“Sixty-three!”
“Bang!”
“Urgh...”
...
“Sixty-four!”
“Bang.”
...
“Sixty-five!”
“Bang!”
...
“Sixty-six!”
“Bang!”
Inside the Temple of the Matchmaker, each dull kowtow landed like a mallet on a coffin lid, each strike a stone thrown into a still lake. With every slam Nana Toki dragged Chen Youxian’s skull to the floor, every cultivator felt a knot of ice cinch tight in the chest.
Numbness crept like winter frost. The woman before them, demon-shadow in human skin, was brutal past reason—kowtow, kill, revive; then kowtow, then kill again—an endless millstone grinding flesh and mind. By the seventh time Nana Toki pulled Chen Youxian back from death, his sanity frayed like wet paper in a storm.
Flesh broke like clay; spirit cracked like thin glass. The twin tortures washed him clean of any thirst to live. For him now, death was the only warm light on a frozen road.
“Kill me!” His plea rasped like a saw on bone. Revived for the seventh time, Chen Youxian staggered to his knees before Blue Magpie and knocked his head again and again, a broken metronome. His face twisted, his voice turned to gravel. Filth and blood braided through his hair and along his cheeks, a smear of ruin like ink in rain.
Nana Toki didn’t blink. She grabbed his hair with a butcher’s grip; her arm strength rose like a flood, fiercer than all the dozens of strikes before it.
“Boom!” His wail braided with the crack of the floor splitting, a thunderclap rolling down stone corridors. Nana Toki worked like a tireless, human-shaped execution engine, repeating a punishment with no horizon.
“Sixty-seven!”
“Bang!”
...
“Sixty-eight!”
“Bang.”
...
“Sixty-nine!”
“Bang!”
......
“Ninety-seven!”
“Bang!”
“Urgh...”
...
“Ninety-eight!”
“Bang.”
...
“Ninety-nine!”
“Bang!”
As the last act of the execution neared, each blow made the temple floor shudder like a drum under a war host. Clouds packed the sky like iron wool, and a gale knifed through the eaves, as if heaven itself howled at the cruelty.
...
“One hundred!”
“BOOM—!”
“Splat!”
On the final slam, as the freedman’s smile faded off Chen Youxian’s face, a bolt of golden lightning fell like a river of molten ore, brimming with imperial force.
“D-demon...” Someone in the crowd whispered, voice thin as candle smoke.
Gold fire lit Nana Toki’s figure. A streak of black breath flickered like a raven’s wing. Rising from beside Chen Youxian’s headless corpse, she looked like a revenant clawed up from the pit, cruelty clinging like swamp fog.
“So, who’s next?”
She let the headless body drop like a sack of grain, yanked her black war-axe from the floor with a gravel-scrape, and faced the cultivators. Her voice came rough, like wind through dead pines.
“......”
Silence fell like snow. The Immortal Realm crowd stared at the blood-dyed, black-robed girl as if a boulder sat on each heart. Breath grew thin; courage shrank like fire in rain.
It was too bizarre. A nameless mortal-world woman dared butcher a disciple of an orthodox Immortal Sect before a hall of Immortal Realm elites. The worst joke was they didn’t even dare lift a hand.
“What kind of monster is she?” A True Lord stepped back, voice shaking like reeds in wind. No ripple of Spirit Energy came off her, yet her pressure pressed like a mountain. Resistance wouldn’t even spark.
Even in the Three Realms War back then, facing the Human Emperor and the Demon King, they’d never tasted a weight like this.
“Esteemed one, the Immortal Realm bears you no grudge. Why force us so hard? Even if Chen Youxian insulted your sisters, he’s paid with his life. Why not turn a storm into drizzle, and drizzle into mist?” A cultivator of the Immortal Realm stepped out, Immortal might rolling off him like a tide. His white robe was whiter than new snow; a glassy sword hung at his waist like a sliver of moon. His aura outstripped the Great Ascension seniors Nana Toki had met. A real big-shot—face and strength both cut from top-grade jade.
“Heh. ‘No grudge’? You got the gall to say that.” Nana Toki’s look at the High Immortal held a curl of mockery. “Ever heard a mortal proverb—some grudges can’t share the same sky? Steal my wife, and heaven isn’t big enough for both of us.”
Huh? Hold up—did she just say something insane? In the stands, several cultivators blinked in a daze. Was the Azure Crow Fairy in this life already… a married woman?
