CHAPTER 884: CHAPTER 607: THE FALL OF A WORLD

The Heavenly Gu Daoist inwardly cursed his misfortune, having no choice but to expend even more power to resist this Wangliang’s remnant will.

This demigod will had been bound here by Lu Chenzhou; though it could not cause harm, Lu Chenzhou could not annihilate it in a short time either. Thus, he had always been wary of fully refining the Wangliang finger bone, afraid of being counterattacked. Yet by coincidence, the Wangliang’s will had become his third line of defense against the Heavenly Gu Daoist.

This was fortune and misfortune interdependent.

After a prolonged battle, the Heavenly Gu Daoist finally seized the upper hand, conjuring a thousand blades that annihilated Wangliang.

"Merely lingering thoughts of the dead."

Taking a deep breath, the Daoist’s illusory form drifted through the Wandering Lament wilderness, arriving beneath the World Tree, gazing at the ever-ascending giant tree, lost in thought.

"The World Dao... he truly managed to cultivate it. This child’s soul must be hidden within the great tree. For him to comprehend the World Dao surely can’t be severed from some mysterious fortune..." Thoughts stirring, the Daoist unleashed illusory assaults like monstrous waves, crashing relentlessly onto the giant tree.

At this time, the World Tree was already infinitely close to the Sixth Rank; its branches lashed out, clashing head-on with the assault of Seventh Rank Illusion Realm Dao, the two sides’ conflict reaching white heat.

...

Soon after.

Within the Ruins Sea, blazing swordlight swept aside the towering waves.

The Yaochi Immortal arrived first.

The Cosmic Light Sword was a supreme space treasure, able to shrink ground into inches—what seemed adjacent could become infinitely far—making it best suited for rush travel.

Suddenly, the Yaochi Immortal’s expression grew tense, for before her in the Ruins Sea, a man sat in meditation like an ancient monk, palms together, drifting along the current, his vitality withering away.

Her experience was broad; at a glance she knew Lu Chenzhou must have encountered a formidable illusion realm, his spirit trapped here so long that his mind could not return to his body, the body withering without restraint.

If this went on, disaster loomed.

Unless he became a Heart Cultivation Great Power, completely abandoning his flesh and ensuring spiritual immortality in the spiritual dimension.

"Lu Chenzhou!"

The Yaochi Immortal sent her voice across the void.

But Lu Chenzhou showed no reaction.

She called for a long time, yet there was no response.

"He cannot be awakened from outside. I can only try to enter his mind and soul..." The Yaochi Immortal let the Cosmic Light Sword stand guard, sending a thread of her consciousness into Lu Chenzhou’s torn and battered spiritual world, encountering no resistance.

She saw the once-sturdy spiritual barrier violently pierced by some force—thus deducing the enemy’s strength was at least Middle Stage of Eighth Realm with profound Dao mastery.

"Seventh Rank Dao...Such powerhouses, in the entire Eastern Extreme Territory, are so rare that one can count them on a single hand."

Crash! The World Tree’s branches lashed at her, and before she could reach the Sea of Consciousness, that thread of the Yaochi Immortal’s mind instantly dissipated, returning to her own mind.

The Yaochi Immortal was stunned, the corners of her eyes twitching.

Lu Chenzhou had actually attacked her.

...

Within the Illusion Realm.

Lu Chenzhou gazed at the torn-in-two specter of the Yaochi Immortal before him, his heart as silent as a dried well.

"Heh... it’s all fake." Over the past half year, with the illusions stirring memories in his heart, Lu Chenzhou had killed the Yaochi Immortal with his own hands 1,300 times.

That was nothing—the ones he’d killed most often were his decrepit parents, thirty thousand times, and his Master Ji, 3,234 times. The Illusion Realm Dao loved to use one’s deepest weaknesses as weapons.

This was cliché, but effective.

Kinship was the light of human nature.

It was also Lu Chenzhou’s reversed scale, his fatal weakness.

Lu Chenzhou didn’t know that just now, it was not the Illusion Realm, but truly the Yaochi Immortal herself—in his confusion, he was already struggling to discern reality from illusion.

