The Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation did not directly answer my question, but his words seed to openly suggest an association with Shan Liangyi’s stance.
Yet, if it is rely to harvest my Power Seed, it still can’t prove that the Taoyuan Village Master is Shan Liangyi. The forr Water Navy Xuanwu also wanted to harvest my Power Seed to increase his own strength for future confrontations with Shan Liangyi.
Moreover, the way the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation responded also caught my attention. He doesn’t seem like a living person... Of course, given his current giant hand form, he doesn’t even resemble a person, but I’m referring to his reactions. This impression of a non-conversational dialogue makes feel like I’m speaking to a bizarrely-shaped wall.
He resembles a machine sculpture that reacts to external changes, with responses only deriving from pre-programd outputs due to a lack of genuine intelligence. His reason for answering off-topic is because his programming isn’t flexible enough to engage in proper dialogue with humans.
Given the level at which I imagine the Taoyuan Village Master operates, creating an incarnation with intelligent awareness shouldn’t be difficult. The awkwardness we see here might rely be because this incarnation wasn’t designed for conversation.
If that’s the case, then this incarnation likely doesn’t even possess the most basic conversational capabilities. However, this incarnation is essentially a manifestation of the Taoyuan Village Master’s mana, or in other words, a materialization of his spirit and thought. Therefore, unless specifically prohibited, it would, like an echo in a valley, respond to external sounds.
Also, this is just my perception, but it seems the Taoyuan Village Master’s true self is observing this battle from behind the scenes.
I can vaguely sense a watchful presence, gazing at , and also at the weapon in my hand. From this ethereal intuition, I detect a hint of apprehension, as if the Taoyuan Village Master’s true self is wary of this unfamiliar weapon.
"Why did you establish a ’Paradise’?" I attempted to gather intelligence from the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation, "Is it really, as your subordinates said, to create an ultimate existence and be its mind?"
The Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation continued attacking , and simultaneously, responding abstractly to my question again, "Fengdu Luoshan... utterly shallow."
"What?" I asked in confusion.
"Extraordinaryism, Governance Ideology, and various other ideologies... still trapped in low-dinsional discussions, Luo Mountain cannot establish an ideal order," he replied.
"Is your goal not to beco the ultimate existence, but to create a new social order?"
Just like Gua Tianshi and Fa Zheng? I pondered as I pressed on, "Through integrating everyone into a dream network?"
"Old order is the embodint of justice," the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation continued his off-topic rant, "Only order can bring harmony to the human heart. When harmony is broken, people will hate and seek to eliminate the disrupting factors, thus finding harmony once more, and order will reform."
"Unlike hate, love can even be born out of harmony. Once love erges, it desires pursuit. When different pursuits clash, harmony breaks. Historically, whenever order collapses from internal causes, love is the inevitable reason for the inner collapse."
"Hence, hate is the force of justice, while love is the force of evil."
"And in the future, the order of a new epoch shall descend..."
I was lost in his perplexing discourse, unable to follow the communication state of this Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation. Moreover, with societal order being shattered, shouldn’t it be economic issues or war-related problems? Or perhaps he is deconstructing and explaining it within his own worldview?
I wasn’t keen on exploring worldview issues with this phenonon-like incarnation. Since it was impossible to gather intelligence smoothly, it was ti to push this battle to its final stage.
The Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation seems to sense my resolve, gathering his strength.
"——Without love and hate, the ultimate life with a tranquil heart shall be born."
Still incomprehensible, the incarnation murmured like a somnambulistic chant, with a massive blue thunder gathering in the palm of the blue luminous giant hand.
anwhile, I raised the cinder straight sword, with the flas sealed inside beginning to stir actively. The glowing red blocks on the sword’s surface gradually expanded and connected, eventually covering the entire blade.
The cinder straight sword transford into an orange-red sword of light, reminiscent of the flas of a solar prominence leaping along the blade’s surface. The high temperature perated the area around , causing large-scale spatial distortion. Mana fluctuations, far surpassing the ’Eclipse,’ raged and spread, blowing and evaporating all falling debris within a ten-mile radius, pushing the destructive heat waves further away.
On the opposite side, the highly condensed blue thunder ford into a beam akin to a God’s spear, aiming and striking towards at high speed. For this attack, I neither attempted to evade nor intended to counter it with my own attack, instead, I directly swung the cinder straight sword towards the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation, launching a massive fla Sword Qi.
