Chapter 145 Soul Devourer

What is the desperate ultimate resort of a ghostly entity?

In any world, under any realm, ghostly entities share a universal desperate resort. This method might bear different names, but its manifestations are largely similar and the outcomes remain virtually identical: Soul Devouring.

If the Mystic Thunder Cover dealt true damage to spiritual bodies, then Soul Devouring was an attack approaching true damage against sentient life forms.

It could also be called possession.

If it threw all caution to the wind, the Ghost Face's intent-teleportation could instantly close the distance right before Lan Yi. Given that Old Devil Lan's upper limit had currently been shaved down, even if he could react, he possessed no means to stop it. Naturally, had the Ghost Face attempted this, it would in all probability have had its dog head fiercely hacked off by a Daoist technique clutched in Old Devil Lan's grip.

Yet, right now, Lan Yi had been whittled down to almost nothing.

Injured, his mana bar locked, continuously bleeding out, external Daoist techniques failing to materialize, the environment atrocious, and the reserves within his Daoist technique space depleted by seventy or eighty percent, impossible to replenish in a short time.

It was indeed an exhausted, cornered predicament.

Persisting in this hard fight carried a probability of death.

The Ghost Face harbored extreme wariness toward the unknown hidden within this tenacious, thorny enemy's Daoist technique space, which was why it had constantly held back its ultimate trump card, Soul Devouring. The effects of this move were terrifyingly dreadful, especially within the peculiar environment of Artificial Divine Realm 2055, where its might equated to the malice accumulated by an entire world over an unknown duration being violently and wildly poured forth!

Its power had no upper limit.

It would continuously wash over Lan Yi until he perished, and only then would it cease!

And now...

When Lan Yi had grown sufficiently weak amidst the nuclear-explosion atmosphere, stretched desperately thin, his Daoist technique space stripped away from his physical body to reveal the flesh and tissue beneath, the Ghost Face knew the time had come. Through verbal probing and testing, having confirmed Lan Yi's fleeting, transient helplessness, it decisively unleashed the ghostly entity's most formidable capability.

Teleportation, piercing strike!!

In the flash of lightning and clash of flint.

Having discarded ninety-nine percent of its spiritual body's matter, the empty shell left behind by the Ghost Face had not yet dissipated in the purgatory environment. Condensed into the posture of a probe, it had skillfully bypassed the Daoist technique space and precisely stabbed into Lan Yi's neck. Not even the [Prison Suppressor] could exert any effect. Baring its fangs, the Ghost Face impatiently bared them toward Lan Yi's soul.

Soul devouring, disintegration, possession.

It had begun.

When the Ghost Face executed this, and succeeded, the meticulously concealed Campaign Space flickered twice. Lan Yi did not apply for reinforcement, nor did the Campaign Space extend a helping hand, giving the impression that everything was about to fall short of success at the very last hurdle. However, the emotion expressed by the flickering of the Campaign Space seemed not to be failure, but rather annoyance.

If the ghostly entity had been here from the very beginning...

It would undoubtedly have felt a sense of admiration toward the Ghost Face.

Not admiration for its ability to drive this ferocious Lan Yi to such a state, but admiration for the sheer audacity of this kindred spirit, daring to drill directly into Lan Yi's head.

This scene.

Was just like watching an ordinary person recklessly throw themselves headfirst into a volcano crater without a second thought.

The Ghost Face was certainly no ordinary person, and whether Old Devil Lan's soul constituted a volcano crater remained debatable. But one thing was certain: at this moment, the extreme psyche, brimming with malicious emotional storms accumulated across who knows how many cycles—much like a cesspool of sludge and filth—was, under the manipulation of the Ghost Face, directly lunging forward with Lan Yi as its vent!

The entire Artificial Divine Realm 2055 slammed on its emergency brakes at this very moment.

The cycle had long since stagnated.

The ghostly entities rampaging through the past abruptly halted their actions.

Not just the ghostly entities.

All humans aside from psionic cultivators, and indeed all sentient creatures possessing emotions, came to a dead stop. Their expressions grew dazed and uncomprehending, akin to slaves suddenly freed from their shackles, looking back in bewildered confusion, uncertain of where to go once everything came to an end. Meanwhile, Lan Yi himself was plunged into the very lowest depths.

He was caught in a violent friction and tug-of-war upon his soul.

The Ghost Face had invaded Lan Yi's consciousness.

Much like dissociative identity disorder, it began wreaking havoc within Lan Yi's consciousness. Starting from the outermost periphery, it crudely scraped away Lan Yi's outer ring of consciousness, layer by layer. This was a forced reset of the soul, and its direct reflection within consciousness was that Lan Yi was rapidly forgetting.

Forgetting everything.

Interpersonal relationships, knowledge of Daoist techniques, combat experience, martial arts enlightenment—all cognitive elements constituting the individual known as Lan Yi began to uncontrolly perish.

This was a power no mortal might could oppose.

Instead, it was the ultimate karma, ownerless psyche, and world-malice accumulated by an entire world after countless cycles. The Ghost Face was nearing Dao-integration; precisely because it was nearing Dao-integration, it could utilize its spiritual body to mobilize this power and initiate the Soul Devouring against Lan Yi.

This was a contest of the mind.

Smoothly.

It was simply too smooth.

The Ghost Face met with virtually no resistance, encountering none of the pushback expected from Lan Yi, as it effortlessly scraped clean the periphery of Lan Yi's soul. If it had been an ordinary person subjected to this extent, even if their soul remained unbroken, the individual would likely have been reduced to an idiot who no longer knew who they were.

Yet...

"Why?"

"Why hasn't it stopped yet? Just how deep is this person's soul?"

"Could his scale of life possibly exceed the total sum of this world's cycles combined?"

If the Ghost Face were capable of sweating, cold sweat would undoubtedly have been streaming down endlessly at this moment.

His memories had spun out of control.

An amount of Soul Devouring sufficient to kill a thousand or ten thousand people felt like opening some sort of switch, initiating an endless downward descent. What lay at the bottom? How much further until it hit bedrock? Everything remained an unknown variable. And amidst the continuously overflowing memory fragments, the imagery surrounding the entity named Lan Yi was gradually unifying.

Unifying into a magical tableau depicting Lan Yi sitting on a plastic chair at an open-air food stall.

What the hell is this?!

How could this person's memories consist of this kind of imagery? Shouldn't it be the emotional memories treasured by the individual named Lan Yi, his most crucial recollections, and his self-cognition? Surely he couldn't possibly believe deep down that he ought to be some sort of muscle-bound freak sitting on a white plastic chair watching the morning glow, could he?

This was even more absurd than going to the coast to pick up some fries!

I can't take this anymore! Damn it! I'm going down with you!

Amidst the torrent of clashing memories, lacking any precise concept of time and having endured who knows how long, the Ghost Face finally exhausted its patience. It lunged directly into this seemingly absurd memory tableau—which currently appeared to be Lan Yi's most crucial memory. As long as this painting was deleted, Lan Yi would also completely vanish.

It did just that.

The memory tableau here was near-real.

The skyscrapers of a near-future metropolis, magnetic levitation tracks, orderly patrolling drones, outer-space megastructures gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight. Yet beneath this scenery, Lan Yi sat upon a plastic chair, gazing ahead with neither joy nor sorrow. The sole difference was that cradled in his hands was a bird, its eyes bottomless, as if poised to devour everything.

When the Ghost Face darted in.

As Lan Yi turned his head to look at the Ghost Face, the Ghost Face's expression was that of someone who had just seen a ghost!

"Surprised? Unexpected? Delightful?"