150: Chapter 149 Living Towards Death

Chapter 149: Life From Death

Water Mirror Technique evolved from Water Release: Water Mirror Technique.

This Water Release: Water Mirror Technique was learned by Wuzhiqi when it was still in its Changyou stage, acquired through the first box of book materials that Sun Po had rummaged up; it was quite ordinary.

It originally came from the signature ninjutsu of the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, from Naruto, and was a defensive type of ninjutsu.

Its defensive principle was more like a counterattack, somewhat resembling an instant trap card. It required generating a water mirror the exact instant of an enemy's attack, and then shattering the water mirror to create a water-composed duplicate of the enemy. This duplicate would copy the attributes, skills, and status of the enemy at the time of the attack.

This skill had played a crucial role during the municipal tournament match against Xu Xiu, successfully blocking Xu Xiu's ultimate move at the time, Return of Ten Thousand Swords.

But later, by the provincial tournament stage and even during the Yang Guang incident and the Tiger incident, this skill was never used again.

Mainly because the grade of this skill was too low; it was already difficult to copy enemies who were routinely at the divine level later on, as the power level of Divine Power was simply too high.

Especially after Changyou later loaded the Dao Fruit of Water (Remnant) MOD, these Water Element-related skills directly transformed into nutrients for the Dao Fruit of Water (Remnant).

However, the memories of these Water Element-related skills did not disappear just like that; they even became more proficient, flexible, and diverse, except they were no longer reflected on the status panel.

Sun Po possessed the Five Elements Bloodline and had a very high comprehension of Five Elements-related spells and secret arts. Coupled with the Black Rhino Armor, his current attainments in water-attribute spells far exceeded the other four elements.

After all, to learn water-attribute spells, he only needed to consult Wuzhiqi. With an ancient water god teaching him one-on-one, it would be hard for Sun Po not to learn, but the other four elements lacked such conditions. Moreover, due to card reasons, Sun Po had never collected book materials for the other four elements.

Therefore, from the start of the Gaokao until now, not only had Changyou's advancement to Wuzhiqi brought tremendous progress, but Sun Po's progress was also considerable. He had now mastered most of the water-attribute skills that Wuzhiqi had mastered during its Changyou period. Counting the Black Rhino Armor, he was practically an enhanced version of Changyou.

It was just that he didn't use these water-attribute skills very often in ordinary combat; after all, things like Three Points Return to Origin Qi or Flowing Water Crushing Rock Fist weren't as useful as Meteor Raging Waterfall Pierce and Moon-Gazing Rhinoceros Horn Slash.

As for Wuzhiqi, it went without saying. Ever since inheriting Wuzhiqi's divine name, opportunities to unleash its full strength were few and far between, so these minor skills could only be played around with inside Tianhe Budu.

Water Mirror Technique was played out just like that. Compared to Water Release: Water Mirror Technique, it required a shorter hand-seal time and slightly looser timing requirements for usage, counting as a small improvement.

However, neither Sun Po nor Wuzhiqi used Water Mirror Technique this time for its counterattack property, but solely for its reflective property as a water mirror.

Both he and Wuzhiqi noticed that when Fahai returned to Jinshan Temple, he had indeed grown much stronger, but he seemed to be bound to Jinshan Temple, inextricably linked to it.

And when he was previously ambushed by the Red Flood Dragon, Jinshan Temple instantly became unstable. Both Sun Po and Wuzhiqi could see that Fahai at this moment should be the vital weak point of Jinshan Temple.

It was just that most powers could not strike Jinshan Temple or Fahai who was inside it, not to mention that he was now additionally protected by Xu Shilin—who had entered the temple to become a monk—and Lord Wenchang. The two starlight powers of cyan and red guarded his sides, making the already unselectable Fahai even more invincible.

Under this circumstance, Sun Po's current strength was far from sufficient to break ten thousand spells with a single force or to harm Fahai, who was in a higher dimension.

Sun Po's previous thinking had actually been somewhat led astray by Zhuang Zhou. Zhuang Zhou deliberately used the Demon Gods Mighty Power of Overlord Xiang Yu just to give Sun Po the illusion that his power attributes were also sufficient to destroy this Jinshan Temple.

He used this inefficient method to beat Jinshan Temple out of the higher dimension alive, and made Sun Po witness the whole process.

This was like an adult beating someone to death with a small spoon in front of an infant. The infant also had a spoon in his hand, and seeing all this, he naturally tended to learn from the adult how to beat people with a spoon.

