Chapter 601: The Three Venerables Finally Meet

"Heavenly..."

"Severer..."

Old Man Fisher murmured the two words. His expression clouded with confusion at first, but as he repeated them, something stirred in his memory. A faint light passed through his turbid eyes.

"I am..."

"Heavenly Severer?"

As Old Man Fisher's memories slowly awakened, the churning black miasma around him intensified. It billowed outward like a rolling tide, spreading beyond his body and beginning to rampage in all directions.

Yet every tendril of it veered away long before it could reach the Heavenly Physician, leaving a vast empty zone between the two confronting figures.

The Heavenly Physician paid no attention to the dispersing miasma. He seemed only mildly surprised to find Heavenly Severer still in such a dazed state.

"His memories haven't returned? Then how..."

His eyes flickered. He was about to act when a clear, resonant voice reciting scripture rang out from the distance.

"The Heavenly Laws are stern; revere rules and uphold order...

"Now I have obtained the laws, I shall spread them widely to all living beings...

"The Heavenly Laws must not be defied..."

The Heavenly Physician's expression finally shifted. His eyes narrowed as he looked toward the source of the voice.

"Moo!"

Without warning, a massive azure ox as large as a small hill materialized before him. Its horns tilted upward and its four hooves churned the air as it charged, aiming to gore the Heavenly Physician where he stood.

"Vile beast!" The Heavenly Physician snorted coldly.

He neither dodged nor evaded. A pinprick of silver light appeared in his right hand, then stretched into a slender thread that shot forth like lightning, piercing straight through the azure ox. In an instant it had woven a hundred loops and a thousand turns, riddling the creature through and through.

The ox was sliced into countless ragged fragments, yet somehow maintained its forward momentum, scattering flesh and viscera across the sky.

"Gather!"

A furious shout rang out.

A moment later, the azure ox reconstituted itself from the blood and flesh still hanging in the air. It leaped above the Heavenly Physician's head, all four hooves poised to stomp down.

The Heavenly Physician still did not move.

But just before the ox could touch him, its body began to shrink. In the blink of an eye it transformed from a mighty adult ox into a newborn calf, then dissolved into a wisp of essential qi and vanished from heaven and earth entirely.

"Heavenly Decree..." The Heavenly Physician looked toward where the ox had appeared, a trace of amusement in his expression.

A transparent figure with snow-white hair and a venerable, aged bearing manifested there at that exact moment.

"Fuzi!"

"Fuzi!"

At Heavenly Decree's appearance, the cowering disciples of Cloudwater Palace, utterly fearful in the presence of the Heavenly Physician and Heavenly Severer, seemed to find their pillar of support all at once. Every last scrap of restraint gave way, and they cried out without stopping.

"Ah..."

Heavenly Decree sighed softly. He raised his sleeve as if to soothe them. The cries inside Cloudwater Palace dropped to a hush, and only then did he turn his gaze to the Heavenly Physician and Heavenly Severer at the center of it all.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The Heavenly Physician began to applaud.

"Well, well, well... what a coincidence."

He did not look at the two figures now subtly encircling him. Instead he raised his head, searching for something unseen, his expression pensive.

"Heavenly Physician!"

It was Heavenly Decree who ran out of patience first.

"After hiding all these years, you finally dare to show yourself?" His voice rang like thunder, brimming with boundless fury that echoed endlessly through Cloudwater Palace.

"Hmph." The Heavenly Physician snorted, offering no reply.

The dismissal enraged Fuzi. "If that's how it is, there's nothing more to say. Prepare to die! Heavenly Severer, why aren't you moving?"

Old Man Fisher was still lost in confusion. Yet at Fuzi's furious shout, the two men fell into motion like old comrades who had fought side by side for decades. Without a word between them, in perfect coordination, the Heaven-Scorning Sword sang from its sheath. Even as a mere blade fragment, it unleashed a torrent of overwhelming baleful qi that coalesced into the shape of a complete sword.

Deep within Cloudwater Palace, a massive tremor shook the foundations. Sensing its master's call, the hilt of the Heaven-Scorning Sword struggled to tear itself free from the monstrous creature's body, eliciting a pained howl from the turtle-snake Taiyi.

Then an azure radiance enveloped the entirety of Cloudwater Palace. A giant blue hand pressed down, forcing the stirring sword hilt back into place.

Taiyi unleashed another heaven-shaking cry of agony. Then, as if pressed under a great weight, the sound grew fainter and fainter until it fell silent and sank back into slumber.

"Patriarch Hanhai?" Murmurs of astonishment rippled through various parts of Cloudwater Palace.

"At least one of you is still clear-headed," the Heavenly Physician said coldly.

The next moment, the azure ocean in the sky contracted violently, condensing into a shimmering, unstable phantom that looked on the verge of dispersing. It descended before the three figures: the Heavenly Physician, Fuzi, and Old Man Fisher.

"Greetings, Venerables," the phantom said, its tone neither subservient nor arrogant.

"Hanhai, what is the meaning of this?" Fuzi's voice was low and tightly controlled as he suppressed his rage at Hanhai's behavior. "The murderer stands before us. Why not exact vengeance for the blood debt of old?"

"You are not wrong, Fuzi. A blood debt must be repaid in blood. But..." Hanhai did not look at the Heavenly Physician. He turned his gaze instead to Old Man Fisher, who stood sword in hand, still clouded by confusion. "The one who destroyed Cloudwater Palace was not the Heavenly Physician.

"It was Heavenly Severer!"

The words carried the weight of a towering grudge. Hanhai's blue phantom flickered violently as though titanic waves churned within him. He fixed his glare on Old Man Fisher.

"Hmm?" Fuzi was taken aback, then shook his head with a sigh. "Hanhai, time has finally caught up with you. Has even your memory of those events begun to fail? Who else but this traitor could have slaughtered every sect, great and small, while our defenses were at their weakest?" He looked at the Heavenly Physician, the flames of hatred rekindling in his eyes. "One person might make a mistake. But can all the souls who perished that day be wrong?"

Hanhai kept shaking his head. "I do not know about other sects. Their fate is not my concern. But the one who destroyed my Cloudwater Palace was undoubtedly Venerable Heavenly Severer." He spoke with absolute conviction. "His appearance was that of Venerable Heavenly Physician, and his aura was identical. But that style of utter annihilation, that ruthless and silent way of killing—those are things Venerable Heavenly Physician could never feign.

“And most importantly, the murder weapon itself was the hilt of the Heaven-Slaughtering Sword, which now lies suppressed within Taiyi. No one other than Venerable Heavenly Severer can wield Heaven-Slaughtering."

The words hung in the air, and even Fuzi could not help but hesitate.

He turned to look at Heavenly Severer beside him.

It seemed Hanhai's words had stirred something long buried deep within Heavenly Severer's mind. He stared blankly down at his own hands. A long moment passed before he suddenly spoke.

"That's right... I was the one who killed them..."

"What?" Fuzi's hunched frame straightened in an instant. He stared in disbelief at Old Man Fisher, who had just confessed.

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