589: Chapter 590 Finally Realizing

As the saying goes, the Heavenly Dao cycles in an endless loop; Yin and Yang wax and wane, all things have order, the living must die, and the dead may live—this is the natural order of heaven and earth.

But those who go against this Dao, even if they grasp the form of the Law, can hardly obtain its divine wonders.

To seek the fruit of Reincarnation by destroying the world and slaughtering living souls is like seeking frost from fire or spring blossoms from withered wood; it runs entirely contrary to the Dao.

Simply put, he controlled Reincarnation, yet committed actions that violated it.

His act of world destruction severed the cycle of Life and Death for billions of living beings, forever imprisoning countless souls within the soul devouring banner, denying them transcendence.

The essence of the Dao of Reincarnation lies in 'flow'—the alternation of Life and Death, the separation of soul and Physical Body, the inheritance of Karma, and the cycle of all things.

Yet his act of world destruction forcibly severed and eternally sealed this entire cycle.

Thus, while the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord attempted to condense a Dao fruit using the Law of Reincarnation, the Dao of Reincarnation itself was repelling him, rejecting him, and refusing to acknowledge him.

At this moment, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord was truly dumbfounded.

He had spent decades, sacrificing an entire world and the cultivation of billions of living beings, only to receive such a result?

It was a complete backfire; he had personally ruined his own path to Soul Transformation!

After all, if that Reincarnation Dao fruit could never take shape, it would be like scooping the moon from the water—everything was just an illusion.

And didn't this mean he might be trapped in this Reincarnation trial forever, never to return to reality?

Although he did not know how the passage of time inside the trial translated to the outside world,

Perhaps decades spent here were but a single breath in the outside world.

But even with his toes, he could figure out that this trial could not possibly go on endlessly.

It would eventually come to an end.

But the end of the trial did not mean he would return to reality by passing the test.

It was far more likely that once the trial concluded, all who failed to clear it would be wiped out together, annihilated into nothingness.

And he, the grand Soul-Devouring Demon Lord, a Nascent Soul Late Stage Great True Lord who had dominated the Xuanxiao Realm for tens of thousands of years, was he really going to be miserably trapped to death in these Trial Grounds?

This was simply too absurd!

However, just as he was filled with resentment and at a loss, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord suddenly noticed a trace of abnormality.

That Gate of Soul Transformation had not closed due to his failure to condense the Dao fruit.

The door remained ajar, and from the gap still leaked an extremely profound Dao charm, as if it were deliberately waiting for someone to step through.

The Soul-Devouring Demon Lord was first bewildered, his brow furrowed deeply, utterly unable to comprehend it.

"Could it be... I didn't fail the Breakthrough, and am still impacting the realm of Soul Transformation?"

But he quickly shook his head, dismissing this absurd thought.

Whether he had failed or not, he knew better than anyone else in his heart.

But if it wasn't him, then who was it?

Thinking of this, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's expression suddenly froze, as if a long-buried curtain had been violently pulled back.

The details he had consciously ignored in his subconscious, the flaws he had instinctively chosen to turn a blind eye to, now rushed into his mind like a bursting flood.

He suddenly remembered what happened back on the ruins of the Divine Court.

At that time, using the divine talisman of the Divine Lord of Nine Heavens Moistening, Flowing Waves, and Universal Salvation as a medium, he had forcibly expelled the original owner's consciousness from that Clone, reclaiming control over that Physical Body.

To him back then, that matter was nothing more than a trivial affair; he hadn't even given it a second thought.

Even if he vaguely guessed that the Clone might be a chess piece of some Nascent Soul True Monarch, he didn't care in the slightest.

Because he had absolute confidence in his own strength, confident that no one could play tricks right under his nose.

What's more, he had only intended to use that Clone as a consumable, with the primary purpose of opening the Reincarnation channel.

So even if there was some trap within the Clone itself, it wouldn't affect him much.

But who would have thought that the events that followed would leave him overwhelmed and repeatedly frustrated.

First, his plotting for the Dao of Reincarnation was exposed to the world, drawing a joint siege from the True Monarchs of the six great grotto-heavens.

Ultimately, he was forced to abandon his true body at the cost of escaping with his Nascent Soul, and then hurriedly picked up that Clone which should have been discarded, fleeing into this sealed land to cling to life.

Only at this very moment, as he pieced all the fragments together, did the anomalies he had instinctively ignored surface one by one.

Why did he vaguely hear someone speaking when he was sucked into the trial vortex, yet completely forgot about it afterward?

