Deviant: No Longer Human

Chapter 428: Astral plane (3)

The strongest being in this world, Xie Yuanqui, emerged from her chambers, her eyes scanning the turbulent skies with a mixture of fear and confusion.

The heavens were not merely raging—they were mourning, the rain falling like the tears of an unseen entity.

"What's happening...?" Xie Yuanqui whispered, her voice barely audible as her heart filled with dread.

This was no ordinary storm.

The heavens themselves were weeping, and she could feel it in her bones—something was terribly wrong.

Crack!

The sky itself split open with a deafening sound, and Xie Yuanqui's eyes widened in horror.

Above her, the fabric of reality tore apart, and from the crack emerged a hand, vast as a mountain, composed entirely of gleaming white bones.

Her breath caught in her throat as the skeletal hand descended toward her sect, its presence suffocating, its power unimaginable.

She had never encountered anything like this in her entire life.

For the first time, the mighty Xie Yuanqui, the sage who had never known fear, felt a cold terror grip her heart.

Her legs trembled, her feet frozen in place as the hand drew closer, blotting out the sky.

She could not move, could not even think as the realization of her helplessness overwhelmed her.

This was no mere adversary.

This was something beyond her understanding, beyond her power to resist.

"I won't let this thing destroy everything I've built!" she whispered fiercely to herself. Summoning all the dou within her, she launched herself into the air, her body glowing with a brilliant aura as she streaked toward the monstrous hand.

She had faced countless enemies in her life, but this... this was different.

Yet, if she had to perish, she would do so fighting, and she would take this abomination down with her.

The wind roared in her ears as she soared upward, her eyes locked on the skeletal hand.

She could feel its immense power, a force that felt as though it was reaching out from another world entirely.

But she didn't falter. Gathering the full force of her cultivation, she prepared to unleash an attack that would either annihilate her enemy or destroy her completely.

"Die with me!" she screamed, her voice filled with both fury and desperation.

Her hand extended forward, the energy around her coalescing into a blazing spear of energy aimed directly at the center of the skeletal hand.

But before she could strike, the hand moved with an eerie speed, faster than she could anticipate.

In an instant, it closed around her, its bony fingers curling with a vice-like grip.

"Argh—"

The impact was like being crushed by a mountain; the force of it knocked the breath from her lungs and shattered her ribs.

Her spear of energy dissipated into nothingness, the dou scattered by the overwhelming power of the skeletal hand.

"No...!" Xie Yuanqui gasped, struggling against the grip, but it was futile.

The hand held her effortlessly, as though she were nothing more than an insect in its grasp.

For the first time in her life, Xie Yuanqui felt utterly powerless.

Below, the disciples and elders of the sect rushed out of their chambers, their faces pale with fear and disbelief as they beheld the sight above.

Xie Yuanqui was like a good to them!

But the god was bleeding at this moment?

Their leader, the most powerful being in their world, was being taken by something beyond their comprehension.

"Master!" one of the disciples screamed, tears streaming down her face as she watched Xie Yuanqui being lifted into the sky.

The others followed, their voices a chorus of despair and rage. "We must help her!"

The elders, who had lived long enough to know the weight of their leader's power, exchanged worried glances.

They were strong, yes, but compared to Xie Yuanqui, they were like candles in the wind.

And yet, they had to try.

They couldn't let their master be taken without a fight.

With a collective roar, they unleashed their combined might, shooting torrents of aether toward the skeletal hand.

Whoosh! Woosh! Whooosh!

Beams of light, fire, and ice surged upward, crackling through the stormy skies as they raced to intercept the monstrous avatar.

But it was too late.

Before the attacks could reach the hand, the sky above them fractured further, the crack in space widening as the hand began to retract.

The disciples and elders watched in horror as the hand, still clutching Xie Yuanqui, pulled back into the tear in reality, the dark energy surrounding it seeming to swallow the world whole.

"No! Don't take her!" another elder cried, his voice breaking as he unleashed one last, desperate attack.

BAM!

But the energy dissipated harmlessly against the edges of the spatial rift, as though it had never existed.

In a final, dreadful moment, the hand and Xie Yuanqui disappeared into the tear, and with a crack, the sky sealed itself shut, leaving nothing but the howling wind and the pounding rain in its wake.

Silence fell over the sect, broken only by the sobs of the disciples and the stunned disbelief of the elders.

They stood frozen, staring at the spot where their master had been taken, their minds struggling to comprehend what had just happened.

_____

As the skeletal avatar retreated into the void, Wang Xiao vanished from the stormy skies above Yolong Dou, his presence dissipating like a wisp of smoke.

He reappeared deep within a secluded mountain peak, a place covered in ancient darkness where the air was filled with the scent of earth and cold stone.

The silence here was oppressive, broken only by the faint sound of dripping water echoing from somewhere deep within the caverns.

In the heart of this desolate place, Xie Yuanqui lay chained to a cold stone wall, her wrists and ankles bound by thick, dark iron shackles that pulsed with a faint, sinister energy.

Despite the pain from her broken ribs and the cold that seemed to seep into her very bones, her beauty remained untarnished, her figure radiating an ethereal fragrance even in her current state of captivity.

Her eyes, though filled with pain, blazed with an unyielding spirit—the gaze of a woman who had never known defeat, who had commanded the power of a world at her fingertips.

"Cough... Cough..." She choked on the cold air, her breath ragged but her resolve unbroken.

As she struggled to breathe, she became aware of a presence in the room—something dark, chilling, and utterly foreign to her.

A figure began to materialize from the shadows, a form composed entirely of swirling black mist.

Two deep red eyes gleamed from within the darkness, piercing through the gloom with an unsettling intensity.

The mist roiled and shifted as the figure approached her, the air growing colder with every passing moment.

Xie Yuanqui narrowed her eyes, suppressing the pain that wracked her body as she stared angrily at the figure before her.