novelraw Chapter 420: Farewell
Chapter 420: Farewell
"No... impossible!!!"
The power brought by burning his vital blood receded.
Qin Bai watched as his strongest strike was so casually and effortlessly shattered by his opponent, his Dao Heart completely shattered, letting out a roar of unwillingness.
His entire body was drained of all strength, collapsing limply to the ground.
His chest still heaved violently, his eyes vacant, filled with utter despair.
Even burning his life hadn't harmed the other in the slightest...
Su Zhan slowly walked up to him, looking down at him from above, as if gazing down at an ant.
"Now, do you understand?"
Su Zhan's voice was icy, devoid of any emotion: "What... true despair is."
From beginning to end, this battle had been under Su Zhan's absolute control.He had given Qin Bai hope, let him burn his life, erupt with his most brilliant radiance, and then... personally extinguished that radiance, along with all his pride and belief, ruthlessly... snuffed it out.
This was the ultimate form of revenge.
Su Zhan looked at Qin Bai, collapsed on the ground.
The hatred suppressed for years in his heart broke through the last shred of reason.
Was it over?
No, this was merely the beginning.
Victory in battle, the overwhelming display of strength, was just reclaiming the principal.
The pain, the fear, the despair I endured all those years...
That interest, now, should be collected in full!
Su Zhan slowly crouched down, leaning close to Qin Bai.
This man, who once stood before him like an insurmountable mountain, holding power over his life and death, was now like a pile of mud, fragile and vulnerable.
Su Zhan reached out, seized Qin Bai's throat, and lifted him from the ground like a dead dog.
The suffocation jolted Qin Bai awake from his numbness. He struggled futilely, his legs kicking wildly in the air.
He saw Su Zhan's eyes up close. Those eyes held no victor's joy, only a bottomless madness.
Yes, just like this.
Struggle, fear!
Just like back then, when I fled in panic under your pursuit, like a stray dog!
Experience what it means to be powerless!
What it means for life and death to be beyond your own control!
Su Zhan's fingers slowly tightened, watching as Qin Bai's face turned from deathly pale to purplish-blue, his eyes beginning to bulge, bloodshot.
He didn't kill him immediately. Instead, he savored this process, savored the feeling of his enemy nearing death in his hands.
Then, he released his grip.
Qin Bai crashed heavily to the ground, clutching his neck, coughing violently, gasping for air in huge gulps. He had truly just walked through the gates of the underworld.
The relief of surviving a brush with death hadn't lasted a second before a force with a time-delay effect enveloped him again, making even breathing incredibly difficult.
Each breath required tremendous effort.
Su Zhan sometimes struck with pure force, listening to the sound of bones cracking.
Occasionally, the wisp of the Flame of Destruction dancing at his fingertips would lightly brush over Qin Bai's skin, not causing severe burns, but bringing pain that penetrated the soul...
Qin Bai wished for death over this agony. He only wanted Su Zhan to give him a quick end.
"Does it hurt? Are you in despair? This is far from enough! Compared to what you brought me, this isn't even one-tenth!"
Su Zhan said with a voice hoarse from exertion: "Do you know, in the Mist, when I was chased by those mindless monsters, covered in wounds, hiding and trembling in dark corners, how desperately I longed for a moment of peace?
Do you know, when I was forced to live as Chen Qing, not even daring to utter my own name, how stifled my heart felt?
Do you know, every time my life hung by a thread, every time I teetered on the edge of life and death, my hatred for you deepened by another degree!"
Su Zhan's movements weren't fast; they carried an elegance.
He was conducting a ritual, a dark ritual using his enemy's pain to commemorate his own lost past.
Every bit of pain inflicted upon Qin Bai seemed to melt away a sliver of the frozen ice in his heart, ice formed by hatred.
It wasn't relief, but a kind of... twisted satisfaction.
A morbid delight of vengeance achieved.
Su Zhan watched as Qin Bai, under his methods.
Went from initial struggles and curses, to later wails and pleas for mercy, until finally, only unconscious twitching and numbness remained...
Just like this... returning everything you inflicted upon me, a hundredfold, a thousandfold!
Let you, in endless pain and regret, clearly realize that provoking me, Su Zhan, was the most wrong, the most foolish decision of your entire life!
Su Zhan's eyes were icy.
A blizzard raged wildly in his heart.
This belated judgment and torment, for him, was less about punishing Qin Bai, and more of a... farewell to his own dark past.
...
The last faint trace of life in Qin Bai, like a candle flame in the wind, was completely extinguished.
His unrecognizable body finally stopped all unconscious twitching, completely stiffening on the cold ground.
Su Zhan slowly straightened up, standing there, quietly gazing at the corpse at his feet, the corpse that had once brought him endless nightmares.
The arena was deathly silent.
The anticipated wild joy did not appear.
Instead, there was a vast sense of confusion.
It was over.
The resentment, anger, unwillingness that had clung to him like a stubborn disease for so many years...
The nightmares that woke him in countless late nights...
The vengeful obsession that supported him, making him rise again and again from desperate situations, constantly growing stronger...
At this moment, with Qin Bai's death, began to slowly... dissipate.
Like a massive boulder that had pressed on his heart for far too long, suddenly being lifted away.
The initial feeling wasn't relief, but a discomfort of sudden weightlessness, and the faint ache left by the long-term pressure of the boulder's imprint.
Su Zhan took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.
So... this is the feeling of closure.
Not the imagined cathartic exhilaration, but instead carrying a trace of faint weariness, and a kind of... emptiness from losing a clear goal.
He had taken his revenge, in the cruelest way, settled this karma.
Qin Bai had paid with his life for his past actions.
Su Zhan closed his eyes, standing in place for a long time.
When he opened his eyes again, they were calm.
The shackles of the past had been severed.
He turned around, no longer looking at the corpse, gave a slight nod towards Situ Hong and Shangguan Xue waiting at the arena's edge, and then strode outward.
His steps were steady, his back straight and tall.
The page belonging to "Su Zhan the Avenger" had been turned.
From now on, his path would lead to places far beyond.
The two tacitly did not disturb Su Zhan with words.
Situ Hong stepped forward, his sleeve lightly flicking towards Qin Bai's corpse.
A heavy, mountain-like earthen-yellow spiritual light enveloped it.
The shattered body rapidly decomposed under this force, eventually turning into the finest dust. Along with the bloodstains on the ground, it completely vanished, leaving no trace behind.
As if Qin Bai had never appeared in this place at all.
After handling all this.
Situ Hong and Shangguan Xue resumed their silent guardian posture, like two silent shadows behind Su Zhan, protecting him, also symbolizing Black City's support for everything he had done.