The More Tragic I Act, the Stronger I Get — My Fans Beg Me to Stop Killing Off My Roles-Chapter 236: Fallen Leaves, Hero’s Path

That drop of blood-tear fell, serving as the signal for battle to commence.

"Action!"

Zhang Mouyi's command exploded across the set.

Before the words had even faded, the wirework abruptly tightened.

Jiang Ci and Luo Yu's figures were violently yanked high into the air, transforming into two streams of light that tore through the smoke and dust, soaring skyward.

The action choreographer had designed an extremely perilous sequence.

They would no longer clash on the ground; the entire twisted, grotesque Divine Tree became their battleground.

Jiang Ci's toes lightly tapped against a thick, horizontally protruding branch, his body flipping using the momentum.

He dodged a demonic power blade Luo Yu sent slashing from a tricky angle.

That attack, enhanced by post-production special effects, narrowly grazed past the hem of his garment.

A section of trunk behind him, thick enough to require two people to encircle, was instantly sheared in half.

Wood splinters and stone fragments flew everywhere.

Luo Yu, portraying Chi Jie, had plunged completely into a state of deranged power.

He no longer simply wielded demonic power; instead, using the spirit jade fragments, he began to warp space within a small area.

His figure would vanish one moment, only to reappear behind Jiang Ci the next, his attacks coming like a violent storm, relentless and unending.

"Half-demon, can you smell it? This is the scent of despair!"

Luo Yu's line delivery skills were on full display, that sickly delight seemingly dropping the temperature on set by several degrees.

Yet, facing all of this, Jiang Ci's performance took a starkly different extreme.

Calm.

Portraying Ye Chen, after his full demonization, he seemed to have shed all superfluous emotion.

No roars, no fury.

Confronting Chi Jie's frenzied assault, he simplified the complex.

Chi Jie warped space, teleporting behind him, the Demon Blade aimed straight for his heart.

Jiang Ci didn't even turn his head, merely flicking a finger backward casually.

Fingertip met the tip of the Demon Blade.

A ripple of dark golden demonic power abruptly erupted, and Luo Yu was sent flying by an irresistible, colossal force, crashing heavily against a distant tree trunk.

Absolute power suppression.

Yet, Jiang Ci's mind was crystal clear at this moment.

This wasn't right.

This kind of crushing, overpowering strength satisfied the character, not the audience.

The audience's hearts wouldn't break for an invincible victor.

The higher the "demonic nature" he crafted now, the more devastating the Broken Feeling would be when he later fell from the altar.

The focus of this scene wasn't "winning."

It was "losing."

It was losing everything in the most magnificent way possible.

He needed a trigger, a catalyst that would make him revert from "demon" back to "human" and force him to face defeat.

The battle reached its white-hot climax.

After several failed attacks, the deranged confidence of Luo Yu's Chi Jie finally developed a crack.

He discovered that the power he was so proud of seemed so ugly and feeble before this reborn half-demon.

He couldn't accept it. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Why?

Why could this half-breed with impure bloodline possess such perfect demonic power?

Intense jealousy and resentment burned away the last shred of his reason.

His target suddenly changed.

He no longer attacked Jiang Ci. Instead, he violently hurled a long-accumulated surge of demonic power, potent enough to destroy heaven and earth, outside the combat circle.

He hurled it towards A Li, who stood behind a broken wall, her face streaked with tears.

This move was despicable and lethal.

Su Qingying, in the distance, perfectly caught this sudden turn of events.

The expression on her face switched instantly from worry to extreme terror.

This wasn't acted; it was the most genuine physiological reaction after being drawn into the scene by an excellent actor.

She subconsciously raised the Lingxi Bow, yet she also knew clearly that a mortal body could never block this heaven-and-earth-shattering blow.

Now!

This was the moment Jiang Ci had been waiting for.

In the instant the beam of demonic power was about to engulf A Li, he moved.

