Chapter 474 Dust Clone

I don't know if the Lord of Peach Blossom Village has realized the true situation here, and the progress of Willow Shadow's pursuit of Dog is too unclear. If Willow Shadow doesn't do a good job, even if I get the information, it won't be of any use. That being said, I still need to do my job well.

Also, assuming Xu Gou didn't die this time, I'll need to remind Yu Chi about this matter afterward. Although there's no other way, it was still a pretense of mystery in front of Xu Gou under the guise of Number Five, and I don't know what kind of follow-up consequences it might cause.

After confirming that the connection between the Great Perfection level Impermanence Heart Seed and the Peach Blossom Village Lord had not been restored, I decided to proceed with the interrogation process.

The other person gritted their teeth in fear and whispered, "What do you want to know? I... I don't know anything, asking me won't help..."

"Don't play dumb. You're connected to the Lord of Peach Blossom Village, aren't you? Were you the one who leaked information about the Mingzhuo forces to Peach Blossom Village? Or do you have other subordinates within the Mingzhuo forces?" I said. "I don't care about anything else. What I want is information about the Lord of Peach Blossom Village himself."

"Although I don't know if you're a traitor from within Luoshan or a spy infiltrated from the outside, given your high-level Heart Seed and the strength of a Great Completion cultivator, you must hold a high position in Peach Blossom Village. Therefore, you should know quite a few things, such as the current location of the Peach Blossom Village Lord..."

"If you don't want to suffer any more, tell me the truth."

In the end, I added the power of words to my voice.

It was as if invisible threads were trying to turn this Great Completion Realm Impermanence into a puppet beyond his control. He involuntarily opened his mouth and said, "Peach Blossom Spring Lord..."

Before he could utter a few words, he suddenly bit his lip and clenched his teeth so tightly that it made a sound like steel bars rubbing together.

He actually resisted my power of words, staring at me with bloodshot eyes.

I understood the reasoning: "So that's how it is. Even if it's a hastily trained fraud, it's still at the Great Completion level. It can't do whatever it wants just by relying on the power of words..."

Previously, he was able to be commanded to awaken and not self-destruct because the man hadn't resisted with his own willpower and possessed a natural will to survive. But the situation is different now. After all, the opponent isn't a "mortal" like an ordinary witcher, but a "demigod."

"So what if that's the case?"

I took out the fake moon reflected in the water and held it up to his eyes. His expression changed, and he quickly tried to turn his head away. I uttered "Stop," briefly hindering his movements again, giving him no time to dodge. The mirror-like surface of the fake moon reflected in the water mirrored his eyes, and the terrifying spiritual power, using the eyes as windows to the soul, attempted to rush into them.

However, a blue light suddenly appeared in his eyes, forcefully blocking the magic power of the fake moon reflected in the water.

The fake reflection of the moon in the water suddenly shattered, revealing a crack.

This seed of the heart, which had reached the Great Perfection stage, actually took the place of its host and resisted the power of the fake moon in the water.

If we were to rank magical artifacts according to the order of formation, existence, decay, and emptiness, the genuine Moon in the Water would be at the formation level, while the counterfeit Moon in the Water would be at the existence level. Just as even an agent at the existence level could force Ma Zao, a master of the Great Completion level, to flee and hide when he was critically injured and on the verge of death, a counterfeit Moon in the Water at the existence level could also invade the mind of a master of the Great Completion level enemy if their soul was riddled with holes.

The power of words cannot achieve this, because in determining whether a word is effective, it tends to judge the level of the other person's soul. An unwavering will is also one of the paths to a higher level. Theoretically, even an ordinary person, as long as they possess the spirit of a great person, can be immune to the death law of the power of the Great Impermanence Word.

As for the Seed of the Heart, the Counterfeit Moon in the Water is simply powerless to stop it. Although the Seed of the Heart appears so frequently, and its hosts are mostly at the Living or Ascending level, it may seem like nothing of great importance. However, its source is none other than the Great Impermanence, possessing the substantial power that split from the Great Impermanence. It's not that simply weakening it will allow the Counterfeit Moon in the Water to do anything about it.

Even if I, as the user, am the Great Impermanence, if I forcibly inject too much magic power, the fake moon in the water will not be able to withstand the output power and will self-destruct.

But I remember that the Seed of the Heart didn't have the function of immunity to mental invasion before.

The azure light in Wuchang's eyes, now at the Great Completion level, vanished, and he broke into a cold sweat, stammering, "It's useless...useless. Not long ago, someone attempted to use the Dreamland Messenger as a springboard to hack into 'Shangri-La,' so the Lord of Shangri-La upgraded all his Dreamland tokens, adding a mechanism to resist mental invasion..."

The hacking incident not long ago refers to what I did last time, right?

It seems the same tricks are ineffective against the Lord of Peach Blossom Village.

"Then could you please tell me the information yourself? If you do, I might spare your life," I said.

The tone of the Grandmaster-level cultivator carried a hint of sarcasm: "But... if I later beg you to kill me, things will be different... right?"

