Chapter 590 Xuanming's Sniping 2
Ordinary people cannot perceive what I am seeing with the naked eye. This orange flame, hurtling towards the small bowl, is spreading from some unknown, distant space, and it will reach our fifteenth-floor room in just a fraction of a second.
Without a word, I grabbed Xiaowan's shoulder and rushed out of the fifteenth-floor room. The scene before me instantly changed, and I found myself in the stratosphere, high in the air, with Xiaowan.
The clouds we typically see above the Earth's surface range from hundreds to thousands of meters, even reaching tens of thousands of meters. Ancient people imagined the celestial realm situated above the clouds. But we are now in an airspace over 40,000 meters above the ground. The clouds have been left far, far below our feet.
Even at this height, the orange flame persisted relentlessly, and my spatial teleportation barely created any distance. Seeing that escape was impossible, I had no choice but to unleash my strongest form.
Without wasting a moment, the slag weapon wasn't summoned into my hand, but rather summoned directly within my body. In an instant, I entered my third corona form. Because Little Bowl had already confirmed the destruction of the Great Demon Xuanwu, my nemesis, it was natural that she didn't allow the blessing on my body to remain in a mode leaning towards the wrong evolutionary path. On the way to the fifteenth-floor basement, she switched the blessing on my body back to normal mode. I'm now in excellent condition.
Two extremely dense orange-red flames erupted simultaneously. One flame enveloped me and Xiaowan like a cocoon, while the other flame collided with the incoming orange-yellow flame.
Both my flames and the enemy's flames possessed extremely explosive and destructive power. It was as if two super-powerful nuclear weapons had collided with a roar, the two balls of fire colliding and instantly creating a world-shattering explosion. The shockwave spread out like a tidal wave, shattering the clouds far below us and exposing the landscape on the ground beneath.
Standing so high in the air, the cities and countryside below appeared shrunk to the size of satellite images. This massive shockwave likely affected distant urban areas, causing some casualties and damage to public property, though probably not to a great extent. It was clear that the owner of the orange flames was somewhat restrained, and I, too, was prepared to defend and counterattack, aiming to neutralize their attack.
However, this so-called "convergence" is limited to restraint in scale, while there is no ambiguity in density. If the gap in skill level with the opponent is too large, it is impossible to offset it.
The enemy's intentions might include avoiding unnecessary casualties, but more likely they didn't want to kill Xiaowan. The orange flames heading straight for Xiaowan aimed to capture her alive. As for the enemy's true identity, it could be deduced simply from this fluctuation of magical power.
The little bowl I was holding also came to her senses. The overwhelming surge of magical power, like a mountain collapsing, made her face turn pale. She murmured in a pained voice, "Number Four, Xuanming...?"
The orange flames reappeared, but this time they didn't attack the small bowl. Instead, they coalesced into the outline of a human body opposite me.
The humanoid flame made a sound.
"...So you were with Number Two, Zhuang Cheng," the humanoid flame said. "And...I didn't expect you to have made such great progress."
"Last time, when the Void Realm was destroyed, you were almost unable to stop my flames, but this time you are able to match me..."
His voice was very serious. I could tell that he truly considered me a formidable rival.
The attacker's true identity was Xuan Ming.
It's truly heartbreaking.
In the past, I borrowed the power of the Flame of Profound Illumination to defeat Mingzhuo. If it weren't for the foreshadowing that Profound Illumination left within Mingzhuo's body, the outcome would have been drastically different. For Mingzhuo to kill me wouldn't have been much more difficult than for me killing the Great Demon Xuanwu and Huangquan. The difference between an immature, newly appointed Great Impermanence and a seasoned Great Impermanence is truly immense.
Now, I can actually hold my own against the flames manipulated by Xuanming himself, and I even received the assessment from him that we are "evenly matched." This comparison made me deeply aware of my significant progress in strength.
Of course, I didn't forget that Xiao Wan's contribution was part of my strength. It wasn't just my own power. While feeling a great sense of accomplishment, I also maintained my composure and calmly analyzed the timing of Xuan Ming's surprise attack.
His actions were almost like he was lying in wait at the exit of the basement on the fifteenth floor, specifically waiting for us to appear before launching a surprise attack. Such a coincidence was truly perplexing. However, I quickly figured out what was going on.
Yu Chi once told me that he could use the connection between the fragments of the Divine Seal to track down Xiao Wan and Number Seven, who were located in the "Apocalyptic Era." However, because they were separated by different dimensions, he couldn't pinpoint their exact location; at most, he could only confirm their existence. He also gave me a heads-up—while trying to track Xiao Wan and Number Seven, he sensed another signal attempting to locate Xiao Wan.
