A look of utter disbelief surfaced in Dongjun's eyes.
He could not understand, nor could he fathom, why... the person before him would sever his arm.
"How could you be so cruel, A-Qiao!"
Dongjun was overcome with sorrow, and a single tear rolled down his cheek.
He felt that his Eye of Holy Light simply had not yet exerted its full power.
"It is because I didn't try hard enough that you treat me this way."
He sobbed and whimpered, carrying an air reminiscent of Daiyu from *Dream of the Red Chamber*.
Qi Yuan was completely speechless. "Brother, please spare me. I'll lay my cards on the table: I haven't believed a single word you've said.
"Do you see the length of my nose?
"I beg you, stop talking—my nose is getting way too long!"
At this moment, Qi Yuan felt just like a child trapped inside an elevator, watching a burly man beside him suffering from uncontrollable diarrhea, pleading helplessly, *Uncle, please stop, I'm scared.*
That was precisely how helpless Qi Yuan felt.
Every bit of this game boss's grandeur had been thoroughly flushed away.
Just look at the bosses in other games—weren't each and every one of them unique?
The old man who hated bathing on the Wangyue Continent.
The demoness of the Liufeng Realm.
The Yang God father and daughter of the Mortal Heart Realm.
Yet the boss in this game turned out to be a guy...
And what he said was so utterly repulsive.
At this moment, Dongjun's gaze genuinely shifted. He looked at Qi Yuan with a bizarre expression. "Could it be... that my words didn't move you?
"Did my story fail to touch your heart?"
In every quest of the Mountains and Seas Picture Scroll, in every story, Dongjun had woven in countless core themes for Qi Yuan.
Things like filial piety, sacrificing loved ones to save the world, and being torn between loyalty and righteousness.
All of these quests were part of the Myriad Dao Martial God.
"What kind of bullshit stories are those? Don't you know that whenever I play games, I always skip the plot summaries? Just kill, kill, kill, grab the loot, and level up!"
Qi Yuan spoke with belligerent bluntness.
Inside the Mountains and Seas Picture Scroll, he had handled quests the exact same way.
Touching backstories? Deep narrative themes?
Utter nonsense!
Every single time, he immediately seized the quest objective and went straight off to slaughter monsters and boost his strength.
Only after wiping out monsters and thoroughly enjoying himself would he occasionally look up the quest target at night to binge some dramas, watch short videos, and indulge in a little emo melancholy.
Dongjun's expression shifted once more, his eyes filled with disbelief. "You are clearly only at the Heavenly Position Realm, so why do you not believe my words?"
The innate divine ability of the Holy Light Clan could not possibly fail.
It was precisely by relying on this ability that the Holy Light Clan roamed unhindered across all realms—though it also made them despised by everyone, shunned like venomous scorpions.
Now, he had actually encountered someone whose cultivation was lower than his own, yet who refused to listen to a word he said.
A look of shock welled up in his eyes. "The Holy Light Clan's innate divine ability originates from our Progenitor. It can never fail!"
This innate divine ability stemmed from their mighty Progenitor.
The Progenitor existed at an unknowable realm.
His innate divine ability was an existence far more terrifying than the Great Ultimate Principle.
Across the myriad heavenly universes, wherever the Progenitor's knowledge reached, it could be used without exception.
The person before him was clearly in the Heavenly Position Realm, a level lower than his own.
How could his innate divine ability have failed to take effect?!
He stared at Qi Yuan and couldn't help asking, "Does one plus one equal three?"
"You never graduated from compulsory education, did you?" Qi Yuan didn't even bother arguing. With a fierce slash, his sword cleaved straight toward Dongjun's right hand.
This time, Dongjun dodged and fled, his eyes still clouded with bewilderment.
"Who on earth are you? How are you immune to my innate divine ability?!"
"I am... your daddy!" A grin spread across Qi Yuan's face, and the Great Oblivion Heart Scripture activated in an instant. "Though I certainly never sired such a revolting son!"
Qi Yuan never discriminated against anyone's preferences.
But to sicken him like this was more than he could bear.
A flicker of hesitation appeared in Dongjun's eyes. "Daddy?"
If he were his father, everything would make sense.
Members of the Holy Light Clan were naturally unaffected by one another.
Yet in the next instant, he snapped out of it and stared at Qi Yuan in astonishment. "Your origin divine ability is quite remarkable—it holds the potential to ascend to the ultimate principle.
"I will give you an opportunity: follow me.
"I, Sheng Kongming, am a peerless prodigy seen once in a million years within the Holy Light Clan.
"I am on the verge of stepping into the second stage of the Yang God, the Ultimate Principle Realm.
"Once I cross that threshold, I will roam the heavens and myriad realms freely, and no living being will be able to stand in my way.
"If you follow me, you shall share in the Great Dao!"
