Chapter 599: I Am Just Such a Person

"I think I can give it a try!"

The next moment, Shen Yu had transformed into the sharpest of swords; the sword light was brilliant with an unusual radiance, and the Sword Qi crisscrossed as if to tear apart space and time.

Even though this sword light seemed to be constantly twisted under the vortex, it still stood firm and unyielding.

"A good sword. A genius like you is indeed terrifying, which is why you should be destroyed all the more!"

Upon seeing Shen Yu's sword, a trace of wariness flashed through Mo Cheng's eyes. Although the expression on his face remained unchanged, in his heart, he had already raised the danger level of this young man before him by several notches.

Such a genius capable of breaking through limits truly cannot be judged by conventional logic.

"You are so outstanding; I imagine you must have a beloved woman by your side. Tell me, what if I were to cripple you and throw you onto the street, leaving you to be bullied by the lowest of beggars?"

"If your beloved woman were to happen upon you in such a wretched state, what kind of scene would that be?"

"No, that's not stimulating enough!" Shaking his head, Mo Cheng suddenly smiled, his smile carrying a hint of smugness.

"I just thought of a good idea. Tell me, what if I were to cripple your beloved woman as well, throw her into a pile of beggars and refugees, and let them bully, humiliate, and trample upon her as they please?"

"Leaving you both to only watch helplessly as the other is violated and wantonly humiliated. She wants to die but cannot, and for you, death is likewise nothing but a pipe dream."

"The two of you, separated by only a thin line, unable to save each other, can only watch the other's suffering every day with hearts torn to shreds."

"Tsk tsk, that scene should be quite wonderful!"

He rambled on, his words making one's hair stand on end, yet his smile remained as gentle and refined as when they first met. His scholarly air was not in the slightest bit damaged.

Such a temperament, paired with such words, seemed to make people shudder.

The verbal stimulation carried strands of Mental Power, attempting to shake Shen Yu's sword, even if only to pry open a tiny crack.

From the moment they met, the illusion appearing before him seemed to be influencing Shen Yu; the other party wasn't chatting with him or letting him watch those repetitive images—he was clearly trying to leave a mark in the depths of his heart.

Waiting until he turned hostile to attack with Mental Power, he could instantly disrupt his mind without any effort. Unfortunately, he was destined to return empty-handed.

With the Heaven and Earth Lock sealing his own body, Shen Yu was seamless; as long as the Heaven and Earth Lock was not broken, he could not be invaded.

"You really are a lunatic!"

"You flatter me. To be precise, we are all lunatics. If you can live until that day, you will discover that everyone before you is a lunatic. Perhaps, one day, you will become a lunatic like us."

"But then again, among those who can survive, where are there any good people?"

With a sudden wave of his hand, the black-hole-like vortex in the air merged; that terrifying black hole replaced the sun and moon, as if it had been hanging in the sky all along.

Only, while sunlight brings warmth and vitality, what it brought was an aura that devoured everything and destroyed everything.

Only then did Shen Yu understand what the people of that organization were afraid of; as long as this madman made a move, nothing would be left in the surroundings.

This wasn't just acting crazy; it was purely aimed at destruction.

Shen Yu could see that unless everything in the surroundings was destroyed, the other party would never stop. The calmer a person is, the more terrifying they truly are when they go mad.

Just at this moment, a painting flew up to meet it and rapidly unfurled. The Painting Scroll extended into the distance, as if it had no visible edge to the naked eye.

The ten-thousand-mile mountains and rivers contained everything, entangling with the vortex in the air that seemed to want to swallow everything. The vortex overhead only shrouded one area, while the ten-thousand-mile Mountain and River Map was boundless, encompassing all.

Not to mention the Mountain and River Map itself, but the Hanshan Seal, Sun Moon Pearl, Great Sun True Fire, and so on that Shen Yu stuffed inside—which one of them, if taken out, would not be a rare treasure?

With so many treasures gathered together, they jointly constructed this endless world of mountains and rivers.

Once this object appeared, it was a situation of crushing everything.

Shen Yu suddenly realized he might have overthought things. In dealing with these old monsters, he had thought about making full preparations and using every means available.

