Chapter 936 w.a.n.g s.h.i.+yu
Bi Yan stared at w.a.n.g Yanyi and beheld the lone “man” standing at the entrance of the palatial building armed only with a rusted sword. She did not feel fine at all. A strange sensation swept through her, a strange tremor that rocked her balance and made her pause. She stopped there for seconds before she finally decided to turn back around. “You’ll die, you know?” she said to w.a.n.g Yanyi.
w.a.n.g Yanyi smirked at “him” with undisguised derision.
“Die and everything will be for naught,” said Bi Yan again.
But that did little to wipe the smirk off w.a.n.g Yanyi’s face. If anything, it made “him” prouder.
Bi Yan opened her mouth to say something else, only for w.a.n.g Yanyi to cut her off. “Funny that you dying means losing everything.”
“Then why persist in a futile attempt?” Bi Yan said, “You can be as gifted as you want, but there’s no way you’ll be able to resist the might of the inc.u.mbent Imperial Lord. All creatures are nothing but mere ants in his eyes. Nothing you do will change that fact and if you die, no matter Li Mu survives or not, you’ll lose him forever.”
“How could I lose him if he’s never been mine in the first place?” w.a.n.g Yanyi smiled thinly.
Bi Yan, aghast with disbelief, “Then why—”
“Could I not fight for him even if he’s never been mine before? In fact, this might be the way for him to forever remember me.”
“H-How…”
Bi Yan nearly blurted out “How cheap you’ve made yourself”, but before the first syllable could slip out of her lips, the sight of the serene yet determined look on “his” face convinced her that no amount of words would dissuade w.a.n.g Yanyi.
“So be it then. But there’s something about Li Mu that you should know before you die,” Bi Yan said, striding towards her.
To her surprise, w.a.n.g Yanyi thrust the rusted sword in her direction. “Thank you, but no thank you. I have no interest in hearing what you have to say.”
Bi Yan’s footfalls halted.
“You think you can get near me and ambush me so that you can take me with you? Just because you’re unable to do something, you hope that I’ll fail too?” w.a.n.g Yanyi glared at Bi Yan with disdain. “You just don’t understand him, do you? You—are—not—worthy—of—him. You understand?”
She just stood there, staring at w.a.n.g Yanyi without saying a word.
She just stood there, staring at w.a.n.g Yanyi without saying a word.
At length, she finally sighed and turned around, leaving without ever looking back anymore.
This time she left, without scruples and without diffidence.
w.a.n.g Yanyi’s gaze followed her until she was completely gone, “his” gaze becoming frostier and more piercing at the end.
“He” returned “his” stare back to the Imperial Lord, the rusted sword trembling in “his” grasp as the copper-brown patches of rust gave off a scarlet sheen that looked all too eager to extricate itself from the blade of the decrepit weapon. The luminescent swath of crimson on the steel swirled and roiled like beasts waiting to be released from their hold
“Valiant, I’ll give you that.”
The Imperial Lord remarked as he regarded w.a.n.g Yanyi, the sight of a lone warrior on the last stand despite the impossible odds evoking a memory from a distant past, although he quickly tucked it somewhere deep in the bowels of his mind.
It was just with a notion and the s.p.a.ce right in front of w.a.n.g Yanyi distorted, spiraling into a black hole that belched deadly forces straight into “his” face.
w.a.n.g Yanyi snorted and charged with “his” sword held ahead like the tip of a spear.
Swis.h.!.+
Like a knife slicing through paper, w.a.n.g Yanyi’s rusted sword cleaved through the black hole, ripping it into halves that just breezed by his flanks harmlessly.
There was not an inkling of doubt in “him”. Ardent, resolute, and devoted; “he” morphed into a bolt of light, lancing straight at Imperial Lord Void.
The best defense is the offense.
And that her sword could plow through his magic caught the Imperial Lord by surprise, even if it was just a momentary reaction.
Despite its outwardly deteriorated appearance, the sword was clearly more than meets the eye.
The distortion in the air—his personal black hole that obscures his appearance—protruded an appendage, viciously slas.h.i.+ng at the incoming bolt of light.
