Chapter 111 Enlightenment

In the heat of battle, Chitiao experienced an epiphany and successfully advanced to the third stage of Rakshasa.

At this moment, the six-armed Rakshasa behind her was no longer a phantom but a gilded statue with glaring eyes. Upon closer inspection, it was slightly ethereal, transformed from the condensed to the extreme Gang Qi. This Gang Qi, like armor, emanated golden light a foot away from her body, giving a palpable sense of indestructibility.

Suren watched, his eyes filled with gloom.

Whether it was Mister Jing or Ryūichi Akutagawa, the "Sword Saint" they had encountered before, they had both praised Chitiao for having an almost flawless heart of the sword, whose future achievements in the way of the sword were immeasurable. Now, aided by the opportunity for enlightenment from the Bodhi Seed, she had broken through the legendary Threefold Awakening talent.

Alas, this was her swan song.

As Chitiao had said, this was her strongest state in this life.

At this moment, she pointed her sword at the sky, fearlessly calling out the name of Izanami.

The sky above was frighteningly low, and the rolling purple-red thunderclouds seemed to be slowly descending, rumbling as if to shatter this world with lightning.

The solemn Rakshasa statue appeared, and even the countless demons and monsters were stunned.

The assembled demon kings looked at each other, none daring to test her mettle.

Just then, the sound of Sanskrit chanting seemed to echo in their ears, reverberating between heaven and earth.

"I see the evil ghosts in hell, the forms of Mara, none of which enter my eyes... I see the lords of hell, the masters of the underworld, Yama, the venerated ones, none of whom disturb my heart... Nine mountains and eight seas, nothing I cannot sever; demons and monsters, nothing I will not slay. Once my sword is drawn, it can split mountains, cut rivers, and cleave seas; it can slay ghosts and gods..."

Before these words had even finished, strange phenomena suddenly appeared in the sky.

A crack suddenly opened in the thick thunderclouds, and a ray of dazzling golden Buddha-light shone down from the gap. In this dark land of the Yellow Springs, it was like a golden sword piercing down from the sky.

Wherever the Buddha-light shone, the assembled evil ghosts could not avoid it, wailing in agony as they were instantly burned into gray smoke by the light.

That beam of light finally pierced through the defiled mist and shone on Chitiao's Rakshasa statue.

In an instant, the golden light blazed, as if a deity had descended.

As if by the divine art of "one word made prophecy," the sword intent accumulating on her body also soared to the extreme with this chanting.

Moreover, the inexhaustible dark spiritual power continuously gathered in the sword, and the sword energy overflowed for three hundred meters. It was as if, as long as she unleashed this sword, she would shatter the entire Yellow Springs.

Just then, an even more exaggerated scene appeared.

Looking up, a golden Rakshasa statue, radiating infinite light, suddenly appeared in the crack, its dignified countenance overlooking all living beings in the Yellow Springs.

Suddenly, the huge Rakshasa statue in the sky glared with fury at the Lord of the Yellow Springs, who was watching the battle from the original observatory.

Then came Izanami's venomous curse after being offended, "Humble ant, how dare you offend a great god!"

"Humph!"

Chitiao gave a cold snort.

Regardless of whether the lord responded or not,

Her intention to "slay a god" with this strike was resolute.

However, how could those mountain spirits and monsters tolerate a human offending their great lord?

How could they allow Chitiao to bypass them and directly confront their king?

Although they instinctively feared the dazzling Buddha-light, the demon kings roared, and the monstrous ghostly aura that had just calmed down for a moment suddenly surged again.

The black tide of ghostly aura gathered and swept over the sky,

The monstrous ghostly aura, like waves crashing against the shore, seemed to want to extinguish the Buddha-light in the sky.

But it was already too late.

The whole world was pitch black,

But suddenly, a beam of light shone.

Although it was very weak,

Isolated and helpless,

But it...

Pierced through this endless darkness!

Chitiao held her sword with her six arms, fearlessly charging towards the black tide of ghosts, her mouth filled with a carefree and unrestrained smile: "Hahahaha... Izanami, your demons and monsters can't stop me!"

She was like a goddess of war, crushing everything in her path, unstoppable.

.......

Just then, Chitiao had already charged in front of Izanami,

The high and mighty deity seemed to feel fear for the first time.

Was she a god?

No!

She was far from it!

The Fallen Angel was a genuine divine rank, and a fragment of its limb was not something that Izanami, who looked like a god with unknown means, could match.

Under Chitiao's ultimate strike, she also felt the fear of being erased.

Just then, seeing that the countless ghosts could not stop the charging human, Izanami finally made a move.

She waved her hand, and a strange green sea of ​​fire appeared in front of her.

The flames seemed to be able to burn everything. Wherever they passed, mountains, rocks, grass, trees, sprites, ghosts... nothing was spared.

Chitiao still didn't stop.

In the last instant before rushing into the green sea of ​​fire, she looked back into the distance.

It happened to be a distant gaze exchanged with Suren.

The last look back in her life,

She smiled.

In Edo, the blind female musician had once predicted this scene: Chitiao would leave with her sword in the sea of fire, but her face would be without regret.

