Yang Suyin had never thought there would be a time when he would have to cut up a member of the royal family. But here he was, crouching beside the youngest prince of the Twelve Sun Empire, who had become a being closer to a spirit beast than a human, and who would go down in the history of the Twelve Sun Empire as a traitor, a stain that would surely bring hardship to the next emperor, Prince Yang Jinyan, as well as the future of the Twelve Sun Empire. Though sweat began to fall from his forehead, his robes felt suffocating and stuffy, his face was as calm as stone. Not because he was a calm person, but because he needed to be calm. It wasn't easy, considering that all around him the sounds of slashing, screeching, and falling tentacles merged into a sound of war, the smell of blood and sweat attacked his nostrils, and blood began pooling on the little island around him, with Liu Xing, that absurd cultivator, holding these fearsome attacks alone, but he could manage. He needed to manage.

"Hurry!" Liu Xing shouted.

"Give me a minute!" He shouted back.

His hands and feet were trembling, and his lungs felt as if the air around him was so thick he was inhaling syrup instead of air. Truth be told, his common sense told him that there was no way for him to destroy Lihuo's body. He was a mere Core Splitting realm cultivator, whereas Lihuo was a Sun Refining abomination. But, since there was a fucking Core Splitting cultivator who could fight toe-to-toe with a Sun Refining abomination, who was right now fending off giant tentacles that each could crush him to death, he might as well throw his common sense out the window and do the best he could.

"All right, let's try different methods," he muttered.

First, he needed to search for a weak point, and his eyes focused on the two snail eyes that stuck out from Lihuo's face, like branches with fruit on them. Those parts looked soft, so without hesitation, Yang Suyin slashed at them.

When his sword hit, a loud "ping" could be heard, and even a spark lit up, as if what he had hit was not flesh, but metal. There was a little nick where his sword had hit, but no wound.

He grimaced, but Yang Suyin didn't lose hope. He tried to slash the other branch eye, and when he got the same result, he tried to cut Lihuo's ears, nose, even opening his mouth and trying to cut his tongue, just to test if some of the parts were actually possible to cut. All of it resulted in disappointment, and so he concluded that it was impossible to cut Lihuo with his sword.

So, he reverted back and tried to burn Lihuo again, but this time not trying to burn the whole body, but targeting a specific part. There were actually some muscles that had been charred by his attacks before, so perhaps his fire had actually worked; it just wasn't hot enough or focused enough.

Pointing his index finger, Yang Suyin cycled his qi and activated a fire ball technique on the tip of his finger. A yellow fireball materialized, and he sent more and more qi toward it while also trying to make it as small as possible. While doing so, he could hear the screech of that giant eye become more and more guttural, as if it were angry it was being fended off by Liu Xing for a whole minute. He decided to look up, and coincidentally or not, their eyes met, and it let out a screech so loud, so powerful, that the air trembled.

Yang Suyin gulped and decided to ignore it and focus on sending and controlling the fireball near his index finger. It was now burning so hot, the color of it had turned blue.

Then, after he thought it was enough, he traced his index finger to the branch where there was a little nick on Lihuo's eye branch. When the fireball touched the skin, black smoke rose from it, and seeing it, Yang Suyin's heart quickened. He intensified the fire, pressed his index finger stronger, the black smoke billowed wilder, and he could see that his index finger was actually sinking into Lihuo's flesh. It was slow, needed so much concentration, and quite a lot of qi, but it was working!

"I did it!" Yang Suyin exclaimed.

Liu Xing glanced for a fraction of a second, to the point that Yang Suyin thought it was just his hallucination, but what he said next proved that it wasn't. "Good! Cut him up to pieces!"

"All right!" Yang Suyin nodded.

He sent more and more qi into the fireball, controlling it until his brain hurt, and moved his finger to the side, trying to cut the eye off the branch. Though he was using a fireball, what he was doing right now was actually cutting Lihuo's piece using fire. With the black smoke billowing, he realized that he almost looked like a person welding, but the reality was he was actually doing the opposite.

A moment later, he successfully cut one of Lihuo's eyes off. The branch where the eye had been sitting was charred black, and it looked messy and painful. Yang Suyin knew for a fact that Lihuo was still alive, and was quite amazed that whatever had knocked him out was so strong that even when Yang Suyin cut one of his eyes off, he didn't burst awake. He hoped that it was strong enough that even when he cut his body into pieces, he wouldn't wake up.

