621 Explosion is the Soul

[POV: TIan Mei]

An islet stood at the center of the lake.

It had taken Tian Mei considerable effort to reach this point. The lake itself had been difficult enough to navigate, but the formations concealed beneath its waters had made every step forward a painstaking process. Illusions overlapped with spatial distortions, while barriers redirected her senses and attempted to lead her in circles. Only through patience, her ocular techniques, and an intimate understanding of formations had she managed to find the true path.

Now, the islet was finally within reach.

Once she reached it, they could set the stage for her earnest counterattack.

Tian Mei moved slowly across the lake, carefully dismantling the remaining layers of the formation blocking her path. One node after another revealed itself beneath her perception, hidden between layers of spiritual energy. She reached toward another one when a familiar figure suddenly appeared beside her.

A projection of Da Wei floated above the water. “Okay, I got good news and bad news. What do you want to hear first?”

Tian Mei barely looked at him. “Bad news.”

“They got taken out.”

Tian Mei sighed.

A faint pang of remorse passed through her heart as she continued working on the formation. Their assault on Nongmin's base of operations had always been a suicide mission. She had known that from the beginning. So had everyone else involved.

But it had been their best chance.

They needed to force Nongmin to divide his attention. They needed to create an opening. Even if they could not defeat him directly, they had hoped their sacrifice would buy Tian Mei enough time to complete her preparations.

“The good news?” Tian Mei asked.

“Oh, there’s actually none. I was just being optimistic.”

Tian Mei paused.

Da Wei continued in an almost sarcastic tone. “Anyway, change of plans. You need to retreat, gather whatever resources we have left, and prepare for a final stand.”

Tian Mei slowly turned toward him. “Except you are not really Da Wei.”

The projection fell silent, then its appearance changed.

The image of Da Wei dissolved, revealing a man with long dark hair and blue and gold robes. His expression carried the same casual amusement Tian Mei had come to associate with someone who treated the entire conflict as little more than entertainment.

“So you figured it out,” said the Supreme Heart, smiling.

Tian Mei's eyes narrowed.

It seemed that he had managed to pin her down in the end. And if he was here, Nongmin probably would not be far behind.

Tian Mei immediately hastened her movements.

Spiritual energy surged from her body as her eyes scanned the lake. The illusion surrounding her rapidly collapsed under her perception, exposing the hidden structure of the formation. At the same time, she struck at another node, causing a section of the barrier blocking her path to tremble.

The Supreme Heart merely watched.

“What I do have for you is more bad news,” he remarked. “Anyway, I’m rooting for both teams, so I guess you should try your best to last as long as you can.”

Tian Mei ignored him.

Another node shattered

When the night sky changed, a low rumble rolled across the heavens.

Tian Mei looked upward.

Ships emerged from warp.

One after another, enormous vessels appeared above the lake, their silhouettes blotting out the stars. Their spiritual signatures descended alongside them, pressing down upon the lake like mountains.

Then she saw him.

Nongmin stood in the sky.

His blue eyes carried a sudden hint of gold as his spiritual pressure spread across the entire area. The lake trembled beneath that pressure, while the formations Tian Mei had been dismantling began to distort.

“You are starting to get predictable, Tian Mei,” Nongmin said. His voice carried effortlessly across the water. “If you thought using your allies as a distraction would work, then you failed miserably.”

Tian Mei smiled smugly. “I don’t know about that. I can sense that your pocket dimension has been sealed.”

“And you will soon suffer the same fate,” replied Nongmin, his expression becoming slightly colder. “In fact, it might even be worse for you, so don’t make this difficult.”

He raised one hand.

The formations surrounding Tian Mei immediately distorted.

Her expression changed.

The barriers she had spent so long dismantling twisted beneath Nongmin's influence. The pathways through the lake disappeared, while the formation itself began folding inward.

What had once been an obstacle became a prison.

Tian Mei moved, but the space around her locked into place.

Nongmin continued.

“Do you really think I didn't consider the possibility of you bringing Ding Cai back to life? During the earlier match, I went to great lengths to bury and seal her beneath the earth so thoroughly that not even the displacement caused by the arena's changing terrain would affect her. As a consequence, even I didn't know where she would be sealed after the arena changed.”

