[Five minutes ago]

On their way to the Desolate Mountain,

the two who were almost in relative stillness began a brief exchange of movement. With limited time, William didn’t bother to ask Yi Chen how he arrived or about his current condition and other trivial matters.

Before the battle commenced, he had to confirm one thing with Yi Chen, the local person.

"Are we about to face a ’God’?"

Yi Chen responded disdainfully, "Merely an incomplete pseudo-god... If it were a true god, we would have been dead long ago."

"Even if it’s a pseudo-god, it shouldn’t be easy to kill it, right? What exactly should we do later? How can we kill a so-called god?"

"You’ve asked a very good question! The opponent has already descended their ’Divine Status,’ ready to doom us both at any moment. As long as the Divine Status is intact, no matter how we kill Its physical body, it will be of no use."

"Divine Status? Something like the Pathogen Core in patients’ bodies? Some kind of crystal?"

"If only it were that simple~ ’Divine Status’ is a conceptual entity, a god’s label, a kind of identity and a gathering of faith."

William half-understood but roughly grasped the meaning Yi Chen was trying to convey.

"A conceptual thing?

So, what we need to do is to erase Its label as a god, right? From what you’re saying, we don’t have to kill It but to transcend It.

For example, by displaying a posture more powerful than Buddha Mother, or by instilling Fear in It, causing the so-called concept of god to waver?"

William’s answer surprised Yi Chen, who even turned his head specially,

"Oh? It seems that although you’re not mad, you still have a sharp mind~ Indeed, with your current condition, William, the only way to win is just like that.

As long as we can destabilize the concept of the Buddha Mother as a god, It will be ’Weakened’. Then, my axe of death can easily Lock onto and cleave open Its Divine Status.

Of course... that’s just the ideal situation.

This Evil God has been nurtured for so many years;

It certainly won’t be easy. If all else fails, we’ll just have to merge our bodies. With the posture of a Silver Circle Patient, it’s still possible to kill this incomplete pseudo-god."

William held a different opinion, "Merge? Just being like this, Catherine and I have already been identified by this world as Pathogens. If we reveal the posture of a Silver Circle Patient, surely that would draw the attention of the entire world?

If that happens, even if we kill Buddha Mother, we may have to face something even more terrifying, possibly even a direct hunt by multiple gods themselves."

"You’re right~ ’Merging’ is the last resort.

But now, William, even though you’ve absorbed the divine statue of ’Fertility Guanyin,’ you’re still too weak... If you can’t make a change later, you’ll witness the terror of the so-called god.

You might even die.

But don’t worry~ If you, William, really die! I will replace you to return to the Old World, take good care of your companion, and manage your identity well."

William wasn’t angry;

he simply responded with a smile, "Then let me see the might of the ’Undying Murderer’. I believe that you, Yi Chen, can directly slay the opponent. I just need to take care of myself."

...

Desolate Mountain.

Sinister laughter permeated the mountains,

and even the sky was covered with thick fog, blotting out the stars and moon, as a sudden torrential downpour began.

The forceful raindrops pounded on William and Yi Chen,

the latter being able to completely isolate himself with a yellow raincoat, while the former relied on the Abyss in his abdomen to drain the water. This method of draining was effective, but it still allowed the seawater to circulate through his body once,

and this was no ordinary seawater;

it was bestowed directly by Buddha Mother, with effects starkly different from the water vapour encountered in the caves.

As the seawater flowed through his body, William could distinctly feel a pair of delicate, moist hands tracing along his body with the raindrops inside.

He even began to see and hear illusions.

He saw the flowers at his feet grow rapidly, forming delicate, enticing sea maidens,

and not just one, but a group,

attaching themselves to William’s body from all directions, slipping around facilitated by the seawater.

It wasn’t just touching with hands, but also with tongues licking.

He could also hear seductive whispers echoing in his soul,

"Open your mouth, let me sow my seed within you, and when the flowers bloom, you shall become part of me, eternally indulging in such moisture without any troubles of the world!"

This kind of lure, acting directly on the depths of the soul, would cause most people, even some with impaired functions, to utterly fall.

William’s situation was also dire, even though the Abyss in his stomach was steadily draining the liquid, the impact was always there.

Lacking the mental shield of Madness Brain, he had to rely on himself.

