Chapter Thirty-Three: I’ll Blast You All to Kingdom Come!

"Darling, one night as a couple, a hundred days of grace," came a voice from the forest, quoting an ancient phrase from the Chiyun Empire. Yet the affectionate address was a borrowed term from the Hundred Flowers Empire, neither proper nor elegant, and the voice itself was bizarre—layered, echoing, as if four people spoke at once.

"Shut up! Just shut up! You monster! You're a monster! Get away from me!" Zhang Huan had never known he possessed such potential, running with a lightness and speed he had never imagined possible.

Despite being pampered and carrying hundreds of pounds, he now ran like a sprinter—no, even faster than those ten-second hundred-meter runners! His body felt weightless as never before. Faster, faster—he only needed to reach that place, to escape from the abomination chasing him.

I can do it, I can do it, I will make it! All other thoughts vanished from his mind, every signal of pain from his body was ignored. All that mattered was survival, fleeing this place, leaving behind this land of heartbreak.

"Darling, darling, how are you running so fast?" But it was clear his escape was an illusion. No matter how quickly or slowly he ran, the strange, layered voices followed him relentlessly—behind, ahead, beside his ears.

Voices of men and women, young and old, all speaking at once. The one pursuing him was a nine-foot-tall, naked man with muscles gleaming slickly in the sunlight, reflecting bright patterns. In his hand he carried something rarely seen in the northern city of Pei—an overripe durian, stained with white filth.

Terrified, Zhang Huan sprinted until his untrained body could bear it no longer. A misstep into a hollow sent him crashing heavily to the ground, only managing a single anguished, desperate scream—"Ah!"

The cry was piercing, filled with agony and despair—like the plaintive screams of the girls he had once tormented beneath him.

His shriek shattered the quiet of the secluded forest, startling the birds and beasts that lived undisturbed among the trees.

"Don't come near, don't come near!" Forgetting his nakedness, devoid of the haughty cruelty with which he would lash his servants for the slightest delay, Zhang Huan desperately dragged himself with what little strength remained. "Father, father, save me!"

"Why are you doing this, my dear?" The naked muscleman's voice shifted, becoming crisp and sweet like a little girl's. Even his muscles, rippling fluidly, transformed as he moved—becoming a delicate beauty whose gender seemed indeterminate. "One night as husband and wife, a hundred days of grace. Last night you held me and cherished me so. Shouldn't you recall the happy times we shared?"

"Last night, didn't you swear to marry me, to give me a bright future?"

"So why? Why are you trying to flee now?"

"Last night you stabbed me to your heart's content, but I haven't had my fill of stabbing you yet!" As he spoke, the pursuer reverted to his original form. "The mating season for snakes is long. If I am left unsatisfied, my power may wane, my blood turn against me!"

"Stop resisting. Why can't we just enjoy ourselves? You're the first man I've met who lasted an entire night. Be good—it won't hurt for long!"

At these words, Zhang Huan felt an unbearable pain surge through him again, forcing him to cry out words he had only ever heard others say, never imagining he himself would scream them—"Help, help me!"

"Found you!" Leaping through the trees with the agility of the swiftest apes, Liu Tian, guided by the cries, soon reached the scene—just in time to witness two naked men entangled, about to enact a further atrocity.

"Damn it! If you're going to indulge in this, at least find a better place! To do this in the wild, where beasts roam?" Observing the tableau, Liu Tian quickly pieced together the source of the earlier commotion and felt a rage he had never before experienced. Two faint, jagged white shadows appeared on his face, like the fangs of a great white shark.

"You deserve to die a thousand deaths!" Without considering the strength of those before him or whether he could overcome them, he was consumed by fury and murderous intent.

"Curse you both! Go to hell, you damned perverts!"

Drawing on strength beyond his limits, Liu Tian summoned twelvefold his usual power, unleashing his strongest killing technique in a single, violent strike.

A furious curse snapped the snake out of its lascivious anticipation, the murderous intent electrifying his preternatural sense of danger.

Barely aware of what was happening, the battle-hardened snake instinctively grabbed the tear-streaked Zhang Huan and hurled him backward—using his beloved, with that corpulent body, as a shield against death.

Bang!

With twelvefold power and his signature technique, Severing Path, Liu Tian's blow pierced Zhang Huan's abdomen, shattered his spine, and drove upward into his brain. The force sent the spine and all its connected bones flying, blood spraying as flesh was torn from bone.

"Tianwu Slaughter Path—Twelvefold Strength, Severing Path!" Only after striking did Liu Tian shout the name of his attack.

"My love!" Using only a human buffer, the snake sprang a dozen meters away, as if it hadn’t just sacrificed the one it called beloved. Wracked with pain, it howled, "Why, why did you have to leave me? Why did you have to die so soon?"

"I swear I will avenge you!"

"To hell with your vengeance!" Warm blood spattered across his body, the reek of it fueling Liu Tian's already uncontrollable rage and bloodlust. "Die! Die! Whoever dares block my path—anyone—must die!"

Thirteenfold power—Tianwu Slaughter Path: Severing Heart!