......

Ah...!

Ah...!!

Ah...!!!

Suren looked at Chitiao, whose body had already begun to burn, and felt a pain in his heart.

He knew that Chitiao was creating an opportunity for him.

If he didn't attract Izanami's attention, even the strongest life-saving methods wouldn't be able to deceive her.

Just then, Suren felt as if he was hallucinating, as if he had once again heard the farewell words, "Suren, goodbye. You must live well. Don't let my death be worthless."

Suren suddenly calmed down from that almost insane state.

Afraid of death?

No.

Having experienced death before, he was not so afraid of death.

Being able to die with someone to whom he could entrust his life was worth it in this life.

But at this moment, the more he looked at Chitiao's back, the more that sentence kept repeating in his mind: "Don't let my death... be worthless."

Just like Miko before, Chitiao gave up her life, hoping that Suren would live on.

It was like being possessed.

That sentence kept echoing in his mind.

Why!

Why should I carry your lives and live on!

Suren was furious in his heart. He controlled the mechanical armor to charge and kill crazily in the tide of ghost mist, seemingly wanting to vent the grief in his heart with slaughter. He wanted to rush over and kill the high and mighty god together with Chitiao.

But...

Why,

Why am I powerless!

Suren could only watch helplessly.

The more he killed, the calmer he became in his heart.

He suddenly stopped where he was.

Just then, Chitiao in the distance shouted and finally unleashed the ultimate killing move that had been charged for a long time.

In Asakusa Temple, Suren had practiced swordsmanship with Chitiao for a long time.

There was once such a conversation.

"I have the strongest sword in my heart, but I can't unleash it yet. But in the future, I will definitely be able to slay all the gods and demons in the heavens. Suren, help me come up with a domineering name..."

"Overlord Mad Dragon Slash?"

"Tch, can your naming sense be any more vulgar! Can you come up with a... um, a name that sounds as beautiful as a poem?"

"Then let's call it... The Dawn of the New World?"

"Okay! That's the one. My sword will reveal the 'Light of Dawn,' a sword that brings hope to people."

"..."

Chitiao gave the sword move a nice name, calling it - "Secret Art · Dawn of the New World!"

......

Chitiao slashed down, and the illusory Rakshasa statue in the sky also slashed down at the same time.

In an instant, countless lightning bolts struck down at the same time, the commotion exaggerated to the extreme.

Rolling thunder elements filled the entire field of vision.

This strike directly shattered the Gate of the Yellow Springs in the sky.

The lightning connected into a net, covering the field of vision, perception, energy fluctuations... everything.

That sea of ​​lightning suppressed almost all the ghosts in the center of the battlefield who could not avoid it. But only where Suren was, the power of the lightning was reduced.

Suren knew that this was his only chance to survive.

This was what Chitiao had exchanged for her life.

Grief appeared in his eyes, and he gritted his teeth and still pinched a warlock seal, leaving the armor cockpit.

No ghosts noticed this. All eyes were attracted by Chitiao's slash.

After a loud bang.

Suren could no longer hear or see.

.......

I don't know how long it took.

Suren woke up from his sleep.

He struggled for a moment and found that he should have been buried.

After a while, Suren's memory seemed to reconnect from a "fragmented state."

"I survived..."

Suren murmured in his heart.

But he couldn't muster any joy of surviving a disaster.

He remembered everything.

Chitiao unleashed the final strike.

Suren didn't see it.

He jumped into the crack in the ground, hid, and then woke up to the present.

This was the "hibernation suspended animation technique" that Suren had learned from Mister Jing, using some alchemical potions to avoid breathing and allowing the body to enter a state of suspended animation with extremely low consumption. In addition, there was the Oz Ice Man's Shroud, a sealed item that suppressed his aura. There was also the "stand-in corpse" cultivated from his own body tissue. With several layers of protection, almost any means of perception could be shielded.

It seemed that the plan had succeeded.

He was still alive, which meant that he had not been discovered by Izanami.

Suren struggled for a moment, released the Thousand Threads colony, and sharp threads penetrated into the gaps in the soil, extending in all directions like plant roots.

Then, he felt the ground.

It was about ten meters above.

Suren used the threads to loosen the soil, like a zombie crawling out of a grave, struggling to finally be able to breathe again.

He breathed a sigh of relief, removed the shroud from his body, and looked around.

Because of that battle, this place was scarred, the mountains and rivers were broken, and the ground was full of cracked crevices. Even more terrifying, a bottomless abyss suddenly appeared in the distance.

The shape of the abyss was very strange; it was "T" shaped.

The horizontal one seemed to have been burned by flames and had obvious signs of burning.

The vertical one had a very sharp incision, tens of meters wide, as if it had been cut out.

Suren remembered that the last scene he saw was Chitiao's slash towards Izanami.

Was she killed?

No.

The vertical slash marks were completely blocked by the burning marks.

Suren identified the origin of the green flames with his last glance.

[Kagutsuchi's True Flame]

Details: An unextinguishable divine fire, one of the original true fires of the heavens; condensed from the law of death and the law of fire of a high-ranking god; can burn everything; the flames will not be extinguished until the target is exhausted.