The bolt of light crumbled and disintegrated like shattered gla.s.s.
w.a.n.g Yanyi fell backward, cras.h.i.+ng heavily into the granite pillar of the palatial building. The air cracked with the sickening sounds of “his” bones snapping, signaling damage so serious that “he” could not even get up. The beaten and mangled body leaned with “his” back on the smooth surface of the rock-hewn column, the jet-black fabric of “his” robes now dyed red by “his” blood.
The bleeding could not stop; two morbid streams of red streaked across the white marble flagstones like serpents.
Hum!
The rusted sword remaining hanging in mid-air emitted a high-frequency vibration.
The Imperial Lord did not show any impatience. He did not rush inside the palatial building nor did he decide to fully finish off w.a.n.g Yanyi. Instead, he stared at the rusted sword as if he had developed a strange curiosity about it.
w.a.n.g Yanyi strenuously lifted an arm. It weighed like lead. “He” muttered a spell and bright layers of white glow peeled off “his” torso and flew to the rusted sword and melted into it.
The slicks of red on the ground, as if they had become weightless, rose from the ground in formless globs of red and wrapped around the rusted blade like a round crimson coc.o.o.n before the steel fully a.s.similated every drop like a thirsty camel. Slowly, the caramel-brown patches of rust on the blade began to fall off and swirled in the air as dried leaves in an autumn breeze. The red swath of energy that saturated the entire length of the blade now turned to silvery-white.
Swoos.h.!.+
The sword broke through the barrier of sound with a burst of speed and shot at the Imperial Lord, lancing straight at his head.
But all the latter needed to do was just raised a hand and he caught the tip of the sword with his fingers.
The air rippled with shock waves emitting the moment his fingers clasped on the weapon, rendering it immobile.
The sword shuddered. It could go no further. With a violent wiggle, it broke free from Imperial Lord Void’s grasp and flew back to resume its position over w.a.n.g Yanyi’s head.
Something was wrong with w.a.n.g Yanyi’s face. It looked like it was breaking down.
Holding on to the stone column for balance, “he” struggled to get on his feet. Every staggering step he took left behind a bloodied footprint as he limped towards the entrance with every unbelievable shred of resolve and conviction fueling him to stop Void’s advance.
“From whence did you find this sword, mortal?”
Void spoke at last.
The Imperial Lord must have realized something that made it impossible for him to dismiss this mortal as just a “mere mortal”.
w.a.n.g Yanyi did not answer. “He” bit his tongue and spewed a dash of blood on the blade of the rusted sword. The waning crimson-white glow immediately blazed radiantly once more. w.a.n.g Yanyi took the sword by its hilt and aimed it at “his” foe.
Then “he” shuddered. Something from within him was being sapped and a.s.similated by the sword.
“You could inject the entirety of your spirit into the sword, and you would still fail to activate its power,” said the Imperial Lord. “Take your sword and go with peace. Consider this my last ounce of leniency for your insolence.”
w.a.n.g Yanyi peered at the invincible foe that “he” knew he could never conquer. “His” lips curled dryly.
“He” adjusted “his” grip on the sword and made sure that it was aimed at Void, clearly demonstrating “his” decision.
“Folly,” Void p.r.o.nounced loudly as he marched forward undeterred.
Despite whatever reservations he has for the sword, whatever veiled threat from the rusted weapon that intimidated him, he could never back down. He was a G.o.d and this mortal was just a speck of dust on his fingertips. The show of leniency was the last thing he could do without undermining his own authority and dignity. There can be no more.
A wave of destructive force rolled forth.
w.a.n.g Yanyi stole a glance back into the darkened bowels of the palatial building. The one “he” was waiting for remained nowhere in sight.
“It appears that I’ll have to be going first.”
“He” sighed. Then “he” looked at his foe, his eyes gleaming with renewed determination and tenacity.
“The reigning Imperial Lord, eh?
