Chapter 376: Cognitive Demon's Ability

Boom—

A white contrail dragged across the sky, as if a supersonic fighter jet were flying through it.

Sanjiegun Li, eyes red, stumbling as she ran desperately toward Fubuki, had no heart to look at the scene in the sky.

Lilith, who had collapsed to the ground in despair, did see that scene; she had no Magic Eye, nor any ocular technique, and could not see clearly who was in that high altitude at all.

But she could see the starting point of that white contrail; it was exactly where the cruel battle had just erupted.

She clutched her throat, her consciousness beginning to blur, and finally she slowly collapsed to the ground, murmuring in her mouth:

"Mr. Tao Baibai, please... kill..."

——

"You... what exactly do you want to do?!"

In the high-speed flight, the Sage could barely breathe; the intense wind pressure was like a wall, and he was being pressed against this wall by pure violence, sliding for who knows how long.

So far that his tough Dragon Scales began to shatter piece by piece in the friction, and amidst the mangled flesh and blood, a large amount of minced meat fell from the sky.

The white contrail also began to turn red.

He roared in pain, but perhaps because he understood his own ability, Tao Baibai no longer gave him any response, and he was therefore unable to activate the ability of the 【Demon of Cognition】.

At the same time, because he could not observe the existence of Tao Baibai's 【Mind Body】 at this moment, he could not use the ability of the 【Manipulator】 to find the weaknesses in Tao Baibai's thinking.

He had never imagined that his combination of abilities, which had allowed him to gallop undefeated through various mission worlds for so long, would be broken here by this guy Tao Baibai in a completely unreasonable way.

It was as if he had created a self-consistent and powerful cycle of rules, yet the other party had come up and kicked the table over, saying "screw your rules, my fist being big is the rule."

This kind of power crushing rules usually only happens when there is an essential difference in the power levels between Reincarnators.

But he was already a Reincarnator at the top of the third Ladder; how could Tao Baibai possibly crush him?!

He couldn't figure it out, he couldn't figure it out at all.

The Sage's angry roar now was more because he understood that Tao Baibai simply could not kill him!

【Demon of Cognition (Native Demon, Upper Demon, Hell Seed): A special, powerful demon spawned by high-level existences; modify cognition, devour cognition, parasitize cognition. All creatures whose cognition is affected by you will sign a contract with you. At the same time, you must regularly provide a large amount of twisted cognition for feeding, otherwise you will likewise be devoured by the Demon of Cognition.】

When the Sage followed that His Excellency into this world long ago, he had carried out a large-scale cognitive intervention on this world, twisting the concepts of heroes and successfully introducing 【Professional Hero】.

And by using Saitama to crush the 【God】, the opportunity for that His Excellency to twist the future and end the birth of monsters in this world, he completely twisted the necessity of the concept of 【Hero】.

In the end, this world with 【Hero】 as its core gradually let 【Hero】 fall into decline.

This was the Sage's proud work, and at the same time, because of this point, he acted quite wantonly when operating in this world.

Because he knew very well that even a Monster like Tatsumaki would not find it so simple to kill him; no, to speak arrogantly, even whether Saitama could kill him was an unknown.

His own life was already completely connected with the lives of hundreds of thousands, millions, or even more people in this world.

The Sage's expression twisted because his flesh and blood were constantly being rubbed and torn; he could no longer have that light and breezy composure of sipping tea while watching Tatsumaki and 【???】 destroy a city in an instant during their cruel battle.

"If it's you, you should have already thought of it!"

"All the ordinary people in this world under the cognitive influence of 【Professional Hero】 are my contractors!"

"Wanting to kill me is equivalent to having to kill all those people first!"

Pfft!

His mandible, along with a large area of flesh and blood, was rubbed away. In the midst of the excruciating pain, flesh and blood flew everywhere. Although the Sage was, in a sense, also an Immortal Body due to the existence of the 【Demon of Cognition】, this ability of his could not exempt him from the pain of death.

This was the fundamental reason why he had always manipulated others through 【Virtual Personality】 to disguise themselves as him to fight; he did not want to experience the pain of death.

The 【Demon of Cognition】 was a superior demon that touched the level of 【Concept】 and 【Causality】; it was a high-level power that ordinary Reincarnators could never touch until they died.

