From the end of the world

Chapter 650 Xuanming's Declaration of War

"It's impossible to cross the 'Wall of the Outer World,' and the research time isn't unlimited. Meng Zhang can't just cower behind that wall, burying his head in the sand like an ostrich. Sooner or later, he'll do something to break the current stalemate," Xuan Ming said. "But I have a way to make the 'Wall of the Outer World' itself disappear. Currently, there are two methods, but they are essentially the same."

"Since that wall appeared because of my threat, it will disappear as soon as I die."

"To be precise, it is necessary to make 'Shangri-La' realize that I am dead. Over the past period of time, I have been searching for a loophole in 'Shangri-La's' perception, to make it mistakenly believe that I am dead. Perhaps because it has not yet completed its creation, 'Shangri-La' now seems to only have instincts. Its perception may be exceptionally sharp, but its judgment is not without flaws. Even so, I still have not found a way to deceive its perception and judgment."

"—Until you invaded the interior of this city."

“Me?” I asked.

Xuanming answered frankly: "The only way besides me dying is for someone else to die in my place. This person cannot be a weakling with insufficient strength; they must be a Great Impermanence like me, and preferably a Great Impermanence with the power to manipulate fire like me. With this, combined with my ritual abilities, we can make 'Shangri-La' mistakenly believe that I am dead."

“It seems that my infiltration of this city has actually been a lifesaver for you,” I said. “No wonder you were unwilling to cooperate with me. According to your thinking, before we can settle the score with the Peach Blossom Village Lord, we must first settle the score between ourselves.”

Xuanming looked at me and said, "I know that you and Meng Zhang have irreconcilable conflicts, so from the perspective of stopping Meng Zhang, it is not something that I cannot consider, even if it means I die here and send you to stop Meng Zhang."

"However, stopping Meng Zhang is merely a stepping stone on my path. Ultimately, I must challenge the true Lord of the Divine Seal and use the Divine Seal to save the world. This is the only thing I cannot entrust to anyone, especially not to you."

"The true master of the Divine Seal must be a madman who thrives on chaos, and I sense an extremely similar temperament in your soul. If the Divine Seal falls into the hands of someone like you, this world is doomed."

Xuanming believes that the true master of the divine seal is like me... I said noncommittally, "The reason why I had a life-and-death conflict with the Lord of Peach Blossom Village is because he did not want me, the successor of the Vermilion Bird, to become nourishment for the Mountain Two Elements to become much stronger... It seems that even when we are only one step away from completing the 'Peach Blossom Village' plan, he is still very wary of the existence of the Mountain Two Elements."

"And what about you? Why are you so determined to stop the Lord of Peach Blossom Village?"

“It’s simple, I just can’t stand it,” Xuanming said.

"What do you dislike?" I asked.

“‘Shangri-La’ is, in a sense, the complete form of human society, and I’ll reluctantly admit that,” Xuanming said. “Although it’s eternal happiness obtained in a dream, all of humanity can find genuine salvation from it; it’s a true paradise. The end of the world may still linger and erode it, and I’m sure Mengzhang himself has considered how to deal with that.”

"But this so-called eternal happiness ultimately depends on the will of Meng Zhang, the one with the highest authority. To put it another way, even if Meng Zhang can truly uphold his original intention to the very end, all of humanity will still be sucking on the pacifiers they've been assigned, their consciousness gradually becoming uniform in their dreams, civilization unable to develop at all, and it will come to an end in just one generation. The creation of the ultimate being, 'Shangri-La,' will then be perfected."

"It's a slow death, only the process becomes pleasurable. After the last human chooses to relinquish their consciousness, the human race will truly become extinct."

"More importantly, I simply cannot accept that kind of world. A utopia without any conflict or dispute, without any internal pressure or external threats, is nothing but an escape. Humanity is about passing on the torch amidst suffering, growing stronger and evolving step by step, and that is what we should be proud of."

"Ultimately... yes, I simply hate lazy and passive humans. In the era I grew up in, such humans deserved to die. It's a matter of aesthetics. To be obsessed with nothing but a dream world of pure pleasure, without a shred of courage or awareness, how obese and ugly they are."

I thought about that kind of world and nodded. However, in this respect, I am different from Xuanming. I am proud of my own courage and awareness, and I also admire others who have the determination to move forward without hesitation, but I generally do not get angry because other people live a life that is contrary to my own values.

