Chapter 582: I Kill Myself
"Kill yourself."
According to the information they received, a copy of themselves would appear in their mental world—identical in physique to the original, possessing the same skills, a complete replica of their very being.
Their mission, then, was to attempt to kill this "self".
Should they succeed, the reward would be enough to completely change their destiny.
"This is the 'gift' he spoke of?" The young people trapped in their individual mental worlds recalled Bai Mo’s earlier words.
Though they might not have known who the master of the Rainbow Bridge was, such a providential power was undeniable and real; every word he uttered was deeply etched into their minds.
...
"Pfft!" In his own mental world, Lan Na, who had been knocked to the ground by a punch from his 'other self', spat out a mouthful of fresh blood before struggling to his feet once more.
He was disrespectful to his parents, impious towards gods and spirits, prone to abandoning commitments, and ruthlessly quick to pull the trigger—a scoundrel, in the eyes of outsiders, who would poison anyone for sufficient profit.
To make him raise a hand to kill "himself" was truly no easy feat.
Just a few seconds later, the two naked men resumed their fierce brawl.
In the mental world’s duel, no weapons could be conjured, nor even clothes. Lan Na, being an ordinary person, understood nothing of spell-slinging, so he could only fight with wild, flailing punches.
One Lan Na was covered in wounds, his face contorted in a grimace, while the other, expressionless Lan Na, bore only minor injuries. The true Lan Na still couldn’t bring himself to be ruthless with his doppelgänger.
"You won’t die if you lose... so why not give up?"
"You fought tooth and nail for this chance! Are you truly content to be garbage your entire life, to be looked down upon? In this broken world, as long as you’re strong enough, no one will dare to utter a single word no matter what you do! You need power, to smash those people’s dog mouths!"
"You can’t win... You love yourself the most."
"That’s not you, that’s the gaze of a monster! Kill, kill, kill!"
...
Two voices ceaselessly intertwined in his mind, one constantly urging him to give up, the other pushing him to persevere. His heart was in turmoil.
As for the emotionless Lan Na clone, it did not press its advantage or seize the opportunity to kill its original. It simply remained stationary, gazing down upon its prostrate opponent from above.
Like a precise program that had replicated the various physical parameters of the one it mimicked, it was rigidly controlled by its underlying logic, knowing clearly what it could do, and what it was limited to doing.
...
"Go to hell!" Seemingly enraged by that condescending gaze, Lan Na, bruised and battered all over, erupted once more, charging towards his other self.
He had, in the end, made his choice.
"Don’t look at me with eyes that see only trash!"
"You’re just my twin brother, you’re just my twin brother..." Lan Na repeatedly used such reasons to try and numb himself, to give himself a basis for steeling his heart and throwing his punches.
He punched with his fists, struck with his elbows, clawed with his fingernails, and even bit with his teeth. Hypnotizing himself to the point of near madness, he now had only one goal: to kill the one who looked down on him.
...
"Clang!" With a crisp sound, Lan Na’s clone dissolved into countless specks of light, all of them merging into his main body, which was now so drained from the excessive outburst that even moving a single finger was incredibly difficult. The mental world vanished with it.
His consciousness returned to reality.
"What the hell is going on?!!!" After finally unleashing his mad dog-like ferocity and killing his clone, he returned to reality only to find himself on the verge of turning into a giant Spirit Stone sculpture!
And it wasn't just him; the bodies of the other still-sleeping individuals showed the same phenomenon.
The substance continuously gushing forth from the Star Core Grinding Disc was silently and imperceptibly assimilating their bodies.
The Spirit Qi obtained by reversing Bai Mo’s main body through the grand array seemed subtly different from the Spirit Qi that appeared during the Spirit Tide of yesteryear.
The Spirit Qi from the Star Core Grinding Disc still seemed to retain a considerably strong corrosive quality; prolonged contact would lead to trouble.
...
Instinct told Lan Na that he had to leave this place immediately. If he didn't, he would surely meet his end sooner or later. That mysterious person might not have had good intentions.
He maliciously surmised that Dong Fang Sa intended to refine the eight of them, living people, into eight giant Spirit Crystals!
Legend had it that deep within various Spirit Stone mines, a minute quantity of a rare mineral—Spirit Crystals—was hidden, possessing the power to defy fate and alter destiny. However, Lan Na had never truly seen such a thing; after all, he was just a petty thug scraping by at the bottom.
...
"Mo Er Si, you’re awake too?" Just as Lan Na was wondering how he could escape right under the mysterious person’s nose, the second of the eight individuals awoke.
"I’ve become stronger." The other young man, whom Lan Na had called Mo Er Si, habitually swept a hand through his hair, uttering a bewildering remark.
With just a light sweep, his crystalized hair fell away like snow.
"..." Lan Na, too, tried to brush his hair, and predictably, he also found himself bald.
Not only that, his eyebrows, touched by his fingers, were completely gone too.
The third.
The fourth.
...
The eighth.
In less than ten minutes, all eight individuals had withdrawn from their respective mental worlds.
They exchanged glances, a hint of confusion in their eyes.
...
"Your judgment is quite sharp." A wave of psionic fluctuation emanated from the Star Core Grinding Disc.
"To think, all eight of them succeeded." A hint of excitement, mixed with a touch of regret, laced Dong Fang Sa’s words.
These eight cannon fodder he had casually chosen for the array actually all emerged victorious from their mental world self-duels. How wonderful it would have been if a few had failed; a Spirit Crystal the size of a human body would be absolutely priceless.
"Didn’t you also succeed?" Bai Mo said.
"My success was inevitable; theirs was merely coincidental!"
Just like the eight individuals on the periphery of the grand array, Dong Fang Sa had also just experienced a deathmatch with his 'other self' in his mental world.
However, he was more ruthless; he directly used the power of a Longevity Master and sacrificed another hundred years of his lifespan to instantly kill his mental world self at the very start.
That was a real and undeniable loss of one hundred years. After various deductions, Dong Fang Sa had less than two hundred years of lifespan remaining.
...
As events unfolded, he had more or less seen through the truth—Bai Mo intended to use the power of his Feng Shui array to purge certain energies that weren’t entirely his, further refining the parts he could truly control.
Meanwhile, these residual energies, purged from a high-level existence, were precisely a great boon for them. The entire scheme was built upon such a foundation of mutual exploitation.
PS: Wishing everyone a Happy New Year, hehehe.
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