Chapter 144: Vowing to Compete and Outdo!

Ke Kijin’s wild and frantic howling echoed across the entire heaven and earth. Countless scholars suddenly realized what he was holding in his hand, and at that moment, their faces turned pale with horror and sudden comprehension.

Even the elderly man beside Song Mu struggled to stand up, excitedly brushing away the surrounding soldiers.

"We absolutely cannot let him succeed! There are twenty thousand commoners in this Shaozhou Prefecture city!"

As the old man spoke, his posture gradually became hunchbacked, and his face flushed bright red, as if he was desperately driving the scholarly energy within his body. A ripple of scholarly energy slowly emanated, and the old man’s sleeves began to flutter without any wind.

"Puff—"

Yet in the next instant, the old man abruptly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood that shot three feet into the air. He collapsed as lightly as a fallen feather, the expression on his face turning deathly pale.

"Lord Gu!"

Song Mu hurriedly stepped forward to support him, anxiously checking on his condition. The old man’s vital breath was extremely unstable. Having already been heavily poisoned internally, forcing his scholarly energy to circulate now caused the poison to spread even more aggressively through his meridians.

Powerless to help, Song Mu could only move the old man aside and comfort him gently, saying, "My lord, you need not worry."

"How can I not worry? That is the *Hundred Flowers Slaughter Scroll*! Is there anyone left in this city who can fight him?"

"I have served as an official for seventy years, and now I am to witness the entire city of people perish before my eyes!"

Consumed by burning anxiety, the old man broke into a violent fit of coughing. The surrounding soldiers rushed about in chaos, terror written on every face, as if they already saw the arrival of absolute doom.

Gazing at him with a solemn expression, Song Mu shook his head firmly.

"My lord, please trust my teacher."

Song Mu said these words with unshakeable resolve. He raised his gaze toward the towering figure standing unflinchingly in the sky, then lowered his head to look at the old man.

"He is a Jinshi, a sufficiently powerful Jinshi, possessed of unfathomable scholarly energy and spiritual will."

"And most importantly—" Song Mu let out a heavy breath.

"My teacher is a Realm-Breaker."

Upon hearing these words, the old man abruptly widened his eyes, a surge of excitement flashing across his face. He stared intently at Song Mu, his lips trembling slightly.

"Is what you say true? If he is a Realm-Breaker, then perhaps..."

Before his voice could fade, a massive wave of scholarly energy suddenly erupted from the sky, flashing past with the density of tangible substance. High above, Tao Fengming’s blue robes began to snap and billow violently.

"A junior? You are the one whose vision is narrow and shallow!"

"In this world of myriad realms, it is not yet the turn of a mere *Hundred Flowers Slaughter Scroll* to run rampant!"

Tao Fengming’s deep voice slowly resonated. In the next moment, he produced a white scroll from somewhere. The scroll unfurled before him, and using his hand as a brush and his scholarly energy as ink, Tao Fengming swept across the paper.

He actually began to compose poems and prose right then and there!

"You—"

Ke Kijin’s expression turned utterly astonished. Seeing Tao Fengming already writing poetry amidst the shifting winds and clouds, he hastily launched an attack.

The blood-colored scroll unfurled rapidly outward, instantly transforming into a monstrous torrent of blood that lunged viciously toward Tao Fengming.

As the scroll opened, countless blossoms began to bloom, and a sky full of withered yellow chrysanthemums slowly unfolded. Yet before these yellow flowers could even touch the ground, they underwent a drastic transformation.

The gentle yellow began to recede, replaced by an arresting, vibrant red, dripping with freshness. From within those crimson flowers, actual drops of blood began to fall.

Simultaneously, a pungent, salty odor drifted through the air.

It was the thick stench of blood!

The *Hundred Flowers Slaughter Scroll* was displaying its terrifying, ultimate power!

Song Mu and the others on the city wall instinctively covered their noses. Within the city below, the falling droplets of blood blossomed into countless crimson flowers that continuously burst open across the streets.

In the corners of walls, under the eaves, beneath the shade of trees, amidst the patches of grass...

Blood-red began to permeate everywhere. In mere moments, the entire city had changed its color!

Countless people screamed in terror, only to collapse heavily to the ground, losing consciousness.

Song Mu looked toward his surroundings and saw that the area outside the city behind them had grown hazy, as if a thick, bloody mist had shrouded everything!

The mystic realm of the Hundred Flowers Slaughter had been completely unleashed!

The surrounding soldiers began to topple over one by one. The multitude of citizens who had fled onto the city wall retreated in panic toward Song Mu. This faint wisp of mist was, at this moment, far more terrifying than any crazed demon-seed beings.

