The boss battle had arrived as expected, but Xu Yuan suddenly felt that maybe he should just go back to being a camera watching cutscenes.
Massive enemies were nothing new to Xu Yuan; the demonic beasts running rampant across Great Yan were practically all measured in tens of zhang. But the boy before him—resembling one of the behemoths of war from the battle of Beifeng—had clearly surpassed the limit of what he could handle.
In many works of fiction, conveying the oppressive weight of a colossus often relied on slowing its speed down to emphasize its ponderous heft. In reality, however, large things were not necessarily slow.
Take the one right before him, for instance.
Though Xu Yuan wasn't quite sure how this mountain-sized Mu Nuo had manifested, in the brief instant his thoughts wandered, Mu Nuo had already moved. With a casual lift of its hand, Xu Yuan's body was seized and hauled into midair.
Seeing this turn of events, Xu Yuan instinctively tried to break free with Void-Treading Slash, only to discover he didn't even have meridians in this body right now, leaving him utterly unable to cast techniques.
The moment he realized his current state, dark lines practically slid down Xu Yuan's forehead.
What the hell was going on?
He already had basically zero chance of winning, and now this damned mental space wouldn't even let him use techniques? How the hell was he supposed to fight this Ultraman?
Was he really expected to dismantle a Gundam bare-handed?
Watching Mu Nuo's massive head loom larger and larger in his vision, Xu Yuan realized that this bleak white space seemed to be the embodiment of their respective cultivations. A mere Flesh Integration cultivator like him naturally stood no chance against a Saint like Mu Nuo.
If his cultivation fell short, what about other aspects?
Xu Yuan didn't believe the devouring process came down solely to cultivation itself; the array of buffs on him should afford him some capital to resist.
And soon enough, Xu Yuan noticed something.
In contrast to Mu Nuo's colossal frame, a faint, wispy golden glow swirled around Xu Yuan's body, constantly biting back against Mu Nuo's telekinetic grip.
It was the Heavenly Yan divine soul.
And beyond that...
Perhaps due to the soul power Xu Yuan had absorbed earlier during the attempted possession, a slight focus of mind allowed him to sense Mu Nuo's current condition.
The brat was leaking.
Wisps of invisible qi were bleeding along the countless sword scars across its torso, dispersing into the bleak white space.
Thoughts spun rapidly in his head as he objectively weighed their strengths and weaknesses, but in the end, Xu Yuan arrived at a rather helpless conclusion.
He couldn't win.
Even though the Heavenly Gate sword intent had riddled Mu Nuo like a sieve, there was no offsetting just how overwhelmingly deep the brat's cultivation was.
His opponent was a Saint, while he was merely in the Flesh Integration Realm.
Had he known things would turn out like this, Xu Yuan felt he should have simply used the Meishen Dao charm to break through to the third rank before the war, or used his father's method of cultivation to force a breakthrough into the Origin Realm.
He had actually met all the requirements for a breakthrough long ago, but had been deliberately suppressing it.
For an Innate Dao Body, the sole difficulty of breaking through from the Flesh Integration Realm to Grandmaster was the Dao charm.
And thanks to his experience in that illusion realm, Xu Yuan had already completely mastered the Meishen Dao charm.
The reason he held back was simple: Xu Yuan looked down on the Meishen Dao charm.
To ordinary cultivators, any Dao charm was something to dream of but rarely attain, but as Xu Yuan's horizons broadened, he found this particular Dao charm increasingly underwhelming.
Forget that chicken-soup platitude about there being no weak Dao charms, only weak cultivators—the Meishen Dao charm simply ranked below charms like Karma or Spacetime techniques.
Breaking through to Grandmaster with the Meishen Dao charm might let him achieve invincibility within his rank thanks to his various buffs, but compared to the likes of Xu Changge and Tianyan, he would still be a tier behind.
Thinking of this, Xu Yuan realized his old habit had flared up again.
The more critical the moment, the more prone he was to letting his mind wander to useless what-ifs.
It was too late for any of that now.
Mid-battle breakthroughs were tropes that only worked against peers of the same rank; Mu Nuo would never give him that chance.
And even if he succeeded, his chances of winning wouldn't exceed ten percent.
The gap between the Origin Realm and a Saint was still vast.
As his thoughts flickered, Xu Yuan was dragged before Mu Nuo by its power.
Those eyes remained pitch-black as ink, filled with a hatred so thick it couldn't dissolve.
Evidently, this brat pinned the deaths of its parents entirely on his head.
*It devoured them itself, yet it's blaming me? What unreasonable nonsense...*
Just as he muttered that complaint internally, Mu Nuo's somewhat childish voice echoed through the vast, bleak white space:
"Xu Changtian, let us make a deal."
Noticing that Mu Nuo made no further move, Xu Yuan stared at the behemoth before him, a flicker of surprise crossing his calm gaze.
A deal?
This brat had turned into a negotiator too?
Still, he didn't seem to have much of a choice right now.
Watching the unyielding hatred in those pitch-black eyes, Xu Yuan murmured, "You can actually hold back the urge to kill me?"
"Even if I devour you, I am still no match for the demonic dragon outside."
This changed pronoun must have been influenced by Mu Xingyi's memories.
Still, it seemed the White Emperor had traumatized this sheltered calamity.
The intelligence gleaned from those few words flashed through Xu Yuan's mind, and with a doubtful look, he said, "As far as I know, the White Emperor cannot kill you."
