Chapter 301: The Curtain Falls

I watched in alarm, dread gnawing at me. The seven needles in Xiaofeng's back were driven in right by her spine. Prying them out with a knife could easily damage the bone, or worse, leave her paralyzed from the waist down. "Xiaofeng, what are you doing?"

Turning my head to check on her gave Lu Xing the opening he needed. Sacrificing his arm to block my dao, he lunged at me, desperate to snatch the Eight Characters Token from my grasp.

I couldn't afford a single moment of negligence against a vicious thug like Lu Xing. I took a quick step back and reversed my blade, forcing him to retreat. "Still haven't given up on the Eight Characters Token, huh?"

Lu Xing gritted his teeth. "That belongs to me! Give it back!"

In close combat, our odds were a clean fifty-fifty. My long dao gave me a slight edge, but my other hand was occupied with the Eight Characters Token. The bizarre artifact was astonishingly heavy; its dead weight left my entire arm numb and slowed my movements.

"Stop dreaming, Lu Xing. You've already lost."

"The Heavenly Gate is open and you can't close it! If you release the taboo entity inside that great tomb, a million souls will curse your name! You'll die without a place to bury your bones!"

Lu Xing's attacks grew increasingly frantic, and I went all out to meet him, trading life for life in a desperate brawl.

Not far behind me, the crisp clinks of long needles hitting the ground cut through the air. The sound was so distinct that not even the raging storm could drown it out.

Standing in the center of Lanjiang Dam, Xiaofeng's back was a bloody mess. Seven long needles, dyed almost the color of flesh and blood, lay scattered unevenly across the ground.

As each needle was pulled free, vivid red patterns began to surface on her skin, much like the dragon tattoo covering Lu Xing's face.

Its beak was like a rooster's, its jaw like a swallow's, and its posture like a crane's. A long tail cascaded down like the swaying branches of a thousand-year-old parasol tree, or a waterfall woven from pure flame.

It looked haughty and pure, every single feather seemingly carved with exquisite precision. It was like a peerless treasure, absolutely unique in this world.

"Is that... a Red Luan?!" Lu Xing's reaction was even more extreme than mine. "You're crazy! You've lost your mind! Stop it, Xiaofeng! Stop right now!"

His bizarre, intense panic deepened the ominous premonition in my gut. I turned my head to look at her.

Blood streamed down her back as she faced the direction of the rising sun. She was looking right at me, her eyes holding an emotion I couldn't decipher. "Gao Jian, give me the token!"

I had heard Xiaofeng's voice countless times before, but this time, something about it felt distinctly different.

Without a second thought, I tossed the token to her. Lu Xing tried to intercept it, but I blocked him dead in his tracks with my blade.

Unburdened by the token, Lu Xing was no longer a match for me. Yet in that moment, I was far more worried about Xiaofeng than the madman in front of me. 'What is she trying to do? Did those seven long needles serve another purpose?'

Catching the Eight Characters Token, Xiaofeng smeared her own blood over the spot Lu Xing had marked earlier, then raised the artifact high into the air, facing directly east.

"Quick! Stop her! A Red Luan mirroring the sun—she's going to ignite her own Fate Pattern!" Lu Xing's face contorted with sheer panic as he screamed. My blade-wielding hand hesitated for a split second.

'Is Xiaofeng going to sacrifice herself?'

The clouds were thick, suffocating every last trace of light. Today, the sun over Jiangcheng had failed to rise.

"Xiaofeng, don't do anything stupid!" Even as I shouted, I didn't move to stop her. Instead, I stood my ground against Lu Xing. I wasn't going to let this monster hurt her ever again.

"Twenty years of planning! Let go! Stop right now!" Driven mad with anxiety, Lu Xing exposed a fatal flaw in his guard, and I slashed my dao straight across his chest.

The Deer-Slaying Dao was sharp enough to split a hair on the breeze. It laid Lu Xing's chest bare right down to the gleaming white bone. Flailing in exasperation, he pulled out a handful of Black Talismans and hurled them at me.

Vicious ghosts wailed as they manifested, but the Deer-Slaying Dao possessed a Pre-Heaven ability to banish evil. I didn't flinch in the slightest.

Driven to the end of his rope, he finally steeled his heart and pulled out a pitch-black Octagonal Token!

It looked exactly like the previous ones, except this token didn't have a single divine fiend engraved on it.

"You actually have another one?" My eyes narrowed. Every disciple of the Two-Faced Buddha was given a token as proof of their identity, though I didn't know if the one in his hand came from Zimao or someone else.

"Well played, Gao Jian! With the Red Phoenix Heavenly Jubilee entering your fate palace, your destiny is far from simple!" As Lu Xing pulled out the token, my expression instantly tightened with vigilance. Back during the nightmare of the Primal Destiny Divine Fiends, Zichou had shattered the Dream Realm by detonating his token's final burst of power. This thing had to contain a massive amount of sealed energy.

"If I can't have it, neither can you! Even if the Buddha's twenty-year plan is ruined, we will never act as stepping stones for someone else!" Lu Xing flipped the Octagonal Token in his hand. The words 'usurping fate' faintly engraved upon it instantly blurred.

