Chapter 439: A Piercing Pain

Yun Yang was hiding underneath the snow, trying his hardest to suppress his emotions and warned himself over and over again.

"Mr. Nian! The person outside is really Mr. Nian!"

"That man standing outside is my nemesis! I have to persevere, survive this battle! I must not give up until the moment I kill him!"

"Otherwise, I will never rest in peace. Not only will I die in restlessness, my brothers and family won't rest in peace as well!"

"If I were to give up, how can this boundless debt of blood and colossal grudges be resolved?"

"No matter how he infuriates or provokes me, I have to carry on."

"I must press ahead!"

"I can't die!"

"I must not die!"

Yun Yang repeated it like a mantra, and his emotions eventually cooled down again.

Mr. Nian had no idea that his mind game, which he thought had managed to cast doubt on his enemy, had instead become Yun Yang's source of stability.

He was falling prey to his own trick. A wise man's intelligence might not go according to his wishes; sometimes, it worked adversely. Therefore, the use of mind tricks was subtle; it did not always work as planned.

He graceful voice continued to ring in the air, his words growing more vicious, a stark contrast to his gentle and sonorous tone.

"That day, during the fight at Tianxuan Cliff, the Nine Supremes, whose reputation intimidated Tianxuan's countries, had arrived, but they had lost their manifestation powers that had rocketed them to their fame. I can still remember the gory scene, I can still recall the Nine Supremes' leader, Supreme Earth, dismembered in a palm strike. Even his head as broken into seven or eight different pieces. Supreme Earth indeed... he eventually turned into soil himself. I don't think anyone could have survived that. Still, he died in a manner befitting his status - he returned to the earth, like earth. Undoubtedly, Supreme Earth would have to die on earth!"

Yun Yang felt his heart clench violently, the pain indescribable.

It was a suffocating agony, an extreme sensation that could barely be put into words.

However, he had to endure it! No matter how painful and how it was clawing at him, he had to grit his teeth and see through it!

"I can't be angry. I can't be impulsive! He is saying all these to force me out. Being so concerned about my life and death, the Nine Supremes' power must have the capacity to threaten him. I mustn't be reckless, I have to think about the future... Oh, how I really want to charge out and die fighting!"

No one would know and no one could understand how excruciating such tolerance and waiting was.

It was a torture that wrenched the physical, soul and mind, bit by harrowing bit.

Despite all of these, he had to keep his cool!

The voice outside still came drifting in like a chant as it chuckled, "Painful? Do you feel the unbearable ache? Do you feel like you're breaking down? Don't you wish to fight, with your life on the line? Even being killed in one swift slash is ten thousand times better than what you are feeling right now. That is my prized achievement in life!"

"Another Supreme actually ran amuck when he saw Supreme Earth die... To think, he actually charged over without raising any of his defenses, and naturally, he got beaten to a pulp, dying even more thoroughly than Supreme Earth had. Let's see, what else was there? Oh, did you know that Supreme Gold came out roaring, and challenged all the experts present, saying that he wanted to fight them one on one? Now that I think about it, that impulse then must have been an attempt to protect you, wasn't it?"

Past memories that had been sealed away resurfaced again. Yun Yang's emotional state was put under such pressure that he could barely hold on, teetering on the brink of breaking down.

He had been keeping himself from recalling all those things, from thinking about the raw past but his composure was being knocked askew now, unmanned by the culprit himself. Yun Yang then realized that the memories actually remained fresh in his mind; not a single detail had faded with time.

...

"It has been destined that there will only be death here today, but we can't all die here!"

It was the eldest Supreme Earth who was speaking; his tone was grim and stern.

"Our remaining abilities can only allow us to strike one last time now. There can't be any mistake."

"Only one of us will be able to make it out."

"I hope it's ol'Ninth."

Supreme Earth's voice was rushed. His eyes looked over the brothers repeatedly, as if wanting to imprint them in his mind, so they could reunite in the yellow spring once again.

"Ol'Ninth is the youngest among us, but his intelligence triumphs over us all. He takes action after contemplation and he has always predicted the enemy's moves with precision and foresight; at the same time, only with him staying alive can he activate the Residence of Nine Supremes after this and obtain what belongs to ol'Eighth. Subsequently, he will access to the rest of our cultivation methods... cultivating all of the Nine Supremes' arcane magic alone and gathering the power of the Nine Supremes within him!"

