Chapter 197 Consciousness Returns, Blade Slashes Through the God-Level Transformation Realm!
There would be no more "the plum in the golden vase."
There would be no more stolen cultivation scriptures.
There would be no more joy in foul-mouthed cursing.
There would be nothing left.
The mycelium trembled slightly in the crevices of the rubble.
The path of retreat was cut off; there was no way back.
"Dammit."
Bai Xuan cursed again.
Its volume rose slightly.
The mycelium suddenly shot out, piercing straight into the gaps of the broken bones, tightly binding that wisp of Divine Soul fragment that was about to dissipate.
Within a breath's time.
The shriveled umbrella cap expanded outward with all its might.
The curvature expanded to the limit of its life.
The entire Mushroom erupted with a blinding, eerie green light.
That was the entirety of its Origin accumulated over a thousand years.
The purest essence of vegetation.
A thousand years of essence from the sun and moon.
A thousand years of wind, frost, rain, and snow.
A thousand years of stealing food, drinks, lessons, and glances.
All of it was concentrated into this single beam of light.
It wasn't to repay a kindness.
Bai Xuan didn't believe in that stuff in this life.
It had simply calculated a debt.
When the calculation reached the end, it found that it owed a life.
And Bai Xuan hated owing debts more than anything.
The eerie green light crashed straight into that section of broken bone.
It seeped deep into the bone crevices, tightly covering that flickering Divine Soul fragment, reinforcing, nourishing, and mending it layer by layer.
And then.
This beam of light swept up the fragment, pierced through the ruins, penetrated the rubble, sliced through the permeating dust, and vanished into Zhou Ran's brow.
"This is the last time I'll call you Boss!"
...
Sea of Consciousness.
It was pitch black.
Zhou Ran's consciousness sank to the bottom.
The surrounding darkness pressed hard against his senses, making it impossible to breathe.
Ye Futian's demonic intent had already occupied the vast majority of the territory.
Those black tentacles, covered in barbs, savagely pierced into every corner of his consciousness, devouring the remaining Divine Soul inch by inch.
It was almost gone.
The traces of his existence were being rapidly erased.
Memories began to blur.
First, some insignificant things.
The sensation of gripping a barbell for the first time in a gym during his youth.
The taste of that cheap fried rice in the university cafeteria.
Then, the vital things.
The warmth when Chen Ya handed over the heirloom ancient ring.
The way Lin Qingxue smiled for the first time.
Xiao Hongli's reddened eyes when she threw her high heels.
Back on Lao Mountain, the overbearing Law within the Void Realm would unreasonably obliterate living beings.
Now, he was also being forcibly erased.
All the unwillingness, all the resentment, all the attachment to this world.
All converged into a single word.
"Fuck!"
Just as Zhou Ran's last shred of consciousness was about to be extinguished.
Surges of power, mixed with the earthy and fishy scent of fungi, poured in from his brow.
It wasn't spiritual energy.
It wasn't Devilish Qi.
It was a more primitive, yet unreasonably stubborn Life Qi.
This power originated from the Mushroom roots growing in thousand-year-old humus.
Ignoring the rocks or steel blocking the way, it bored inward desperately.
Zhou Ran's consciousness was pulled arrogantly by this external force.
It was dragged out of the quagmire by brute force.
He opened his eyes.
"You old dog—"
On the level of consciousness, Zhou Ran's eyes were bloodshot and red.
He couldn't swallow this insult.
"Get back into your corner!"
Zhou Ran's will transformed into a crude Purple-Gold Long Saber.
No profound Sword Intent, no support from flashy Cultivation Techniques.
It was a blunt instrument forged entirely from anger.
He launched a life-or-death counterattack toward the center of the Sea of Consciousness where Ye Futian was entrenched.
Outside.
Ye Futian, controlling Zhou Ran's Physical Body, was mobilizing the little remaining Demonic Essence to prepare for the phantom's final blow.
A sudden, heart-wrenching pain erupted in his head.
The circulation of spiritual energy was forcibly severed.
The Demonic Essence gathered at his fingertips dissipated completely, turning into ashes swept away by the wind.
The halberd was already suspended above his head.
"That damned Mushroom—!"
Ye Futian's voice squeezed out of Zhou Ran's mouth, its tone distorted.
He wanted to dodge.
But his limbs were no longer under his control.
Inside, that god-awful Rebellious Disciple was holding a blunt saber, hacking desperately at his Divine Soul defense line.
