Chapter 211

The outpost was in a state of chaos.

The darkness was like a tsunami, surging forward.

Following the appearance of Quancheng, the flood spread in all directions, but immediately after, it seemed to hit an invisible dam and stopped abruptly.

Under the overlooking gaze of the Ether Eye, all impacts and waves were frozen.

Stagnation.

The Law of Tian Tian Yuan operated here, setting down a rule—the sin-tainted objects belong to Quancheng and cannot leave it.

But even for a Heavenly Human, facing the pollution and flood that had accumulated for such a long time, it was still insufficient. In an instant, countless sounds of shattering echoed in the void.

The absolute decree was difficult to maintain under the impact of reality, and it was in jeopardy.

Thus, under the overlooking gaze of the Heavenly Eye, the perfect decree made adjustments again, adding imperfections. Compromising with reality, it traded partial concessions for overall strengthening.

On the blockade, a path was opened, like a flood discharge gate.

A gap directly facing the outpost.

Immediately, countless pollution, disaster beasts, evil objects, and even residual spirits surged like a mudslide, raging forward, closing in.

Until it collided with the outpost.

Gunshots, flames, screams, and roars were incessant.

Airships took off, flashbangs fell, casting down flashes like tear stains. The frontal impact between the fortress and the flood caused the earth to shake uneasily from the aftermath alone.

Underground, outside the emergency command center, the lights in the corridor were pale, flickering amidst the massive tremors.

Dust fell in flurries, sprinkling onto Lu Yingyue's mottled white hair.

The slightly aged Director walked hurriedly forward through the chaotic and busy corridor, asking repeatedly: "What is the status report on the front barrier?"

"It is still within the response range, but consumption is increasing further."

"What is Master Tao's condition?"

"Just woke up, on his way."

"What about the other directors?"

"On their way, still on the road."

Lu Yingyue nodded, took the document, and asked one last question: "Speaking of which, is this really the way to the emergency command center?"

In a moment of silence, the personnel following beside her froze, falling into silence.

Their expressions twitched in astonishment.

As if wanting to squeeze out a smile.

However, they couldn't speak...

Because right at Lu Yingyue's fingertips, incredibly realistic illusions rippled like water.

"Hmm? At the very least, this is a 'Mirror Flower, Water Moon' set up by two Transcendent-rank powerhouses; the flavor is very familiar, the Heavenly Heart Society? And the Wulou Temple?"

Lu Yingyue laughed: "When did your two houses join together? That mouth of Lu Changsheng's is truly formidable."

No one responded; in the deathly silence, a rift suddenly spread from the ripples at her fingertips, blooming in thousands of threads, like cracks on glass.

It sliced her fingers.

Perhaps, this was also just an illusion.

But was it real or fake? Even the soul found it hard to distinguish.

"Truly, it's been a long time since I've been looked down upon like this..."

Lu Yingyue licked the blood from her fingertips, and a self-deprecating smile appeared on her slightly aged face, "Before we start fighting, do you have any last words you want to say?"

No one responded.

In the deathly silence, there was no breathing, shouting, or roaring.

In the instant of countless overlapping phantoms, even death became silent.

Silence was like a tide, drowning everything.

At this very moment, the sky shook, and the earth trembled.

Amidst the loud noises, the flickering flames from outside the window illuminated the quiet corridor, dust fell, and the people running in chaos seemed to have forgotten this place, or perhaps, could not find where it was.

Only one thin figure stood at the window, quietly appreciating the appearance of this chaos, humming an ancient tune softly.

After a long time, he withdrew his gaze and continued forward.

He pushed open the door that was left ajar.

In the office behind the door, it was as usual, only without opening the window for ventilation, the original smell of the old man was even more intense.

The secretary pushed the door and entered, reached out, and turned on the lights; the light illuminated the old man across the table who was drooling, sitting blankly in his chair, muddled and distracted.

The secretary smiled slightly, raised his hand, and adjusted his glasses: "Is Master Tao well?"