"Even that sword energy was burned..."

Suren looked at the traces of the battlefield and analyzed the results.

The Fire Kagutsuchi is a very special existence in the Mountain Hidden Mythology. He is the divine son born of Izanami.

But it was also because of the birth of this fire god that Izanami was burned to death by that special flame, which made her the lord of the Yellow Springs.

The flames controlled by this god are the original true fire that can burn true gods to death.

"Fujiwara Hayato really found some very special treasures... Could it really have been brought back from the Yellow Springs?"

Suren thought in his heart that what appeared in the cursed space was naturally the collection of the great adventurer and writer.

When his thoughts reached here, a thunderclap suddenly exploded in his mind!

He suddenly realized: "I understand... I finally understand what this cursed space is all about!"

.......

At the same time, in the Yellow Springs, in a tavern in Ghost City.

An elegant old woman was leisurely holding a book, reading with relish.

The surrounding ghosts seemed to be blind and ignored her existence.

As she read, she murmured to herself from time to time.

"Gustav, you still like to write tragic endings so much. Back then, your tragic novels made the readers throw stones and smash the glass in your house many times. Don't you know that readers don't like this kind of story? Why? Are you still resentful because I obeyed my family and married south?"

"You actually used high-level Runic letters to truly depict the appearance of a god in the book... Goodness, your literary talent is really unmatched in this era."

"Oh...? If the world is a prison, then love is the key to opening the prison. You still left some hope for those beautiful loves."

"..."

She saw the final ending on the book, which read: "Suren finally survived. Absorbing a large amount of ghostly energy, his law of death has exceeded the upper limit of the law of death contained in the space. He saw the truth of the world."

This was an unfinished book.

But the story ended here.

The old woman seemed to see a story ending that she was still satisfied with when she saw this, and her eyebrows suddenly smiled: "Eh... I originally thought I would have to take action to help him, but it seems I don't need to. That girl Katyusha's vision is really good. I'm really looking forward to which step that girl will eventually take..."

The story was still continuing, but she didn't continue reading it.

Because the story ended here, the old woman saw the words the author left for her: "Natasha, I can't wait for you. I can only leave my story in the book. I hope that one day, you can see it."

Reading this, she smiled gently, her eyebrows and eyes like flowers, as if responding to the person who wrote it across the ages, "Well, I'm here."

After reading other people's stories, she seemed to have decided to do her own thing.

She held the novel and murmured gently to herself: "Gustav, you're gone, and I've reached the end of my life. Our story has come to an end. But I also know that you must be waiting for me there. When this story is reopened, our story should start again. I'm very curious, what exactly does the me in your pen look like..."

Seeing this, the old woman, who was at the end of her life, seemed to have exhausted her last bit of energy and slowly closed the thick novel.

She then opened the first page, which no one had ever opened, with a girlish expression of anticipation and started reading from the beginning.

The beginning of the story read: "It was a sunny morning when I finally entered the Ruvin Royal Academy, which I had dreamed of. And I also met the most beautiful girl in my life..."

The old woman looked and looked, and tears welled up in her eyes.

Just then, a magical scene appeared.

The surrounding scenery began to change, as if the space was distorted, and time was also receding rapidly.

The wrinkles on her face changed visibly. The deep wrinkles gradually disappeared, then became smooth and smooth, and turned into a jade-like girl in the blink of an eye.

Her silver hair gradually gained color and became a purple, waterfall-like, wavy hair.

Her shriveled and hunched figure also became plump, her chest was full, her hips were perky, and she exuded the unique youthful beauty of a girl.

What a peerless girl.

She had also been so young once.

The surrounding scenery changed from the Ghost City to the classroom of the Ruvin Royal Academy.

She closed her new notebook and heard someone say hello.

Turning her face to look over, a young man with a sunny face stretched out his hand to her and introduced himself friendly: "Hello, my beautiful classmate, my name is Gustav. I'm very happy to meet you. My dream is to become a great writer and a great adventurer! Now, we are classmates."

He was not very handsome, and his clothes were very cheap, so he didn't seem to come from a very good family.

But the bright sunshine outside the window happened to shine on his face, reflecting a pair of beautiful light blue pupils. Those eyes were very deep and pure, as if they contained the stars in the summer night sky.

The purple-haired girl stretched out her slender hand, responded with a noble salute, and smiled sweetly: "Hello, my name is Natasha."

The two held hands gently, feeling each other's warmth.

From the first meeting, Natasha had a premonition that she was about to usher in a passionate love.

Just then, a passage of text from the author's self-description appeared in a notebook: "Actually, I knew long ago that we were not suitable, but you still rejected all suitors and accompanied me on a road with no results. Although it was not long, it was unforgettable for life. Natasha, I don't have even a little bit of resentment, just some regret. I regret that I met the most beautiful you when I had nothing but dreams in my life. But in my life, I have been fortunate to have met you... I wrote our story in the novel, so that our youth will never fade away. Forever loving you - Karl Gustav Jung."

The story of Gustav and Natasha, a commoner boy and a noble lady, ended here.