Chapter 1773: Cicada's Concealment
Chapter 1773: Cicada's Concealment
"True Death Hidden, False Universe Survivor! You both owe me a life!"
As Zhang Fan hesitated, the boundless violet energy was utterly depleted.
Without the violet energy's protection, the eternal world plunged into violent tremors once more.
"What a shame. We were so close," False Universe Survivor sighed softly.
As the world's creator, he could faintly sense that a supreme and profound Dao was on the verge of taking form. It was just one final step away.
But that single step was a world of difference.
"If it could truly be born, the imprint would be complete. With that mark, my Eternal Void World would manifest its own True False Transformation, allowing it to escape the Unending Samsara. I'm doomed either way." As False Universe Survivor considered this, his resolve hardened.
"I will buy you one last moment. Whether you succeed..."
The eternal world seemed to stabilize once more, but both True Death Hidden and Zhang Fan knew its foundation was gone.
It was only a matter of time before it collapsed completely.
"The True False Transformation returns to the True God."
"And I, this Son of Destiny, this clone... will return to..."
"...his body."
"This, then, is what they call an inescapable destiny."
Zhang Fan now faintly understood why he could never lay down that final brushstroke.
"So, even *he* has never fully grasped the True False Transformation. As a clone, it's only natural that I cannot surpass the original."
A sense of relief washed over Zhang Fan.
Then a thought struck him. "Does this mean my understanding of the True False Transformation is already on par with the original's? How can that be?"
In Zhang Fan's mind, the original—the mastermind behind everything—had always been a figure of unimaginable power, perhaps even strong enough to challenge the True God.
Although he had never abandoned the thought of demanding an explanation, he had never dared to underestimate his progenitor.
He never imagined he would now discover, to his astonishment, that a lifetime of bitter cultivation had brought him to a point where he could stand as his equal.
It was a thought Zhang Fan had never dared to entertain before.
A thought he'd never conceived, never dared to conceive.
In that instant of revelation, an irrepressible ambition began to bloom in his heart.
"Who is real and who is false? Who is the master and who is the clone?"
"That remains to be seen!"
"And now... there is one last chance!"
Zhang Fan knew his progenitor was surely waiting for him just outside this eternal world.
Once this realm shattered, before he was reclaimed by the True God, the original would move to absorb him first.
"But that," he thought, "is precisely my only path to survival!"
At this thought, Zhang Fan looked at the nearly finished scroll before him, then at True Death Hidden, and a cold glint flashed in his eyes.
"Forgive me, Senior, but I must borrow your head!"
The very brush used to paint the scroll of Truth and Falsehood materialized in his hand and descended silently.
It came down heavily upon True Death Hidden.
A flicker of astonishment crossed True Death Hidden's face. He couldn't comprehend why Zhang Fan had undergone such a dramatic change in a mere instant.
"You may yet have another chance, but I... may not."
"Please, Senior, grant me this!"
Zhang Fan was inwardly shocked to see that even under the touch of his brush—the very instrument of his Dao—True Death Hidden could still endure, his body only trembling faintly.
Instead of pressing harder, he let a flash of light erupt, transmitting the entirety of his recent epiphany directly into the other's mind.
True Death Hidden's gaze shifted from Zhang Fan to the space beyond the Eternal Void World.
Whatever he saw or understood in that moment, he truly ceased to resist.
His form grew dim, his radiance receded, and at last, he collapsed into a single, deathly still point of white light.
It drifted slowly into Zhang Fan's palm.
Zhang Fan fell silent for a moment. Then, facing the spot where True Death Hidden had perished, he bowed deeply and solemnly.
Without another moment of hesitation, he swallowed the point of silent white light.
Though for True Death Hidden, this demise was not a final death, sacrificing a lifetime's existence merely to grant Zhang Fan a sliver of a chance in his desperate gamble was a kindness as weighty as a mountain.
Zhang Fan seized the final moments, carefully savoring the essence of the silent radiance True Death Hidden had left behind.
"Death... is merely an illusion."
"The Great Dao of Truth and Falsehood was invisible and unknowable to Senior True Death Hidden. Yet, he used the concepts of life and death as an allegory, attempting to sketch the outlines of its transformative power."
"The result was like a blind man describing an elephant—he grasped only a fraction of the whole. And yet... it truly contained a hint of the essence of Truth and Falsehood."
"What a boon!"
As if struck by a flash of inspiration, Zhang Fan's brush flew across the scroll of Truth and Falsehood, adding another half-stroke.
Then, he turned his gaze back to the Eternal Void World.
He could sense that False Universe Survivor had already perished.
Just as False Universe Survivor had said, though this realm could exist apart from the Mountain Sea, it was ultimately a void. Its entire foundation rested upon his cultivation.
Faced with the might of the descending True God, resistance was impossible.
