Chapter 294: Lu Xing!

Qiu Ren's laughter rang through the room. The Two-Faced Buddha had planned this for twenty years, and it seemed he had accounted for me as well.

No single person could bear the karmic weight of a million living souls alone—not even the Two-Faced Buddha himself.

But the Two-Faced Buddha was a master of the long game. Using fate patterns and human hearts as his playing pieces, he had secured his escape route long ago.

Qiu Ren's careless words drove home just how terrifying the Two-Faced Buddha truly was, and simultaneously made me realize the sheer horror of the Underworld Live Show.

Their very existence defied ordinary comprehension. If all living beings were playing pieces, those two were the masterminds moving them from beyond the board.

While I was speaking with Qiu Ren, the Fate Ghost had devoured every last phantom in the room. Its dense, eerie hair fanned out behind me, backing Qiu Ren into a corner.

"So what if I bear a cursed name? I have a clear conscience before heaven and my own heart. Besides, you won't live to see the Two-Faced Buddha succeed." I gripped the hilt with both hands, refusing to waste another word.

"Die!"

The blade scraped across the floor, cleaving straight through the curtain of rain.

I lunged forward like a doomed vanguard on an ancient battlefield, my eyes bloodshot and my killing intent boiling over.

Knowing he was outmatched, Qiu Ren flicked out a Black Talisman with one hand. Shrieking specters tore themselves from the paper, coalescing into a hideous phantom to block my path.

"Kill!" Pushing off the ground, I leapt and swung the blade. The battle-hardened killing intent forged into the Deer-Slaying Dao erupted to its absolute peak in my hands. "Gods in my path will die, and Buddhas will shatter!"

The phantom parted down the middle like a sheet of tissue paper. Its horrifying visage was cleaved in two before it could even draw near.

"What kind of blade is that?!" Qiu Ren reeled in shock, his eyes twitching frantically as he stared at the shredded remnants of his Black Talisman.

I didn't break stride, closing the distance in an instant. "It's the blade that slays evil, slaughters demons, and takes your wretched head!"

The pump house was cramped, leaving Qiu Ren nowhere to run. Every strike I made was lethal, aimed dead at his vitals, forcing him to empty his entire arsenal just to parry my blows.

A couple of minutes later, I noticed something wrong—he was deliberately stalling for time. But I was already seeing red. All the festering resentment I had accumulated over the past five years detonated in that single moment.

My entire life had derailed because of him. Five years ago, I had been his scapegoat. I refused to let history repeat itself now.

"If the law can't convict you, then I will be your judge! Today, I will avenge every lonely soul buried beneath the Amusement Park! I will get justice for the little girl in red you tortured to death, for the tourists whose faces you flayed to make wax figures, and for the three innocent lives you took five years ago!"

Through bloodshot eyes, I felt the Red Fox on my chest flare to life. I backed Qiu Ren into a dead end and raised my blade level!

"You all deserve to die! You aren't fit to call yourselves Buddhas!"

I commanded the Fate Ghost to bind his limbs. My pace quickened as I hoisted the Deer-Slaying Dao high into the air.

"Die!"

The blade fell, and a fountain of blood sprayed across the room!

I had aimed right for his neck, but he twisted aside at the last possible second. Sacrificing the chariot to save the commander, he offered up his other arm to take the blow.

Blood splattered as a severed arm hit the floor. Staring at Qiu Ren's face, now contorted in agony, I showed absolutely no pity. "You brought this on yourself! So you feel fear too? You know what pain is?"

I aimed another slash straight at his body. This time, he didn't even try to dodge. Risking a massive gash sliced open across his stomach, he bit down hard on the tip of his tongue and slurred out a rapid incantation.

The splattered blood on the floor temporarily bound me like iron chains, leaving me unable to move.

Shooting me a venomous glare, he pressed his body against the wall and scrambled out.

"Shatter!"

I hacked wildly with the Deer-Slaying Dao, quickly severing the blood-forged bindings. "You can't get away."

Hiding the Fate Ghost in my shadow, I bolted out in pursuit.

The torrential downpour was washing away the blood trail, but nothing could hide from my Chasing Eye. Utterly terrified, Qiu Ren fled in a blind panic, leaving behind plenty of clues along the way.

By now, I no longer cared about hiding my identity. Gripping my blade, I sprinted in rapid pursuit.

The pump station was located high up on the dam. Judging by the direction of his escape, Qiu Ren was heading for the crest of the dam.

