Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 380 - 353 VS Ming Zhuo 4

Chapter 380: 353 VS Ming Zhuo 4

Like the time manipulator before him, now it was Ming Zhuo’s body that erupted into flames from within, instantly engulfing his entire body.

Even the sturdiest castle struggles to contain a crisis that breaks out from within. No matter how strong Ming Zhuo’s defenses, they were powerless against an attack emerging from his own insides. Moreover, the location occupied by Xuanming Fire was precisely the wound that Ming Zhuo had been unable to heal for a long time. The expansion of the flames meant a rapid enlargement of the wound.

Ming Zhuo let out a cry of extreme agony, the dark red light that had been gathering strength in the palm of his hand dissipated, and his body was quickly charred by the flames. My spirit, like pouring gasoline, was fully invested, and it was no simple matter of intensifying the burn. Ming Zhuo’s body exploded on the spot, his soul utterly disintegrated and destroyed.

He seemed to have been killed.

Ming Zhuo is not me; unable to continue living under the condition where both body and soul die simultaneously, his death was to be expected.

Unfortunately, if he could die that easily, I wouldn’t have had such a headache before the battle, unable to come up with a strategy to defeat Ming Zhuo.

Countless fragments of his exploded body turned into phantoms, which, like snow melting under the sunshine, also dissolved and disappeared. In his place of death, the phantom of his body emerged, and quickly condensed from phantom into reality.

He resurrected.

Not only that, but he was resurrected in an almost completely intact form. Although he had just repaired the wounds that I had inflicted on him, the Ming Zhuo that appeared before my eyes seemed completely unscathed from the start. There was not the slightest heaviness in his breathing, and his spirit remained incredibly robust with no hint of depletion.

This was the Undying Body he had obtained by signing a contract with Naraku.

The only flaw was that I could still sense the Xuanming Fire inside him. This flame, like a curse entangled with his fate, was something he couldn’t rid himself of, even after dying once and resurrecting.

Naturally, if dying once or twice could rid him of it, he would have done so long ago.

"Zhuang Cheng—"

Having just resurrected, Ming Zhuo let out a roar filled with hatred and fury, but I had no intention of listening to whatever words of vengeance he would spout next, as I launched another attack from within him.

His own recovery, including the restoration of the seal over Xuanming Fire, had not reset the fire to its original strength. After being fueled by my spirit, Xuanming Fire had been amplified beyond what the initial seal could completely contain. While it could still be largely contained, there were sparks leaking out. This was enough for me to maintain a connection with the blaze.

The flames consumed Ming Zhuo’s body once again, but this time it seemed like he concentrated most of his strength within his body, not dying immediately while also directing part of his power to the external world, shooting dark red beams towards me.

At this moment, he found it difficult to focus on both, and if he concentrated exclusively on dealing with Xuanming Fire, the beams he fired could not capture me. If his attention shifted to me, Xuanming Fire would engulf him in an instant. I would also release the black sun "Eclipse" to attack, disrupting his internal and external equilibrium, eventually leading to him being devoured and killed by the flames.

In the blink of an eye, he had died four or five more times. While swiftly moving and attacking, I observed his pattern of death and resurrection.

I had roughly figured out the secret of his Naraku Undying Body.

On the levels of cause and effect and fate, I could sense that all causality directly related to his death was being delayed by a mysterious force to a distant future at the very instant of its occurrence.

The "distant future" mentioned here is from the perspective of someone who has lived for less than twenty years; in reality, it is probably less than a decade. To other beings like Impermanence, this may seem like a fleeting moment. Although I am currently capable of intervening in causality, I am powerless against this mysterious phenomenon.

This mysterious force had passed judgment on Ming Zhuo’s fate—he would absolutely die at some point in the future, hence the conclusion that "Ming Zhuo definitely cannot die now" could be drawn.

Even if Ming Zhuo’s body and soul, and even his causality and fate, were all burned to nothingness, this mysterious power would reconstitute Ming Zhuo from a state of non-existence.

As for whether this reconstituted Ming Zhuo was the same as the original, I was not sure. However, considering the existence of something like the True Spirit, even if the reconstituted Ming Zhuo had replicated memories, his consciousness itself was probably still the original Ming Zhuo.

