Chapter 112

"Master really does have a poor memory," Lin Yu said with a smile, but to the Xianzun, it was anything but.

When he'd learned Lin Yu was a false name, he'd considered many possibilities about who she truly was—but never this. She was the one who killed Immortal Lord He, the god-slayer from the prophetic dream.

The little girl hunted across the entire kingdom ten years ago had somehow survived to this day, become the Divine Maiden of his Heaven's Mandate Tower, and used that very title to slay gods?!

"How... how could it be you?" The Xianzun's words came out stammering for once, eyes wide with utter disbelief.

"That's right." Lin Yu rose to her feet, gripping the dagger behind her back as she approached. "I'd like to ask you the same thing, Master. How is it me?"

"Master, do you know why my identity has never been exposed?"

An inexplicable dread crept into the Xianzun's heart. Lin Yu could be anyone—he could accept anyone—just not Lin Jiyue.

He couldn't help but recall the look of terror on Immortal Lord He's face when he'd come to see him ten years ago. Instinctively, he reached for the cord beside his seat—the long line that connected to the palace bell outside.

He never allowed low-ranking disciples near the summit of the Divine Mountain, nor anyone else to set foot in Bushou Hall. This rule had never changed in all these years, so without his summons, no one would come near.

Normally, the solitude could be considered peace, but now, with no one else around, it had become his death warrant.

"Ding—"

"Ding, ding, ding—"

Lin Yu didn't stop him. The palace bell rang, its crisp sound suddenly splitting the air—the signal for the Xianzun to summon his disciples.

Lin Yu simply watched him calmly, watching him flail in vain.

When Lin Yu first entered the Heaven's Mandate Tower, the Xianzun had sent her to Jiangnan. Back then, he'd transferred nearly half his cultivation to her—that was also the earliest source of power she'd ever possessed.

Add in the numerous fellow disciples she'd killed these past days, even gods and ghosts, and her current cultivation had long surpassed what the Xianzun could have imagined, reaching heights he could never attain.

And the Xianzun? His fortune had run dry. To maintain his youthful appearance before his many disciples, to keep anyone from noticing anything amiss, he'd spent a massive amount of cultivation. Now he was at death's door.

The price of resurrection was not something ordinary people could pay. When he revived Ming Jing, he should have foreseen this day—when his cultivation would scatter to nothing, leaving him no different from a common man.

Lin Yu's cultivation grew by the day, while the Xianzun withered. Now, Lin Yu could kill him with ease.

"Stop ringing it," Lin Yu said flatly. "Too loud."

She smiled faintly. "There's no one left on this entire rear mountain. I killed them all. No one's coming to save you, Master."

"Lin Yu!" the Xianzun roared. "What exactly are you after, infiltrating my Heaven's Mandate Tower?"

He raced through the origins of every incident—Fu Ming. Lin Yu was the Divine Maiden Fu Ming had chosen. So did Fu Ming know who Lin Yu really was?

Did he know any of this? If Fu Ming didn't know, then things weren't as dire as he feared. But if Fu Ming knew and had deliberately sent a god-slayer into the Heaven's Mandate Tower to become the Divine Maiden—what was his true intention?!

"What about His Majesty? Does His Majesty know you're that god-slayer? This isn't just slaying gods—it's treason against the throne. Have the mortal laws already lost their hold on you?"

He couldn't stop trembling, because he knew Immortal Lord He was dead, his head chopped off and hung from the city gates as a warning. That couldn't have been anyone else—only the person from his prophetic dream.

That person being Lin Yu.

The Xianzun simply couldn't connect this familiar figure to that vicious god-slayer. A profound sense of unreality welled up in his heart.

"Master still has time to worry about others? Shouldn't you be more concerned with your own safety?" Lin Yu pressed the blade against the Xianzun's neck. "Your disciple trusts you completely. Few people in this world know this secret."

"Now that you know who I am, Master, won't you go to your death in peace?"

The Xianzun stared at her without moving. Her current expression, her tone of voice, her act of killing her own master—she was nothing like the A Si he remembered. They were two entirely different people, only he'd realized it now.

He'd been deceiving himself all along. There was no second A Si in this world.

"I am of a half-immortal body. You cannot kill me." He forced the words out through gritted teeth, almost resigned.

As the Xianzun, though he could never achieve immortality or godhood, he was still the gods' envoy to the mortal world, delivering their divine edicts and sharing in a portion of believers' devotion. Thus, he counted as a half-immortal.

A half-immortal body cannot be slain by mortal things.

The dagger in Lin Yu's hand was no spirit artifact. It couldn't kill a half-immortal.

"That's right. Half-immortal, cannot be slain by mortal things—unless a hundred-year peach branch pierces the heart, and the blood is drained completely. Only then can one be killed."

That was everything Lin Zhao endured before her death. Lin Yu would never forget it.

The Xianzun's expression stiffened, but he kept up his bravado, feigning indifference. "That trick is outdated. Useless now."

"Indeed, that method is clumsy and slow. I could simply kill you outright." Her cultivation wasn't quite enough to slay gods—that was why she'd needed Di Ting's help to kill Immortal Lord He—but killing a half-immortal whose cultivation had withered to nothing? More than enough.

"But I won't. You should taste what it's like to watch your own blood run dry."

Before the Xianzun could react, a short wooden branch suddenly pierced his chest! Lin Yu had snapped it off outside Bushou Hall on a whim—a very short one.

When she'd broken it off, she hadn't thought much of it, hadn't even expected it to be useful. It was just that a few days ago, she'd overheard Si Xing saying the peach trees outside Bushou Hall were all hundred-year-old trees, quite precious.