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Tian Mei's expression darkened.

“However,” Nongmin continued, “with your eyes, you led me directly to her grave. So I could put a definitive end to any chance of her resurrection.”

Above them, the ships moved. Their cannons illuminated. Tian Mei's pupils contracted. The amount of spiritual pressure gathering within those weapons was enough to make even the lake itself tremble.

“What are you thinking of doing?”

Nongmin looked down at her.

“No half-measures.”

The cannons fired.

Enormous beams of qi descended from the heavens. The night vanished beneath overwhelming light. Tian Mei immediately raised a qi barrier. Her spiritual energy erupted outward as she attempted to escape, but the formation around her had completely changed. Every direction she turned became blocked. Every path she attempted to open folded back upon itself.

The formation she had spent so much time breaking through had become her cage.

The first beam struck the islet.

The entire lake erupted.

Water rose into the sky in enormous pillars before being vaporized by the destructive qi. The islet disappeared beneath the bombardment as more beams descended, tearing through the formations and pulverizing everything caught within their path.

Tian Mei's barrier trembled, and then it cracked. She continued forcing her way forward. There was still a node.

One remaining connection. If she could reach it, she'd be able to appear more convincing, thus not cluing Nongmin of her real intentions. However, another beam descended.

The world exploded. Qi swallowed the lake. Formations shattered.

Tian Mei died.

Except, she didn't. It was, in fact, a projection.

The projection Tian Mei had created was engulfed by the destruction, its barrier collapsing as the overwhelming bombardment reduced everything within the area to nothing more than scattered spiritual particles.

Nongmin watched the destruction in silence, unaware he'd fallen under a trick. The lake continued to boil. The smoke slowly rose toward the heavens.

From somewhere far beyond the battlefield, Tian Mei's voice echoed through the night. A quiet declaration that carried far more confidence than someone supposedly cornered to death should have possessed.

“The rabbit finally sprang the trap... without realizing it had been caught.”

The real Tian Mei was nowhere near the lake.

She was hidden inside a mountain adjacent to it, sitting within a concealed chamber carved deep into the stone. Her eyes remained closed as spiritual energy flowed through her body, sustaining the soul projection she had sent across the battlefield.

The Tian Mei Nongmin had just annihilated had never been her.

It had been a projection formed from her soul. A decoy. A bait carefully prepared for a single purpose. To make Nongmin believe he had finally cornered her.

Tian Mei opened her eyes.

The mountain around her hummed.

This had never been a spontaneous escape plan. It was a thorough trap prepared by Tian Mei and her comrades long before the final confrontation reached this stage. The lake, the islet, the surrounding formations, and even the mountain she currently occupied had all been incorporated into one massive scheme.

The moment she had realized that the previous champions from earlier matches could potentially be resurrected, one person had immediately come to mind. It was Ding Cai. Of all the people Tian Mei could have brought back, Ding Cai had been the one she had hoped to resurrect the most. Her return would make a world of difference.

Unfortunately, finding her had been far more difficult than Tian Mei expected, since Nongmin had hidden her too well. But that difficulty had ultimately become part of Tian Mei's plan.

She had needed Nongmin to discover what she was doing. She had needed him to believe that she was desperate enough to risk everything for Ding Cai's resurrection. Most importantly, she had needed him to follow her.

A familiar projection floated beside her.

This time, it really was Da Wei.

“You sure got him good,” Da Wei said. “So, what’s next?”

Tian Mei looked toward him. “Oh, you know what’s next.”

She lowered one hand, and then she activated the formation.

The mountain beneath her came alive.

Deep beneath the earth, enormous lines of spiritual energy awakened one after another. Dragon veins that had been connected beneath the battlefield began to pulse in unison, their power flowing through a vast formation that stretched beneath the lake and into the surrounding mountains.

The formation had only one purpose.

To explode.

Da Wei stared at the formation. “Now, isn’t that ironic?”

Tian Mei frowned slightly. She did not really understand what he meant.

“Explosion is...”

“An art?” Da Wei suggested.

“No.”

