Decaying World Chapter 268

Lin Hui was mildly surprised, but after a mont's thought, he understood.

If killing a Mistborn allowed one to acquire an Evil Weapon or Insect Canon, they would have consolidated into a single dominant superpower long ago—not scattered as they were now, each commanding wholly disparate, unrelated races. Any faction that moved first would have marshalled its strength to plunder Evil Weapons and Insect Canons from rivals, devouring the true Evil Mist of enemy Mistborn. But now, the Evil Weapon had vanished alongside the true Evil Mist.

In essence, the entity Lin Hui had killed was the human nad Tuyue—not the Mistborn that had fused with the Longevity Wheel. The Star Breath Sword Canon apparently possessed the singular ability to sever a Mistborn from their true Evil Mist. That, above all, was what surprised him. He had originally planned to heavily injure Tuyue before forcibly sealing her with the Nine Eyes. Instead, he had achieved his objective by a far more efficient route.

"There's still one more."

Lin Hui glanced in the direction Xie Jun had fled and blurred into motion, giving chase. With his current constitution and speed—augnted by his ability to manipulate the surrounding air to minimize drag—he was far faster than before. Skimming low over the Jade Sea, he beca a dark streak, pursuing Xie Jun for roughly ten minutes. Still no sign of his quarry; Xie Jun clearly hadn't fled in a straight line.

Seeing the Crystal Sea drawing near, Lin Hui had no choice but to turn back toward Black Cloud.

What a pity Tuyue didn’t yield even a single pulsation of destruction… Unless I completely destroy the Longevity Wheel, it seems I’ve only killed an ordinary human. No pulsation of destruction—that much makes sense.

He returned quickly to the Third Mountain. On the way back, he opportunistically ambushed and killed a few Divine Descendants, filling the last quota required for the Sacred Form of Destruction. He had to admit: the Mist Gods truly did not discriminate. Beyond the expected bulls, horses, goats, dragons, and tigers, the Divine Descendants bore the physical traits of pigs, snails, mice, and even crustacean-like insects.

By the ti he reached the peak of the Third Mountain, only twenty minutes had passed. Li Hanzhang and Hong Lingxiao stared at him in horror, as though they had seen a ghost.

"You're unhard?!" Li Hanzhang had personally witnessed Lin Hui being ambushed and seized. He hadn't expected the man to co flying back as though nothing had happened.

"What could be wrong?" Lin Hui said, adopting a suitably rattled expression. "Two old enemies used a Relic to catch off guard. But once we were isolated, they realized they'd vastly underestimated my recent cultivation breakthrough. I killed them in a few moves and ca straight back. It was a false alarm."

"I'm glad you're safe," Hong Lingxiao said. She wasn't one to pry; one look told her this was a subject Lin Hui preferred to leave alone, so she moved on quickly. "The third phase will begin any mont now. Are you... going to be all right?"

"I'm fine. A short rest will do." Lin Hui nodded, releasing a slow, weary breath.

"The third phase mostly involves joining forces to resist the Mist God's divine artifact grand array. Stay toward the back when it starts," Hong Lingxiao instructed.

"Thank you for looking out for ," Lin Hui said with genuine gratitude.

After the three of them rested a little longer, a blinding pinpoint of golden light ignited in the distant sky.

"It's here!" Hong Lingxiao said, her voice dropping to a grave register. "We must pool our strength and channel everything into the mountain array, or we won't hold it!"

"Understood!" Lin Hui and Li Hanzhang nodded grimly.

They barely had ti to brace themselves. The golden light exploded outward, rapidly expanding and coalescing into a colossal golden spear, its surface carved with countless reliefs of ocean monsters.

Whoosh!

The spear spanned the heavens, shooting straight toward Black Cloud City. Its radiance bathed the entire world in blinding gold. Below, every monster and Black Army soldier caught in its path—regardless of their level—was instantly petrified into a rigid golden sculpture by its glare.

Hong Lingxiao, Li Hanzhang, and the Blood Ancestors stationed at the other peaks all thrust their hands toward the suspended mountains, injecting their power into the arrays. Lin Hui raised his hands as well, pantomiming the release of his power. The Disaster Energy within his body was far too volatile; he didn't dare mix it into the grand array. If it caused a disruption, the fallout would be catastrophic.

A second later, it struck.

The giant golden spear slamd down against the invisible hemispherical array protecting Black Cloud City. The array, which had adopted a web-like structure to disperse pressure, drew on the massive influx of power from the defenders and shimred with a pale gray light as it t the spear head-on.

A deafening rumble shook the sky, and the concussive blast left everyone's ears ringing. Fortunately, the grand array held firm, locking the golden spear in a grinding stalemate. The defenders suffered minor eardrum damage from the shockwaves, but they quickly pushed through the pain, continuing to channel their power into the shield.

As the hours dragged on, the power of the Mist God's divine artifact finally began to wane. It was here that the Mistborn faction's inexhaustible stamina beca apparent. From the Circulation Realm upward, the energy they could absorb was limitless. Internal Force and True Force were bottlenecked only by their output rate, and the only resource that truly drained was mind-spirit power. Even for the stronger Called experts, their Void Force reserves were practically boundless. Compared to the Mist Gods, who had to painstakingly accumulate their power, the Mistborn faction possessed vastly superior endurance.

As the golden spear finally began to dim, a deep horn call echoed across the distant sky.

With a sharp crack, the spear shattered, exploding into countless specks of golden light. Wherever they landed, massive detonations rippled across Black Cloud's grand array—a cascading series of shockwaves that took over ten minutes to finally dissipate.

