Hei Yan’s words were like a bolt of lightning, instantly splitting open the fog of despair that had shrouded everyone’s hearts.
“Fatal weakness?” An Mu asked quickly, suppressing a root that was trying to launch a sneak attack with his firepower while looking toward Lan Ce beside him. “Lan Ce, can you pinpoint the exact location of that ‘anchor’?”
“No!” Lan Ce’s voice was urgent yet firm. “The other party’s core is wrapped in resentment energy so vast it’s impossible to calculate. Any detection will be assimilated instantly. But… Hei Yan’s theory holds! This primal conceptual nightmare is an outsider. It must rely on a powerful native ‘emotional coordinate’ in order to descend and maintain its form. Lin Sheng’s resentment is that coordinate!”
“In other words, as long as we can deal with Lin Sheng’s resentment, we can shake its foundation!” An Mu immediately made his decision. There was not the slightest hesitation in his voice; it was filled with the decisiveness of a commander. “Mo Fei, Lan Ce, the three of us will cover them! Create an opening for Bai Yu and Hei Yan, no matter the cost!”
“Understood!” Lan Ce and Mo Fei, who had just managed to catch his breath, answered in unison.
Their tactics changed abruptly.
“Come on! You neither-human-nor-ghost monster!” Mo Fei roared. Abandoning all defense, he erupted with every last bit of power remaining in his body and charged toward the altar once more. He used himself as the most conspicuous bait to draw the “Mountain God’s” attention.
An Mu and Lan Ce moved at the same time. Attacking from two different directions, they unleashed their fiercest assault, pouring all their ammunition and various attack devices onto the “Mountain God’s” outer roots, creating a tremendous commotion.
“Foolish insects!” The “Mountain God” was enraged by their actions. Most of its roots and eyeballs turned toward the three of them, launching an attack like a raging storm.
The figures of An Mu and the others were instantly swallowed by torrents of energy and wildly dancing roots, but with their own flesh and blood, they forcibly tore open a gap on the main battlefield that lasted only a few seconds.
“Now!” Hei Yan barked. The nameless book in his hand flipped with a rustle to the very center page on its own. On that page was drawn a door that emitted a dim glow.
“In my name, open the path to the ‘heart’!” Hei Yan pressed his hand against the door. As if coming alive, the door slowly emerged from the page, forming a real gate of light before them.
“Go!” Hei Yan grabbed Bai Yu’s hand and stepped into the gate of light without hesitation.
The instant they passed through the gate, all the noise and fierce fighting of the outside world vanished.
Bai Yu found himself standing in an endless corridor formed from countless shattered memories. The scene here was even more despairing than the memory corridor in the cavern. The air was thick with hatred that could not be dissolved.
“This is Lin Sheng’s polluted sea of consciousness,” Hei Yan’s voice sounded beside him. “The ‘Mountain God’ wove an eternal nightmare for him here, using it to continuously extract his resentment.”
They saw scenes replaying over and over on the corridor walls. Every smile from Awan was twisted into the most vicious mockery; every act of care was interpreted as the cruelest charity. The villagers’ pointing and whispering had been magnified countless times, becoming sharp knives that repeatedly carved at an illusory figure kneeling on the ground, clutching his head and weeping.
That was Lin Sheng’s remaining consciousness.
He was trapped here, tasting pain magnified hundreds and thousands of times, again and again.
“Lin Sheng!” Bai Yu shouted, holding the wooden ladle.
But the illusory figure had no reaction at all. It was merely immersed in its own grief and resentment.
“It’s useless.” Hei Yan shook his head. “He can no longer distinguish truth from falsehood. To awaken him, we must first shatter this prison built from lies.”
Hei Yan stepped forward and, facing the distorted images that kept replaying, said in a tone devoid of emotion, “According to my records, the woman named Awan possessed a purity of love toward you as high as 98.7%. There was no deception or betrayal whatsoever. Everything you see is fabricated.”
With each sentence he spoke, those twisted images shook violently, as if the lies were being shaken by truth.
“The ridicule you heard is a lie. The villagers’ ignorance and xenophobia were real, but their intensity was maliciously magnified by 173 times. The harm they did to you is not even one ten-thousandth of what you are feeling at this moment.”
“Your death is also a lie. Awan was not sacrificed to the Mountain God. Rather, the aggregate of this land’s resentment—the thing you saw as the ‘Mountain God’—orchestrated this tragedy in order to find a perfect ‘vessel.’”
Hei Yan’s voice cut, blade by blade, through the abscess wrapped around Lin Sheng’s consciousness. Cracks began to appear in those distorted images, and they emitted sounds of fragmentation under unbearable strain.
At last, Lin Sheng’s illusory figure showed a trace of reaction. He slowly lifted his head, and a hint of confusion appeared in his empty eyes.
“Now, Bai Yu!” Hei Yan shouted.
Bai Yu immediately stepped forward and raised the wooden ladle in his hand, which was emitting a gentle light. He no longer called out. Instead, he poured all his conviction, all the love he had sensed that belonged to Awan, into it without reservation.
