Chapter 293 VS Ancient Moon God 1
I stopped in my tracks and turned back to look at the Ancient Moon God.
"Is there any other problem?" Gu Yueshen asked curiously. "Or have you changed your mind?"
“Yes, I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I can take you out of the fog—but on one condition.”
"What are the conditions?" she asked seriously.
I started by asking, "You said before that you are a benevolent deity who has no ill intentions towards humans—is that just a embellishment, or does it truly mean that you have no ill intentions towards me as well?"
"This is not embellishment, but a fact," she said emphatically. "My spirit is fundamentally different from you beings born of flesh and blood. Rather than a life form, I am more of a phenomenon. I only think and act strictly according to my own 'birth setting'."
"Since the villagers of Guyue, who gave me birth, purely wished that I was a kind spirit, then even evil as insignificant as dust would not exist in my heart."
I nodded: "Okay, I'll take your statement as true for now."
As I spoke, I raised my right hand, and a flame filled with a dangerous aura ignited from my palm.
I aimed the flame at the Ancient Moon Goddess, and upon seeing this, her expression changed slightly: "What do you want to do?"
"You'll understand this at a glance. Just stand there and don't move, or you'll get in my way of burning you," I said.
She seemed to involuntarily take two steps back.
I'm not threatening her; I genuinely intend to burn her. However, this isn't an attack; I'm testing whether she truly harbors no ill will towards me.
To confirm this, relying on the Black Rope Heart-Locking Ring or a fake Moon in the Water wouldn't suffice; those kinds of magical artifacts would be a joke to a super expert in the spiritual realm like the Ancient Moon God. Especially the latter, which is nothing more than a clumsy imitation of the Silver Moon's power.
What I'm going to use now is a new skill that I developed halfway through when I was still at the Fufeng base. It can be used to detect whether the other party really has no ill intentions towards me. The principle comes from the mental synchronization that Lu Youxun did to me before.
Since the specific development principles have been explained before, I won't go into detail here, but will only describe its effect—in the past, as long as an object was listed as an ally, my flames would not harm it, but would kill it normally; but this flame is different. It will not harm "those I consider enemies", but will harm "those who consider me enemies".
Unfortunately, this new skill is only half-finished. Even close friends may harbor unspoken, subtle malice towards each other, which they themselves may not even be aware of, let alone someone they've just met.
However, the Ancient Moon Goddess before me is different. Since she claims to harbor no malice towards me, not even as insignificant as a speck of dust, my new skill has a chance to come in handy. Whether her self-proclaimed spiritual nature is genuine or not, I can simply burn her with this flame to find out.
I don't intend to explain my intentions to her. If she misunderstands that I'm going to attack her, then so be it. The old Lu Youxun could suppress his hostile thoughts through bathing and purifying his mind, preventing me from automatically retaliating against him due to hidden malice during mental synchronization. Gu Yue Shen might be able to do something similar. And she probably wouldn't need the trouble of bathing and purifying her mind; she could probably do it immediately if she had the intention. Therefore, I must launch a surprise attack.
In fact, I really hope she can become an ally on my side. Whether from a dramatic perspective or from a practical standpoint, she is an extremely excellent candidate for a partner.
That's why I felt that I might have been tricked by her.
"Let me see what you're made of, Gu Yue."
The sealed shrine was instantly engulfed in flames.
The flames didn't actually erupt from my palm; it was merely a feint to attract the attention of the Ancient Moon God. My spirit had already permeated every inch of the shrine with my senses, and with a single thought, flames appeared from every direction.
It was as if all the air inside the ancestral hall had been transformed into flames. Gu Yue Shen had nowhere to escape and was completely unable to react. In an instant, he was swallowed up by the flames.
She let out a scream of utter shock and agony as her clothes were burned away, and her exposed snow-white skin was instantly charred black by the flames. The beautiful girl was reduced to a charred skeleton in the blink of an eye.
—The flames hurt her!
Moreover, the moment the flames touched her, I sensed the malice in her heart.
Where was the "minor malice, like dust"? I didn't sense even the smallest bit of kindness from her.
My original plan was that if she exaggerated and harbored a little bit of malice, then this flame would only slightly burn her. In that case, although I would be much more wary of her lying, I wouldn't immediately give up on establishing a cooperative relationship with her.