Why was the Reincarnation world supposed to be generated based on his own perception, yet so many inexplicable things appeared out of thin air?

Those absurd plots of broken engagements and face-slapping, those concepts of "System" and "Golden Finger" that he had never encountered before.

They were clearly incompatible with his tens of thousands of years of cultivation memories, yet he had accepted it all with peace of mind at the time, without even harboring a shred of doubt.

This, in itself, was actually the greatest problem!

And at this moment, as the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord realized these things, his expression turned from shock to an unmaskable terror, feeling a chill rush from his spine straight to his skull.

He had realized a terrifying truth.

That was, he had likely fallen into a meticulously designed trap.

The one who entered this Reincarnation world had probably never been just him alone.

From beginning to end, another person had been hiding by his side, like a venomous snake lurking in the dark, coldly observing his every move.

Watching him grow step by step, reach the peak step by step, and finally watching him fail on the verge of success.

But if it were only this much, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord wouldn't have lost his composure to this extent.

He looked toward that Gate of Soul Transformation that had not yet dissipated.

This... was the best proof!

Someone else, following in his footsteps, had also begun to attain the Dao of Soul Transformation!

"Who on earth is it? Get the hell out here!"

Soul-Devouring suddenly spun around, scanning the dead-silent surroundings, his voice carrying an irrepressible rage.

He truly could not accept that he, a grand Nascent Soul Late Stage Great True Lord, was actually being played like a fool at this moment.

Not only was his opportunity to seek the Dao locked away, leaving him unable to progress an inch further in this life and causing him to fail the trial.

What was even more infuriating was that all his efforts had paved the way for someone else, allowing another to reap the benefits while he became a stepping stone. This made his killing intent boil, wishing nothing more than to find this person immediately and grind their bones to ashes.

Yet after waiting for a moment, the surroundings remained dead silent.

But the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord did not lower his guard because of this.

After a tense standoff for a moment, the atmosphere in the area grew increasingly anxious.

Finally, a voice echoed leisurely from the depths of his Sea of Consciousness, carrying an indescribable tone.

"Oh dear... you found out after all."

The Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's pupils suddenly contracted to the limit, as if he had seen a ghost.

Damn it, there really was someone!

Although the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord was highly convinced of this person's existence, it was ultimately just a guess without any substantial evidence.

So just now, he was actually half-probing and half-bluffing. He hadn't expected to actually bluff them out!

What's more, this person was actually hiding inside his Sea of Consciousness!

At this point, he finally realized something.

It was the System!

It was that so-called [slaughter system]!

He had wondered how that [slaughter system] could have appeared so timely, yet so abruptly.

Reasonably speaking, having such a thing suddenly appear within oneself was clearly problematic.

Yet he hadn't felt the slightest sense of incongruity, as if everything was completely natural.

"How on earth did you do it?!"

The Soul-Devouring Demon Lord truly could not understand.

Although his cultivation was suppressed to the limit in this world, his personal status and soul level had not been compromised in the slightest.

Even if his Nascent Soul Late Stage dao foundation could not be used, he should at least have his basic instincts, right?

Logically, it was impossible for him to have absolutely no awareness, yet he had remained completely oblivious to the other person hiding in his Sea of Consciousness.

This was simply beyond absurd.

But now was clearly not the time to dwell on this.

The moment that voice spoke, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord had already mobilized all the Dharmic power in his body, preparing to strike.

No matter who the opponent was, daring to hide in his Sea of Consciousness and attempting to use his path to attain their own Dao—treating him as a stepping stone—could only result in one outcome.

And that was: death!

But before he could make a move, the voice echoed leisurely once more.

"But isn't it a bit too late to realize this now?"

As soon as the words fell, a profound and majestic power suddenly surged from within the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's body.

That power was like a giant beast sleeping for ages suddenly waking up, carrying an irresistible decisiveness as it violently erupted from the core of his Sea of Consciousness!

Boom!

In an instant, a figure crashed out of his body.

Like a star breaking from its shell, enveloped in sky-filling light, it rushed impetuously toward that slightly open Gate of Soul Transformation!

"What audacity!"

The Soul-Devouring Demon Lord was shocked and enraged, letting out a roar like cracking thunder.

He then rapidly formed hand seals, his surrounding spiritual energy surging wildly, preparing to intercept.

Yet that figure did not even look back, merely waving a hand backward casually.

A colossal palm that filled the sky and earth condensed out of thin air. Like a sky-blotting millstone carrying an unstoppable force, it slapped down right toward the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's head!

The power of that single palm strike far exceeded the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's expectations.

