Chapter 898: Water Drop

Acheng Yaojin suddenly burst onto the scene; Tang Zhao dealt with the situation while observing the entity before him.

The image before his eyes, how should he put it...

It looked like a drop of water.

The shape of a water drop, quite perfect, a streamlined form that was pleasing to the eye.

The water drop was clear in color, only slightly tinged with blue; that faint, ethereal blue actually made it look even cleaner and purer.

It was a complete elemental image, with no facial features, no mouth. When it just made a sound, a ripple spread across the surface of the water drop.

A ripple is a vibration, and a vibration is a sound; this method of sound production made its voice extremely pure and clear, without any impurities or special timbre.

Is this the Main God?

But doesn't the Main God have a physical body? It's buried right underground!

Could it be... that the fleshly body was merely an illusion, and this is the true appearance of its soul? The essence of its divine status? Its most primitive and authentic form?

Tang Zhao was very surprised. Just in that single moment, Tang Zhao had been surprised several times in a row.

The first surprise was that the Main God had actually left behind its own consciousness.

He had previously only guessed that the Main God had a remnant soul left behind, or perhaps it was a newly born Sword Deity. Now that the other party had appeared and spoken a few sentences, it was clearly the Main God itself; even if it wasn't the Main God's undying soul, it had at least preserved a sliver of consciousness from back then.

This could certainly be considered a case of a true spirit remaining undimmed. Did the Main God have the spare energy to pull a stunt like this when it unexpectedly fell back then? Then why didn't the Overlord...

Oh, it seems the Overlord also had a trick up his sleeve.

Furthermore, he hadn't expected the Main God's true form to be like this.

So the Main God is... a Yuanshen?

Elements themselves can also become rules, on the same level as concepts. Just as Sword Intent can be water, fire, or light. But even a Sword Saint generally only dares to simulate the elements of heaven and earth in their Sword Image, rather than daring to take the elements themselves directly as Sword Intent or even Sword Dao.

For example, the Golden Crow; it is infinitely close to the sun, but its Sword Intent is only shining, growth, and destruction, and even its Sword Image is just a Golden Crow, not daring to take the sun itself.

This is, in fact, because they dare not.

If one were to take the pure sun directly as a Sword Image or Sword Intent and try to ascend further, that would be a decision to contend with that sun in the heavens and earth. The end of Sword Dao, which is the end of the Sword Saint as we can see it now, is to achieve Harmony with Dao through the sword. Sword Dao points directly to the end of the rules, becoming the sole rule. Thus, when a Sword Guest decides to take the elements and phenomena existing in the natural world as their Dao, they must eventually replace them or swallow them whole.

It seems no Sword Guest has been able to achieve this yet.

Even though the Sword Saints use the Eight Trigrams for their sword names, they are ultimately separated by a layer, calling them Qian Sword, Kun Sword, or Zhen Sword; no one directly calls them Heaven Sword, Earth Sword, or Mountain Sword. Call it taking a shortcut or call it fearing the difficulty, choosing the smoother path is human instinct. Even the Overlord of that time was no exception.

Logically speaking, gods should not have such trade-offs. It is not because they are called gods that they are truly supreme, but because they never had a choice to begin with.

The reason humans make choices is because they were humans first, possessing wisdom and personality before becoming Sword Guests; but gods were born from rules, and only then did they gain consciousness to become gods. Thus, what kind of god they are and what "Divine Right" they possess is not something they can decide for themselves.

In that case, shouldn't mountains, rivers, the sun, the moon, the universe, and the primordial chaos all be able to become gods? Just like the first generation of great gods in myths and legends, they are the Heavenly Dao, they are nature, they are the highest manifestations of phenomena, and they are the gods most worthy of worship by all living beings.

Yet, Tang Zhao had spent several years in the Shenjie and had not seen such simple, crude great gods that matched people's impressions. Every god's Divine Right was obscure, twisted in seven or eight ways, and bore niche, hard-to-understand names. For example, his own Taixiong god could be considered a fire god, and there were probably dozens or hundreds of fire gods in the Shenjie, including a powerful Upper God, yet not one of them bypassed their divine name to call themselves a fire god directly.

Even including the Left and Right Upper Gods, the Left Upper God was merely a deer, and the Right Upper God's true form looked like a mountain, but it was still a variant of a mountain, or perhaps could be called a mountain giant, rather than the mountain itself.

Tang Zhao hadn't realized this phenomenon before, and even if he had, he probably would have thought it was a limitation of the essence itself—whether it be a Sword Seed or a divine status, they were all fragments of rules after all; although they contained rules, they probably couldn't bear the complete Great Dao rules.

But he hadn't expected to see a true Yuanshen here.

Is the Main God actually a water god?

Not the god of any specific river or lake, not even the god of the vast ocean, but the true god of water?

If that were the case, wouldn't it have already replaced nature and become a part of the heaven and earth, with a status higher than even the Overlord?

Yet, it didn't defeat the Overlord back then, did it? Could it be that the Overlord's Dao is not inferior to the Dao of nature?

And also... why is the Overlord still here?

Tang Zhao had seen the Overlord's... shadow.

That was when he was merging the Sacred Fire with the Fire Spirit Clan; that was the largest fragment he had ever merged, which almost instantly replenished more than half of the fragments and simultaneously activated the energy hidden within the Glasses. It was at that moment that he saw the shadow of the Overlord.

The Overlord appeared in the raging flames, reached out a hand toward him, said nothing, and slowly faded away.

