Chapter 339: The Truth
"A dying struggle." Gazing at the white light that had used its last vestiges of power to break through the blockade, it easily discerned the other party's inherent weakness, expressing its disdain for such bravado.
"I am indeed nearly at my end, so... let us go together." Bai Mo's spiritual fluctuations resonated faintly, conveying this message.
"Material attacks are of little consequence to me. I do not believe you possess the qualifications to perish with me." After much thought, it still couldn't find any means for the other party to turn the tables. Even self-detonation, the Disciple of the Crimson World did not believe, would have much impact on it.
"Indeed, even if I barely ascended to a new level, there should still be a considerable gap between us. I cannot kill you." He readily admitted this fact.
"However, our battle has external participants who can intervene." With that, Bai Mo reached into his chest and pulled out a mass of purple light. "It's time to uphold your promise."
"Are you not afraid of death? This is negotiating with a tiger for its hide!" Gazing at the furiously expanding purple light of Gaia, the Disciple of the Crimson World suddenly felt as if it had fallen into someone's scheme.
From the very beginning of the plan, to its cooperation with Gaia—it had all been a trap set by the other party!
"Why would you prefer to cooperate with him?" Faced with the shifting situation, the Disciple of the Crimson World still maintained its composure. The power it had recovered was genuine and unfeigned. Dealing with a fellow on the verge of exhaustion, plus a gravely wounded peer, still presented a significant chance of victory.
Even if this individual, who barely qualified as a compatriot, suddenly turned traitor, it felt no apprehension whatsoever.
The former gained power through cyclical resistance and rebellion, seeking to overthrow all that existed. The latter, conversely, acquired some abstruse and profound power by manipulating more people, making them advance along prearranged paths. They were inherently incompatible; only, the Disciple of the Crimson World seemed to have been blinded by the fervor of its grand restoration plan and failed to consider these points.
"Judgment." The purple light surging from Bai Mo's chest surged towards the red light representing the Disciple of the Crimson World, with the force of toppling mountains and overturning seas.
Gaia's almost indiscriminate attack also affected Bai Mo, but the pressure it brought upon him was far less than that from the previously aggressive red light.
Red, purple, and white intertwined. In the blink of an eye, the three-colored light had enveloped an area of several hundred meters, like three distinct colors of ice cream, churned into a swirl by a spoon.
"I don't understand, why did you insist on letting me recover before acting against me..." The Disciple of the Crimson World seemed to have realized something, displaying a cautious expression for the first time in its tone.
"You've realized it?" Gaia was not surprised in the slightest that the other party had guessed it. At their level, the battles between them were a semi-open game of cards. As long as one recalled a single clue, it was easy to obtain the corresponding information.
However, normally, out of an unspoken agreement, they wouldn't casually deduce information about those at the same level as themselves, as that was quite a hostile act.
"Rumble!" No sooner had Gaia spoken than a tenth of the red light's interior abruptly turned purple.
"It told me to clear weeds, but the true objective was to distract my attention so it could dilute the absorbed power with impurities..." After a portion of its power betrayed it, the Disciple of the Crimson World instantly understood Gaia's scheme.
Its battle with Bai Mo could not lose, but in the fierce battle, it also had to fully concentrate. This gave Gaia, latent within everyone's genes, an opportunity to exploit.
Within every portion of power absorbed by the Disciple of the Crimson World, a tenth of it actually originated from Gaia itself. Such a proportion was not so large as to be noticed by an opponent focused on battle, and its effect could manifest at the crucial moment.
Under the coordinated attack from within and without, the red light began to steadily retreat. Gaia seemed to have seen the dawn of victory.
"You utterly selfish and self-centered fellow, how could you bear to sacrifice yourself as bait! It cannot kill me, but it can certainly kill you!"
"Whether it's you or it, you both would surely make a move against me after gaining victory. I guessed this from the very beginning."
"Gaia doesn't want someone like me who escaped its control to become the biggest unstable factor, disrupting its plans. As for you, I know too much; you would never let me go."
"Moreover, you seem to have learned of a certain future plan of mine, which would bring devastating destruction to your grand restoration plan, so I had no choice but to die."
Bai Mo methodically enumerated his thoughts, like at the ending of a detective novel, completely disregarding the fiery and intense battle currently raging around him.
He also seemed to have abandoned the idea of choosing a side, and instead became an enemy to both parties on the field.
"Since that's the case, we should first crush you, the troublemaker, to death. You must understand, a Destined Protagonist is nothing without destiny!" Gaia was still using its same old line at this moment.
"That might fool others, but unfortunately, I happen to possess similar abilities to yours..." Amidst the chaotic white flames, Bai Mo unleashed a cruel smile.
"Impossible, your Destiny System can only read communication records, can't it?!" According to Gaia's memories, Bai Mo's Destiny System ability should only be able to read words others had spoken. It was impossible for him to read thoughts buried deep in the heart, never spoken to anyone.
"I only just found out, you are an existence from the Tianxuan Continent, hahahaha! That pitiful old man, even until his death, he never escaped the palm of destiny's hand!" Bai Mo laughed madly, yet there seemed to be a hint of sorrow in his smile.
He hadn't realized before that the old cultivator he encountered back then, who committed suicide proclaiming "My destiny is mine, not Heaven's," even his death had become a point of exploitation for Gaia.
"Why was I completely unaware when you stole my information?!" Upon hearing the words "Tianxuan Continent," Gaia finally could no longer remain calm.
It had painstakingly managed to lie dormant within a minor cultivator, using him to cross a spatial rift to a new world, thereby escaping the frenzied pursuit on the Tianxuan Continent.
Gaia, gravely wounded and fallen into slumber, had set itself to awaken when that Qi Refinement cultivator died. The appearance of spirit qi, coincidentally, made its awakening time significantly earlier.
But it powerlessly discovered that due to the arrangements made before its slumber, it was still trapped in that old man's shell, with no chance to regain its freedom until he died...
"Pfft!" Bai Mo spit out a mouthful of fresh blood. With blood still staining his lips, he had no intention of answering Gaia's question.
"That half-vial of substance! You actually forcibly concealed the outflow of information!"
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