From here, Yang Suyin began to cut methodically. First, he removed both of Lihuo's eyeballs, then he thought to cut both of his ears off but decided not to. Instead, he went straight for the neck.

Yang Suyin burned the base of Lihuo's neck, which was actually a lot stronger than the branches on his face, but with more concentration, his finger actually sank deep into Lihuo's throat. After his index finger had sunk as deep as half of his index finger, his fire suddenly advanced much faster, and in the blink of an eye, his index finger sank entirely. This surprised Yang Suyin, but in a good way. It seemed that the toughness of Lihuo's skin was merely half a finger deep. Deeper than that, it was actually really soft. He was sure if Lihuo were awake, his insides would be flooded by qi and made harder, but right now it wasn't.

"All right," he muttered, engraving this information in his heart.

Then, he began to move his finger to the side. The process was hard, but with the knowledge that it was possible, he did it patiently and diligently, and finally successful in cutting Lihuo's neck and separating his head from his body.

He smiled wildly, his sweat glittering from the purple light of Liu Xing's attacks, and his hand trembling in a good way, as if a painter had successfully painted his masterwork. But he reined in his emotion and began to cut again. Next, he tried to cut Lihuo's right arm off his body. At this time, he realized that the joints were actually softer, and so, he successfully severed Lihuo's right arm a lot faster. But all of this is not without a price.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Shit, I'm almost out of qi," Yang Suyin muttered. He turned his head to Liu Xing, who was still fending off tentacles. "Why do I need to cut him to pieces? What's the reason?"

After Yang Suyin successfully cut Lihuo's neck, he knew for certain that Lihuo was dead. There was no heartbeat, and the qi inside his body was dispersing. If the point is to kill Lihuo, then he already did.

"He is an ingredient," Liu Xing answered while slashing the tentacles and exploding another. "Since you can't burn it up, we cannot let his corpse fall into Wei Yi's hands."

"We can just carry him to a safe place."

"Yes, that's why I need you to cut him to pieces! You need to cut him up so we can store his body parts inside our spatial bags!"

Upon hearing this explanation, Yang Suyin's eyes widened. That made so much sense. The only one remaining here to have a spatial ring, hence able to store Lihuo's body entirely, was the prince, but he was rather busy right now, so the spatial bags were the next best thing. Moreover, splitting the body parts into several spatial bags was also a good idea. This would make Wei Yi's attempt to gather Lihuo's body parts that much harder. But, since a spatial bag could only store something not too wide, he needed to cut him up into pieces.

Realizing this, he turned toward Lihuo's head, which probably couldn't fit into a spatial bag and needed to be cut in two.

"I'll try my best." Yang Suyin said.

Since he was almost out of qi, he needed to adjust how he cut Lihuo's body. He needed to make cuts that would make it easier to store Lihuo's body, which meant cuts that created long body parts.

He was thinking about how to do it when a foreign qi suddenly flooded his body. Feeling this, the first thing he did was to expel it.

"Don't expel it! That's my qi. Use it!" Liu Xing shouted.

Yang Suyin reined in his instinct and let the stream of foreign qi enter his body. It felt uncomfortable, but he didn't feel hurt, so this meant that Liu Xing's qi was compatible with him. This made Yang Suyin wonder about his affinity and the cultivation scripture he had. He primarily used lightning, so he thought Liu Xing practiced a lightning-type cultivation scripture, but this qi told another story.

Stopping this train of thought, Yang Suyin began to cycle the qi Liu Xing gave him around his body to rekindle the fireball at his fingertips, and when he realized the qi was so fast, so light, it was even easier to control than his own, his eyes widened. But when the fireball at his fingertips grew to the size of a barrel, his eyes felt like they would jump out from his sockets.

"What the fuck!"

For a moment, he thought he had lost control of his technique, but no, the fireball was stable. Not only that, it was very still. There was no volatility to it, as if even if he ceased his control, the fireball would still hold its form. With wide eyes and his heart beating fast, Yang Suyin began to control it. He rapidly shrank and grew his fireball, which obediently followed his will as if he were the son of heaven whose every will needed to be imposed on the world.

"It's crazy," Yang Suyin muttered. "This... this almost feels like an entirely different technique!"

Not to mention the color of his fireball, while still having a hint of yellow, was burning with white color.

"If you have time to move your mouth, please use it to move your hand instead."

