From the end of the world

Chapter 758 Confrontation
He would rather sacrifice his own life and extraordinary status than fail to achieve his wish to restart the world...

The enlightenment of the Divine Seal Master Tai Sui fills me with awe.

At the same time, I also understand very well that I cannot agree to his suggestion.

It's not that I'm not interested in the throne of the Lord of the Divine Seal, but rather that Tai Sui's suggestion is definitely not free.

Sure enough, he then said, "But before that, you must agree to one condition."

"Go ahead and say it." I already had a feeling about it.

"You must swear before me that after wielding the Divine Seal, you will restore this world to its original state," Tai Sui said solemnly. "Furthermore, you must promise me that you will never allow the seeds of apocalypse to reappear in this world—"

"If you agree to these two conditions, I will immediately relinquish all my authority over the divine seals and eradicate my consciousness from all the fragments of the divine seals. From now on, whatever you do with the divine seals, I will no longer interfere, nor will I be able to interfere. How about it?"

In the end, his eyes seemed to possess a mysterious, penetrating power.

He can also simulate the divine child's ability to see through all lies. If I lie here, he will definitely see through it.

"No good." I rejected the idea outright. "I won't agree to such a condition."

Tai Sui asked in confusion, "Why? Is it because of the same reason as last time? If you're worried that after the world restarts, I won't preserve your consciousness and memories along with a very few other important people, then you don't need to worry about it at all. Because by then, you will be the one making the decisions, and I will be long gone."

“Tai Sui, your wish is to protect the world you used to live in, and if it has been destroyed, to restore it… I also have a world that I want to protect,” I said.

“Protecting the world…” Tai Sui said with a complicated expression, “I never dared to imagine that I could hear such words from the mouth of people like you… Sorry, you are no longer the same as Liu Shuying, are you?”

He was silent for a moment, then continued, "You mean the world now? All that has been accumulated so far, you don't want it to become just a dream of the original world?"

“That’s right.” I nodded.

“I understand how you feel,” Tai Sui said in a deep voice. “In this new world, no one truly understands my heart. To them, the life I’ve lived is nothing but a delusional fantasy, like something a psychopath would have. Aside from my own memories, there’s no material evidence to prove its existence; sometimes even I think it was all an illusion…”

"But this is the only way to save the world. I'll be blunt with you, Zhuang Cheng. This new world has far too many flaws and malfunctions. Apart from the Gospel House's human extermination plan and my world reboot plan, it's impossible to completely remove these ailments from this world. It's like a person whose brain and internal organs have become cancerous. To save them, you can only replace the brain and internal organs together... What's the difference between that and 'changing the person'?"

"Using a computer program as an analogy, the program of human history in the new world is basically running with a bunch of bugs, and it's long past the stage where simply deleting the bugs can solve the problem."

"Even if we simply change to another world, there's no guarantee that the next world will be problem-free. The lessons of the ancient civilization and Liu Shuying are right before our eyes. Since we know that the previous world was healthy and we have the opportunity to turn back time, we should not hesitate to turn back time."

I said without wavering, "I will think about the specifics myself later. What seems to be the only way at the moment may not actually be the only way. I will not go back on my word, and I will not compromise on this bottom line."

"Do you really think that you can correct the flawed history of humanity with the power of your third gate? Let me tell you beforehand, this is impossible," Tai Sui said. "Just as the Great Impermanence can resurrect the dead but cannot resurrect those killed by other Great Impermanence with murderous intent, you who push open the third gate can certainly create and destroy the errors of the world, but you cannot fundamentally overturn the erroneous history created by the power of the divine seal."

"Even with the power of a fully formed divine seal, it is impossible to restore a world that is deeply entrenched in problems to a healthy state in an instant without changing the world itself. No matter how hard you try to think, a solution that does not exist simply does not exist."

"If I can't think of a solution, I'll go find someone who can. Your words won't work on me." I'm not buying it.

"You mean Number Two?" Tai Sui saw through this. "But Shan Liangyi is currently in the real world. When you go back, Number Two might already be captured by Shan Liangyi and used as a hostage to deal with you. As long as you obtain the authority to control the seal on my side, although you can't immediately synthesize the complete Doomsday God Seal, it will be enough to initially synthesize the existing seventeen God Seal fragments into a Lesser Doomsday God Seal, amplifying your power in both scale and density to a level far exceeding that of Shan Liangyi."

"Moreover, without this power, even if Liu Shuying has not yet retrieved the Divine Seal of the Present World, you would definitely not be his match, let alone fight against the old Fist God who possesses the Divine Seal of the Present World."

According to him, Liu Shuying is actually stronger than I am now?