Even if the adult swung twenty thousand times to beat the person to death, while the infant could only swing twice, the infant would still subconsciously think of using the spoon first, even though he was far from having the strength of the adult's twenty thousand swings.

And Zhuang Zhou hadn't gone all the way down the path of leading Sun Po astray; he had still reminded Sun Po in words:

"What comes next cannot be resolved by power. If this obsession does not fade, this White Snake will not die, and if this White Snake does not die, this obsession will not fade.

But now this White Snake is Fahai, and Fahai is the White Snake; the two are hard to tell apart.

In this way, this Fahai will never be able to slay this White Snake or make it disperse, and the White Snake will never die either."

Zhuang Zhou very clearly pointed out that what came next could not be resolved by power, and highlighted the contradictory nature between this White Snake and Fahai.

It could be said that the misleading was genuine misleading, and the guidance was true guidance. Doing things this way was truly contradictory and extremely bizarre.

Fortunately, Sun Po didn't sink into it for too long, especially upon seeing how much Fahai loathed snake demons and the Red Flood Dragon's desperate struggle. The crimson aura it emitted provoked Fahai to completely reveal his snake form. Sun Po suddenly realized that even in the legends on Earth, Fahai was a stubborn monk who was irreconcilably at odds with demons. He might be rigid, unfeeling, pedantic, and hateful, but his obsession with getting rid of snake demons was real; otherwise, it wouldn't have eventually evolved into a grand vow.

For a demon-subduing person so devout in heart, the demon he most wanted to get rid of was inextricably bound to him and had merged into one with him. This was perhaps the greatest irony, yet it also made the obsession—which originally only required getting rid of a snake demon—almost impossible to fulfill anymore. Even Fahai himself did not know that the greatest snake demon, the White Snake, was none other than himself.

And the Green Snake and Xu Shilin obviously knew this point, so both of them desperately maintained Jinshan Temple. They knew that as long as Jinshan Temple existed, Fahai existed, and as long as Fahai existed, the White Snake would always exist.

This tiny obsession ultimately became extremely tricky under the blessings of Western Paradise's Power of Merit and high-dimensional reinforcement.

It even caused the White Emperor, who was trapped in the conflict of red and white, to place a bet here. Who the mastermind behind this was remained unknown, but Xu Shilin, who had already entered the temple to become a monk, probably contributed a lot of effort. It was very likely that he had made some transactions with the Western Paradise to facilitate this matter, because he had the most motivation and the greatest ability to do so.

This problem seemed insolvable, as if one could only find the high-spirituality material pinned by Fahai to completely destroy Jinshan Temple. However, the true core of it was neither Jinshan Temple nor that high-spirituality material, but Fahai himself.

As long as Fahai's grand vow dissipated, this Jinshan Temple would naturally have no way to maintain itself.

Another way to make Fahai's grand vow dissipate was to slay the remaining and only snake demon—the White Snake; that was, to make Fahai kill himself!!

This seemed absurd—how could a person kill themselves? But in reality, if Fahai learned the truth, he would definitely kill himself.

There was no need to doubt the depth of his obsession with slaying snake demons; this obsession had long since transcended life and death, to the extent that it had not dissipated even after his death.

And over so many years, his obsession had grown increasingly profound, nearly driving him mad with the obsession to slay snake demons.

At this time, as long as Fahai was awakened to see the fact that he himself was currently the White Snake, without anyone else having to make a move, Fahai would definitely kill himself.

And once Fahai died, Jinshan Temple would presumably vanish into thin air. At this moment, as Sun Po and Wuzhiqi pinched their hand seals, a body of water approximately three to four hundred meters in diameter suddenly appeared directly opposite Fahai.

This water surface was as smooth as a mirror, clearly reflecting the glowing Jinshan Temple, Xu Shilin and Lord Wenchang with their eyes closed and heads lowered, Liu Jianren with blood flowing from his eyes, the Red Flood Dragon with mottled and shattered scales, and Fahai with his snake form fully revealed.

Fahai's movements suddenly paused. Staring at this huge water mirror, he suddenly flew into a rage and said, "What person uses sorcery, daring to disturb my Buddha's heart!!"

Having said that, he actually tossed aside the dying Red Flood Dragon in his hand, sat cross-legged on the ground, and began chanting scriptures in his mouth.

The scriptures he chanted were very hurried, his voice was also very loud, and his body was slightly trembling. It was obvious that his inner heart was not calm.

But the scriptures were still effective; as the scripture-chanting sound in Fahai's mouth gradually weakened, his body also stopped trembling.

The white snake features on the surface of his body were also rapidly fading, and it looked as though he was about to restore the appearance of an enlightened monk.

