TBWE Chapter 37

“We Are the Same Kind…”

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Crimson patterns flowed across the altar. The reverse ritual formation was only one stroke away from completion.

“Boom——!“

The sounds of collapse and shattering were deafening. Grotesque writhing shadows devoured most of the sky, and waves of destruction swept past Chu Li.

Massive tentacles condensed from pitch-black shadows, like shark schools that had caught the scent of blood, surged violently toward the mountain gate.

The air along their path was torn apart, emitting piercing shrieks.

Chu Li’s pupils contracted sharply.

Little Aunt and hundreds of branch family members hadn’t evacuated from the mountain yet!

She forcibly stopped rewriting the formation. Her hands rapidly interlaced and transformed before her body, and the Nuo power within her, along with the borrowed divine power, poured out through her fingertips.

“Hum!”

Countless crimson threads instantly burst forth from beneath Chu Li’s feet, from the blood on the altar, even from the air itself, condensing into a transparent red wall.

This wall stood between the dark torrent and the mountain gate.

“Boom!!!“

The dark flood crashed violently against the red wall.

Red threads continuously shattered, the wall surface was struck with huge dents, and fine cracks spread. The shockwave exploded in rings, completely leveling buildings along its path, with smoke and debris shooting skyward.

Chu Li’s body shook violently. She knelt on one knee on the altar ground, her ritual mask cracking and falling to the ground as a fishy-sweet liquid surged to her throat.

“Pff!” Fresh blood stained the formation that was only one stroke away from completion.

Her gaze was almost obsessive as she desperately maintained the crumbling red wall.

At the mountain gate, the fleeing crowd was terrified out of their wits, screams and wails echoing everywhere. Chu Ruoying was thrown by the shockwave, heavily hitting the ground. Looking up to see the nearly collapsing red wall, her eyes filled with rage. “Xiao Li——!!”

Just as the red wall was about to completely collapse——

All the tentacles striking the red wall suddenly froze without warning and quickly withdrew backward.

Like a receding tide.

They suddenly turned, their target unmistakably clear, crushing toward the altar.

Chu Li clearly felt a gaze filled with bone-deep fury locked onto her.

Too fast!

Sticky, cold shadows instantly enveloped the altar. The surrounding space was confined and compressed, and she was gripped by an invisible force, unable to move.

A figure condensed at the edge of the altar.

It was Xi Chu.

Only half of his face still maintained handsome contours; the rest was composed of thick black mist.

His form existed between human shape and something indescribable, carrying terrifying pressure.

A hand condensed from black mist suddenly gripped Chu Li’s neck, lifting her from the ground.

Her feet barely touched the ground, her pale face flushed from suffocation.

“The fourth time.” Xi Chu’s voice was like countless overlapping ravings, pouring directly into her mind, shaking her very soul. “Chu Li, the fourth time!”

The hand gripping her throat tightened forcefully.

“Haven’t I been good enough to you?” His tone was confused yet violent. “I tolerated your deception, tolerated your betrayal! I granted you power, fulfilled your prayers! I even… took away those things that frightened you!”

An extremely oppressive gaze stared at Chu Li, as if wanting to tear through her skin to see what exactly was contained in the heart beneath her chest.

“Why? Why betray me again?!” The questioning was like thunder on flat ground, carrying the fury of being completely fooled. “Where are your ‘forever’ promises, your vows? What am I in your eyes? A fool you can use at will and discard when done?!”

The suffocation grew stronger, Chu Li’s vision darkened, and her consciousness gradually blurred.

“Ugh… cough, cough…” Survival instinct drove her to grip that wrist, trying to pry it open.

The hand choking her neck paused, then suddenly flung her away. “Speak!”

The altar had long been occupied by sticky shadows; falling onto it was like falling onto a pool of flowing soft matter.

Chu Li covered her throat, coughing violently, physiological tears constantly overflowing.

She struggled to raise her head, looking toward that mass of furious and confused black mist.

