Chapter 876 - 606: [Silkworm Master] [Mother of Eternal Night]_3
He sat upright on the pitch-black throne, surrounded by a faint Demonic Qi. His brows and eyes remained anciently clear, yet bore the marks of age and unfathomable depths.
"It’s really you, Master!"
A trace of understanding flashed in Ren Tianxing’s eyes.
Xu Chen sighed gently, his voice calm yet carrying a hint of helplessness:
"What should I say to you? Since you guessed it was me, you still dared to come willingly?"
Ren Tianxing was silent for a moment, then suddenly spoke:
"Because ’He’ sent me!"
As he spoke, his eyes suddenly turned mad, and the aura surrounding him instantly distorted.
His flesh turned pale as paper at a visible speed, his body elongated further, and a bizarre sacred halo surrounded him. Beneath the halo, twisted patterns seemed to squirm.
He clasped his hands together and uttered strange Dao sounds, repeatedly echoing in the great hall:
"Yet you do not ascend?"
"Yet you do not ascend?"
That Dao sound was eerie and seductive, probing straight into the deepest part of Xu Chen’s heart.
An abrupt pang surged in Xu Chen’s heart. Without a moment of hesitation, he resolutely shouted:
"Emperor Commands Mountains and Rivers!"
Buzz——!
The void around him trembled, and a pitch-black giant dragon suddenly coiled upwards. The Dragon Scale glimmered with a cold sheen, the dragon’s eyes were dim, its aura weak, it embodied the fate of this world’s mountains and rivers.
As the giant dragon appeared, faint gnawing sounds emerged from the void, countless invisible tendrils madly devouring the dragon’s essence, spirit, and energy. The dragon uttered a low moan, at any moment it might shatter.
Even so, the dragon still blocked in front of Xu Chen, forcibly withstanding that eerie Dao sound.
Ren Tianxing’s pupils contracted sharply, his face full of disbelief, and he cried out involuntarily:
"How can this be?!"
Xu Chen shook his head:
"Nothing is impossible, how could I live for a thousand years in vain!"
"Your turn!"
"Yet you do not ascend?"
He flicked his fingers, and a bizarre portal suddenly opened in the void.
Inside the portal, all was pitch black, countless tendrils vaguely danced, instantly resonating with a strange force inside Ren Tianxing.
A tremendous pulling force erupted from the portal, instantly dragging him towards it!
"No!"
"No——!"
"I don’t want to ascend!"
Ren Tianxing struggled frantically, his screams shrill and desperate, yet he couldn’t resist that force, his body being devoured bit by bit by the portal.
"Cough, cough!"
Xu Chen slowly raised his hand, coughed up a mouthful of black blood, which splattered on the ground and instantly spread, filled with tiny crawling insects, never ceasing to wriggle.
He curled his lips into a cold smile, his voice low and hoarse:
"After all, you are the disciple I taught, a sacrificial substitute for my ascension!"
"How could Master possibly not leave a fallback?"
Just at this moment——
Crack!
The sky abruptly turned black, and the entire Demon Master’s Palace was shrouded in boundless darkness.
An ominous chill, far more terrifying than the Shattering Realm, crushed in from beyond the world.
Xu Chen’s expression changed sharply, he suddenly looked up at the sky. In his pupils, a huge, indescribable shadow loomed.
That shadow was like a cocoon yet not a cocoon, like flesh yet not flesh, entwined with countless fine tendrils, covered with pulsating eyeball-like protrusions, exuding an eeriness not of this world.
[Silkworm Master]!
He instinctively glanced at the [Martial Arts Furnace] within his own sea of consciousness, where a series of bizarre Runes frantically surged, twisting and entangling, as if roaring, as if summoning.
Thud——!
Xu Chen’s eyes suddenly exploded, fresh blood gushed out, sliding down his cheeks, gruesome and eerie.
He knelt on one knee, clasped his hands together, murmuring in a low voice:
"Mother of Eternal Night, I beseech your gaze..."
"I beseech your strength to protect me entirely..."
The next moment——
A power of darkness, profound to the extreme, surged from the depths of the void, enveloping Xu Chen’s body like a tide.
That power was cold, deathly still, colliding and intertwining with the [Silkworm Master’s] force, ultimately forming a strange balance.
Xu Chen slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, a bizarre red light emanated from him, performing a forbidden Martial Technique, hollow eye sockets gradually regrowing flesh, coalescing into a pair of deep eyes again.
He stood up, sighed gently, his tone full of fatigue yet tinged with a trace of post-catastrophe relief:
"This time, it’s finally over!"
He had been targeted, not just for a day or two.
To be precise, ever since he crossed over to this world, he had been marked by the [Silkworm Master].
The [Silkworm Master] planted a bizarre seed inside his golden finger, the [Martial Arts Furnace], the root of all deadly side effects from the cultivation techniques deduced.
Later, he deliberately spread those techniques with side effects throughout this world, and the [Silkworm Master]’s power thereby thoroughly permeated and polluted this world.
The extraordinary powers of the old era, under the [Silkworm Master’s] corrosion, collapsed entirely.
Thus, a transcendent iron rule was born— to grasp the extraordinary, an equivalent price must be paid.
At the same time, the [Silkworm Master’s] power also began to backfire against him, constantly tempting him, forcing him to [ascend], into [His] embrace, becoming [His] nourishment.
Upon realizing the truth, he naturally did not intend to go down without a fight.
Over these years, he searched everywhere, selecting martial prodigies one by one, imparting cultivation techniques, cultivating them to be his substitutes, ascending in his place.
Unexpectedly, this time, [He] personally took action.
Xu Chen raised his hand, a cold self-mocking smile curling his lips:
"The ’Stone Man Sutra’ is a Technique I painstakingly created. The body of the stone Buddha, comparable to the flesh of Tang Monk, is a perfect meal, far more delicious than my flesh tainted by Demonic Qi."
"As expected, such hidden entities are not at all interested in my flesh, what they aim to devour is this entire world."
"According to my readings, holding the extraordinary fate of this realm makes me the eternal protagonist of this world. Devouring me means devouring this world."
Thinking of this, he sighed softly, his tone full of helplessness:
"This time, I had no choice but to introduce the [Mother of Eternal Night], another ancient and eerie existence."
"Driving away a wolf to welcome a tiger, after all, is quenching thirst with poison..."
In the darkness, the shadow of the [Silkworm Master] loomed still beyond the world, the power of the [Mother of Eternal Night] flowed slowly within him, the two terrifying forces counterbalancing each other.
"Balance, only balance, gives me the possibility to survive!"
"This world, with just the way of forbidden Martial Techniques, is still too lonely. The ’Sequence of Night’ must also spread to maintain balance."