The lighthouse shuddered violently.
The dazzling glare of flame that filled heaven and earth seemed to freeze as well.
"What the hell...?"
Lou Feng looked up blankly, staring at the endless blossoms bursting from the boughs of the crystal tree... and felt the suffocating pressure that had weighed on him all this time vanish without a trace.
Yet why did he instinctively feel that these pure flowers were even more terrifying than the erosion of the Realm of Sinking?!
The aberrations across the entire Seven Cities ground to an abrupt halt.
Or rather... the quagmire of sinking had now been invaded by a catastrophe named Isis!
Even before this—even before Fernand revealed his true colors—Ji Jue had already personally sown the seeds of this aberration!
The existence of reified aberrations posed no obstacle whatsoever; on the contrary, it was precisely the foundation of reification that allowed Isis's assimilation of these creations to flow as smoothly and effortlessly as drifting clouds and flowing water!
As long as I kill the hostages myself, you kidnappers can forget about extorting a ransom!
As long as I ruin everything first, there will be nothing left for anyone else to ruin.
Five days ago, the moment Ji Jue made up his mind, countless seeds of Isis—too minuscule to be discerned by the naked eye—had already spread silently across the Seven Cities through the circulation of goods, through commodities traded out by Haian on the black market, and through the grain, medicine, and phlogiston Ji Jue had secretly trafficked.
In the wind, in the water, on bank notes and rust—coordinates had been planted silently upon every living being, omnipresent.
This was Ji Jue's true preparation.
Pulling the firewood from beneath the cauldron!
No matter what his opponent wanted to do, as long as he seized everything in his own grasp first, the other party wouldn't achieve a single thing... Even if his opponent sought mutual destruction, they would first have to consider whether what they held in their hands had already turned into a bomb big enough to blow everything to kingdom come!
And now, when Fernand's true goal came to light, Isis's objective quietly shifted...
Sinking, is it? A quagmire, is it? Stagnant Rot aberrations, is it?
Fine. Okay. No problem!
Let's do it together!
Either way, taking is taking—if you can touch it, why the hell can't I?
Instead of leaving it to a dog like you, why shouldn't it be mine!
Now, after prolonged preparation and erosion, in a single instant, blossoms burst forth across all Seven Cities. A brand-new hell was born out of the old one; boundless pale flowers sprouted from the quagmire.
Wresting control of countless souls right out of Fernand's grasp...
"Ha, haha, hahahahaha—"
Fernand's expression twitched once, then twitched again. His lips convulsed, curling upward as he watched everything before him, his pupils bloodshot, his eyes threatening to tear at the corners.
Amidst unprecedented fury, he actually let out an uncontrollable laugh.
He felt only an unprecedented absurdity and ridicule.
What was this about "I'm no saint either"?
What was this "In that case, I won't pretend to be a gentleman anymore"?
Dammit, were the Embers blind?!
Open your damn eyes and look—who the fuck is the Stagnant Rot here?!
Were all those old bastards in the Association fucking idiots? What kind of monster did you raise? What the hell did this 'promising talent of the Embers' of yours just conjure up!
He looked down, staring at the petals slowly drifting from the sky. Reaching out a hand, he gazed at the counterfeit creation formed from a wisp of quicksilver in his palm.
In merely an instant, he glimpsed Isis's true nature, using his own malice to deduce Ji Jue's purpose and thoughts... and even the sinister intent and sheer madness behind its creation.
He could no longer help feeling as if he had plunged into an icy abyss.
How could there be an artisan like this, chaining himself to slave away like a beast of burden for his own creation...
Who was the master, and who was the slave?!
"Are you insane?!"
Fernand demanded hoarsely, "Ji Jue, where do you get the nerve to call yourself an Ember? What kind of thing have you created?! What do you take an artisan for—"
"None of your damn business!"
Ji Jue reached out, plucked the white flower growing from his chest pocket, gently inhaled its fragrance, and replied with a shameless grin, "Because I feel like it!"
Boom!
Amidst the endlessly spreading pale blossoms, the rampaging flames of Stagnant Rot rapidly dimmed. Brutal aberrations were overwritten by even more brutal aberrations; malicious erosion was superseded by even more malicious erosion.
Everywhere, at every second, the struggle and contest had already ignited in every corner of the Seven Cities!
Like a tug-of-war, vying for the ownership of souls!
"Come on, Fernand!"
Ji Jue spread his arms, full of anticipation. "Since you love talking about 'All Things Self-Transform' so much, let's see it then...
"Between your creation and mine, whose is superior?"
Fernand's expression gradually contorted, fury and malice churning incessantly. In the end, all that showed on his fractured face was a determination and contempt identical to Ji Jue's.
"Then let's have it!"
With a wave of his hand, beyond the One-Foot Staff, phantoms of creations emerged one after another around him, locking onto his foe.
Embers and Profound, artisan and artisan.
Now they stood on the exact same line, both showing their true colors.
Whether in morality or motives, both had plunged into the abyss and the mire; in arrogance and rebellion, there was no longer any difference between them.
There was no need for accusations of justice, nor any moral trials.
Only one thing remained.
A duel by any means necessary, completely unprincipled and dirty to the core!
Until death!
And just like that...
In a single clash, Ji Jue was shattered to pieces!
From Fernand's casual disruption alone, under a derailed three-phase cycle, the Rebirth Form completely broke down—severed at the waist, limbs flying apart.
Naturally, under the suppression of the Path of Sinking, Ji Jue's execution was so warped he practically felt like drooling, and his tactical awareness was shockingly poor; he hadn't even been able to see through Fernand's slight probes and lures.
