Chapter 143: The Art of Life and Death (Second Update)

The numbness and profound silence that swept through his entire body left Bai Qi’s physical form in a state of dissolution.

The few vultures circling in the sky had already landed on the ground. However, driven by instinctual caution and vigilance, they did not rush forward immediately to peck at the "corpse" lying on the ground.

The wind howled fiercely, like a hand gently brushing past, lifting away a thin upper layer of snow from Bai Qi’s body. Yet, this did not drive the surrounding vultures away. Instead, the leader among them stepped forward, poked the snow cover with its massive, sharp beak, and flipped open a portion of the tattered garments on Bai Qi’s body. Its fist-sized head tilted with an almost human-like curiosity, checking whether the "corpse" beneath the snow posed any threat to it.

After inspecting for a long time, the lead vulture turned its head away, let out a few strange squawks, and the vultures behind it stretched out their sharp talons, taking a tentative first step. Seeing that the situation seemed safe, they finally set their suspended hearts at ease.

Stretching out their legs, the vultures began the rhythmic preparation of sharpening their beaks against the intended feast.

A small step... two small steps... three small steps. The large birds surrounded Bai Qi’s body as if gathering for a banquet, beginning to enjoy this unexpected meal.

Lowering their heads to the feast, the birds failed to notice that the heavy snowflakes falling around them had suddenly and slowly come to a halt.

The pristine white snow suddenly turned a grayish hue—a gray so deep it bordered on darkness, a gray that stirred a sense of absolute death from the very depths of one's soul. This color was the color of death, devoid of any superfluous adornment or extra meaning; it was a pure, unadulterated gray reminiscent of the wither and decay of all creation and ultimate annihilation.

Turning back to the vultures, which had been fully prepared to strip away Bai Qi’s clothes layer by layer, their consciousness suddenly slowed down drastically, lagging as if every movement was frozen into individual, halting frames.

At that moment, beneath the thick layer of snow, the index finger of Bai Qi’s right hand seemed to twitch slightly. Unfortunately, the heavy snow was completely unaffected by this, hiding any sign of this "corpse reviving" phenomenon.

Finally, the vultures froze in place, their eyeballs unmoving yet still exuding a look of ravenous greed.

Gradually, the snow covering Bai Qi’s body seemed to lose its color, as if drained of all vitality. Despite its thickness, the gentle breeze brushed across it, causing the entire snow layer to part like a thin gauze veil, pulling back to reveal his body.

At that exact moment, every inch of flesh and blood on the bodies of the surrounding vultures suddenly sprouted tiny, bean-sized gray spots. These spots rapidly spread like drops of ink on rice paper.

Within the span of a few breaths, the entire bodies of the vultures appeared as though coated in gray paint, and even their previously crimson eyeballs turned gray. This sense of absolute death was chilling to the core, freezing one so deeply that shivering was rendered impossible.

Suddenly, the space around Bai Qi returned to normal. Snowflakes began to fall once again, drifting down gently to rest upon the bodies of the vultures, accumulating over time until their weight piled up atop the dead birds.

"Splash, thud, thud..."

Even as the snowflakes fell and normality returned, the vultures continued to stand rigidly in place. Suddenly, burdened by the weight of the snow—an amount completely negligible under normal circumstances—their bodies collapsed like fragile sculptures, shattering into dust under the slightest external force.

This scene was truly terrifying. The living creatures had died without even realizing how, instantly reduced to shattered fragments.

Looking at Bai Qi, who still lay upon the ground, his previously icy complexion now faintly possessed a trace of ruddy color. This flush of life had been drawn from the vital essence of the vultures, though his body remained entwined with that gray aura of death.

In the depths of his subconscious, Bai Qi felt as though he were cast adrift in a vast ocean of gray—utterly devoid of vitality, a complete dead sea. He gazed out at this swirling, vortex-like gray world, where the density of the dead silence was akin to a black hole, intangible and unfathomably deep.

Not far away, however, Bai Qi spotted a watermelon-sized gray sphere. The color of this gaseous mass was even deeper than the surrounding gray ocean. The closer one got, the more oppressive the aura of death became, making even his own spiritual body feel weighted down.

