Chapter 613: Chess Pieces, Chess Player

Quiet, dim.

The style of the Ise Grand Shrine's main hall is called "Unique God Construction," the oldest and most sacred architectural style in the East. The architectural lines are simple and sharp, and the huge *chigi* and *katsuogi* on the hall roof extend from the main body of the building like sharp swords pointing to the sky.

Four layers of fences named "Itagaki, Uchitamagaki, Sototamagaki, Mizugaki" blocked all lines of sight attempting to peek into the interior of the main hall.

Ji Tianrui stood still outside the "Itagaki."

This was the distance she had reached before, the closest to the main hall.

As early as the end of the Battle of the Imperial Mausoleum, she had already gone to sea to layout in the East, until the night Zheng Anqi died at the hands of Li Miao, she had to leave the Ise Grand Shrine because she had been away from the East for too long and her identity was exposed.

She had been here.

At that time, she replaced a priest, borrowed this identity to try to approach the Ise Grand Shrine main hall, and investigate the bottom of Amaterasu Omikami... But it was here, just as she had crossed the outermost "Itagaki," the Grand Priest, who had clearly been fast asleep, suddenly woke up without warning and rushed straight to her.

She could be sure that the Grand Priest could not have noticed her movements, and there was no one around the shrine that day.

Then who discovered her and used means that even she could not detect to wake up the Grand Priest?

There was only one possibility.

Amaterasu Omikami.

He had never slept.

He was inside the shrine, watching Ji Tianrui.

Now.

Ji Tianrui let out a long breath.

The habitual fake smile on her face, like a mask, gradually faded, leaving an expression as cold and hard as a block of ice.

Sacrificing I don't know how many lives, stirring up the world into chaos, overturning the four seas. Zuo Lishan, Lan Lechuan, Ming Sect, Jianwen Emperor, Emperor, Yin Ruihua, Yang family, Zheng Anqi, Zheng Anqi Sheng, Liu Jin, Ji Tianrui, Miao King... Paving the way with the blood of countless heroes, geniuses, nobles, and demons, she finally reached here.

Many things... seem to be ending today.

She suddenly opened her mouth.

"You are watching me, aren't you?"

No response.

But she didn't care, just continued to speak.

"You know, everyone in the world, including Lord Li, thinks I am a lunatic... Why chase your trail so persistently, why risk everything to deal with a person I have never met and who is ethereal."

"They think you and I have no grievances."

"But I think you should understand."

She said softly.

"You have been to the Central Plains."

"There are some things I don't want to tell Li Miao... so he won't understand me, but you should be able to. You know why I want to deal with you, why I am so sure of your existence."

"After handing the Jizhao cultivation method to the Jianwen Emperor back then, you didn't leave the Central Plains. At least thirty years ago, you were still wandering around the Central Plains."

"Ji Tianrui, do you still remember this name?"

Ji Tianrui smiled suddenly.

"My father, my enemy."

"He imprisoned my freedom. The meaning of my birth was to become a tool for him to cross the Five Decays of Heaven and Man. He set up countless means to prevent me from escaping... and at that time, I really had no way to resist him."

"Fortunately, he died."

"After he died, I inherited everything of his, including all his exploration results on certain things."

Speaking of this, Ji Tianrui suddenly changed the topic.

"Actually, many people who have fought with me, including Lord Li, find it strange. Gu arts are originally a minor path, and they should be incompatible with martial arts. For thousands of years, no one has ever tried to combine them. This should be a matter of course."

"Why could my grandfather, Sect Leader Yang Lixuan, suddenly think of this point, secretly conceive with the Miao King, and give birth to my father?"

"If you say my father could do this, I would believe it, but my grandfather... hehe, the stone heads of the Yang family, if you talk about fighting, that counts as useful, but if you want to talk about finding another way, it's not as good as a piece of dog urine moss."

"What did he rely on to combine Gu arts and martial arts? Just a Miao King who borrowed a corpse to return to life? If the Miao King had this ability, why would he only guard the Miao frontier when he was alive?"

Ji Tianrui paused for a moment.

"Regarding this point, my father also felt very strange... so he did some investigations and reached some conclusions."

"Backing the Ming Sect, he found the secrets of the Jianwen Emperor period, then chased all the way, discovered Yingzhou and Xu Fu, and finally... confirmed your existence."

"The combination of Gu arts and martial arts is a spare move you pushed Yang Lixuan to find. You wanted to use Yang Lixuan's hand to spread this crooked path throughout the world, lead martial arts to a crooked path, and completely cut off the possibility of people like Sanfeng and Bodhidharma appearing."

"Because it was a spare move, there was my father. His birth was just a spare move of yours."

"So he went crazy."

"He couldn't accept the truth about his origin, couldn't accept that he couldn't escape the fence set by someone casually even after exhausting his life, couldn't accept that he was just one of countless mediocre people in the past thousand years."

"Ridiculous, right? Clearly he was like this to me, but when it fell on himself, he couldn't stand it."

"With his talent, even if he exhausted his means, he could only barely avoid the Five Decays of Heaven and Man by relying on Gu arts, and couldn't deduce Nature Cultivation. He could only be an incomplete three-path merger in his life."

"He couldn't accept this point, so he had to plot the Jizhao in the Emperor's hands, then the Xuanlan in Yingzhou's hands, the True Constancy in Xu Fu's hands, and finally achieve a six-path merger... personally overturn your chessboard and kill you, this self-righteous chess player."

"But it's a pity... he overestimated himself. Before he even finished the first step, he died, died in the hands of the Emperor."

"Died silently."

"This is his story."

Ji Tianrui's words fell slowly.

The story of the man thirty years ago, the imaginary enemy before Li Miao came out of the mountains, the Ming Sect leader Ji Tianrui, was finally revealed completely.

The truth about him finally settled.

The story of the dead is over.

No matter how brilliant he was, no matter how much he calculated, he eventually became a dead person.

And now... it's time to talk about the story of the living.

Ji Tianrui said calmly.

"I am not as smart as Lord Li thinks. It has only been more than ten years since I escaped from the Miao King's hands. If it weren't for Ji Tianrui's legacy, I am afraid I would never be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Lord Li in my life, let alone chase to your front."

"But he has his talent, I have my origin. I don't belittle myself, nor will I be jealous of others' fate."

"So... let's talk about the present."

Her voice carried no emotion.

"Although I don't want to admit it, I am indeed very similar to Ji Tianrui. I don't want anyone to manipulate my life either."

"Ji Tianrui was a tool you pointed Yang Lixuan to create."

"And I am a tool created by Ji Tianrui to deal with you."

"I want to erase this point, I want to kill everyone related to this, I want to completely get rid of all this. Only then... can 'I' truly be 'I'."

"In heaven and on earth, I alone am the honored one."

Ji Tianrui slowly raised her palm, true energy surged around her, shaking the fine dust and gravel on the ground violently.

"I am me."

"Ji Tianrui, will only be Ji Tianrui." ===== CHAPTER 614 =====