He even had no time to assume a complete defensive posture before he was struck squarely by the giant palm, his entire body instantly sent flying backward.

Everywhere he passed, rings of white Qi exploded, and even the Void Realm was torn with fractures.

After tumbling countless times in the air, he finally stabilized his figure.

"Cough, cough..."

A trace of blood seeped from the corner of the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's mouth, his eyes swirling with shock, anger, and disbelief.

Nascent Soul Perfection!

The power of that palm strike was clearly at a level that could only be reached by the Nascent Soul Perfection stage!

It was even half a notch higher than his current cultivation!

But how was this possible?

The other party's existence meant they had entered this trial together with him.

Yet they had been hiding in his Sea of Consciousness all this time—when did they Cultivate to this step?

What he did not know, however, was that from the moment he killed his first victim, seventy percent of the cultivation and dao attainment intercepted by the slaughter system had been siphoned off by Lu Ming.

That pure spiritual energy and those essences of dao attainment stripped from countless Cultivators flowed silently like an underground river into Lu Ming's body.

He was like a parasite clinging to the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord, absorbing nutrients over a vast span of time, having long since fed himself into a colossus.

Had it not been for the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's incredibly insane act of world destruction in the Late Stage, which caused his cultivation to skyrocket after devouring billions of living beings...

Before that, when the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord was only at the Nascent Soul Middle Stage, Lu Ming might have been able to turn the tables and slay him first with the power he had accumulated.

But now, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord had also climbed to the Nascent Soul Perfection realm, and the two stood on similar steps in terms of cultivation volume.

Although Lu Ming was superior in quality and foundation, he could not easily slay the other party.

However, this was no longer important.

Cultivation was merely illusory here.

What Lu Ming wanted to do was never to fight to the death with the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord here.

All he needed to do was to take over the other's place and continue impacting the path of Soul Transformation.

As long as he successfully stepped through that gate, it would mean the end of the trial, and as the final clear winner, he would reap the greatest rewards.

Upon returning to reality, he would naturally and rightfully possess the qualification to control the Dao of Reincarnation.

Of course, this was merely the most ideal outcome Lu Ming had envisioned.

He did not believe the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord would willingly sit and wait for death.

That old devil had dominated for tens of thousands of years; with his ruthless methods and deep scheming, it was absolutely impossible for him not to have a backup plan.

If he were truly pushed to a dead end, no one could say what the other party might do.

In truth, if possible, Lu Ming really wanted to remain hidden in the dark forever.

Plotting in secret and quietly laying out his board, leaving the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord oblivious to who his opponent was even in death.

But that was clearly unrealistic.

The Soul-Devouring Demon Lord was, after all, a genuine Nascent Soul Late Stage Great True Lord.

For Lu Ming to hide from him for so long, even blinding his thoughts and perception in the early stages, was already the limit of what he could currently achieve.

Once the other party noticed something was amiss, they would instantly snap awake just as they had now.

Then, at extreme speed, they would connect all the clues, untangle the cause and effect, and realize that someone was plotting against them behind the scenes.

Lu Ming could only bully the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord when he had first arrived in this world, with low cultivation and little experience.

To think of continuing to deceive him now would be purely treating him like a fool.

But saying all this was actually no longer important now.

In the struggle for the Great Dao, the path of cultivation was littered with corpses.

Since he had exposed himself this time, it was equivalent to playing with his hand revealed.

Once they went out, there would inevitably be a fierce struggle between Dragon and tiger with the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord to secure the final fruits of victory.

What he needed to do now was to obtain the qualification for Soul Transformation as quickly as possible, gaining the upper hand in timing, so that he would not fall into a passive position when facing the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord upon returning to reality.

As for how to achieve the Breakthrough to Soul Transformation?

He had actually already experienced it completely once within the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's Sea of Consciousness.

He had seen the scene of the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's failure to condense the Dao fruit with absolute clarity, engraving every single detail into his heart.

Of course, if it were only this, it wouldn't be enough; at most, he could only be called a Great Master of theory, while still being a complete novice in actual practice.

Fortunately, every Divine Ability and Spell the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord had cast over these decades, every mystery of the Law he had operated, and every route of spiritual energy he had mobilized had been entirely absorbed by Lu Ming like a sponge soaking up water.

He had then repeatedly pondered, analyzed, and deconstructed them in private, ultimately making them his own.

Thus, his current foundation was already terrifyingly immense.

Although he could not yet fully compare to the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord's tens of thousands of years of accumulation, within this Reincarnation world, he already possessed the qualification to impact Soul Transformation.