The anger, fear, grievance, and unwillingness that had been suppressed for so long completely exploded in this moment.

“Good?” She roared with a hoarse voice. “What is your so-called ‘good’!”

“Because you’re a deity! You show mercy to a human, and she must be grateful, kneeling to accept it!” Chu Li suddenly stood up, pointing toward the divine mountain, the source of all suffering. “I’d rather have died in that high fever when I was four than have my mother return to this cursed place to save me! And I certainly don’t want all the subsequent rotten, broken things!”

“Your affection is a curse to me and my family!”

“Why should I give up everything just because you’re ‘good to me,’ to be locked by your side forever like a dog?”

“I am human!” She screamed with all her strength. “A living, breathing human! Not a vessel in the Chu family’s eyes! And certainly not a bird you keep caged!!”

The roar echoed in the dead square, passing through the whimpering wind, clearly carrying toward the mountain gate.

Behind the red wall, Chu Ruoying covered her mouth, tears falling continuously.

The surging black mist froze for a moment in the screaming voice. Xi Chu stared at those tear-filled eyes.

There was no fear inside, no pleading, only the determination of mutual destruction.

He suddenly realized his own absurdity and foolishness.

“Heh…” An extremely light, cold laugh escaped from Xi Chu’s throat. “Since you so despise this ‘mercy,’ so hate my existence…”

He casually raised his hand toward Chu Li’s direction and pressed down through the air.

Simultaneously, the black mist suddenly boiled, condensing into grotesque tentacles that struck the tottering red wall from all directions.

“Boom!!“

With Chu Li as the center, the altar beneath her feet collapsed thunderously, and the sacrificial square split open with huge cracks.

The slender figure in sacrificial robes disappeared, reappearing standing before the red wall.

Shadows flowed beneath her feet, condensing into similar tentacles that met the violently sweeping shadows.

Powers of the same origin collided, wild winds stirring.

Chu Li’s hands flew in forming seals, red threads surged from behind her like chains dancing through the sky, fiercely strangling toward the tentacles and the direction where the deity’s main body was located.

Red and black collided violently in mid-air.

****

The square completely transformed into a battlefield of carnage.

The ground collapsed with crisscrossing cracks. Distant mountain bodies shed large chunks and collapsed, smoke and dust covering the sky.

The branch family members trapped at the mountain gate, unable to escape, collapsed to the ground, watching the apocalyptic scene——

Red threads and tentacles frantically entangled and tore at each other, the waves they raised stirred the sky, pitch-black heavy clouds churned and transformed, lightning and thunder never ceasing.

With each collision, Chu Li’s complexion grew paler.

Xi Chu watched that figure coughing blood again and again, yet forcing herself to use Nuo arts repeatedly. She was impossibly stubborn.

An unprecedented strange palpitation suddenly arose.

A human.

A weak human possessed the courage and power to face a deity directly and fight against it. She spared no cost, only to complete that damned formation that would send Him away!

Xi Chu didn’t have something called a “heart.”

But at this moment, He seemed to have grown a heart, and it was beating violently.

He was momentarily absent-minded.

“Bind!” A hoarse voice cut through the mountain wind.

Chu Li closed her five fingers, and all remaining red threads wrapped around the deity’s main body layer by layer.

They were condensed from ancient Nuo script, now bursting with blinding blood light.

Simultaneously, she leaped up, crashing hard into Xi Chu who was temporarily bound by the red chains.

“Bang——!“

They crashed together into the center of the collapsed altar.

Chu Li pressed down on Xi Chu, using her last strength to pin Him onto the remaining formation.

The crimson formation patterns glowed faintly due to their fall.

Only the last stroke remained.

“Cough, cough cough…” Chu Li coughed up another mouthful of blood, the warm liquid splashing onto Xi Chu’s half-human face.

Bright red blood flowed, staining the cold white skin.

She struggled to hold on, her trembling finger rising toward the final stroke’s landing point.

He gazed at the human before him. The solemn and magnificent sacrificial robes were already soaked with blood, skin pale to near transparency, dark red blood vessels protruding and writhing—this was the backlash of overusing Nuo arts.