She drove the short peach branch into the Xianzun's heart with her spiritual power, burying it in his flesh, pinning it deep in his chest. Blood gushed out continuously, unstoppable.

Lin Yu pressed her hand over the endlessly bleeding wound as the Xianzun's face twisted in agony. She said calmly, "I once asked you if you remembered a priestess in the tower who had become a half-immortal. You said you didn't remember."

"Since you don't remember, let me help you recall. Her name was Lin Zhao. She was my elder sister. She died exactly like this that day—a peach branch through her heart, blood drained dry, all for a ridiculously futile Moon God sacrifice."

The Xianzun's face gradually turned blue-purple, his lips losing all color. Lin Yu laughed heartily, a genuine laugh from deep within. "Of course, it's not just you. The Moon God too—I'll send you all to death, one by one. Making her a sacrifice—do you think you deserve it?"

"You will all pay with your lives."

"You'll be cursed... No one in this world dares to disrespect the gods. You killed Immortal Lord He, and that wasn't enough—you actually want to slay gods... You'll die even worse than your sister!"

"You're just a mortal! Daring to contend with the gods—you don't have that fate!"

"Mm." Lin Yu wiped the blood from her hands casually. "I've already been cursed long ago. If I didn't do this, *that* would be the real betrayal of everything I've suffered."

"Master, you believe so strongly in gods and fate. Do you think that ridiculous Book of Fate foresaw any of this? Did it foresee this calamity of your death at my hands?"

Of course, Lin Yu didn't expect the Xianzun to answer. She stood quietly to the side, watching his blood gradually soak his entire robe, watching him grow weaker and weaker until he couldn't even speak a word.

His breathing slowed, slower and slower, until it stopped entirely—utterly dead. The hall was heavy with the thick stench of blood, so much that it had soaked through the seat beneath him.

The hall was stifling. Lin Yu walked to the window and pushed it open. The gale had ceased, and the damp air after the rain rushed in, diluting some of the blood's stench. She braced her hands on the windowsill, closed her eyes, and breathed in the outside air.

The wind had stopped, the rain had cleared. After the storm, the world outside looked freshly washed, carrying a sense of everything renewed.

Avenge achieved—but it didn't bring the joy she'd imagined. She felt only a brief flash of satisfaction, followed by a heavier, deeper hatred.

So what if he was dead? Everyone he'd killed, everyone who'd died because of him—they could never come back.

Lin Yu leaned against the window, looking at the fallen peach petals scattered across the ground. Before long, she sensed someone approaching. In an instant, a beam of deep blue light shot toward her with bone-piercing cold!

Lin Yu raised her hand and deflected it with her power. The two streams of light collided in midair, exploded, and dissipated. She turned her head—the Moon God stood behind her.

Speak of the devil. The Xianzun had just died, and now the person she wanted most to kill was the Moon God himself. But now wasn't the time—and she couldn't kill him even if she tried.

Lin Yu raised an eyebrow at him, contempt plain on her face. "Our great Moon God, resorting to sneak attacks?"

"Lin Jiyue!" the Moon God smiled as he approached. "I knew it was you."

He knew Lin Jiyue's demeanor and tone too well—this cold, aloof detachment that couldn't even be bothered to fake courtesy. He naturally assumed Lin Jiyue had already killed Lin Yu and was now disguised as her, appearing in Bushou Hall.

Lin Yu snorted coldly. "If you knew it was me, why strike at me? What's your game?"

"Can't you talk to me with a different face? This Divine Maiden's face—I'm tired of looking at it."

Lin Yu didn't change her appearance. She was already using her own face—disguised as herself, which she found absurdly amusing. The face the Moon God called "Lin Jiyue" was the fake one. But he hated Lin Yu—what did that have to do with her, Lin Jiyue?

If she agreed, then every time she met the Moon God from now on, she'd have to switch to Lin Jiyue's false face. Too much trouble, and a waste of spiritual power. So she refused outright. "No."

The Moon God wasn't annoyed by the refusal—that was just Lin Jiyue's personality. Change or don't, it was up to her; it was merely a bit unpleasant to look at. "And the real Divine Maiden? Killed her?"

"Killed her. Threw her into the eighteenth level of hell. Something you need?" Lin Yu answered crisply.

"Quite decisive." The Moon God leaned against the windowsill beside her. He swept his gaze across the scene inside Bushou Hall, pausing briefly when his eyes landed on the Xianzun in the chair.

"Why did you kill him too?"

"Him?" Lin Yu clapped her hands, as if catching another whiff of blood on them, and grimaced with distaste. She spun a casual lie. "He knew his precious disciple too well, and I'm not his disciple. The moment I appeared, he sensed something was off, so..."

"Had to kill him. It went smoothly—he's dead as dead can be, won't be getting in our way."

The Moon God was quite satisfied with Lin Jiyue's attitude. To work with him, one had to have this level of resolve—kill anyone who stands in the way, no matter who they are, no hesitation, no room for mercy.

"Killed, then killed," the Moon God said indifferently. "But first you kill their Divine Maiden, then their Xianzun, and now you intend to impersonate that Divine Maiden. Can you... handle it?"

"Once those fools at the Heaven's Mandate Tower discover their Xianzun is dead, you'll definitely be implicated. They'll trace it back to you soon enough..."

"You handle it," Lin Yu said.

"What nonsense are you spouting?" The Moon God laughed in exasperation. "You want me to deal with these mortals?"

"You know it's nonsense, then." Lin Yu glanced at him. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to waste time on those people?"

Lin Yu: "Since they're already dead, why not just kill them all? Leave no one behind—wouldn't that end the problem permanently?"

The Moon God frowned, digesting the implication of her words. "You mean massacre the entire Heaven's Mandate Tower? Leave no one alive?"