This was the terror of a dream of golden millet.

"I am the Yaochi Immortal..."

Not long after, a blue-clad figure wearing a veil entered again, her tone gentle and clear.

"It’s pointless."

Lu Chenzhou raised his hand, slaying the illusion.

"I really am—"

The Yaochi Immortal stepped in once more.

"Get out!"

The Yaochi Immortal was blasted out of the Sea of Consciousness again.

In the Ruins Sea, beneath her veil, the girl took a deep breath, her chest undulating, seemingly angry.

"Hmph! Chenzhou is being controlled, this isn’t his true nature. He always respected me. Every time he mistakenly calls me ’senior’, he’d take it back, apologize, then correct it to ’fairy’."

The Yaochi Immortal comforted herself.

She entered a fourth time.

Bang! This time, Lu Chenzhou directly ripped her heart out, then tore her in two...

The fifth time, he gutted her alive.

The sixth time, beheaded her.

The seventh time...

The Yaochi Immortal was defeated time and again, until her face turned somewhat pale, still unable to awaken Lu Chenzhou.

"If this keeps up, I’ll be worn down to death by this brat— entering the mind is too exhausting."

The Yaochi Immortal contacted Emperor Shitian.

The old man replied, eyes reflecting upon old memories:

"If the enemy is a Seventh Rank Illusion Realm Daoist, your efforts are wasted. Rather than try to awaken Lu Chenzhou, better to find a way to locate where the caster is hiding. For such illusion realm powers, the caster will always conceal their body before casting for safety. Usually, those proficient in Illusion Realm Dao are not that formidable in frontal combat. You have the Cosmic Light Sword—find the right opportunity and, if not kill, at least severely injure the enemy. The illusion will then dissolve on its own..."

"How am I supposed to find the caster?"

"You can’t. At the very least, it’d take a Eighth Realm Heart Cultivation powerhouse’s perception to detect their dimensional hiding place. Isn’t the Priest coming soon? He’s not that adept with the mind, but being Eighth Realm, he won’t do badly. Besides, he’s a Withering Years Dao master. Back in Seventh Realm, he already comprehended a time-reversal divine skill limited to a small area. Now at Eighth Realm, perhaps he could rewind to before Lu Chenzhou was trapped to locate the caster’s hideout. Then you could attack together, and might force him out."

"The Priest?"

She glanced at the skin-and-bones Lu Chenzhou.

The Yaochi Immortal shook her head, "If I don’t do something now, I may not live to see the Priest arrive."

Her gaze turned to the Kun Gu Realm.

...

"Heh, finally given up?" Lu Chenzhou focused intently on seeking Dao. "Why do they keep trying to use the Yaochi Immortal to disturb me? We’re merely colleagues."

Lu Chenzhou only had so few close ones.

Parents, and his sect.

They had always been with him as he grew up.

The Yaochi Immortal did not count.

Thus, killing the Yaochi Immortal brought him no guilt at all.

If speaking of closeness, Yaochi Immortal was inferior to Shangguan Xue; during his weakness, Shangguan Xue had at least acted as a partial master.

...

Kun Gu Realm.

Earth Core.

In the twisted, dark Meat Forest, tens of thousands of slick, wet tentacles tangled together, plunging into the body of a spectral old crone, her pained moans filling the air.

Each cry sounded like the world itself was wailing.

"Corrupted this deeply already?"

The Yaochi Immortal had intended to ask the will of Kun Gu Realm whether any intelligence could be gleaned here.

Now, it seemed hopeless; just as she turned to leave, the old crone suddenly opened her eyes.

"I’ve seen you before."

"I was here once before."

"Are the Kun Gu Realm beings you rescued faring well?" the old woman asked feebly.

"They’re all doing well. Kun Gu women and our Tianxia men can reproduce normally, no different from ordinary folk. Some have even advanced to Seventh Realm in Tianxia."

"The Great Elder of Three Suns Palace, the White Lotus Immortal?"

"Her indeed. You know her quite well."

