Chapter 274: The Grand Prize

"This gaze..."

After the power of the stars descended upon them, the aura of the three individuals climbed continuously; Shen Yu only saw three pairs of eyes gleaming with cold light.

At this moment, the three of them no longer possessed even a shred of human emotion. If one could say they barely counted as having false pretenses before, then now, they possessed only endless indifference.

That kind of coldness—it was cold enough to make one tremble, cold enough to make one involuntarily feel terrified and uneasy.

The aura of these three had already become increasingly terrifying, and now that they were linked together, the overlapping pressure made the very space tremble. Based on their aura alone, it seemed they could shatter mountains and rivers with a mere wave of their hands.

Judging by the stance of the three, it seemed they intended to forcibly tear open space and shatter the heavens and earth.

"A beautiful thought!" Withdrawing his surprise, Shen Yu waved his hand lightly; the Mountain and River Map shook abruptly under his control, and space was directly sealed off.

All external forces were sealed outside, and the starlight power channeled by the three Beads was interrupted in an instant.

No matter how the beads above the three people's heads rotated, not a shred of starlight power could be channeled or absorbed anymore.

Without sufficient power to replenish them, the aura that had just climbed to its peak plummeted instantly. The power of the Mountain and River Map then pressed down, descending with majestic force, weighing heavily upon their shoulders.

This force was so immense it induced despair; how could human strength possibly shake the heavens and earth, and how could it be mentioned in the same breath as the power gathered from ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers?

These ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers were truly ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers; no matter how strong they were, they could never be stronger than the crushing weight of a World.

Under this terrifying power, not only was the connected aura of the three shattered in one stroke, but they were also pressed firmly against the ground and ground into it.

The bodies of the three were instantly severely damaged, and from beginning to end, they did not even have the slightest room to resist.

At this moment, Shen Yu also directly developed a murderous intent; he no longer hoped to ask anything from the mouths of these people.

The gazes of these people just now were enough to explain the problem; that gaze, cold to the extreme, proved that they had long since lost their humanity.

Perhaps a long time ago, after Mo Sanniang had a bit of emotion in her heart, she had a little more humanity. But when that swordsman from Jingshan swung his sword at her, he had already severed this strand of green silk, and also completely shattered that bit of emotion.

The defenses of Mo Sanniang's heart, which had already begun to open, closed instantly once more, and that trace of humanity drifted away with the wind.

Facing these few people who had no humanity at all, what answers could one expect to get from them? It was better to just kill them. Dead old monsters are the only ones with final value.

Mo Sanniang was quite polite; originally it was just her, but later she called friends and companions, buying one and getting two free.

Since they were so enthusiastic, he would not be polite and would accept them all!

He spread his fingers and gripped them fiercely; under his control, the Mountain and River Map shook violently, and the entire heaven and earth began to shake along with it.

The power of the Hanshan Seal, the power of the Sun Moon Pearl, and the power of the Mysterious One Heavy Water converged to form the World power within the Mountain and River Map, intending not only to crush their bodies but also to obliterate their spirits.

This terrifying force seemed to want to wipe everything about them clean, leaving no trace behind.

"Mo Sanniang, you've doomed me!"

Facing this force, the three, who were already in a state of decline, immediately fell to the brink of destruction, their spirits and flesh being rapidly worn away.

At the final moment, one of them let out a roar of unwillingness. He had roamed the world for who knows how long, thinking he would continue to roam forever; he had never imagined he would bow out in such a way.

Unwillingness, anger, and regret filled the bottom of his heart. He shouldn't have come, but now it was too late to say anything.

Until the very last moment, until it felt as if some kind of shackle was gone, he knew he was beyond saving, but even now, he did not regret the things he had once done.

He was different from those so-called heroes; he demanded to live, he wanted to fight, he wanted to stand higher. Therefore, he could use any means necessary, he could spare nothing.

If killing people could allow him to constantly progress, then he would do it without hesitation. He would kill all the people in the world, taking the lives of others to supplement his own.

Even if his hands were stained with blood, even if corpses lay across the fields and blood flowed like a river. As long as he could benefit, it was all worth it.

He had never fallen, because his nature was such. He was not falling, but acting according to his nature.

He was following his nature, while others were forced to be like that; didn't this just prove that his path was the right one?