By twisting cognition, making the other party mistakenly believe that one could decide life and death with a single word—as long as the other party accepted this concept, then one could decide the other party's life and death with a single word;

By twisting causality, reversing the concepts of 【Cause】 and 【Effect】 in conventional cognition, one could realize the attack form of 【Inverting Cause and Effect】. On the premise of confirming a hit on the target, one would throw a punch; regardless of what kind of evasion ability or protective power the other party possessed, the 【Effect】 of the other party being hit by oneself would be born first, and then a reasonable 【Cause】 would be spawned.

"In this world... I am invincible... Urgh!"

Pfft!

As his head and upper body exploded with a bang, another corpse fell. Bai Cangshu was currently in the 128-fold Acceleration of 7-fold Instant; under normal circumstances, his body should have been unable to bear the load.

But in the activated state of the 【Super Limit Spiral】 talent, Bai Cangshu's understanding of his own body was extraordinary; even the violent Killing Intent Wave, which was almost impossible to control, was tamed in the palm of his hand.

Bai Cangshu was in the sky, feeling the aura around him. This place was far from the power of 【???】 that was so dark it made him feel uncomfortable. In the process of killing the Sage, he was looking for the true treasure of this world—the 【Limiter】!

To be precise, Bai Cangshu was preparing to comprehend more powerful strength in this state, and killing the Sage was merely a diversion in this process.

After all, so many Reincarnators had died, yet Bai Cangshu hadn't managed to fish out many Scarlet Drop Cards. Although there was the promise given by Luo Xi's side, since he had caused the 【Chaos Sage】 to lose so many personnel, the other party should have given a considerable return.

But Bai Cangshu had a Greed Sin for everything that was far beyond common sense.

The Sage must die~

The Sage had just twisted the cognition of his own death through the contract of the 【Demon of Cognition】, replacing it with the result that someone unknown had completed the death in his stead, but before he could even see the situation around him clearly.

A large hand pressed onto his head again. The Sage felt a chill in his heart, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the ends of the other party's pitch-black long hair seemed to have begun to turn white.

A glimmer of hope suddenly rose in his heart.

Does the other party's state have a time limit?!

Perhaps I...

Pfft-bang!

The speed increased again, and the rapidly contracting sonic boom cloud overlapped in front of the two. Bai Cangshu, expressionless, pressed the Sage's head and slammed into it.

Dragon Scales, skull, brains, blood—various things erupted in the air simultaneously.

The Sage's spirit was taut in that terrible pain of death; he didn't even have much time to use his ability to soothe his nerves before he was resurrected again by twisted cognition.

"Damn it, do you want to kill everyone, Tao Baibai?!"

"Are you going to kill tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people?!"

This conjecture suddenly arose in the Sage's heart. Precisely because this conjecture was very absurd, he did not think anyone would do it at first.

But if someone were really willing to pay the price of killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people... then, he would die...

Once the concept of 【Death】 appeared, it would trigger a large amount of fear; that was the fear of the extinction of one's own 【Existence】, which should exist in any intelligent creature.

"Do you really know what the consequences of that kind of thing will be!"

Bai Cangshu lowered his head, his eyes filled with surprise and curiosity.

"Isn't it you all who say these people are nothing but NPCs, and don't count as people at all..."

"You shouldn't be one of those idiots from 【Blue Sky】, heh, it just so happens I'm not either."

In eyes carrying a faint spiritual light, the smile held no cruelty, yet it made the Sage Yu Huaxin feel even more palpitations.

When most Reincarnators talk about the Plot Characters of a mission world being NPCs, they actually possess a condescending mindset; that is clear proof of them believing their own existence is nobler than those Plot Characters.

But this Tao Baibai had only a kind of indifference in his eyes.

As if to him, the facts should have been this way.

Or more extremely, he did not regard anyone other than himself as his own kind...

Suddenly, Bai Cangshu's gaze shifted, looking down into a city where two brilliant fist intents were intertwined, and terrifying force erupted inch by inch.

A fearsome shockwave erupted thousands of meters below, and subsequently, it shattered the entire atmosphere with a boom.

Bai Cangshu's figure was like a spirit snake, instantly appearing behind the Sage, using the other's body covered in Dragon Scale as a shield in front of him, while at the same time, he completely relaxed his body, unleashing Six Styles: Paper Art without a teacher.

Roaring Air Sky-Splitting Fist!

The explosive fist intent blasted upward from the ground, and the Sage's body burst apart like rotten meat in an instant.

(End of chapter)