Forge a path to success.

Chapter 218 The Trap of the War Demon (1)

A streak of blood flashed across the black blade, the bandages on the hilt swayed slowly, and long-suppressed longing erupted, piercing Chu Hengkong's heart along the hilt. This long-dormant sword had come alive again in this moment; Chu Hengkong's determination was to awaken its inner voice. But it would not awaken so easily, for the man gripping the hilt was not its master.

Thus, the longsword, enraged, let out a mournful cry, piercing the assassin's heart and dragging his life into its blade.

Drag us into the past, hundreds of years ago.

The field of vision shifts, space fades, and before the crimson longing buried deep within the blade, the individual's existence seems utterly insignificant, like a tiny boat on a vast ocean. A surging wave crashes over the small boat, plunging it into the deep sea. From the endless darkness exists a voice—the mad laughter of the Demon King. The Nightmare King's deafening laugh.

Chu Hengkong saw the warrior's back; before him lay hymns, nooses, and mountains of corpses. Purple lightning illuminated the demon king's indescribable true form. It stood atop the bone mountain, emitting a terrifying shriek. In the final moments of the deathmatch, deep shadows shrouded everything. Then the warrior drew his sword.

A blood-red blade flashes, tearing apart nightmares!
The Land of Despair crumbled in a bloodbath, everything turning into an ominous, ferocious crimson. The hymns and laughter faded, leaving only the corpse of the evil god and the blade that slew the deity…

"The glint of the sword hidden in the shadows will one day illuminate the sky."

A hoarse voice rang out, and the events of the past faded away. The detached, condescending perspective vanished, and perception returned to Chu Hengkong.

Chu Hengkong heard rustling sounds, as if a small mouse was scurrying by. He was looking at the dissipating corpses, his hand gripping the menacing blade.

Now, he has become the man who slays the Demon King.

"—!"

At the very moment his senses returned, the most terrifying pain of his life erupted from every part of his body. Chu Hengkong almost screamed. The crucifixion he had experienced when he entered the Land of Despair, the agony of his flesh melting away with poison, the pain of his shattered spine, the pain of his eyeballs being cleaved off... all the pain he had ever experienced in his memory combined could not compare to what he felt in this one instant.

His flesh was rotting, his bone marrow was melting, and his heart was screaming madly. Pain was indescribable; it was more like an unimaginable torment. Finally, the agony transformed into a piercing scream. He gasped for breath, trying to calm his crumbling sanity—

The pain suddenly disappeared. Everything went dark.

he died.

-

Corpses, a murderous blade, the warrior slowly rising, leaning on the hilt of his sword—everything from seconds before reappeared, Chu Hengkong was back at the very beginning. Then, the excruciating pain deep within his body erupted again, giving him no chance to catch his breath; the same predicament struck once more!
Chu Hengkong was almost unable to think. He realized he had been "resurrected," but he had no idea how the "last time" had ended. He had endured excruciating pain, screamed, and breathed—all these actions combined took less than a second! There were no other creatures around, and he hadn't been attacked, so how had he died?

The excruciating pain robbed him of the ability to think. Chu Hengkong knew he had to move, at least do something to distract himself, or he would die from the agony. He mobilized his muscles, adjusted his bones, and roared and breathed at perfectly synchronized moments. This time, Chu Hengkong forced himself to concentrate; he had to find the cause of death.

He opened his mouth, and the pungent smell of blood filled his mouth. The concentration of magic in the air was extremely high, but not enough to kill instantly. Time slowed down in the extreme tension as the gas rolled down his throat and into his respiratory tract…

His heart suddenly constricted in his chest cavity, as if it were a living thing that had been stimulated. The heart expanded at an astonishing speed, exploding the instant Chu Hengkong breathed! It blasted his entire body into blood and gore!
The tattered ghost eye captured the final moment before death; the bloodstains on the ground ignited due to the high temperature, and black rocks crashed down, causing the entire mountain to collapse.

-

This time, almost three minutes passed before the third round of torture began. The long sword trembled in his hand, and Chu Hengkong realized that it was his own trembling as he was on the verge of collapse.

He was completely dumbfounded. His last glance before dying made him understand the soldier's condition. The continuous excruciating pain was because describing the man's body as riddled with holes would be an exaggeration. The man's nerves had long since rotted away, his bones were even hollow, and he was covered in old wounds. All that could move was decaying tissue. He was practically a corpse, a straw man barely made of bones and flesh.

The corpse was still able to move because it possessed an extremely powerful heart, brimming with immense light and heat. However, this heart was also faulty; its energy was so concentrated that even a breath of air entering it would trigger a massive explosion.

If Chu Hengkong, who transplanted the Heavenly Demon Furnace Core, was like stuffing a jet engine into a motorcycle, then this soldier was like stuffing a leaking nuclear reactor into a garbage bag. It would be a miracle if the bag could even exist for a second, let alone move!

Did the Allied soldiers use such bodies to kill Vansaral back then?
Now he's going to use this body...to fight?
Pain, excruciating pain, unimaginable agony. As Chu Hengkong pondered, the pain intensified, driving his body to the brink of madness, and his heart began to constrict again. He would die if he remained still. He raised a hand and pressed it to his chest, the movement extremely slow, for the garbage bag would explode at the slightest carelessness. Then Chu Hengkong opened his mouth again, his muscles coordinating with his breathing.

