Chapter 148: The White That Forgot Its Original Color

Outdoors, Xia Chuan strode ahead of the remaining people, heading back toward where their carriage was parked. Tucked against his chest, hidden within the sleeve of Lu Qinglian's long dress where no one paid attention, a tiny, antique black box emitted a faint, ghostly glow, radiating wisps of a spine-chilling cold.

Behind the troop of cultivators, a humanoid monster, stiff as a marionette, twisted its limbs, moving step by step, motion by motion, as if frozen solid by the biting wind. Every movement it made emitted a harsh, cracking crunch.

Snow cascaded from its body, and its face was hung with tiny icicles. Its eyes—those eyes that had never once closed from the beginning—had long been frosted over by the howling gale, the two pupils reduced to mere ice. Its complexion was an unnatural, absolute white, the true white of death rather than the pallor of weakness, devoid of even a shred of color.

Its frost-bitten lips trembled up and down, as if trying to utter something. The blood on its body had long since been frozen solid by the heavy snow, and even the massive wound across its abdomen no longer leaked blood. Its semi-whitened hair, seemingly frozen stiff long ago, showed no inclination to stir in the howling wind.

A dense, profoundly deep dark aura emanated from its body, laden with all manner of negative emotions. Anyone with inferior cultivation who dared to approach Baili Mo would completely lose their mind and go mad.

Whether he was alive or dead was unknown; whether his heart still beat was uncertain. Yet he could still move, still fight, and still take her back.

That was enough.

"Return... her..."

"Give... her... back... to... me..."

"Mine... that is... mine!"

His frozen lips attempted to return to normal speech, but amidst the stumbles and stutters, he could only force the words out a few at a time.

Walking in the distance, Xia Chuan suddenly frowned as if sensing something, then whipped his head around to look back. It should have been a humanoid monster, yet every step was so rigid, every motion so unsteady.

And yet, every step was so resolute. Those eyes, frosted over by the cold wind, began to glow with wisps of dark aura, apart from their hollow blankness—a spine-chilling dark aura.

Xia Chuan could no longer sense Baili Mo's cultivation level, nor could he perceive his strength, yet this humanoid monster before him actually began to make him feel fear. It made a Nascent Soul cultivator feel fear.

"How can this be? He should have died at that moment," Xia Chuan muttered in incomprehension.

"Give her back! Give her back to me! I will save her! I said I would! I will definitely save her!" A voice, raspy to the extreme and seemingly echoing from deep within his chest, emanated from his body.

"An obsession? Such a profound obsession?" Xia Chuan stared intently at Baili Mo, his expression grave. He added, "Impossible! At that moment, I was certain he was dead! Even an obsession cannot animate a body injured to that extent."

"Tell me, Xia Chuan, do you know what it feels like to be pushed into the abyss?" Baili Mo's voice came again, escalating into a chilling, hollow chuckle.

"What?" Xia Chuan asked instinctively.

"I know, because I am in the abyss right now, at the boundary between life and death. And what kind of feeling is that?"

"Ah, hehehe, that's right! Exactly! What a wondrous feeling it is!"

"You said I was a joke. Indeed, you were entirely right. Even I now wish to mock my own foolishness."

"Why? Why must I take her away for it to count as salvation for her?"

"Clearly, clearly there was an even better method right here."

"To kill all of you, to slaughter every last one of you, to hear your dying screams, to hear your dying pleas for mercy—wouldn't that be the ultimate salvation for her?"

"This is a feast! A feast of blood! Everyone who ever bullied her, every single one of you shall gather in this feast!"

"The mere thought of your twisted expressions at the moment of death fills me with boundless excitement!"

***

"In the past, I was weak, and killing you was an extravagant hope beyond my imagination. Back then, I still harbored thoughts of mercy and human life. Thinking back now, it is utterly laughable, the greatest joke in the world."

"The law of the jungle is an immutable truth from birth! Only the strong hold the right to control everything!"

"Xia Chuan, I will kill every single one of you. I will carve out a sanctuary for her and me in this world with my own hands."

"I once searched frantically through this twisted world for hope that could save her and me, but I failed—failed utterly and completely. For that very reason, I died at your hands, unable to find that so-called hope."

"Therefore, I changed just a little bit. I found despair in another world, a despair capable of defeating hope, and found a way to redeem her and myself all the same."

"Xia Chuan, can you return her to me now?"

Baili Mo laughed rigidly, laughed madly. The dark aura surged across every part of his body, sweeping through the gloomy and cold canyon. A pillar of dark aura suddenly erupted from him, carrying a terrifying pressure—one that completely surpassed the Core Formation realm.

"How did it come to this? What on earth has he experienced?" Xia Chuan's face showed shock as he raised a single hand to block the front of his body, while violent shockwaves and icy gales driven by the pressure roared toward them.

"Return her to me intact, and then die a magnificent death. That is my bestowal upon you." Baili Mo laughed brutally; now, he could laugh without restraint.

In an instant, not even an afterimage remained. Xia Chuan watched with his own eyes as Baili Mo vanished from before him, unable to locate his presence even with his Nascent Soul spiritual sense.

A miserable scream erupted from within his troop of cultivators, a sound as though subjected to the cruelest torture in the world.

"Baili Mo!" Xia Chuan bellowed while resisting the towering gales, unable to discern his direction.