At that time, Tang Zhao thought the Overlord was passing the torch. That should have been just a remnant shadow, appearing under the right conditions to make a handover to the New Master of the Glasses, and then he had completed his historical mission and faded away forever. Disappearing like that was the most reasonable outcome.

From that time on, Tang Zhao had considered himself the New Master of the Glasses.

Wasn't he?

When that text appeared on the Glasses, Tang Zhao read it while feeling stunned: So the Overlord is still here? Not only is he here, but he can think, and he can greet his old rival who has also managed to survive until now?

What happened to the two world-strongest beings who were said to have died together, one killed and one injured? It turns out neither of them left?

Good heavens, is the world just a part of the game you two are playing?

Tang Zhao felt a sense of being thrown out of the game. However, their Overlord seemed to be in a worse state than the one opposite. The one opposite still had a water drop a foot tall as an image, while the Overlord seemed to have only his consciousness left, invisible behind the Glasses.

Just like... digital life?

Tang Zhao could keep his mouth shut and see if the Overlord behind the Glasses could complete this round of dialogue on his own, or he could observe what state he was in. But the Main God opposite was right there, and its state was clearly better than the one on this side; if he didn't speak up and left the Overlord hanging here, it would seem that the Human World side had lost a round?

Tang Zhao felt that the conflict between enemy and self should come first.

Furthermore, when he spoke, he was using the Main God's account; peeking into the unfinished story of the two strongest beings from a first-person perspective also had a unique sense of excitement. Therefore, when the other party appeared in a rage, he still smoothly took over the role.

"So what if I came here? Since you're already buried, can you still control who comes to dance on your grave?"

The term "dance on your grave" was, of course, Tang Zhao's own improvisation. The meaning of the whole sentence hadn't changed, but the tone and wording were clearly more infuriating.

Of course there was a script, but wasn't he allowed to interpret the character and improvise? Tang Zhao didn't know what the Overlord's personality was, but he felt that two old rivals meeting shouldn't be warm and affectionate, so he aimed to be infuriating.

Sure enough, although the Main God didn't understand the term "dance on your grave," it was angered. That originally flawless water drop was trembling slightly, emitting a vibrating sound like a tuning fork.

But immediately after, it calmed down and said: "Xulun, aren't you also left with nothing but a grave? Or is it that you don't even have a grave left? Don't think I don't know what you're here for! You're here to covet my power, aren't you! Because I left a rich legacy for my world, while you, you left nothing. I said long ago, don't look at how you seem to possess power rivaling mine; in fact, your power is so illusory, merely an external force. Once you die, it will all dissipate. While my power exists eternally! Your descendants cannot receive your legacy, and even if you have a bit of brain left, you are helpless, only able to order him to come here and steal from me. How pathetic, where has your former majesty gone? Coming to me to beg for food, aren't you ashamed?"

Tang Zhao watched the text flashing on his Glasses and read it out fluently: "Don't judge a gentleman's heart with a villain's measure. I'm just here to see you, and by the way, tell you about things outside. Guess what happened to the Shenjie and the Tianmo Jie after you died?"

Longbu, which was the water drop of the Main God, rippled a few times and said: "That is naturally flourishing, pressing your descendants until they can't breathe; otherwise, you wouldn't be at your wit's end, setting your sights on me."

"Haha, you think quite beautifully. Unfortunately, you are completely wrong; actually..."

Tang Zhao stuttered when he reached the end.

Because there was nothing left!

The lines came to an abrupt end, with only a line of small text flying across: "You came to tell him about the situation outside; the more infuriating, the better."

Uh...

The Sovereign is indeed not a rigid person. Has my ability to infuriate people been acknowledged by him?

Actually, thinking about it, if the Sovereign had been here all along, or at least had woken up back when the Fire Spirit tribe was around, then Tang Zhao's gathering of factions and stirring up trouble these past few days would naturally have been seen by him. Although the Sovereign didn't say anything, just thinking about it made him feel a bit ashamed.

But at least for now, Tang Zhao coughed and said, "Things are truly steaming up now, just like a Steamer. As for the gods of the Shenjie, they are all dead!"

The water droplet shivered.

Without waiting for it to speak, Tang Zhao pressed his advantage: "Your original two right-hand men, one a deer and one a stone, are both dead. The Wanshendian has also mostly collapsed, and the remnants of those Shendian are scraping together whatever power they can for one last stand. But there is no hope, and they know it themselves. So they are just living one day at a time. Many Heavenly Demons in the Tianmo Jie have also died, and civil war is on the verge of breaking out; once it erupts, they will all be nearly dead... In short, everyone is, dead, finished!"

That water droplet god almost turned into a water-bomb god, buzzing, "Nonsense!"

Tang Zhao laughed: "You can consider it nonsense, but do you remember when that stone man under your command came to you to Touch your finger? If it weren't for an impending disaster, it wouldn't have come to that, would it?"

Longbu was silent, and after a while said, "Even if there is a real crisis, it is not because of you. How could you have such ability?"

Tang Zhao said, "Of course it is not because of us. If it were just us, you wouldn't be destroyed this quickly. It is all because an irresistible enemy has come to your Tianmo Jie. And a large part of it is your own doing; if not for the internal strife, indulgence, and stupidity, it wouldn't have collapsed so quickly. We could have sat by and watched the Tianmo Jie perish before taking action, but we deeply understand the principle that if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold. That is why we came to find you to think of a solution. If you still want to protect your descendants, then offer up your power."