In the distance, the countless Divine Descendants and Mist Gods began their retreat, leaving behind a staggering carpet of monster corpses blanketing Black Cloud's surrounding lands and sea. A bizarre, foul stench perated the air.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Three rays of white light pierced the distant clouds, streaking back toward the three suspended mountain peaks.

At the peak of the Third Mountain, Gongsun Xinlian sat cross-legged in the center of the circular array. She looked exhausted, and one of her arms was gone.

"The pantheon of gods has retreated," she announced. "Everyone, rest. The reserve Black Army will take over guard duty. We will maintain this formation for three days; if nothing changes, the alert will be lifted."

Her voice carried clearly across the Third Mountain and its surrounding jurisdictions. Soon, the Black Army reserves poured out from the Inner City walls like a tidal wave, relieving the exhausted guards. Engineering teams followed close behind, imdiately beginning ergency repairs on the walls and buildings.

Sighs of relief and bitter weeping echoed through the city—the joy of survivors contrasting sharply with the grief of those who had lost loved ones.

Lin Hui stood at the edge of the peak's array, scanning for Hong Lingxiao. Both she and Li Hanzhang had long since vanished. He was the only one still standing there.

"Thank you for holding off the Mist God's surprise attack," Gongsun Xinlian's voice suddenly sounded in his ears. "Otherwise, we would have had to sacrifice the reserve inner array just to barely repel the Vermilion Bird Fla God."

"It was my duty," Lin Hui replied respectfully.

"Rest assured, your rewards will be distributed in due ti. For now, check on your people at the Clear Wind Dao." Gongsun Xinlian gave him an appreciative look. She and the Eldest hadn't misjudged him; at a critical mont, Lin Hui alone had provided the combat power of a baseline Mistborn.

"Understood." Lin Hui nodded, bowed, and imdiately blurred down the mountain.

…

Several days later.

Black Cloud City was rebuilt at an astonishing pace. Zhang Yao of the Heart-Guarding Tower—a top-tier Blood Ancestor belonging to the Second City Lord's family—led his engineering teams to reconstruct the bulk of the damaged buildings in just three days. They used Void Force to lay foundations and compress bricks, True Force and Internal Force to haul heavy materials, the skeletons of Destructive-level beasts as rebar, and sea monster mucus mixed with bloody seawater and sand to produce concrete. The structural integrity of the resulting buildings was frankly absurd, and their coloring remained unchanged: pure white, off-white, and grayish-white.

Lin Hui finally understood why the architecture in both Black Cloud and Tuyue was predominantly white. The flesh, skin, and bones of Mist Zone monsters were almost exclusively white.

Once construction finished and industrial deodorizers were deployed, the city looked as though the battle had never happened. After confirming the Clear Wind Dao was undamaged, Lin Hui went to the Inner City to collect his wife, Liu Xiao, and the rest of the Lin Manor. Life returned to normal.

The tension of the naval battle had barely faded when the three City Lords began distributing massive rit-based rewards. A vast haul of resources harvested from the monsters and Divine Descendants was distributed down the ranks. Countless rchant caravans from the major urban districts sward the city, purchasing monster materials in bulk—these parts could be fashioned into equipnt, weapons, dicines, and clothing; almost every scrap was useful.

Lin Hui also received a large consignnt of precious dicines directly from Xie Chang'an.

Inside the Clear Wind Dao Academy, Lin Hui sat comfortably in a high-backed chair, sipping his newly issued Divine Blood Tea. Feeling the imnse energy surge through his body, he wore a look of quiet satisfaction.

Divine Blood Tea was a recently tested precious dicine, and it proved extraordinarily effective at reducing the Blood Seal's evolution ti—even more potent than the Purple Cloud Reishi. With the Reishi's effects gradually waning, the tea served as a perfect replacent, becoming a vital new resource for the Blood Seal. A single jin of Divine Blood Tea powder could be brewed ten to twelve tis; consuming an entire batch reduced the evolution tir by five years.

Incredibly potent. And priced accordingly.

It was a specialized dicine produced by the three City Lords using their Evil Energy, placing it firmly among top-tier resources. This particular batch of ten jin had been explicitly created and bestowed upon Lin Hui.

"City Lord Gongsun specifically recomnded this top-tier fertility dicine, given your... prolonged lack of an heir," Li Yuanyuan noted from beside him, perfectly matter-of-fact. "Under ordinary circumstances, very few people actually require Divine Blood Tea."

"In this world, favors are the hardest debts to repay," Lin Hui sighed, nodding. "I will rember the three City Lords' generosity."

"In addition to the Divine Blood Tea, there is a full set of top-tier equipnt forged from the corpses of the Mist Gods who fell during the battle—the Sea Abyss Armor," Li Yuanyuan continued. "This was also custom-made for you, since the other Blood Ancestors have little use for high-defense armor."

That made sense. The Blood Ancestors all relied on self-detonating in the later phases of a fight; armor would be a complete waste on them. Lin Hui understood perfectly.

"Furthermore, there are one hundred sets of top-tier weapons and armor, forged from high-grade leather and bone strong enough to withstand Internal Force at the Circulation Realm. One captured Treasure Relic. One hundred thousand drops of Feather Blood. And one million gold notes..."

The remaining items were bulk supplies, clearly intended for him to distribute among his subordinates. But at the ntion of a Treasure Relic, Lin Hui's eyes lit up. A Treasure Relic was a pinnacle-tier artifact capable of affecting even a Mistborn. He hadn't expected the three Great City Lords to be generous enough to part with one.