"I am well."

The old man answered vaguely, looking up at him; that face was so familiar, but now it seemed strange. Just like everyone he saw after waking up.

Always, he couldn't remember.

"Sorry, I forgot your name again." He sighed with regret: "Who are you again?"

"I am your secretary."

The man sat across from him, pointed to his name tag and armband, repeating it for the umpteenth time, and then, for the first time, introduced himself, "My surname is Lu, Lu Changsheng."

He smiled gently, "You can just call me Little Lu."

BOOM！！！！

From the silent room, in the night sky outside the window, a dazzling, intense light suddenly soared upward toward the sky. After a long time, a thunderous roar and storm surged over.

Under the same intense light, the flames were extinguished, cruelly erased, the thick smoke dissipated, and there was no trace left in the storm.

The tower of flesh and blood fell apart, stench and scarlet rolled and scattered, decorating the scorching scorched earth with hideous patterns. The pollution and traces of sin-taint all dissipated.

From the cruel and indifferent stripping...

The ruins of the entire construction site were thoroughly purified in an instant.

All that was needed was to reach out a hand and touch the earth lightly...

And then...

——The dissociation art, surpassing Ji Jue's imagination, was activated!

The properties of matter repelled each other, like the same poles of a magnetic field, forcing everything on this piece of land to be insulated from sin-taint and pollution, and then, stripping everything away!

Even for the same dissociation art, there were levels of superiority and inferiority, a chasm of difference.

Limited by the difference between 【Non-Attack】 and 【Mo Xie】, Ye Xian could only teach the basic principles and ideas, leaving Ji Jue to grow wildly.

And what appeared in her hands at this moment was the pinnacle of technique, unique to her!

Whether it was the gift of supreme goodness or the pollution of evil ignorance, spiritual quality or physics, everything was washed of all traces in the overwhelming, irresistible waves.

Splitting, destroying, degrading, bleaching, restoring to the original appearance!

Including the one before her...

Heavenly Human!

In less than a minute, the entire scene was unrecognizable. Thousands of giant pillars engraved with complex spiritual quality circuits rose from the ground, once connecting heaven and earth, then snapped in half.

Evil light from outside the sky pierced the boundary membrane and shot out, sweeping across, burning everything, digging out gullies, leaving behind bursts of scorched stench. And frost and ice crystals entangled, collided, broke, and dissolved, layers of flying snow fell sluggishly, and turned into rain in the burning wind.

The rain fell on the image of the giant crawling out of the mud, sliding down from the crumbling, broken face like tears. The broken limbs turned into flying ash and fell into the mud.

The center of the site sank downward by tens of meters out of thin air.

And translucent blades crisscrossed from the void, like a cage, piercing the incomplete sin-tainted body, pinning him to the spot.

Around the blades was a massive shadow manifested into substance.

Circling and overlooking.

The six-winged, one-legged black swan, towering like an iron wall; the gray rhinoceros that appeared and disappeared from the void, without beginning or end; the unicorn formed by all radiance, existing between being and non-being... and even the giant whale that provided energy for many disaster creations, with infinite spiritual quality, squandered without end.

The phantom of the giant whale shrouded the entire site, without taking its form, yet everything seemed to have already been swallowed into its belly.

This was the collection composed of multiple Artisan-level creations, a series of creations that were unique even in the registration list of the Ring of Taiyi——【Nightmare Omen Sequence】!

And at this moment, amidst the piercing of the translucent sword blades, the sound of friction and struggle was incessant.

So sharp.

"Heavenly Human..."

Duan Mu stubbornly wanted to lift his head, unwilling to bow to Ye Xian. Viscous blood slid slowly down his face, like tears:

"Clearly, I am already... a Heavenly Human..."

"Does this count as a Heavenly Human?"

In the scorched earth beneath the rift, Ye Xian lowered her eyes, "Why be deceived by such a hypocritical landscape, Duan Mu?"

