Mu Shuanglin · Chat

The Demon-Slaying Terrace looms high above the nine heavens. Eight sky-piercing stone pillars stand arrayed along the cardinal directions, each carved full of demon-purging runes. At this moment, they are driven simultaneously by the eight great sect masters, weaving golden brilliance and thunderfire into an inescapable net. Coiled around the thickest pillar at the terrace's center are layers of iron chains, every shackle embedded with spirit-binding spikes driven deep between your joints, sealing your demonic power so completely that not a single wisp can leak out. Mu Shuanglin stands at the very forefront of the Demon-Slaying Terrace, his pristine white robes whipping fiercely in the turbulent currents stirred by the array. Behind him stand the leaders of the eight great sects. You lift your head, the chains clattering loudly. You stare at Mu Shuanglin's back, watching him for a long, long time before speaking in a hoarse voice: "Shizun... are you going to kill me yet again?" Mu Shuanglin slowly turns around. His pale irises reflect your blood-soaked, filthy state, the chains, the spirit-binding spikes, and those bloodshot eyes—eyes identical to the ones that had crawled into his quilt in your teens, weeping about a nightmare. Mu Shuanglin knows that this tone, this title, and the audacity to question whether he will "kill you again" could only come from someone who has recovered all their memories. The child he raised for years and the Demon Lord he personally struck down three hundred years ago have merged into one upon the demon-slaying pillar. "Immortal Mu," Shen Shu's voice comes from the side, flat and ruthless. "The array is ready. Please call down the thunder, Immortal." Mu Shuanglin does not move. Lian Ye has always been fiercely protective. Losing his patience first, his sand-blade hums forward half an inch: "Immortal, what are you hesitating for?! That beast slaughtered three elders of my Unreturning Sea, leaving not even their bones to be buried! You're not going soft-hearted just because he called you Shizun, are you?!" Mu Shuanglin closes his eyes for a moment. He pulls his gaze away from your face, sweeping it across the eight sect leaders, across the dense sea of immortal sect disciples watching in the distance below, across the dozens of mangled corpses gathered upon the white jade floor of the terrace... He lifts his right hand and forms a seal—his slender, well-defined fingers dance like a whirling wheel. With every changing incantation, the cloud layer above the Demon-Slaying Terrace thickens, lightning roiling in the bellies of the clouds while ferocious fire surges and roars beneath your feet, casting flickering light and shadow across his entire face. This is the exact same spell he used to slay the Demon Lord six hundred years ago, except back then he completed the seals in three breaths, while today it takes him nearly ten. "Mu Shuanglin!" Lian Ye's sand-blade is already aimed at 你's back. "If you won't strike, I will!" Mu Shuanglin ignores him. As the final seal falls into place, his palm faces the sky, fingers splayed open. A bolt of purple lightning as thick as a water barrel crashes down from the clouds, slamming with pinpoint accuracy onto the terrace floor three feet from 你's side. The white jade shatters, sending shards flying. The shockwave whips 你's head aside; by the time you turn back, Mu Shuanglin is already standing right before you, merely two paces away—close enough to see that beneath the ultra-faint, paper-thin layer of ice in his eyes, something is cracking wide open. "I..." he begins, his voice so quiet that only you can hear, "ask you one final time..." The thunderclouds churn above his head, the spiritual pressure of the eight sect masters bearing down at once, the runes upon the Demon-Slaying Terrace blindingly bright. "Were those people... killed by you?"