Chapter 208

Seventy-eight people died in Xigu Village. Fewer than forty of the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled remained, resembling the final embers in a hearth licked by gray ash driven by the northern wind. Within the black scar torn into the earth by the ninth heavy Tribulation Thunder, the last scrap of flesh, skin, and bone belonging to "mortal Lin Er" rolled for a moment in mud steaming with dark red vapor, and then went completely silent. Lin Moyu stood up from the depths of the mud. Dark brown filth reattached itself, solidifying into a suit of armor covered in twisted, dim patterns. It coated every inch of his flesh, sealing even his eyelids beneath a layer of translucent substance resembling aged amber grease. Looking at the world through this filth-encrusted armor, everything was submerged in a sluggish, viscous, yellowish-green halo. He raised a hand; the armor rasped together like sand grinding over ruined leather. The palm that once held a cracked earthenware bowl bore the faint branding of a twisted, charred ring—an imprint from the broken bowl base, sunk deep into the marrow.