*Boom! Boom. Boom! Boom! Boom!*
The crucial moment fell into Ji Jue's hands, and he unleashed his power with everything he had—five consecutive layers of Jingzhen executed in one breath, each one far stronger than the last!
After straining to the utmost within the Association's workshop to expand his body's bearing capacity, he squeezed every last drop of that capacity in a manner bordering on self-mutilation, not even hesitating to completely destroy his entire palm. This was not merely going all out; it was a sheer, beyond-limit burst of power!
Yet the question remained… was it of any use?
Perhaps it was, but one couldn't tell in the slightest!
A Grandmaster was, after all, a Grandmaster. Even if the workshop was currently frozen and shackled, unable to adapt to the situation, it still possessed an impregnable, horrifying defense.
Judged purely as a tortoise shell, its hardness was second to none throughout the entire Profound!
The shockwaves of Jingzhen rippled out like surging tides, bursting from beneath Ji Jue's hand and spreading in all directions.
It appeared spectacular and savage, but in reality, every wave was barred completely by an invisible barrier that materialized out of thin air.
The essence of the Dissociation Art lay in conducting force through one's own spiritus, allowing it to circulate within matter. Adhering to the sword principle among the Nine Forms—inserting that which has no thickness into that which has crevices—it specifically targeted and broke down an enemy's weak points.
It was like a controlled demolition of a building's load-bearing beams, bypassing the hardest outer defense to directly pulverize the internal organs, or kicking a cripple hard right in his good leg.
Vicious and efficient, lauded by all who had tried it.
Yet the premise was that you had to be able to touch the target in the first place!
Right now, however, the workshop's spontaneous spiritus defense refused to permit even the slightest physical contact between him and the structure!
Pan Ying, Chunjun, Zhanlu, Juque, and Chixiao—after the five spiritus transformations overlapped, the five bursts of Jingzhen barely chiseled a fleeting fissure through the outer barrier.
Meanwhile, Ji Jue's palm had completely detonated, dissolving and vaporizing until no hand remained to speak of…
Yet who ever said that without a hand, one couldn't cast the Dissociation Art?
Amidst the erupting blaze of light, Ji Jue gave a soundless chuckle. Countless fragments peeled away from his arm, leaving a jagged edge as razor-sharp as a blade, which he thrust straight toward the workshop before him!
Jingzhen!
*Boom!*
In the instant of collision, it was Ji Jue's arm that disintegrated first.
There was not the slightest trace of its usual invincible might. It was entirely like striking head-on with a sword against a speeding dump truck—he was made to feel the true terror of a Grandmaster's creation!
Even a Masterwork would have a place one could bite into, yet right now, he felt as if he had sunk his teeth into a mountain of iron, shattering his entire mouthful of teeth.
By the time he came to his senses, he was flying backward, half his body blasted to pieces. Sacrificing the integrity of half his frame had been the price he paid to act as a buffer, absorbing all the recoil.
Exhausting all his strength had merely gouged an insignificant fissure upon the workshop's outer shell—so tiny that as it rapidly knitted and repaired, it vanished almost immediately.
An ant burrow on a thousand-mile dike.
Yet at this moment, the defense had been breached after all, no matter how minute the breach was.
"Good job, kid!"
A figure sighed softly as he brushed past Ji Jue, completely ignoring the grievously wounded youth. Gripping a slender gray needle with both hands, he thrust it forward with pinpoint accuracy, piercing the needle into that tiny crack.
Instantly, the half of his body holding the needle vanished.
Under his Regeneration form, he turned himself into a fluid. Flowing along the Encircled Realm condensed into the gray needle, he poured into the workshop, siphoning spiritus from within and spreading explosively like a virus, replicating and multiplying at terrifying speed.
Only this time, what was sought was no longer invasion and usurpation, but the most thorough destruction possible—even if it meant… detonating himself!
A faint, muffled thud echoed.
