Chapter 1448: When the Stars of Humanity Shine (Part 7) (Two-in-one, expanded chapter)

"...Hmm?"

Cangyun Realm.

Chu Changqing seemed to have sensed something and looked toward the direction of the Xuanyu Realm...

At the same time, dense, star-like beast pupils blinked silently beneath the sky-covering beast skin. The "beast-skin sky," surging with world-destroying pressure, also seemed to sense the disappearance of another world-destroying aura, and all the beast pupils showed a hint of surprise.

For hundreds of years, this was the first time a world-destroying aura had disappeared from this world.

Chu Changqing looked back at the beast skin covering the firmament.

"Red Star has already left; you have no reason to stay here... It’s not too late to turn back now."

A hint of mockery appeared in the countless beast pupils of Wangzai. This original mother of the Void Mountains had no intention of leaving at all, as if she had set her sights on the Cangyun Realm. One of the pupils shrank slightly, and a gaze that had nearly condensed into substance shrouded the earth!

Chu Changqing’s white hair fluttered in the void. He retreated immediately, and as Wangzai’s aggressive gaze swept across the earth, the entire surface of the ground seemed to be stripped away by some invisible rule, revealing the black, foul-smelling soil rooted by the Calamity of the Bitter Flesh and Turbid Forest!

Following this, the second, third, and fourth pupils began to exert force!

As the next gaze swept past, the soil was stripped away again, the topsoil directly vanished, revealing the tangled flesh Calamities and the stones originally embedded in the earth beneath...

The next second, even the stones were constantly stripped away, visibly shrinking from the size of a head to the size of a fist, then to an egg...

Until finally, everything turned into tiny dust, wandering in the void.

This ability, which was nearly the annihilation of reality, forced Chu Changqing to carefully and cautiously move along the edge of the gaze. But immediately after, the human skins that had been stripped away stood up one by one from the ruins, eerie beast pupils swirling in their eye sockets, surrounding Chu Changqing from all directions!

Wangzai opened more and more beast pupils, and the intensity and range of the stripping force were crazily stacking, leaving Chu Changqing with less and less room to maneuver.

The white-haired Chu Changqing’s speed was already much slower than before. Even though he could throw out various creatures with every wave of his hand, they were all stripped into cooked shrimp by a single gaze from the pupils above...

And those stripped skins would immediately stitch themselves into the shapes of the original creatures, baring their fangs and claws as they pounced toward Chu Changqing.

"Little Chu..."

"You... have disappointed me too much..."

The eerie voice imitating Lu Xun echoed grimly beneath the sky.

As Wangzai opened its thirteenth pupil, thirteen gazes from different directions completely sealed off all of Chu Changqing’s retreat paths. Invisible laws, like skinning blades hidden in the void, slashed toward Chu Changqing’s figure!

Chu Changqing’s pupils contracted slightly. Just as he raised his hand to act, his entire skin disappeared in an instant!

The dripping flesh was instantly exposed to the air. The blood-colored facial features still retained a trace of shock and terror, the large eyeballs that had lost the cover of the eyelids nearly popped out of their sockets, and the muscle lines and blood vessels of his entire body were clearly visible!

Chu Changqing, stripped of his skin, looked up at the sky-covering beast skin, his hoarse vocal cords emitting a final sound:

"I... gave you a chance..."

Swish—

Immediately afterward, the blood vessels covering him were stripped away simultaneously!

Flesh!

Organs!

Under the gaze of the "Thirteen Pupils," Chu Changqing turned into a blood-colored skeleton in just two seconds. Everything about him was stripped away layer by layer. Even when only his bones remained, they were instantly pulled apart, leaving only a pool of bone marrow scattered on the earth...

Looking at that pool of "Chu Changqing," who was dead beyond dead, for some reason, a trace of confusion arose in Wangzai’s dense beast pupils.

……

Tap—tap—tap...

Underground, Cangyun Base.

Dull footsteps echoed in the enclosed space, and his aged white hair fluttered silently. Chu Changqing walked through the long-sealed underground corridor, his silent gaze filled with exhaustion...

After sensing Wangzai’s arrival, Chu Changqing had already entered the true core area beneath the Cangyun Base. What was currently entangled with Wangzai outside was merely "Biological No. 1 Chu Changqing," a one-to-one replica he had created using himself as a biological template.

Although Chu Changqing was a Nine-Lord, he was still within the biological category. Using himself as a sample to cultivate a replica was not difficult for him. However, a replica was ultimately just a replica, and it only shared a small portion of his Nine-Lord power, so it likely wouldn't last long in Wangzai’s hands.