Mu Nuo did not open its mouth, its voice simply dispersing:
"Indeed, but working together with that golden-eyed woman, they can seal me."
Tianye?
Xu Yuan considered that woman's disposition, then gave a slight nod.
That enchantress was indeed the type to do such a thing. Even if it meant sacrificing Tianyan's life, she would collaborate with the White Emperor to seal Mu Nuo.
After all, this was almost certainly tied to the calamity.
"How do you want to cooperate?"
"My birth was wrought of heaven and earth, yet I was born with a heavenly flaw."
Mu Nuo did not answer directly, instead glancing aside at this boundless, bleak white space. "However, upon entering this space, my mind has cleared considerably. Those whispers that constantly murmured in my ears and scrambled my thoughts have vanished entirely."
"I can tell your intellect has improved a lot, but you could cut down on the useless chatter," Xu Yuan replied without denying it.
Ignoring the sarcasm in the human's words, Mu Nuo continued on its own:
"Just now, when I attempted to possess you, I was pondering what your existence, Xu Changtian, represents to me.
"Are you my nourishment, my superior, or a natural predator specially bred by Heaven against me?"
Hearing this, Xu Yuan raised an eyebrow.
"And the conclusion?"
"There is no conclusion."
"Why?"
"Because you possess what is flawed in me, yet I have nothing you inherently require."
"Is what you lack reason?"
"...That is one part of it."
Mu Nuo's mountain-like body gently raised a palm. Black qi seeped out from it, condensing in an instant into a miniature Zhenxi Prefectural City, as it murmured:
"Before that golden-eyed woman drove me into a rampage and forced me to slumber, the moment I made contact with you, I obtained something of vital importance from within your body."
As it spoke,
the city in its palm dissolved into black smoke and reconvened into a black cherry blossom petal floating in midair.
"You should know what this petal is."
Xu Yuan stared at the object, his gaze instantly turning strange.
The Meishen imprint...
The Meishen imprint bestowed upon him in the Qionghua Secret Realm by the origin of the calamity from twenty thousand years ago.
It had been so useless that he had nearly forgotten its existence.
Glancing at Xu Yuan's expression, Mu Nuo spoke in a voice both childish and deep:
"This petal allows me to gather soul imprints from between heaven and earth."
"..."
Xu Yuan came to a realization.
One man's trash, another's divine treasure.
Mu Nuo seemed to chuckle faintly, a flicker of greed showing in its pitch-black eyes.
"With these soul imprints, I can manifest the living beings that once walked this world. In time, I could even devour the entire world..."
"This young master roughly understands what you're getting at, brat," Xu Yuan's voice abruptly cut Mu Nuo off. He said softly, "You want me to let you devour me here, and then be revived in your ghost domain using a soul imprint?"
Mu Nuo did not deny it. It merely replied in that deep, mountain-heavy voice:
"You should have already realized that if you devour me, your cognition will be altered. You will no longer be yourself, but a monster combining Mu Nuo and Xu Changtian."
"..."
Hearing this, Xu Yuan lowered his eyelids in thought for a moment, the corners of his lips curling into a smile.
"Mu Nuo, I finally understand what you're doing with all this drivel."
"..." The youth frowned.
Xu Yuan weighed his words for an instant, murmuring to himself:
"You are indeed right. Devouring you will inevitably alienate my thoughts—I've already felt it.
"But as you are now, you should know even better that there's no way in hell I'd agree to this ridiculous deal.
"And judging by the disparity in strength between us, you don't even need to make a deal with me. If you simply devoured me directly, I wouldn't have the strength to resist.
"In other words... everything you're saying right now is pure nonsense."
At this point, a touch of amusement colored Xu Yuan's voice:
"Mu Nuo, are you stalling for time?
"Is it because I have something that makes you wary?
"Yet if there really were something that made you wary, as long as I clung to it without letting go, you wouldn't be able to devour me. If so, stalling would just look foolish...
"Which means...
"Whatever it is you fear is growing weaker the longer you drag this out?"
As he murmured to himself, the understanding in Xu Yuan's calm gaze sharpened, and his eyes grew cold as he stared at Mu Nuo.
"Brat, it seems you really have grown much smarter—smart enough to turn around and plot against this young master.
"Your earlier attempt to possess me was just a feint, wasn't it?
"Your real objective was to quietly pour something into me during the possession to alter my cognition, making me forget the gift that enchantress Tianye gave me."
How humiliating...
He had actually been tricked by this brat into forgetting that he, too, possessed the power of a Saint.
The thought flashed through his mind, and Xu Yuan slowly raised his right hand.
Without him noticing,
intricate black markings had already spread across the back of his hand, covering his entire right arm and continuously creeping upward toward his head.
Mu Nuo gazed silently at the young man in the brocade robe, no longer hiding the venom in its eyes, a cruel smile pulling at its pale lips:
"Xu Changtian, I did not wish to go through such trouble, but matters have come to this, leaving no other choice. Do not worry, however—I will preserve your soul imprint carefully, keeping you trapped in my spirit domain for all eternity to experience true despair!"
"..."
Xu Yuan fiddled with the markings on the back of his hand. Once he confirmed how to operate them, he nodded gently.
"All right, I understand."
With those words,
a brilliant beam of light shot out from the markings on Xu Yuan's right arm,
slashing through the void like a gargantuan sword of light.
Its afterimage swept effortlessly across the mountain-sized youth's neck.
*Buzz—*
Chapter 684