Mutated Tao

The scholar in white stood still in the pouring rain, standing out to everyone.

It was the previous dead Zhuge Yuan that Li Huowang had brought back to life using the spine sword.

Zhuge Yuan took one look around and knew what was happening. He held onto his brush and dipped it into the red ground. He held onto it tightly and swung the brush across the chicken-feet men.

His brush was like his original Kuixing Brush. The chicken-feet men all slumped to the ground when he pointed his brush at them. The censer was also extinguished without any hope of it lighting up again.

Zhuge Yuan turned and looked at Li Huowang. “Junior Li, we haven’t seen each other in a while. How is everything?”

Li Huowang endured the head-splitting pain and wanted to smile, but the pain forced him to kneel down again.

He had to be clear that even though the man in front of him looked similar to Zhuge Yuan, he was not the real one. Li Huowang had materialized him using his cultivation of ‘Truth.’

Now that his cultivation had reached a great height, he could conjure Zhuge Yuan using the spine sword, but it was ultimately not the real deal. He was well aware that the original Zhuge Yuan was already dead.

He conjured Zhuge Yuan as a tool to help him fight, just like Peng Longteng! He could not attach any emotions to the Zhuge Yuan in front of him.

He wanted to differentiate what was real from what was not, but as he tried to do so, Zhuge Yuan’s body started to crumble rapidly. He was on the brink of turning back into the spine sword.

The existence of anything conjured using his cultivation depended on his thoughts. He couldn’t differentiate them clearly if he wished to use his powers. If he convinced himself that the Zhuge Yuan in front of him was fake, Li Huowang wouldn’t be able to sustain Zhuge Yuan’s existence.

Zhuge Yuan sensed what was wrong. “Junior Li, regardless of whether I’m fake, I will cease to exist the moment you think I’m fake.”

Li Huowang howled and looked at Zhuge Yuan with tearful eyes.

Zhuge Yuan’s crumbling body stopped and rematerialized.

Staring at the familiar face, Li Huowang extended his fingers and pointed at the enemies around them.

“Kill… Kill them all!”

Zhuge Yuan nodded and waved his brush in the air.

The chicken-feet men started dropping like flies. They sensed that something was seriously wrong.

This time, every single one of them focused on the groveling Li Huowang rather than the formidable Zhuge Yuan.

They had seen how Li Huowang conjured Zhuge Yuan and guessed what would happen if Li Huowang died first. But they couldn’t get close to Li Huowang with Zhuge Yuan blocking all of them.

The battle was over the moment Zhuge Yuan appeared.

The chicken-feet men struggled and used various methods, but Zhuge Yuan stopped all of them. The difference in strength was clear.

The chicken-feet men were like children compared to Zhuge Yuan. A single stroke of his brush killed many of them. Their incense censers were also extinguished and the white smoke no longer drifted into the bamboo hat.

In the end, Zhuge Yuan stood alone on the bloody altar, gripping his sword. The only sound that remained was that of the falling rain.

“Junior Li, let me go. I’m the fake Zhuge Yuan. The real one is already dead.”

Li Huowang held onto his head as he slumped onto the ground. He panted as the rain continued to fall on him.

Maintaining Zhuge Yuan’s materialization for even a single moment hurt him a lot. He felt that his head was going to burst.

Without Li Huowang’s power, Zhuge Yuan’s body swiftly crumbled away. Before he was gone, he asked one last question. “Junior Li, could I ask you one thing? Is the Qi Kingdom safe?”

Li Huowang nodded slightly and Zhuge Yuan turned back into the spine sword happily. It fell and embedded itself into the ground.

“Father,” Li Sui crawled towards Li Huowang and helped him up. “Father, don’t worry. Your head is still here.”

Li Huowang ignored her and stood up to see the aftermath of their battle.

The corpses of the chicken-feet men were littered around the altar. Almost all of them were dead, while the remaining ones were being hunted down by Zhao Jiabao and the rest.

The rain mixed with the blood in the wooden city. The grand city in the middle of the mountain was completely soaked in blood.

In the middle of the blood-soaked city was the massive statue covered in ribbons, depicting the deity with four legs.

It looked more scary with the blood on it, but at least it wasn’t moving anymore. Li Huowang sighed in relief.

But he did not let his guard down. He turned and commanded Zhao Jiabao, “Bring your people and spread out. Kill everyone in this city and leave no one alive!”

He mustn’t let his guard down at the moment of their victory. He dared not risk it since it was directly related to the demise of the Dharma Sect.

He tried to stand up on his own, but the blossoming pain in his head prevented him from doing so.

Zhuge Yuan was a Twisted One, so he needed more strength to conjure him. He was barely able to do so, even by using the spine sword as a medium.

“Xuan Pin! Xuan Pin, get over here!” Li Huowang shouted loudly. He was angry, yet Xuan Pin’s illusion surprisingly didn’t appear this time.

“Xuan Pin! Get out of here!” Li Huowang shouted in the rain but nothing happened.

“You think you can hide? Just you wait till I get back!” Li Huowang cursed.

He felt the pain in his head subsiding a bit before he stood up. He looked towards the left and saw some of the blood flowing out from the window of the buildings.

It seemed that there were other people in the city besides the chicken-feet man. He wasn’t sure what the city was being used for.

Still, everything was now over.

He looked up at the massive statue and saw that it remained motionless.

“The Dharma Sect has failed this time, right?”

He brought out the Shimmer Mirror to check how the frontlines were doing when he saw something that made his blood run cold.

The massive red dot representing the allied soldiers had a bite mark on it. It was as if something massive had eaten the soldiers!