Chapter 503 - 252: Rebirth

Chapter 503: Chapter 252: Rebirth

In the night sky.

The moon had completely vanished.

An enchanting purple light filled the night sky like a cascading canopy, resembling a brilliant violet aurora from a distance.

"What is that?!"

Xi’er and Situ Yong felt nauseous and wanted to vomit, unsure if it was airsickness or the strange odor permeating the air.

"It’s Filthy Qi!"

Zheng Xiu was horrified. The Filthy Qi was so dense it had become visible to the naked eye.

Had the Darkness been opened?

Was Zhu performing the "Ceremony" here?

Zheng Xiu’s thoughts raced, but a moment later, he dismissed the idea.

No!

’This is different from the previous Ceremonies.’

Baili Village, Richan Valley, the Cannibal Painting... two hundred years had passed, but Zheng Xiu had, in a way, "personally" experienced three "Human Pillar Ceremonies" and was quite experienced.

With just one glance, Zheng Xiu vaguely sensed that what Zhu was planning here was not like those three events. This wasn’t about creating a Ghostly Realm, fulfilling the ritual conditions for a "sacrifice" and a "Human Pillar," sending the "Human Pillar" into the Darkness, and completing the "suppression."

"Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow. Waaah-meow."

The Orange Cat, perched atop Zheng Xiu’s head, lazily stretched out a paw and pointed into the distance. The grumpy cat was unusually talkative today, meowing nonstop. "A ’little guy’ wants to sneak ’in’ and play, meow."

The Orange Cat curled its other claws, leaving two fingers pointing down to make a "walking" gesture. It moved its paw from left to right in front of Zheng Xiu’s eyes, then reversed the motion, going from right to left. Having given a vivid, meow-tastic demonstration, the Orange Cat flopped lazily back onto the boy’s head. "The direction is different, you know, meow."

After meowing two long sentences in one breath, the Orange Cat let out a low, whining complaint and covered its nose. "It stinks to death, meow."

Different direction?

The Orange Cat’s second sentence immediately captured all of Zheng Xiu’s attention.

That’s right, a different direction!

With a forceful flap of his wings against his butt, Zheng Xiu had an epiphany.

Xi’er: "Eeep~"

A different direction!

Zheng Xiu understood.

What Zhu was doing was the exact opposite of what he himself had done two hundred years ago.

Zhu wasn’t trying to send a "Human Pillar" into the Darkness, but to bring something... out of it!

The "Nascent Soul" the Orange Cat had just mentioned!

In the blink of an eye, another scene appeared in Zheng Xiu’s mind.

In the Ghostly Realm of the Immortal Maiden Temple, behind the about-to-open mirror surface of Darkness, there had been a terrifyingly large mantis arm. If Feng Bei hadn’t intervened at the last moment, Zheng Xiu couldn’t imagine what kind of disaster the monster that would have emerged from the Darkness would have brought upon the Common World.

At this thought, Zheng Xiu picked up his pace.

Looking down from above, he saw the hopping and skipping "Little Nascent Souls" on the streets below were actually moving faster than he was flying.

Giggling, they swarmed from the alleys to the inn, surging toward Mo Kuang.

Fragrant Maiden was spreading her arms toward Mo Kuang, welcoming the "Nascent Soul" that was about to be born.

Zheng Xiu used an [inspiration].

Several "shadows" of varying intensity became clearly discernible within the inspiration.

The Mystic Bai Qiuyue, her Incarnation Fragrant Maiden, the "Nascent Soul" Mo Kuang, and the Snake hiding in the shadows.

Zheng Xiu felt a pang of regret. If his teammates weren’t nearby, he would have unhesitatingly tried to merge with the "Dan Demon" in mid-air, ending it all with a single blast.

"Go! Get Mo Kuang out of there first!"

After saying this, Zheng Xiu dropped Xi’er and Situ Yong.

As they fell, the blush on Xi’er’s face hadn’t faded, but she instantly switched into work mode. Silk threads intertwined between her ten fingers and shot out in all directions.

The threads, nearly invisible to the naked eye, formed an inescapable net in the air, catching Xi’er and old Situ Yong’s aging bones and leaving them suspended in mid-air.

The ninety-nine infants converged on Mo Kuang at a terrifying speed. In the brief moment it took for Zheng Xiu to drop his companions, in the blink of an eye, the Little Nascent Souls bounced up to Mo Kuang and joined hands with him.

More and more Little Nascent Souls swarmed in. They linked hands as Mo Kuang giggled, happily spinning in circles with the infants who had run over to join him.

The circle spun faster and faster, while one hundred identical, childishly innocent voices echoed through the empty sky above Lu Town—a horrifying sound.

"Hee hee hee hee!"

"Hee hee hee!"

"Hee hee hee!"

Mo Kuang laughed joyfully amidst the crowd of infants.

Countless tiny black dots began to pour out from his two black eyeballs.

Mo Kuang’s belly grew larger and larger, swelling like a balloon. His distended stomach was stretched almost to the thinness of a membrane, and small hands pushed against it from the inside, as if responding to the infants outside.

Watching this scene, Xi’er couldn’t say she felt heartbroken, exactly. But seeing a former colleague reduced to this state, she felt a strange sorrow, like a fox mourning a rabbit’s death. In their line of work, dealing constantly with the bizarre, one never knew when they might suffer the same fate.

In the air.

After dropping Xi’er and Situ Yong, a thought crossed Zheng Xiu’s mind. The chains binding the "Painter’s Deceitful Object" in his Heart Prison loosened. His right hand twisted with a crisp crackle of shifting bones, bending into the shape of a fracture. In an instant, the bones at its tip transformed into a gruesome paintbrush.

Although using the [Evil Child] to perform a Miracle Technique of the [Painter]’s Path wasn’t the optimal solution, the [Time Demon Post Station] was outside Lu Town. Switching Incarnations would waste too much time, and Zheng Xiu couldn’t afford to be picky.

He bit his finger, splattering blood across the vast sky.

Meanwhile, in the Zheng Residence, Feng Bei, who was hesitantly performing her daily task of wiping down Zheng Xiu’s body, suddenly noticed his complexion change, turning deathly pale in an instant.

"Did something happen?"

Feng Bei froze for a moment, then reached out to stroke Zheng Xiu’s cheek, feeling his temperature. A deep, unconcealable worry filled her eyes.