He stacked the Arrays he knew one after another and brought the power of the Mountain and River Map to its absolute peak, all to prevent any possibility of a counter-attack.

After all, these old monsters had lived for so many years; their methods were bound to be impossible to guard against.

Yet, upon clashing, he discovered that while the opponent was indeed very strong and his methods were unusually terrifying, he had not exceeded the limit.

The opponent was not yet a genius to the point of breaking the limit. People like Mu Zishan, one didn't know how many generations or how many thousands of years it took to produce one. The one before him clearly hadn't reached Mu Zishan's level.

This World had not yet experienced a Spiritual Qi Surge, so the limit still remained, and his limit naturally remained as well. He was terrifying, but not invincible.

Until the moment before the confrontation, Shen Yu had been carefully preparing and unwilling to strike easily, only to find that once he did, it was a crushing victory.

If he were dealing with an ordinary opponent, even if the opponent's realm far exceeded this old monster, I fear that as soon as this all-encompassing vortex appeared, they would have been swallowed whole.

But facing the ten-thousand-mile mountains and rivers, the opponent's vortex seemed to lose its luster and was instantly drawn into the vast mountains and rivers.

Even within the Mountain and River Map, the black-hole-like vortex was still causing destruction. Yet, it seemed as if it could never swallow enough and could never destroy enough.

Gradually, the vortex spun slower and slower, eventually revealing the wretched figure inside.

At this moment, Mo Cheng no longer had his previous calm demeanor; instead, his face was a terrifying, ashen blue. He had never imagined that he would lose so miserably and so inexplicably to a junior.

He didn't even know how he had lost; he had already lost. It was as if the entire Heaven and Earth were rejecting him and crushing him.

The next moment, the vast power submerged him. Once he had entered the map, he could only be manipulated by Shen Yu.

The final illusion appeared to wrap around him; it seemed to be his last barrier and his last reliance.

Within the illusion, Shen Yu saw the helpless side of this old monster. Although there wasn't much difference in his facial features, he was clearly much more weathered in the illusion, like a poor scholar in his thirties who had achieved nothing.

Opposite him stood a delicate-looking woman, the two standing face to face.

Only, his eyes were filled with deep affection, while the woman opposite him had a face full of frost, her eyes revealing distance and coldness.

"Mo Cheng, leave. Don't come looking for me again."

"Why? Didn't we promise to run away to the ends of the earth together? Why have you become like this? Why are you abandoning me!"

"Run away to the ends of the earth? With you? What can you give me?" Her ruthless eyes showed not a ripple, as if she were indifferent to Mo Cheng's pleas.

Shen Yu could even see a hint of a high-and-mighty attitude in the woman's eyes, a pervasive sense of contempt.

"They say that with love, drinking water is enough, and without love, a golden house is cold. We once had love, but so what? Look and see if drinking water alone will fill your stomach. A poor couple faces sorrow in all things; this is reality."

"You are just a poor scholar, and a poor scholar who has read books for decades and understood nothing at that."

"You say you want to marry me? On what grounds? On the grounds that you are penniless, or that you are destitute?"

"The affairs of this world cannot be taken for granted. We are not children anymore; let's all be clear-headed. Go, and go as far as you can."

He did not leave, but looked at her with determined eyes. "Why?"

"There are no 'whys'. To tell you the truth, my father has already accepted the betrothal gifts from the Lu family. In a few days, I will marry the young master of the Lu family, and from then on, I will be the daughter-in-law of the Lu family."

"If you are unwilling to leave, then come and have a cup of wedding wine."

"So, you are also this kind of person who looks down on the poor and fawns over the rich."

"Looks down on the poor and fawns over the rich? Yes, I have always been this kind of person, just this vulgar. The reason I was with you before was because you had the potential to pass the imperial examinations, but now it seems that is impossible. Since that is the case, why should I continue to waste my youth on you?"

"How could these slender, delicate hands of mine ever do rough work, and how could I ever live a life of hardship? I should be high above, and I should be waited on by others."

"Forget it, a person like you, who is like filth, will never understand!"