The weak are prey to the strong; this is a matter of natural instinct. In the eyes of strong people like them, what difference was there between those weaklings and cattle, sheep, or pastries? Survival of the fittest—what was wrong with that?

The only thing wrong was that he wasn't strong enough, so today, he was the one being slaughtered. He only hated Mo Sanniang for provoking a strong enemy and implicating him in the disaster.

In the final instant, thoughts still churned in his heart, wanting to struggle to escape. However, they ultimately collapsed and vanished, dissipating with the wind.

"Dead!" Watching his companion dissipate right before his eyes, the person beside him felt no sadness, no sympathy for a fellow sufferer; it seemed there was instead a sense of relief.

In his final moments, he only felt an unprecedented lightness, as if all chronic illnesses were gone and his mind was clear.

He wanted to grin, but discovered his body had already collapsed, and even his consciousness was rapidly disappearing.

A bitterness welled up in his heart; the world only knew of the "Blood Forest" who killed until the fields were full, but who else remembered the once-invincible swordsman, Jian Huaikong?

He had also once turned his heart toward the light, had also once upheld justice, and had even drawn his sword to resist. He thought he would always be like that; he thought he was different.

Yet he did not expect that he would ultimately fall into boundless desire, driven every day by the instincts of desire, and like everyone else, be unable to extricate himself from the endless carnival of slaughter.

Now, the past was vivid in his mind, and everything felt like yesterday. It turned out that, unknowingly, he had already fallen to this point. His self-righteousness, in the end, was just as laughable.

Over these years, he had killed countless people, and who knew how much blood had stained his hands; in the end, he had become the kind of person he had once drawn his sword against.

Now that he had reached the end of his road, it could be considered that good and evil had reached their conclusion.

He gave up all resistance and let everything collapse. Of course, even if he resisted, even if Shen Yu stopped the crushing, his collapse could not be stopped.

The moment he was liberated meant that everything had reached its end, and everything was liberated!

Finally, when the two people before and after had dissipated into the air, Shen Yu's gaze turned to Mo Sanniang. Even he had not expected that the one who lasted the longest among the three would be the weakest, Mo Sanniang.

However, she was also at the end of her rope; once the two people over there died, all the pressure weighed upon her, and she was crushed in an instant.

Collapsing rapidly from the inside out, when her spiritual sense dissipated and her spirit was exhausted, Mo Sanniang's eyes, however, became clear.

Past events surged into her heart, and there actually appeared a trace of sadness. This feeling of heartbreak—she hadn't felt it for how many years? She hadn't expected to feel it one last time before dying.

At this moment, Mo Sanniang thought of many things; she thought of the figure who had guarded outside her window day after day back then, and also of that sword strike from that year.

She actually knew very clearly from beginning to end that that sword strike was both a suppression and a protection.

At the time, she hadn't resisted at all; the other party could clearly have used the power of the crowd to kill her. But he didn't; he only suppressed her there.

And that condensed, unyielding Sword Qi, while suppressing her, was it not also protecting her from invasion day and night?

It was just a pity that when the other party swung his sword at her, whether it was active or helpless, she could not help but have hatred in her heart.

She had originally been struggling against her own desires and instincts, and for this, she had bound herself within Jingshan. When the swordsman swung his sword, she only felt endless hatred swallowing her up.

Finally, all her persistence collapsed, and her instinctive desires controlled her once more, until now, at the moment of death, she seemed to be liberated.

It is over; everything is over...

Only when the overall situation was settled did Shen Yu's figure reappear within the Mountain and River Map.

Facing the suddenly appearing Shen Yu, Mo Sanniang, who was rapidly dissipating for the last time, sighed once more that the young man before her was truly remarkable.

In her heart, at this moment, there seemed to surge a girlish sentiment she had not felt for many years.

"Little gentleman, are you really not going to reconsider? This humble one is willing to do anything!"

Smiling lightly at the suddenly appearing Shen Yu, Mo Sanniang laughed easily and heartily, as if she had set down a thousand-pound burden, as if her heart and mind were clear and no longer clouded.

At this moment, she was just like a pure and flawless young girl, her eyes clear and bright.

Subsequently, Mo Sanniang disintegrated and dissolved within the Mountain and River Map, leaving only those three Beads still spinning gently in place.

For them, everything was truly over.