Chapter Thirty: Lingering Wills

The mountain of corpses, enveloped by Momo, began to thrash violently. A monstrous, overwhelming force tore incessantly at Momo’s body. Momo’s four legs sprinted forward; because his consciousness was linked with Qin Changsheng’s, the agony wracking his body was, to a greater or lesser extent, transmitted directly to Qin Changsheng.

The sensation of being torn apart made Qin Changsheng grit his teeth, yet he held firm. He knew he was but a short step away from final victory.

"Almost... there!"

Mihua Xia had not followed, proving his true caution. Qin Changsheng, burdened with a mountain of corpses, was riddled with openings, yet Mihua Xia would not seize the opportunity. This was not out of any sense of honor; he simply had no desire to involve himself in this quagmire. He likely hoped that Qin Changsheng and the corpse mountain would destroy each other.

That Mihua Xia stayed away actually saved Qin Changsheng a great deal of trouble.

Following the route etched in his memory, Qin Changsheng rounded a corner. To his relief, the sound of crashing waves reached his ears. The roar of the surging tide ignited a glimmer of hope in his weary eyes.

Simultaneously, the sound of the rushing water seemed to alarm the corpse mountain trapped within Momo. The force of its struggle doubled instantly, exerted with nearly every ounce of its might. Qin Changsheng felt as though something within his own chest was about to burst forth.

*Hold on!*

Qin Changsheng forced his will to push back, and as he did, Momo’s form underwent a transformation.

The previously seamless surface of the shroud suddenly sprouted numerous mesh-like openings. The trapped corpse mountain, overjoyed and believing it had finally torn through Momo’s body, immediately thrust countless arms out through the gaps.

However, the moment those arms extended, Qin Changsheng let out a sharp command: "Bind!"

In an instant, the mesh openings tightened, locking each protruding arm firmly in place. The corpse mountain was suddenly rendered immobile. It realized something was wrong; despite its immense strength, it could not move a single limb.

What was happening?

The corpse mountain might have been confused, but Qin Changsheng knew exactly why—he had orchestrated it. During his hallucinations while battling the corpse mountain that had mimicked Long Yuan, he had used these tightening meshes to trap the countless blades Long Yuan had thrust at him, effectively sealing off his lethal offense. Now, he had turned that very tactic against the real corpse mountain.

When the mountain of corpses had pitted its full strength against Momo, Momo’s raw power alone could not have prevailed. Therefore, Qin Changsheng had chosen a different path: he broke the mountain’s power apart, sealing it piece by piece. Every individual body comprising the mountain had its arms locked by the mesh; they could only exert force through their own trapped limbs, unable to coalesce their strength as they had before.

A powerful mountain was reduced to countless weak, individual corpses; its strength could no longer be unified to shatter Momo’s seal. It was likely the first time the corpse mountain had ever experienced such helplessness. It seemed to glitch like a malfunctioning program, repeatedly tugging in vain at the arms of each individual body. To Momo, these tugs were not even a tickle.

What unnerved the corpse mountain even more was the sound of water nearby. At first a mere trickle, the noise grew with every opening of the mesh, swelling into a deafening, chaotic roar of massive, violent waves crashing in from all directions.

The corpse mountain felt its movement cease as Qin Changsheng stopped sprinting. It felt its body suspended in the air, falling heavily, which meant Qin Changsheng was no longer on solid ground. Where had he brought it?

The countless bodies that made up the mountain shuddered with a sudden, instinctive dread. It—the corpse mountain, the sole boss beneath this sky—was actually feeling fear? How could that be?

But it was true. Qin Changsheng had successfully brought the mountain to the place it feared most.

Below them, the sound of the tide was like the earth collapsing. It was a river that roared and raged for eternity; from antiquity to the present, the memory of this angry river was etched into the hearts of all who knew it. In the *Tale of Liu Yi*, this river was transformed into a furious black dragon that claimed six hundred thousand lives and flooded eight hundred miles.

Qin Changsheng had chosen it as his final weapon—a weapon that even supreme power could not shake: the Qiantang River.

His plan was simple and direct: cast the corpse mountain into the Qiantang. Before this, he had considered a hundred scenarios. Especially after the death of Xifeng Lie, he had reached a firm conclusion: mortals could not kill the corpse mountain. No matter how powerful their Shanhai Beasts were, or how iron-willed they were, some things were simply impossible. The corpse mountain was the hunter, and they were the prey; that relationship would never be reversed. Qin Changsheng knew that no matter how hard he tried, he could not kill the mountain with his own hands.

So, he gave up. If he couldn't kill it, he would let someone else do it. If a human couldn't kill it, he would let a greater force take over.

*The Qiantang stretches in a vista of waves, sudden storms surge before the eyes. In seemingly ordinary river water, lies energy that can shock the heavens.*

What power could surpass the nature that humanity had failed to conquer even after tens of thousands of years of evolution?

Feeling the tremors radiating from the great net he held, Qin Changsheng knew he had bet correctly. Facing the overwhelming might of the Qiantang River below, the corpse mountain was truly afraid.

Even when suffering fatal wounds or being hacked to pieces, the corpse mountain could recover through its extraordinary regenerative abilities. However, Qin Changsheng had noticed the blood bubbles that erupted from its wounds during regeneration. The bubbles meant that the wounds generated a massive amount of gas during the process. The secret of the mountain’s regeneration was the rapid, high-speed acceleration of cellular metabolism, which produced carbon dioxide. This, in turn, proved that the corpse mountain needed to breathe to function. If it were submerged in water, its regeneration would be severed.

The best place to drown the corpse mountain was this very river.

Everything was ready. If he let go now, the corpse mountain, bound by the net Momo had become, would sink like a heavy stone to the riverbed, swept away by the Qiantang tide, never to surface again.

Qin Changsheng’s victory was assured.

Just as he prepared to release the net, a soft voice reached his ears: "Qianqi, don't do this. Save me!"

The voice sounded so familiar. Could it be...?

Qin Changsheng’s eyes widened, his gaze dropping to the net. There, pressed against the mesh, was a sweet face, with eyes as tender as water looking straight at him.

"Save me, I don't want to die!"

The face called out to him, and that single sentence made Qin Changsheng freeze.

"This is impossible..." he whispered, unable to believe his eyes. The face appearing in the net was that of Chen Yuanyuan, who had long since died.

"I don't want to die, Qianqi, don't kill me!" Chen Yuanyuan pleaded, her slender arms reaching out from the mesh to cup his cheeks.

Qin Changsheng’s taut spirit was touched to the core. Was Chen Yuanyuan not dead? Could she truly survive? A moment ago, he would have discarded such a thought without hesitation. But seeing her face, he found he could not bring himself to act.

"No, I can't!" He tried to loosen the net, but his fingers remained locked, unable to let go. Chen Yuanyuan—the girl he hadn't known for long, yet who remained his eternal guilt, his inner demon. To abandon her with his own hands was a choice too difficult to bear.

And in that moment of hesitation, a dark, chilling gleam began to spread rapidly within Chen Yuanyuan’s eyes.

*Squelch!*

A sharp, searing pain erupted. Qin Changsheng looked down in shock to see a slender metal rod piercing his waist. It was half of a road sign, snapped in two and sharpened into a lethal point. The rod had been thrust from deep within the corpse mountain, passing through the mesh to impale him. Blood blossomed, staining his clothes crimson.

Within the net, a strange, twisted smile spread across Chen Yuanyuan’s face.

In the final, final moment, she was still the winner.