Chapter 577

The dim hall's walls, ceiling, and floor were all cast from heavy black copper. Unknown what sinister material was mixed into the material, the whole hall was filled with yin qi, giving people a strong sense of discomfort.

In the center of the hall, on a thick bronze pillar, a man with a human body and snake tail was pierced through his torso joints by dozens of thumb-thick chains; his snake tail, seven or eight zhang long, wound twice around the bronze pillar, and from the gaps in its scales, occasional drops of viscous foul blood fell.

Hearing the footsteps of Wu Tie and the others entering, the man slowly lifted his head; his withered face was full of coldness.

Wu Tie clenched his fists tightly, staring fixedly at this man.

Sima Wuyou held the Heaven and Earth Seal in his left hand, likewise staring fixedly at this man.

Heh, hehe, hehehe!

A hoarse laugh came from the man's throat, his facial skin twitched slightly, then his snake tail suddenly broke free from the bronze pillar; his body, over ten zhang long, shuddered violently, shaking the dozens of chains intensely, emitting booming sounds, and black lightning continually burst from the chains, blasting his flesh and blood to fly apart.

A strong but obviously lacking in follow-through, outwardly strong but inwardly weak aura surged from the man's body; he was suspended by the chains at a height of two or three zhang above the ground, his body violently struggling and trembling in the black lightning.

"Sima Wuyou… where is my sister?" the man shouted, opening his mouth wide, and a heavy yellow divine light spewed from his mouth, heavily striking Sima Wuyou's chest.

The Heaven and Earth Seal emitted layers of mist, and before Sima Wuyou's chest appeared vast illusions of mountains, rivers, and lands. The yellow divine light pierced through layer after layer of these illusions, but was ultimately completely dissipated, failing to harm a single hair of Sima Wuyou.

"Xiyou!" Sima Wuyou looked at the man, sighing deeply: "Back then, I said, your sister and my crown prince were by no means a good match… yet you insisted on your own way… I admit, the Holy Child and your sister fell in love at first sight, their bond as strong as metal, but what then?"

Sima Wuyou's voice suddenly became loud and sharp: "I said they would have no outcome… and you, as their brother, actually helped them forge a private bond… perhaps this is your brotherly love for your sister, but what is the result?"

Xiyou struggled violently, and layers of yellow gloom sprayed from the scales on his snake tail, as if he were donning a thick yellow armor.

"The result is that the crown prince I placed great hope in is gone. The imperial authority of the Great Jin Divine Kingdom has declined. And your sister…"

Xiyou panted heavily, his eyes turning into two pure yellow suns; the whole gloomy, cold prison hall was bathed in deep yellow light, and he glared at Sima Wuyou: "My sister—?"

Sima Wuyou closed his eyes: "Dead… what did you think? However, she gave birth to a pair of children for the Holy Child."

Xiyou's body suddenly stiffened; after a long while, he drew a deep breath, and then blackish clotted blood began to flow from all seven orifices. The blood trailed down his body, and soon a large pool of bloody water gathered on the black copper floor beneath him.

"Dead…"

"Hehehe, dead…"

"Hehehe, my sister… died…"

In the gloomy hall, Xiyou's hoarse, grim laughter echoed; Wu Tie felt a chill run up his spine, and he instinctively stepped back two paces. In just a few words between Sima Wuyou and Xiyou, Wu Tie knew this must be an utterly horrific event.

Recalling Xi Bubai's instructions to Wu Tie, over six thousand years ago, a pair of twin siblings from the Fuxi Divine Kingdom secretly left the kingdom, ventured into the mortal world to travel, and after an incident, lost all contact.

Wu Tie's mission to infiltrate the Great Jin Divine Nation was largely for the sake of that pair of siblings who had secretly run away from home.

Among both the Xi and Nüwa clans, there is the same legend: when a woman of either clan bears children, a pregnancy usually yields a single boy or girl; if twins occur, they are either a pair of boys or a pair of girls.

If, with roughly a one-in-a-hundred-million chance, a woman of either the Xi or Nüwa clan gives birth to dragon‑phoenix twins—a pair of twin siblings—then they are destined to awaken the power of their primordial ancestor in their bloodline and inherit the inconceivable sage power spoken of in legend.

Especially within the royal family of the Fuxi Divine Nation, the sudden appearance of such a pair of twin siblings—Xi Yao and his sister—was, at the time, wholly regarded by the nation's core leadership as the hope for the Fuxi Divine Nation's rise.

Moreover, the siblings lived up to expectations, possessing inconceivable divine powers at a young age, and without undergoing any divine tribulation, they smoothly, in their early teens, drew from their bloodline power comparable to that of a deity—indeed, a senior, high‑level divine realm power.

