Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 333 - 311 Impermanence Force 2

Chapter 333: 311 Impermanence Force 2

Yinyue floated amidst the swathes of light and dust. She remained the same as when I last battled her: white hair, golden beast-like pupils, clad in moon-white clothing, as if she were still a young girl immersed in her studies.

In my memory, Yinyue was always wickedly charming and mysterious, full of cunning schemes and exuding an air of composed confidence. Yet, now she appeared to have lost that leisurely poise. It was as if she had woken from a deep sleep at home only to find, to her shock, that her house had somehow been torn down while she slept. Her face was etched with confusion and astonishment, as though she was doubting whether she was still dreaming.

During my last fight with the Ancient Moon God, Yinyue should have been awake—I vaguely sensed her spying gaze from within the mist. Perhaps sensing a crisis upon my arrival near Moon Concealing Mountain, she decided to speed up her recovery from injury by entering a temporary slumber.

Sleep aids in the healing of the spirit, a method previously employed by Mazao, and it seems that this principle applies to the demon Yinyue as well. Her way of sleeping was quite unique, creating a cocoon of light to encase herself.

If she hadn’t been asleep earlier, she might have been able to observe the battle between me and the Water Navy Xuanwu from the shadows. And upon discovering that I had become Impermanence, she could have run away immediately. That being said, she wouldn’t have been able to escape. The distance from the mountainside to the summit was as close as could be to me. Just as I was certain that the Water Navy Xuanwu couldn’t easily escape from me, I was confident that I could prevent Yinyue from fleeing my grasp.

I didn’t respond to Yinyue’s question and acted without hesitation.

My right arm suddenly stretched out long, my hand large enough to grip her entire body. Entering the realm of Impermanence, I acquired no new moves, simply enhancements to all the skills I had used before. Increased speed, amplified strength, nothing more.

Such a simplistic move would not have caught Yinyue in the past, but now, as if she didn’t know how to dodge, I easily captured her. There was no other reason for it—my speed was simply too fast, seizing Yinyue was like picking something out of my pocket. She belatedly reacted to being caught, then her entire body burst forth with a white, searing glow, attempting to use her mana to shatter the fiery giant hand that bound her.

Just the struggle alone released mana fluctuations that surpassed the Killing Move she had been charging up in the old battle at the Human Bureau headquarters. It seemed she was indeed able to exert her full strength, despite the destruction of Moon Concealing Mountain. I had thought that perhaps she’d lose her geographic advantage, but it seems it wasn’t so simple.

Under my current grip, whether Yinyue was in a weakened or fully empowered state seemed to make no difference—the fiery giant hand remained immovable. Her expression instantly became even more incredulous.

"You! You now—are you saying—" She looked at me as if I were a monster.

"Tell me, where is Changan’s spirit?"

Of course, I knew that the Yinyue in front of me was the Ying Shen Yinyue created based on Changan, but until now, that information was nothing but speculation and hearsay. Until she admitted it herself, there might’ve been a part of me that still held onto hope.

Yinyue, as if she could see through my heart, seemed to quickly collect herself and then laughingly said: "Haven’t you already learned from Ancient Moon? Your friend, my son... he has completely become me now."

"Then quickly change back, or else—" I said.

"Or else you’ll burn me to death? But for the current me, reverting back to the Changan you know, what’s the difference from death?" she said. "I could indeed use an Illusion Technique to take on the appearance of your friend again, even simulate his personality in interactions... But I’m not going to deceive you, because with your current perception, such an illusion is not guaranteed to fool you.

"To truly bring back Changan, that’s impossible. Because his memories have been diluted and dissolved in the process of merging with mine.

"Just as you’ve surmised in your heart, in some sense, I am also my son... or rather, I can say I am Changan, endowed with the memories of Yinyue. However, my son’s experiences, not even reaching twenty years, compared to my own millennia of extended memories, are trivial.

"The moment I revived from his spirit, the persona of ’Zhu Changan’ was, in fact, already dead."