Song Mu circulated the scholarly energy within his body, batting away the bloody mist that drifted close to him, yet he could not save everyone around him.

"Young man, flee quickly! It is already too late; this place is about to become a dead zone."

The elderly man surnamed Gu said weakly to Song Mu. Seeing the situation, Song Mu shook his head, clenched his fists, struggled internally for a moment, and then instructed two nearby soldiers.

"It is not too late yet! Bring my lord, we are going beneath the Great Confucian’s inscription!"

The soldiers nodded hastily. Song Mu took the lead, his scholarly energy continuously sweeping outward to clear the surroundings. At the same time, he reached beneath his collar.

A red cord was pulled out, revealing three objects hanging from it.

Reaching out, Song Mu unclasped a yellow jade ring and hurriedly slipped it onto his finger.

"Young man, you... you actually possess two Scholar-Vein Tourmalines?"

As the old man sat slumped in exhaustion beside the Great Confucian's bronze stele, the sight of the artifacts on the red cord filled his face with shock.

"What is your name? From which scholarly lineage do you hail?"

Realizing at last that Song Mu's identity was extraordinary, the old man asked urgently. However, Song Mu had no time to ponder such matters; he simply produced his court plaque and drew his brush.

Licking his parched lips, Song Mu glanced at the Great Confucian's inscription before him and took a deep breath.

"Behold the land of the Divine Prefecture, where the Nine Tripods gather as one, nurturing all things with heavenly stars and suppressing demons with scholarly breath..."

Song Mu could no longer afford hesitation. If he wished to protect so many lives, he had to rely upon this Great Confucian inscription, hoping that by writing with his own scholarly energy and reinforcing it with his spiritual will, he could ignite some of its latent power.

At the very least, it would allow him to protect the people stationed on this city wall.

Kneeling before the Great Confucian inscription, Song Mu moved his brush with blistering speed. Line after line of prose appeared upon the paper of his court plaque. Within mere moments, Song Mu felt the surrounding atmosphere begin to shift.

The bloody mist seemed to be slowly pushed back, but accompanying this was the rapid depletion of the scholarly energy within his body.

After persisting for a few more moments, Song Mu suddenly let out a muffled groan, his face turning ashen as his brush abruptly halted mid-stroke.

"Child, you cannot do it. Unless you are a Juren, you cannot fully transcribe a Great Confucian inscription."

The old man by his side spoke up. Song Mu’s expression faltered, and the surrounding blood-red mist surged inward once again.

Watching the panicked expressions of the people around him, all filled with stark terror, Song Mu felt a surge of unyielding reluctance. Hardening his heart, he closed his eyes.

The people nearby looked on anxiously, but when Song Mu opened his eyes once more, his gaze was resolute.

"Though the lotuses have withered and no umbrella-like leaves remain, the battered chrysanthemums still boast branches that defy the frost."

Lifting his brush anew, Song Mu inscribed a poem upon his court plaque. The moment the verse was completed, waves of scholarly breath instantly gushed forth from the tablet.

This time, what Song Mu had written was a new poem.

Su Shi's *Gifting to Liu Jingwen*!

With red chrysanthemums blooming across the heavens, Song Mu could not yet break this mystic realm, but that did not mean he would simply sit still and await death.

Since you dare to chant of chrysanthemums, then I shall chant of chrysanthemums as well!

Let us see whose realm is higher, whose state is profound—let us clash and fight to our heart's content!

Just as Song Mu finished his strokes, Ke Kijin, who had been roaring as he charged toward Tao Fengming in the sky, launched a ferocious assault upon the writing scholar.

Strike after strike crashed viciously toward Tao Fengming, yet the floating white scroll unfurled beside Tao Fengming seemed imbued with a spiritual sentience, blocking every single attack.

"Hmph!"

Ke Kijin let out an exclamation of surprise, accelerating the movements of his hands while his face twisted into an even more ferocious snarl.

"Rampant? Today, I will send you down to the Yellow Springs to join old man Yu, and then you will truly know what it means to be rampant!"

With those words, he poured his scholarly energy frantically into the blood-colored scroll. In an instant, the foul, sickening floral fragrance grew overwhelmingly dense.

Yet at that exact moment, amidst the vibrant, dripping crimson blossoms, a single peach blossom petal drifted past.

Its tender pink hue was jarringly out of place. As the petal flashed before Ke Kijin’s eyes, a bolt of thunder seemed to strike his mind.

"This is..."

"Peach blossoms..."