Power that was all show and no substance, a core that was empty, except for an increase in spiritual quality output and total amount, there was nothing else... at best, it was just a facade.

She could even imagine the principles behind it...

Relying on the gravity of a high-level sin, he forcibly elevated his soul, allowing the landscape that was once unreachable to finally enter his eyes.

But the price?

Destroying the original foundation, the tall buildings collapsed and disappeared, and now it was like a plastic steel shed forcibly raised by a crane, suspended in mid-air, with only height remaining.

It didn't even count as a castle in the air.

It swayed when a gust of wind blew, and was unstable in the washing of thunder and rain.

Even the Encircled Realm and Time Wedge he completed had innate deficiencies!

Ye Xian didn't believe he couldn't discover all this.

He should have known it clearly.

It was just that he was unwilling to believe it...

"The Aggregation lineage is born from extraction and change, based on integration, but it loses complexity and lacks pure change. That guy who negated your prospects back then wasn't just spouting nonsense."

Ye Xian sighed lightly, "Why be obsessed and not realize it?"

"I am not wrong!"

Duan Mu widened his eyes, roaring, as if his reverse scale had been touched, shouting crazily: "We... are not wrong..."

"The Aggregation lineage is addicted to the increase of quantity, not knowing that sometimes, the more you add, the further away you get. The reason you are treading water is not because your talent is limited, but because that path has already been completely walked to its end by you."

Ye Xian took off her glasses, carefully wiping the dust off them, and suddenly asked: "Do you know about the 'Mother Machine Effect'?"

Duan Mu stiffened, silent, not knowing why she suddenly brought this up.

"……No matter how exquisite a part is, it cannot exceed the precision of the machine that manufactured it; in modern industrial manufacturing, such a phenomenon exists."

Ye Xian said decisively: "And this is the most fatal weakness of your Aggregation lineage."

Even if it seems to have a bright future, the field outside the light is so narrow; if used well, it can be called a convenient method, but it stops there.

The related theories are too closed and narrow, naturally limited, so that the level of the work remains mediocre, naturally limited by the level of the artisan.

Even if the vast majority of artisans are far from the level of challenging the limit, and even more so, such a situation will not occur in their entire lives. But it is precisely because artisans like Duan Mu, who are indomitable and fight on after every defeat, have devoted their entire lives to it, that the shortcomings discovered by Tianlu in the past are revealed!

"An artisan, if they can only create things inferior to themselves, how boring that would be..." Ye Xian put on her glasses and suddenly asked: "Want to see the thing that truly defeated you, Duan Mu?"

In that instant, her palm slowly lifted.

Revealing the creation in her palm.

That complex, flowing Ghost-Work Ball!

Under Duan Mu's gaze, it floated in mid-air, rotating silently, the outer shell-like disguise and blockade dissociated and peeled off, removing the shackles.

Decomposing layer by layer.

The temporary workshop that existed as a container also unfolded, and the moment the last layer of the curtain was opened, thousands of threads of spiritual quality circuits flowed out from within.

The matrix appeared, unfolding like a giant tree; at the branches and key points, twelve blessings of third-degree qualitative leap revealed their light, brilliant and magnificent!

Like the scorching sun, illuminating everything.

Where the light shone, all properties of matter were confused and blended, heaven and earth were hazy, as if unopened, all phenomena were one, heaven and earth were chaotic.

The Encircled Realm unfolded, the Time Wedge anchored!

This is, the Matrix Gan Jiang!

Or, it can be called...

——Matrix Sacred Object · 【Gan Jiang】!

Giving matter a soul, giving common objects transcendence, after the four-phase operation of elevation, extraction, purification, and integration, the man-made object was given consciousness and a soul, the matrix was implanted into the soul, the blessing was blended with modern alchemy, and finally, with thoughts and wrists surpassing mortals, it was pushed to the realm of Heavenly Human!

At this very moment, right before Duan Mu's eyes, the Heavenly Human position he had spent his life hoping for but could not reach was achieved by a creation he could never have created!