“I’ll just do what I can with what I have, I guess…”
“Three lives… Seven incarnations… With my three psyches and seven souls, I summon thee…o, Spirit of the Sword…”
Unnatural winds rose and billowed around them.
w.a.n.g Yanyi’s deep chant reverberated through the breeze that whisked it far and wide. Her lilting voice wafted across the whole desolate sprawl; the somber song of a fairy singing an elegy…
“My blood, I offer thee, as sustenance to the sword… My psyche, I offer thee, as the spirit of the sword… My soul, I offer thee as well, as the vigor of the sword…”
A vast and yet archaic power came as if from the breeze itself.
Winds circled around the blade of the sword.
The trembling and humming were gone.
w.a.n.g Yanyi’s person quivered like “he” was about to fall. Ten images of “him”—or rather, her—dislodged from her very self and leaped forward, each and every one of the images beginning to melt into the sword.
The rust patches on the blade exfoliated off in copper flakes at a visible speed.
“Spirit of the Sword, Will of my Teacher; From the High Heavens, Till the Depths of the Underworld Below; May you be forever steadfast, and let all foe tremble!”
At the utterance of the final five words, a final image extricated itself from w.a.n.g Yanyi’s torso and melded into the sword.
A voluminous glow erupted, swallowing the sword into its blinding effulgence before it fired like a cannonball.
Swoos.h.!.+
Realizing the danger, Imperial Lord Void’s hand raised up swiftly to cast a spell. But before he could finish, the rusted sword rammed through him, punching a hole straight through him and shattering him into countless shards and splinters that faded into the wind as dust.
“D-Did I—D-Did I succeed!?”
w.a.n.g Yanyi slid to the ground, “his” hair frayed and disheveled in the breeze.
“His” consciousness was ebbing.
“Did I succeed? Have I managed to defeat the Imperial Lord?
“Is the entrance safe?”
A satisfied smile cracked on “his” face.
Time slowed to a crawl. As “he” saw himself lurching backward, he could see the stone columns of the palatial building pa.s.sing through his view, then he saw the white plume-scattered blue sky overhead…
“He” had no control.
“His” weight just kept falling.
And just when “he” thought “he” was about to hit the ground, a strong arm and shoulder held “him” and drew “him” tightly into a chest.
“He” saw it. That ever-so-familiar face.
The thick eyebrows and that handsome and glowing face.
Li Mu’s face.
The face “he” thought and yearned for every day and night.
“He” found shock and disbelief on his face and in his eyes: agony, regret, and misery that melted “his” heart.
“He cares for me…”
… …
Li Mu could hardly believe his eyes.
The moment he stepped out of the mausoleum, he heard the chanting of the song in the wind. The lilting and rhythmic voice singing; a nightingale in a mournful lament of a heartbreaking loss. Then he saw it: w.a.n.g Yanyi casting his spell and activating it with his sword which he used to defeat the stranger in white. Then he saw w.a.n.g Yanyi falling and his hair undulating wildly in the breeze…
He bolted forward to catch him and that was when he witnessed w.a.n.g Yanyi’s appearance transforming.
The young man with a piercing stare was gone, replaced by the pretty and gorgeous face of a girl—the same person who had graced his memories and dreams more times than he could count.
w.a.n.g s.h.i.+yu’s face.
A face that Li Mu himself had almost forgotten but seeing it again had stamped every detail—every dimple and every curvature—of the face in his mind. A brand that would forever be there.
Li Mu did not know what to think. His mind, as if being dis...o...b..bulated by an explosion, was blank.
He nearly thought he was hallucinating.
“w.a.n.g Yanyi is w.a.n.g s.h.i.+yu?!
“Are they really one and the same?!”
But Li Mu had been certain; he had paid close attention to note that w.a.n.g Yanyi had Adam’s apple, mustache, and the size and girth of a man! But how?! How did she manage to turn back now?!
“So w.a.n.g Yanyi really is w.a.n.g s.h.i.+yu?!
“w.a.n.g Yanyi.
“w.a.n.g s.h.i.+yu.
His mind repeated the names in his mind. Then he saw it.
The surnames were the same.
The Chinese characters of “Yanyi” were derivations from the Chinese characters of “s.h.i.+yu”. The etymology of the name itself had come from her original name. w.a.n.g s.h.i.+yu had been trying to tell him who she was right from the start!