It's not surprising, really. In the past, I gained the inner potential to transform into the Great Impermanence only because I resembled Willow Shadow. But merely resembling the Great Impermanence who pushed open the second gate wouldn't have given me power comparable to the Great Impermanence. This is the biggest reason why the ancient Great Impermanence, Shen Tu, couldn't be resurrected through a "future person similar to himself." Even with the intervention of the Vermilion Bird Seed, if I originally possessed a large amount of talent at the Great Completion level, the result would at most be a very powerful Great Completion level talent. There is such a decisive difference between the Great Impermanence and the Great Completion level. My magical talent must have already possessed enough strength to naturally grow into the Great Impermanence before this.

Of course, I have now broken through my original limits and forged my own path... But it is precisely because I have taken another step forward that I am more aware of the power of that step forward.

So how powerful would the willow tree shadow, which served as its prototype, be?

“Based on my past observations and experience, the power limit of a single Divine Seal fragment doesn’t seem to exceed the level of a Great Impermanence… Seventeen Divine Seal fragments sound like a lot, but can they really produce power surpassing the Mountain Yin-Yang and Willow Shadow?” I questioned.

"Mountain Yin and Yang, with only one Yellow Dragon Seed, is nothing more than a Great Impermanence. Gathering four seeds can return to the level of the Third Gate, and five can surpass the previous life..." Tai Sui said slowly, "The increase in power during this process is definitely not a simple five times. Why do you think that seventeen fragments of the Divine Seal only have seventeen times the power?"

"The Divine Seal is not a composite item that combines different complete items together, but a creation that existed from the very beginning with that form as its premise. The fact that even its parts can unleash power at the level of the Great Impermanence is more of a phenomenon that is miraculous enough in itself."

"Moreover, the fragments of the divine seal are not even components of the divine seal... but rather fragments produced after violent destruction, products of severe damage. Judging the combined power based on 'the power of one of the fragments' is meaningless."

"It's not too late. Inherit my wish and then save the world, Zhuang Cheng."

I no longer want to repeat my words of refusal; I express my denial through silence.

It seems that Tai Sui has run out of more powerful cards to play. Continuing to persuade him would only be repeating his previous points; he seems to be stuck in this predicament.

At this point, our negotiations had practically broken down. While I respect Tai Sui's resolve and appreciate the information he provided, our paths diverged, and we cannot work together. Since our resolves clashed, the only option was to eliminate the other.

Perhaps it was time for Tai Sui to exercise his power; a sharp glint gradually appeared in his eyes.

So, am I able to kill Tai Sui and take away the fragment of the divine seal he possesses?

Putting aside the fact that we can't yet discern where he hid the fragments of his divine seal, killing Tai Sui seems impossible. I am indeed confident in challenging Tai Sui in the virtual realm, but whether that confidence can translate into actual victory remains to be seen. Even if I could defeat him, if Tai Sui only wants to save his own life, it would likely be quite easy for him.

Ultimately, the illusory realm is merely a dream world, and the Tai Sui before us is just a shadow. The true being is a being of consciousness, chaotically distributed among all the fragments of the Doomsday Divine Seal.

If I were facing any other enemy, as long as I used a large amount of True Spirit Power, even in a dream, even if I only killed a shadow, I could still kill the main body by affecting it. But the person I am facing is Tai Sui, the Lord of the Divine Seal, and the True Spirit Power I am using is the power of the fragments of the Doomsday Divine Seal. To try to kill him with this power is equivalent to attacking him with my own power.

I then came to a vague conclusion—perhaps only those who share the same stance as Tai Sui, the Lord of the Divine Seal, can truly destroy him.

In other words, I also need to become the "soul of the divine seal" in order to squeeze Tai Sui out of this position and then kill it completely.

Can I do that? Since I also possess a small portion of the authority to control the seal and can simulate the power of a divine child, it's theoretically possible to possess a fragment of the divine seal like Tai Sui. But even if I succeed and manage to seize a fragment of Tai Sui's divine seal, I can only possess a maximum of seventeen fragments. This wouldn't allow me to immediately repair the Doomsday Divine Seal, and I might end up like Tai Sui, trapped in the virtual realm, unable to move freely.

To put it another way, considering the absurdly low compatibility between myself and the fragments of the Divine Seal, I might not be able to successfully become the "soul of the Divine Seal".

Just then, a familiar male voice came from afar.

"There's such a strong smell of gunpowder... Are you planning some kind of event? Why didn't you invite me?"

Footsteps belonging to no Void Realm Apostle echoed from the depths of the Void Realm mist, gradually approaching the rocky seating area where we were.

Upon hearing this voice, Tai Sui's expression changed drastically.

(End of this chapter)