'Is he deliberately luring me, or is he trying to rendezvous with Lu Xing?'

When the flood waters arrived, the crest of the dam was the most dangerous place to be.

The crashing flood peak kicked up waves several meters high. If you lost your footing, you were very likely to be swept away by the flood.

On one side of the dam was the reservoir, and on the other, a drop of nearly forty-one meters to the lower river.

Plummeting from a height of over a dozen stories, even if you miraculously avoided the rocks, the sheer impact of hitting the water surface would be enough to cause massive trauma to the human body.

I chased him up the narrow, perilous iron stairs. The emergency repair crews passing by spotted me and stepped to the sides in shock and suspicion. Some bolted off to get the police, while others dropped their work to see what exactly I was doing.

With no time to explain myself to these repair crews, I carried my blade, eyes red, and chased him all the way to the dam's crest.

The iron door leading to the top of the dam was locked, and the padlock was on the inside.

"Hey, what are you doing? Access to the crest is forbidden!" Engineer Tao, who had originally been at the hydroelectric plant, was called over. Upon seeing me, he recognized me instantly: "Aren't you that high-voltage electrician? What are you doing here? What is that in your hand?"

I didn't waste words on him. Raising my blade with both hands, I hacked straight down at the padlock.

"Clang!"

Sparks showered the air, and the sharp ring took everyone by surprise.

"Hey! What are you doing? The crest is extremely dangerous, do not go up there!" Engineer Tao yelled at me, waving to those around him. "Quick! Stop him!"

A few of the surrounding repair crew exchanged glances and moved to encircle me. They didn't dare get too close, since my current state looked highly unstable.

"Get out of my way!"

"Clang!" I hacked the lock a second time. The sound stopped everyone in their tracks. "Get back!"

"Drop your weapon! Put your hands up!" a police officer's voice came from down the corridor. Hearing the repair workers' reports, several officers on guard duty came running, and one of them even drew his sidearm. "Cease destroying the dam immediately! Drop the weapon!"

"Destroying it? I am protecting you! I am the one protecting you!" Backhanding the blade, I hacked down again. The screech of the blade grating against the iron door was piercing enough to drown out the thunder in the sky for a split second.

"Stop immediately, or I will shoot!" The dam involved the safety of millions of lives. In a critical juncture like this, the police naturally had the right to shoot first and ask questions later to eliminate any unsafe elements.

My answer to the officer was a series of metallic clashes as I brought the blade down repeatedly, hacking at the exact same spot.

"I am warning you for the last time! Stop immediately—" The officer was halfway through his sentence when his muzzle was suddenly pressed down.

"Don't misfire," Wu Meng said, hurrying up from the bottom of the dam and gesturing for the police to put away their guns.

"Captain Wu, that man is holding a restricted weapon, and his state of mind is highly abnormal. I'm afraid he'll cause a disaster."

Several officers and on-site maintenance workers told Wu Meng the full story. His eyes turned incredibly complicated as he listened. He stared at my back for a long moment before finally speaking: "Who has the keys to the dam crest? Help him open the door immediately."

"But..."

"Hurry up!"

A few workers ran toward the bottom of the dam to find the manager. Wu Meng gripped his sidearm tightly with one hand, his fingers sweating; making this decision clearly hadn't been easy for him.

"Bang!" With a full-powered swing, the iron door finally gave way. The hinge was severed, and I kicked it wide open.

I stepped onto the iron stairs and continued upward. The blood trail before my eyes was very fresh, and there was more and more of it.

When I crested the final step and stood fully atop the dam, my eyes cut through the raging storm, locking dead ahead.

"Lu Xing!"

My long-suppressed voice no longer needed to be hidden. Standing atop the forty-one-meter Heavenly Gate, I roared at the man born with two faces in the center of the crest's walkway.

Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and massive waves pounded wildly, but no one could stop my advance.

"I'm going to kill you! Today, I will kill you!"

Dragging my blade, I sprinted across the top of Lanjiang Dam. On one side was the surging, roaring flood peak, and on the other was a sheer cliff. Right down the middle, on a crest walkway less than three meters wide, I was not going to give Lu Xing another chance.

Meeting on a narrow path—either you die, or I do!

The dam was two hundred meters long. Standing right in the middle of the crest walkway, Lu Xing had spotted me the moment I came up.

"Gao Jian, you truly are a lingering spirit." The handsome, flawless half of his face was freezing cold, while the scarred half broke into an excited grin. "Very well. Today, I'll kill them right in front of you!"