Unlike the black flas of ’Eclipse,’ which absorb light, this fla burned with star-like brilliance, incinerating everything. Even space itself was scorched, ignoring the distance in between, it bypassed the thunder beam and reached the target in an instant.
This approach caused not to manage the thunder beam in ti, striking on the spot, shattering both my body and soul. Needless to say, such an attack, not targeting my True Spirit, posed no mortal threat to .
Considering possible future battles with the Taoyuan Village Master, perhaps it is best to save this ace for the next encounter. However, if not used now, the battle would be prolonged, potentially leading to the sa futile exposure as in the battle with Ming Zhuo. So it’s better to use it promptly in a valuable mont.
The Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation clearly did not anticipate my sudden implentation of this "mutually assured destruction" tactic. Of course, if this truly were mutually assured destruction, exchanging my true form for just an incarnation would certainly be worth it. For now, however, he appears unable to handle my fla Sword Qi, and was imdiately split in two. These two parts ignited from the sections, engulfed in flas, and utterly destroyed.
With a single strike, the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation was defeated.
The Sword Qi soared far beyond, exploding in the distance, severely damaging the entire spatial isolation of ’Paradise,’ shaking like a self-contained reality space on the brink of destruction.
This Different Space is about to collapse.
Nevertheless, I didn’t have a feeling that I could continue delving into the ’Paradise,’ instead, it felt like I was being summoned back to the real world, ready to log out at any mont.
I restored my body and soul, and in the unseen realm, the gaze from what seed to belong to the Taoyuan Village Master’s true self also transmitted an unexpected emotion.
"Although I’m not sure if you are Shan Liangyi, since you truly intend to ’harvest’ , then next ti, bring your true self before ," I said facing that gaze.
The gaze still didn’t respond, just silently watching .
The scenery of the collapsing Different Space vanished from my view like a candle extinguished by the wind.
-
When my vision returned, I was back in the upper levels of an unfinished building. I was still standing before the "Preacher," with Zhu Shi and Xiaoqiao standing beside . It felt as if I had just stood there for a nap, dreaming about the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation.
"How long has it been?" I asked.
"What ’how long’..."
Zhu Shi paused, and then said, "Wait, did you really invade ’Paradise’?"
"Only an instant passed?" I saw this from Zhu Shi’s reaction.
Setting aside other matters, the inconsistency of ti flow inside and outside ’Paradise’ appears to be true, even for the isolation zone. In the worldview of so demon hunters, especially those using Illusion Techniques, the passage of ti is rely an illusion. As long as one can inject years’ worth of information into a mont, it can create the illusion of years passing in an instant for the individual.
"You really gave a fright! Why do sothing so reckless? That’s the Taoyuan Village Master’s den." Zhu Shi said.
"It’s not like I fully went in, or should I say I only went in a little..." I habitually intended to change the subject, "In any case, let’s talk about it later, we should first... hmm?"
At that mont, I noticed sothing else unusual. Zhu Shi also noticed it, furrowing her brows as she looked at the "Preacher" on the ground.
"Dead?" she said.
The "Preacher" now lay there, eyes wide open, without any breath. I briefly sensed that the seed of the heart inside him had disappeared, and his connection with ’Paradise’ was gone.
I was initially thinking about continuing to use the "Preacher" to try and invade ’Paradise’ again. Evidently, the Taoyuan Village Master wasn’t naive enough to leave such a backdoor for . I’ll have to abandon this route for now.
Nonetheless, defeating the Taoyuan Village Master’s incarnation wasn’t without gains. I could sense that my flas had acquired a new piece of Impermanence-grade "slag."
For now, "slag" is no longer a baffling trophy, but a crucial material for enhancent.
Just like the ’Eclipse,’ though imnsely powerful, requires charge ti, the cinder straight sword also needs more charging ti to unleash power far beyond the ’Eclipse.’ If I want to repeatedly unleash mighty strikes with the cinder straight sword during battle, it requires even more charging ti.
This ti is certainly trying during combat, but insignificant in non-combat states. An increase in "slag" ans a higher charging limit for the cinder straight sword, enhancing burst ti after entering battle.
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