With a sharp crack, the Obsidian Blood Jade shattered in my hand. Eyes wide, I hurled the fragments upward, then instantly unleashed my power to blast the shards away, sending them flying into other corners of the Illusory Realm.
The swirling ghostly aura that had gathered around me began to fade, and I glared, demanding answers.
"What does this mean, Mother Goddess Nuwa?"
Mother Goddess Nuwa didn't answer. She simply stared at me in silence. After a long moment, she raised a hand, moved beside the furnace, and with a gentle touch, made it vanish—along with the Heaven-Mending Stone.
"I won't repeat myself, Ethan Zhang. Defeat the Wraithlord, or die here."
I stared coldly at Mother Goddess Nuwa. There was no way out now—I was no match for the Wraithlord. More than half my strength was already spent, and it would take at least a day or two to recover. If I kept fighting, just as I'd feared, my power would eventually fail, and the Wraithlord would kill me.
A question gnawed at me—why was Mother Goddess Nuwa doing this? She had just helped the Wraithlord hide an Obsidian Blood Jade on his person, like a marker. In this tangled Illusory Realm, the Wraithlord would need time to return here, but when his ghostly aura suddenly began to converge, I sensed it immediately. That's how I discovered the Obsidian Blood Jade on Nuwa.
Now, with no hope of defeating the Wraithlord, my only option was to send the Blood Jade marker flying into another part of the Illusory Realm. I understood why Nuwa was driving away the chimeric beasts—because they would help me, and if they intervened, the Wraithlord would no longer be our match.
In this realm, there are chimeric beasts far stronger than the Wraithlord I face now—even the Nine-Tailed Fox outclasses him. Yet they've all been driven from Nuwa's Mirage; even Yujiang can't enter. I know my friends among the chimeric beasts are absent because Nuwa is shifting her Illusory Realm and has sealed off all connections to the others—except, it seems, for the Wraithlord.
I still can't fathom Nuwa's true intentions. Forcing me to fight the Wraithlord when I'm not his equal, and refusing the help of the chimeric beasts—there's only one answer: Nuwa and the Wraithlord have joined forces. For some reason, they have no choice but to ally.
"Tell me everything, Mother Goddess Nuwa. No matter what it is... Why are you helping the Wraithlord? If he..."
"If you can't even defeat the Wraithlord as he is now, then placing hope in you is already meaningless."
My eyes widened. I couldn't understand why Mother Goddess Nuwa would say such things. My powers hadn't made any real progress, yet she wanted me to fight the Wraithlord. What confused me most was how the Wraithlord's Seven Souls had come together—the seventh Blood Jade fragment still hadn't been found, had it?
"Answer me, Mother Goddess Nuwa. What exactly happened? Why are you..."
"Because of you, Ethan Zhang, I have no choice but to compromise with him. You can no longer maintain the stability of the Yin-Yang Realm—in fact, you threaten it."
I stared in disbelief at Mother Goddess Nuwa. She gazed back at me, her face expressionless, and I could tell she wasn't joking.
"Please tell me everything—at least let me know the reason."
Mother Goddess Nuwa only shook her head.
"If you knew the reason, your choice might be different, and you wouldn't give your all. Right now, you must fight with everything you have. Focus on the battle before you—defeat the Wraithlord."
As soon as Mother Goddess Nuwa finished speaking, she vanished. In that instant, tendrils of black mist gathered before me again. I stared at the Wraithlord, who slowly emerged.
"Your recent strategy was quite interesting, Ethan Zhang. The way you balanced the three forces—when you can't defeat your opponent, you seal them away. It's a sound battle tactic. Unfortunately, I'm far more skilled in such methods. I've used them countless times. The gods were all powerful, beyond my ability to overcome. But one thing was certain: they couldn't kill me. So I escaped whenever I wasn't their match, sometimes sealing them temporarily, buying myself time to find a way to defeat them. Only then would I strike, killing them one by one."
