Chapter 841: Any Pause of Ours Is an Insult to the Dream

"Honored One, above all else, Mu Yanwan in this life..."

Mu Yanwan's expression was moved, and she was about to kneel.

Chen Yan, however, had already vanished from where he stood, only a faint voice drifting over.

"No need to kneel to me; this is what you deserve."

Mu Yanwan froze, looking toward her grandmother, who had already gone dull; their eyes met, and they could only see the shock in each other's gaze.

Inside the room, Chen Yan looked at the Realm Fruits spread across the bed, a smile appearing on his face.

"A pity, there are no eighth-rank Realm Fruits," Chen Yan murmured aloud.

Still, it was enough.

Five hundred Realm Fruits were enough for Chen Yan to absorb.

Very quickly, Chen Yan turned these Realm Fruits into medicinal pills and swallowed them.

The next instant.

His consciousness appeared once more within that body.

"Is anyone still alive!"

One million three hundred thousand!

His gaze swept across the faces of these one million three hundred thousand soldiers.

They seemed forever frozen in eternal terror, their eye sockets torn, sinking forever into fear.

"Are you still alive!?"

He grabbed a soldier by the collar and roared loudly, but the latter simply collapsed limply.

"Are you still alive?"

He pushed at the bodies of the soldiers, one by one, in confusion and horror, yet they were like stacks of limp straw being toppled over.

Dead silence, an endless dead silence descended.

"One hundred..." He knelt on the earth, mouth agape, looking at the sky that had returned to its normal appearance.

"Thirty thousand!"

He screamed, he roared.

He thought he had long since grown accustomed to death, accustomed to treating death as a mere number.

Yet one million three hundred thousand lives had been scared to death just like that, right before his eyes.

What kind of... what kind of despair was this.

They had died just like that, without even being able to touch that woman.

He had spent his whole life trying to prove that the human race was not livestock raised by the Ancient Divine Beasts.

Yet the truth was like a basin of ice water poured over him, forcing him to face reality.

He was dazed, desperate, and grief-stricken as he picked up a small knife, looking at his own pale face reflected on the blade.

The next moment, he closed his eyes and pressed the blade against his own neck.

"I cannot decide the future of the human race, but I can decide my own future!"

He laughed out loud:

"Hahahaha!!!"

He glared at the firmament:

"Do you know, some people would rather be a shattered jade than an intact tile!"

The blade slowly grazed his neck, the cold touch making his spine stiffen; amidst the harsh sound of the sharp edge rubbing against his skin, blood spurted out.

"Brother..."

A voice rang out just like that; he suddenly opened his eyes, looking blankly into the thicket of corpses.

He seemed to have seen something, opened his mouth, and dropped the knife in his hand.

It was as if that final cry from his younger sister before she died had traveled through time and space to reach him.

It was as if the lamp light from a distant shore was blooming with brilliance at this moment.

He crawled over the corpses, crawling toward the direction of that call like a madman.

He was like an earthworm hidden deep underground, using all his strength to break free from the final blockade.

He seemed to have already seen something.

Until he was exhausted, covered in blood, unable to crawl any further; he did not know how much blood had flowed from his body.

His consciousness had already blurred.

Yet he appeared once more by the lakeside.

He saw Xiao Fan slowly opening her eyes, tears finally flowing from his own, and he hugged Xiao Fan tightly.

He saw the light of despair filling the eyes of Jilie, who was beside him, as she slowly opened them.

He turned around and pulled her tightly into his embrace, his muffled sobbing buried in the fabric, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably, even the arms holding her trembling.

He had fought for a lifetime, experiencing countless hardships.

He had never truly trusted or loved anyone, but at this moment, all his emotions could no longer be suppressed.

Finally.

Xiao Fan, Jilie, and he had survived.

They steadied their minds and began to search the entire lakeside.

At the very least, they had to kill those two monsters the woman had birthed before ascending.

They searched for a long time but found nothing.

But Jilie screamed as she discovered something.

"The seed, it's this seed!"

Jilie shouted, digging a pitch-black seed out of the soil.

He opened his mouth, looked at Jilie, and stopped, words failing him.

This was merely a fruit tree seed.

In the end, they had no harvest whatsoever.

But Jilie would not leave.

Jilie kept that seed dug from the soil in the palm of her hand at all times, eyes wide, grinning foolishly at him:

"I didn't see wrong, it is this seed, the seed from my dreams."

He frowned, only to see Jilie reveal a woman-like demeanor, tugging at his sleeve:

"It really is, it really is, you are my man, you must believe me."

He and Xiao Fan looked at each other, speechless in the end.

And Jilie planted this seed by the lakeside, not moving a single step away.

He and Xiao Fan stayed behind.

He let out a bitter laugh; perhaps in his heart, he too was hoping this seed could sprout, could grow into what Jilie had prophesied in her dreams.