Sheng Kongming changed his tactics.
Since this man was immune to his innate divine ability, it meant he likely possessed some bizarre, rare bloodline of his own.
It certainly could not compare to the Holy Light Clan, but it was undoubtedly a rare find.
Hearing this, Qi Yuan's eyes lit up. "Now you finally look like a proper villain, saying the kind of lines a villain is supposed to say! You scared the life out of me."
Qi Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn't fear a villain being too strong; he feared a villain being...
Dongjun was not surprised by Qi Yuan's reaction.
He said softly, "The path ahead for the world you inhabit has already run its course.
"Your talent is exceptional, unmatched in this domain, yet being born in such a world is your misfortune.
"The world binds you; for the rest of your life, you will have no way forward.
"If you follow me, I will even bestow a drop of my bloodline upon you.
"With the bloodline of the Holy Light Clan paired with my blessing, you will have a chance in this lifetime to break free from this cage!"
Dongjun genuinely felt an appreciation for his talent.
Subjugating Qi Yuan would bring him immense benefits.
Not only would he gain a subordinate, but if he could analyze the bloodline within him and uncover why he was immune to the Words of Holy Light, he would sweep past his peers within the clan.
He might even unite the Holy Light Clan and become the paramount figure beneath the Progenitor.
"Since your blood is so formidable, why shouldn't I just take it myself?" Qi Yuan asked calmly.
"It seems you have no idea of the terror of the Holy Light Clan, nor do you comprehend... where the gap between you and me truly lies."
Divine radiance surged over Dongjun's tattered white robe.
He was merely a single step away from the Ultimate Principle Realm.
As for Qi Yuan, he was nothing more than a Heavenly Position Realm cultivator.
How could he possibly contend with him?
"Mm... done with the exposition?" Qi Yuan looked at Dongjun, his expression placid. "In that case, it's time to address the real business at hand.
"Your Holy Light Clan plagiarized the name of our Divine Light Sect!
"Therefore, on behalf of the Divine Light Sect, I shall now execute this plagiarizing dog!"
The reason he hadn't attacked right away was simple.
Missing the plot summary on minor stages didn't matter.
Bosses, however, provided plenty of crucial world-building details.
For instance, Dongjun's remarks about this realm's path forward being severed and the world acting as a cage.
Yes, very familiar tropes, perfectly standard.
Just as a tailor's shop could never manufacture an aircraft carrier.
Now that he had heard all the lore, it was time to start the massacre.
"It seems you truly do not understand—"
"Cut the crap! Plagiarizing dog, die!"
Powerful blood-martial qi swept outward in all directions.
The entire expanse violently trembled.
The Myriad Dao Martial God Realm united all daos of this world.
At this moment, as Qi Yuan threw his punch at Dongjun, it was effectively the fusion of all daos from the Origin Land, the Land of the End, and every world within the Mountains and Seas Picture Scroll, coalescing into Qi Yuan's own Dao to unleash a supreme strike upon Dongjun.
Such a strike carried the rules of the Great Dao.
It was enough to shatter an entire world.
"Within the Yang God Realm, the difference between each minor stage is like heaven and earth.
"I have already caught an initial glimpse of the realm of ultimate reason. You cannot harm me in the slightest!"
Dongjun extended a palm, and his form seemed to melt into the world itself.
Qi Yuan's terrifying strike was effortlessly avoided.
Qi Yuan said nothing.
Watching Dongjun, he struck again.
This time, he did not utilize the power of the Myriad Dao Martial God, but rather the power of the immortal dao.
Walking the immortal path, he was far stronger than as a Myriad Dao Martial God!
"I once saw you swallow a star whole, standing at the very peak of the Heavenly Position Realm.
"Yet before catching a glimpse of the ultimate principle, you are beneath mention!"
Of course, Dongjun was holding back a crucial detail.
If all four thousand of Qi Yuan's Divine Infants came forth together to besiege him, Dongjun, powerful though he was, would eventually be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Yet a siege was the very thing Dongjun feared least.
When the time came, with just a few words, all of those Divine Infants would become his own assets.
"Relying on yourself alone, you cannot defeat me—unless... you have them gang up on me!" Dongjun spoke with leisurely ease, overflowing with confidence.
He already stood in an invincible position.
If Qi Yuan summoned those helpers, he had the Words of Holy Light.
If Qi Yuan refused to summon them, he would secure a total victory.
A fierce collision of attacks erupted.
Dongjun's body merely staggered.
As a member of the Holy Light Clan who had caught a glimpse of the Ultimate Principle Realm, he could virtually sweep this entire world aside.
Even facing an expert of the Great Ultimate Principle Realm, he was confident he could slowly toy them to death.
Thus, against Qi Yuan—whose realm was only at the Lesser Heavenly Position, even if his divine spiritual power surpassed a Great Heavenly Position Yang God—Dongjun remained invincible.
