NOVEL NEXT Chapter 760: Drifting and Return
"Who had a friendly exchange with you?" Tai Sui said coldly, "Teaching you, this unworthy disciple, is my failing. One day, this world will return to its original form, and I will face the punishment I deserve. You too will suffer divine retribution, never to be reincarnated."
Upon hearing this, Liu Shuying merely smiled indifferently, and then said, "Do you wish to save this world with your own hands... you can't do it, teacher.
"You clearly know this as well. To save this world, the Complete Divine Seal must be used. The Current World Divine Seal held by the Old Fist God must be united with the still fragmented Doomsday Divine Seal.
"However, the most you can do is 'repair the Doomsday Divine Seal.' Because you only have the Doomsday Divine Seal's authority, whereas the authority of the Current World Divine Seal is in my hands.
"Even if you kill me, you can't obtain the authority of the Current World Divine Seal; but if I kill you, I can inherit the authority of the Doomsday Divine Seal. Do you know why that is? Because in the end, the person who truly wished with the Complete Divine Seal was me; you only accidentally gained part of the authority because you happened to touch the Divine Seal when I made the wish.
"Only I, this wisher... 'the true Master of Divine Seal,' have the qualification to merge and repair the Divine Seal.
"Only I can bring 'tomorrow' to this world."
Tai Sui said nothing, only gazing icily at Liu Shuying.
After speaking, the latter no longer continued, turning away, seemingly to leave just like that.
At this moment, I recalled a past event and asked, "Liu Shuying, five years ago... was the person who asked me if I wanted power you?"
Liu Shuying first looked at me with confusion, then after seriously thinking for a moment, said, "Although I'm not sure what you're talking about... that might have been me."
Five years ago, on the eve of awakening my superpower, I had a dream. In the dream, a bizarre figure asked me if I wanted power—the power to match my envisioned adventures.
That fantastical figure gradually merged with Liu Shuying's silhouette.
Perhaps, at the same time when my younger self was sleeping in dreamland, Tai Sui and Liu Shuying, traveling on an Arctic research vessel to find ultra-ancient ruins, were engaged in a fierce struggle around the Divine Seal.
At the moment when Liu Shuying successfully made a wish on the Divine Seal, his spirit swept across the world, reshaping it, and its aftermath perhaps even entered my dream.
The next day, upon waking, I wasn't even aware that the world's order had already changed.
Liu Shuying's wish was made with the premise that the apparent history of the modern world didn't change, embedding another conflicting magical history, transforming the old world into a new world full of magical aspects behind the scenes. Possibly many people who were part of the realm of common knowledge in the New World didn't have their consciousness changed with the world transformation, instead, they were transferred to the New World unchanged.
I might be one of them.
Whereas people like Zhu Shi and Changan, born into a magical history in the New World, could have come from ordinary families in the Old World, and upon the world transformation, even their consciousness was updated in a covering nature.
To these people, the New World is their true home, while their old selves from the Old World are completely unfamiliar others. The ones I know are precisely the people they are now. Although it might seem unfair to say so, I wouldn't sacrifice my friends in the New World to resurrect strangers from the Old World.
After finishing speaking, Liu Shuying's avatar disintegrated, turning into countless gray mists dispersing into nothingness.
Tai Sui continued to gaze at the spot where Liu Shuying disappeared, his cold and stern expression gradually relaxing, his demeanor becoming despondent.
Then he took a deep breath, looked at me, and said, "Zhuang Cheng, I know you still want to save the 'current world,' I truly understand your feelings...
"So I won't urge you again. Next, just return to the real world, have a good chat with the No. 2 you rely on, and use your own eyes to look at this world anew.
"Think and attempt repeatedly, ultimately you'll come to the same conclusion as I have—that this current world is beyond saving. If you persist stubbornly, clinging on, all those you cherish will eventually turn to ashes in the future."
The words at this level couldn't shake my mind. I was about to speak again, to ask a new question that had just emerged in my mind, when the surrounding grey mist quickly faded, and even the forlorn figure of Tai Sui vanished into countless wisps of grey mist like the Liu Shuying before it.
All the grey mist disappeared, and the site of the Void Realm vanished with it, leaving only darkness around me as the "backdrop," and I returned to the void.
It seems I'll have to ask later, but even if I did, Tai Sui likely wouldn't answer me.