"The rest of us can only start in the middle, and we will only end up being pale imitations of ourselves, if anything at all."

"Therefore, we can die, but ol'Ninth must stay alive. This hope must be given to him!"

"The only hope we have must be entrusted to him!"

"The legend of the Nine Supremes shall stay alight if Supreme Cloud remains alive!"

"In the future, he - will be the new Nine Supremes!"

The other brothers did not say a thing, listening to Supreme Earth's arrangement earnestly. Their gazes spoke of an unadulterated agreement; no one hesitated nor did they doubt their eldest in the least.

The only voice of rejection came from -

"I disagree!"

Yun Yang could hear himself saying, "We stay alive together and we die together! What do you mean, placing the hope of survival on me? I don't want it! I don't crave for it! What's there to be afraid of death?"

His words then mimicked that of a headstrong child; there was nothing about what he said that resembled the words of a wise person who was calm in the face of chaos.

"Knock him out. Take his mask off and find a brother to replace him! We can't use our arcane skills anyway, all eight hundred of us are the same! Whoever wears the mask now can be Supreme Cloud, that person will be one of the Nine Supremes!"

Supreme Earth's voice was a low growl and was also what Yun Yang heard last, in addition to a few more from chants from his other brothers.

"Scratch his face, create the illusion of serious injury."

"My youngest brother... my good brother!"

"Stay alive!"

"You must live on! If you die, we will have no more hope!"

Then, he knew nothing more, entering a state of false death.

An excruciating pain drowned him, together with a heavy blow on his head. He was in a thorough state of confusion; the only feeling he had was his brother's powers that were trembling with anticipation.

It was the activation of the last of their arcane powers.

Then... there was no more.

When he regained consciousness, he realized that he was like a tattered doll, buried deep under the ground with one leg left outside - no, it was broken outside and had been hacked into sections, while his head had caved in like a smashed watermelon.

There was a big hole where his heart used to be, a fatal injury if ever there was one.

Obviously, his brothers had given him a disguise, but the enemy was thorough in their work; they had still smashed his head and jabbed a large hole in his heart. Finally, he had been buried, covered by all the other corpses in the end.

The combination of the Nine Supremes' last remnants of power had instigated the response of his cloud manifestation power. The result of their efforts had come into effect; despite being under the spiritual restraint they had created a miracle by giving Yun Yang a chance to survive a lethal injury!

There was also that lotus seed...

They were the ones that had made him what he was today.

All my brothers' hopes are on me - I can't go out, I can't die!

...

Outside, Mr. Nian's vile voice continued to drawl, "It is understandable that you wouldn't understand why we attacked. Similarly, I don't understand how you managed to escape death then."

"There was a total of eight hundred and nine people and we gathered eight hundred and nine corpses. There was no mistake in this! Each person was also dismembered, had their hearts removed and their heads smashed... but Supreme Cloud, why aren't you dead yet?"

Yun Yang's heart was dripping blood.

"You have remained resilient, unwilling to come out. That is fine. I will keep you company here until you can't carry on or maybe until the moment you come out from the inability to persist in your stubbornness."

The voice outside was faint.

"Yutang's eastern defenses is about to be breached anyway... the Empire of Yutang shall become history soon. This will not be changed whether you come out or not. A year or two, three years or five, I shall continue to wait here!"

A faint chuckle could be heard at the end of the sentence.

"This is not too bad actually. At least, I know that you're here. As long as you're not dead, I can sense it!"

"I shall let you continue to persist like this. When the Empire of Yutang that you've guarded with your life falls, when you've come out then, everything will be but a drifting cloud - that's not too bad an ending, is it?"

Yun Yang's heart sunk. That was his other fatal concern, and Mr. Nian had guessed it correctly.

If he were to be stuck here, Fu Baoguo would be at the mercy of Han Sanhe's million-strong army, no matter how brave he was in the east.

Once the east side was breached, the enemy would swarm in.

With no hope of a defense, Yutang would definitely fall under Han Sanhe's Steel Cavalry!