Chapter 19 The Sky is Burning

Chapter 19 The Sky is Burning

The most fearsome demon king of the East was stepping into a silvery world filled with piercing cold.

Ice fragments and mist floated in the air. The trees, stripped of their leaves, had bare branches that endured the heavy pressure of accumulated snow.

This was by no means a scene worthy of being called a paradise. Even though no god had passed through here, every corner of this place reeked of death in Luo Hao's eyes. The so-called beautiful scenery was merely the last remnant before decay began.

Luo Hao was not only a martial artist who had reached the pinnacle of martial arts, but also a powerful Taoist priestess. Not only had she reached the realm of perfection in arcane arts, but she also possessed extraordinary spiritual sensitivity, able to use spiritual vision with ease, allowing her to instantly perceive the reality and essence of this land.

"Looks like I need to speed up," she murmured as she lightly stepped over the snow without leaving a single footprint. Not even a snowflake touched her clothing. Her martial arts had reached a level so advanced it was as if both her body and clothes had lost their weight.

The master of the Eastern Demon Sect, a woman with stunning beauty, was leaping and dashing, drawing ever closer to her target.

And the target Luo Hao was pursuing was also approaching his own objective.

Hikigaya Hachiman was also racing across this plateau.

In ancient times, this land was commonly referred to as Hexi, meaning west of the great river. The great river referred to here was what the ancient Chinese ancestors called the Yellow River. At this moment, everything on this land appeared to move in slow motion in his eyes.

This phenomenon only occurred when entering the realm of divine speed.

Divine speed—also known as the speed of light and electricity. Hikigaya's martial prowess was still far from sufficient to attain this on its own, but he was a god slayer. He had Authority.

When he set foot once more on the land of death, with no prior warning, he obtained this power—perhaps not by chance.

Chasing the sun like a demigod, on a land of withered trees and dried-up rivers—when mythology and the real world intertwined, strange things were bound to happen.

The illumination of light brought him the speed of the sun, and he could now sense Hou Yi's location. Undoubtedly, the power of chasing the sun now flowed through his body. It was a powerful weapon capable of combating sun-stealing gods like Di Jun and Hou Yi.

The awakening of a new power delighted Hikigaya immensely, though he remained unaware that he himself had become someone else's target.

Who knows how long passed. As Hikigaya, moving at divine speed, pursued the light, he finally saw flaming feathers falling from the sky. Even after separating from the body of the Golden Crow, they maintained their feather-like form, floating in the air until they truly touched the ground, at which point their power would be released.

To see the fire feathers was proof that Hou Yi was near.

In fact, there was even clearer evidence—the sky in the distance was burning, the flames emitted from the light wheel of the Eastern War God.

Upon seeing this, Hikigaya's face lit up with joy.

His eyes turned pitch-black, and his body lifted off the ground, soaring toward the burning sky.

The lingering light of the Golden Crow in the sky rushed toward him, entering his body.

In that instant, Hikigaya felt intense pain.

This pain was almost on par with what he felt when he was first transformed into a god slayer—perhaps even worse. It felt as though his internal organs were being incinerated.

Hikigaya wanted to curse.

Even though this was the price of using the Authority… it hurt like hell!

But he could feel it—something new was gestating within his body.

The light within him expanded rapidly, soon exceeding his body's capacity and beginning to overflow.

Streaks of radiant light were dragged out, forming rainbow-like beams that pierced the sky.

And this sight was witnessed not only by the one pursuing him—

But also by a god.

When the rainbow light had spread across most of the plateau's sky, in the distant horizon where the sun was falling, a divine light wheel appeared.

The reappearing god looked entirely different from the one Hikigaya had seen before.

Its divine flames blanketed the sky, manifesting the radiance of ten suns within it.

As representations of the ten periods in an original solar calendar year, the ten suns now each displayed a distinct divine identity. Hou Yi must have collected a vast and complete form of abundant energy; otherwise, the manifestation of all ten suns would not have occurred.

If he delivered this power to Di Jun, it would be a catastrophe.

Hikigaya could already sense a terrifying curse force nearby. Gods did not use curses. The only ones who possessed such power were beings like him.

This was a very good thing—because he had no time to waste on a drawn-out battle with Hou Yi. Let his lovely comrade take care of that. But before that, he had to complete his task.

At this point, Hikigaya no longer looked human.

Or rather, he had lost his human form entirely. His very essence had transformed.

He had become a Golden Crow.

Ancient solar-controlling sorcery followed two main laws: the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion.

The Law of Similarity held that similar causes would produce similar effects—in other words, by imitating the target's actions, one could control them. The Law of Contagion stated that contact with a part of the target's body could enable control of the whole.

The prototype of this sorcery was the power of Kuafu's pursuit of the sun—imitating the sun and moon to grasp them, bathing and rotating in the sweet waters, mastering the divine rhythm of their movements.

This ancient Earth Mother deity advanced together with the sun, catching it where it set, dying alongside it. Through mimicking the sun's orbit, she gained control of its power, and through death and rebirth, she mastered it.

This was the very method of using the Authority to chase the sun.

To be honest, this process wasn't very pleasant. It looked very much like the self-harming behavior of a masochistic lunatic seeking death. That was exactly how Hikigaya had easily killed Kuafu back then.

But that risk was now eliminated with the arrival of his comrade.

He didn't know who that comrade was or why they were here, but their presence meant Hou Yi wouldn't get a chance to deliver a fatal blow. As long as he revived successfully, he could seize Hou Yi's power.

Using Di Jun's greatest ability against Di Jun himself—surely, that would be interesting.

"God Slayer, you possess quite the intriguing power," said the Golden Crow in the sky, its thunderous voice echoing among the ten suns. "But you can't defeat me with mere imitation."

Amidst the divine blaze, Hou Yi revealed his human form. In his left hand he held the divine bow; in his right, he nocked an arrow and roared with all his might: "Xi He indulges in lust, neglects time and disrupts the sun—I shall punish her!"

This was divine word magic, and at the same time, the white divine arrow was loosed.

The sky, once cloaked in sunset's afterglow, turned crimson with the hue of dawn.

From the ten suns, blazing arrows of flame also shot forth, striking the divine arrow.

The glow of the setting sun was completely erased. The light of the third Golden Crow, born of the divine arrow, dyed most of the sky golden.

And at that moment, within the blinding sunlight, Hikigaya Hachiman's voice rang out as well.

"The corpse of Nü Chou, burned by ten suns—reborn in the north of her husband!"

From the light wheel of the Golden Crow he had become, the faint image of a snake emerged.

The next moment, the light of the two Golden Crows collided.

Two beams of light and flame clashed in the sky. But soon, the brilliance of the divine arrow began to fade, while Hikigaya's light grew ever stronger…