“Lin Sheng, look at this… feel it… This is the last thing she left for you…” Bai Yu’s voice was gentle and sorrowful.
At that moment, the light of the wooden ladle reached an unprecedented brilliance.
That light shone upon Lin Sheng’s illusory figure. It did not purify. It did not dispel. There was only the gentlest soothing.
Lin Sheng’s gaze finally focused on that familiar wooden ladle. It was something he had made for her with his own hands; her initials were still carved on its body. A hundred years of time, the erosion of resentment—he had almost forgotten everything, yet this wooden ladle was branded into the deepest part of his soul.
A trace of clarity finally returned to his eyes.
“A… wan…” he rasped.
The instant he uttered that name, the light of the wooden ladle suddenly surged!
A gentle, water-like female phantom slowly condensed from the light. She wore plain clothes, with a decayed wooden hairpin tucked into her hair. There was a trace of guilt and a trace of sorrow on her face, but even more than that, there was love overflowing from her.
She did not speak. She merely looked at him quietly and gave him a smile as gentle as it had been beneath the moonlight a hundred years ago.
The instant Lin Sheng saw that smile, he froze completely.
A hundred years of resentment, a thousand lifetimes of torment—at that moment, all of it seemed to lose its meaning.
He remembered. He remembered everything. He remembered her kindness, remembered her smile, remembered the concentration on her face as she mended his clothes, remembered the future the two of them had longed for.
Those precious memories buried beneath resentment surged forth like a flood bursting through a dam, instantly sweeping away the wall of lies the “Mountain God” had constructed for him.
“Awan…” Two lines of bloody tears slid from the corners of Lin Sheng’s eyes. He reached out, wanting to touch the beloved who was so close at hand, yet as distant as the ends of the world.
Awan’s phantom also smiled and reached out to him.
The instant their fingertips were about to touch, the entire consciousness space collapsed with a crash!
In the outside world, the “Mountain God” that towered between heaven and earth let out a scream of terror to the extreme!
“No—this is impossible! Love? Such a boring and false emotion… how could it possibly… Aaaaah!”
Pure love was the deadliest poison in the world to something that fed on resentment!
Its body, that enormous form composed of countless roots and flesh, began to collapse uncontrollably. Countless eyeballs burst open, spilling black pus and blood, and the roots planted deep in the earth also began to wither.
At that moment, its false mask of a pseudo-god was completely torn apart! It was no god at all. It was merely a pitiful parasite that stole others’ emotions and magnified others’ pain!
“Now!” Outside, An Mu, covered in blood, issued the final order. “Everyone! Give your strength to Bai Yu!”
An Mu, Lan Ce, and Mo Fei transformed their last will, courage, and conviction into three streams of light that shot into Bai Yu’s body, who had just returned to reality.
Bai Yu felt as if his body were about to burn, but his eyes were incomparably clear. He looked toward Hei Yan beside him, and Hei Yan was looking at him with a smile as well.
“It’s time to see the guest out,” Hei Yan said.
“Mm.” Bai Yu nodded heavily.
The two of them slowly extended their hands forward.
White sacred light and black rational light intertwined perfectly in their palms, transforming into a chaotic power that transcended light and darkness. Within that power were the trust of the Bureau’s team members, the love and release between Awan and Lin Sheng that had crossed a hundred years, and the final hope of all the dead of this land.
“In the name of humanity, we pass the final judgment.” At that moment, Bai Yu’s and Hei Yan’s voices overlapped, as if they were the voice of one person.
“Thing that does not belong to this world, return to your homeland!”
They thrust the orb of light that had fused all their power toward the collapsing core of the “Mountain God”!
The instant the orb touched the “Mountain God,” there was no explosion. Instead, space itself was torn open. Behind the “Mountain God,” a gigantic pitch-black rift leading to some chaotic world filled with indescribable things was forcibly opened.
A powerful suction came from within the rift, dragging the “Mountain God’s” tottering massive body inside, bit by bit.
“No… I will return… As long as fear remains… I will be… eternal and undying…”
Along with its final unwilling curse, the “Mountain God” was completely swallowed into the rift. Then the rift slowly closed, finally vanishing without a trace.
The entire karst cavern fell silent.
The evil altar piled from white bones also cracked apart inch by inch, ultimately turning into powder.
At the center of the altar’s ruins, two skeletons tightly embracing each other were revealed. In the hand of one skeleton, a wooden hairpin that had long since decayed was still clutched tightly.
After a hundred years, Lin Sheng and Awan had finally attained eternal rest.
“It’s over…” Bai Yu said softly. He felt everything before his eyes begin to spin, the strength in his body drained completely dry.
Hei Yan’s figure had already quietly faded away, and the wooden ladle in his hand had returned to its ancient, simple appearance, lying silently in his palm.
The enormous consumption left him unable to hold on any longer. His body went limp, and he fell backward.
A pair of strong arms caught him steadily.
It was An Mu.
Bai Yu lifted his head. He saw An Mu, Lan Ce, and Mo Fei. Though all of them were wounded and battered, smiles of relief appeared on their faces.
He smiled too, then closed his eyes in peace and sank into a deep sleep.