The Lord of Void and Real

Chapter 172: Chapter 170: Sacrificing Oneself into the Game

Shen Luo looked at Lang Pu, his face showing a bit of helplessness.

“Since you are not of the Human Race, as long as you do not interfere, I can spare you.” The Heaven Devouring Tiger said.

Upon hearing this, Lang Pu, seemingly demonstrating sincerity, stepped back a few more steps.

“What tricks do you have this time?” The Heaven Devouring Tiger slowly walked towards Shen Luo, his eyes revealing a menacing aura.

Shen Luo stared intently at the Heaven Devouring Tiger, grasping the half-moon ring, he slowly retreated.

“Roar…”

The Heaven Devouring Tiger suddenly let out a wild roar, his body suddenly lunged forward, pouncing towards Shen Luo.

Next to it, Lang Pu, whose eyes suddenly flashed with a sly look, also moved at the same time.

The black gold trident held in his pincers spun rapidly, a blue light emanated from the trident tip, transforming into a fuzzy cone, heading straight for the Heaven Devouring Tiger’s flank with potent sharpness.

Just as the sharp glow of the trident tip was about to pierce the body of the Heaven Devouring Tiger, a gust of wind suddenly sounded.

The Heaven Devouring Tiger’s long tail crackled, wound in a layer of blue electrical threads, it swung furiously.

Seeing this, Lang Pu’s pincers tightly gripped the black gold trident and drew it back while he fiercely thrust the trident towards the ground. His other pincer grabbed the tiger’s tail.

With a clang, the ground cracked open, more than half of the trident was thrust into the ground, and Lang Pu’s right pincer managed to grab the tail of the Heaven Devouring Tiger just in time.

In an instant, a powerful electric current passed through the armor into Lang Pu’s body.

A blue light illuminated from Lang Pu’s crab shell, encasing the electric current. He strained to hold on, but he was still smoking all over, screaming in pain.

“Young Master Shen, this guy will not be fooled. I’ll hold him off. You better get out of here.” Lang Pu let out a long shout.

“Lang Pu, don’t force yourself.” Shen Luo’s brow furrowed. Knowing he had no time to hesitate, he quickly employed the Art of Spirit Communication to drop a vortex beside Lang Pu then turned and ran.

“A kind-hearted kid you are.” Seeing this, Lang Pu sighed in relief.

The Heaven Devouring Tiger tried to leap forward to give chase but was tightly held back by Lang Pu, unable to break free for the moment.

It was seething with fury. Its mouth opened wide again, and electric threads coiled in its throat, forming a solid blue electric ball.

Seeing the light ball about to be fired, Lang Pu’s glow surged all around him. His right arm’s pincer seemed to increase in size, and he yanked down with all his might.

The Heaven Devouring Tiger’s body faltered, causing the light ball to lose its target and fly off at an angle.

“Boom!” A loud explosion sounded!

The blue electric light ball failed to hit Shen Luo but landed next to him. The blast caused a wild surge of air.

The force caused Shen Luo to tilt, flinging him into the air, and he landed outside the dense forest.

His body was in excruciating pain, with blood oozing from the corner of his mouth, but he still managed to struggle to his feet and continue sprinting towards the mountain top.

Behind him, after a brief bout of fighting sounds, only the roar of the Heaven Devouring Tiger was left.

Shen Luo didn’t have the luxury to check on Lang Pu’s condition. After running several hundred feet uphill, he found that there was no road ahead, only a mountain cliff that was over a hundred feet high.

It was then that he remembered what Ying Luo had mentioned earlier that there were many branched paths below the waist of Mount Fangcun, and it seemed there was only one path to continue to the top once they reached the waist.

Without hesitating, Shen Luo immediately made his way up the rugged rocks and fissures of the cliff wall, hands and feet working together.

Just as he reached the top of the cliff, he discovered a plum tree, about seventy or eighty feet tall, near the edge of the plateau. Its trunk was black and withered, its leaves almost entirely gone. The tree seemed to have lost most of its vitality.

Shen Luo had no intention of lingering, he just gave it a cursory glance and then passed by the tree, ready to resume his journey.

Yet at that moment, his eyes caught sight of a square granite table, about one meter high, under the tree. The tabletop was engraved with a network of nineteen intersecting lines, strewn with black and white chess pieces. It was clearly the remnants of a game of go.

He was reminded of the story Ying Luo had previously recounted about the woodcutter and thus found himself unable to resist peering at the chessboard.

However, he did not see the same unusual sight of black and white armored warriors in battle that the woodcutter had observed.

Although Shen Luo had no particular interest in the art of go, he had acquainted himself with some basic strategies from books like “The Four Character Manual” and “Mysterious Collection”. His understanding wasn’t profound though.

He could see that the black pieces had an advantage on the chessboard. They had already cornered the white pieces, and barely allowed them to breathe.

Shifting his gaze slightly, he noticed two lines of small characters engraved on the right side of the board that read, “When mountains and rivers make you doubt your path, another village appears amidst the darkened willows and blooming flowers.”

“Could there be a secret in this chessboard?” A thought flashed through his mind, and he quickly swept his eyes back and forth over the chessboard a few times.

Upon further scrutiny, he discovered that the space left for the white pieces was merely a façade. If they were to make a move here, within ten steps, the white pieces would be encircled and killed off again, losing even their last breath.

“If I place the piece here, it may seem like a suicidal move, but from death comes life… Yes, right here!” Shen Luo, staring at a spot in the lower right corner of the board, murmured to himself. @@novelbin@@

There was a flicker of joy in his eyes, and he was about to reach for a chess piece when he realized that the platform was utterly empty. There were no chess pieces on it.

“Ah… looks like I’m overthinking it,” With a slap to his forehead, Shen Luo stood up and prepared to leave.

Just as he was about to leave, a tiger’s roar echoed from the surrounding forest. A large figure pounced out from behind a boulder and landed on the cliff, staring intently at Shen Luo.

“This time, let’s see how you escape,” roared the Heaven Devouring Tiger.

Regret sprung up in Shen Luo’s heart. If he had known this would happen, he wouldn’t have wasted his time here.

As he was pondering how to escape, he noticed that the steep cliff on his right was, in fact, engraved with intersecting lines just like the chessboard. Hollow circles represented the white pieces and solid circles for the black pieces, reflecting the exact same pattern as the chessboard.

Above the chessboard were four large characters engraved in ancient script that read: “Life as a Chess Game”.

The moment Shen Luo saw these words, his heart seemed to echo with a light exclamation, and sudden realization dawned on him.

Life is like a chess game, and human beings are like chess pieces. Since there are no pieces to move, he may as well make himself the piece.

The Heaven Devouring Tiger, although confused by Shen Luo’s absent gaze, launched himself towards Shen Luo.

Seeing this, Shen Luo steeled his heart and threw himself directly towards the spot on the cliff-shaped chessboard where the lines intersected in the lower right corner and forcefully slammed into it.

A muffled “thump” echoed, and a sharp pain surged from Shen Luo’s shoulder.

The cliff was, after all, still a cliff. How could there be any exit?

Just as Shen Luo was beginning to think that he had guessed wrong, the chessboard on the entire cliff wall suddenly shone with light, the black and white pieces each shimmering like a star, alternately bright and dim.

Following this, the empty chessboard began to reveal shadows of moving pieces, like shooting stars leaving black and white streaks. They all converged from various parts of the chessboard towards Shen Luo’s surroundings.