The needle-wielding artisan staggered backward and collapsed, dragged aside by his comrades. Right before everyone's eyes, a crack rapidly branched out until it stood over half a person tall.
Immediately after, a third figure rushed forward. As if scorched by electricity, he hurled the black box that materialized in his hands directly into the gap, turning on his heel to sprint away.
Within the squad, someone had already opened a white umbrella, holding it over everyone's heads.
Everything that followed exceeded Ji Jue's perception, for the moment his eyes glimpsed the surging torrent of light, they melted away like lead.
It was merely the light and heat converted from one ten-thousandth of the aftershock.
Beyond the umbrella, the world seemed to dissolve into phantoms. The empty darkness turned into a low-grade monitor screen filled with countless specks of static.
Amid the dancing swarms of noise, the silhouette of the inverted pyramid shifted constantly, flickering and distorting. One moment it crumbled into pieces, and the next, it stood entirely intact once more. A second ago it seemed charred and dissolved, only to be restored anew yet again.
If explosion was an art, then right now, within the sealed Garden of Beigong at the deepest reach of the Profound, an unprecedented art exhibition was underway—free of charge, with all the fallout one could stomach!
Outside the present world, there was no Lock!
In the span of a snap of the fingers, an untold number of destructive blasts overlapped, triggering and destroying a massive amount of the workshop's preset defenses.
All the destruction was perfectly contained within a spherical space without the slightest leak. Instead, under mutual compression and layering, that destructive power vented inward without end.
The moment the white umbrella burned to ash in the blazing flames, the devastation ceased with precise abruptness. Not even a trace lingered in the air, leaving behind only a workshop covered in fractures, teetering on the verge of collapse.
It still endured, still stood upright, even if it looked as though it would crumble in the very next second.
There was no more time for hesitation or delay.
The artisans charged right in.
Much like cheerful relatives visiting during the New Year, carrying bags crammed with rice, flour, grain, oil, and an assortment of gifts, they had come to convey the Association's regards to a solitary, elderly hermit!
Within the deathly silent workshop, unpredictable anomalies had ceased. The vast majority of its functions had lost all response under the impact of the devastation.
Utterly broken and maimed!
Everywhere the eye could see lay endless ruins. Untold numbers of arrangements had been incinerated in the brutal destruction, and entire garden landscapes had been reduced to ashes.
Most areas had been caught in the blast; some were wiped out completely, triggering chaos from beneath the vortex to pour back in and erode them, rapidly mutating and dissolving what remained.
Ji Jue took it all in, having no time even to mourn the waste.
He didn't even have a spare moment to reach out and touch anything. Time was short; every second counted.
Along the way, they didn't pause for a moment anywhere, squandering the creations provided by the Association like spendthrifts. To preserve their own condition, they would even run priceless Masterworks to self-destruction, treating them as disposable consumables.
Destroying, burning, freezing, erasing…
With so many creations in hand, a mere Beigong was nothing to fear!
That was how it should have felt, yet before he knew it, Ji Jue found every single step difficult to take!
At first, it was only a faint, almost imperceptible sound, which gradually grew distinct. In the end, his very footsteps brought tremors and endless static; clicks and clatters rattled all over his frame.
Gears and conduits ground against one another, joints and sinews fought for dominance, and spiritus signal transmissions began to conflict.
As he walked, a mechanical finger even dropped from his hand, trailing two spiritus wires. His vision blurred, and an eyeball abruptly popped.
Even though the Three Phases Crucible constantly repaired the damage, new issues erupted the moment an old one was fixed, rising and falling in waves that made Ji Jue break into a cold sweat.
Even though the workshop was utterly wrecked, it was still forged by Beigong. His modifications had long since permeated every corner; even if he did nothing at all, the environment naturally warped and reshaped everything inside it.
Viewing all creations under heaven as unfinished craft, unmade designs, and incomplete works—all things flawed, all things shattered alike, and indeed, all things sharing the same sorrow!
To Beigong, this was as effortless as breathing…
—Degradation!