Day and night, Jilie was more like a tree than a tree, just guarding this seed.

Even when Xiao Fan passed by, Jilie would roar like a shrew.

"The aura on your body is polluting my seed!"

She roared like a shrew, her hair filthy, her whole body covered in mud, her eyes scarlet.

He saw that something was wrong.

Jilie was no longer the noble Empress she once was.

The current Jilie was more like a madwoman.

Time passed slowly.

One month, two months, three months.

The seed did not sprout; he tried to dig up the soil several times, but all he got was Jilie's roaring.

"Get away, all of you get away!"

Mud smeared Jilie's clothes and trousers, her exposed arms stained with dark brown grime; she looked up and roared, her eyeballs bloodshot.

He fell silent.

And said nothing more.

Instead, he gradually discovered that an inexplicable power had emerged within himself and Xiao Fan.

As he and Xiao Fan experimented day by day, their perception of this power became increasingly clear.

"I seem to... have felt my soul." Xiao Fan spoke, stunned.

He finally became certain, because he had survived after witnessing the Mother God's ascension.

His soul had been reborn after experiencing endless despair.

This caused the soul power he had originally been unable to perceive to be perceived by him at this moment.

"This is a power that humans possess by nature; it has always been there, but we had never felt it...

But if one experiences hardship and does not die, this power will grow stronger and stronger, strong enough for us to perceive..."

He reached a rough conclusion.

Thus, he began to constantly study this soul power within their bodies, under their almost desperate research.

This power grew stronger day by day.

He finally made the decision to leave this place.

He had found a new direction.

To use all the power of the human race to study this power.

He and Xiao Fan wept with joy.

"We... have found hope!"

He grabbed Xiao Fan's arm and said earnestly.

Therefore, facing Jilie's renewed obstruction.

The now stronger Xiao Fan tackled Jilie to the ground.

And under Jilie's desperate roar, he tossed that seed out.

At this moment, he finally saw the full appearance of this seed.

"This seed was ruined long ago."

He showed the crack on the seed to Jilie.

"No!"

Jilie roared like a madwoman:

"It's not ruined, give it back to me, ah ah ah!"

Jilie glared at him, her eyes blood-red and wide, a ferocious arc pulled at the corners of her mouth as she roared, saliva mixed with mud dripping down her chin.

He was stunned.

Jilie was no longer that Jilie.

He casually threw the seed onto the ground and looked at Xiao Fan:

"Let's go."

Xiao Fan let go of Jilie, and Jilie pounced toward the seed like a tigress protecting her cub, holding it in her palm with full affection.

He glanced at Jilie and left with Xiao Fan.

"Are you leaving?"

A soft voice suddenly rang out.

He was stunned and looked behind him.

At this moment, Jilie no longer had her previous crazed appearance; instead, her eyes were red, and she looked at him as if pleading.

"You are my... lover."

Jilie's tone was extremely light, her eyes filled with fragmented tenderness and longing:

"Won't you please not leave me?"

She trembled and hugged herself tight:

"Just indulge me this once, just this once.

Will you?

The person I love most... is you."

At this moment, she was no longer the Empress, nor did she seem like a madwoman, but a tender woman.

"From now on, I will bathe every day, I will tidy myself up.

I will bear your children, right here, many, many children."

Jilie's eyes were full of reverence and love.

He looked at Jilie calmly.

The two of them had walked this path together; they were comrades-in-arms, and they were lovers.

But now.

"How could you say such things? In the face of our dreams, feelings are not worth mentioning.

Just as if I were to block your path, you would abandon me immediately." His tone calmed down:

"If you block my path, I will also abandon you, without any hesitation."

He turned around, strode forward, and never looked back.

"Jilie, you and I are the same kind of people.

We... just want to see a better future."

He sighed in his heart, and hearing Jilie's sobbing, he said:

"Do not try to hold me back anymore.

Any pause we make is an insult to our dream."

Whoosh!

In an instant, Chen Yan's consciousness returned once more.

On the bed, the Hardened Body and Blood Qi status within Chen Yan's mind became increasingly clear.

More and more Martial Dao truths echoed in Chen Yan's mind, merging into Chen Yan's memories.

He saw that memory again.

Chen Yan's speculation was confirmed.

The memory he had obtained was indeed that of the Master of Thought-Power.

The only pity was that Jilie had not found that seed from the dream.

Since the Realm Fruit contained the memories of the Master of Thought-Power, did that mean the Master of Thought-Power was the one who found the seed of the Saint-Breaking Tree?

Chen Yan pondered.

The Master of Thought-Power did not yet know that the two Mother God creations he had overlooked at the time...

... would become the nightmare of the entire human race in the future.

And the ten-thousand-year history of the human race's struggle began on that very day.