Chapter 920: I Refuse

Creak. Crack. Creak. Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak.

Chu Liang’s eyes grew even brighter as he felt a tremendous power slowly return to his body. It was not just the awakening of his spiritual awareness, but also the restoration of his Heavenly Origin.

Memories surged through his mind like a rising tide. The life he had lived before transmigrating, the White Pagoda, the Mount Shu Summit, the Assembly of Immortal Sects. All of it came flooding back, each fragment falling neatly into place to form a complete picture.

As his memories returned, the world around him began to collapse. Pitch-black holes tore open across the land and sky, swallowing everything in their path.

"Why..." Caiyi’s voice rang out from above. "I sacrificed eight of my tails to construct this Demonic Dharmaloka. Even then, I still couldn't trap you. Why? I couldn't even reconstruct your entire life...

"If everything had gone according to plan, you would have lived here, grown old here, and died here. Your life would have ended in silence.

"So why did it fall apart halfway through?"

"..."

Listening to her resentful roar, Chu Liang looked up at the sky with a calm expression and said flatly, "My life... how could that be something you could replicate? As you yourself said, to break free from an illusion, all it takes is a single turning point. And the one you gave me was far too easy."

A thunderous crash rang out as the illusion shattered completely. Chu Liang reappeared above the bottomless abyss, plunging that fragment of bone straight into Caiyi and the devil embryo.

But now, the "Caiyi" before him had become Daoist Cangyun.

Back when Daoist Cangyun's acupoints had been sealed by twelve dragon scales and he had been subdued by the Azure Dragon, Caiyi had taken that moment to secretly place a curse on him.

At the final moment, she activated her Great Dao of the Myriad Forms and carried out the ultimate transformation. She became someone else entirely.

In an instant, she swapped places with the marked Daoist Cangyun, allowing him to die in her place. In addition, she had sacrificed eight of her fox tails, giving up nearly all of her cultivation, to drag Chu Liang into the most powerful illusion in existence—the Demonic Dharmaloka.

The Demonic Dharmaloka could recreate an entire lifetime from a person's memories. As long as Chu Liang continued living through the time stored in his mind, the illusion would steadily move toward its inevitable end.

To live out an entire lifetime within the illusion and die without ever realizing it would take only a single moment in the real world. Even if only this was a clone, it would also kill the true form and that was what made this illusion truly terrifying. This technique drew upon the power of the Great Dao of the Myriad Forms to drain Chu Liang's life essence entirely, wiping out his very existence from the world!

It was a nearly flawless plan.

If it hadn’t been absolutely necessary, Caiyi would never have used this move. Once unleashed, it would cost her thousands of years of cultivation.

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Her journey to the Divine Ruins had only one goal—to kill Chu Liang.

On Mount Shu, Chu Liang was too well protected, and with the Demon God residing there, she did not dare to make a move. If she wanted to kill him, the Divine Ruins beyond the Nine Provinces were the perfect battleground. Even if Chu Liang had not volunteered to come, she would have found a way to lure him here. The fact that he came of his own accord filled her with joy. To her, it felt like fate.

He was meant to die here. And the demon race was meant to rise!

The thought of finding Yan Renjie might have lingered in her heart, but it had never been her true priority. If her feelings had truly come first, she would never have agreed to the plan that made Yan Renjie the scapegoat for the Mount Shu Sect’s downfall.

As long as Chu Liang died, the shackles restraining the Demon God would break. The demon race would rise to power, and the tides of the past tens of millennia would be overturned in an instant. She would be hailed as the greatest hero of the demon race. Her parents and kin, who had fallen to the blades of humanity, could finally rest in peace beneath the earth.

That had always been her ultimate goal!

But in the end, it had all amounted to nothing.

...

Chu Liang drove the shard of bone straight through Daoist Cangyun. Daoist Cangyun, who was already gravely wounded, didn’t even have the strength to cry out before his breath faded completely. After he had taken Caiyi’s place, the devil embryo hidden within him was pierced as well. Its diabolical qi erupted violently, and it let out a shrill, miserable scream.