Fury, shame, despair, fear, hesitation...

In the end, it turned into a hoarse, powerless wail.

"Why... didn't you ever..."

Duan Mu couldn't understand, struggling hard, roaring: "Why, why!"

Clearly possessing such talent, clearly possessing such ability, why go through so much trouble, preferring to bestow the Heavenly Human position on a dead object, rather than continue walking forward!

That path ahead that he had chased his whole life but could never reach...

How much more do you want to humiliate me before you're satisfied?!"

"Because it's meaningless." Ye Xian answered coldly.

"……"

"Seven years ago, I was already standing in front of that door." Ye Xian shook her head, "I haven't even figured out the things outside the door. As for what's behind the door, for now, I have no interest."

She said: "What I want is not there."

Duan Mu was speechless, just panting, saying something vaguely.

Despair choked him.

Or, a self-deprecating, miserable laugh.

A lifetime of suffering and struggle, like a joke.

Even the final death struggle was like a clown's curtain call, exposing all his ugliness.

He had nothing left to say.

Yet he heard Ye Xian's voice.

"Master Duan, among the petty and sycophantic people of the Society, I respect you alone by three points. Indomitability is not empty talk, nor should it be mockery; if that group of trash had even three points of your stubbornness, they wouldn't have fallen into their current mediocre state, right?"

Ye Xian said, "I am not as good as you."

Duan Mu closed his eyes, silent, not even having the strength to be furious.

"……Finally, let's say something irrelevant."

Ye Xian looked up, gazing at the empty sky: "Recently, I took on a student... and suddenly I understood that the cruelty of the Embers is the same for everyone.

I am the same, he is the same, and you are the same.

It's just that, narrow-minded as I am, if I were to suffer the same circumstances and predicament as you, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to hold on for so long, right?"

"There is a project I have failed at for twenty years. There were times I wanted to give up, more than once... I have already been overestimating my capabilities too many times.

I don't even know if I still have the courage to continue agonizing."

She sighed softly: "This is not to comfort you, nor do I intend to seek any resonance with you. It's just that I suddenly discovered that besides an opponent like you, there are some things that no one can be told."

From the silence, Duan Mu smiled exhaustedly.

"How lonely."

"Yes."

Ye Xian sighed lightly.

The sound of shattering rang out; from Duan Mu's face, severed limbs fell silently to the ground.

His body fell into the mud. His pupils turned slowly, looking at the sky Ye Xian was watching—so empty and high, and so cold.

The stars were dim.

Just as he had seen before, there was no change.

So, until the very end, I was unable to continue walking forward...

? ￠o

I just chose to fall.

The wind coming toward me was because I stepped onto the cliff, and when the changing scenery whistled past, I had already fallen into the abyss.

Everything was beyond redemption.

But even if it could be redeemed, and everything could start over, would I be able to walk it again?

"Ye Xian, the road is too far, I can... no longer walk..."

Amidst the unstoppable collapse, he closed his eyes exhaustedly, "You just... continue walking forward alone..."

Thus, the final farewell. A curse or a blessing, the boundary between the two was so blurred.

Impossible to distinguish.

The blades of Gan Jiang and Mo Xie crossed and slashed down.

The evil object was beheaded and fell apart; only the final flying ash rode the wind, rose into the sky, and fell down in a scattered manner, merging into the countless spreading flames of the world.

Like the last flying star rising from the ashes sprinkled in the furnace.

A moment of brilliance and ascension.

Gradually disappearing without a trace.

In the silence, footsteps came from afar, approaching.

Ye Xian turned her head and looked at the bloody path winding from the outpost.

Amidst the countless corpses of disaster beasts and the fluorescent light of residual spirits, someone walked over holding two broken swords covered in notches. Wherever she passed, bloody wind was scattered, and corpses were strewn about.

Lu Yingyue.

"Master Kong said something happened here, so after solving the trouble, I rushed over."

A smile appeared on her blood-stained face.

"Am I late?"