Chapter 311 The Power of Great Impermanence 1
The naval Xuanwu actually has a second "Golden Core", and it can even retrieve the Xuanming magic power it released earlier!
This recycling seems to be contingent on him having a spare "Golden Core." I can tell that he doesn't manipulate these magical powers himself, but rather needs the "Golden Core" as a "device" to issue simple commands to so much Xuanming magical power.
Presumably, a "Golden Core" is not something he can refine casually; he must have spent a considerable amount of time preserving and compressing his magical power within it. Judging from the fact that the quality of the second "Golden Core" was far inferior to the first when it was first taken out, he probably won't be able to produce a third "Golden Core."
I thought it would be remarkable enough that he could unleash the ultimate technique of the Great Impermanence Domain even once, but he clearly still had power left over. For someone at the Great Completion level to achieve this level is truly unprecedented.
Seeing this, I stopped observing and instead summoned flames out of thin air from the empty wasteland, which then coalesced into my own human form.
Not only my fire elemental body, but even my soul has been condensed. My flame is my spirit; from this perspective, what I'm doing now is creating my own soul from scratch.
Even though my soul was completely annihilated, I didn't die. Now I don't quite understand what I have to go to die. On the other hand, being able to maintain myself while losing both my body and soul—although I can't understand what this state is, one thing is very clear: I must be maintaining myself through superpowers. In other words, my self is unprecedentedly and closely intertwined with superpowers.
Perhaps this is related to the fact that all powers have entered a state of liberation. Not only that, I also feel that my control over my powers has become far smoother than before. It's not that the response speed of the powers has become faster, but rather a very strange experience. It's like how in the past I would say "My flame is my spirit," but in reality I only treated my superpowers as something external, while now I have truly become one with them.
However, I don't feel like I've reached a new peak. It's more like I've finally jumped out of a well and arrived at a new realm where the sky is high and the earth is vast.
In my mind, I compared myself to the Great Impermanence I had once encountered, to Xuanming, Shenzhao, the Divination Master, and Mingzhuo, with whom I had a brief "clash"...
I am absolutely certain that I have now truly stepped into the realm of impermanence.
As evidence, I now appear to be able to manipulate the remaining Xuanming Flame within the soul of the Water Master Xuanwu. Of course, I don't intend to do that. Rather than relying on the power left behind by Xuanming's past, I'd rather try out my own new power.
I condensed my body and soul in front of the Water Master Xuanwu. As soon as the fire appeared, he retreated to a distance as if he had been electrocuted, and a look of horror appeared on his face, just like an ordinary person seeing a corpse come to life.
While the strange world is full of wonders, my unscathed resurrection was clearly beyond his comprehension. He must have had absolute confidence in his deadly attack. In fact, that attack could have genuinely killed me—that's my assessment from my perspective as the Great Impermanence.
Enough power can distort all reason; his killing move just now reached that level. Even if he hadn't anticipated that I could survive after my body and mind were destroyed, and couldn't comprehend the concept of sustaining oneself solely on heat, as long as a disciplined and clear killing intent existed within that dark, mysterious power, I would have been doomed. The reason he didn't kill me was because he couldn't fully control that power.
Because he infused killing intent into a vast power disproportionate to his own, the killing intent was diluted. This was the drawback of him attempting to wield the power of the Great Impermanence when he wasn't one. He merely threw a mass of power at him, and most of that power was released in ways that deviated from its intended purpose. His ability to recover it afterward was probably partly due to this.
However, he was no ordinary man after all. The moment he realized that I was not dead, his eyes suddenly became very resolute.
"Really? You actually..." He revealed a desperate, reckless attitude, "Since that's the case—"
As he spoke, he crushed the "golden elixir" in his hand once more.
The deep, dark light reappeared in his hand, and he pointed it at me.
Perhaps he understands what my resurrection means, or even sees that I have become the Great Impermanence. But it's too late for him to escape now; my senses have completely locked onto him. Even if he were to try to escape, he would at least have to use up that "Golden Core" to slightly distract me.
The black light erupted once again, sweeping towards me in an overwhelming manner.
A sense of danger rose within me. Unlike the previous finishing move, though seemingly the same technique, the Water Master Xuanwu appeared to have changed its attack pattern. A quality that truly threatened my own self had emerged. No wonder he dared to assassinate the Great Impermanence; even at this point, he could still surprise me.
At the same time, I also launched my own attack.
