Brilliant thunder descended from the sky, with the power to tear through space-ti, rushing towards the spot where He Ao stood.
He Ao lifted his head, glanced at Noctis ahead, and his entire body instantly vanished from the spot, avoiding the thunder.
But at the sa ti, Noctis’s body appeared beside him, raising a hand to strike at his neck.
He Ao’s body sharply twisted, evading the attack, but Noctis’s hand, like a parasitic worm, closely pursued his body.
It seed as if Noctis noticed the confusion in He Ao’s eyes, and he laughed heartily, "Are you surprised that my power level isn’t that of an ordinary person?"
He raised his hand, his palm forming a claw, his entire being streaking across the sky like a streak of light, "Outside, I am indeed a regular person you could kill with ease, but in this space, I am the absolute master, my power even surpasses yours."
At the mont his words dropped, his hand sliced through the void, tearing the surrounding space, spreading towards He Ao with pitch-black fissures.
The appearance of those fissures was hardly different from the space-ti rifts He Ao created outside the planet.
He Ao abruptly pulled his body away, dodging those fissures.
"What you can do outside, I can do here," Noctis’s laughter echoed from the source of the fissures, accompanied by a ripping sound, as dense space-ti rifts exploded around He Ao like bizarre blooming flowers, "and I do it better than you."
Watching those space-ti rifts, He Ao’s body flickered for a mont and then retreated sharply, with those fissures following him, swiftly retreating.
In the next instant, he appeared beside Noctis.
"Diverting trouble? A child’s trick." Noctis sneered, raising a hand to grab He Ao by the neck as he charged in.
anwhile, the dense space-ti fissures chased and arrived by his side, encircling him, cutting off He Ao’s escape route.
He looked at He Ao, a slight smile on his lips, "Ignoring luck factors, you’re just an eighteen-year-old kid, how can you compare with in life experience or combat experience?"
As he spoke, He Ao’s neck almost touched his palm, as if offering itself up.
"I said, you’re just lucky," he chuckled lightly, stepping forward directly to clutch He Ao’s neck, "as long as your consciousness dies here, and I swallow your consciousness, everything of yours will belong to ."
However, the hand he extended caught nothing but air, and instead of encountering the neck he imagined squeezing, dense space-ti fissures arrived before him.
Imdiately after, a strong force struck his back, sending him flying into those space-ti fissures.
In that mont, he suddenly raised a hand, those space-ti fissures rapidly dissipating, yet a few remained, grazing his skin as he passed through them, leaving faintly visible wounds.
Under those wounds, no blood was visible, only a faint, hazy gray light.
"Shouldn’t your ability have remained outside?" Noctis turned his head to look at He Ao, a hint of surprise flashing across his face.
"This isn’t an ability," He Ao calmly gazed at him, shaking his head, "it’s just so pure martial arts techniques."
Aside from not being able to connect with extraordinary items, most of his power actually remained in his body outside, or rather, was isolated outside by that invisible ’wall.’
Even his Super mory ability was greatly weakened here; what was projected into this space now was only his core consciousness.
If it weren’t for that, Noctis wouldn’t dare to appear before him at all.
His gaze shifted downwards, sweeping over the wounds on Noctis’s body, a gleam of understanding flashing in his eyes.
It seed that in this space, core consciousnesses were, in a sense, ’equal.’
Noctis could kill He Ao, and He Ao could kill him.
In this space, Noctis’s status might be akin to that of a Martial Arts Angel in a world asserting their path, capable of controlling world power to so extent, but not omnipotent like a god.
He Ao glanced once more at Noctis’s wounds, noticing they had a tendency to heal but not quickly.
Hmm, not even as good as a Martial Arts Angel, who could at least receive continuous support from the world, with their body recovering quickly as long as they stood on the earth.
However, a world itself is an independent entity, whereas this space is just a technique deep within Noctis’s soul, and so they cannot be compared.
As He Ao pondered this, Noctis was also observing He Ao, his expression darkening, "I admit, being chosen ans you have sothing, but this is the end of the line for you."
The mont his words fell, He Ao suddenly felt his consciousness halt.
It was as if countless tiny blades pierced his soul, slicing into his consciousness, severing his soul and mories, dividing his flesh and blood.
In that instant, his body, his self, seed to be split into countless tiny fragnts.
"Let out!" "Let out!" "I don’t want to be crowded here!"
As those fragnts were cut apart, new consciousnesses began to sprout, each giving rise to its own self.
His flesh began to twist, his body to mutate.
Countless murmurs and ravings exploded in his mind, bombarding his self and consciousness, in this noisy ’Sea of Consciousness,’ he felt himself rapidly being torn apart and twisted.
His entire body froze in place, his field of view gradually blurring.
Tiny paths of light erged on his body, forming densely packed cracks.
Clap, clap, clap—
Crisp applause rang out in front of him.
Noctis lifted his head, gazing at He Ao, slowly walking over, smiling, "Did you think I kept talking to you because I was repressed for too long, and had an overwhelming urge to express?"
He stood in front of He Ao, sneering, "You know, from the mont you entered this space, your fate and outco were already determined. As you were scrutinizing this space, its power was also corroding you.
"Now, what entangles you is the most core power of this space.
"I said, compared to , you’re just a lucky kid."
A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, spreading all the way to his ears, "You think I want to do what to you? Kill you? And then what, swallow your consciousness with a mortal mind? Do you think I have no knowledge of mysticism at all? That would only pollute with your madness and turn into a raving monster."
He lifted his hand, fingers sliding through the air, tracing along the fissures of He Ao’s body, the flesh divided by the cracks squirming rapidly, desperately trying to leave He Ao’s body, "I will cut you into countless pieces, then kill them one by one, and devour them."
