Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 145: Chapter 44 Dead End

“Shush…”

Li Yan executed a somersault, propelling himself forward through the undergrowth with his forearms, narrowly dodging the swipe of “Sifan.”

Behind him, the Goddess Temple, once interspersed among the ruined stone steps and the desolate woods, was left as nothing but a deathly white expanse.

In such a situation, Li Yan would never dare to use a vehicle like the Dodge Tomahawk to escape. Sitting in a car with no room to dodge or weave, he wouldn’t be able to avoid Feng Yi’s power of Sifan.

Take just a moment ago as an example, with three Sifan attacks, each as thick as water barrels, slashing towards Li Yan from different directions. If it weren’t for Li Yan’s own extraordinary flexibility and the terrifying power and jumping ability under the Hook Star state, he would have likely been bisected by the Sifan.

What weighed even heavier on Li Yan’s heart was the endless spread of terrifying white that he could see extending into the distance—it was impossible to see where it ended.

In the wilderness, black and white were starkly distinct. Broken dry grass, winding paths, tree leaves rotting and turning black under the snow, and the densely packed, hanging black dead branches—all under the influence of “Sifan,” had been turned into a lifeless white. Now, “Sifan” had already covered more than half of Yan Capital City!

He clenched his fists and ran toward the inner city, which was less affected by Sifan, swearing through gritted teeth,

“Those bastards from Yan Fu should eat shit.”

…

In front of the pure vegetarian restaurant in the Forest of Merits, Cha Xiaodao was wielding kitchen knives in both hands, his eyes red, his body bearing a few injuries.

In front of him stood a burly man nearly two meters tall, one of his arms reduced to a bloody skeletal mess by Cha Xiaodao, a horrific sight. Yet the man’s expression was relaxed and easygoing.

Cha Xiaodao barely had a moment to catch his breath before the man’s periosteum and muscles began to regrow, skin and fingernails included, perfectly restored as before.

“Got any more tricks?”

The man asked coldly.

Legacy: Form of Meat Vision; Endless Feasting.

Those who possess Meat Vision have eyes but no digestive system; they endlessly regenerate upon consumption, reborn as before, but tasteless.

——Jin, Guo Pu “Illustrated Praise of the Classic of Mountains and Seas”

The meaning of this passage is that Meat Vision is a kind of creature whose remarkable feature is, its flesh is inexhaustible to eat, pitifully though, it’s tasteless.

The lamenting “tasteless” in the latter part significantly downgrades the status of [Meat Vision] in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. However, the powerful self-healing ability was already an extraordinary legacy power.

Cha Xiaodao clenched the cigarette in his mouth, ready to strike, when a Sudu bird landed with a flap of its wings.

Out of its long beak came a sharp woman’s voice, naturally that of the Nine-Winged Sudu.

“Cook! Make it quick and head to the city after you’re done. Don’t go to the Goddess Temple.”

Cha Xiaodao was startled. Noticing that the bird’s feather color was a lineage passed down from the bird demon that Li Yan carried, he believed it to be credible.

The big man narrowed his eyes and suddenly charged forward. His fist, stinking of blood, rocketed towards Cha Xiaodao’s temple!

The Sudu bird took flight in alarm, while Cha Xiaodao struck back, chopping at the man’s fist with his knife. The blade lodged in the bone, yet as if the man felt no pain, he roared and forcefully slammed the back of the blade against Cha Xiaodao’s head!

Cha Xiaodao’s world went dark as the big man gripped him, ferociously baring his teeth like a wild beast tearing at Cha Xiaodao’s throat, the sticky saliva and bloody teeth clamping down!

“Clang~”

The kitchen knife fell to the ground,

blood sprayed violently, the man’s cheek caving in, sucking greedily as if he were some ferocious non-human entity.

Suddenly, the man’s face turned ashen. He released his bite and looked up to see a golden-red visage in front of him. Beneath that pale skin, it seemed as though molten lava flowed.

He tried to let go, only to find himself tightly embraced by Cha Xiaodao.

“You can withstand the knife skills, but can you withstand the fire skills?”

Cha Xiaodao’s voice was ice-cold.

The Kong Family’s dish, Cradling Carp!

“Boom!”

Deep crimson flames burst out from them, shooting up into columns over three meters high.

The searing magma sprayed onto the Virtue Forest’s sign, instantly turning into a fierce blaze. The surroundings became a sea of fire.

Golden-red fireballs incessantly dropped from the wooden archway, as Cha Xiaodao stepped out under the verdigris-glazed tile eaves. His pupils rippled with a captivating, soul-snatching beauty in the rose-red flames.

Then, he awkwardly pulled on a pair of large underpants over his bare skin and ran, shirtless, deeper into Yan Capital City.

…

“What the hell are these things…”

Zhao Xin muttered in disbelief.

Sifan erased the glazed archway, along with a utility pole and the sign of the fruit shop next to it, turning them all into a ghastly dead white.

Zhao Wu’s eyes were wrapped in bandages; he observed for a while and then tugged at Zhao Xin, “Walk along the central axis of the city.”

This baldy was spot-on.

Seen from the sky, the grand tapestry of Yan Capital. Sifan, this eraser, was undoubtedly erasing from the edges of the scroll toward the middle bit by bit.

Fortunately for the siblings, Wushan didn’t catch up to them. In the subsequent designated duel, the one-eyed Zhao Wu feigned weakness. By transforming into an intangible black stream of water with the power of Xuan Ming, he ambushed his opponent and won.

Zhao Xin’s opponent, on the other hand, became an unfortunate casualty under “Sifan’s” sweep, their head erased by a stroke of dead white.

Zhao Xin, victorious in the designated duel, consumed the newly acquired legacy scroll. The after-effects of activating [Bai Ze] were thus partially alleviated, and he regained about eighty percent of his former strength.

Meanwhile, more contests in Yan Capital City had yet to be decided. The terrifying Sifan had already descended, erasing two competitors in a duel together…

Among all the surviving Yan Fu Wanderers, Earth Endurance’s death notices fluttered like snowflakes. In the short twenty minutes of this midnight, a full twenty Yan Fu Wanderers had perished!

That is to say, less than ten Wanderers were still alive. At this moment, they were like startled birds, fleeing into the depths of Yan Capital City, while behind them surged the eerie and tumultuous “Sifan.”

…

City towers, archways, pagodas, alleys, quadrangle courtyards, steles—all these millennia-old sceneries were gradually fading into white under the erasure of Sifan.

The old factories that operated day and night, homemade steel rings, and iron medals pressed under bricks on wall tops, concrete tubes, and asphalt roads, buses and neatly stacked crates of Coca-Cola bottles—the unique imprints of light and shadow from this era were equally doomed to perish.

These vivid and lively “fleshes of Yan Fu Fruit,” brimming with vitality, were being stripped away bit by bit.

Yet the core of the Yan Fu Fruit remained elusive.

In just three or four hours, most parts of the vast Yan Capital City had become uninhabitable.

The surviving Wanderers, whether willing or not, were herded by “Sifan” into a corner of the Yan Fu Fruit.

The center of Yan Capital City, the Forbidden City.

Only in the direction Feng Yi was advancing did no traces of “Sifan” appear.

Since arriving at this fruit, Feng Yi had been attempting to use the power of Sifan to carve an opening.

Just when this opening finally appeared, his shout of clearing the level would be enough to allow the deluge of “Sifan” to flood the entire fruit.

“I’m almost there, just a little bit left,” Feng Yi stretched lazily.

“An opportunity to ascend to the heavens is laid before you. If you’re not willing to take it, then vanish with this fruit into ash and smoke.”