The benefits of cooperating with her are numerous. Even if she wasn't a benevolent deity without any malice towards humanity, but rather an individual with a mixture of good and evil like humans, it doesn't mean there's no room for negotiation. Yet, my flames simply burned her to a skeleton.
The flames falling on her were like a bowl of water being poured into a pot of boiling, smoky oil.
She's the very embodiment of malice!
Not to mention her, the one who was killed, even I am shocked right now.
Immediately, a massive shockwave erupted from her body. Like putting a firecracker in a matchbox and detonating it, the enormous sealed shrine was blasted to pieces by this sudden shockwave. She was lifted into the air like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, soaring hundreds of meters into the air amidst the flying rubble, seemingly trying to escape.
I was much faster than her, rising higher into the air than she had, and then looked down. The area was still shrouded in mist; although the mist was thin, at such a height, the ancient village of Guyue was completely obscured by the heavy fog and could no longer be seen.
She slammed on the brakes, and at the same time, flesh seemed to grow wildly from between her bones. In the blink of an eye, she regained her former beauty, even her simple white dress reappeared. Then, she looked up at me with an incredulous gaze.
Seemingly realizing she had been exposed, she stopped pretending and asked in a bewildered tone, "How could you possibly attack me... Where exactly did I slip up?"
"You seem to think you know me completely, which is why you're so sure you won't be attacked... This only shows that you don't know me well enough." I deliberately said something to mislead her.
It seems she didn't know that the flames were the key; she just thought her lie had been exposed, which is why I attacked her.
"Are you saying I've misjudged people? You're not the kind of person who won't attack unless the other party makes the first move? But..."
Before she could finish speaking, I launched another attack.
The previous attack failed to kill her because I had no murderous intent. But this time was different; I was truly ready to kill. Flames, like giant serpents from mythology capable of swallowing a hundred people whole, appeared from all directions, launching a massive, inescapable attack on her from different angles.
She should be able to use abilities like spatial teleportation to evade enemy attacks, just like Silver Moon. However, things are different now. The me I am now is completely different from the me I was when I fought Silver Moon last time.
The reason Silver Moon couldn't dodge my fire beam at the last moment last time wasn't because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't. No matter how cheating it is to use spatial teleportation as an option to avoid attacks, as long as it's an active ability that must be initiated by the user, it will inevitably be limited by the user's reaction speed.
This is similar to a well-trained soldier suddenly disarming an enemy; the key is not to be faster than the bullet, but to be faster than the enemy.
If the attacker's attack is fast enough, the defender will not have time to change their position.
Before Gu Yue Shen could activate his spatial teleportation, he was engulfed by flames once again, and his body was reduced to ashes in the fire.
This level of destruction could not possibly kill monsters like the Ancient Moon Goddess and the Silver Moon. To them, the real world was nothing but a dream, and their physical bodies were nothing but illusions. Even if the illusion were completely destroyed, it would not pose a threat to their true selves.
I vaguely sensed a level that was higher, deeper, and more hidden than the material realm. It was the place where cause and effect, concepts, and other such things resided, and also where the essence of the Ancient Moon God lay.
If this world is a vast ocean, and the Ancient Moon Goddess is a man-eating, vicious fish dwelling within it, then my act of burning her physical body was nothing more than shattering the fleeting reflections on the surface of the sea with a harpoon.
The wicked fish lurking beneath the surface fled in panic, and in my imagination, the harpoon seemed to pierce deep beneath the water's surface—the flames burning towards its very essence. However, the wicked fish was far more adept at swimming than I was; it followed the current, brushing past the edge of the harpoon, and escaped into the deeper waters.
However, the harpoon did not come away empty-handed. Just as it grazed the scales of the monstrous fish, the sharp edge of the harpoon sliced open its belly, and a large amount of blood gushed out, staining the seawater red.
My flames destroyed her essence.
In the real material world, the ancient moon god, who had just vanished into thin air, reappeared from not far away.
She was still dressed in white, but her exposed hands and neck bore large areas of burns, and her clothes were torn in many places. Bloodstains soaked through the white fabric, revealing a shocking patch of deep red beneath.
(End of this chapter)
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