From the end of the world

Chapter 780 Belongs to Me, Belongs to You

I went out first, found Mr. Zhu inside the mansion, and then handed over Zhu Jiu's soul to him.

Whether or not Zhu Jiu should wake up now is a decision that Old Master Zhu, as her biological father, has a stronger position to make than Xiao Wan and I. And just like us, Old Master Zhu also believes that we should wait until Zhu Shi returns to the real world before taking any action.

As for the essence of Zhu Shi's childhood, Mr. Zhu hoped to keep it in my hands. After Zhu Shi's return, I would personally return it to him.

"However, she might not accept it," Mr. Zhu said.

Zhu Shi has never been interested in the parts of her soul she lost in childhood, nor has she shown any intention of rekindling romantic relationships. Rather, she occasionally expresses a "better not to rekindle" attitude. She is my fiancée, whom I have publicly agreed to spend my life with, yet she readily accepts my close relationship with Ma Zao, largely because her understanding of this aspect is distorted and blank. And she herself is clearly aware of this.

If this distortion actually fosters harmonious interpersonal relationships, then there should be no attempt to restore it to normal—that's her personal stance.

However, the truly distorted aspect may not be limited to this part. Zhu Shi's current soul is a form reluctantly formed to better adapt to battle and slaughter, built upon the purpose of sacrificing for her family. Yet, the underlying essence of her soul still yearns for peace and gentleness. I have never forgotten that killing remains an extremely painful and burdensome thing for her, yet she always wants to bear this burden for those around her. She can never truly be indifferent; she has only become very adept at enduring.

The Zhu family no longer needs Zhu Shi to make such a sacrifice. This self-distortion formed in order to endure pain should come to an end.

I also hope she can find happiness.

How to handle our interpersonal relationships in the future is a difficult challenge I must face. I cannot surrender completely from the start out of fear of failure. From another perspective, this is also a kind of adventure that I must embrace in the future, completely different from a "magical adventure."

Then, I used a portion of my perception to observe another hidden location set up by the divination master, a thousand miles away.

Xugou and Aiye are currently stationed there, as are Mazao's parents and others. Xugou's injuries have mostly healed, and he's capable of fighting again. Unfortunately, given his fighting abilities, he won't be able to intervene in my battles with Yama Ryougi and the old Fist God.

He is an ally on our side, but he may also be attacked by the Mountain and Yin forces, so it is necessary for him to hide for the time being. As for why the Diviner arranged for the Dog to be placed in another location, it seems to be to have the Dog guard that place, but in reality, it is probably just a basic precaution.

The alliance between Xu Gou and us is based on Xiao Wan's ability to communicate with spirits and maintain Ai Ye's existence, and his willingness to faithfully abide by the contract, the key being my existence. If he confirms my death, he will have the motive to kidnap Xiao Wan. The Diviner Master was previously in a weak, critically injured, and near-death state, so naturally, we cannot keep any potential dangers nearby. As for the other hidden location, he probably doesn't know the exact location of our hidden location either.

Yama Ryougi must have been recuperating from the injuries he sustained in his battle with the Old Fist God for some time, and based on my perception when the war was declared not long ago, Yama Ryougi is now almost fully recovered.

While for Shan Liangyi, the next battle will be between him and me, for me, the immediate task is to deal with Tai Sui, the Lord of the Divine Seal, and possibly even have to fight Old Fist God to the death. After that, there might not be much time left, so it's necessary to use this free time to check if anything has been overlooked. Thorough preparation is a crucial secret to avoiding regrets in life.

Then I connected to the "Firefly" I had left with Yuchi to check on his progress in rebuilding the portal. He was currently in the stage of rushing to finish the job, with about a dozen White Impermanences skilled in formations assisting him. However, it was impossible to complete the new portal in a short time. Last time, it took him ten days to half a month. Although he had accumulated a lot of experience this time, it was still impossible for him to finish it overnight.

I did some research on the timeline history there, and then remotely replicated and created a portal, but it turned out to be useless.

“This is like trying to find a sword by marking the boat,” Yu Chi said to my “firefly.” “Earth, solar system, Milky Way… although they are intuitively static, they are actually constantly moving at unimaginable speeds in the darkness of the universe. Our spacetime state is therefore constantly changing, and the portal must also take this into account; it cannot be done overnight.”