"Looks like I really have to pop my ultimate!"
Qi Yuan looked toward Dongjun, his expression composed.
"A boss is still a boss, hard to kill without an ultimate!"
"What other methods do you have left? Those helpers of yours? Do they even dare show their faces?" Dongjun wished nothing more than for Qi Yuan to summon them.
"Why would they need to come out? They are already one with me." Qi Yuan's expression turned solemn. Clad in blood-red robes, he stood suspended in the void.
For reasons unknown, a foreboding premonition flashed through Dongjun's heart.
Yet the moment he remembered that he had already glimpsed the Ultimate Principle Realm, he knew it was impossible for him to lose.
In the next breath, however, his eyes went wide.
Behind Qi Yuan, a mysterious aura abruptly began to swirl.
It seemed like primal chaos, yet also like innate qi, and like immortal dao purple qi.
That qi had no name, no shape, could not be heard, and could not be seen.
In an instant, this mysterious single qi transformed into three entities—unspeakable, unviewable, and unthinkable.
"This... an aura even more terrifying than the Progenitor!"
Dongjun gritted his teeth, seized by genuine panic and terror.
To a member of the Holy Light Clan like him, the Progenitor was the mightiest existence across all the heavens and myriad realms.
Yet at this moment, the unthinkable entities formed from the single qi behind Qi Yuan were each far more mysterious and unknown than his Progenitor.
"One Qi purifies into the Three Pure Ones; the Three Pure Ones transform into me!"
Qi Yuan spoke.
The Three Pure Sovereign Gods behind him spoke in unison at the same time.
The gap in cultivation realms was like heaven and earth?
All force was mere illusion?
No, it was only because the force was not large enough!
As the saying went, sheer strength conquers all technique.
If a single punch could shatter galaxies, annihilate universes, pierce the known, erase the unknown, slay the unknowable, suppress all things under heaven, and crush nonexistence itself—
Then what use was a higher realm?
If the Yang God spiritual power of one person was not enough, then what about... a thousand, three thousand, four thousand?
He had no need to manifest all the Divine Infants into human forms to summon them.
For they were originally him.
Now, he was simply deploying his own strength!
"Brilliant and blazing Yang, Infants anchoring the Divine Depository! Obey my command: slay Dongjun!"
At this moment, four thousand Divine Infants resonated together like the true resonance of the Great Dao.
"Dongji Qinghua Great Emperor heeds the command!"
"Longevity Great Emperor heeds the command!"
"Qingyuan Miaodao True Monarch heeds the command!"
"Gatling Bodhisattva heeds the command!"
"Sun Star Lord heeds the command!"
A vast chorus of voices echoed within Qi Yuan's Divine Depository.
At this moment, they held nothing back, channeling every ounce of their power into Qi Yuan's body.
Qi Yuan felt himself grow unimaginably powerful.
Ethics, rules, morality—everything seemed capable of being shattered by a single fist from him.
Only this was true strength!
"Thus, my myriad daos have never been myriad daos, but Slaughter!"
As the four thousand Divine Infants cried out together, terrifying phantoms appeared one after another behind Qi Yuan.
Every one of these phantoms threw a punch!
Every fist merged into Qi Yuan's single strike at this moment.
Flames, destiny, fortune, the starry sky... boundless, inexhaustible rules were all forged into Qi Yuan's one punch.
"Can a fist like this suppress and kill you?!"
"Die!"
An unrivaled, irresistible fist came crashing down—a strike that embodied the myriad daos, yet was no dao at all.
Dongjun's face twisted savagely, endless regret welling within his heart. "How could such a monster exist?! Three million years... *aaaargh!*"
Three million years of scheming had now come to naught.
He could not understand it.
Nor could he accept it.
Yet before that domineering, tyrannical fist, he possessed not the slightest ability to resist.
That punch shattered all secular illusions within the Mountains and Seas Picture Scroll.
That punch obliterated all schemes, plots, and human calculations.
That punch smashed the myriad daos and upended all rules.
It was not the ultimate principle, yet it surpassed the ultimate principle.
"Like this... it's impossible for you to step into the Ultimate Principle Realm!" Dongjun let out his final shriek.
The power he had drawn from catching an initial glimpse of the ultimate principle could not withstand a strike like this.
After scheming for millions of years, harboring nefarious plots through the Sheji Brush, Dongjun—who had lurked in the darkest corners—finally perished in this moment.
Qi Yuan stared at the empty expanse before him, his expression calm.
"Sure enough, real men should throw punches!"
With his words, the endless phantoms across his body vanished.
He returned to being the man dressed in blood-red robes.
A strange sense of loss welled up in his heart.
Slaying Dongjun was nothing significant to him.
It had merely solidified his conviction in his own Dao.
