Chapter 32: One Finger Slays Gou Mang, Shaking the Ten Directions!

Above Xisha Ridge, the blackened sky split, a ten-thousand-zhang gash gaping like a wound. In an instant, chilling winds howled, and malevolent qi flooded the heavens. Cold. Sinister. Dreadful. A suffocating miasma of unease choked the sombre battlefield, drowning it in darkness. From that abyss, a pale, slender hand emerged, its presence a harbinger of doom.

In the air, Li Zhi clutched his spring-branch. His body was rigid, with fear sprouting in his heart and surging to his skull. It was as if he teetered on a lone plank over a bottomless chasm—one misstep, and oblivion awaited. He knew that hand. In Huizhou, it had crushed eight peerless warriors with a single finger, razing half the city. Why is it here?

On the ground, the crowd stood paralysed, faces flushed, eyes bulging, throats knotted, unable to utter a sound. Under the hand’s crushing aura, they were frailer than infants. In Chang’an’s Mysterious Mechanism Pavilion, Li Shimin stared at the star chart’s image of that pale hand, blood rushing to his eyes. “It’s him!” he cried, voice breaking. Only that hand could unravel the Tang Emperor’s composure. It had revived the Heavenly Demon Emperor, then humbled eight titans.

At the celestial horizon, an envoy’s eyes widened, terror seizing him. “This… this is!?” His voice quivered, fear—an alien sensation—gripping an immortal’s heart. That hand exuded a peril even he couldn’t fathom. Across the realms, Demon Lord Chong Lou’s gaze locked onto it, his low murmur betraying awe. “Such a thing exists…” The hand stirred his dormant demonic heart, igniting a battle lust untouched for a millennium. At Chunyang Mountain, the purple-haired girl leapt up, her childish voice shrill. “Brother!?”

In the Demon-Sealing Tower, Li Qiye, oblivious to the chaos his act unleashed, gazed at the boy bearing Gou Mang’s power. His dark eyes were still as a forgotten well. A torrent of evil qi surged within him, flooding from his core to his arm, then to his hand, and finally to his finger. He pointed.

Boom! A black deluge erupted, a cataclysmic flood, a falling galaxy, a collapsing firmament. It bore the might to sunder the earth, hurtling toward Li Zhi. The prince, stunned, hadn’t anticipated this god-demon hand targeting him. The black torrent cleaved the sky, evaporating all five elements within a hundred li. Flight was futile; the flood had locked onto him. He tried to summon spiritual qi, but his Gou Mang power withered visibly, drained dry.

“How can this be!?” Li Zhi’s mental defences crumbled, every cell quaking in dread. In desperation, he invoked Gou Mang’s projection. The ancient god’s aura descended once more, a cyan force clashing with the black. But no earth-shaking duel ensued. The cyan power shattered like a jade ruler under a hammer, dissolving into nothingness. The black torrent swallowed Li Zhi whole.

“Zhi’er!” Li Shimin’s anguished cry echoed in the Pavilion, blood rushing to his head, his body swaying. “Majesty!” Zhangsun Wuji and others rushed to steady him. At Shu Mountain, the Five Elders, peering through the Mysterious Heaven Mirror, gasped. “Gou Mang’s heir… not even one move!” “That hand’s power has grown since last time!” “What now…?” A celestial envoy, sweat-soaked, stared at the torrent. “One move… Gou Mang’s heir, gone… I must report to the Jade Emperor!” He sped skyward.

Chong Lou’s divine wisp laughed, exhilarated. “Thrilling! A power worthy of facing me!” His consciousness returned to the Demon Realm. At Chunyang Mountain, the purple-haired girl stomped in frustration, shouting, “Brother! I’m here!” Her face fell as the hand withdrew. “So close!” She’d sensed her brother’s trace, but her weakened state barred her from reaching Xisha Ridge.

In the Demon-Sealing Tower, Li Qiye retracted his hand. The sky’s colossal rift sealed shut. He settled on an obsidian platform, cross-legged, aura calm, as if nothing had transpired. But the storm his act ignited was only beginning…