Chapter 584: A Fortuitous Encounter? I Was Just Waiting for You to Claim the Devil Sword!
Before he finished speaking, Zhang Zhiyun pounced towards Shen Anyu, completely ignoring Bai Bing's sharp sword light!
"Seeking death!"
Bai Bing registered the desperate, suicidal charge. Her phoenix eyes, usually as calm and cold as a winter lake, ignited with lethal intent. The time for toying with her prey was over. She had given him a chance to flee, a chance he had just spat back in her face. Now, there would be only judgment.
A wave of frigid killing intent washed over the courtyard. The silver-white longsword in her hand vanished, replaced by a streak of pure, condensed light that screamed through the air. It was a flawless execution, a textbook strike that tore through the void like a white rainbow piercing the sun, a celestial phenomenon brought to earth to deliver annihilation. The air itself seemed to part before the blade, the sound of its passage a high-pitched keen that promised a swift and merciless end. Brilliant, blinding sword light erupted from the weapon, turning the moonlit night into a noon-day execution ground.
"Ah!"
The expected explosion of flesh and bone never came. Instead, a shrill, piercing scream ripped through the air, followed by the wet, sickening spray of blood. Zhang Zhiyun's right arm, severed cleanly at the shoulder, flew into the air in a grotesque arc before landing with a soft thud on the manicured lawn. He howled, a raw, animalistic sound of pure agony, stumbling back with a geyser of crimson erupting from the ragged stump. Yet, in the next instant, sheer terror overrode the pain. Zhang Zhiyun mustered every ounce of strength he had left, scrambling sideways with a desperate lunge and diving headfirst into the dark, flowing river that ran alongside the Villa. The water erupted in a violent splash, the waves surging and churning before he vanished into the murky depths.
"Don't chase him," Shen Anyu's calm voice cut through the night, stopping Bai Bing just as she was about to give chase, a flicker of silver light already gathering at her feet. He said it with a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
"Why did you let him go? With that sword just now, he should have died!" Bai Bing's delicate brows furrowed into a tight knot. She turned to Shen Anyu, her cold eyes filled with a sharp, piercing confusion.
With the full power she had unleashed, Zhang Zhiyun shouldn't have just lost an arm. He should have been atomized, his body and soul rent into a million pieces by her sword qi. There should have been nothing left but a fine red mist.
But she had felt it. In that critical microsecond before impact, a subtle, almost undetectable interference had brushed against her sword light. It was a whisper of mental power, as fine as a needle, that had ever-so-slightly nudged the trajectory of her perfect strike. 'A miss by a hair's breadth is a miss by a mile.' That tiny deviation was all it took. Her sword, meant for his heart, had only taken his arm, a catastrophic failure that allowed him to escape.
How could she not guess who was responsible? Only one person present possessed such terrifyingly precise control. And now, he was stopping her from finishing the job? What in the world was his plan? This was the man who had tried to kill him, not once, but multiple times!
Had the infamously ruthless Shen Anyu suddenly developed a conscience?
A strange, disbelieving look entered Bai Bing's eyes. "Shen Anyu," she said, her voice laced with suspicion, "you couldn't bring yourself to do it?"
Before Shen Anyu could even form a reply, Bai Bing shook her head, a disdainful sneer curling her lips as she dismissed the very idea.
"Impossible," she declared flatly. "A despicable and shameless guy like you couldn't possibly be soft-hearted."
Shen Anyu remained silent. "..."
'How am I despicable and shameless?' he thought, though he didn't bother to ask.
He wasn't angry. Getting Bai Bing to stop being venomous was a far more challenging task than killing her, and he knew her education was an ongoing, long-term project.
"I naturally have my calculations," he stated, his eyes flickering with a cunning light. "Zhang Zhiyun isn't meant to die. Not yet."
Of course, he was reluctant to kill him now. The fool still had over two million Destiny Points clinging to him, a treasure trove Shen Anyu had yet to fully plunder. More importantly, he was the perfect candidate to refine the Yin Corpse Devil Sword. Killing him now would be like throwing away a perfectly good tool before its purpose was served. A complete waste.
If Zhang Zhiyun posed a genuine, unpredictable threat, Shen Anyu wouldn't hesitate. He would never let a few Destiny Points cloud his judgment and risk his own safety; stability always came first. He had, after all, eliminated Zheng Qingqing and her Love at First Sight Aura without a second thought.
But Zhang Zhiyun was different. He was completely within Shen Anyu's grasp, a puppet dangling from strings he didn't even know existed. Killing him now would be strategically foolish.
With that thought settled, Shen Anyu's gaze shifted, his eyes subtly scrutinizing Bai Bing from head to toe.
"What are you looking at?" The intensity of his stare made her skin crawl. A faint blush crept up her neck and dusted her cheeks, a stark contrast to her icy demeanor. She immediately masked her discomfort with a cold snort. "Is the master, whose mind is filled with nothing but wicked schemes, finally unable to resist extending his filthy claws?"
"Massage my shoulders," Shen Anyu raised an eyebrow, the command delivered with the casual authority of a king.
Bai Bing crossed her arms over her chest, her posture a clear and defiant refusal. But before a sarcastic retort could leave her lips, Shen Anyu's thoughts moved, and the invisible leash of the master-slave contract tightened. Her body went rigid. A force beyond her control seized her muscles, compelling her to move. The formidable silver-white longsword, an extension of her very soul, clattered unceremoniously to the ground. Her body, now a vessel for his will, walked stiffly behind him. Her exquisite jade hands—hands that could weave death with a flick of the wrist—rose against her will and pressed onto his shoulders, beginning to gently knead the muscles there.