What others do is their freedom, and what I do is my freedom. As long as it doesn't affect my adventure, whether they live in the dream world or on the moon is irrelevant.

Xuanming, on the other hand, seems to want everyone in society to live according to his ideas, and he would even risk his life to prevent values ​​that contradict his aesthetic sense from becoming popular.

"Do you think that 'Shangri-La' will eventually spread to all of humanity?" I asked.

"Do you really think that thing will stop expanding after devouring a portion of humanity?" Xuanming retorted. "Once created, the 'Shangri-La' will inevitably take action to expand its scale. Even setting that aside, Meng Zhang himself desires for the 'Shangri-La' to spread throughout all of humanity." "I'm not that naive," I said. "But given the current trend, the problem is heading back to what we were talking about—if we decide a winner first, wouldn't the Lord of Shangri-La reap the benefits?"

"Furthermore, since you are now using the sea of ​​fire in the sky to suppress the creation of 'Shangri-La,' doesn't that mean that if the outcome of the battle is your defeat and death, then 'Shangri-La' will be created?"

Xuanming said calmly, "You don't need to worry about that. In order to oversee the creation of 'Shangri-La,' Meng Zhang cannot leave the city center."

"And putting aside whether you can defeat me, even if you could, Meng Zhang's dream network would need time to recover from the numerous malfunctions caused by my prolonged interference. That can be considered a curse I inflicted with all my might, which cannot be fully restored in a short time, even with a reboot. All you need to do during that time is infiltrate the city center and kill Meng Zhang."

"I'm making these things clear to you now, so that you won't have to make excuses later when you die at my hands, saying that you couldn't exert your full strength because of this or that reason."

He seemed to have his own arrogance, and even made a sarcastic remark to me, to which I responded with a sharp retort: ​​"Thank you for making arrangements beforehand. I'll remember this favor after I've killed you."

“Right now you’re only this pitiful size, not enough to be my scapegoat. You should hurry up and recover your full strength, then come to me to die,” Xuanming said.

After he finished speaking, his fiery clone dissipated and disappeared, and the surrounding sea of ​​fire also dissipated. The surroundings were plunged into darkness as if the lights had been suddenly turned off, and the eyes were still a little unaccustomed to it for a while.

During our several meetings in the virtual realm, Xuanming and I lacked any reason for conflict, and our interactions remained quite measured and polite. But now that we are adversaries, Xuanming has become more aggressive than before.

In other words, it could be said that Xuanming truly regarded me as an enemy.

For a long time, I unilaterally regarded Xuanming as a rival, keeping this feeling hidden deep inside. I felt it would be somewhat childish to reveal it rashly. Although I've never shied away from admitting my naiveté, perhaps I still unconsciously harbor a slight sense of shame about it. Now that Xuanming has personally issued a challenge to me, I feel a surge of excitement, wishing I could immediately gather all my strength in this city and utterly defeat Xuanming.

However, this matter cannot be rushed; I must patiently and carefully devise a solution. Before that, I also have another problem to deal with first.

I turned around and looked at the devout believer who was kneeling on the ground, completely limp.

She was staring at the spot where Xuanming's fiery clone had disappeared, seemingly still reeling from what had just happened.

“Jiao Shu, it’s your turn now,” I said. “That Peach Blossom Spring cultivator seemed to have said something… that you wanted to use me as a living sacrifice? Could you explain to me what that meant?”

Jiao Shu suddenly realized what was happening and looked panicked. He tried to stand up and retreat, but accidentally fell to the ground.

Although I didn't intentionally disguise myself as a junior high school student to hide my strength and identity in order to create a "pretending to be weak to eat the strong" effect, I still couldn't help but feel childishly happy to see Jiao Shu, who had treated me like a weak child all along the way, now showing this kind of reaction towards me.

Just as I was about to say the next sentence, suddenly, another force descended upon this space.

This seems to be the magical power fluctuation of Meng Zhang, the lord of Taoyuan Township... After Xuan Ming's sudden visit, it's Meng Zhang, the lord of Taoyuan Township again?
No, if you perceive it carefully, you can find that there is a slight discrepancy between this and the magical power fluctuations of Meng Zhang, the master of Peach Blossom Village... This seems to be the magical power fluctuations of "Peach Blossom Village".

Furthermore, it seems that the area affected is not limited to this subway platform, but covers a much larger area, with the platform being only a part of it.

The scenery began to distort violently.

(End of this chapter)