Wuzhiqi said from the side, "Not good, this dead bald donkey is starting to deceive himself."

As it spoke, it prepared to change moves. Cyan divine light condensed in its other hand, and a mass of Ren Water Divine Power was leaping in its hand like a flame.

Seeing that Wuzhiqi was about to hurl it, Sun Po opened his mouth to stop it, saying, "Hold on for now. I'm afraid Ren Water Divine Power won't be able to hit Fahai either. The protagonists of this battle are not just us, or rather, the protagonists of this battle were never us to begin with."

Before Wuzhiqi could react, Sun Po had already gathered qi in his dantian and roared loudly,

"Red Flood Dragon!! Do you dare to use your flesh and blood to complete this dragon-snake transformation?! Do you dare to move toward death and find life?!"

Sun Po's voice was like thunder, even suppressing the sound of energy collision above the void. The crimson and white colors in the void suddenly surged, and the entire space suddenly seemed to be enveloped by all-over-the-sky blazing flames and a sharp golden storm, even spreading to affect Sun Po.

His Black Rhino Armor continuously emitted clanging sounds—that was the blade-sharp storm bombarding Sun Po's armor. Meanwhile, the surrounding crimson flames actively condensed, transforming into a coiling red dragon phantom around Sun Po to help him withstand the golden storm with the high temperature it emitted.

Obviously, the immortals fighting above were not completely ignoring those below; they were also paying attention to the situation between Liu Jianren and Fahai. Earlier, seeing that Fahai's inner heart was greatly shaken to the point of immediately going to sit cross-legged and chant scriptures, both the Red Emperor faction and the White Emperor faction knew that the balance of victory had shifted.

Right now, this mysterious kid named Sun Po was the key to this red-and-white conflict. Seeing that Sun Po was still exerting force, both sides couldn't help themselves—one wanted to kill, and the other wanted to protect. This made Zhuang Zhou, who was watching from the side, laugh out loud and say,

"Good, good, good! Two old dogs have lived out all their years in vain, biting each other for half a day, yet it's not even as useful as a single sentence from this old man's disciple."

One side angrily said, "Zhuang Zhou, watch your words! If Your Highness the White Emperor were to personally arrive, how would you dare to be so arrogant?"

Zhuang Zhou instead spat and said, "I should be the one advising you to watch your words, old man! I am a monster now. If you piss this old man off, you might be able to hide beside that old kid Shaohao, but this old man can slaughter your servant gods clean and completely massacre your bloodline descendants. Do you guess whether that old kid Shaohao will risk his life with this old man over this?

Guess again if you would ever dare to leave Shaohao by even half a step for the rest of your life."

The entity on the White Emperor's side actually stopped making a sound.

Zhuang Zhou's reputation was extremely resounding in the extraterritorial realms, or rather, across the myriad heavens and worlds; they knew that this old madman was truly capable of doing such a thing.

Down below, this miniature Red Flood Dragon propped up its dying body, dragging out dazzling bloodstains as it crawled toward the meditating, scripture-chanting Fahai.

There were hardly any complete scales left on its entire body, one of its fangs had even broken off, and the mane on its back was dyed deeply red, hanging wetly over streaks of bloody scars.

Its whole body emitted a striking crimson aura. The closer this crimson aura got to Fahai, the slower the white snake features on Fahai's body faded.

By the time the Red Flood Dragon completely slumped over Fahai's body, pale-white snake scales once again emerged all over Fahai, and his head was also faintly transforming into a huge snake's head. Beneath his cassock, a snake's tail emerged once more.

Suddenly, crowds surged within Jinshan Temple, and rows of monks appeared in front of the mountain gate. Their attire and demeanor were identical to Xu Shilin and the others.

These rows of monks knelt down in unison toward Fahai's direction and began chanting scriptures together in their mouths.

Xu Shilin, Lord Wenchang, Guan Zhen, Don Quixote, and others were all among them. Pale-red and cyan starlight, cyan spiritual aura, along with various colorful auras and divine lights all converged into individual scripture characters, floating toward Fahai.

Fahai's body emitted a faint divine light, crystal-clear and radiant like colored glaze.

And the white snake features on the surface of his body had all completely vanished.

Liu Jianren also sat down among the monks in a daze like a walking corpse, but blood and tears streamed from his eyes, and a look of pain surfaced on his face, seemingly undergoing a fierce struggle and resistance.

The Red Flood Dragon struggled to raise its head and glanced back. With its eyes full of tears, it let out a roar and fiercely tore down toward its own shattered scales.