One strike.
Two strikes.
Three strikes.
Every strike failed to break the defense.
But every strike forced him to Divided Soul.
The halberd slashed down.
The air current blew away the only remaining bluestone slabs at the bottom of the underground palace.
The Physical Body controlled by Ye Futian was violently thrown by the air current, crashing all the way into the stone wall a hundred meters away.
Large chunks of rock collapsed, and a two-meter-deep crater was dented into the surface of the stone wall.
This blow.
Did not hit a vital spot.
Zhou Ran's shell only added some superficial wounds.
But the impact was transmitted to the Sea of Consciousness, snapping a gap in Ye Futian's Divine Soul defense line.
This was exactly what Zhou Ran was waiting for.
It didn't need to be big.
A crack was enough.
His remaining consciousness transformed into a purple-gold wedge, charging into the center through the crack.
Unreasonable, leaving no room, and giving no chance for maneuver.
One kick.
It landed right in the center of Ye Futian's remnant soul.
This kick was a clean and decisive stomp.
It carried the humiliation of being possessed and the debt of that Mushroom burning away a thousand years of intelligence.
Ye Futian's remnant soul was kicked back into the dead corner in the deepest part of the Sea of Consciousness.
Zhou Ran did not stop.
Great Sun Tathagata World-Purifying Incantation.
He chanted it silently no less than ten times in succession.
Layer upon layer, it sealed that mass of black mist into a lifeless dead ball.
"This is the interest."
Zhou Ran exhaled a breath of turbid air mixed with the scent of blood in the Sea of Consciousness.
"The principal, we'll settle that later."
Ye Futian erupted with a manic low roar within the shackles.
The sound passed through layers of interception, and by the time it came out, it was faint and hard to discern.
Zhou Ran gathered his consciousness.
The moment he regained control of his body.
The sense of pain returned.
All the pain that had been forcibly cut off by Ye Futian poured back in simultaneously.
The wound on his severed arm, the withered Meridians, the broken ribs.
The dense network of cracks on the dao platform in his Dantian.
Zhou Ran's knee crashed heavily into the pile of rubble.
His mouth hung slightly open.
What he coughed up was no longer blood, but a thick black liquid mixed with fragments of internal organs.
"Your opponent is me."
He used his only remaining right hand to prop himself up firmly on the ground.
His fingers gouged five deep grooves among the rubble.
His gaze swept not far away.
Bai Xuan lay quietly on the ground.
The originally round umbrella cap was shriveled and shrunk, its surface covered in dry wrinkles.
The luster had completely peeled off, turning into a dusty, dull white.
Those thieving eyes that usually darted around were gone.
The patterns on the umbrella cap were blurred into a mess, no different from the wild Mushrooms seen everywhere in the mud.
It had overdrawn its intelligence.
It had regressed into an ordinary White Luo Umbrella Mushroom.
It couldn't speak.
It couldn't curse.
It would no longer shout in that punchable tone about wanting to read the plum in the golden vase.
It couldn't do anything anymore.
Zhou Ran stared at that shriveled Mushroom.
He stared for three seconds.
His chest heaved violently.
He didn't say any touching words.
Nor did he do anything sentimental.
He only dragged his swaying body upright, took a step, bent over, and picked up that shriveled Mushroom.
He brushed away the dust and rubble from its surface.
He tucked it into his inner robe.
"I owe you a life."
He said.
"When you come back, you'll have all the copies of the plum in the golden vase you want."
No one responded to him.
The umbrella cap remained motionless.
Zhou Ran raised his hand to wipe the bloodstains from his lips.
He looked up.
In mid-air, Li Chengfeng's phantom once again raised the Long Halberd.
Even though its outline had become dim and pale, the direction the halberd was locked onto hadn't changed at all.
The Soul Transformation-rank pressure returned.
This time, the power was significantly reduced.
But even this greatly reduced Soul Transformation power still represented an insurmountable desperate situation for the current Zhou Ran.
His Meridians were withered, his left arm was gone, and the dao platform in his Dantian was covered in cracks.
He even needed to dig his right fingernails into his palm to stay awake through the pain just to stand straight.
The halberd blade sliced through space.
There was no sonic boom.
There was no air wave.
This strike was slow to the extreme.
Slow enough that Zhou Ran could clearly see every ancient forged pattern on the halberd blade.
But it was precisely this unhurried, slow pace that forced one into an unavoidable, fatal predicament.