Chapter 665: You will die like our father
Peng Xiu staggered, her body screaming from the strain of unleashing her corrupted core. But her eyes gleamed with triumph. She had landed a blow. She had pierced the legend.
"You will die like our father," she hissed, her voice venomous. "I will slaughter you and rip your core out with my own hands. And when I am done with you, I will tear that bastard child to pieces." Her smile twisted into something grotesque.
Xiang Yu scoffed. The fact that she thought she had won was pathetic. With chilling calm, he gripped the blade and slowly pulled it from his body. Blood dripped, but his expression remained untouched. Then, his aura shifted.
A blood-red glow surged around him, divine power finally unleashed. The air thickened, the ground trembled.
Peng Xiu, who had just tasted victory, took a step back. Her smile faltered.
And fear crept into her eyes. A hush fell, not of peace, but of dread, as the air thickened with a pressure that bent the knees of mortals and immortals alike.
He stood at the heart of the storm, his silhouette carved against the dying light of a blood-red sun that bled across the horizon like a wounded god. The air around him trembled, thick with dread and reverence.
His eyes, once mortal and warm, now blazed with glowing crimson like twin furnaces of wrath and judgment. They did not blink neither did they waver. They commanded obedience, demanded surrender.
Then came the surge. It was not wind, nor flame, nor thunder. It was suffocation incarnate. A divine energy that poured from his body like smoke from a funeral pyre, choking breath from lungs and courage from hearts. The arena groaned beneath him, ground cracking in jagged lines as if the realm itself could not bear the weight of his awakening.
Trees beyond the coliseum withered into ash. Steel sang in its scabbard, desperate to be drawn. His robes, black as the void and streaked with veins of molten red, flared outward, not fluttering, but roaring, caught in a tempest only he could command.
The patterns etched into his flesh, ancient sigils carved into his neck, chest, and hands, lit up in sequence, each one pulsing with a rhythm older than time. They spoke a language of divine punishment and sacred fury, a dialect only the gods dared whisper.
He was no longer a man, but command made flesh. His aura did not whisper threats, it declared inevitabilities. Slaughter was not a possibility. It was law. His presence alone was a decree of death, and the world bent to obey.
The air around him shimmered with divine pressure, and the demons in the stands collapsed to their knees not in surrender, but in reverence. Even the wind, once wild and untamed, stilled in his presence, as if seeking permission to breathe.
When Xiang Yu spoke, his voice was not sound, it was will. And the heavens listened.
Peng Xiu staggered, her body trembling, her voice cracking. "Im—impossible... You can’t be... How?"
Xiang Yu’s lips curled into a smirk, cruel and regal. With a flick of his hand, divine energy surged forth, wrapping around Peng Xiu like chains of judgment. She screamed as she was dragged upward, her soul writhing in agony. She could not fight it. She could not resist.
Mo Wang, sensing the tide had turned, tried to slip away like a coward in fog. But a force ancient and merciless snatched him mid-step and slammed him into the arena floor with bone-shattering force.
Xiang Yu turned his gaze on him, eyes glowing like twin suns of wrath. "I told you to leave my realm alone," he said, voice deep and resonant. "But it seems I must make an example of you."
Mo Wang’s heart seized with terror. He regretted everything. He regretted listening to Peng Xiu, dreaming of conquest and daring to challenge the northern realm. He had seriously underestimated Xiang Yu. And now, he would pay the price.
Mo Wang knelt in the center of the arena, his face streaked with sweat and desperation. The violet storm above cast jagged shadows across his trembling form, and his voice cracked as he pleaded, "I—I can give you my territory." Survival was the priority and everything else... it could be figured out later
Xiang Yu stood before him, towering and divine, his crimson eyes glowing with disdain. "Why would I want your pathetic realm?" he said, voice cold.
Mo Wang’s heart sank. He had miscalculated again. Tears welled in his eyes, bitter and hot, as he nearly sobbed, "I will help you conquer the other territories! Just let me make amends. It was this vile woman who lied to me!"
Xiang Yu’s gaze shifted to Han Xin. Their eyes met, and Han Xin gave a silent nod. Without a word, he handed Han Jingxi to Han Zhan. "Take him away."
Han Jingxi puffed his cheeks, blowing bubbles and grabbing at Han Xin’s robe. "Dada! Dadadada! Fight!" he chirped, trying to charm his way back into the action.
But Han Xin’s expression was firm. Han Zhan sighed, cradling the disappointed child. Both looked utterly dejected as they exited the arena. Little Bai who was unused to such bloody scenes joined them as well.
The moment they left, the air changed.
The arena became a blood-soaked altar.
Xiang Yu raised his hand, and Mo Wang’s demon core was ripped from his chest in a flash of divine fury. It hovered for a heartbeat then shattered into dust.
Mo Wang didn’t even have time to scream. Peng Xiu stood frozen, her eyes wide with horror. She had truly underestimated Xiang Yu’s cruelty.
Xiang Yu turned slowly, his gaze falling upon Peng Xiu like the weight of a collapsing star. His voice, low and resonant, cut through the storm-choked air. "Now... what was it that you did to me that night?"
Peng Xiu’s breath hitched.
She remembered it vividly, how she had torn his spiritual veins with surgical precision, savoring each moment of his agony, watching his divine light flicker like a dying flame. She had smiled then, drunk on vengeance. But now, the tables had turned.
Xiang Yu hovered above the cracked arena ground, his feet never touching ground, his aura a suffocating tempest that pressed against the bones of every spectator. His eyes glowed an even deeper red and the divine patterns etched into his flesh pulsed like war drums ancient, relentless, and merciless.
He raised a single hand not to strike, but to command. Peng Xiu’s body convulsed violently. Invisible threads of divine energy slithered into her core, wrapping around her spiritual veins like barbed wire.
She gasped, then screamed, the sound raw and primal, as Xiang Yu began the extraction. It was not quick, but slow, deliberate and cruel. Each tug was a memory. Each tear, a reckoning.
Her voice cracked with pleading, but Xiang Yu did not blink. His face was carved from vengeance itself, a mask of divine fury.The arena trembled from his might.
Her veins, glowing and twitching like serpents, were pulled free and suspended in the air before disintegrating into ash.