"Oh? Are you looking for me?" Baili Mo laughed, standing a mere fist's distance away from Xia Chuan. In the blink of an eye, he had appeared right in front of him, standing idly without striking, smiling mockingly.

Xia Chuan froze for a fraction of a moment before recovering. He clenched his fist and lashed out forward without a moment's hesitation—the punch of a Nascent Soul cultivator. With a deafening roar, only an afterimage dissipated, failing to inflict the slightest harm on Baili Mo.

Another wave of screams rang out from among them. Baili Mo was like a grim reaper toying wantonly with the lives of others, playing his favorite game.

This world was inherently twisted; could his current twisting truly be considered strange?

Baili Mo felt as though he had never been so thoroughly liberated, never felt so unfettered.

Though his entire body was bone-chillingly cold, somewhere within him, his blood boiled fiercely. This was the trace of his existence in this world, and this time, no one would ever erase it!

"Bai! Li! Mo! Troops, hear my command! Form the array!" Xia Chuan roared with a furious expression. He did not know what was happening, but clearly, this Baili Mo was no longer the man he had been before.

"Exterminate the rabble! Display the might of Great Xia! Strike him down!" The cultivators rose in unison, shouting as they arranged themselves into a specialized formation.

A golden dragon materialized once more, hovering above them. Its head held high, its four sharp claws swaying freely with its body, its golden vertical pupils were cold and merciless.

"At this point, do you really think I would still fear this worthless worm of yours?" Baili Mo appeared before them once again, his face still as pale as a corpse and covered in frost, his voice raspy and frigid.

"Kill!" Xia Chuan ignored Baili Mo's words and issued the command directly.

"Kill!!!" The cultivators roared, their broadswords slashing down in unison. The giant dragon overhead let out a sky-ward roar, its golden scales gleaming brilliantly as it bared its massive, blood-red jaws to bite down on Baili Mo.

"I awoke from the darkness, I searched from despair, I struggled from the abyss, and finally, I renounced reality."

"And now, with what identity do you speak to me? By what reason do you seek to kill me?"

"You—are you worthy?"

***

Baili Mo stood alone facing the frozen cliff, bare-handed, yet laughing with such unbridled arrogance.

The golden dragon instantly arrived before him. Baili Mo casually raised his right hand with fingers splayed. With a deafening roar, billowing smoke mixed with swirling heavy snow and scattered ice shards spread wildly.

Baili Mo blocked the golden dragon with just one hand. From within the smoke came wave after wave of deafening roars, cries filled with agonizing pain. The earth trembled, and the mountain slopes began to slide and rumble once more.

Xia Chuan and the others stared intently at the billowing mists before them, only to find that their spiritual sense could not penetrate it by even an inch; they had no inkling of what was transpiring inside.

The roars slowly subsided until they were barely audible, and the churning mists gradually dissipated. When everything cleared entirely, everyone stared at the scene before them in utter astonishment, their faces frozen in twitching disbelief.

A rigid, hand-clapping, bloodless humanoid monster with dark aura spreading across its body was peeling the scales off the golden dragon's body piece by piece.

The original golden dragon no longer retained its noble appearance: its twin horns were snapped, its eyes gouged out, its fangs scattered across the ground, its maw a bloody mess, and its four sharp claws brutally ripped apart and discarded aside.

The once brilliantly shining golden scales on its body had been stripped away by seven or eight parts, leaving vast areas of writhing flesh and blood vessels exposed. The few remaining scales were lusterless, devoid of any trace of gold as Baili Mo tore them off one by one.

At this moment, the golden dragon could not even emit a moan. Lying on the ground, it could only writhe feebly in pain, resembling a massive lump of living flesh—a genuine, pathetic worm.

Baili Mo did not understand why a dragon formed from the gathered morale of an army could act like a living creature, refusing to vanish even after being reduced to this state. Nevertheless, he was having a marvelous time.

Utterly exhilarating!

Xia Chuan and the others were speechless for a long time at this sight. A single man had utterly humiliated the spirit of morale and formation forged by an entire legion of cultivators, leaving the golden dragon utterly defenseless.

When the final blood-stained dragon scale was plucked away, Baili Mo strolled down from the golden dragon's body, swaying and trembling. Every step was agonizingly slow, yet each one landed heavy upon the hearts of the cultivators.

With every step, fear took deeper root within them.

"Tell me, Xia Chuan, are you surprised? Do you know why I have become like this?"

Xia Chuan remained silent, but the emotions leaking across his face clearly betrayed the complexity of his inner state.

"Isn't this a simple question?" Baili Mo chuckled softly, standing out starkly amidst the silence of the crowd.

He gently raised a hand and caught a snowflake falling from the snowy sky. It was exceptionally pristine and crystal-clear. Perhaps because his body lacked any warmth, the snowflake failed to melt in Baili Mo's palm.

For the first time since standing up, Baili Mo closed his eyes. The frost within his lashes was squeezed out by his eyelids like a foreign object. He seemed to reminisce and reflect upon something. When he opened his eyes once more, his pale pupils were dotted with lingering ice shards of various sizes, yet he paid them no mind whatsoever.

He continued to gaze at the snowflake in his hand, evoking a sensation beyond mere beauty.

White.

The white that had lost every other color.

"Xia Chuan, do you know why snow is white?" Baili Mo asked softly.

"It is because, the moment it falls, it forgets what color it was originally meant to be. The moment it descends, it loses the colors it once held." He seemed to be speaking entirely to himself.