As he drew nearer, Bai Qi watched the mass of gas suspended in mid-air. It writhed incessantly, like fluid trapped within a membrane—condensed yet not solid, solid yet not dispersed.

Suddenly, a ray of brilliant light erupted from within Bai Qi’s body. The appearance of this radiance seemed to shatter the original tranquility of this realm, causing the gray gas to stir restlessly. Sensing this foreign light—which shared the nature of gas yet possessed a fundamental primal force that seemed to suppress it—the deep gray gas drifted back a few meters.

The light shining from within Bai Qi was none other than the cyan gas that had lain dormant for a long time. The emergence of the cyan hue was like lighting a candle in a dark, empty room. Though so unassuming, the flash of cyan illuminated the entire gray space. While the deep gray gas had been the "king" of this realm, the appearance of the cyan threatened to usurp that throne.

Without the slightest hesitation, after casting a glance at the sluggish, deep gray gas mass, the cyan light seemed to smile—as if exchanging a greeting—before immediately and wordlessly surrounding the deep gray mass, swallowing it up within the span of a few blinks. Following this event, the entire oceanic world underwent a cataclysmic upheaval, churning wildly. At the center of the gray sea, a colossal vortex spanning a thousand miles formed, roaring and howling like an angry cry demanding the return of their "king"!

The cyan light remained unmoved. With a single rotation, it burst forth with blinding brilliance, fully unleashing the primal power of the newly swallowed deep gray gas. It was now far more formidable, terrifyingly coercive, and chillingly deathly than ever before. This might was entirely unlocked by absorbing the gray gas, further amplified by the might of the cyan Qi to unearth the ultimate potential of the gray element. Thus, when the pressure born from that primal source erupted, the massive vortex immediately shrank back like a reprimanded child, and the raging, tempestuous world instantly returned to calm.

Bai Qi was currently in a state akin to enlightenment. Within his subconscious realm, the cyan qi acted as his trusty right and left hands. Sensing the primal aura leaking from the gray gas, Bai Qi knew that whatever he had encountered was undoubtedly a supreme treasure.

Another beam of light flashed from within Bai Qi. As the radiance dissipated, a familiar object materialized before him—the Guangling Qin zither.

Immediately thereafter, wave after wave of zither music resounded. Bai Qi’s conscious mind seemed to touch upon the blending state of two forces, one black and one white. This was not the convergence of yin and yang, but rather the cycle of life and death, the entanglement of existence and annihilation.

Suddenly, those two streams (one black, one white) shot fiercely toward Bai Qi’s dantian. The creators of this black and white duality—to be precise—were none other than the previously encountered deep gray gas. Within the Guangling Qin lay the twin arts of life and death: the character of life accompanied death to be reborn, while the art of death accompanied life into oblivion.

That Bai Qi could encounter such a monumental stroke of fortune—witnessing a phenomenon that others would never see (save for the moment of their death)—was entirely thanks to the intervention of the cyan qi, which compelled the polar aura of death (the gray gas) to unlock the dormant abilities of the Guangling Qin (the Arts of Life and Death). The birth of these twin arts granted Bai Qi profound enlightenment, elevating his capabilities to a level where he could overwhelmingly suppress opponents through sheer force without even needing spiritual energy.

Boom!

With the disappearance of their "king," the entire gray world vanished as well. Yet, just as it was on the verge of fading into nothingness, leaving behind only a trace of residual gray matter, a powerful, death-defying vitality suddenly erupted anew, like a rebirth. The eradicated gray world roared and exploded back into existence.

Bang!

Instantly, the colorless void once again manifested into a brilliantly glowing gray realm, its radiance even more dazzling, complete, and formidable than before.

The cycle of life and death within the gray world fully displayed the ultimate primal power of the gray gas.

Life as brilliant as summer flowers, death as tranquil as autumn leaves.

This was the profound mystery of life and death, as well as the essence of the Arts of Life and Death—they were not distinct, but rather one and the same.