He closed his eyes, no longer looking at the sea maidens, and began to fantasize in a different way,

imagining himself at the Bunny Castle Club,

converting the intimate skin contact into the physical touch during wrestling,

and the moisture of the seawater over his entire body into the perspiration from the heat of wrestling,

Having found the feeling,

William promptly performed a PowerBomb on himself.

Boom!

The ground was smashed open, creating a large crater, and the surrounding flowers also disintegrated, lifting the illusion... Water gushed from William’s mouth as well.

Such an act might provide temporary immunity to the illusions,

but looking at the continuous downpour of sea rain and the expanse of fresh flowers, who could say when he might fall into an illusion again.

Indeed, before even a minute had passed, the illusions struck once more, even more intensely than before.

More sea maidens grew out from the flowers, entwining around every part of William’s body, leaving no space unfilled, their breaths even synchronized through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

William chose to remain seated, his eyes shut tight.

He kept imagining the Rabbit Immortal Castle, treating all physical contacts from the outside world as part of a wrestling special training, so as not to be swallowed by desire.

But this time, William chose not to break the illusion by slamming himself;

instead, he deliberately let the illusion continue... using this state for self-reflection.

...

Several dozen meters away,

Yi Chen, clad in a yellow raincoat and rain boots, radiated intense killing intent from his entire being.

Even the sea water that dripped onto his raincoat turned black on contact, and the plants on the ground withered upon absorbing such tainted raindrops.

One could even see some thick, black liquid-like humanoid creatures crawling on Yi Chen’s body and around him, crawling, hissing, screaming, or wailing.

All of these were remnants of malicious thoughts left by those he had killed, which could be influenced by Yi Chen’s killing intent to fight together.

Swish, swish, swish!

Dozens of flowers around Yi Chen shot out roots that, nourished by the rain, transformed into arms reaching for his body.

But Yi Chen had only one move.

"Slash!"

As he swung his axe forward, the surrounding killing intent also performed an ’Attached Slash’, every malicious entity mimicking the slashing motion.

Flicker, flicker, flicker~ Shadows flashing, dozens of arms were severed, floating in the air.

Smack!

Yi Chen even caught a severed limb in his hand, licking the sea water oozing from it with his tongue to perform a ’Slaughter Mark’, to discern the true location of the Buddha Mother.

With a twist of his body, he suddenly moved ten meters to the front right and swung his axe at a nondescript flower.

The flower was cleaved apart, and the axe continued deeper into the soil.

Crack!

The sound of a skull splitting open came from beneath the ground.

Lifting the hand axe!

A woman with her head cracked open emerged from the earth, hanging on the axe blade... but the split face of the woman still wore a smile.

Yi Chen realized something was wrong and hurriedly tossed away the woman on his axe, who turned into a pool of black liquid upon hitting the ground and dissipated into nothingness.

"Divine Status transfer can be so fast... I had just marked the main body, and it has moved to another place? Could it be that this entity’s Divine Status can flow freely with the rainwater?

Could the concept of its Divine Status be a fluid state?

Such a difficult type to deal with, and this entity has no intention of confronting me head-on, but to wear me down gradually with this form, slowly draining my energy until I’m depleted."

The myriad of flowers on the mountainside continued to laugh unrestrained, as though mocking Yi Chen’s efforts as futile.

Yi Chen cleaved through three women suspected to be the main body to no avail, his breath becoming slightly labored, forcing him to consider an alternative plan.

"And William? Without the aid of Madness Brain in such an Illusion Realm, he’s likely incapable of combating an illusion, right?"

When Yi Chen glanced over in the midst of his handicraft, he revealed a look of astonishment under his yellow hood.

Because he saw William actually sitting on the ground, making maximal contact with the blossoms on the earth.

Not only that,

William’s eyes were closed, his breath extremely faint, as if he was on the brink of suffocation.

"Has he succumbed to the invasion of the sea water and is undergoing the transformation into a sacrifice? Such a waste... But if he truly dies, things will become very difficult to handle later on."

William was needed for many matters in the Old World, to maintain and handle them. Yi Chen knew well that his own personality was ill-suited for survival there;

William was the best intermediary.

With this thought, Yi Chen’s killing intent surged, with dense black fog emerging from his pupils.

Just as he was about to move forward to rescue, or at the very least, break William free from the illusion... Yi Chen, halfway through his approach, suddenly noticed something strange about William’s state.

It wasn’t that he was fully indulged in the illusion, but that he was doing something else.

Looking toward his abdomen, the Abyss within was churning and rotating, like turning a screw, as if something was about to come out.

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