"Deity Pan's[1] Bone... Aaaagh! Deity Pan's Bone!"

Boom!

With a thunderous explosion, Daoist Cangyun, along with everything inside him, disintegrated into nothingness.

Within the void, Chu Liang had already turned into a flash of lightning and escaped. At that same moment, he felt a massive golden imprint merge into his body. Only then did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The devil embryo had, at last, been slain.

Chu Liang simply felt it was a pity that he couldn’t personally bury Daoist Cangyun and see him off in peace.[2]

He turned his gaze back toward Caiyi.

Daoist Yan and the Azure Dragon had her surrounded. However, all that Caiyi did was slump weakly against the wall. She seemed to show no intention of escaping. She knew all too well that, given her current cultivation, there was no chance of getting away.

This ambush had always been a do-or-die gamble. From the moment she activated the Demonic Dharmaloka, she had already accepted that she would give up her life. Yet now, she had not even succeeded in taking Chu Liang down with her.

Noticing the calm indifference in Chu Liang’s eyes, Caiyi suddenly chuckled. "I really don’t understand. Why are you so damn hard to kill?

"When I first met you, what was your cultivation back then? Then you reached the seventh realm, and then the eighth... Why do you always survive every disaster? Even the Demonic Dharmaloka failed to kill you. Why?"

Chu Liang paused for a moment, then replied gently, "Maybe... you're just unlucky."

Aside from bad luck, there wasn’t much else he could say.

If she had used any other technique, perhaps Chu Liang would have been seriously wounded. But this Demonic Dharmaloka held no real threat for him.

Terrifying as it was, the illusion could invade one’s soul and memories, drawing out an entire lifetime from within the mind. Any other cultivator might have had their entire life stolen away, living and dying within the illusion without ever realizing it.

But Chu Liang was different. The memories in this body’s mind did not belong to him in the first place.

In addition, the world that came with the White Pagoda was part of his memory. Even if Caiyi sacrificed eighteen tails, it would be too hard for her to recreate the world with this level of spiritual energy. Unlike other legendary artifacts that only appeared briefly, the White Pagoda had accompanied Chu Liang through his entire journey.

If she had the power to recreate that, she would have been able to create an entire world from scratch.

When the illusion reached the moment of the real Chu Liang’s death and the descent of the White Pagoda, everything started collapsing naturally. Not even the Demonic Dharmaloka could fully comprehend what was actually happening.

"Heh..." Caiyi shook her head and slumped weakly against the wall. "You’ve won. After I die, the demons will be nothing more than a bunch of foolish beasts. You can choose to coexist with them, or if you can’t, just wipe them out. Just make sure you keep the Demon God under control. If she ever awakens her true nature as a Heaven-Devouring Bug—"

Chu Liang cut her off with a single line. "You’re still trying to sow discord."

He continued, "You’re hoping we’ll attack Tuntun and trigger her awakening, aren’t you? But I’ll guide her with human knowledge and education. I’ll help her become a true god. Your schemes will never succeed."

This time, Caiyi truly laughed from the heart. "Hahahaha..."

As her laughter faded, she said, "I’m not unlucky. I lost to you. And not just me. The entire demon race has never faced a stronger opponent than you, Chu Liang... Sometimes, I honestly wish I had been born human."

She paused, then slowly turned her gaze to Daoist Yan. "Will you let her be the one to end me? I want to die by the hand of Yan Renjie’s descendant... to atone for what I did to him all those years ago."

Swish.

Before she could finish her sentence, Chu Liang flashed forward like lightning and drove his sword through her chest.

This time, there was no hidden trick. There was no cursed Eminent One waiting to take her place.

"Sorry," Chu Liang said coldly, "I refuse."

1. Likely referencing Pangu, the creator god who split heaven and earth. ☜

2. Just for your information, he has a.. Graveyard of Eminent Ones for growing plants. And so, I believe that's why the author wrote this. :DD ☜