Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 313 - 292 VS Ancient Moon God 1

Chapter 313: 292 VS Ancient Moon God 1

I halted my departing steps and turned back to look at the Ancient Moon God.

"Is there a problem?" the Ancient Moon God asked curiously, "Or have you changed your mind?"

"Yes, I have changed my mind," I said. "I can take you out of the fog—but there is one condition."

"What’s the condition?" she asked seriously.

First, I inquired, "You’ve said before that you are a benevolent deity without any ill will towards humans—is that just a figure of speech? Or is it true, as it literally means, that you harbor no malice towards me either?"

"It’s not a figure of speech; it is the truth," she asserted confidently. "My spirit is fundamentally different from the life forms born of flesh and blood. Rather than being a life form, I am more akin to a phenomenon. I strictly follow the ’innate setting’ of my origin in both thought and action.

"Since the Ancient Moon Villagers who gave birth to me purely wished for me to be a benevolent Spiritual Body, not even evil as insignificant as a speck of dust exists within me."

I nodded, "Alright, I will take your word for it for now."

As I spoke, I raised my right hand, and a flame filled with a dangerous aura ignited in the palm of my hand.

I pointed the flame at the Ancient Moon God, and upon seeing this, her expression changed slightly: "What are you trying to do?"

"It should be quite clear at a glance. Stand still there, don’t move, or you’ll interfere with my burning you," I said.

She seems to involuntarily take two steps back.

I wasn’t just making a threat; I really intended to burn her. However, this was not meant as an attack, but rather a test to verify whether she truly bore no ill will towards me.

To confirm this, relying on the Black Rope Heart-locking Ring or the Fake Water Moon would be futile, as such levels of spell artifacts are probably nothing but a joke to a spiritual realm expert like the Ancient Moon God. Especially the latter, it’s just a poor imitation of Yinyue’s powers.

Now, I was about to use a new skill I had developed midway while at Fufeng Base, designed to test if the other party truly harbors no malice towards me. The principle is derived from the Spiritual Synchronization Lu Youxun had previously conducted with me.

Since the specific development principle has been explained before, I shall not elaborate here. I will simply describe its effect—my flames would not harm those considered allies in the past; however, this flame is different. It doesn’t harm those "I consider as enemies," but rather those "who consider me as an enemy."

Regrettably, this new ability is only a prototype. Even among close friends who may harbor unspoken, subtle malice—so minute that they themselves may not be aware of it—it’s more so the case with someone I’ve just met.

However, it’s different with the Ancient Moon God in front of me. Since she claims to not harbor even the slightest speck of malice towards me, my new ability now has a chance to come into play. Whether her claimed spiritual nature is real or not, just a burn with this flame will settle the truth.

I did not intend to explain my intentions to her. If she mistook it as an attack, so be it. The former Lu Yu could go through a cleansing ritual to suppress his antagonistic consciousness, which would prevent him from automatically retaliating due to hidden malice during Spiritual Synchronization. Perhaps the Ancient Moon God could do something similar. Moreover, she might not need the cumbersome cleansing ritual—it’s likely she could achieve the same just by intending to do so. Therefore, I must carry out a surprise attack.

In truth, I very much hoped that she could become an ally on my side. Whether from a dramatic standpoint or a practical need, she would make for an extremely excellent partner.

And because of this, I felt it was very possible that I had been schemed against by her.

"Let’s see what you’re really made of, Ancient Moon."

The Fire Sea instantly filled the Sealing Temple.

The flames didn’t erupt from my palm—that was merely a feint to catch the Ancient Moon God’s attention. My spirit, already permeating every inch of space in the temple in accordance with my perception, ignited the flames from all around at a mere thought.

As if the air inside the temple had all been transformed into flames, the Ancient Moon God had nowhere to escape, unable to react, and was instantly engulfed by fire.

She let out a shockingly anguished cry, her garments burned away, exposing her fair skin, which instantly turned charred under the flames. The beautiful girl turned into a charred skeleton in the blink of an eye.

—The flames had harmed her!

More than that, the moment the flames touched her, I felt her malice.

Where is the "malice as slight as a speck of dust"? With her, I couldn’t even sense goodwill as slight as a speck of dust.

I originally thought that if she had overstated her case and there was still a little bit of malice in her heart, then a slight burn from the flames would be enough. In that case, although I would become much more wary of her because of her lies, I wouldn’t immediately give up on the idea of forming a cooperative relationship with her.