Waiting for Yuchi to finish is one option, but the old fist god probably won't have that much patience, and Shan Liangyi seems to be getting restless as well. One night is fine, but if they don't fight their way up after that, Shan Liangyi will probably have to fight their way over themselves.

Yu Chi added, "Of course, if you were to accelerate the flow of time in this area, so that we could complete the project in what appears to be only a moment from the outside, that would also be possible."

"There's no need for that. Just proceed as normal," I said.

Although returning to the afterlife would allow me to meet Fazheng again, Xiaowan had mentioned that Fazheng wouldn't entrust the Divine Seal fragment to me for the time being. Furthermore, thinking back, Fazheng didn't carry the fragment with him. My perception, as an Apostle of the Void Realm and the Great Impermanence of the Third Gate, didn't register it, meaning he must have hidden it elsewhere from the beginning. He likely considered the possibility of his defeat at the Gospel Academy and didn't want the fragment to fall into enemy hands after his death. In that case, even forcibly taking it from Fazheng himself would be futile.

Although it's possible to simulate the spiritual power of the third gate through manifestation and interrogate Fazheng about where he hid the fragments of the divine seal, setting aside the question of whether doing this to one's own ally is despicable, and considering that Shan Liangyi was among Fazheng's initial hypothetical enemies, such a simple approach likely wouldn't exceed Fazheng's pre-planned strategy. The Great Impermanence are characters capable of turning the impossible into possible; even after pushing open the third gate, they shouldn't be underestimated.

More importantly, I could sense that the two forces of the mountain were staring intently at the saltwater city where my magical energy fluctuations appeared.

I don't want to activate the portal to Asaha's place in front of Yama Ryougi.

Even if they brought Yuchi and the others to the Divination Master's hideout and rebuilt the portal, it would be useless. This concealed barrier could only obscure the fate of those inside. Doing other things would be fine, but if they were to perform large-scale time acceleration or other actions involving drastic changes in spacetime, Shan Liangyi, who was proficient in spacetime powers, would definitely sense it. Even the Divination Master could monitor the formation and activation of portals across the real world at all times; to say that Shan Liangyi couldn't do the same would be wishful thinking.

I returned to the room where the small bowl was.

Speaking of speeding up, I actually sped up something else.

That is the process by which the small bowl digests the soul within itself that I have replicated and created.

This is what Xiaowan requested.

Because she would soon be challenging herself to become the soul of the Divine Seal. If she succeeded, whether the internal self-digestion process of the soul would continue to function normally would be uncertain. Most importantly, she wanted to face the upcoming battle in a fully prepared state. The most crucial task, naturally, was to fight as her complete self.

Originally, she intended to complete the digestion process, which would take at least several years. No matter how she tried to shorten it using various methods, it could not be less than three months, otherwise her soul would suffer from the serious problem of being forced to grow too fast. However, after witnessing the omnipotence of the power of manifestation, especially its effects in the realm of the soul, she quickly realized that this power could also be used to accelerate the transformation of her own soul.

Without needing to use the power of the third gate to distort the world, nor involving the power to manipulate time and space, and without even any side effects, Xiao Wan completed the unification of her soul in a very short time under the nourishment of the power of manifestation.

The little bowl we have now can be considered to have been born in the true sense.

Because the souls created by my power are used as nourishment, over 90% of Xiaowan's current composition is my own. Her claim that she is my daughter is indeed true.

In the past, she was the embodiment of the dreams of her daughter Zhu Shi and her mother Zhu Jiu, and could also be seen as the daughter born between Zhu Shi and Zhu Jiu. Now, she can also be seen as the daughter born between me and that mother and daughter.

At the same time, we treated each other as equals and made a promise to stay together forever.

I always feel that my relationship with Xiaowan is as decadent as a character in Greek mythology.

Xiao Wan, the person involved, has a strikingly innocent, angelic face. Sometimes I feel that this immoral relationship has given the child an indescribable air of eroticism.

“Now, my soul belongs completely to me,” Xiaowan said happily. “And I belong completely to Brother Zhuangcheng.”

As if suppressed longing had suddenly surged forth, she, who had previously been somewhat restrained, now frequently hugged my arms, waist, and thighs, and then hugged my neck from behind, like a kitten clinging to a cat tree, smelling my scent and becoming very clingy.

If I hadn't specifically observed and confirmed it, I would have really thought that there had been some change in her personality structure. In other words, she originally really wanted to do this, but she had been keeping it to herself before.

(End of this chapter)