The chains rattled, and stone chips fell from the connecting steles.
Xu Xian's resistance spread from his facial expression to his physical movements.
The Twilight Emperor witnessed it all, the smugness in his eyes growing more intense.
Success was within reach.
He only needed to apply a little more pressure.
Xu Xian told him to shut up.
He spoke even more fervently.
He even proactively adjusted the length of the chains so that Xu Xian was no longer suspended in the air. Instead, the youth collapsed to the ground. The emperor watched him suffer, watched him struggle, and watched him agonize.
He enjoyed it to the extreme.
Unknowingly, Xu Xian actually reached into his storage space and took out that cup of Emperor's Blood he had once discarded. Holding it in his palm, he brought it closer and closer to his lips.
Close,
Closer,
Even closer...
The white cup and the golden liquid reflected a pair of eyes shimmering with a green light.
The Twilight Emperor could not hide the joy of victory as he urged, “Drink. Drink it, and you will have everything.”
Even the little book spirit pleaded within his divine sense, “Drink it, Master. No matter what happens, I will stay by your side...”
Vaguely, Xu Xian even heard the familiar but departed voices whispering in his ear.
His sister,
The old village chief,
His senior sister,
His senior brother,
Li Qingshan,
Lu Yuan,
Yao Xiaoxiao....
And so many others!
They told him to drink. They wanted him to live, to live for himself...
Xu Xian struggled, wavered, and finally compromised...
The hand holding the Emperor's Blood kept rising while his head slowly lowered. Until a certain moment, his lips met the cup.
At that time,
The golden liquid tilted, only 0.01 centimeters away from the youth's mouth.
The Twilight Emperor's eyes blazed with light as the black mist pressed closer.
Victory.
The dawn had appeared.
However, he never expected the youth's hand to suddenly stop, as if time itself had been frozen at this moment.
The Twilight Emperor thought he was hallucinating.
He continued to urge him.
“Quickly, drink it, drink it...”
Xu Xian slowly raised his head, his dark gaze staring straight ahead.
“What are you looking at me for? Drink!”
The corners of Xu Xian's mouth suddenly curled up, revealing a sinister smile.
The Twilight Emperor froze.
In the next second.
The youth raised the cup, but then, under the emperor's watchful gaze, he let go.
The Twilight Emperor's heart skipped a beat, resonating with the 'clang' of the cup hitting the ground.
The golden liquid slowly flowed out, spilling all over the floor.
The Twilight Emperor was momentarily stunned before instinctively roaring, “What are you doing?!”
Xu Xian wore a faint, lazy smile, his previous state of painful indecision completely gone.
He asked mockingly, “As you can see?”
The Twilight Emperor realized what had happened and immediately became incensed with shame. “Are you playing with me?!”
Xu Xian let out a mock sigh. “You played with me first.”
The Twilight Emperor's eyes shifted, but he still maintained a forceful tone. “Bullshit! I cherish talent and did not wish for you to perish, which is why I acted so. What do you take me for? I save you, I guide you, and yet you toy with me like this?”
Xu Xian lowered his gaze, looking gloomily at the ground as he muttered to himself, “Look, the Emperor's Blood spilled...”
The Twilight Emperor was speechless. I'm not blind, I can see that.
Xu Xian added, “How could you be so careless?”
The emperor was even more bewildered. He said coldly, “You're truly interesting. Didn't you pour it out yourself? What does it have to do with—”
However, his voice came to a sudden halt halfway through.
The face formed from black mist stiffened in the air.
Silent and still.
His pupils dilated slightly.
He finally understood Xu Xian's subtext.
Yes,
How could he have been so careless?
How could the Emperor's Blood have spilled?
Xu Xian looked up, and seeing the emperor's reaction, the last trace of sorrow vanished from his eyes. “It seems I was right.”
The Twilight Emperor fell silent for a short while, wordlessly accepting this outcome that went against his wishes.
His arrogance and triumph were gone. With gloomy eyes and a sense of resentment, he said, “I was careless.”
Human nature is like this; the closer one gets to success, the easier it is to become careless.
He was no different.
Details determine success or failure.
He had still tripped on the very last step before perfect success.