This was a method Qingxia had taught him to suppress his heartbeat before the One Heart Ceremony. He was going to gamble with it.

Thump. Thump. He used his muscles to influence the relaxation of his heart, as laboriously as trying to protect a water droplet with a lighter. The attempt finally succeeded; his heart calmed temporarily, and he inhaled and exhaled very lightly. Breathing. Not too fast. Breathing.

Perhaps some secret technique the warrior had practiced had taken effect, because Chu Hengkong felt better; at least the pain had lessened to a level he could barely bear. He loosened his grip on the hilt of his sword, because the second thing he needed to address was survival. The warrior's body was covered in wounds more than pores; he had no doubt that he would die after taking just a few steps.

The warrior of that time must have possessed healing abilities… either someone helped him, or he had a powerful relic… otherwise, he would have been buried with Vansaral long ago, and it wouldn't have been his turn to pull out his sword… His eyesight was severely impaired; sensing with his inner energy was faster than opening his eyes. The warrior wore tattered purple armor, the main body made of overlapping and mixed armor plates, somewhat similar to the great armor of warriors on Earth. Inside the armor, there was an unnatural bulge, right in front of the warrior's heart. Chu Hengkong cautiously felt around, afraid that his movements would further agitate that frenzied heart.

He grabbed the protrusion, pulled it out, and saw the envelope stained with black blood. The letter paper had long since changed color, but it was clearly of high quality, and the wax seal was made into a childlike lion's head.

Inside the envelope lay a handwritten note.

"Just in case you're in a rush to leave and forget your belongings, I still stuffed a roll of bandages into your armor."

Of course, nobody's worried you'll get killed by the heretics. But we're all worried you'll get yourself killed :D”

The note unfolded into a roll of golden bandage. Chu Hengkong heard an impatient sound coming from "himself".

"Shut up."

At this moment, Chu Hengkong lost control of his body, and he returned to the perspective of an observer, watching the soldier haphazardly wrap bandages around his severely injured upper body. The image evoked an unbelievable sense of familiarity in Chu Hengkong.

"No way……"

The healing was over, and control returned to his hands. This time, Chu Hengkong finally managed to draw the sword and sheath it. He turned and began to walk slowly and laboriously. He passed a puddle filled with blood and filth, and saw "his own" face reflected in the blood.

A gaunt face wrapped in bandages, with a frighteningly gloomy expression, like a world-weary bandit.

He knew this face very well; he saw this person every day after arriving in the Despair Wilderness.

Chongming.

·
The bandages took effect quickly, restoring Chongming's battered body to the point where he could walk again. Chu Hengkong walked along the wall for almost half a minute, his mind a jumbled mess.

He had always respected Chongming, not only because the man had saved his life, but also because he knew that this man must have been a formidable figure in the past. But he never expected that the person who killed Vansalar would be Chongming; the whole thing was simply absurd.

The evil god who was killed early on was resurrected and ruled the Heavenly Prison. The man who killed the god could only exist as a powerless man in the mist.
Vansalal, having just been resurrected, must be furious to hear this. What logic underlies this Heavenly Prison Border? Besides, Chongming has already defeated the Evil God; even if he died, he shouldn't have died here…

Chu Hengkong couldn't understand it, nor did he have time to think about it further. Judging from their current dire situation, his immediate goal should be to get Chongming out of the cave and back to the battlefield. Now he could finally breathe normally again. He wanted to curse; no one would be in a good mood in this damned situation.

The cave wasn't much different from "reality"; the terrain was almost identical to when he entered, except the concentration of magic in the air was frighteningly high, and the intermingling of various heretical auras made it resemble a graveyard. The ochre-red rocks were extremely smooth, and the cave didn't seem to have formed naturally. Perhaps the Remnant Heart and the gods fought here, and Chongming stabbed Vansalal with his sword, pushing it into the deep mountains, thus creating this mountain path…

That means there shouldn't be any other life in the mountains. The only sound in the cave should be his own breathing. But he clearly heard the rats making noise earlier.

At that moment, another breath was heard.

Intermittent, faint sighs, like those of a drifting, departed soul, and extremely faint breathing sounds came from ahead. Chu Hengkong gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. He was thankful that he had closed his eyes, for his senses had allowed him to perceive the appearance of the approaching being.

It was a hideous, tumor-like sphere, about four meters tall. Its surface was covered with brown "tumors," which ruptured with each breath, oozing oil-colored black blood and revealing greedy eyes. The tumors were actually the eyelids of a strange beast, and the beast with a hundred eyes was drawn by the scent of blood.

Information about the other party naturally surfaced in Chu Hengkong's mind.

The Path to Unifying Destiny: Point 5, Secret Heavenly Eye. This is a Level 5 alien beast, the Forbidden Eye Stone Demon, skilled at releasing petrifying rays with its gaze. The slippery black blood reveals another fact: this beast has been corrupted by the Black Moon, and it also possesses the immortality of the Fallen.

In two seconds, the Eye-Provoking Stone Demon would see him. He had to come up with a way to kill the enemy within a second.

Chu Hengkong would die even if he took a deep breath now.

How is he going to kill him?

(End of this chapter)