Besides him, only the Lord of the Divine Seal and Xuanming could do such a thing.
It was obvious that the source of that signal was Xuanming. He couldn't lock onto the little bowl before because we were in different dimensions, but after I brought the little bowl into the real world, he locked onto it in an instant and immediately activated his fire power to capture it on the spot.
"Xuanming, what is your purpose?" I asked. "Why do you want to take Xiaowan away?"
“This isn’t the first time I’ve targeted this child. You must have thought about it a lot since we parted ways last time,” Xuanming said. “I’ll just admit it to you directly—yes, I’ve set my sights on this child’s status as a child of divinity. I’m going to initiate the sacrificial ritual, and she is an indispensable living sacrifice.”
"For what?" I pressed.
"In order to use the power of the ritual to pinpoint the real location of the Lord of the Divine Seal," Xuanming answered very frankly, "the end of the world is a disaster brought about by the Lord of the Divine Seal. I want to eliminate this culprit and nip all the problems in the bud."
"You mean, the Lord of the Divine Seal is a living person who went unpunished after bringing about the apocalypse to this world and is now active somewhere?" I said.
“Not bad.” Xuanming nodded.
“Then I can tell you directly that the Lord of the Divine Seal we saw in the past was the consciousness of the Divine Seal itself. The true Lord of the Divine Seal—the ‘Seal Bearer’—is most likely the God-Deity of the Gospel Institute, who has long since died. The current Lord of the Divine Seal is either a consciousness created by the Seal Bearer, or a ghost attached to the Divine Seal after the Seal Bearer’s death,” I said. “In either case, the Lord of the Divine Seal cannot be an entity capable of operating in the real world.”
"--oh?"
Xuanming's gaze, cast from the flames, was filled with a serious and scrutinizing attitude.
"Besides," I said, "even if you did find the Lord of the Divine Seal and had a way to destroy him, what then?" The root of the apocalypse lies in a flawed human history. Even if the culprit disappears, the flawed history won't automatically return to normal. It's like executing a murderer doesn't automatically resurrect the murdered victim…
"If your goal is to save the world, aren't you just wasting your energy in a completely pointless direction?"
Xuanming said thoughtfully, "...You seem to already know a lot of the truth."
“I don’t need to tell you these truths; you should already understand them very well,” I said. “You must have already had some contact with the Gospel House in the afterlife. To win you over, they’ve probably already told you the whole truth about the end of the world. You were the one who entrusted Yama, the Lord of the Gospel House, to find the small bowl in the afterlife, weren’t you? Have you already joined the Gospel House?”
"Join the Gospel House... Me? To advance that worthless human slaughter plan?" Xuanming smiled dismissively.
He doesn't seem to be a supporter of the human extermination plan, but he seems to tacitly acknowledge that he was behind the scenes instigating the Fukuin Institute's manhunt for Kobo.
“Zhuang Cheng, perhaps you do know some information that I don’t know, but correspondingly, I also know some truths that you don’t know,” Xuan Ming said. “First of all, you’ve misunderstood something very important. Tai Sui is indeed a character with an extremely deep connection to the Divine Seal, and it’s understandable that you would mistake him for the owner of the Divine Seal… but he is not the true ‘Seal Bearer’.”
"The real culprit who found the divine seal in the forbidden land and brought about the end of the world is someone else."
"—What?" I asked, surprised.
“Secondly, there is an inseparable connection between ‘finding the culprit’ and ‘saving the world’,” Xuanming said. “The current divine seal is in a contradictory state of being both fragmented and intact. Although we can only access the fragmented divine seal now, there is still a complete divine seal in the hands of the one who holds it.”
"Because of the contradictory state, even the one who holds the seal may not be able to wield the power of the divine seal to their satisfaction. However, if we want to restore the divine seal to its true and complete state, we must obtain the complete divine seal from the one who holds the seal."
"Only the divine seal can repair this flawed world."
"That despicable and shameless Yama dares not use the divine seal to save the world, but I dare."
Xuanming seems to possess some secrets unfamiliar to me. Where did he learn them? From Yama, the Lord of the Gospel Court? Or from some other unknown source?
“From your flames, I can feel an incredibly strong will to protect you. Even if I ask you for Number Two, you will not hand it over. It seems I have no way to capture it for the time being,” Xuanming said. “Let’s leave it at that for now, but in the near future, after I have resolved things with Meng Zhang, I will come back to settle things with you.”
After saying this, the ball of flame, shaped like a human, exploded. Xuanming vanished before our eyes.
(End of this chapter)
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