The core leadership of the Fuxi Divine Nation was fervently plotting how to tap the siblings' potential, let them grow swiftly, lead the nation onto the surface, and secure a place for its people to survive—when the two siblings ran away from home!

That time, the Divine Emperor of the Fuxi Divine Nation was so enraged he vomited blood and fainted; his disrupted qi almost caused him to deviate into demonic deviation, and even to this day his cultivation has not recovered to its peak.

Every guard, maid, slave, and the like responsible for attending to the siblings was personally slain by the furious Fuxi Divine Nation leadership—tens of thousands were killed because of the siblings' flight from home.

To trace the siblings' whereabouts, the Xi clan of the Fuxi Divine Nation's royal family spared no great expense, inviting the Nüwa clan's Elders to join forces and, using their bloodline‑inherited divination art, track the pair's movements.

The problem was that the siblings' awakened bloodline power was too strong; the Xi and Nüwa clans' divination techniques, when applied to them, could only show images like a moon in water, a flower in a mirror, or clouds obscuring mist. After years of effort, they still could not determine exactly where the two had gone, only roughly ascertaining that they had appeared somewhere near Anyang City.

The Xi clan's leadership was horrified; Xi Bubai's Black Hall began mobilizing large numbers of elite forces to infiltrate the Great Jin Divine Nation.

The outcome was exactly what Wu Tie faced when ordered to act: the elites that Xi Bubai sent out were basically all uncovered and dragged out by the Great Jin Divine Nation's Demon‑Sealing Hall, each dying a miserable death.

Wu Tie originally thought he would need to gain higher authority and status within the Great Jin Divine Nation, and access more secrets, before he could find any trace of the Xi Yao siblings. But who could have imagined that Xi Yao was actually imprisoned in Fox Hill, beneath the ancestral temple of the Linghu clan?

Even more bewildering to Wu Tie was that the pair of twin sisters, the egret and the cinnabar pigeon, actually possessed Xi clan bloodline?

Earlier, in the southwestern mountains, Wu Tie truly failed to notice that they shared even a faint trace of kinship with him!

"Actually, given your and Xi Yao's spiritual resonance, you should have long known she was dead, right?" Sima Wuyou looked at Xi Yao with a hint of sorrow: "You merely prefer to deceive yourself, clinging to life till today, don't you?"

Sima Wuyou's words were like a series of small daggers, piercing straight into Xi Yao's heart.

Xi Yao suddenly opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of congealed blood that had accumulated over the years.

His whole body was suffused with a hazy yellow light, his aura becoming ever stronger than before, and within him a vigorous force seemed to be sprouting; the feeling of subsequent weakness, outwardly strong but inwardly hollow, was rapidly fading.

Wu Tie realized that Sima Wuyou had sealed the void within a radius of a million li, cutting off heaven and earth's primordial energy; the Linghu clan's arrangements in this prison hall had consequently lost more than half their efficacy. Previously Xi Yao had not exerted himself, but now, after he strained against his bonds, he would surely find that the prison's restrictions had been weakened to the extreme, his confinement riddled with holes.

Xi Yao drew deep breaths, and between inhalations he emitted a chilling laugh: "Xi Yao, Xi Yao… my sister… hehe, hehe, hehe… I shouldn't, I shouldn't have brought you out… I was wrong, I was wrong… I really, was wrong…"

"I also shouldn't have indulged your willfulness… all the demons of the Great Jin Demon Nation are no good; that pretty‑faced Sima Shen just knows how to play music, putting on a human façade while being a beast, just pretending… I shouldn't have let you take a liking to him; I should have taken you away… I should…"

Sima Wuyou's left hand, holding the Heaven and Earth Seal, emitted a faint glow; waves of pure, pristine heaven and earth primordial energy appeared around Xi Yao, his body like a bottomless black hole frantically devouring the surrounding heaven and earth primordial energy, and then his aura kept increasing, rapidly increasing…

"You demons of the Great Jin… it's you who killed Xi Yao…" Xi Yao's body jerked violently; the chains piercing through every joint of his body snapped one by one, countless black lightning bolts exploding into tiny black sparks that sprayed throughout the hall.

Hearing Xi Yao's roar, Sima Wuyou could not help but stomp his foot hard and howl hysterically: "Outrageous… Xi Yao, it's you two siblings who harmed my crown prince, harmed my father's holy son…"

"My holy son—over all these years of the Great Jin Divine Nation, only he and the founding divine emperor ancestor have had the sun‑and‑moon pattern arise in the soles of their feet, plus a seven‑star formation diagram… The holy son could possibly, possibly be the reincarnation of our Great Jin Divine Nation's founding divine emperor ancestor… He is bound, bound to become a sage emperor, leading our Great Jin Divine Nation to conquer Great Wu and Great Wei, achieving supreme hegemony."

