after they left, Wei Ting crawled out from underground. He had forcibly separated himself from the Force Gu that had merged with him. Although he had escaped death, he had paid a heavy price.

"Damn Duan Hu, damn Feng Gou! When I return from the Gu tribe, that will be the day you two traitors die," he cursed viciously.

Just then, a brilliant golden light illuminated the world.

Before he could react, a fist covered in a thick layer of golden film, empowered by seventy years of cultivation, punched through his skull. His fading eyes were filled with confusion. Who the hell was this? Why was the timing of his strike so precise? How long had he been tailing him?

As his consciousness began to fade, a thought dawned on him. The aura of this man was somewhat similar to the one who had rescued the leader of the Yellow Lotus Sect all those years ago. To think he had endured for sixteen years before striking. Could this man be the reincarnation of an ancient, thousand-year-old turtle?

Qin Yuan retracted his hand. Even he felt the timing was perfect. Firstly, the Force Gu had already separated from Wei Ting, so he didn't need to be tainted by the blood of the Gu tribe. Secondly, he reckoned that Duan Hu and Feng Gou would believe they were the ones who had killed Wei Ting.

"Shoo!" A faint light shot out from Wei Ting’s Dao pedestal (where his spirit resided). It was impossibly fast.

"Life and Death Together." This was a supreme secret technique Wei Ting had learned from the Gu tribe, allowing him to drag his killer down with him in his final moments. As long as he was killed by someone, this move would trigger automatically—a truly inescapable lethal blow.

Qin Yuan immediately felt his lifespan slowly slipping away. Then, Qin Yuan smiled.

"Uh..." Wei Ting’s lingering consciousness couldn't understand how this person could still smile. At the moment his consciousness vanished, Wei Ting still hadn't seen Qin Yuan show even the slightest sign of aging from the loss of lifespan. Why was this?

Wiping the smile from his face, Qin Yuan scoured Wei Ting’s Dao pedestal and Qi Sea. He collected a heap of items and, without checking them, used his internal energy to create a Dao flame, setting Wei Ting’s body ablaze.

Amidst the roaring flames, Qin Yuan began to chant the "Sutra of Delivering Souls" (a common, ubiquitous scripture in this world). Once Wei Ting’s body had been reduced to ashes, he flicked his sleeves, and the remains scattered in the wind.

"Safe travels," Qin Yuan waved, as if seeing off an old friend. He then looked toward the East Mausoleum. The Empress Dowager’s longevity had been broken, but she still possessed strength; it would be best to wait a few more years.

Returning to the West Three Alleys, Qin Yuan checked his spoils. Most of it was dried meat from exotic beasts—truly befitting Wei Ting.

Qin Yuan cleared away the meat. What remained included eight million taels of silver, a manual titled "Tyrant Blade Technique," a golden token engraved with the character for 'Gu,' and a wooden board carved with the Five Animals Diagram.

Qin Yuan stared at the golden token for a long time. Suddenly, he grabbed it and threw it high into the air. Wei Ting had only reached his current heights thanks to the Gu tribe; whether he was a member or not, his connection to them was deep. Keeping it on his person was no different from carrying a death warrant. Even though there was a slim possibility that this token might bring him a great opportunity, Qin Yuan suddenly felt that his "cheat" of automatically increasing martial arts and cultivation was no less important than his longevity. Without that boost, could he guarantee he would survive? Could he truly remain detached and uncompetitive?

After a while, he pulled his thoughts back and focused on the wooden board with the Five Animals Diagram. Clearly, the previous diagrams had come from this source. Qin Yuan stared at it for a while before taking out a piece of paper to copy it. He didn't want to enter the diagram directly; if something unexpected happened, what then? Although the possibility was slim, one had to be prepared.

The following day, the news that Wei Ting had been killed by a mysterious person shocked the entire capital. People could not fathom how someone so powerful could just drop dead. They then sighed in unison, as this signaled that the North-South War was coming to an end.

When Duan Hu and Feng Gou proposed a ceasefire to the South, the South agreed without a second thought. Subsequently, both sides fell into intense internal strife.

In the North, a large group of warlords (formerly provincial governors) were dissatisfied with Duan Hu and Feng Gou seizing power and believed that Wei Ting’s death was their doing.

In the South, the followers of Song Yu-fu and the gentry split over the issue of the common people, and the revolutionary factions were rife with internal factions.

One thing was the same for both sides: they were pouring vast wealth into cultivation. The slight difference was that the North followed the demonic path of strengthening the physical body, while the South relied on the alchemist path of Dao soldiers.

From then on, the trajectory of the entire world went completely astray.