From the end of the world

Chapter 658 The battle is over
The cultivator, having reached the Great Completion stage, could no longer maintain his composure and cried out hoarsely, "Don't do that... I will find a way to plead with the Lord of Peach Blossom Village on your behalf and open an internal passage to 'Peach Blossom Paradise,' allowing you to merge into the dream network while your souls remain intact... Please, don't kill me!"

He seems to genuinely believe in a "Shangri-La," and even at this point, he's still using this kind of thing to beg for mercy.

“I don’t really have a problem with your ‘Shangri-La.’ A lie, when carried out to the end, becomes the truth; a dream that never ends is another kind of reality… I don’t think your theory is entirely wrong. As long as you won’t regret it, you can pursue whatever you want,” I said. “But I’m not interested in that kind of thing. So goodbye.”

After I finished speaking, I suddenly applied force to my palm.

Whether mortal or at the Great Completion stage, brain tissue is fragile. The Great Completion cultivator's brain was instantly ignited and crushed by me, losing all its vitality.

Even those at the highest level of cultivation find it difficult to escape the destructive influence of their physical body. Although physical and spiritual damage are often calculated separately, the two are not truly distinct. This is because the physical body influences the state of the soul.

Changes in bodily hormones can affect a person's mental and emotional state; when the body is sick or has a fever, the soul can also become listless. In the afterlife, some children suffering from amnesia will grow along with their physical bodies in the real world. Once the physical vessel is destroyed and death occurs, the impact will also reach the soul, transforming it from a living soul with unlimited potential for growth into a state of death.

In some ancient supernatural legends, certain unseen evil spirits, after acquiring physical form through contact with flesh, become beings that can be killed by swords and blades, rather than returning to nothingness after the body dies. The underlying principle is the same.

Previously, I used overwhelming force to forcibly break through the enemy's ability mechanism, but now it's my turn to use the "mechanism" of the Great Impermanence to defeat an enemy whose strength is far greater than mine. It's a truly novel experience.

However, it's also possible that this enemy's claim to be at the Great Completion level is inflated. Just like the Great Impermanence, every Great Completion level is an unrepeatable miracle, while this Great Completion cultivator who relied on the Seed of the Heart is a replicable case. Although he borrowed the power of the Great Impermanence domain, he still didn't truly achieve the unique characteristics of a Great Completion level.

This special quality isn't a definite power. In terms of hard numbers alone, this Great Completion cultivator meets the level of the Great Completion stage in every aspect. However, true Great Completion cultivators are those who can turn the impossible into the possible. Therefore, even methods that should obviously defeat them may not be so straightforward in practice.

My past victory over Chenlong was similar to this one; I won because I used a tactic that logically allowed me to break through the "portal armor." However, in a battle against a true Grandmaster, unless overwhelming power is used, any tactic that seems obvious is likely to backfire.

The Great Completion cultivator in the distance collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Then, the still-warm corpse began to twitch and tremble on the ground.

"He's not dead yet?" Dongche said, a chill running down his spine.

No matter what, the opponent possesses the capabilities of a Great Completion stage cultivator, and their soul strength is extraordinary. In the past, Chenlong relied on his "Comprehensive Enhancement" ability to resist death and regenerate even under the cruel condition that all biological tissues, including brain tissue, were burned to charcoal. While the Great Completion cultivator on the other side could not compare to Chenlong in this respect, his soul could still barely withstand the impact of death on his physical body.

Most immortals would find it difficult to remain immortal even with their heart and brain destroyed simultaneously. However, as a monster with excellent regenerative abilities and endurance, once he reaches the advanced stage, he can achieve the miracle of resurrection simply by relying on his basic physical abilities.

The headless corpse still retained cellular activity. In the medical field, brain death is considered the complete death of the body, but that common sense doesn't apply to those at the Great Completion level. With that last bit of residual warmth, he could completely revive, regenerating the brain in a short time and reigniting the flame of life. This is no longer just about healing injuries; it's about refusing to die.

Perhaps even he himself wasn't sure if he could be resurrected from brain death. There were only a handful of Great Completion level monsters, so who would bother testing such a thing? And it didn't matter as it was now; it was just a matter of crushing his brain a few more times, dozens of times, or hundreds of times. As long as the number of times accumulated, his soul would eventually be worn away.

