Chapter 617 VS Great Demon Qilin 2

This isn't the first time I've witnessed mass human death, and I've seen countless instances of large-scale territorial destruction since becoming a Great Impermanence. Now, I'm not the type to be easily alarmed by something as trivial as "many people dying."

However, everything has its limits. The scene of an entire city, along with its millions of inhabitants, being wiped out in an instant is something that has likely occurred only a handful of times in human history. Although a large city in the south was recently affected by the conflict between Xuanming and Meng Zhang, the lord of Taoyuan Township, I didn't actually witness the scene inside. This was the first time in my life I had seen such destruction.

In the past, I wasn't immune to similar destructive fantasies. After all, as a powerful being, when wandering through cities, I would occasionally wonder, "What if I suddenly destroyed this city?" I did indeed possess such power. In fact, my pursuit of apocalypse for my own adventure was an act that disregarded the life and safety of all humanity. Compared to that, what are the deaths of a few million? Just one-thousandth of humanity.

But thinking about it in my mind is completely different from witnessing it firsthand. I must admit that for a moment, I was shocked by this scene of devastation.

From afar came Fa Zheng's furious roar, filled with grief and indignation.

So many lives that needed to be protected vanished at once; for Fazheng, this battle was a crushing defeat. Ironically, it was precisely because of the deaths of so many that the power of the Humanitarian Divine Weapon actually increased.

However, I had no time to pay attention to Fazheng anymore, nor did I have time to immerse myself in the shock in my heart. The Great Demon Qilin seized upon the slight opening that briefly appeared in my consciousness.

Before I could react, a tremendous force struck my face. It felt like my head had been run over by a train; my skull was shattered, and my soul suffered a fatal blow. The pain dragged me back to reality.

My attention returned to my opponent, and my head and soul were instantly repaired. The Great Demon Qilin had clearly realized my immortality, and I could feel its gaze relentlessly probing into my very essence. The information gap seemed to be closing; from the next attack onward, it would likely be aimed at my true spirit.

What's even more worrying is the uncertainty of whether the enemy's numbers will increase again. A third great demon has already appeared; there's no guarantee there won't be a fourth or fifth. The situation is already troublesome enough; if it continues to increase, Fazheng and I will undoubtedly be defeated.

No, whether a fourth head will appear is another matter, but a fifth head is unlikely to appear.

Ma had told me before that, up until she transmigrated, there were at most ten humans, gods, and great demons still alive in the "Apocalypse Era." Including Huang Quan, who died at my hands, the Fukuinin Temple had three humans and one great demon. Adding the Great Demon of Disaster and Great Demon Xuanwu, whom I killed, and the newly appeared Great Demons Qilin, Jizo, and Yulei, there are a total of nine. There might be a tenth, or there might not be.

Considering that Asahi mentioned long ago that the number of Great Demons at its peak was as high as ten, there might be more "Great Demons who died in the past and have recently been resurrected." Furthermore, considering that Naraku Gospel might possess the power to summon entirely new Doomsday Great Demons, it's hard to guarantee that even more won't appear. However, at least I didn't hear any similar signs from Number Seven before leaving the afterlife, so I'll leave that aside for now. The situation shouldn't be that bad for the time being.

Speaking of potential enemy reinforcements, I'm also a bit concerned about why our own reinforcements haven't arrived yet. At the very least, the Diviner and Sword Immortal should have already sensed the fighting here; why haven't they arrived yet?

I manipulated the flames to launch a counterattack against the Great Demon Qilin, but it dodged them all with super speed.

Its current speed is more than sixty times my maximum speed. From its perspective, my current movements are probably no different from a snail crawling. The idea of ​​"aiming at it" to attack was wrong from the start. With that in mind, I simply unleashed a sky-covering sea of ​​fire in the air, hoping to capture it in this way.

However, a massive sea of ​​fire, as an attack, inherently has a significant density limitation, rendering it incapable of posing a substantial threat. Although I could increase the density of any point within the sea of ​​fire to a level sufficient to destroy the Great Demon Qilin, whenever I attempted to increase the density at a specific location, the Great Demon Qilin would simply move away from that spot. Since I couldn't discern its movement pattern, there was no way to predict its movements in advance.

Even if it were predictable, it wouldn't matter, as the act of increasing density itself is a process. The speed of the flames depends on the speed of my consciousness. People often say that the speed of thought is faster than the speed of light, but that's just a romantic notion. In reality, the Great Demon Qilin's physical speed is gradually surpassing the speed of my consciousness. I know these two speeds aren't directly comparable, but that's the gist of it. It won't just crash into a high-density area on its own, nor will it wait for the density of its current location to "slowly" increase.

