Immortality Through Array Formations Chapter 2033 Chapter 974: Aberrant Phenomena
Previously on Immortality Through Array Formations...
Strange black water started oozing from the frozen flesh, repairing his torn throat and ruined heart veins.
Driven by unseen gray threads, Shen Shouxing's limbs began to twitch violently as his muscles writhed, eventually knitting back together completely.
Moving with an unnatural gait, Shen Shouxing rose to his feet.
His pupils shifted into a void of pure darkness.
A faint, malevolent grin stretched across his face.
A voice that was ragged and fractured—a haunting chorus of men, women, the elderly, and the young—resonated through the tomb-like silence of the Divine Temple.
"Those old fools kept such a vigilant watch..."
"Yet, at long last... I have found a way in..."
"Since I cannot place a stone in the current chess game of Qian State... I shall simply... begin a new match..."
The black ichor staining Shen Shouxing's frame saturated his garments, making it appear as though he were draped in the Taoist Robe of a corpse.
Limping toward Shen Tuao, he smeared his fingers in his own dark blood and began sketching Formation Patterns.
Thousands of flickering shadows briefly manifested upon that deathly Taoist Robe.
Under his touch, the black blood took on a life of its own, crawling across Shen Tuao's raw flesh to form a series of wicked Patterns.
These individual marks coalesced into the image of a dragon.
It was a Black Dragon, shaped much like the Azure Dragon of the Great Wilderness, yet it radiated an inexplicable and twisted arcane power.
The overlapping, discordant voices spoke again:
"You are the Prince of the Great Wilderness; death shall not claim you..."
"You shall return to those lands to achieve greatness, commanding every clan with absolute sovereignty and crushing all demons with the authority of a True Dragon..."
"You will be the one to fan the embers of conflict until the entirety of the Great Wilderness is consumed by war."
"You will reduce the Taoist Soldiers of the Taoist Court to White Bone and grind their sycophants into the dirt..."
"Transform the Great Wilderness into a living purgatory..."
"With a throne carved from White Bone and a capital built of carnage, you shall be crowned king amidst an eternal slaughter..."
"Such is your destiny."
...
Those spoken words sank into the Patterns, completing the Dragon Diagram and merging with Shen Tuao's physical form.
Shen Tuao's eyes snapped open, a Black Dragon flickering within their depths.
With a flick of Shen Shouxing's finger, the Patterns acted like Gu Worms, gnawing at the very air until a spatial rift was torn open.
A faint trace of Void Power emanated from the tear.
Within this energy, certain Gui Tao Laws were woven, hidden beneath thick shadows to deceive the Laws of the Heavenly Dao. This prevented the activation of the heavenly punishment usually triggered by the Third-Grade State Boundary.
This was the legendary "Deceiving Heaven" Skill.
This miraculous feat, however, occurred without a single witness.
As Shen Tuao stood up, the power of the Black Dragon flowed through him, manifesting as a surging, sinister Evil Qi.
With eyes like ink, he approached the Dragon Coffin, retrieved the Fourth Prince's remains, and walked steadily into the bizarre fissure Shen Shouxing had created.
He vanished entirely, his destination a mystery.
Yet, a spark of pitch-black flame began to burn quietly, destined to eventually reduce all living things to ash...
...
After seeing Shen Tuao off, Shen Shouxing turned toward the "corpse" of Young Master Xuan, his dark gaze cold and predatory.
"Another Mystery Demon Foetus, they truly never learn..."
He let a single bead of black blood fall onto Young Master Xuan's brow.
Young Master Xuan's eyes slowly opened, his pupils staining black.
"Go back to the Mystic Demon Sect. Seek out Xuan Sanren and master... his personal notes on Planting Devil in Taoist Heart..."
Shen Shouxing's voice was a rasping mixture of Yin and Yang.
"Go back to the sect... find Uncle Master... study the original text of Planting Devil in Taoist Heart..."
Young Master Xuan repeated the command with a hollow voice. Like a mindless puppet, he rose and stepped into the shadowy rift powered by "Deceiving Heaven."
The tear in space then slowly sealed itself.
The pieces were set.
The black blood covering Shen Shouxing began to simmer and then ignited into a nameless, eerie black fire. With him at the center, the flames engulfed the Divine Temple, incinerating every thread of cause and effect.
He vanished along with the temple.
With Shen Shouxing's demise, every trace of what followed was swallowed by the ominous fire, leaving nothing behind.
Consequently, no one would ever be able to divine the truth of what happened here.
As he underwent this "self-immolation," his body withered into the flames and his form faded. The memories of his existence flickered like a dying lamp before returning to the Void.
Faces from his life passed by—his parents, his offspring, the Shen Family, the Sword Cultivators of Taixu Gate, the grave robbers, and Mr. Tu...
"Shen Shouxing" watched these visions with cold detachment.
But then, the innocent face of a youth appeared, accompanied by a fleeting name:
"Mo Hua."
The dark depths of Shen Shouxing's eyes shook.
Mo Hua?
Mo Hua?!
Mo Hua??!!
That boy... his name is Mo Hua?!!
Could he truly be called Mo Hua?!
The very same person who had consumed a fragment of his Demon Thought, caused his Taoist Demon to turn traitor, and was shielded by his junior's Heavenly secret veils...
"Shen Shouxing" desperately tried to pull back the threads of fate.
But he had already severed every connection.
He was the one who had used the Gui Tao fire to wipe the slate clean; regret was now a useless emotion.
Shen Shouxing remained in a state of shock.
Everything had gone according to his flawless designs, yet a single oversight had allowed the most vital thread of cause and effect to slip through his grasp.
"My perfect schemes... actually failed to account for this..."