Just to save trouble, I thought about it and decided to use the power of true spirit.

The principle behind the True Spirit's power being able to break the immortality of the Naraku of Life's Turbidity lies in the complete destruction of its soul, achieving a permanent deletion of the soul at the True Spirit level. However, the immortality that can continue to activate even after the soul is scattered is the highest and most mysterious category of all immortalities. Most immortalities are only immortal at the physical level and cannot reach such a high level. If the soul must be reduced to ashes to nullify an immortality, then the True Spirit's power would not have the claim of specifically killing all immortalities.

I once again remotely snatched the brain from the Great Completion cultivator's skull. In a very short time, the brain had already regenerated to about 70-80%. However, I didn't give him a chance to fully repair it, so I wrapped my right hand with true spiritual power and crushed it again.

Through the damaged brain, the impact of the real death likely reached the soul of the Great Completion cultivator. This time, the outcome of death could not be so easily defied. I sensed that the invisible resistance surrounding his body vanished in an instant.

The corpses in the distance stopped twitching and became quiet corpses, conforming to common sense. Almost simultaneously, the monsters, which had been behaving themselves under the orders of the Great Completion cultivators, roared wildly as if they had broken free of invisible reins, and launched a fearless charge towards the barrier hole.

These monsters weren't like that Great Completion cultivator who carried such a high concentration of invisible resistance. In an instant, hundreds of monsters within my field of vision lost their lives—I directly summoned destructive flames from inside their skulls, killing them on the spot.

Large numbers of monsters charged in from afar and from other directions, but I countered them all with the same method, drastically reducing their numbers.

A normal, bad-level witcher would never be able to withstand such a high mana consumption, but as a fire elementalist, I basically don't have the concept of exhaustion. If I feel tired, I just burn the air or something else, absorbing the increased flames into my soul, and that's how I recover my stamina. Even other great demons can't sustain high-intensity battles for long periods, but I actually become more energetic the longer I fight.

After some time, the thousands upon thousands of monsters surrounding the exhibition hall had mostly become lifeless corpses. Later, some of the demon hunters on the outer perimeter of the hall began actively hunting down the dwindling numbers of monsters. Compared to the previous environment filled with the roars of beasts, the area around the exhibition hall was now remarkably quiet.

I don't know if it's true that not a single monster survived. Perhaps even some of these fearless monsters eventually chose to retreat and flee. At least from my perception, the battle is over.

The white light barrier faded and disappeared, but it probably didn't really disappear; rather, it entered a standby state.

Looking at the mountains of monster corpses piled up on the surrounding streets, Dongche sighed with relief, "It's over..."

"Now that things are settled here, let's talk about you, Dongche." My focus shifted to him. "Why are you in this city? What are you doing here?"

Upon hearing this, Dongche's face showed a helpless expression. Judging from his appearance, it seemed that he did not want to come to this city, but rather that he had some involuntary predicament.

Seeing that he seemed to have something to complain about, I looked around and said, "Let's go inside and talk."

As I spoke, I reached out and, from a distance of two or three hundred meters, grabbed the scorching heat on the rooftop of a distant building.

She didn't try to escape while I was dealing with things here. I guess after being "caught red-handed" by me last time, she knew she couldn't escape from my grasp.

I grabbed her and pulled her to my side. Dongche was startled when she saw me suddenly "make a living person out of thin air" and pull a woman in a black impermanence uniform out of thin air. Then, when she looked closely at Jiao Shu, her face showed even more surprise.

It wasn't just surprise; I also noticed that Dongche's muscles were tense, and his eyes revealed clear hostility.

"This residual fluctuation of magical power is... a follower of Xuanming?" He observed Jiao Shu seriously. "Your appearance... I know you. You are Jiao Shu, a follower of Xuanming?"

Jiao Shu seemed to be amazed by Dong Che's appearance, and felt mental pressure from the other party's high-ranking and unpredictable nature. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but he still forced himself to maintain a dignified posture and tried his best to look back at him with a calm attitude.

"Senior Zhuang Cheng, what about you and her?" Dong Che looked at me.

“She is my prisoner,” I said.
Upon hearing this answer, Dongche breathed a sigh of relief, then, as if remembering something, said happily, "Senior Zhuangcheng, please come with me... I have someone here who I hope you can meet."

(End of this chapter)