The question on my mind was simple: combining what Liu Shuying said, since Tai Sui has only the Seal Authority of the Doomsday Divine Seal, even if he transferred it all to me, I would probably only be able to do the same things as him, at most just fully repairing the Doomsday Divine Seal. Without merging the Doomsday Divine Seal with the Current World Divine Seal, the Complete Divine Seal cannot be used to save the world.
However, according to Tai Sui's words before Liu Shuying appeared, it seemed that if I obtained the Doomsday Divine Seal, I should naturally be able to merge it with the Current World Divine Seal. He didn't seem unaware of his own Doomsday Divine Seal authority's defects; there seemed to be some crucial hidden information here.
When it has come to transferring all his Seal Authority, does Tai Sui still have any must-conceal information?
I suspect he intended to make a final supplementary explanation upon transferring the Seal Authority, but I firmly refused him first, so he temporarily had no reason to explain it to me, and perhaps even prematurely revealing it would be unfavorable to his purposes.
Thinking about this, I continued moving towards the direction of the real world.
The Old Fist God should become my enemy. Besides Liu Shuying, Tai Sui, Shan Liangyi, now I must also consider him a hypothetical adversary. Perhaps as soon as my mana fluctuations appear in the real world, he will hunt me down like he chased Liu Shuying before.
Associated information flashed in my mind one after another, including a particular piece worth noting: "the special ability of the Old Fist God."
This was information once shared with me by Weichi. To be precise, even Weichi himself didn't have first-hand information; he heard about it from his late wife Qilin a long time ago. It is said that the Old Fist God's special ability manifested only after he became the strongest Impermanence on Luo Mountain, as he was unmatched in combat at the time, so no challenger was strong enough to force his special ability out.
That being said, the reason the Old Fist God's special ability is so mysterious seems not only because the challengers aren't strong enough, but because he consciously hides it. Even Qilin, who was his disciple and adopted daughter, knew only that "the Old Fist God mastered some special ability," but couldn't find out what specific power it was.
In my impression, the Old Fist God's style has always been open and straightforward. Even if he possesses a "special ability that wouldn't serve him well if its nature were known," he wouldn't intentionally hide it. Abilities that rely on information asymmetry to exert extreme power, like a "first-sight killer skill," are just shadowy tricks that betray the user's fear of failure, and it's hard to imagine someone like the Old Fist God, a seeker of unrivaled victory, doing such things.
Moreover, let alone at the level of the Third Gate, even at the level of the Impermanence, "special abilities" don't have much strategic value, unless they are transcendental powers brought by the Legendary Realm like my "Manifestation" or Shan Liangyi's "Reincarnation." But I haven't heard of the Old Fist God demonstrating any legendary realm yet.
I can only keep this strange matter in mind for now and explore it later. With this in mind, I recreated "time" in the void and took this opportunity to gradually strengthen my soul.
Time ticked away second by second. Though I created time, there is no sunrise or sunset in the void, nor are there timekeeping tools like watches or clocks. Immersed solely in optimizing my soul's structure, it becomes even harder to perceive the precise passage of time. Thus, I don't know exactly how much time has passed.
I only feel that quite some time has passed, perhaps days, weeks... could it have been months? No, surely months would be too excessive. In any case, a long, vague stretch of time passed, and the optimization iteration process of my soul's structure had long slowed down, reaching a bottleneck period. Further time spent, tenfold even, wouldn't yield significant progress.
For an ordinary person to spend such a long time in such an empty domain, I can't imagine what state of mind they'd end up in. I haven't yet felt my limits, but the monotony is already filling my heart. I'm a person who seeks excitement, and this place, where there is truly nothing, is probably the least fitting for me. I'm eager to return to the real world.
The distance from the real world seems never to have shortened even slightly, though talking about "distance" in the void is meaningless. I've experienced similar situations before when entering the "Doomsday Era" through the void. If I overcame the traversal difficulties last time, surely I can handle it this time too.
I don't know how long it took, but at some moment, I sensed a mysterious gravitational force capturing my body.
Darkness from all directions turned into a swirling water current, drawing me in. It was a sign of leaving the Void Domain, and my spirit immediately became exhilarated.
The water flow became more turbulent, and before long, it threw me out of the "water's surface." Then I felt my body being hurled onto some uneven hard ground.
Finally, I returned to the normal world.
I lay on the ground with my eyes closed for a few seconds, feeling the cool, rough ground against my cheek, savoring the gravity of the real world, a long-lost sensation, then slowly got up.
The surroundings were dark, but it was different from the absolute darkness of the void; moonlight shone down from above. With my superhuman night vision and perception, I saw clearly the scene I was in.