“You’re quite skilled…” I glanced at the victims lying on the ground at the branch base in the distance. “Is that so? You used to ‘play’ like this all the time?”

"Kill me... I won't say anything." He closed his eyes.

“You don’t seem like someone who’s not afraid of death, so why are you giving up your life so easily?” I asked. “If you die here, you won’t be able to enter ‘Shangri-La’.”

“Even if I die, the Dreamland Token can record my existence. And when the Lord of Peach Blossom Village retrieves the Dreamland Token, I can be ‘reborn’ in ‘Peach Blossom Spring’.” His tone seemed very firm.

"That kind of rebirth..."

I thought about it and decided not to engage in a philosophical debate with him. "What if I destroy the seed of your heart?"

As I spoke, I manipulated my power to invade his body, attempting to interfere with his Seed of the Heart. The Seed of the Heart seemed startled, wanting to escape from the body, but I firmly restricted its movement.

However, it seems I really can't destroy this seed of the heart.

Although I don't understand how the Lord of Peach Blossom Village did it, if this Seed of the Heart—the original seed of Mengzhang—is truly a creation related to the Azure Dragon Seed, or even the Azure Dragon Seed itself, then its essence is likely a creation from after the third gate. It is reasonable that I cannot destroy it.

But why are there so many Azure Dragon Seeds? Did the Lord of Peach Blossom Village cut the Azure Dragon Seeds into so many pieces? How could an indestructible power seed be cut apart like that by the Lord of Peach Blossom Village?

Is it because he is indeed the embodiment of the Mountain and the Two Elements that he has such qualifications? Or is this the "Power of Wood and Cultivation" of the Azure Dragon's descendant?

The Great Accomplishment level being, seemingly unaware of my clandestine actions, probably also unaware that I could not actually destroy the Seed of the Heart, simply said in a voice tinged with fervor and despair: "If I don't speak, perhaps there's still a sliver of hope; but if I do speak, my soul will certainly be unable to enter 'Shangri-La'..."

It is obvious that he is a fanatical follower of the Lord of Peach Blossom Village and has a superstitious attitude towards this deity.

Could it be that part of the reason he was able to withstand such a high-level Seed of the Heart was because he possessed the power of faith, making him a suitable vessel for the main force of Peach Blossom Spring?

I tried to suppress the resistance of the Seed of the Heart within his body while simultaneously using the Imitation Moon in the Water to hack into his mind. This attempt also failed, because I am not very good at using the illusion technique of the Imitation Moon in the Water, let alone manipulating it while multitasking.

It seems that the influence of the Vermilion Bird Seed on my talent still exists. Although I seem to have become more versatile now, I can achieve most miracles with the power of words, and I can also achieve many skills that ordinary demon hunters would normally need to spend countless hours to achieve with my deep understanding of the conceptual realm. But these are all things that the Great Impermanence can do naturally, as instinctive as breathing and walking.

As for those skills that aren't so obvious, my progress in mastering them remains remarkably slow.

While exploring the challenges, I also kept trying to perceive the location of the Dog in my mind.

Although the connection with the thermal energy symbol was severed by the power of the cutting, the thermal energy symbol itself should not have disappeared, and the connection may be re-established. This is something I couldn't do in the past, but fortunately, since this part falls within the scope of the Vermilion Bird Seed's talent, I can master it.

The fact that the thermal energy markers didn't disappear is a result of learning from past lessons. Previously, after entering the fifteenth-floor basement, my connection with the outside world's "fireflies" was severed, and all the outside "fireflies" disappeared. Even monitoring Asahi could no longer continue.

After some recent research, I've figured out a way to keep the "fireflies" alive even after a complete break in contact. The reason the "fireflies" disappear is because they lose their spiritual fuel. So, all I need to do is add a preset command to the "fireflies" so that they can automatically use external substances as fuel to survive.

I've now made the "fireflies" automatically use the space itself as fuel to survive, and I've given one to everyone around me, including Ma Zao, Zhu Shi, and Lu Chan. In this way, even if we enter a highly enclosed alternate dimension in the future, we don't have to worry about all the "fireflies" and thermal energy signals outside automatically going out.

The "Firefly" given to Yuchi was the same, and it was a special edition. As long as it was shown, it would automatically transmit a wave of clear will, announcing to those around: This person is under my protection.

During the battle just now, I also added the same command to all the heat I generated, making it a power that would not extinguish itself even if it left my sight.

That being said, if it were extinguished by other Great Impermanence-level forces, adding more preset commands would be useless. Just as I felt I was about to re-establish contact with the thermal energy signal on the Xu Gou's side, I discovered that the thermal energy signal suddenly became unreachable. It was most likely that Xu Gou had used its cutting power to erase it along with time and space.

Immediately afterwards, a sudden, discordant gust of wind blew up not far away, stirring up the dust on the ground.

Large swaths of dust seemed to come alive, gathering and taking human shapes, appearing in my field of vision.

(End of this chapter)