Was it really because he was careless?
Of course it was.
That was undeniable.
But it was also undeniable that the youth before him was a truly cunning and difficult opponent.
Xu Xian did not argue with the Twilight Emperor's claim of being careless.
He both agreed and disagreed.
He simply said to himself, “You are afraid of me dying, because if I die, the dream must wake.”
“You are afraid of me living, because if I live, the dream will eventually wake...”
“You know very well,”
“That no matter how repetitive or twisted this dream is, I will wake up.”
“No matter what you do or say, I will wake up.”
“You cannot change that.”
As he spoke, Xu Xian moved his gaze from the black mist to the golden Emperor's Blood spilled everywhere on the ground, asking and answering his own questions:
“But you did it anyway. Why?”
“Let me guess...”
“You wanted me to deny myself and forget my original heart.”
“Because you know that once a person wavers once, there will be a second time, a third time...”
“And why did you want me to drink this cup of Emperor's Blood?”
“It is desire...”
“You wanted me to feel the power the Emperor's Blood could bring me—a power that transcends what I have now.”
“Undying and indestructible?”
“Eternal life?”
“Those are just words, but how powerful and terrifying they truly are can only be understood by experiencing them firsthand.”
“You made me feel despair time and time again,”
“Wanting me to abandon my persistence in that despair, only to let me be reborn within it.”
“You wanted me to remember that feeling.”
“To plant the seed of desire.”
As he spoke, Xu Xian suddenly laughed and muttered, “Because you know that human desire is like a rolling stone on a high mountain. Once it begins to fall, it will never stop...”
Looking at the Twilight Emperor formed from the black mist, Xu Xian's eyes were filled with relief and depth.
His tone was calm and his gaze gentle. “It is undeniable that you are truly remarkable. You wove this dream so well that it felt real, making me believe in it until the very end. It was so realistic that it made me feel afraid. In this regard, I am not your equal.”
Facing Xu Xian's exposure and compliment, the Twilight Emperor merely gave a cold laugh.
He didn't say the youth was right, nor did he say he was wrong.
He asked back, “Weren't you still able to see through it?”
Xu Xian squinted and smiled. “Yes, I saw through it, but only by a hair. No... your purpose wasn't just that. You are...”
The Twilight Emperor suddenly lost his patience and interrupted, “Seeing through it is seeing through it. There is no difference between a hair and a mile. In this round, you have won again.”
After saying that, he added, “I truly didn't misjudge you. You are quite good, worthy of being my lifelong nemesis.”
This was an acknowledgment.
The highest respect from an opponent.
A lifelong nemesis.
The corners of Xu Xian's lips curled up even higher.
He thought to himself,
“Lifelong nemesis?”
“Unfortunately,”
“You are not the enemy of my life.”
Because his master had said that his enemies were not in the mortal realm, but beyond the heavens.
He said, “You are also the most difficult and terrifying opponent I have encountered so far.”
The Twilight Emperor once again understood the youth's subtext.
What did he mean by 'so far'?
To put it bluntly, the emperor was merely a hurdle on his long journey through life.
Just slightly stronger than those fellows in Fanzhou.
He didn't feel offended. In fact, he felt that the youth might actually be right.
He laughed coldly. “A grand dream ends in sorrow. You are still yourself, as arrogant as ever?”
Xu Xian did not argue.
He shrugged, raised his hands, and tugged at the chains. “Shall we continue?”
After a moment of contemplation, the Twilight Emperor said with relief, “I said that in this round, you win. It ends here.”
As his words fell,
The wind rose,
The mass of black mist instantly dispersed, leaving only the emperor's voice echoing through heaven and earth.
“This is not the end,”
“This is only the beginning,”
“Remember,”
“I can lose to you countless times,”
“But the final victory will surely belong to me.”
“Hahaha!”
Xu Xian turned a deaf ear. He watched as the chains and steles binding him began to drift away bit by bit, and the world before him started to collapse.
In his mind, he began to recall the short yet long life he had lived in this dream.
Sorrow filled his eyes.
It was a dream,
Yet it was not just a dream!
“This time, it's really time to wake up...”
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