So long as something was deemed an enemy, everything not belonging to the workshop was naturally subjected to an unpreventable, traceless, and seemingly self-evident degradation.
On the outside, this manifested as a drop in grade, a drop in durability, a drop in stats…
It was like plunging into a toxic bog; even breathing chipped away at one's health.
Even a Masterwork, used long enough, would wear down and degrade into a mundane item. Leaving aside drops in tier, a negligible tolerance error between two critical transmission parts was enough to paralyze Ji Jue on the spot.
It was the ultimate, natural counter to a Regeneration form reliant on intricate precision like his!
The deeper they went, the more horrifying the speed of degradation became. In the end, he had to constantly maintain his structural integrity, or under that frantic degradation, he would blow up outright!
Beside him, Despina cradled her dachshund. The dog vomited continuously, retching up chunks of rotting entrails and bones, lingering on the brink of death.
Her own body seemed to be molting as patches of skin peeled away. Dense wrinkles crawled up her neck, spreading beneath her mask, making her current appearance unimaginable.
A scorched stench spread through the squad. As some walked, thick, sticky flames burned through their skin and leaped out; others stumbled, their bodies crisscrossed with fractures.
Degradation was everywhere. The higher one's tier, the more severe the degradation suffered.
It was like recklessly attempting to scale a perilous peak amidst an endless blizzard—painful, agonizing, and halting with every step. In their desperate climb, ants remained mere ants after all.
From beginning to end, the peak remained silent.
Beigong had not even deliberately targeted these intruders. From the start until now, everything had been the workshop's automated counterattacks.
While they were struggling between life and death here, Beigong himself might well be fast asleep.
A one-in-three chance: Beigong had not recovered from his old wounds, and the scar of Harmonization left by Cast Plowman remained etched into his consciousness, preventing him from mobilizing his full power and forcing him to choose the lesser of two evils by temporarily enduring.
A one-in-three chance: Beigong was focused on maintaining the Pillar of Perdition. In the present world's duel between Embers and Stagnant Rot, the shocks brought by Clock Tower were ongoing, leaving him no leisure to attend to anything else.
A one-in-three chance: Beigong did not care about these tiny insects in the slightest, leaving them alone until they delivered themselves to his doorstep, where he would crush them at his convenience!
And there was even a fourth "one-in-three" chance: they had guessed entirely wrong!
Absurd though having four one-in-three chances might be, Grandmasters and Grand Artificers could be considered part of Supreme Virtue and Great Sin itself. They were the ideal pinnacle of craftsmanship, the literal manifestation of omnipotence, people capable of turning every impossibility into possibility!
No matter what inflated scale they were compared against, and no matter how dreadful their own state might be, a part of infinity remained infinite.
Relying on themselves alone, no matter how many creations or exquisite Masterworks they brought, they remained utterly insignificant compared to Beigong.
To succeed, they had to abandon all wishful thinking and carry out the Association's plan at any cost—every single one of them was a consumable, and none of them was irreplaceable. In the entire team, only one person was truly indispensable: their leader, Jiang Tongguang!
Everything they did was meant to allow Jiang Tongguang to truly stand before Beigong, to escort him within ten paces of the Grandmaster.
Yet just how much further did this road stretch?
Could they really win?
Amidst the endless torment, the instant such a thought crossed Ji Jue's mind, his hair stood on end, leaving him nearly dumbfounded—without realizing it, his resolve had wavered, to the point where he had begun subjectively emphasizing the terror and might of a Grandmaster to himself!
Even back when he faced Kanemoto as a mere apprentice, he had dared to stake his life without hesitation. Yet now, he had actually begun hesitating, weighing probabilities of success and his own worth?
Degradation!
The degradation was continuing, growing stronger and more imperceptible, subtly contaminating his consciousness, eroding his resolve, and wearing down his edge!
No, was this Stagnant Rot, or was it Weiyang?!
It was utterly incomprehensible.
