Chapter 954: The True and False Heavenly Doctor
Faced with Han Hai's anguished questions, the figure known as the "Tian Jue Venerable" finally turned his head to "look" at him.
His eyes remained shut, and his voice was utterly peculiar.
It came in fits and starts, shifting from a roar to a whisper.
"Who am I?"
"...Care to guess?"
As he spoke, he violently clenched his left fist.
In the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace—already deathly silent, with no survivors other than Han Hai and Tai Yi—the agonized death cries of the disciples suddenly erupted once more.
Han Hai, pinned in mid-air and completely immobilized, watched in horror as transparent figures rose one by one from the mangled remains of his disciples.
Frozen in the last instant before death, their faces were masks of pure terror and despair.
What the "Tian Jue Venerable" had done was far more than a simple act of killing!
He intended to trap the disciples of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace, forcing them to relive the agony of their final moments for all eternity!
What kind of grudge could possibly fuel such a monstrous act?
Overwhelmed with grief and indignation, Han Hai unleashed his full power, desperately trying to break free.
But he couldn't so much as stir the black rays piercing his body. The backlash from his efforts sent blood streaming from his eyes, ears, and nostrils, leaving him in a wretched state!
Han Hai could only watch helplessly as the man before him transformed his fallen disciples into wretched existences, trapped between life and death!
"The Tian Jue Venerable commands the Dao of Slaughter."
"Such a method... this is beyond his power."
"No, that's not right..."
Han Hai's eyes lost their focus as he muttered under his breath.
A moment later, as if a terrible realization had struck him, his body trembled. "The Heavenly Doctor? You're the Heavenly Doctor?!"
As Han Hai shouted the name, the figure tormenting the disciples of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace paused for a brief instant.
Then, a bizarre smile spread across his face.
"The Heavenly Doctor..."
"Hehehe, correct. I am the Heavenly Doctor!"
The moment he spoke, the world before Han Hai's eyes shattered and reformed.
In an instant, the attacker, who had borne the likeness of the Tian Jue Venerable, shockingly morphed into the Heavenly Doctor!
A compassionate gaze, a sanctimonious air... yet he was the one committing such an unspeakable horror!
And the black sword-lights trapping Han Hai twisted into fine, black needles!
"I knew it!"
"Why! Heavenly Doctor!"
Believing he had uncovered the truth, Han Hai let out an earth-shattering roar of fury.
"Why! Why!"
He demanded an answer again and again.
But the Heavenly Doctor turned a deaf ear, his expression unchanging from beginning to end.
Only his murky eyes held a hint of appreciation as he gazed upon the "revived" disciples of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
He was admiring his own masterpiece.
The newly formed spirits first looked around in a daze, staring at their own transparent bodies before glancing at their surroundings.
But gradually, they began to realize what had happened to them.
Han Hai's furious roars made it horrifyingly clear who the culprit was.
"Heavenly Doctor!"
"Heavenly Doctor!"
Venomous shouts rose and fell, echoing throughout the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
The sound was utterly bone-chilling.
Yet the Heavenly Doctor listened as if to an exquisite symphony, an expression of sheer ecstasy appearing on his face.
This sight drove the spirits of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace into a deeper frenzy, making them wish they could tear the Heavenly Doctor's flesh from his bones.
But they were still under his control, able only to let out futile roars.
They could not make a single move to resist.
After an unknown amount of time, the Heavenly Doctor seemed to have heard enough, and his expression suddenly changed.
With a cold snort, he plunged the disciples of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace into an endless darkness.
...
The scene cut off abruptly.
When light returned, the scene had rewound to a short while earlier, to the conversation between Han Hai and Tai Yi in the main hall.
"It seems this nightmarish memory is the source of Han Hai's torment."
Li Fan mused to himself.
He watched the memory several more times from Han Hai's perspective, and after confirming there were no other anomalies, this wisp of Li Fan's divine sense prepared to depart.
But to Li Fan's surprise, he couldn't find a way out!
Through constant repetition, the scene had become almost indistinguishable from reality.
One might awaken from an illusion or a memory.
But how could one return from reality to reality?
His connection to the outside world was severed. Li Fan tried numerous methods to leave, but all of them ended in failure.
Yet, Li Fan did not panic.
After all, it was only a wisp of his divine sense that had entered this place.
To his main body, the damage from losing this wisp could be healed in less than a breath's time.
Logically speaking, since escape was impossible and there was no risk to his true self, this wisp of Li Fan's divine sense could have simply self-annihilated to end the matter.
But driven by the instinct for survival, this detached piece of Li Fan's consciousness still wanted to try again.
It wanted to see if it could find a way to break the deadlock.
"If even an outsider like me cannot escape this eternal nightmare, what hope is there for its master, Han Hai?"
"But the cause of this situation is worth considering. Is it because Han Hai himself was too traumatized to break free, or is it... something else?"
Though surprised, Li Fan remained calm and continued to experience the nightmare from Han Hai's perspective.
He experienced the hellish scene once more. As the Heavenly Doctor's cold snort sounded and darkness descended, Li Fan focused his full attention and peered into the gloom.
The darkness lasted only for a few breaths.
At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a void caused by a gap in the memory.
But Li Fan keenly sensed that the period of darkness was divided into two distinct parts.
In the first part, Han Hai's perception of the outside world had been forcibly blocked.
Only after that came the interlude in the nightmare's cycle.
However, since both manifested as a deathly, pitch-black silence, Han Hai, in his maddened state, could not distinguish between the two.
Only Li Fan, the outsider, could faintly perceive the subtle difference.
In fact, if Li Fan hadn't been so accustomed to worldly tragedies, his heart as steady as stone, he might have been too shaken by the horrific events at the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace to maintain the absolute composure needed.
He, too, would have found it difficult to notice the distinct difference between the two phases of darkness.
Now that he had an opening, this wisp of Li Fan's divine sense waited patiently through the endless cycles of the nightmare.
It attempted to pierce the darkness and witness what was happening in the world outside the memory.
"It seems the Heavenly Doctor didn't stop because he grew tired of the sounds. That sudden, subtle change in his expression..."
"Someone arrived."
Realization dawned on Li Fan.
He patiently endured hundreds more cycles, piecing together the tiny fragments of light and shadow he managed to catch each time.
Like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, Li Fan finally reconstructed the events of that single instant, which had been obscured by darkness.
Shortly after the "Heavenly Doctor" suppressed everyone in the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace, another figure had sped toward them from the horizon.
The "Heavenly Doctor" shot the newcomer a mocking look before his form faded and disappeared.
And the figure that arrived... was, shockingly, also the Heavenly Doctor!
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