Chu Changqing lowered his head, coughing gently, his weak voice echoing in the corridor... strands of aged white hair fell silently to the ground.

Finally,

He stopped in front of a towering stasis pod.

"With the outside in such chaos, you’re sleeping quite peacefully," Chu Changqing snorted coldly.

Inside the stasis pod, a man was suspended silently in the liquid. Under his scientific lab coat was a formal white dress shirt, and a black-and-blue striped tie was tied meticulously, as if he wanted to maintain the decency of an adult even in slumber.

Chu Changqing glanced at him, calmly raised a transparent umbrella he had picked up from somewhere, and clenched his other hand into a fist...

He smashed it toward the man’s face!

Bang—!!!

Chu Changqing threw a punch, and the stasis pod shattered instantly. The liquid inside splashed in all directions like a burst water pipe, creating a downpour that fell in the underground space!

The rain pattered onto Chu Changqing’s transparent umbrella, not a single drop wetting his figure.

His cyan-colored pupils looked through the rain curtain toward the front... In a daze, a man was pulling at his shirt collar, stumbling as he stood up from the debris-filled ground.

"Damn it... did I gain weight, or did this tie shrink after soaking in the stasis pod for too long? It almost choked me to death!"

"Your physical functions do not change in a stasis state, so it was your tie that shrank," Chu Changqing replied calmly, holding the umbrella. "If I hadn't come, you would have likely become the first Nine-Lord in history to be choked to death by a tie."

"...Aren't you being a bit too exaggerated?"

"You were the one who started the rat race. We agreed that everyone would sleep together, as comfortably as possible... and yet you secretly wore a tie?"

"I’m used to the rat race as a worker... hehe."

Qi Muyun pushed up the round-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and smiled awkwardly.

Rumble—

As the ground above trembled continuously, the smile on Qi Muyun’s lips vanished. He looked at the white-haired Chu Changqing before him and spoke slowly:

"I didn't expect you to wake me up personally..."

"Does that mean..."

"I can live a little longer?"

Chu Changqing looked into his eyes and asked in return: "Do you want to live longer?"

"You say that, but who doesn't want to live longer?" Qi Muyun said helplessly. "But I have to consider the organization’s needs, don't I? You are an important pillar of our Nine-Lords, holding the power of life over us... We all trust you, and no matter who you choose to extend the life of, we all unconditionally agree."

Although he said that, it was impossible for Qi Muyun not to be nervous.

The current Chu Changqing was like a judge of life and death. With a single word, he could determine the life or death of a Nine-Lord... Standing in front of him, Qi Muyun suddenly felt like he was facing his former office manager. That agonizing wait and sense of oppression made him feel incredibly uncomfortable.

But the only thing he was nervous about was this process; he was not afraid of death.

Every Nine Sovereign who stepped into a hibernation pod had long since prepared themselves... Perhaps the moment they opened their eyes next, they would have to face death. This was why Qi Muyun had secretly put on a tie.

The attire they wore when stepping into the hibernation pod would, in all likelihood, be their "final appearance" when they died.

Since he couldn't wear a gaudy burial shroud, wearing a tie made him look a bit more solemn and decent.

"No, just tell me! I'll accept it whether it's life or death, can you stop keeping me in suspense?" Qi Muyun was truly too nervous to bear it, so he took the initiative to ask.

Chu Changqing looked at him for a long time before finally nodding:

"You will live."

Upon receiving this answer, Qi Muyun was taken aback instead:

"Then... what about him? Doesn't your power only have enough to sustain one person's life? If I survive... then what happens to him?"

"He will also live."

The air suddenly fell into a deathly silence.

Qi Muyun stared blankly at Chu Changqing, his gaze instantly turning sharp!

"Chu Changqing, what are you planning to do?"

"I made a mistake, Old Qi." Chu Changqing’s pale face forced a smile. "When you make a mistake, you have to pay the price... don't you?"

Qi Muyun’s face also began to turn pale as he stared into Chu Changqing’s eyes...

The light that once resided in them was completely gone—dull, desolate, self-reproachful, guilty... Those eyes, which were once as brilliant as emeralds, now looked like they had shattered into fragments, each grain radiating a suffocating pain.

Qi Muyun was speechless for a moment.

He didn't know what had happened outside to break this once high-spirited biological genius to such an extent, but he knew that since Chu Changqing had personally awakened him, he had no intention of leaving any room for himself...