By now, Xiaofeng seemed to have reached a critical juncture. The token containing the gathered eight characters was completely drenched in her blood, its every crack packed tight with slowly coagulating red.

Ignoring Lu Xing's threats completely, Xiaofeng threw her head back in total concentration, staring fixedly at one specific corner of the Eight Characters Token.

The words 'Red Luan' carved into that corner gradually faded. The moment the characters vanished completely, Xiaofeng let out a cry. It rang like a bamboo flute and resonated like a temple bell—a clear, ethereal call that pierced straight into the highest heavens.

"Is that... the cry of a phoenix?" All the color drained from Lu Xing's face.

"You want to change your fate, so I'll usurp your destiny! I'll destroy the Eight Characters Divine Fiends so no one can have them!" As he screamed, Lu Xing hurled the token in his hand, aiming straight for Xiaofeng's palm.

After the phoenix cry echoed out, the massive shadow beneath the river seemed to grow restless. The thudding impacts grew heavier and more frequent. The dam was teetering on the absolute brink of collapse.

But right at that moment, Xiaofeng slowly dropped to her knees under the vault of the sky. From the corner of the token where the words 'Red Luan' had been, a blood-red beam of light pierced straight through the oppressive layers of dark clouds.

As the red light faded, the token Lu Xing threw slammed into Xiaofeng's upraised hands.

Under the violent impact, the already heavily cracked Eight Characters Token was knocked to the ground, emitting a sharp sound of internal fracturing.

The words 'Red Luan' were gone, but the gaping hole torn through the storm clouds showed no sign of closing. The eight great locks scattered across Jiangcheng, operating in tandem with the Eight Characters Token, ground to a halt. It seemed the token's destruction had completely terminated the feng shui grand formation.

"Did the rain let up?"

"The wind stopped too."

"Look! The shadow of that fish school in the reservoir is fading away!"

The thick cloud cover had been punctured with an unhealing hole, staring down like the eye of heaven. A moment later, a long-lost ray of sunlight broke through the gloom and cascaded over Xiaofeng.

"The sky is clearing..."

Still kneeling, her body slumped forward, completely unconscious. I rushed over to catch her and pull her to the side.

"Twenty years of preparation, and we fell short by a single step?" Lu Xing looked completely broken. The dragon tattoo on his face had faded the moment the shadow in the river vanished, and a hideous scar had crawled its way across the other half of his face. "I lost? Impossible... I still have a chance!"

Lu Xing's gaze locked onto the shattered Octagonal Token on the ground. Snatching it up, he suddenly bolted toward me and Xiaofeng. "If I kill you, I still have a chance!"

"You're asking for death!" I had kept most of my attention anchored on him. I couldn't afford a single drop of carelessness around a dangerous lunatic like him.

Leveling the Deer-Slaying Dao horizontally, I aimed it right at his incoming charge and thrust forward.

The narrow blade effortlessly skewered Lu Xing's stomach, carving through flesh and severing bone in a single smooth motion.

Hacking up a massive mouthful of blood, Lu Xing opened his mouth in a hysterical laugh. "You can't kill me, Gao Jian! The Buddha has already remembered you!"

His mind had utterly snapped. With his stomach fully impaled, he didn't just refuse to dodge—he sped up.

'Not good!' Right behind me was the sheer drop of the dam. The Deer-Slaying Dao was wedged tight in Lu Xing's bones, making it impossible to wrench free in time. I decisively let go of the hilt, but I was still a second too late.

Using every last ounce of strength in his body, Lu Xing rammed directly into me. With one arm supporting Xiaofeng, I couldn't muster the leverage to resist. He was trying to tackle both of us off the edge of the dam.

My mind raced, but I couldn't come up with a better solution. Acting purely on instinct, I shoved Xiaofeng away and reached out to grab Lu Xing at the very last second.

"What are you doing?!"

"Dragging you to hell with me, of course!"

The slippery railing gave way under the pressure. Losing my balance, I tipped backward into the open air, my face twisted in a savage grimace as my hand locked onto Lu Xing in a death grip.

"Let's go to hell together!"

He tumbled forward as well. Grappling with each other, we plummeted off the edge of the forty-one-meter-high dam.

Below us, all nine floodgates were wide open. Through the sky-blotting mist, I caught sight of the fractured Eight Characters Token still clutched in Lu Xing's hand.

"You still haven't given up?" Letting go of the Deer-Slaying Dao's hilt, I snatched the other end of the token.

The roaring wind tore into my ears, feeling as if it would shred my eardrums. I saw Lu Xing's final expression—the bastard was still laughing hysterically. He opened his mouth, seeming to mouth a single sentence at me.

Crash!

Our bodies smashed into the churning river below. The sheer violence of the impact felt like it shattered every bone in my body. Darkness, freezing cold, and absolute exhaustion crashed down on me all at once. Staring up, I watched the surface of the water slip further and further away.

'Perhaps, it's finally time for this to end.'