Yet he was already a Master—could the distance to the Grandmaster realm truly be so vast?
Clock Tower, Li Lin, once the strongest artisan beneath the Grandmasters, had reached the Dragon realm, yet could never claim the title of Grandmaster. By contrast, Cast Plowman had seized that laurel the moment he became a Celestial-Human. Could the gap in talent truly be so immense? Was the cruelty of Embers truly this harsh?
Looking at it this way, Stagnant Rot seemed far more gener—
Confusion, terror, hesitation, and bewilderment welled up continuously, causing him to lose his focus and self-control. Chunjun's sword hum rang out again and again, piercing his soul and finally jolting him awake, allowing him to perceive the bone-chilling dread transmitted by his wolf-sense!
Like plunging into a cavern of ice!
Ji Jue suddenly opened his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs.
Before his shout finished, a crack appeared across his face, followed by straight fissures spreading across his limbs and bones. A blade manifesting out of thin air neatly sliced across his throat… and vanished without a trace.
Then came the second, the third, the fourth…
In an instant, everyone in the squad was chopped into mincemeat!
The sound of tearing paper rang out. A book page turned to ash in Jiang Tongguang's hand, as though erasing the plot of the future, snapping everyone back from their stunned stupor.
This time, it had only reverted to one second earlier!
One second was enough for them to realize what had happened, holding their breath and focusing every ounce of attention. Rushing to the forefront once more, Ji Jue's hair stood on end as he dodged abruptly.
A blade appeared from the void without warning, grazing his neck and cutting through layer upon layer of defenses like a hot knife through wax, severing everything. Yet unfortunately…
It fell short by a hair.
Beneath his wolf-sense, every shred of malice was laid bare in meticulous detail.
A near-certain death had brushed past him.
"Hm?"
A voice of puzzlement echoed from the darkness. The silhouette of a figure holding a sword faintly emerged, that youthful face lifting slightly as if surprised.
*He actually dodged it?*
In his hand, a "weapon" hovering between existence and nonexistence—difficult even to verify if it was there at all—flashed for a fleeting instant.
Without beginning or end, formless and shapeless, manifesting upon an enemy's vitals only at the instant of execution to bring certain destruction—the Masterwork Sword of Beginning and End!
Yet now, the crux was no longer the Masterwork, but the person wielding it.
Everyone's eyes widened instinctively; they forgot to breathe.
—The Profound Grandmaster, Beigong!
The moment he realized, Jiang Tongguang shuddered instinctively, yet forced himself under control, focusing intently on the enemy ahead.
Something was wrong!
The artisan, looking like an adolescent boy, stepped out of the darkness one pace at a time. Gazing upon the intruders, he showed no anger or displeasure; instead, he was filled with pity and compassion.
Looking down from on high upon ignorant fools.
That sickening expression belonged to Beigong without question, but since when did Beigong possess such a youthful appearance?!
Immediately after, a weathered, middle-aged man emerged from behind the youth, empty-handed, his eyes brimmed with exhaustion and emptiness, surrounded by countless phantoms.
The last to walk out was a hunched old man, appearing near death and drawing his final breaths, yet his mere presence seemed to revitalize the entire workshop, bringing it back to life!
Youth, middle age, old age—three entirely different figures, yet carrying the exact same aura.
Three Beigongs!
Those were not Beigong—or rather, not the complete Beigong…
Extracting his own history and records, using his life's past events as material for recreation, these were three reflections condensed from his past.
Shadows of Beigong!
Compared to Beigong himself, these three reflections were merely puppets endowed with missions and duties, serving as the workshop's final line of defense.
Amidst that momentary shock and trembling, Ji Jue finally realized and let out a sigh of relief.
The good news: they were only reflections after all, not beyond comprehension. They had health bars; they could be killed!
As for the bad news, there was only one…
They couldn't win!
A minute later, the sound of tearing paper rang out!
Soon, the second sound of tearing paper sounded, and then, the third…
Chapter 813