“Absurd! There’s no such thing as two women in love!” The High Immortal’s face soured like rain-soaked ash. “Besides, this is a marriage bestowed by the Emperor Immortal. As one of the Immortal Realm, the Azure Crow Fairy has no right to refuse.”
“Ahh… another fossil with moss on his thoughts.” Nana Toki couldn’t be bothered to explain. “So you’re here to stick your neck out for Tianqi Yu, that idiot, right?”
Sure enough, the plot armor was still OP. Even up in the Immortal Realm, strangers lined up to be his free bodyguards.
“Think carefully. If it really comes to blows, there are many of us. You won’t walk away with much.” The High Immortal still hoped to avoid a clash. The memory of Chen Youxian and nearly a hundred armored cultivators dying like wheat under a scythe stuck like a fishbone. This woman had slaughtered them without even stirring Spirit Energy. Even he would need time to do the same.
“Don’t wave headcounts at me like a cudgel. If I feared numbers, would I have beaten Chen Youxian to death in front of you idiots?” Nana Toki grinned cruelly past him at Tianqi Yu. “Tianqi Yu, two choices. Walk over now and let me kill you. Or wait till I come over and kill you. Think it through. My terms are generous.”
“Azure An, you’ve gone too far!” Sheltered behind the white-clad High Immortal, Tianqi Yu’s face went storm-black. He couldn’t fathom why this woman’s hatred burned so hot. In this life he’d barely dealt with women at all, yet Azure An clung like a ghost, relentless, intent on killing him.
“You’re lecturing me about going too far? Back when I was just Golden Core, then Nascent Soul, and you sent hounds to run me down, did ‘too far’ cross your mind?” Nana Toki shook her head, a summer snake shedding skin. “If you think my tone just now lacked respect, fine. Come down here, and let me kill you.”
“......” Was she broken in the head?
“So. You mean to wreck a marriage bestowed by the Emperor Immortal.” The High Immortal’s expression curdled, storm gathering behind his eyes. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll stoke the Immortal Realm’s hatred of the mortal world?”
“The mortal world? Ah… when preaching fails, you try threats again?” Nana Toki scratched her head as if shooing a gnat. “Maybe you’re confused. I came from the mortal world, sure. Whether they live or die—what’s that to me?”
“I’ve been clear. Hand over Tianqi Yu and let me end him. If you won’t, I don’t mind ending you all first, then ending him.”
She stamped both feet. Spirit Energy erupted from every pore like a volcano breaking its skin.
The High Immortal didn’t expect her to swing the moment the words cooled. He yanked the glass-sword free, raising a quick guard like a shield of rain.
Clang, clang—
Steel kissed steel in a storm of sparks, ripples hammering the temple like a hailstorm. True Lords in the guest seats leapt to assist, but a savage demonic wind howled overhead, a beast-odor tearing through tiles.
“Bad!”
Those too slow were caught full-on by the blast of妖气 and flung like leaves. They hit stone and lay still, life or death unknown.
“Host, we’re late!”
The System Nana Toki had tossed aside earlier arrived piggyback on the unsealed Heavenswallow Serpent, its sinuous body cutting the air like a black river.
“It’s the Heavenswallow Serpent! Who let her out?” True Lords and High Immortals blanched. One madwoman with a twisted strength was already a nightmare. Add a freed Heavenswallow Serpent, and who could stand?
“Young Master Yu, this place isn’t safe. Leave at once.” Several high-ranking True Lords slipped through the chaos to Tianqi Yu’s side, whispers sharp as needles. “The Emperor Immortal instructed that if mishap strikes the wedding, seek refuge in the Hall of Condensing Immortals.”
“Fine.”
Tianqi Yu could read a battlefield. He shot one deep look at Nana Toki, locked with the white-clad High Immortal like hawks mid-clash, then turned and rode a streak of Spirit Energy into the sky.
“Run? Not so easy.” Seeing the Protagonist Lord bolt, Nana Toki smashed the High Immortal back with one axe like a wave breaking a mast and sprang after him. “Trash System, keep Blue Magpie safe. If she so much as gets a scratch, you’ll end up like the idiot at her feet!”
“Got it!” As Nana Toki barked that, the System’s gaze slid to the headless corpse toppled before Blue Magpie.
Yikes… that’s rough.
It glanced at the cracked floor and the spattered meat like fallen petals and shivered. Of all the things to do, he had to provoke our Host. And if that wasn’t enough, he went after Blue Magpie. That’s not courting death—that’s sprinting into it.
Isn’t living nice?
Why beg for the grave?