He looked up at He Ao, "Then, I will inherit everything from you, your power, your extraordinary items, and consu those bets placed on you by entities behind the scenes."
He paused slightly in his speech and glanced up at the sky.
The sky, filled with distorted clouds and glowing clouds, was rapidly becoming transparent, revealing a blurred and hazy view.
One side of the scene was the edge of a blue planet, on the other side, a massive spaceship.
The spaceship was now very close to the edge of the planet and still rapidly approaching.
"It’s unfortunate, this planet is going to be destroyed," Noctis lowered his head, looking at He Ao, "But it’s alright, I will take everything from you, inherit everything and leave this ti and space, to find a new world in the vast universe, and enjoy the eternal life you left."
As he said this, the corners of his mouth stretched further towards the back of his head, his smile growing wider.
"You believe so much in these invisible powers," He Ao said slowly, looking at him with a hoarse laugh, "How can you be sure that you’re controlling them, and not them controlling you?"
"At this point in ti, you’re still trying to disturb my state of mind?" Noctis watched He Ao’s growing cracks, his smile fading slightly, "Of course, I know these powers have issues, I haven’t been able to wield any extraordinary power for years, thanks to them."
He quietly gazed at He Ao, "If I weren’t troubled by these powers all the ti, why would I be so eager to seek your power and take a risk here?"
He split his mouth open into a grin again, "You should know, my original plan was to wait until you and those outer gods’ powers perished together, then co out to collect your corpse. That way, it would be much safer, but it would inevitably an losing most of your items and power,
"Moreover, I would have to face the ntally unstable Li Cheng’s attack. Even if I managed to snatch your Talent Sequences from Li Cheng, I still wouldn’t be able to digest all the Talent Sequences you left behind smoothly, and could only rely on these invisible forces in my soul to control them."
He gazed at He Ao, with a smile still on his lips, "So you’re really clever, I have to admit that,
"In just such a short ti, you figured out the flaws in my prophecy abilities, guessed I couldn’t foresee the entire future, and could only find ways to make the future I wanted occur.
"At the sa ti, you also guessed my troubles and purpose, custom-made such a ’trap’ for , forcing to co out, it’s no wonder there’s an entity willing to invest in you, you’re really, really smart."
Upon saying this, he paused, then split his mouth into a sneer, "But obviously, you lost the bet."
He gazed at He Ao, starting to rotate around He Ao’s body, "I know there’s so kind of secret you’re keeping, every ti I look at your related future, I can only get so blurry scenes, and the future scenarios I see are far less than others’, a lot of your possibilities are invisible to ,
"I know you’re betting, betting that I’ll co out, you deliberately set up a trap, pretended to be weak, just to make ’take a gamble’, to see if I could extract even bigger benefits."
His eyes remained on He Ao, "Honestly, I’ve hesitated for a very long ti, because no matter how I look at it, there are almost no successful scenarios for in this incident. In nearly all the blurry futures I can see, you kill .
"I can’t see the entire future, only so futures with relatively high probabilities, but even so, among these futures, my failure rate is too high.
"In all the years I’ve had power, I’ve never taken such a reckless risk.
"If it were a year ago, I absolutely wouldn’t take this risk.
"But I must say, the bait you offered was too tempting."
He stopped, looked at the spaceship in the sky above, and sighed deeply, "This world is indeed going to be destroyed, and I have no other choice either."
He lowered his head, his gaze focused on He Ao’s cracked, side of the face, watching the spider-web-like cracks, "If I waited as planned for you and the outer gods’ powers to perish, then I would never shake off control."
He shook his head and took a step back, keeping a slight distance as he gazed at He Ao, "But seeing the future does have one advantage, I can always attempt to push the future toward those that are best for , turning low-probability events into high-probability ones."
He Ao did not respond, rely lowering his head with a muddled gaze.
The cracks across his body gradually emitted an intangible gray light, the flesh separated by the cracks twisting even more violently.
This flesh, in essence, was also an evolution of He Ao’s core consciousness, and at this mont, his core consciousness was disintegrating.
Seeing this, Noctis finally seed to breathe a sigh of relief, and he looked at He Ao, smiling, "In the end, your consciousness is going to splinter now, ultimately, I’ve won."
He looked at He Ao, "Of course, I know you can’t speak anymore, after all, with your willpower of a re youngster, you can’t withstand this level of madness."
He sighed and looked at He Ao’s twisted and torn visage, "What a pity, you can’t hear completely explain why you failed."
He clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head, "Indeed, sotis, a person can feel very lonely."
"Actually," He Ao, who had been holding his head low, raised it, his cloudy gaze clearing as an ethereal grayish-purple light covered his pupils.
He gazed calmly at Noctis, at that mont, he seemingly couldn’t feel the distortion and mutation of his body anymore, rely sighed, "You’ve always prided yourself as the bettor, but how do you prove that you’re not a bet of soone else?"
Hearing this caused a change in Noctis’s expression, and without hesitation, he turned and ran.
He hadn’t encountered such a scene in any of the future scenarios he had seen.
This was not the future he wanted!
The void space around them began collapsing swiftly.
But at such a close range, his escape attempt was in vain; a gigantic distorted hand had already grabbed his shoulder.
He tried to draw upon the power of this space for support; the invisible gray light flickered, but it all appeared on He Ao’s body.
The core power of this space was splitting He Ao’s consciousness and could no longer be exerted upon him.
"You know," said a calm, hoarse voice behind the elderly, "you’ve kept trying to guide the future, trying to dominate others’ fate, but you don’t have reverence for the future and fate."
"You—"
Bam—
Just as Noctis was about to say sothing, a hand pierced through his back, went through his body, and grasped a phantom gray core within him.
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