Inside the cockpit of the Aska.
Yu Xian and Little Nora sat side by side, happily eating breakfast together.
Food materialized endlessly—giant sea urchins, delicious grilled fish, and savory, fragrant braised pork belly.
The two feasted heartily. A portion of meat larger than an elephant was divided and devoured between them in just a few minutes.
Although Blood of Gluttony normally functioned only to digest blood, Yu Xian also possessed abilities such as Super Stomach and Super Taste Buds.
Stacked together with Blood of Gluttony, these abilities produced an effect greater than the sum of their parts. In short, Blood of Gluttony could now act upon any food.
Yu Xian had easily confirmed the effects of Blood of Gluttony and promptly entered gluttony mode alongside Little Nora, wanting to see the upper limit of the ability.
Active abilities typically depended on one's own energy reserves; the stronger the energy, the greater the power.
For example, with the ability to create fireballs, the more energy Yu Xian channeled, the hotter the fireball became and the larger its volume grew. Unless his control over the fireball reached its limit, there was practically no ceiling.
Passive abilities, however, were different.
Most passive abilities had inherent limits that were difficult to enhance unless one upgraded their physical hardware.
Take Yu Xian's Light Eater ability: his personal limit was governed by the surface area of his skin. To enhance it further, his only options were to enlarge his own body or create an even more colossal avatar.
Yu Xian's choice had been to create an avatar to absorb sunlight, linked to his body through a bubble for effortless energy transfer.
Just then, Niman walked in carrying the dragon girl. Seeing Yu Xian and Little Nora gorging themselves frantically, a look of surprise crossed her face, followed by a faint smile as she went over and sat down beside Nora.
"What's got into Yu Xian now?" Niman asked softly.
Nora glanced at Yu Xian and answered, "He's testing a new ability. According to him, it came from that wanted criminal, Yu Tian."
"From Yu Tian..." Niman mused, looking thoughtful.
She knew Yu Xian had only gone to Earth to deliver the spaceship and returned immediately afterward; he shouldn't have had any time to make contact with Yu Tian.
"Yu Xian said that the wanted criminal Yu Tian seems to revere him somewhat, and that the power of faith can be absorbed directly. It was by absorbing that faith that Yu Xian awakened Yu Tian's Blood of Gluttony," Nora explained in greater detail, noticing that Niman seemed to know something.
Whenever she referred to Yu Tian, however, she always prefaced his name with "wanted criminal," clearly harboring no fondness for the man.
Yu Xian also looked up at Niman and asked, "Niman, do you know what caused this?"
Even as he ate, Yu Tian's faith continued to flow in without pause. Clearly something seemed to have grown stronger, yet his combat strength hadn't changed at all. He was truly curious about what was going on.
"I once heard of a similar situation back in the Phantom God Realm," Niman said thoughtfully. "Supposedly, a practitioner killed an alternate version of himself from a parallel world and grew stronger because of it. Afterward, he made it his mission to track down and slaughter every counterpart of himself across parallel worlds, and he genuinely managed to keep growing stronger through that method."
Nora frowned. "Doesn't that make every parallel counterpart an enemy?"
"Not necessarily."
Niman gently rocked the baby in her arms and smiled. "First off, while there are countless parallel worlds, under normal circumstances they are unimaginably far apart. Barring unforeseen events, one would almost never encounter another self in an entire lifetime. Furthermore, if a counterpart is too weak, killing them won't make you much stronger, rendering the whole thing rather pointless."
"Besides, very few people likely know about this method," Yu Xian nodded in agreement. "Without knowing, most people wouldn't be overcome with murderous intent just from seeing another version of themselves."
Little Nora conjured up a motorcycle, stared at it in dumbfounded bewilderment, tossed it aside, and asked curiously, "Sister Niman, do you have to kill them with your own hands for it to work?"
"Mm. It only works if you kill them with your own hands," Niman nodded.
Little Nora urged, "Big Bro, didn't you really hate that bad guy? Since killing him will make you stronger, let's hurry and go slaughter him!"
"He's too weak. Not interested," Yu Xian replied, taking a bite out of a golden apple and brushing off the suggestion.
To be fair, Yu Xian genuinely disliked Yu Tian. Killing Lano, killing Zhang Kai, and murdering so many innocent people—Yu Tian truly deserved death ten times over.
Yet once he cooled down—especially after receiving Yu Tian's power of faith—Yu Xian's somewhat rusty Super Brain turned over the thought. He asked himself: what if he and Yu Tian had swapped starting abilities from the beginning?
Blood of Gluttony meant Yu Tian was destined to grow stronger only through slaughter.
Add in the external environment and a cascade of coincidences, and they all became the crucial factors leading Yu Tian down the path of a wanted fugitive.
In truth, there were many things Yu Tian had no choice in, just as Yu Xian himself hadn't had many choices back when he was weak. Yu Xian had simply been luckier; because of the nature of his ability, he hadn't taken that first fatal step into bloodshed too early.
Once a person killed, their mindset grew more extreme. Yu Tian had killed Lano without hesitation precisely because he had already taken lives and seen blood before that.
Yu Xian was the exact opposite: he had never taken a life, had never crossed his own bottom line, and so his mindset remained far gentler, refusing to take lives lightly.
Drawing this comparison, Yu Xian felt he somewhat understood Yu Tian's predicament.
He also understood a bit why Yu Tian would have faith in him. After all, Yu Tian wasn't born evil; he had simply wanted to survive.
Of course, understanding was one thing, but having committed crimes, Yu Tian still had to pay for what he had done. All Yu Xian could do was refrain from interfering.
"Huh? No way."
Holding a giant seashell in his hand, Yu Xian suddenly gasped in surprise.
What surprised him was not the shell in his hand, but the news he saw on the Star Ring.
The Star Ring was still connected to this Earth's internet. Yu Xian had been browsing the differences between this world and his own, but when he refreshed the feed, the headline showed that Yu Tian had turned himself in.
The guy had actually chosen to surrender at a time like this.
One had to realize that on Earth right now, plenty of Yu Xian's fans wanted Yu Tian dead.
Mainly because when comparing Yu Xian and Yu Tian side by side, many people on this Earth felt humiliated, believing Yu Tian didn't deserve to walk the earth and itching to see him put down for good.
Surrendering under such circumstances, Yu Tian was intelligent enough to know what consequences awaited him, yet he had surrendered nonetheless.
Yu Xian looked at the photograph of Yu Tian in the news. The man looked startlingly like him, only clad in rags; living in the wild for so long had left him looking like a savage.
Had Yu Xian not joined Qilin, he might have ended up much the same as Yu Tian.
Yu Xian gazed at Yu Tian in the photo, let out a long sigh, and with a slight flick of thought, sent a message to Xiao Cheng.
*Since he has shown remorse, he may be spared death, but he cannot escape punishment...*
Chapter 277