Tian Mei's expression became serious.

“The soul.”

Da Wei's expression changed.

Tian Mei closed her eyes.

Her plan had originally been simple.

Da Wei had advised her to search for their so-called secret weapon, something that could potentially change the outcome of the contest. By 'secret weapon', he of course meant Ding Cai. But somewhere along the way, the plan had changed, developed, and expanded under Tian Mei's evolving circumstances, until it became something so dangerous that even Tian Mei felt doubtful about pulling this off.

This ultimate gambit had been devised for one purpose.

To win everything in a single move.

Tian Mei looked at Da Wei. “You know about the contradiction regarding how souls are immortal, yet they could be destroyed? That while a soul may be unraveled, it would never truly end? I was hoping that I could still maintain my sense of self, even after that fact. It's probably gonna hurt, isn't it?”

Da Wei's expression darkened. “This is really the height of recklessness. Your father is gonna hate me for allowing this.”

“No.” Tian Mei immediately corrected him, her voice becoming firmer. “It’s not that you allowed this. It’s that you are powerless to stop me from doing it, so don’t own to shit that you have no say in. This was my decision.”

Spiritual energy gathered around Tian Mei's palm. Then she drove it into her own chest. Her soul trembled. The formation beneath the mountain responded.

“With my soul as the ember that fuels this explosion, I shall destroy your enemies and win this contest in your name.”

Her spiritual energy began to burn.

“Oh Holy Emperor, Da Wei the Great Guard.”

The mountain shook.

“There is no need to wallow or lament at my sacrifice, since in your victory, my demise will only be temporary.”

Da Wei remained silent for several seconds, and then he spoke. “Yet a sacrifice remains a sacrifice. No other sentient life who hadn’t experienced it would ever be able to describe what it feels like for your soul to unravel.”

His expression had lost its usual levity. “The pain doesn’t go away.”

The spiritual energy surrounding Tian Mei intensified.

“It only grows more intense,” said Da Wei, looking remorseful. "Almost like growing stitches from the scabs that form in your heart."

Tian Mei was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “When you bring me back to life, can you give me bigger boobs?”

Da Wei stared at her.

“...”

The absurd silence lasted for a moment.

It did not mean that because someone could defy death and return to life, it invalidated the life they had lived. The journey was still there. The pain was still there. The fear remained. Resurrection was merely a detour toward that infinite conclusion they called the end.

For Tian Mei, this could be her conclusive end. Or perhaps it would only be another detour. At such a defining moment, she had decided to ask Da Wei for bigger boobs when she was brought back to life.

Humor had always been her way of enduring. A way to deflect the unbearable and persist through it. It was something she had learned from Da Wei himself. A man who, at first glance, often seemed incapable of taking anything seriously.

“I don’t know,” Da Wei finally said. “Maybe I’ll give you an extra pair if you want.”

Tian Mei blinked, and then she laughed. Her laughter echoed through the mountain as her soul began to unravel. “Please don’t do that,” Tian Mei said between laughs, forcing more of her soul into the formation.

The mountain violently shook.

“What?” Da Wei asked. “I can’t hear you. Too much explosion going on! Come again?”

“Seriously! Don’t do that!”

For the first time, Tian Mei sounded genuinely worried.

“What? You want six milkers on them!?”

“Seriously, that’s not funny!”

Da Wei grinned.

“Give me an earful after this. Anyway, see you when I see you.”

The formation activated completely. Tian Mei's laughter stopped. Her expression became calm, and then she let go. Her soul unraveled, willingly becoming the fuel, the ember, and the beginning of the explosion called a soul.

The mountain erupted.

The lake vanished beneath a sun of spiritual energy.

The explosion lasted for exactly forty-seven seconds.

For forty-seven seconds, the entire battlefield became a world of destruction. The lake was vaporized. The surrounding formations disintegrated. The mountains shook before being consumed by overwhelming qi. Stone melted. The earth fractured. And when the explosion finally ended, the lake and the mountain had both been glassed.

All of it had been accomplished by a single woman's soul.

A soul whose will had been strong enough to unravel itself apart. All for the sake of killing her enemy. All for the sake of winning.