Chapter 1091: Disappearance

"I can agree," Qinglong said, "but I have a request as well."

"Whatever..." Dilong coughed again and said, "As long as you agree... the rest has nothing to do with me."

Qinglong smiled and nodded. "Indeed, you can die now. What comes next is between me and Qixia."

After hearing this, Qixia furrowed his brow and looked at Qinglong. "What do you mean? There's still my matter?"

"That's right, I can let these people go," Qinglong said. "But 'Cangjie Qi' must continue, 'Du Ming' must continue, except the opponents will be me and you."

Qixia chuckled lightly. "In the end, you just want a legitimate excuse to kill me, right?"

"Oh? Is it that obvious?"

"It's extremely obvious." Qixia nodded. "Killing me directly with force would feel meaningless to you, so you're using this 'Du Ming' as an opportunity to eliminate me. You can arbitrarily change the game rules and then have the referee call fouls in your favor, making your win look dignified."

After listening, Qinglong grinned and slowly walked up to Qixia, saying, "That's exactly it. I want to defeat you with the very thing you're most proud of, in my home turf of 'Cangjie Qi'. Do you dare or not?"

Qixia shook his head. "Please step aside."

"You...?"

Qixia went around Qinglong and came to Dilong's side, looking into her eyes once more.

"You've worked hard," Qixia whispered.

Dilong could no longer speak; she just smiled faintly, her bright yellow snake eyes gradually losing their life.

Qixia felt a faint pain in his head and reached up to grasp his hair.

This excruciating pain returned after a long time, roughly and violently overriding the emotion called "grief."

He wanted to cry but couldn't shed tears, wanted to shout but couldn't make a sound. All the grief instantly transformed into intense pain.

This was the path he had chosen for himself.

At that moment, black hair fell like raindrops around Qixia as Xuanwu descended from the stands.

Qixia sensed something was wrong and tried to stand, but the severe headache knocked him down. He could only clutch his hair to ease it.

"Bold, suicide, foul," Xuanwu's cold and stern voice echoed eerily, accompanied by the cascading hair that reached everyone's ears. "Foul, accept punishment."

"Stop..."

Qixia struggled to lift his head and saw Xuanwu raise her hand.

A fresh, still heart that had just stopped beating appeared in Xuanwu's hand. She examined the crimson object curiously, as if puzzled why it had ceased to pulse.

"Dead... even in death, punishment." Xuanwu paused before adding, "Dead is a foul, foul means death."

With that, she raised her hand again, continuously pulling out the innards from Dilong's corpse. Qixia gritted his teeth, trying to stand, but he was powerless.

Waves of pain crashed through his mind like a storm, leaving him completely immobilized.

The people around him were mostly seeing Xuanwu's methods for the first time and were stunned in place, forgetting where they were.

A corpse that was already dead... yet organs were being extracted from it out of nowhere.

Why was Xuanwu doing this? How was she accomplishing it?

If Dilong had still been alive, what kind of hellish torment would she have endured?

After a minute, Qixia watched as Dilong's chest and abdomen deflated like a punctured balloon.

Wasn't this also a relief...?

Dilong had chosen her own way to die; she hadn't suffered. To Qixia, Xuanwu's actions now were just futile rage.

She was merely carrying out Qinglong's orders in a helpless, numb, machine-like manner.

"Enough." Qinglong said expressionlessly, "There's no need."

Xuanwu nodded, shook the blood from her hands, and dragged her long hair across the ground as she stepped back to stand behind Qinglong.

A moment later, Qinglong looked at Qixia with utter contempt.

"Headache," Qinglong laughed, "Pain so bad you wish you were dead, right?"

Hearing this, Qixia's expression finally returned to calm.

Yes, pain so bad he wished he were dead.

But now wasn't the time to be swayed by "grief." With Dilong's death, everything was truly beginning.

It seemed neither Qinglong nor Xuanwu had noticed the massive secret hidden within Dilong.

In the red side's "Beizhan Qu," Zheng Yingxiong paused for a moment, looked up at the sky, then quickly glanced toward the opposite "Beizhan Qu," and after a few seconds, looked back at the sky again, his face full of confusion.

"What's wrong, little hero brother?" Tiantian squatted down to look at him.

"Oh no..." Zheng Yingxiong said, "I've never felt anything like this before... What is this feeling?"

"Is something uncomfortable on your body?" Tiantian asked. "The game will be over soon, so you can rest properly then. Is your nose hurting?"

"No... it's not that I'm uncomfortable." Zheng Yingxiong lifted his nose and sniffed sharply. "Sister, in 'Zhongyan Zhidi'... it seems like something has disappeared."

Everyone hearing this was slightly startled, not quite understanding.

"Something has disappeared...?" Chen Junnan raised an eyebrow but quickly shook his head. "Kid, in this godforsaken place, things disappear every day, every hour, every minute—even people vanish."

"No, it's not that..." Zheng Yingxiong looked up at the sky again, but he couldn't quite make out the direction and felt a bit dizzy. "This feeling is hard to describe... It's like something that was always covering us in the sky has suddenly vanished."

"Huh...?"

Chen Junnan followed Zheng Yingxiong's gaze upward, but all he saw was endless darkness. Where was any "sky"?

"I'm not good at explaining..." Zheng Yingxiong struggled with his limited vocabulary to describe the sensation. "It's like the lid that was covering the sky has been removed, but that lid was already very thin, and now it's even thinner... No, actually, it just disappeared completely..."

"So, someone lifted the pot lid?" Chen Junnan asked, tilting his head back. "It was covered up nicely, right?"

"This scent has always been there!" Zheng Yingxiong explained hastily, afraid others wouldn't get it. "Well, I mean, ever since I can remember, this thing has been around! I thought it was part of this place... but now it's gone, which means it's not actually one with this place! It's just been here for a long time!"

Zheng Yingxiong wished everyone around him had "Ling Xiu" so he could directly implant his thoughts into their minds; otherwise, describing this abstract feeling with words was too difficult.

That thing existed in the sky, long fused with "Zhongyan Zhidi," but now it was dissipating.

Chen Junnan and Tiantian exchanged glances. They knew Zheng Yingxiong often said astonishing things, but he had never lied so far.

If what he said was true, and there had always been some faint, enormous thing—noticeable only to Zheng Yingxiong—covering "Zhongyan Zhidi," then it must not be a physical object; otherwise, everyone would have noticed it, not just him.

So, it was probably some invisible, constantly active "ability."

And if that thing was starting to dissipate now...

What could be causing it to dissipate?

(Sorry everyone, I've always taken leave for personal matters and rarely for illness. Recently, my health hasn't been great, so I might need to take a day off. No update tomorrow, but I'll recover as soon as possible and get back to updating.)