In that split second, he abandoned all suppression against Chi Jie.

Divinity faded; humanity returned.

Ye Chen's figure vanished from his spot, reappearing before A Li with a resolve so absolute it bordered on self-destruction.

He used his own back to forcibly take that devastating blow.

"Boom!"

Amidst the tremendous roar, the black garments on Jiang Ci's body exploded into a shower of flying fragments.

The camera zoomed in for a close-up of his back.

Beneath the tattered clothing was not a bloody, mangled wound.

It was the dark golden Demonic Patterns covering his entire back.

Those patterns, after withstanding the massive impact, began to flicker madly, their light fluctuating wildly, as if on the verge of complete collapse at any moment, taking this body with it in an explosion.

Jiang Ci grunted, his body shuddering violently, and he dropped to one knee.

But he did not fall.

He still kept his back to A Li, like a mountain on the brink of collapse, stubbornly refusing to topple.

Behind the distant broken wall.

Su Qingying, portraying A Li, was utterly shattered by this sight.

She was no longer the burden who only knew how to weep.

She remembered Ling Xi's final charge, remembered her own destiny as a descendant of the witches.

Su Qingying's gaze changed.

All fragility and tears were incinerated in that moment, tempered into a resolve to perish together if necessary.

Without the slightest hesitation, she raised her hand and fiercely bit her index finger.

Blood welled up.

She smeared that drop of searing blood forcefully onto the body of the Lingxi Bow.

Using a mortal body, she forcibly invoked the witch power deep within her bloodline.

The instant she completed this action, Zhang Mouyi growled into his walkie-talkie.

"Special Effects Team! Cyan light!"

An ethereal cyan light and shadow, in the director's vision, would later gently cover the back of her hand in post-production, holding her bow-wielding hand.

Past life and present life, Ling Xi and A Li.

Two women, in this moment, for the sake of saving the same man, achieved a resonance of souls.

Golden witch power and cyan spectral power intertwined and fused upon the Lingxi Bow.

Su Qingying drew the bowstring to its full extent.

Her arm trembled violently.

"Lingxi, One Arrow!"

She roared this line.

An arrow fused with both powers tore through the air, not aimed at Ye Chen,

but precisely locking onto Chi Jie, who was mid-air preparing a second strike.

Luo Yu's body stiffened abruptly.

He was completely locked in place by this power originating from the soul, unable to move.

Opportunity.

Jiang Ci seized this fleeting chance.

He teleported before Chi Jie.

He used no weapon.

He merely raised his hand, that hand covered in flickering Demonic Patterns, and slowly, resolutely, pressed it into Chi Jie's core of demonic power.

Time seemed to stand still in that moment.

Luo Yu delivered the most brilliant performance of his entire role in the film.

He lowered his head, looking at the hand that had pierced his chest. His face showed no fear, nor any plea for mercy.

He revealed an incredibly complex smile, mingling "final release" with "extreme resentment."

Using the last of his strength, he looked at Jiang Ci.

"Half-demon... is this... perfect demonic power?"

As the words fell.

The core of demonic power shattered completely.

Chi Jie's body did not explode; instead, it transformed into a sky full of black feathers, drifting slowly away.

The blood-red sky that had shrouded Shangdu for days began to fade.

The first long-awaited ray of sunlight pierced through the thick cloud layer, illuminating this scorched earth, ravaged and scarred.

The battle was over.

Jiang Ci, portraying Ye Chen, slowly withdrew his hand.

He stood upon the highest broken branch of the Divine Tree, his back to the newly born sun, his entire figure outlined in a layer of golden light.

In the distance, A Li, tears still on her face, showed a smile of relief after surviving disaster.

Everyone thought this was the ending of a heroic victory.

However.

That golden silhouette bathed in holy light, without any warning, swayed.

Once.

Then again.

Then, under the stunned gaze of everyone, he toppled straight down, plummeting from the very top of the Divine Tree.

Soundless. Motionless.