The benefits of cooperating with her were simply too many. Even if she was not a benevolent deity completely devoid of malice towards humans but a mixed bag of good and evil like humans, it wouldn’t mean there was no room for negotiation. But my flames burned her directly into a skeleton.

When the fire touched her, it was like a bowl of water dropping into a pot of boiling, smoking hot oil.

She was the crystallization of malice!

Not only was she, the person being harmed, shocked, but even I was taken aback.

Immediately, a massive shockwave burst forth from her body. Like putting fireworks in a matchbox and setting it off, the vast Sealing Temple was blown apart by this sudden shockwave. She shot up like thunder on flat ground, rising hundreds of meters into the sky through the debris-filled air, seemingly trying to escape.

My speed was far greater than hers; I arrived above her first and then looked down from a higher altitude. We were still within the bounds of the fog, and although it was thin at this height, the Ancient Moon Village below was still obscured by layers of mist and no longer visible.

She came to an abrupt halt, and at the same time, flesh grew wildly out of the gaps in her bones. In the blink of an eye, she had restored her previous beauty, even the simple white cloth dress reappeared. Then she looked up at me with an incredulous gaze.

Seemingly realizing she had exposed herself, she no longer continued her act, but with an incomprehensible tone said, "How could you possibly attack me... where did I give myself away?"

"You seem to think that you have a hundred percent understanding of me, so you concluded that you wouldn’t be attacked... This only shows that you don’t understand me well enough." I deliberately spoke misleadingly to confuse her.

It seemed she was unaware that the key was the flames just now; she assumed she was attacked by me after her lies were exposed.

"Are you implying that I made a mistake in judging people? That you’re not the kind of person who won’t initiate an attack unless the other side makes a hostile move first? But..."

Before she could finish her sentence, I launched another attack.

The previous attack didn’t kill her because I had no intention to kill, but this time it was different; I had genuinely made a move to kill. Streams of flames appeared from all directions like the mythological giant serpents capable of swallowing a hundred men at once, launching a net-like onslaught from various angles.

She should be able to use abilities like Space Transfer to dodge attacks, much like Yinyue, but times had changed, and the me at this moment was fundamentally different from the me who had fought Yinyue the last time.

The reason Yinyue couldn’t dodge my Flame Light Cannon at the last moment was not that she didn’t want to but because she couldn’t dodge it. No matter how cheat-like Space Transfer, as a means to evade attacks, might be, as long as it’s an active ability that the user has to initiate personally, it is bound to be limited by the user’s reaction speed.

This is just like a well-trained warrior suddenly disarming an enemy’s firearm, the point is not to be faster than the bullet but to be faster than the enemy.

As long as the attacker’s speed is fast enough, the person trying to dodge won’t be able to change position in time.

The Ancient Moon God couldn’t initiate Space Transfer in time and was once again engulfed by flames, her body disintegrating to ashes within the fire.

Such devastation cannot kill demons like the Ancient Moon God and Yinyue. To them, the real world is but an illusion, and their material body is just a mirage. Even if Mirror Flowers and Water Moon were completely dispelled, it wouldn’t pose a threat to their true selves.

I faintly felt a presence on a higher level than the material realm, deeper and more concealed. It was where things like causation and concepts resided, and it was also where the essence of the Ancient Moon God lay.

If this world were a vast ocean, and the Ancient Moon God were a man-eating evil fish lurking within, then my action of burning her physical form was merely like breaking the illusionary reflection on the surface with a harpoon.

The evil fish, lurking beneath the surface, desperately fled, and in my imaginary world, the harpoon plunged deep below the surface—the flames burned toward her essence. However, the evil fish, far more adept at swimming than I, escaped the edge of the harpoon by flowing with the water and fleeing deeper.

Yet, the harpoon was not without its catch. As it grazed past the evil fish’s scales, the sharp edge slit open the belly of the evil fish, and a great amount of blood gushed out, dyeing the water red.

My flames had harmed her essence.

In the real material world, the Ancient Moon God "revived" from not too far away once again.

She was still dressed in white, but her exposed hands and neck bore large burns, and her clothes were riddled with burn marks. Bloodstains soaked through the white fabric, and the dress strikingly revealed mottled deep red spots.

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