Without any fancy moves, he simply concentrated the flames in his palm and then unleashed a massive, train-like beam of fire. It was the same move as before, but with a higher level of magical power, it displayed terrifying destructive force. This attack could destroy even a mountain, just like the previous attack by the Naval Xuanwu.
I have no intention of holding back; this is my full-force attack. In terms of total power alone, it's roughly on par with the ultimate technique of the Water Master Xuanwu. The latter's dark and mysterious magic completely counters my water attribute, but its weakness is that he cannot control it, while I can fully control my own power. What will be the result when the two collide?
The answer was revealed in the next instant.
The fiery beam utterly shattered the dark Xuanming magic, then devoured the naval Xuanwu behind it, and simultaneously crashed into the half-destroyed Moonshadow Mountain. This time, the mountain wasn't shattered; the seemingly spectacular display of power from the dark Xuanming magic was merely a waste of its aftershocks due to its inability to control the force. My fiery beam pierced through the half-destroyed mountain peak like a red-hot iron needle piercing black tofu.
After the light disappeared, the Water Master Xuanwu vanished like a drop of water evaporating instantly in a fire.
He couldn't possibly have survived that attack. If he were whole, he might have been able to escape; after all, even Xuanming couldn't stop him, so I probably couldn't either. However, he doesn't have that ability now. With his battered soul, there's no possibility of him escaping the pain again like he did with Xuanming.
Unfortunately, now that he is dead, I will no longer be able to obtain the Divine Elixir from him.
Don't cling to things that are hopeless. We'll find other ways to heal Ma Zao's soul later. Now that I'm a Great Impermanence, maybe I can do something about it. Besides, on second thought, losing the possibility of obtaining the Divine Elixir isn't necessarily a bad thing—although according to the Diviner's prophecy, "giving up the Divine Elixir" doesn't necessarily mean "saving Chang'an," by eliminating the former possibility, perhaps all my luck will be focused on the latter.
This is more akin to superstition than speculation. But now I've decided to believe in this superstition for once.
I moved towards the mountaintop.
My initial plan was to severely injure the naval commander Xuanwu, then use the fake Moon in the Water to investigate his consciousness and see how he intended to break through the fog to find the Silver Moon. However, just like the inability to obtain the Divine Elixir, this plan has become impossible. Fortunately, I no longer need to worry about his plan.
Now I can vaguely sense that another aura, completely different from that of the Water Master Xuanwu, yet almost equally massive at the Great Completion level, is entrenched atop the half-destroyed Moon Concealment Mountain—that is the aura of the Silver Moon.
The mist, torn apart during the destruction of Moonshadow Mountain, is now rapidly closing in again. Perhaps the Water Master Xuanwu initially intended to forcefully break through this mist; I could do the same now, but there's no need. A fully-fledged Law of Heaven and Earth cannot stop the Great Impermanence, nor can it stop me.
I simply pressed on in the direction I sensed. Last time, I would have surely lost my way at some point, but this time I had no need to worry about that. I weaved through the mist, constantly closing the distance between myself and the aura of the silver moon. Soon, I reached the summit.
There was a clearing on the mountaintop, unshrouded in mist, a perfect spot for moon-gazing. I surveyed my surroundings, searching for the silvery moon. Then, driven by intuition, I looked up at the moon in the sky.
At some point, a cocoon of moonlight, large enough to envelop a human body, replaced the moon where it should have been. And upon closer inspection, the cocoon wasn't even that high off the ground. It was as if the moonlight cocoon had always been hanging there, merely using optical illusion to mislead people into thinking it was the moon.
The moment I noticed the moonlight cocoon, it slowly descended and then shattered into countless particles of light just a few meters above the ground.
The silver moon emerged from it.
At first, she had her eyes closed and her body curled up, like a fetus in its mother's womb, in a sleeping posture; then, she slowly opened her eyes, and then slowly stretched out her limbs, floating and standing in the air.
She lowered her head and looked down at me, who was standing on the ground.
"You're late... Zhuang Cheng," she said calmly. "I've completely healed the burns you caused last time, and I'm in excellent condition now."
"And in Moonshadow Mountain, the power I can unleash is far beyond what a mere Great Completion level demon hunter like you can compare to. You... hmm?"
As she spoke, she noticed something was amiss around her. She looked closely at the half-destroyed Moonshadow Mountain and then fell into a brief silence.
"...What happened to Moonshadow Mountain?" she asked blankly.
(End of this chapter)
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