'It's actually quite comfortable,' Shen Anyu thought with a pleased, relaxed expression. The sight of Bai Bing's resentful, murderous glare in his peripheral vision only enhanced his enjoyment.
This woman truly needed to be disciplined.
As her unwilling fingers worked, a more serious question occupied Shen Anyu's mind. His eyes flickered, replaying the moment of her strike. Could Bai Bing really have killed Zhang Zhiyun?
He had sent subordinates to kill Sons of Destiny before, and they had all failed. As long as a protagonist's Destiny Aura remained intact, they were practically untouchable by ordinary means. Some bizarre accident or last-minute power-up would always save them. Only an existence like himself, one bearing the title of Great Villain of Destiny, could defy this rule and kill a Child of Destiny before their luck was shattered.
Tonight, his goal had never been to kill Zhang Zhiyun. He had come merely to torment him, to push him further into the abyss of hatred and desperation. He wanted to blacken his heart completely, making him the ideal vessel to seek out and claim the Yin Corpse Devil Sword.
But if he hadn't intervened… Bai Bing's sword would have landed true. There was no doubt in his mind. She would have killed Zhang Zhiyun.
Now that was interesting.
Shen Anyu's eyes narrowed in thought. Why? Why could she do what others couldn't? Zhang Zhiyun had started with five million Destiny Points. Even now, with over two million remaining, his luck should have been formidable. Yet he was about to be killed by Bai Bing, without any sudden burst of power or heaven-defying miracle to save him?
Just a moment ago, Shen Anyu had half-expected Zhang Zhiyun to have a dramatic battlefield breakthrough, leaping straight into the Heavenly Master Realm. Such absurdities were commonplace for a Child of Destiny.
Instead, he had just… folded. Seeing his imminent demise, Shen Anyu had been forced to secretly intervene, allowing the pawn to escape.
He recalled the information he had mentally tortured out of Long Hao, the Rebirth Investment Flow protagonist. In Long Hao's memories, the Country Divine Doctor, Xia Liu, had been slain by the Sword God, Ye Linyuan, with a single, decisive sword strike, all because he got entangled with the Goddess Doctor, Murong Jieyu.
So, Sons of Destiny could attack and kill each other. That wasn't strange. It was a simple contest of whose luck was stronger, whose power was greater. The Heavenly Dao simply favored the superior specimen. Xia Liu was clearly no match for a titan like Ye Linyuan.
If Sons and Daughters of Destiny could do it, then it stood to reason that Destined Heroines could as well.
But Bai Bing was none of those. She wasn't a Child of Destiny, nor a Daughter of Destiny. She wasn't even a Destined Heroine tied to any protagonist. So how could she bypass the rules? Was this a special ability granted to participants of the Main God Reincarnation Game? Or was it something unique to Bai Bing herself? The power of a final, villainess boss?
"Heh, master, whose mind is full of schemes," Bai Bing's voice, dripping with sarcasm, pulled him from his thoughts. "What are you plotting now? Or are you planning to just stand here foolishly all night?"
Shen Anyu glanced around. Under the bright, cold moonlight, the courtyard was a scene of devastation. The battle had left its scars: scorched marks from Zhang Zhiyun's lightning attacks, a web of deep cracks in the pavement from Bai Bing's sword qi, and scattered bloodstains glistening darkly on the grass. The most chilling decoration was the severed arm lying nearby. He had indeed been lost in thought for quite some time.
"Can't wait?" Shen Anyu turned his head, a playful smirk gracing his lips as he looked at the beautiful, resentful slave girl behind him. In the next moment, his arm shot out, wrapping around Bai Bing's slender waist. With a smooth, effortless motion, he lifted her into his arms, her soft, delicate body held firmly against his.
A flicker of genuine panic flashed in Bai Bing's normally clear and indifferent phoenix eyes. The sudden, intimate contact caught her completely off guard. She recovered in an instant, her pride forcing her expression back into a cold mask as she scoffed.
"Heh, is master finally going to extend his wicked claws?"
"Guess?" Shen Anyu's handsome face held a mischievous smile, the kind of infuriatingly charming expression that made Bai Bing want to punch him.
On the other side, Zhang Zhiyun, having suffered a crushing defeat and the loss of his right arm, stumbled upon a "fortuitous encounter."
"What is this?"
After diving into the small river next to the Villa, Zhang Zhiyun let the current carry him downstream, a wave of relief washing over him as he realized the powerful, beautiful, and utterly terrifying woman was not pursuing him. Gritting his teeth against the searing pain in his shoulder, he prepared to haul his broken body out of the water.
But at that moment, a mysterious, irresistible force began to pull him forward, deeper into the river.
Zhang Zhiyun hesitated for only a second before clenching his jaw and swimming in the direction of the strange pull, diving into the deep water. After what felt like an eternity in the cold darkness, he discovered an underwater cave. It was like something from a legend, a submerged dragon palace. The entrance was lined with countless luminous pearls that cast an ethereal glow, and miraculously, some unseen barrier held the water at bay, keeping the interior perfectly dry.
'Could this be the remains of an ancient Senior?' Zhang Zhiyun's expression shifted from agony to awe. With a mixture of anticipation and vigilance, he stepped into the cave. There, embedded deep within a stone wall, was a longsword that seemed to drink the light around it, its entire form radiating an aura of profound darkness and malevolence. Beside the sword, the stone wall was covered in mysterious and ancient murals and texts.
"Yin Corpse Devil Sword? Perfected... it can kill even Land Immortals?"
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