A body fragile as glassware.

Just a little collision would make it shatter completely.

He could easily imagine the pain layered beneath this appearance, already beyond what humans could endure.

Yet Xi Chu saw no other emotions in Chu Li’s eyes.

Only resolve, the madness of putting everything on one final bet.

He just quietly watched, watched Chu Li make the final stroke.

The writhing tentacles quieted, allowing the red threads to bind them.

Mountain winds wailed and echoed in the collapsed heaven and earth.

The final stroke completed, the ancient formation froze for an instant, then began to flow slowly.

The pitch-black sky seemed torn by invisible hands, gradually forming a whirlpool.

Xi Chu lay on his back on the broken altar, his face stained with her blood. The surging black mist calmed down, reconstructing that familiar human shell, though his eyes remained bottomlessly deep with intense inhuman feeling.

“In three days the backlash will come,” His voice was unusually calm. “Without me, you will die.”

Chu Li pressed down on him, her voice carrying the weariness of dust settling. “I know.”

The moment she chose to return here, she had prepared to die.

Using her life to sever the chains of fate that had bound the Chu clan for thousands of years, exchanging her remaining relatives’ and innocent clansmen’s freedom.

It was worth it.

Xi Chu laughed briefly, his voice emotionless.

“Very good… you’d rather face death than face me.” His tone rose slightly. “What am I in your eyes? A monster?”

Chu Li’s body stiffened for a moment. Beneath her was a cold body—even last night, she had shared the most intimate contact with this body.

Mountain winds carried away the bloody smell. She remained silent, not answering.

Xi Chu spoke again, his voice lighter but sharper. “Then what about you? What are you now?”

“Human?”

Chu Li was momentarily dazed. She inevitably remembered Chu Queling’s terrified eyes when she pushed her away, the backs of branch family members prostrating on the ground, Chu Ruoying’s momentary daze when she saw her… scene after scene flashed through her mind.

Cold blood stuck to her hands, no longer showing the original skin color. Her hands had just killed hundreds of her own clan, wielding inhuman power to fight against a deity. Divine blood flowed in her body, inheriting the memories and power of generations of great shamans.

In their eyes, what difference was there between her and Xi Chu?

She too was a monster.

A cold hand caressed Chu Li’s blood-stained cheek, the movement carrying a trace of eerie tenderness, stroking over her brows and eyes, wiping away the moisture at the corners of her eyes.

The fingers slid downward, through the sacrificial robes, stopping half an inch below her heart.

There was a dark red mark. It was constantly sending sharp pain, reminding Chu Li of the backlash countdown.

His fingertip lightly touched the mark.

A cool, gentle power was injected.

Miraculously, that bone-deep piercing pain disappeared.

Chu Li was completely stunned. The backlash… had been personally lifted by Him.

At the same time, the ancient formation was completely awakened. Intricate Nuo script came alive like blood serpents, following the altar’s cracks, frantically entangling the deity’s main body.

The sky was stirred into madness, spinning into a pitch-black whirlpool that devoured all light. All light could not escape, being sucked into the vortex, and the world fell into absolute darkness.

The only light source remaining was the Nuo script wrapped around Xi Chu. His body became blurred in the red glow.

As his main body was about to become ethereal, Xi Chu looked up at Chu Li pressing down on him.

His voice was as light as a whisper, yet like the bewitchment of an ancient god from beyond deep space:

“Admit it, Li Li.”

“Right now…”

“I am the one who is truly your kind.”

Absolute darkness devoured the last ray of light.

Dead silence.

Suffocating dead silence enveloped everything, as if time itself had frozen in this darkness.

The next moment, from the center of the altar came a spine-chilling sound.

It was a tooth-aching sound of chewing and swallowing, continuing in the absolute darkness.

At first hesitant, gradually becoming faster and faster.

One bite, one bite… another bite.

Until complete consumption.

Both death and symbiosis.

~End of main story~