At that moment, he looked ahead, his eyes shimmering. "Root Demons?"
The colors ahead were the Root Demons, the very creatures that had plagued Dongjun for a million years.
Even Dongjun had been cautious and wary before them.
Now, Qi Yuan stepped directly into this sea of Root Demons.
He had a premonition that something was still waiting for him.
He ventured into the sea of Root Demons.
Just as Qi Yuan had anticipated, those terrifying Root Demons did not attack him.
Qi Yuan knew this was connected to his origin divine ability, the Virtual Realm Sovereign's Inner Demon Summons.
He moved toward the depths of the sea of Root Demons.
All the Root Demons regarded Qi Yuan as one of their own, making no move against him.
Qi Yuan wandered through the sea in total safety.
Countless Root Demons stirred his emotions as he passed.
Joy, slaughter, agony...
After an unknown amount of time, an unfamiliar voice suddenly rang out beside his ear.
"Hey, Qi Yuan."
Qi Yuan whipped his head around, only to see a mass of black.
Or rather, black stockings.
More precisely, a woman with black stockings covering her head.
"Wang... Yuanyu." Qi Yuan was both surprised and unsurprised.
"Frightened you, didn't I?" A smug look surfaced in the woman's eyes as the black stockings over her head vanished, revealing an... indescribable face.
Qi Yuan seemed to see Doctor Zhong Niao, yet also Wang Yuanyu, as well as Lüzhu, and countless other women.
"Sure enough." Qi Yuan stretched his back. "You're the featherless bird from the game's opening, aren't you?"
The game icon for this world was a bloodstained bird.
That bird had no feathers at all and dripped with blood.
The fall of the Innate Seed was tied directly to that bird.
"They were my feathers," the woman said, her voice strange and elusive.
As she spoke, a medical record appeared in her hand out of nowhere.
Looking at Qi Yuan, she said softly, "Your mental illness wasn't an act."
Qi Yuan was speechless. "Your kidney deficiency is the real deal."
"I don't have kidney deficiency. It was merely the tribulation of breaking through to above the ultimate principle." A complex look surfaced in the woman's eyes. "And Dongjun was merely one link within that tribulation.
"To use your terminology, he was game lore, while I was the developer, as well as a player.
"The world was originally a game."
"Oh." Qi Yuan looked at the woman.
"I never expected that the greatest harvest this time would actually be you.
"Originally, I intended to use Dongjun's Words of Holy Light to comprehend the true myriad daos and experience what I had never lived through before.
"Once I finished undergoing my tribulation here, I could have brought the entire realm back to my homeland."
When mentioning her homeland, a deep sense of longing surfaced in the woman's eyes.
For such an emotion to appear in someone of her strength was exceptionally rare.
"However, you gave me a minor epiphany," the woman said, looking at Qi Yuan. "The myriad daos... are all illusion."
"I didn't say that. Don't go cultivating yourself into oblivion," Qi Yuan said, looking at her and thinking that she was the one who was truly insane.
"Don't worry, I won't seize your... lane." The woman smiled faintly, the look of longing reappearing in her expression. "This realm originally plunged down from my homeland. Once, I wished to bring the entire world back with me.
"Now it seems this world... is no longer my homeland. I should seek the way home alone."
Qi Yuan looked at the woman and said politely, "Have a safe journey."
At that moment, the woman gave a mysterious smile. "Don't you find it interesting how the game's premise shifted from a romance melodrama into a web of conspiracies?"
The romance melodrama referred to the love between Dongjun and his Dao companion.
The conspiracy referred to Dongjun scheming against the woman while she was breaking through, breeding Root Demons, and enduring her tribulation.
"Yet in truth, who can say whether it was really a romance melodrama or not?
"What Dongjun spoke of might not necessarily have been false.
"Perhaps it happened in the past, perhaps in the present, or perhaps in the future."
"Stop being a riddler," Qi Yuan said, thoroughly exasperated.
Why did all these mighty figures insist on putting on airs and talking in riddles all day long?
He still preferred being direct: if you wanted to eat a steamed bun, you just ate it.
"Qi Yuan, I await you above the ultimate principle." Having said that, the woman's figure vanished without a trace.
Within the sea of Root Demons, the endless monsters also vanished.
At that moment, a game notification prompt sounded.
[Quest Complete: Obtained one Mountain and River Sheji Brush.]
...
Years flowed by, and time marched on.
Amidst towering skyscrapers, a slender robot took an elevator down into the ruins.
Within the ruins lay a shattered starship, fallen metal components, and scattered rules and data.
It clutched a marriage certificate tightly in its hands, its face completely devoid of expression.
Yet as though recalling something, a trace of emotion belonging to a human finally surfaced in its eyes.
"Master, the myriad daos are zero and one..."
Its voice carried an endless depth of yearning.
Chapter 380