Chapter 602: The Physician For Millennia-Old Maladies

Heavenly Severer trembled as though caught in a nightmare, unable to pull free.

"That's right, I killed them all!"

"Qin Tang, Little Chong, Fuyun..."

"I killed them all!"

Fuzi stood motionless. The word took a moment to reach him.

"Why?" His voice came out barely above a whisper.

Then Heavenly Severer's expression shifted abruptly.

"No... that's wrong!

"That wasn't me at all!"

He jerked his head up and glared at the Heavenly Physician. "This is all your doing!

"Those memories in my mind are false!

"Ever since the day I met you, everything has been bizarre. Everything spiraled out of control..."

He leveled the Heaven-Slaughtering Sword directly at the Heavenly Physician. "Was it you or not?"

The Heavenly Physician's expression didn't change.

"I had hoped that you might show some improvement this time.

"Turns out, you're still the same."

He shook his head, a trace of regret in the gesture.

"What do you mean by that?" Heavenly Decree caught an unusual implication in those words and pressed.

The Heavenly Physician ignored him and continued at his own pace. "I've explained this to you many times. Sometimes, even what you see with your own eyes may not be real."

As he spoke, he produced a set of nine silver needles and arranged them one by one in the air before him.

"You've all gone mad, wanting to kill me.

"I have no choice but to resolve this in my own way."

At the sight of the nine silver needles, Heavenly Decree's face darkened. He stopped listening and moved at once.

"The Law cannot be defied!

"Bind!"

Something coiled around the Heavenly Physician's body, causing the needles to falter.

"Weaken! Wound! Freeze! Cripple! Damage..."

The words poured from Heavenly Decree's mouth in a continuous stream, and with each one the Heavenly Physician's movements slowed further.

Old Man Fisher stared at the Heavenly Physician with crimson eyes, his grip on the Heaven-Slaughtering Sword tightening. His body dissolved into black baleful qi and merged with the blade. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, it shot straight for the Heavenly Physician.

Bound by Heavenly Decree's words, the Heavenly Physician seemed entirely powerless to resist. He didn't even move as the black sword qi pierced clean through his chest. The baleful qi surged outward in a violent tide, swallowing him whole.

In an instant, the composed figure of the Heavenly Physician vanished from Cloudwater Palace.

The Heavenly Physician is dead?

Hidden in his little corner, Zhou Qing'ang stared in stunned silence. The battle between the three had produced no shockwaves, and the avatar was still relatively safe. But what had just unfolded was nowhere near what he had expected.

The supposedly all-powerful Heavenly Physician was unable to withstand a single exchange under their combined assault, dying in an instant?

With his strength, he absolutely shouldn't have been that weak, right?

Wait...

A moment later, Li Fan understood. He jerked his head up toward the sky.

The entire Cloudwater Palace began to shake.

Two dark patches of clouds materialized slowly in the heavens above. When Li Fan saw them clearly, the breath died in his throat.

A pair of colossal hands pierced through the sky, descending from beyond into Cloudwater Palace.

Fuzi and Old Man Fisher looked up in unison at the two looming palms. They tried to resist and found themselves completely immobilized. Terror spread across their faces.

"Do not worry. This procedure will also be over very quickly."

A rumbling voice echoed from the heavens. It was the Heavenly Physician's voice.

Li Fan’s heart hammered violently, his thoughts nearly grinding to a halt.

Of course. From beginning to end, the one who had been confronting Old Man Fisher and Fuzi was just one of his figurines.

These two hands were part of the Heavenly Physician's true form!

Before those gargantuan hands, Heavenly Severer and Fuzi were like insects on an operating table. They were seized without effort and lifted into the air.

Then the true Heavenly Physician summoned the nine silver needles his figurine had wielded and began to "treat" them both.

Watching from a distance, Li Fan felt a chill settle deep into his bones.

The Heavenly Physician... just what is he?

At this moment, a single thought completely dominated Li Fan’s mind.

Danger! Extreme peril!

The Heavenly Physician's true strength far exceeded anything Li Fan had estimated. Even if he hadn't yet reached the Eternal Life realm, he couldn't be far from it.

Abandon this avatar immediately. Don't let the Heavenly Physician follow the trail back to my true self. Now.

Driven by a raw, powerful instinct for survival, Li Fan was already preparing to do exactly that.

Then he caught himself.

No.

The Heavenly Physician had clearly realized this was the result of someone's scheming. But the ones he would suspect first would naturally be those whose power rivaled his own. He wouldn't think to search among the ants watching from the sidelines. That was the bias of conventional thinking.

But if, at this critical juncture, one particular ant were to die inexplicably... that would be a glaring attempt to cover the truth. A complete and utter case of trying to cover up only to make it more obvious.

Given the Heavenly Physician's terrifying power, it wouldn't erase the clues. On the contrary, it held a significant chance of drawing fire upon himself and attracting the Heavenly Physician’s direct attention!

What should I do?

In that fleeting instant, countless thoughts surged through Li Fan's mind. Then, in the next breath, he made his decision.

Hold position.

He would gamble. He would bet on whether the Heavenly Physician still retained a “human” mode of thinking, or whether he had transcended such things entirely and no longer operated via ordinary logic.

If he guessed right, then despite his crushing defeat in this round, it wouldn't be a total loss.

If he guessed wrong, it would still take the Heavenly Physician time to trace the connection between the avatar and his true self.

And right now, his true self was not in the Congyun Sea but deep within the Myriad Immortals Alliance's territory. Even if the Heavenly Physician found some trace and came looking, it wouldn't happen instantly. There would be enough time to execute Return to Truth.

That judgment rested on everything Li Fan had observed of the Heavenly Physician so far.

So... he would take the gamble!

Heart pounding with barely suppressed terror, Li Fan crushed the impulse to snuff out his avatar's life. He opened his eyes wide, cleared his mind of every other thought, and fixed his gaze on the Heavenly Physician's procedure.

Even at Li Fan's current level of insight, he could discern nothing from it. He saw only a flurry of silver light, and heard the furious cursing of Heavenly Decree and Heavenly Severer grow fainter and fainter until it faded to near silence, as though both men were sinking into deep sleep.

When the procedure ended, Old Man Fisher reverted to his previous befuddled, amnesiac state. He swept his gaze around, face full of confusion, then ignored the colossal hands hanging in the sky and walked straight out of Cloudwater Palace. As for Fuzi, he harnessed his ox-cart once more and vanished amid the clear, resonant sound of reciting voices.

With that done, the two giant hands withdrew their silver needles. A single gentle press downward, and Cloudwater Palace, which had been filled with anguished wails moments before, fell utterly silent.

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