Apocalypse: Relentlessly Elbowing the Corpse King Longyou

His fist tore through the air, wreathed in the surging martial energy that coursed through Long Zetian's entire body, and smashed into Long You's crossed arms. It wasn't the dull thud of flesh meeting flesh, but a piercing screech like metal being torn apart.

Long You's blood-red eyes bulged. His arms, covered in pale bone armor, snapped with the impact and twisted at a grotesque angle. Beneath his feet, the already shattered earth groaned once more. Web-like cracks spread wildly, plunging into unfathomable depths as they swallowed the flying rubble and dust. In the distance, the ruins of half of Shanghai trembled in the shockwave, as if giving the last mournful cry of the apocalypse.

“Ying Zheng... heh... Ying Zheng's Nine Tripod Cauldrons...” Long You staggered backward, his shattered chest heaving violently. Yet his voice held a deeply unsettling, blood-tinged, mocking laugh, rasping like rusty gears grinding together. “They gave this world ‘qi’... But do you... do you know... the solar system is sealed inside this black barrier... precisely because...”

Long Zetian was drenched in blood, the golden martial energy around him flickering. That last strike, which had drawn on every ounce of strength from his internal organs and sinews, had nearly emptied him. He gasped for breath, trying to make out the dying ramblings of the fiend. The Nine Tripod Cauldrons? Sealed?

Something was wrong!

He forced out a breath of true qi, ignoring the need to recover. His left fist began to hum again, his bones giving off faint, strained cracks as he frantically gathered what strength remained. He had to finish him off completely! He couldn't give this Corpse King another chance!

Long You watched him gather his strength. Mockery and something far deeper, something unnervingly derisive, almost overflowed from those mad, blood-red eyes.

“...precisely because”