It was no longer just trembling; it was on the verge of total collapse.
Zhang Fan's brush descended, extinguishing the world with a single touch, a moment before it could be annihilated.
"Life is but a passenger in the void, existing beyond the realm of falsehood."
A silvery-white light, identical to the one that had shone from False Universe Survivor, flashed in his eyes and was gone. Zhang Fan completed the final half-stroke on the scroll of Truth and Falsehood.
"I don't seek to fully deconstruct the True False Transformation. I seek only..."
"...to surpass *you*!"
His left eye turned silver-gray, his right a pale white.
Images of the God-Becoming Guests flooded his mind: the Fishing Old Man, the Fate Slayer Lord, the Array Breaker, the Forgetful Old Man, and all the others.
"This shall be my kindling, to ignite the flame of Truth and Falsehood!"
The scroll of Truth and Falsehood, which he had painted with his own hands, was instantly consumed by flames, transforming into a raging inferno visible only to him.
The Eternal Void World ceased to be, and Zhang Fan plunged into the final apocalypse of the God's Return.
He had simulated this moment countless times in his mind, but to truly be immersed in it still left him momentarily stunned.
It was a scene of terrifying apocalypse.
No living beings remained, no Mountain and Sea. The wither of the Dao was gone, the void realms were gone.
Only a sliver of starlight remained, hanging high above like the solitary eye of a god.
Like the rising sun, it spilled crimson light, surging forth to devour everything.
Aside from the impending God.
Only two figures were left, like duckweed in a gale, struggling to endure.
Two beings of a single origin: the progenitor and his creation.
"Return to me, now!"
The original's voice was cold, like a clan elder chiding a junior.
Zhang Fan felt himself being pulled uncontrollably toward the other figure.
The pull was irresistible, even stronger than the call of the God's Return.
At that moment, Zhang Fan realized he felt utterly out of place amidst the vast, surrounding torrent of the God's Return.
He resonated only with the original before him.
"Is this your advantage, then?"
Zhang Fan sneered inwardly.
"A clone returns to its source. It seems that is the natural order."
"But today, I will show you..."
"...that in this world, there is no such thing as a 'natural order'!"
A resolute glint flashed in Zhang Fan's eyes.
He not only ceased resisting the original's pull, but he accelerated into it.
In the instant before merging, the flame of Truth and Falsehood erupted from within him, blazing furiously.
"Utterly foolish!"
"How could the power of Truth and Falsehood possibly harm *me*?"
The original remained completely unmoved by Zhang Fan's counterattack.
He chanted softly, "When truth is made false, falsehood becomes truth!"
The raging fire from the moment before was instantly extinguished, vanishing without a trace.
As if it had never existed at all.
The original's cold voice echoed, "Is this what you were counting on? To foolishly attempt to use the Great Dao of Truth and Falsehood to usurp my place..."
He hadn't finished speaking when his expression suddenly changed.
For around Zhang Fan, indistinct figures had begun to materialize.
True Death Hidden, False Universe Survivor, the Fishing Old Man, Xuanyuan Hong, the Fate Slayer Lord, the Array Breaker...
They appeared as independent beings, yet at the same time seemed to emanate from Zhang Fan himself.
"You've always wanted me to return to you, haven't you?"
"In this life, I have grasped countless Great Daos of the Mountain and Sea and understood the very foundations of the God-Becoming Guests. At this moment, my comprehension of the Great Dao of Truth and Falsehood surpasses your own!"
"Yet, I am willing to give it all to you. Let us become one!"
A hint of madness glinted in Zhang Fan's eyes. As the flame of Truth and Falsehood died out, his form slammed into the original's.
Like two drops of water merging, they instantly became one.
But...
...the figures of the God-Becoming Guests lingered like persistent phantoms within the unified form.
"Return! Return!"
The starlight from above intensified.
The vessel of the Great Dao of Truth and Falsehood drifted uncontrollably toward the solitary eye suspended above.
A savage voice roared over and over, "Return!"
But the presence of the ghostly figures made it impossible to activate the True False Transformation.
Each time the return was about to begin, another, fainter voice would sound, interrupting the process.
"Return!"
"I will not."
"Return!"
"I will not."
...
The phantoms of the God-Becoming Guests were not the true, fallen beings themselves.
Instead, they were anchor points Zhang Fan used to distinguish himself from his progenitor.
Only the God-Becoming Guests of the Mountain Sea could retain faint, fragmented memories through its constant resets.
During his interactions with them in this life, Zhang Fan had confirmed that his progenitor had never crossed paths with them in previous cycles.
The original may have walked every path, experienced every possibility in the Mountain Sea.
But the God-Becoming Guests were the sole exception.
Thus, they could be used to differentiate Zhang Fan from the original.
Upon closer inspection, though the two drops of water had merged, the one that had joined later was tinged with a distinct quality, allowing it to maintain a temporary, separate existence.
