CHAPTER 658: 616 VS GREAT DEMON QILIN 2

Large-scale human death is not something I’m witnessing for the first time, and large-scale regional destruction is something I’ve lost count of since becoming Impermanence. Now, I’m not the kind of person who would be shaken by such small matters as "a lot of people have died."

But everything has its limits. The scene where an entire city along with millions of inhabitants is wiped out in an instant, I believe, hasn’t happened often in human history. Although a major city in the south was recently affected by the conflict between Xuanming and Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang, I haven’t actually seen what it’s like inside. This is the first time in my life I’ve seen such destruction.

In the past, I did have fantasies of similar destruction. After all, as Impermanence, walking in the city, I’d occasionally think, "What if I suddenly destroyed this city?" and indeed, I do have that kind of power. To the point that for the sake of my own adventure, I wouldn’t hesitate to pursue doomsday, disregarding the safety and life of all humanity. In comparison, what does the mere death of millions even count for? Just one-thousandth of humanity.

But thinking about it in my head and witnessing it in person are entirely different in nature. I must admit, for a moment, I was shocked by the devastation across this landscape.

Far off, I heard Fa Zheng’s furious roar, filled with grief and indignation.

To lose so many lives all at once, this battle for Fa Zheng can already be considered too great a failure. Ironically, it’s precisely because so many have died that the power of the Human Dao Divine Weapon shows signs of rising.

But I don’t have time to care about Fa Zheng, nor do I have time to immerse myself in this inner shock. The Great Demon Qilin caught the tiny flaw that briefly appeared in my consciousness.

By the time I reacted, a tremendous force had already struck my face. It felt as if my head was run over by a train, shattering my skull and delivering a fatal-level blow to my soul. The pain dragged my consciousness back.

My attention returned to my opponent, and my head and soul were instantly restored. The Great Demon Qilin obviously realized I possess an Undying Body, feeling its gaze continuously penetrate my essence. The information gap seemed to be disappearing, and from the next strike onward, it would probably aim for my True Spirit.

Even more worrying is the uncertainty if the number of enemies will increase again. With the third Great Demon appearing, there’s no guarantee the fourth or fifth won’t show up. The current situation is troublesome enough, any more and Fa Zheng and I will surely be defeated.

No, whether the fourth appears or not is uncertain, but the fifth should not appear.

Mazao previously mentioned to me that until her crossing over, at most ten human gods and Great Demons combined survived in the "Doomsday Era." Including Huang Quan, whom I killed, the Evangelical Institute had three human gods and one Great Demon. Adding the Catastrophe Demon and Great Demon Xuanwu I killed, along with the now-present Great Demon Qilin, Ksitigarbha, and Yu Lei, the total comes to nine. The last tenth one might or might not exist.

Considering Mazao mentioned before that the number of Great Demons went up to ten at most in the past, and could revive in recent times, there’s a possibility more might appear, especially with Naraku Gospel potentially having the power to summon new Doomsday Demons. But at least before leaving the Post-mortem World, I haven’t picked up any such signs from No. 7, so I won’t consider it for now. The situation shouldn’t become that dire temporarily.

Speaking of potential reinforcements, I’m also concerned why our reinforcements haven’t arrived. At the very least, Gua Tianshi and Jian Feixian should have sensed the battle noise here; why haven’t they arrived yet?

I manipulated fire to counterattack the Great Demon Qilin, but it dodged everything at super speed.

Currently, its speed exceeds sixty times my maximum speed. From its perspective, my movements now are probably no different from a snail crawling. This kind of "aim and attack" strategy was a mistake from the start. Considering this, I decided to unleash a Fire Sea covering a hundred miles in an attempt to capture it this way.

However, the ultra-large Fire Sea, as an attack method, inherently has massive flaws in density, unable to pose significant threats. Although I can increase the density of any fire section to the extent of damaging the Great Demon Qilin, it relocates every time I attempt to increase the density. Unable to determine its movement pattern, I can’t make any preemptive predictions.

Even if predictions were possible, it wouldn’t help much; increasing density in itself is a process. The flame’s speed is dictated by my mind’s speed. People often romanticize the speed of thought being faster than light, but that’s a fanciful assertion. In reality, the physical speed of the Great Demon Qilin is gradually surpassing my speed of consciousness. While these speeds aren’t directly comparable, it’s what it is. It won’t crash into densely packed areas by itself, nor will it wait for the density where it stands to "slowly" rise.

Martial arts across the world, with speed as the ultimate breaker... In most battles, speed is more crucial than attack and defense, overwhelming speed can dominate all; and as a Great Demon adept at close combat, its body possesses remarkable defense, combined with its absurd speed, forming a sharper killing tool than any weapon.