Liu Xing had never berated so politely before, but it successfully broke him from his shock. While he had many questions about this qi, this was not the time for it, and so, he suppressed his questions and focused.

With a fire that felt so strong yet so easy to control, Yang Suyin could confidently cut up Lihuo's body into many pieces. Taking a deep breath, he willed his fire into the shape of a sword. Pure manipulation was usually weaker since the control needed to do that sapped away the power, but this fire was not. It still retained its heat and power, while also morphing into a longsword in his right hand.

Then, he took a stance and swung as hard as possible right toward Lihuo's left shoulder, trying to cut him near the joint. His fire sword struck true, and it easily cut through Lihuo's muscles as if he were merely cutting a steel pillar, not a Sun Refining abomination's body. From here, he began to cut more and more parts.

He separated both of Lihuo's feet from his body, then began cutting his torso in horizontal slashes the size of two or three fingers. There were actually some hard bones inside his body—his backbone was really hard to cut—so instead of cutting it, he just removed the flesh from the bone.

As he cut Lihuo's body, he actually realized that what he was doing was horrific. He was desecrating a human corpse. In normal circumstances, even he would feel remorse about it, but Lihuo was the one behind the destruction of the capital, and since it was also necessary, he actually didn't feel a thing cutting him up to pieces.

A moment later, he had succeeded.

There were exactly ninety-nine of Lihuo's body parts, including his head that Yang Suyin split into four long sections. The blood that was pooling below Lihuo's body parts was blackish and thick, and it actually oozed a horrible smell that burned his nose, but he could endure.

"Done!" Yang Suyin said, then without more instructions, he began to insert the body parts into his spatial bag. He began with the backbone, some parts of Lihuo's head, Lihuo's left hand which he had split into two parts, and many, many parts he took from the torso. He chose these parts purposefully, thinking that splitting a body part—like Lihuo's head—and storing it in different spatial bags would probably make it harder for Wei Yi to perfect the giant if what he needed was a specific organ.

"Give me your spatial bag!" He shouted at Liu Xing.

"Grab it yourself, I'm a little busy right now." Liu Xing answered. "It seems Wei Yi is really angry at you."

Yang Suyin looked up, and once again came eye to eye with Wei Yi, and Wei Yi sent him a death glare that made his body shiver. His mouth curved into a snarl, and the giant yellow eye actually moved lower and lower, as if the eye itself wanted to leap and eat him. The mouth began screeching like a mother lion that had seen her son beheaded for amusement.

Yang Suyin gulped, and with trembling hands, he grabbed Liu Xing's spatial bag that was tied at his waist and began stuffing it with Lihuo's body parts.

"Now what?" Yang Suyin asked, having stuffed Lihuo's parts into the spatial bag and tied it to Liu Xing's waist.

"While you were cutting up Lihuo, Wei Yi started making his move."

"What did he do?" Yang Suyin asked.

Liu Xing pointed with his chin to the sky. Yang Suyin looked up, and he could see Yang Hongyin's fire construct was fighting with the former emperor more fiercely than before. The emperor's movement was blazingly fast, and right now, instead of fighting equally, the former emperor was zipping around the air and punching the fire bird rapidly, as if it were a mere sandbag. The former emperor was now entirely shrouded by black fire, which made Yang Suyin's face deathly pale.

"I think Wei Yi is controlling the former emperor directly right now, and he has called that." Liu Xing looked to the side, Yang Suyin followed, to see a horrible figure crawling on the ground. It had hundreds of white hands growing from its sides, almost like a centipede, while the face was that of Elder Yang Zhaoyan, once dignified, now entirely covered by pustules. Its movement was slow, and each step it took made clicking and clacking sounds.

"We're lucky you're fast, Yang Suyin, else, I would need to fight them on my own while protecting you."

Yang Suyin took a deep breath. "What are we going to do now?"

"Survive." Liu Xing licked his lips while looking up, toward the giant that had its throat bulging, as if it were swallowing a giant rock.

Seeing this, Yang Suyin's heart beat crazily, his eyes widened, and his body trembled uncontrollably. The giant meatball, the second ingredient, had already been eaten!

Yang Suyin might have collapsed on the spot had it not been for Liu Xing standing beside him. Even in the face of an abomination of catastrophic proportions, Liu Xing's gaze remained fixed on the giant, as if he already had a plan to defeat it.