What Yinyue revealed was not far from my past worries, but I still hadn’t given up hope.

"Changan’s persona might indeed be shattered, but that doesn’t mean there’s no possibility of rescuing him. You are simply misleading me," I said.

"Oh, misleading?" She laughed.

"If you were a separate powerful spirit from Changan, fighting to dominate and in the process killing off Changan, the weaker spirit, I could believe that..." I searched for theories like a defending lawyer to support my own views, "But if from the very beginning there was only one spirit, with only two sets of completely different memories, then it’s a different matter.

"Your memories may indeed be much more extensive than Changan’s, filled with dramatic adventures beyond his imagination, possessing knowledge and experience far beyond Changan’s reach, but this doesn’t mean your memories can erase Changan’s. Memories should not be compared in that way.

"It’s not that a long memory is necessarily more dazzling than a short one, nor is a mature memory always superior to a naive one. Many people look back on their childhood selves after growing up and establishing a family and career. Even if they completely reject their childhood values with an adult perspective, the deep emotional imprints from childhood can still influence an adult’s entire life."

"The memories of the first decade of life can influence the rest of the decades, not only is this not an uncommon phenomenon, it is actually quite common among humans."

When I said this, Yinyue revealed a strange smile.

"You’ve misunderstood three things. First, I am not human, my spirituality is different from yours. Even my son, he’s not entirely human but half human, half demon," she said. "Second, the childhood experiences of humans do influence their adult personalities, and that’s true, but that’s because the former is the foundation of the latter.

"My memories and Changan’s memories don’t have such a tight connection. His memories really aren’t that important to me."

I asked back, "If that’s truly the case, then... why must you kill me?"

When Yinyue had just "revived," for some reason, she was determined to kill me.

The senior researchers captured at Fufeng Base once hypothesized - since Yinyue is an evil spirit that has possessed Changan’s body, to fully take over Changan’s body, she would need to drive Changan’s soul to despair, and the specific method was using his body to kill me, his close friend.

Although Yinyue wasn’t actually an evil spirit but rather the revival of Yinyue’s memories within Changan’s soul, this logic might still hold true.

Perhaps Yinyue wanted to kill me to let the "part of Changan" within herself completely give up, to reach a truly undivided state of spirit. That’s why she had to kill me.

Conversely, this is the proof of Changan’s struggle within Yinyue.

"You do see through things quite clearly... Even though you supposedly never had real access to knowledge of the spiritual realm, you managed to hit the bullseye with your own intuition, truly worthy of a person like from the times of myths, who by their own talent alone could become a God on earth."

Yinyue looked at me thoughtfully, and she was clearly aware of the level I was now on.

"Is that an admission?" I asked.

"Yes, I admit it. I wanted to kill you to make my son give up. But, have you forgotten... about your ’third misunderstanding.’ I haven’t said it yet?" she said with a smile full of malice. "If I had the condition, of course, I would want to kill you to achieve my own spiritual fulfillment, but there are more than one ways to achieve fulfillment. If really impossible, I do have another fallback method.

"I am a demon of Great Success who manipulates spirits. It goes without saying that manipulating others’ spirits is effortless, and so is manipulating my own. So..."

"Why would you think... I can’t just directly delete Changan’s memories from my own soul?"

This statement, without doubt, stirred my emotions.

And just at this moment, Yinyue suddenly changed. Her body, held in the grasp of my giant hand of flames became blurred, and immediately after, the giant hand seemingly grabbed nothing, as if this Yinyue was just an illusion.

This was an Illusion Technique; from the beginning what I had caught was a fake Yinyue - this was my reflexive conclusion.

But I knew things weren’t that simple. Yinyue must have taken advantage of the moment my attention slackened and used her superpower to alter the history of her being caught, changing the established fact into the result that "the one who was caught was merely an illusion, and she herself had already escaped."

What a cunning fox.

"—You can’t escape."

I stood in place, motionless, and reached out my hand once more toward the void.

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