I glared coldly at the Wraithlord. I had to hold back, making sure not to let my power leak out. If I did, the Wraithlord's ghost aura would mercilessly devour it. My strength was already fading. If this continued, I would lose. But I had no physical body—could the Wraithlord even kill me? That was still unknown. Suddenly, a new thought struck me.
"It's a pity, Ethan Zhang. I won't seal you—I will kill you. I'll destroy your consciousness and send you back to where you came from. Sealing you is impossible, even if I managed it for a short time. Sooner or later, you'd break free and become even stronger."
"How can you be so certain? Tell me—why is Mother Goddess Nuwa helping you? She..."
"It's simple. As the mother of humanity, the Earth Mother, she wouldn't just watch the Yin-Yang Realm be destroyed. Even if the Yin-Yang Realm ends up in my hands, I've promised her I won't destroy everything. But I will remake humanity and ghosts as I see fit."
I stared quietly at the Wraithlord. Things had reached their worst for me. The power of Buddha and Dao would only recover slowly when I calmed down, not grow quickly. Human power—I didn't understand it—sometimes surged, sometimes faded. As for Karmic Force, all I could do was alter the outcome of attacks aimed at me, keeping them from touching my soul. But the Wraithlord's power was clearly beyond the Law of Karma.
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"I'll be merciful and give you a few more minutes to think, Ethan Zhang. After all, you helped me once. My merging was possible because of you."
"What do you mean?"
I asked. The Wraithlord smiled and replied.
"Though you've forgotten, it was you who awakened my consciousness from the Blood Jade."
I swallowed, saying nothing more. Instead, I used Karmic Force to probe deeper. The black ghost aura surrounding the Wraithlord was something I couldn't comprehend. It looked like ghost aura, but lacked its usual weaknesses. That was what troubled me most.
Though I wanted to keep fighting the Wraithlord, now wasn't the time for recklessness. I had to seek help from the beasts in the Illusory Realm. In my heart, I called out for Yujiang.
"It's useless, Ethan Zhang. To determine who to trust, Mother Goddess Nuwa has blocked everything here. This is her Illusory Realm, her world, governed by her laws. Outside forces can't interfere."
I glared coldly at the Wraithlord. I couldn't wait any longer—I had to keep trying. I sensed the human power within me; there was still plenty left. The Wraithlord's Seven Souls had come together, but not fully merged—otherwise, he'd be a single, independent entity. Instead, it felt as though seven Wraithlords were stacked atop one another. How was that possible?
Suddenly, I thought of Xu Fu. When I had probed the souls of the Eternal Life Society members before, I noticed something strange—outside their souls, there was something else, also a soul, but black.
"Looks like you've figured something out, so I won't wait any longer. If you come up with another solution, things could get tricky. I'd like to give you more time, but I can't."
With a whoosh, I used Karmic Force to hide myself on an island that held fragments of my memories. I concealed myself inside a building, quietly watching the Wraithlord drift closer through the window. My aura was completely suppressed—he couldn't find me.
"Smart move, Ethan Zhang. With so many islands, I have no idea where you're hiding. These islands, forged from your memory fragments, can't be touched by any outside force. Even if destroyed, they'll quickly recover—only memory itself can harm them. Do you want to see my memories?"
My eyes widened. In an instant, the Wraithlord raised a hand and plunged it into his own head. His skull turned to sticky mud. I watched as he pulled out a mess of multicolored objects and laid them before himself.
"I'll pick an easier method. You'd better come out quickly, or these things will devour all your memories, piece by piece."
Suddenly, I saw round, purple monsters with only mouths and tails flying out, immediately gnawing at the things on one of the islands. To my shock, the parts they ate didn't recover. I rushed out at once.
"I don't really want to eat all your memories, but I have no choice, Ethan Zhang."
With a thunderous crash, the Wraithlord struck my chest with a heavy fist. My astral form smashed through several islands before landing again. In the sky, those purple monsters began to multiply, endlessly appearing and devouring the islands that held my memory fragments. My power couldn't touch them.