Just like an unstoppable steel blade, its scale of destruction isn’t huge, yet it can hit vital points, extremely lethal.

Its speed accelerated rapidly, reaching a tenth of the speed of light in my observation and calculations.

Right now, I can only retroactively judge its trajectory and speed from its wake. In the next moment, I felt a tremendous force slam into me again. I’ve been attacked — even realizing this thought occurred belatedly.

My soul was pierced, and my True Spirit was damaged.

Although I’m confident that in sheer power, I can match Xuanming, if Xuanming himself were here, he certainly wouldn’t be on the receiving end of an attack. Throughout his long life, he’d surely mastered at least five or six strategies to counter an "absurdly fast enemy." If there’s still a gap between me and the seasoned Great Impermanence, it’s probably right here.

It’s not that I’ve never devised strategies to counter high-speed enemies, but the Great Demon Qilin is simply ridiculous.

If there’s any consolation now, it’s that the time in the Crown Form is absolutely sufficient.

In the past, I obtained a large amount of "Furnace Slag" by killing Ming Zhuo. However, since I mainly relied on the Xuanming Fire at the time, and given my insufficient flame density, the efficiency of damaging Ming Zhuo’s high-density soul wasn’t fully realized. As a result, even though the gains were quite substantial, the amount of "Furnace Slag" obtained didn’t fully correspond to the number of times I killed Ming Zhuo.

But recently, after consecutively killing the Catastrophe Demon, as well as Huang Quan and the Great Demon Xuanwu, I have obtained so much "Furnace Slag" that I am no longer anxious about the endurance time in the Crown Form. I no longer need to worry excessively about prolonged combat.

Moreover, because my current soul density is extremely high, even if it gets damaged, a significant portion of it can be neutralized before the enemy’s power reaches my True Spirit, avoiding severe injury situations.

My presence density is actually about as high as that of the Great Demon Qilin, but unfortunately, flames are inherently expansive and aggressive, lacking stability and defense.

The speed of the Great Demon Qilin increased again, seemingly certain that I had no power to fight back, as its attacks grew increasingly bold. Punches, kicks, elbow strikes, knee thrusts, shoulder charges... I felt myself being shattered by a myriad of assaults, while simultaneously analyzing the mystery of its acceleration.

There must be a limit to its acceleration, yet at this stage, it seems there’s no bottleneck. It’s accelerated to nearly one-ninth the speed of light and still rising, with no ripples whatsoever. It’s as if it’s an aircraft equipped with ultimate fluid mechanics assistance, with zero air resistance.

Is it only lacking resistance? It seems as if countless forces are propelling it to accelerate. Gradually, I began to somewhat comprehend its ability.

The world we live in is filled with countless intangible forces. Not just wind and solar energy, but on a macro scale, Earth’s magnetic field and gravity, and on a micro scale, the interactions between atoms and molecules. Even in a vacuum, there are quantum fluctuations. These are merely the forces on the physical level, and the forces on the mysticism level are innumerable. The material world, viewed from another angle, is an ocean of energy.

And part of the martial arts created by the Old Fist God, as he himself said, came from a dream debate on martial arts with some mysterious youth, resulting in something seemingly plausible or not. It’s said that the Great Unpredictable Qilin inherited this unfinished fruit from the Old Fist God, and adapted it according to his understanding. Though I don’t know what kind of incredible martial art it is, perhaps glimpses can be seen from the Great Demon Qilin’s current state.

If we liken the world we live in to a precise machine formed by countless gears and levers, a normal person in this world is like a grain of sand falling into the machine, inevitably causing friction and blockage with the surrounding environment; whereas the Qilin is seamlessly integrated into the machine, not only facing no resistance but also leveraging the machine’s operational power to continually accelerate.

This seems similar to the concept of "Unity of Heaven and Man" pursued by martial artists, or the Right Positioning Heavenly Phenomena of the Divine Son, yet it possesses some decisive differences.

The ideal state pursued by the legendary Old Fist God, achievable by abandoning all mana, allows the same effect even with the flesh of a mere mortal. Yet I really don’t believe that an ordinary person could rely on martial arts to reach one-ninth the speed of light. That is definitely a fool’s dream.

The Great Demon Qilin continues to accelerate, shattering my body once again. I appear unable to turn the tide, but truly, it’s not I who am at the disadvantage. Slowly, I became sure of my victory.

I can fall many times, but for it, a single fall means eternal doom.

Finally, at a certain moment, when I launched a counterattack once more, it managed to dodge as usual, yet a piercing sound of cracking came inexplicably from it, and for the first time, its speed dropped.