Yet before he even hit the ground, the follow-up attack was dispelled by the blossoms.
Under Isis's repair, in the snap of a finger, Ji Jue was restored to wholeness once more, standing before Fernand again.
"Feels like I'm getting the hang of it a bit."
Without a trace of dejection, Ji Jue smiled and beckoned warmly. "Again!"
"It will be the same no matter how many times you try, Ji Jue! You are far too inferior!"
Fernand pointed a finger again, effortlessly tearing Ji Jue down once more.
Yet this time, the mechanical body sputtering with noise and billowing smoke did not blow apart completely as he had expected.
Amid flying sparks, that metallic face lifted, grinning at him:
"...Doesn't seem quite that far off, does it?"
Zhanlu shot forth, its spirit essence wailing shrilly as it carved a clawing, thrashing black trajectory through the air, terrifying heat rolling outward.
Yet it failed to affect Fernand.
It was on the verge of dispersing before it even reached him. With its thermal energy running wild, it had completely dissipated halfway there, not even qualifying as a light gust of frost.
Instead, one of Ji Jue's arms was melted into molten iron.
Ji Jue shook his arm, flicking away the melted elbow. Lowering his gaze, he manifested complex structures from thin air, only for them to burst apart, impossible to stabilize. So he simplified them, and simplified them again, until at last only a hydraulically driven joint and five fingers actuated by cable tension remained.
Didn't matter—so long as it worked.
Pity it didn't get to be used. Before he could even lift his head, he went flying backward. His shattered skull regenerated and pieced itself back together amidst the blossoms once more.
Once again, he stood before Fernand.
"Please, continue."
The artisan reduced to mediocrity smiled cordially, asking for instruction.
In those pitch-black eyes that seemed pieced together from metal, blazing light flared with excitement, burning as he challenged an insurmountable foe far beyond his depth.
Amidst the erosion of endless sinking, he drew his sword once more!
This time, Ji Jue lasted only two moves, undone by his own foolish decisions and distorted control, spun in circles like an absolute fool.
Yet the chagrin of failure could not mask an indescribable novelty and exhilaration.
When foreseeable possibilities blurred completely, when his inexplicable intuition deserted him, everything once familiar became so foreign. It was like getting to know and comprehend it all over again, exploring from a completely new and different perspective.
It was as though a toy long taken for granted had suddenly revealed new ways to play and evolve, brimming with surprises and discoveries...
He seemed to understand a bit, yet seemed not to understand at all.
There was only joy and delight, not a shred of despondency.
He laughed out loud.
"Again!"
Boom!
Under furious devastation, the reckless challenger fell apart again and again; had it not been for Isis, not even his bones would have remained.
Sound of Grain, which accumulated minute wounds until the mountain of accumulated damage transformed into a fatal injury; Pure Panic, which erased all spiritus variations of an opponent and instantly rendered relevant alchemical theories and applied techniques invalid and null; One-Foot Staff, which infinitely divided an opponent until they vanished into nothingness...
So many of the creations Fernand took pride in could not finish off an opponent who had completely lost his talent and genius, while that opponent managed to scrape by with clumsy, bizarre maneuvers.
Wolf's malice perception and neural reflexes; Chunjun's accelerated perception and spiritus flash; and even the spatial transit and jumps of the Myriad Phenomena Engine.
No matter how many times, even if Ji Jue was blown to smithereens, as long as a single scrap remained, a mechanical body would piece itself back together before Fernand.
As long as Isis remained, no defeat or trauma, however horrific, mattered in the slightest.
It was as if Ji Jue treated him like some dungeon boss to farm and challenge repeatedly—and was even having fun doing it.
Yet at this very moment, Fernand could hardly exert his full strength, finding even moving forward arduous... What he felt were wave after wave of groans and fractures tearing from the remnant body of the Celestial-Human.
An illusory weight was manifesting upon his soul, dragging him down, seeking to pull him from the heavens straight into the mire!
Even to drop into the abyss...
The Celestial-Human Foundation was achieved through the sinking of the Seven Cities.
Yet now, as more and more souls in the quagmire of the Seven Cities struggled to stand back up, the bedrock of the Realm of Sinking began to shake.
The Celestial-Human Foundation that had ascended on that basis was now being pulled down by the futile struggles of countless ordinary mortals, showing signs of falling!
The flames of Stagnant Rot were dimming and shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Like a candle guttering in the wind.
Crack!
As Ji Jue's shattered body rose once more before Fernand, the sound of fracturing rang out. Across Fernand's face, a winding crack appeared.
Like a blade, it fractured his expression of shock and rage.
"What are you doing?!"
He sensed everything across the Seven Cities, feeling countless souls ceaselessly struggling and rioting. Without even needing further erosion from Isis, they were like a boiling cauldron, desperate to break free from Fernand's grasp.
Fernand's body staggered for an instant, barely able to keep his balance. He demanded:
"What the fuck did you do?!"
"Huh? I didn't do anything. Wasn't I just getting the crap beaten out of me by you?"
Ji Jue, who had been smashed to pieces on the ground, stood up again, spread his hands, and put on an innocent look. "At most, I just handed out some flyers along the way..."
...Flyers!
Fernand's pupils constricted. He looked up, staring into the sky as countless silvery glints—fluttering like drifting snow—manifested out of nothingness, swirling down toward the earth.
Falling into the ruins and into the quagmire.
Falling before him.
So weightless, yet this single sheet of paper surpassed countless lies and decrees, completely shaking the foundation of Stagnant Rot's sinking!
"Haian Group Seven Cities Industrial Park: First Major Recruitment Notice."
Chapter 782