Chapter 553: Wu
"My creation." The phantom's voice was intermittent, sounding somewhat like a radio with unstable reception.
With every word it uttered, the fiends behind it vanished considerably. The fiends served as fuel to sustain the phantom, burning continuously like torches.
"Why, after thousands of years, is humanity's life still like this?" Through reading the memory fragments of the fiends, Yuan Wu Chu felt a hint of surprise.
Before he died, humanity had clearly occupied all known habitable regions and even established a unified government. Yet, after thousands of years of development, the lives of most people remained unchanged, teetering daily between hunger, cold, and the very brink of death.
"The Golden Age in the memory database, I have maintained it to this day." The Star Beacon reiterated the answer it had previously given to Bai Mo.
After all, that was the mission it had received.
"..." The phantom was speechless.
"I have answered your question. Now, may I ask, can you die?" The Star Beacon, with impeccable politeness, delivered its declaration of death to the phantom.
"Rumble!" Suddenly, the sky began to flash with lightning and roar with thunder.
"Hah! Hah! Hah! I still don't understand human hearts." Yuan Wu Chu thought for several seconds before realizing why the Star Beacon, which he had designed, had, after all, for what reason exactly, imprisoned all of humanity's progress for thousands of years.
"What a pity that Qingye and the others' sacrifice only produced such a failure, a Dharma Spirit that truly didn't understand adaptation." The phantom was devoid of joy or sorrow.
"Disappear from this world forever, my creator." Upon hearing these words, the Star Beacon's tone betrayed no hint of anger, but the super thundercloud mass, stretching for tens of kilometers across the sky, probably exposed its true intentions.
"Taihao Divine Lightning!" Giving Yuan Wu Chu no further time to explain, an unimaginably bright pillar of light, piercing heaven and earth, tore through the layers of dark clouds, pressing straight down from directly above the phantom.
Intense high temperatures pierced the air, triggering a hurricane in the surroundings whose power was no less than that of the previous tornado. The beleaguered air was tormented again and again by different energy sources.
However, the Taihao Divine Lightning, which appeared to shake heaven and earth, had all its destructive power exquisitely confined within a circle with a radius of less than ten meters, centered on the phantom.
At this moment, with the collective defection of the aristocratic families, the gamble could be declared over. The Star Beacon naturally no longer hesitated to project its power upon the ground.
In less than a millisecond, the divine lightning, advancing at near-light speed, descended from mid-air to the ground, attempting to erase its target from this world completely in the shortest possible time.
...
"The Galaxy Sentry Cannons on the Moon God are merely equivalent in power to this Taihao Divine Lightning." From an unknown location within a spatial interlayer, Donaldson, a member of the Ark's senior leadership, was intently watching the live broadcast from the scene.
As the primary liaison who maintained frequent, almost collusive contact with the Moon's authorities, apart from the core confidential test data for the ultimate weapon, the Star-Melting Cannon, he had a clear understanding of many of the Moon God's parameters.
"The destructive power of this Tier-Seven old fellow is likely comparable to the Moon God's full output." Ha Si Ta, clad in yellow robes, who had just emerged from his cultivation retreat, said.
"Down below is a battle of gods."
"Be careful not to mention that name, nor to look directly into the eyes of those fellows, lest you expose the Ark's main body location."
"Understood!"
...
"Hiss..." As the smoke dissipated, Yuan Wu Chu's phantom remained unharmed, but the ground beside it was a different story.
This deflected Taihao Divine Lightning carved a clean, smooth-walled, bottomless great hole from what was previously relatively solid ground.
The searing energy flow directly melted or even vaporized the soil and rubble it encountered along the way. Smoke permeated the entire battlefield with the wind.
Several fiends, unfortunately caught in the lightning's glow due to their proximity, instantly vanished within the dazzling radiance.
...
The Four-Faced Daoist in the sky watched Bai Mo with the face on his back.
"After all, he came for me." Bai Mo pulled out the sword from his chest, the tip of which still bore traces of dark golden blood.
He casually discarded this ornament that had been embedded in his chest, and eerily spoke to the Star Beacon.
"A mutual attraction among the Emotionless Daoists?"
"You guessed right."
"This is my home ground." Having failed to land a hit, the Star Beacon prepared to double its charge.
"There's no need for you to attack. It won't last half a day." Bai Mo once again stopped this meaningless action.
Yuan Wu Chu's phantom on the ground also nodded.
"After thousands of years of waiting, you are the second fellow Daoist to capture my attention. The one from three thousand years ago, I hadn't even fully awakened before he broke through the void and ascended away." The phantom's tone became somewhat hurried.
The fiends behind Yuan Wu Chu burned faster and faster, looking as if they were a countdown to the phantom's existence.
"Do you know, we, like you, were the first generation to come into contact with Spirit Qi." The phantom began to recount its past.
"Our lineage of Wu, passed down through generations, each inherited all the memories of the previous Wu. I am them, and they are me.
I am the Eighth-Generation Wu, but did you know, when the First-Generation Wu was born, the Manghuang Realm had no Spirit Qi?!" Yuan Wu Chu revealed a shocking truth.
"The First-Generation Wu was initially just a strong ancient ape, with little intelligence and no understanding of cultivation.
But I witnessed the explosion of the Spirit Tide, and the baptism of boundless information allowed the First-Generation Wu—which is to say, me—to gain wisdom and the initial power." The phantom, whose memories were somewhat muddled, expressed a hint of confusion about its own identity.
The memories of eight generations overlapped, each generation possessing a distinct self.
"After the Spirit Tide, one race after another awakened, and the forest entered an era of ten thousand races warring. The First-Generation Wu led his tribe, carving a bloody path through a storm of gore and bloodshed, and survived the deadly elimination phase from ten thousand races to a mere hundred.
I fought countless monsters. When I staunchly defended Hot Spring Mountain, I killed for ten days and ten nights straight, my eyes unable to see any color other than crimson."
"After tens of thousands of sunrises and sunsets, the First-Generation Wu, who had battled heaven and earth and was riddled with countless hidden injuries, suddenly discovered that the possibility of his body continuing to grow stronger had been completely blocked by an overwhelming number of hidden injuries.
Filled with despair and unwillingness, he ultimately conceived of the method of the Wu's Legacy, leaving everything to the Second-Generation Wu, which is to say, me."
Yuan Wu Chu recounted "his" past, sometimes using the first person, sometimes the third, his identity and role constantly shifting.
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