In a sense, although the Naraku Undying Body carries a curse, it might also possess an aspect of "opportunity." It’s conceivable that not all entities like Impermanence could come back to life under the condition of total annihilation of body and soul, yet Ming Zhuo could die and resurrect over and over, which might become a shortcut to "self-proving one’s True Spirit."

Though that may be the case, not everyone would want to attempt self-proving their True Spirit. At least for a normal person like me, attempting to self-prove one’s True Spirit is akin to seeking one’s own death, which Yinyue has definitively negated as well.

Furthermore, the more frequent one’s deaths, the more the fact of ’death’ will accumulate on future ’Anniversaries of Doom’. All the Death Penalties owed now must be paid off in the future. For Ming Zhuo, who desires to overcome this impending doom, it’s a terrifying situation that must be avoided at all costs.

So... what should be done next? While I focused my efforts on using the Xuanming Fire to kill Ming Zhuo, I also pondered on how to put an end to him once and for all.

Frankly speaking, by this time, I had almost given up on the idea of "putting an end to Ming Zhuo" altogether.

I still don’t think the Naraku Undying Body is absolutely invulnerable, but the problem is I don’t have the wisdom or knowledge required to unravel it. As for the "brute force" approach, I had certainly considered it. Alas, the force determining Ming Zhuo’s demise isn’t something I can break through by mere strength.

Dimly, I sensed that this force was closely connected to another dimension. Perhaps that was Naraku, the so-called afterlife. In terms of scale, Naraku felt about the same size as the Living World I inhabited. To destroy this mysterious force using brute force would require annihilating Naraku at its source.

In other words, without the power to destroy a planet, it would be impossible to kill Ming Zhuo.

If he can’t be killed, what about sealing him? A common strategy against Undying Body users is to force them into a state of eternal immobility, such as encasing them in concrete and throwing them into the Pacific Ocean... But Ming Zhuo is Impermanence, concrete won’t hold him; at the very least, something of white dwarf star material level would be needed. And I neither have white dwarf material nor do I know any Sealing Spells.

"Have you had enough?" Ming Zhuo coldly asked.

He seemed to have given up on suppressing the Xuanming Fire within his body, starting to concentrate on how to find an opportunity to kill me with his black and red rays during the gap between death and resurrection. Without the extra effort to aim, his attacks were continuously dodged by me.

At this moment, we were at a stalemate; no matter how many times I killed Ming Zhuo, he appeared no worse for wear. Yet if my offensive were interrupted and I got hit by the black and red rays once or twice, it would mean an irreversible disaster for me.

The battle had merely been greatly prolonged, as if I had set myself up, whenever I stopped was when I would meet my end.

It was just like the tale of the Thousand and One Nights... To avoid being killed by the king, Shanlu Zude had to tell one fascinating story after another each night. Once she ran out of stories, the relentless blade would follow.

"Keep it up, Zhuang Cheng, keep it up! Why are you slowing down?" Ming Zhuo’s voice revealed a grim chill, "Are you starting to feel tired, to despair? Want me to cheer you on?

"Don’t worry, I have plenty of patience. Kill me a few more times, show some more tricks! The cicada screams louder as it nears death, if you don’t make some noise now, you won’t have another chance!"

"Is that so?" I said, "Since you so desire it, I’ll oblige you."

"—Hmm?"

He seemed to sense something was amiss.

I had figured it out.

I’ll admit it, I truly can’t unravel his Naraku Undying Body, neither intellectually nor by force.

If something can’t be unraveled, then I won’t bother unravelling it.

That’s not to say I’m surrendering; now, there is only victory on my mind, nothing else.

And as they say, "Where there’s a will, there’s a way," perhaps my desire for victory has called upon a miracle, as an ingeniously perfect strategy emerged from within me. After giving it some thought, I couldn’t help but admire my own idea. Worthy of me indeed, to come up with such a flawless solution.

"You only have at most another ten years to live, right?" I said, "If that’s the case, I’ll just keep burning you to death. No matter how many times you resurrect, I’ll keep burning you until you die of old age!"

"Eh?" Ming Zhuo was dumbfounded.