“Interesting.” Xu Mo actually burst out laughing.
“Before meeting you, I thought no one in this world dared to bullshit as hard as I do.”
If the world's posturing instincts were divided into ten parts, Xu Mo thought he would easily claim all ten for himself. He hadn't expected he would actually have to share some today.
At the same time, an extremely ominous aura erupted from Liang Shuguang.
After uttering those words, Liang Shuguang's loss of control grew increasingly severe, as if he were on the verge of undergoing an aberration at any moment.
Or rather, Xu Mo felt that Liang Shuguang was already no different from an aberration right now.
“But to be honest, I suggest you stop daydreaming.” Xu Mo narrowed his pitch-black left eye. “I can feel that you don't have a single corpse part of an Evil God on you, and there are none in Dawn City either.”
Liang Shuguang shuddered violently.
“Maybe you really did endure a similar power once? But I think you were infected at most, just brushing against some scraps...” Xu Mo rubbed his chin, guessing aloud.
“What? Did you once have an Evil God's corpse part, only for it to run away on its own?”
“The leg of some Evil God of the Old Days?”
This was pure mockery, but Liang Shuguang, who was on the verge of madness, did not argue back in anger. Instead, he snapped his head up, staring intently at Xu Mo.
That look sent a slight chill down Xu Mo's spine. He hadn't anticipated this kind of reaction at all.
Suddenly, Liang Shuguang's eyes filled with anticipation and hope. It was blindingly intense, like a drowning man grasping at a lifesaving straw.
Straining his neck, he roared with immense difficulty:
“Is it time?!”
The voice was so loud that it echoed throughout the entire black cocoon, acting almost like a sonic attack that made Xu Mo's eardrums ache.
Xu Mo was stunned. Completely caught off guard, he instinctively asked, “When what?”
The burning hope in Liang Shuguang's eyes dimmed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
“It's not time yet...”
He lowered his head and muttered to himself, his voice so soft it was barely audible.
“It seems... it's not time yet!!” he suddenly threw his head back and laughed miserably, shouting at the top of his lungs.
With that roar, an incredibly unstable and violently chaotic aura erupted from his body, slamming against the surrounding space!
The black cocoon began to tremble, for a moment even giving off the impression that it was about to collapse.
Xu Mo retreated several steps, holding his broadsword horizontally in front of him. His brow furrowed, suddenly sensing that something was off.
Even though the other party was losing his mind, Xu Mo's sharp senses picked up on something in his words. He tentatively spoke up:
“Are you trying to trade code words with me?!”
That sentence of his really sounded like a code, as if he were eagerly expecting a specific, different response from Xu Mo.
Xu Mo's curiosity was thoroughly piqued. He shouted loudly at Liang Shuguang:
“Hey! What was I supposed to say just now?!”
“What on earth was I supposed to say to trigger the next phase of the dialogue?”
“Don't worry, I just want to know, I won't do anything!”
An itch grew in his heart. For the first time, because of a plot point, he felt a strong urge to use his precious rewind opportunity.
He made up his mind. Once he found out what the "code word" was supposed to be, the worst he would have to do was rewind and have another chat with Liang Shuguang.
But Liang Shuguang was already completely crazed. He didn't even attack, only shaking his head repeatedly, muttering a single phrase.
“It's not time.”
“It's not time!”
“This timing is wrong. No matter how many times we try, it still won't be time!”
With every sentence he uttered, his body trembled more violently.
His body, which had been immune to all attacks, was now covered in fine, dense cracks at some point.
Then, under the joint gaze of Xu Mo and Bai Feifei, a dark green light began to seep out from beneath those cracks, carrying a distinct aura that belonged to the Evil Gods of the Old Days.
Watching this unfold, Xu Mo's expression gradually turned serious.
This was far too bizarre. There were absolutely no corpse parts on him, and the Heart of Reality wasn't beating abnormally either.
Yet the aura was so strange and incomprehensible. Xu Mo suddenly felt that the secrets hidden within this man were far greater than he had imagined.
“I say,” he began, his usually cynical voice carrying a rare trace of gravity this time.
“The secrets you're carrying are a lot heavier than I thought, aren't they?”
Liang Shuguang did not respond, only keeping his head lowered as his body trembled slightly.
“You've kept this bottled up for thirty years.” Xu Mo planted his broadsword into the ground, resting his hands on the hilt. “You've put in a lot of effort, and you've committed no shortage of sins.”
“In the end, everyone became aberrations, and the whole plan was ruined. I'm sure this isn't what you wanted to see, right?”
“No matter what the consequences of speaking out are, I think you should just spill it. At least you'll die with some clarity. Who knows, I might even be able to help carry out your final wishes.”
“Otherwise, if you spend your whole life wanting to save everyone, only for the destruction of Dawn City to be blamed entirely on you, wouldn't that be a massive loss? What do you think?”
Xu Mo was attempting to use the special skill possessed by the protagonist of every world—mouth-cannon persuasion.
However, this tactic didn't seem to hold much meaning for the currently crazed Liang Shuguang.
As Xu Mo finished speaking, Liang Shuguang suddenly snapped his head up. Staring with eyes glowing with green light, he spoke:
“I didn't just want to save Dawn City.”
“I am saving the world!”
Xu Mo: ...?
Damn, mouth-cannon persuasion failed. As expected, some final redemption speech was completely useless in this worldview.
This idiot was truly insane. He seemed entirely beyond saving.
“You've really managed to brainwash yourself, buddy.”
“I've told you, the path you're walking is meaningless. I've seen it before, and it has never succeeded once.”
“There are no results at all. Every time, you just end up ruining everyone. Down in that mine...”
Before Xu Mo could finish, Liang Shuguang suddenly interrupted him with crazed shouting:
“Who says there are no results?! Who says this path won't work?!”
His eyes were filled with madness, yet a final sliver of sanity still remained.
“Am I myself not the very first lucid aberration?!”
Hearing Liang Shuguang's sudden self-exposure, Xu Mo froze slightly.
The frenzied Liang Shuguang suddenly began to roar at Xu Mo with reckless abandon:
“I know better than you how many people I've killed! I had no choice!”
“And... and... if my philosophy ultimately succeeds...”
“They... they can all live again!”
As his hoarse roars subsided, all sound inside the black cocoon vanished in that instant, as if the world itself were stunned by his madness.
Bai Feifei, who had been silently cooperating in the fight, spoke up on her own initiative for the first time.
From beneath her faceplate came her somewhat disbelieving voice.
“What did you... just say?”
Liang Shuguang lowered his head, a muffled chuckle escaping his throat.
“Humans can become aberrations!”
“So why can't aberrations become human?!”
“It's merely... injecting human souls back into the bodies of aberrations...”
The laughter grew louder and louder, expanding until it finally devolved into a completely uncontrolled, utterly maniacal shriek.
“Soul, body, hehehahahaha!”
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