In the world of martial arts, speed is the only thing that cannot be broken... In most battles, speed is a more crucial performance factor than attack power and defense power. Overwhelming speed is enough to dominate everything; and as a great demon that is good at close combat, its body also has considerable defensive power. Combined with its absurd speed, it is a killing weapon that is sharper than any other weapon.

It's like an indestructible steel knife; the damage is small, but it can strike the vitals and be extremely fatal.

Its speed is getting faster and faster; in my observation and calculations, it has already soared to one-tenth the speed of light.

Now I could only belatedly determine its trajectory and speed by its trail. The next moment, I felt another tremendous force strike me. I had been attacked—even this thought came to me belatedly.

My soul was pierced, and my spirit was damaged.

While I'm confident I can rival Xuanming in sheer strength, if Xuanming himself were here, he certainly wouldn't simply take the attack. Over his long life, he must have mastered at least five or six magical countermeasures against "enemies who move with absurd speed." If there's any difference between me and the veteran Great Impermanence, it's probably in this aspect.

It's not that I've never thought of a strategy to deal with high-speed enemies, but the Great Demon Qilin is just too absurd.

If there's anything to be comforted about right now, it's that the time allotted for Corona Mode is definitely enough.

In the past, I obtained a large amount of "slag" by killing Mingzhu (a type of spirit), but because I mainly relied on Xuanming Fire at that time, and my flame density was insufficient, the efficiency of destroying the high-density souls of Mingzhu was not very high. Therefore, although the harvest was quite considerable, the amount of "slag" obtained did not completely correspond to the number of times I killed Mingzhu.

Recently, I've successively killed the Great Demon of Calamity, as well as the Underworld and the Great Demon Xuanwu, and the amount of "slag" I obtained has freed me from the anxiety about the endurance of my Corona Form. I no longer need to worry too much about long battles.

Furthermore, because my soul density is now extremely high, even if it is damaged, a considerable portion of the enemy's power can be neutralized before it reaches my true spirit, so I will no longer suffer serious injuries at the drop of a hat.

My existence density is actually about the same as that of the Great Demon Qilin, but unfortunately, fire is a force with expansion and offensive properties, and its stability and defensive capabilities are naturally insufficient.

The Great Demon Qilin's speed increased again, seemingly certain that I was powerless to fight back, and its attacks became increasingly daring. Punches, kicks, elbows, knee strikes, shoulder slams... I felt myself being blasted apart by a variety of attacks, while at the same time, I was analyzing the mystery of its acceleration.

Its acceleration must have a limit, but it doesn't seem to have reached its bottleneck yet. It has already accelerated to about one-ninth the speed of light and is still rising, yet it still hasn't produced any aftershocks. It's like an aircraft with ultimate hydrodynamic assistance, where air resistance is zero.

It wasn't just that there was no resistance; it was as if countless forces were propelling it forward. Gradually, I seemed to understand its capabilities to some extent.

The world we live in is governed by countless invisible forces. These include not only wind and solar power, but also macroscopic forces like Earth's magnetic field and gravity, and microscopic forces such as the interactions between atoms and molecules. Even in a vacuum, there are theories of quantum fluctuations. These are just the physical forces; the mystical forces are equally numerous. From another perspective, the material world is a vast ocean of energy.

The martial arts established by the former Fist God, as he himself said, partly originated from a dream where he discussed martial arts with a mysterious youth, resulting in a somewhat dubious creation. It is said that the Great Impermanent Qilin inherited this unfinished achievement from the old Fist God and further modified it according to his own understanding. Although the exact nature of this incredible martial art remains unknown, perhaps some clues can be gleaned from the current Great Demon Qilin.

If we compare the world we live in to a precision machine made up of countless gears and levers, a normal person in this world is like a grain of sand falling into the middle of the machine, inevitably causing friction and obstruction with the surrounding environment; while the Qilin is like being perfectly integrated into the machine, not only without encountering resistance, but also able to use the power of the machine's operation to continuously accelerate its own movement.

This seems similar to the "unity of heaven and man" concept pursued by martial artists, and also like the divine child's proper position in accordance with heaven and earth, but there are some decisive differences.

Legend has it that the ideal state pursued by the Old Fist God was to achieve the same effect without any magical power, even with the physical body of an ordinary mortal. But I really don't believe that an ordinary person could run at one-ninth the speed of light by learning martial arts. That's absolutely wishful thinking.

The Great Demon Qilin continued to accelerate, shattering my body once more. I seemed unable to escape the disadvantage, but I wasn't truly at a disadvantage. Slowly, I became certain of my victory.

I can fall many times, but if it falls even once, it's doomed.

Finally, at a certain moment, after I launched another counterattack, although it dodged as usual, I heard a piercing cracking sound coming from its body out of nowhere, and its speed dropped for the first time.

(End of this chapter)