"How much painstaking effort, how much blood and sweat have I poured in? Even expending the royal clan's reserves, even breaking imperial household rules, I preemptively granted the holy son great treasures, preemptively granted him great authority, preemptively let him participate in court affairs, preemptively let him understand the people's conditions… I, the old man, want to cultivate the holy son into the first sage emperor, the first sage ruler of all ages!"

"He just believed your siblings' heresy… he just believed your heresy… saying whatever, saying whatever that all gods are demons… saying whatever, that we must seek survival for all myriad races… saying whatever, the Grand Dao, fairness, freedom… all just twisted fallacies and heretical talk…"

Sima Wuyou pointed at Xi Yao, hysterical and shouting: "The sage ruler, sage emperor I painstakingly cultivated has been led astray by you two… the Eastern Palace incident caused our Great Jin imperial authority to plummet from its peak, allowing those old villains Linghu Qingqing and Gongyang Sanlü to seize power… even more critical, even more critical…"

Two streams of clear tears trickled down Sima Wuyou's aged face.

"Even more critical is that I poured all my heart and blood into the holy son… the virtuous son and the other princes and princesses have all become a bunch of worthless things, all turned into a bunch of damned bastards… they're all a bunch of damned bastards; looking at them myself, I feel like strangling each of those damned bastards to death…"

"But what can I do? I'm also desperate… back then, that situation left me no choice but to step down from the throne, as the gods sought to curb Great Jin's authority… I could only, only, let the virtuous son—though a bit foolish, yet still possessing a slice of foolish filial piety—ascend the throne as a dim‑witted ruler!"

"Six thousand years of a dim‑witted ruler on the throne… look, see what our Great Jin has become now!"

Sima Wuyou roared sternly: "I have watched, eyes wide open, as Great Jin weakens step by step, as the flesh and blood of the Great Jin royal clan are sliced away piece by piece, as the Linghu and Gongyang clans and their followers devour the royal clan's blood and flesh, rapidly growing strong!"

Sima Wuyou jumped up, pointed at Xi Yao's nose, and cursed: "You country‑ruining monster—just you two siblings!"

Xi Yao had already broken every chain on his body; he drew a deep breath, and with the formidable strength of his divine‑realm cultivation, all his external wounds instantly healed. Seeing Sima Wuyou point at his nose and hurl abuse, he let out a mighty roar, coiled his serpent tail, and whipped Sima Wuyou flying away with a single sweep.

"You may curse me, but you must not curse my sister… you old scoundrel, you old fool… it's all your fault, it's all your son's fault, it's all the fault of the Great Jin Demon Nation… the Great Jin Demon Nation has no good people… kill!"

With a great shout, Xi Yao swung both fists and charged at the struggling‑to‑rise Sima Wuyou.

Wu Tie pretended to want to intercept a little, but the officers of the Six Tooth Forbidden Army had already drawn their weapons; however, Sima Wuyou beside him shouted: "Get lost, no interference, this is my grudge with this monster!"

Sima Wuyou put down the Heaven and Earth Seal, a layer of supple, clear Dao light rolling around his body, he roared loudly like a madman and slammed heavily into Xiyang. The two rolled on the ground, swinging their fists wildly at each other's faces like street thugs.

In terms of size, Xiyang undoubtedly had the absolute advantage: his upper body was over a zhang tall, his snake tail eight or nine zhang long, and his fists were even larger than Sima Wuyou's head.

But Sima Wuyou also practiced the ancient forbidden art, the Shangqing Lingbao Scripture, which contains highly skilled combat techniques; in terms of bodily strength and toughness, it is only slightly weaker than the Nine Turns Mysterious Skill, and in terms of magical abilities and transformations, it is even more uniquely wondrous.

The two tangled together in a wild brawl; Sima Wuyou showed no sign of weakening, hearing constant 'boom-boom' impacts. Soon both Sima Wuyou and Xiyang were beaten to bruised noses and swollen faces, and on the ground at least twenty or so big teeth had been knocked out with a 'clink-clank' sound.

Finally, Xiyang punched Sima Wuyou flying; Sima Wuyou, clutching his throat, shouted: "Xiyang, do you want revenge? Your two nieces... only I know where they are."

Xiyang, his jaw broken, panted with a 'huff-huff' sound, his gaze dark as he stared at Sima Wuyou and slowly nodded: "Revenge, of course, revenge... but, old-timer, be careful... careful I might kill you at any moment! If I get the chance, I will definitely kill you."