Chapter 535

Chapter 535 Celestial Horse's Hour

A bold idea suddenly surfaced in Qian Five’s mind.

Since he could no longer take her with him, was it possible to turn his own body into {Black Tortoise}?

Even if doing so would bring endless consequences, such as never being able to vanish along with the {End}, or becoming a {Sacred Guardian} rather than a {participant}.

But Qi Xia’s grand plan had already been set in motion. No matter how one looked at it, such a role was precisely what it required.

With that thought, Qian Five immediately reached out with his right hand and seized Black Tortoise’s palm.

“Give me your body…”

Yet to Qian Five’s shock, although he was clearly gripping her hand, his body did not change in the slightest. It was as if his {Conjoined Identity Bloom} had completely failed at this moment.

“What…?”

“What trick is this you play now?” {Black Tortoise} asked coldly. “If you still fail to kill me… I shall be sorely disappointed…”

Only then did Qian Five finally understand that everything he did was futile. Facing this woman who seemed akin to a god, he was no different from a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

From any angle, it was obvious…

How could his life ever be equal in value to the life of {Black Tortoise}?

“It seems I truly can’t manage it…” Qian Five chuckled bitterly, his face consumed by shadow.

Hearing this, Black Tortoise’s displeasure became evident. She sharply withdrew her hand.

At that same moment, all of Qian Five’s wounds transformed from jet-black to crimson, and his neck gushed blood like a breached dam, spewing violently in an instant.

He had had the chance to heal himself by making contact with Qiu Twenty, but he did not reach out. He knew Black Tortoise would show no mercy; the outcome of this encounter had already been sealed.

Observing the deaths of Qian Five and Luo Eleven, Qiu Twenty showed no sign of agitation.

There was no need to struggle further. He understood that on his own, he could never hope to match the three standing before him.

So he slowly spread his arms, accepting the death that awaited him.

Black Tortoise did not hold back either. She took Qiu Twenty’s heart directly from the void and crushed it in her hand.

Killing the three before her was no challenge for Black Tortoise, yet in her eyes there lingered a profound sorrow.

“Task completed.” She exhaled lightly, then abruptly vanished from where she stood.

Celestial Horse and Celestial Tiger, who had been standing nearby for quite some time, finally exhaled in relief as they saw Black Tortoise vanish. But just a few seconds later, anger began to etch itself across Celestial Horse’s face.

She turned her gaze toward the prison, her expression dark and frosty.

“You god damn fools… you actually dare to bully an old woman like me?” She took a few steps forward and, with deliberate calm, drew a pocket watch from her bosom. “My time is nearly at hand… all of you shall perish…”

Inside the prison, those who watched through the door’s narrow slit stiffened with apprehension. Most had never experienced a {Celestial Horse's Hour} before and had no notion of what would come next. They held their breath, waiting in tense silence.

“Three… two… one…” Celestial Horse smiled faintly and snapped the pocket watch shut with a crisp {click}.

{Celestial Horse's Hour} had arrived.

The sun above, as if responding to her countdown, contracted sharply in the sky.

Seconds passed after she closed the watch, yet the catastrophe they had imagined failed to materialize. Within the prison, apart from the faint rustle of air, only the sound of anxious breathing remained.

Around them, the quiet was almost suffocating.

Moments later, Qi Xia sensed a strange disturbance above his head. A clattering, rushing sound spilled through the air, as if a fine drizzle began to fall, or countless birds slicing across the vault of the sky.

Everyone looked up and realized that the sky, which had never borne clouds before, now seemed to hold a patch of dark mass.

That darkness emerged from behind the dirt-colored sun, slowly spreading outward.

‘A cloud… behind the sun?’

Qi Xia suddenly felt he had noticed a flaw so faint it was almost imperceptible. Yet at such a moment, there was no time to dwell on it.

The dark crowd grew larger and larger, as though it meant to swallow the entire sun. Then, like a sentient being, it circled in the heavens for a brief instant before plunging straight toward the ground.

Only then did the crowd finally glimpse its true form.

That was no {dark cloud} at all, but a vast cluster of writhing, chaotic black threads.

“Damn…” Qiao Jiajin felt the sheer strangeness of this place shatter his limits again and again. He hurriedly tugged at Qi Xia beside him. “Swindler lad, shouldn’t we run now?”

“Run?” Qi Xia narrowed his eyes at the sky. “But in which direction would we flee?”

The words had barely left his mouth when the mass of black threads hanging in midair suddenly spread, like ink blooming in water. Countless black strands shot outward, racing in every possible direction.

“Out first!!”

One by one, everyone burst through the prison gates, only to see the black threads already plummeting toward the ground.

“Everyone!” Chen Junnan shouted. “Under no circumstances must you be touched by those threads! They are as sharp as blades and can instantly slice you to pieces! Good news is that they aren’t particularly fast. Keep running, and sooner or later, you’ll ditch them!”

Each member of {Cats} nodded in acknowledgment. 

Chen Junnan exchanged a brief glance with Qi Xia and Qiao Jiajin.

From this point onward, survival depended solely on one’s own ability; no one could save another.

“Ole Qi,” Chen Junnan fixed his gaze on Qi Xia. “I’ll say it again. Any of us can die, but you cannot.”

Qi Xia hesitated briefly, then nodded. Despite having pulled himself back from the nightmarish terror of the previous night, he still felt strangely dazed.

“Swindler lad, you still out of it?” Qiao Jiajin asked. “Still unwell?”

“I’m fine.” Qi Xia shook his head. He was about to say more when he realized Officer Li, who had been standing behind them previously, was gone. “Where’s Officer Li?”

“Over there!” Zhou Six pointed toward a distant clearing. Officer Li was sprinting rapidly toward something red on the ground.

“Hey! Big Ole Li!” Chen Junnan called out. “Where do ya think you’re going?”

“You go on ahead! I need to grab something!” Officer Li shouted back.

“Grab something?”

This was a moment where life and death hung by a thread. Even if Officer Li truly ran into danger, there was no way to keep him safe now.

“Forget it. We should go,” Qi Xia said. “Everyone must scatter across the open ground. If you can’t distinguish your own {thread}, a single error will cost you your life.”

“Understood!”

Everyone scattered across the clearing. By then, the black threads had already descended to within five meters above their heads.

“May all of you survive, as for these things…” Chen Junnan let out a bitter laugh. He bent down, picked up a stone, and hurled it fiercely into the air. The instant it touched the black threads above, the stone was sliced cleanly in two. “I only hope they never touch you.”