Without a doubt, given the progenitor's control over his creation, this distinction could not last long.
A clone was, after all, just a clone.
From the moment of its creation, its destiny of being unable to resist was set in stone.
Under normal circumstances, these phantoms of the God-Becoming Guests could, at best, prolong Zhang Fan's existence by a few moments.
They were fundamentally incapable of changing anything.
But now...
In the final apocalypse of the God's Return, that fleeting moment was enough to turn everything on its head.
They drew ever closer to the True God, yet Zhang Fan showed no sign of abandoning his resistance.
He seemed intent on dragging them both down with him.
The original finally lost all composure.
"Do you want to die?!"
"If you want to die, don't drag me down with you!"
"As long as we can return, anything is still possible! If we fall to the True God, we'll be damned for eternity, with no chance of a do-over!"
Anger. Panic.
Zhang Fan watched every moment of his progenitor's unsightly display.
He simply watched with cold eyes. "It is precisely because I do not wish to die that I must risk everything on this one gamble!"
The starlight rained down.
It felt as though it had fully descended upon the world.
The star hanging above was now like a great sun, proud and solitary.
Both Zhang Fan and his progenitor could feel with absolute clarity that the power of the True False Transformation clinging to them was growing thinner.
It could abandon them at any moment.
"Madman! You madman! We're both going to die at this rate!" the original shrieked, his composure shattered.
"Return! For heaven's sake, return!"
Zhang Fan's gaze was scorching. On the precipice of life and death, his mind grew calmer than ever.
Sensing the opportunity he had been waiting for had arrived, Zhang Fan finally dispersed the anchor points of the God-Becoming Guests' phantoms.
He no longer resisted their complete fusion.
The original was overjoyed.
He eagerly prepared to consume Zhang Fan completely and then return to his initial anchor point.
But...
The next moment, instead of absorbing Zhang Fan, it was as if he'd swallowed a rock, the backlash filling his mouth with blood.
"Impossible! How did you..."
Zhang Fan gave a savage grin. "Without the power of the True False Transformation, how much stronger are you, the so-called original, than me?"
"Let us have a fair fight," he declared.
"One that will decide not just who is superior, but who will live and who will die!"
With those words, Zhang Fan lunged at his progenitor.
There were no Dao arts, no divine abilities.
Only the raw, bloody clash of pure will.
Two souls, strikingly similar—or rather, completely identical—battling for their very survival.
A fight to the death.
In that moment, they seemed to forget the apocalyptic God's Return outside, forgot the fate of eternal damnation that awaited them.
Their eyes saw only each other, vowing to settle the score.
At any cost.
The brutality of it all could not be described to an outsider.
To an observer, it was over in an instant.
But for the two combatants in their arena, it was as if a hundred million years had passed.
"Damn it... damn it all... you son of a bitch..."
The original was on the verge of fading away, cursing endlessly.
But his only answer was Zhang Fan's unbridled, triumphant laughter.
The merged droplet shifted once more.
The two had become truly, completely one.
"In the end," he thought, "I won."
As the victor, Zhang Fan was impossibly weak, yet he felt little joy in his heart.
He had, as a clone, devoured his progenitor and inherited everything.
But he had no time to inspect his gains.
The remaining power of the True False Transformation was now as thin as a thread.
He was infinitely close to the God's Return.
"Fortunately, the heavens have not abandoned me!"
"Even if only an inch of the True False Transformation remains, it can still be activated."
"Return! Return!"
Zhang Fan finally shouted the two words his progenitor had screamed countless times before.
There was no other will to oppose him now.
After a brief pause, the Great Dao of Truth and Falsehood descended upon this space.
The starlight that filled the sky suddenly dimmed.
It was as if an invisible, colossal hand had seized the great sun in the sky.
Then, with an unstoppable, immense force, it began to drag it down, step by step.
A wondrous scene unfolded before Zhang Fan's eyes.
As if time were flowing in reverse, the countless brilliant rays of starlight slowly returned to the star.
The desolate darkness surged forth once more.
Compared to the radiance of the God, that cold silence was somehow more reassuring.
This time had been far too perilous.
He had been a hair's breadth away from the God's final descent.
Erasing the impending God, the process of returning to truth took longer than all previous times combined.
But in the end, it was a success.
The taut string in Zhang Fan's mind finally snapped.
He let out a long sigh of relief.
His gaze fixed on the fading figure of the True God, his spirit soaring. "I defied heaven to change my destiny and usurped my progenitor. In the future, I will shatter the star and execute the God!"
"Just you wait!"
As if sensing Zhang Fan's thoughts, in its final moment, the vanishing starlight flared violently one last time.
Then it faded into nothingness.
The rolling darkness swept in, swallowing Zhang Fan's consciousness.
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