"..." Qi Muyun opened his mouth, and finally spoke in a hoarse voice, "What do you need me to do?"

Chu Changqing gently raised his hand, pressing his fingertips against Qi Muyun’s lips. His fingertips automatically split open, and a stream of scarlet blood flowed from his fingers into Qi Muyun’s mouth.

Qi Muyun’s fists clenched involuntarily, but he did not resist. Instead, he closed his eyes as if resigning himself to fate, feeling the warm, bloody taste seep into his chest.

It was unknown how much time had passed before Chu Changqing finally moved his fingertips away from Qi Muyun’s lips.

"From now on, take 1,000 milliliters of blood from me every day." After voluntarily giving his blood, Chu Changqing’s face grew even paler, and even his voice became much weaker. "If you stop for a single day, you will die."

Qi Muyun opened his eyes, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and gave a miserable smile:

"This feeling is really unpleasant... Can I still back out now? Why don't you choose someone else to live?"

Chu Changqing glared at him.

Qi Muyun immediately shut his mouth.

"So what now?" Qi Muyun pointed upward. "There seems to be something making a ruckus up there. Should we go kill it?"

"I have no combat strength right now. With just you alone, can you kill it?"

"Uh..."

"Hold it off."

"Holding it off is no problem... but what are you going to do?"

"Go awaken that person." Chu Changqing paused for a moment. "This farce should come to an end."

"Is the main carry finally returning... With him here, the pressure will indeed be much less." Qi Muyun nodded. "But alone, I can only hold it off for twenty minutes at most. Although this place is relatively the closest to the Lingxu Base among the other bases, the actual distance is still very far...

In your current state, will you make it in time?"

Chu Changqing looked toward the northwest, his voice calm and resolute.

"I will make it."

……

"Watch out!!"

"The Disaster of Delusion is approaching here!!"

Tu Tian, carrying a blood-stained banner on his back, shuttled rapidly across the battlefield. By now, he was covered in wounds, with the flesh on his shoulders and knees torn to reveal ghastly white bone, yet he gritted his teeth and roared with all his might!

At the same time, the group trapped by the giant flesh-and-blood plants had their expressions change instantly.

Because the roots and leaves of the plants had intertwined into a sheet, obscuring the streets, they could barely see the scene above the sky, nor could they see the "beast-skin sky" slowly moving toward the battlefield. However, that terrifying, world-ending pressure already made everyone’s hearts tremble.

The others couldn't see clearly, but Tu Tian, who was carrying the flag and weaving above the battlefield, saw it all too clearly.

As the beast-skin sky approached, dense pairs of beast eyes opened from beneath the skin, and large swaths of the city were "exploited"... The asphalt roads on the surface were stripped away to reveal the soil, the towering buildings were reduced to messy steel skeletons, the cars on the road turned into scrap metal, and even the messy streetlights lost their outer covers, revealing the filaments inside...

Even the flesh-and-blood plants entrenched on the surfaces of the buildings were instantly reduced to broken stems and filaments, their lives stripped away.

The Disaster of Delusion didn't distinguish between friend and foe at all!

Since it wasn't the disasters of the Delusion Mountains that invaded this city, but the plants of the Bitter Flesh Turbid Forest, it didn't care about the life or death of these disasters at all; it only wanted to completely turn this realm into a new "Delusion Mountain"!

Just then, faint thunder rumbled from above the beast skin.

Rumble—

Tu Tian was startled. He stopped his figure blankly above a building.

He had never heard such dull and dense thunder...

He looked up and saw that, at some point, chaotic clouds had obscured the sky over the Cangyun Realm. Thunder plasma, almost condensed into substance, flowed down from the clouds like water of destruction poured down by the God of Thunder, descending from the sky!!

Rumble—!!!

At this moment, hundreds of millions of thunderbolts exploded simultaneously. All that thunder plasma from the firmament poured onto the surface of the beast skin that covered the sky. The sky flashed crazily, and the blinding light almost burned Tu Tian’s retinas.

Immediately afterward, a foul, extremely charred stench spread throughout the entire realm, and at the same time, a strange, ghastly shriek erupted from the beast skin!!

"To actually approach the sky voluntarily..."

"What a fool."

His wet white lab coat fluttered silently as a man quietly tied his black-and-blue tie and looked up at the firmament.

The aura of a Nine Sovereign level suddenly exploded amidst the roar of ten thousand thunders!

Cangyun Sovereign, Qi Muyun.