"They’re all my children—a part of me. Of course I know... Fairy, would you do me a favor?" the old woman pleaded.

"Speak."

"Let me possess you and lead you to the Land of World Origin. Help me sever the Heart of the World—I do not wish to be assimilated by the will of the Stars."

"Sever the World Core? Wouldn’t that be death?"

The Yaochi Immortal was puzzled.

"Yes—even self-annihilation, collapse, is better than this slow death... When one world falls, ten thousand worlds may rise. After my death, perhaps countless smaller worlds may be born from the ruins."

Replied the old woman.

After pondering for a moment, the Yaochi Immortal shook her head.

"I refuse."

"Why?"

"You’ve already been invaded by the Stars. I cannot be sure you are still the original will of Kun Gu."

"You are right. But don’t you also wish to save the one trapped in the illusion realm by the Gu Diao’s descendant?"

The Yaochi Immortal’s eyes narrowed.

"What do you know?"

The old woman said:

"I know much. The moment I possess you, you’ll know too. Is he your Daoist couple?"

The Yaochi Immortal laughed in spite of herself.

She and Lu Chenzhou were separated by countless generations.

The woman was three hundred years the elder.

After the battle of the Heavenly Person, the Yaochi Immortal said:

"Let’s gamble."

...

In the blink of an eye, seven more days passed.

On this day,

The land of Kun Gu cracked open, the skies collapsed, boundary barriers shattered like glass tumbling into the void, and at the location of Kun Gu’s World Core, a vortex like a Doomsday Mill abruptly solidified.

Roars erupted from within the vortex.

As if some great being had been enraged.

The Yaochi Immortal, riding the Cosmic Light Sword, barely escaped the devouring maelstrom. Looking back at the ruined High Class World, her heart was a tangle of emotions.

"The fall of a world..."

In her palm was a pure white heart, exuding the supreme, chaotic breath of creation, transcending Yin Yang Five Elements, Wind and Thunder, Life and Death, and all other great Daos.

"Heart of the World."

...

Within the illusion realm.

Lu Chenzhou’s brows were tightly knit.

"Still can’t break free..."

In his mind, voices from the Great Wilderness Tribe kept haunting him—they were his parents from that side.

"Child, come home."

At the same time,

Within the spiritual world, the Heavenly Gu Daoist had revealed his true Gu Diao form, the rampaging illusion realm Dao forming world-destroying attacks, battering the World Tree to pieces.

Boom—

The World Tree toppled.

Inside the tree, a pure white figure knotted his brows in distress.

It was Lu Chenzhou’s soul.

The Daoist roared with laughter.

"Let me see the secrets of your soul!" The Daoist stretched open a bloody maw, lunging at the pure white figure, only to be blocked by the resurrected World Tree.

"It’s useless! You can’t hold out much longer!"

...

In the illusion realm.

Lu Chenzhou’s face cycled through myriad expressions.

Sometimes lost in deep thought,

Sometimes twisted and grim.

"What am I lacking?"

"Could I really belong to the Great Wilderness?"

"No! It’s all illusion!"

"Let me breakthrough!"

In the hysterical reverberation, a figure in blue robes entered his mind once more, appearing within the realm of illusion.

Lu Chenzhou’s gaze was full of murderous intent.

"Still using these clumsy illusions."

He reached out, preparing to eradicate the figure before him.

But the blue-robed specter moved first, flashing before him and slamming a fist into his chest.

Bang! Lu Chenzhou was knocked flying backwards.

He was at his weakest now.

Otherwise, this illusion would never have succeeded.

He rose to counterattack.

The Yaochi Immortal struck a blow, her five fingers like blades, a single strike piercing through Lu Chenzhou’s chest, extracting a blood-soaked heart, her fingernails streaming with crimson. Her arms like white serpents locked around Lu Chenzhou’s neck.

"I’ve destroyed this illusion 1,313 times—my patience is running thin." Lu Chenzhou flipped over, subduing the Yaochi Immortal, reversing his lock to snap both her arms, then stomped her head with his foot.

"You little brat! If you dare kill me again, don’t blame Shangguan Xian for turning on you!"