Lai had appeared in this phantom array that was on the verge of collapse with his true appearance. Ji Ning was surprised by how uncomfortable he felt seeing him like this. He couldn’t help but wonder whether Lai had finally finished playing that ‘game’ with him. If that was true, what was the purpose of him appearing now?
Ji Ning also noticed that Huo Wuling and Herinos didn’t seem to react at all to Lai’s appearance, as if they’d already expected him to arrive. If they had been waiting for Lai, then was Lai the reason why the illusion formation was collapsing in the first place?
In the blink of an eye, various scenarios ran through Ji Ning’s head. Lai seemed to sense his worries and smiled, saying, “I know that teacher must have a lot of questions for me, so I’ll explain everything to you once we get out of here.”
As soon as he’d said those words, the entire illusion collapsed, the mirage disappeared, and the four of them reappeared inside the cave realm.
Yun Yuan stood in front of them, his cold gaze fixed on Lai as he said, “It’s you?”
Lai smiled, but didn’t reply. Yun Yuan had no intentions of sharing pleasantries, summoning thousands of qi swords. Each weapon thrummed with killing intent, flying toward Lai and swinging at his head.
A pitch black staff appeared in Lai’s hand and he pointed it down at the void beneath his feet. Dark elements spilled out like a tide, entangling with the bright qi and eroding the swords until they crumbled into dust.
Yun Yuan frowned slightly. The fraction of his spiritual consciousness that he was using had limited power. Even at full strength his power was nearly equally matched with Lai, yet the oppressive force that filled the surrounding environment was further restricting his qi.
He tried to send out a slither of consciousness to instruct Fu Qinghan to return, but it was like throwing a paper boat into an endless ocean. The black mist had permeated then entire cave realm, locking the space and completely cutting it off from the outside world.
“Don’t try again, he can’t hear you.”
Lai smiled. The overwhelming black mist finally engulfed Yun Yuan’s figure, exhausting the qi used to sustain the fraction’s consciousness until the cultivator’s figure vanished and the cave realm shattered. They returned to Ji Ning’s villa.
Ark, Ozer, and Zhou Rin, who had all been trapped inside the illusions also appeared inside the villa but before they could wake up, Lai pointed his staff towards them and wrapped them in black mist, keeping them in a state of slumber.
Huo Wuling raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. He walked over to a sofa and sat down casually. Crossing his arms behind his head, he said, “So what do you know? You can speak now.”
Lai curled his lip and didn’t answer him. Instead he turned to Ji Ning first and said, “Teacher, what do you want to know? I can tell you everything.”
“How did you just…”
Ji Ning was almost too shocked to speak, but the first question that came to mind was how had Lai appeared inside the illusion? Furthermore, he managed to destroy both the phantom array and Yun Yuan’s spiritual consciousness easily, almost too easily.
“I destroyed the illusion using the dark element.”
As he’d promised, Lai explained to Ji Ning in great detail. When he’d first met Yun Yuan, he had silently attached small tendrils of dark element to the cultivator. The dark element contaminated his qi and once Yun Yuan entered the cave realm, they gradually eroded the power source of the phantom illusions.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Beginning with the illusion that trapped Herinos, the dark element gradually overpowered the qi that ran the phantom array, poisoning the illusion. Once the illusions had been overtaken by the dark element and destroyed, there were enough cracks in the foundation of the cave realm to destroy it, freeing them all.
There was a close connection between the cave realm and Fu Qinghan. If the cave realm was damaged it wouldn’t affect Fu Qinghan physically, but his qi would suffer a lot.
Lai had led Yun Yuan away, poisoned his qi, destroyed his spiritual consciousness, and greatly reduced Fu Qinghan’s qi. At the moment, more than half of Fu Qinghan’s qi had been exhausted.
“Not bad.”
Although Huo Wuling and Herinos knew parts of the story, this was their first time hearing it all together. Herinos clapped a few times, his expression indifferent.
Huo Wuling didn’t say anything, but Lai didn’t care about their opinions. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. He’d sent an elemental clone to fight against Fu Qinghan in order to keep him distracted.
Although Fu Qinghan’s qi was damaged, he would soon defeat the clone, but it was better than nothing. Even if the clone was destroyed, it wouldn’t affect Lai.
Knowing that Fu Qinghan would be fine and that Yun Yuan wouldn’t be able to send out another fraction of spiritual consciousness for the time being, Ji Ning breathed a sigh of relief. He looked over at Lai, who was smiling happily. The Necromancer’s face had matured and become more handsome, but his once golden blond hair had turned pitch black due to the constant exposure to the dark elements and his tall figure exuded a faint dark mist, giving him a faintly threatening appearance. Lai’s unfamiliar appearance made him feel a little uneasy.
After hesitating for a moment, Ji Ning asked another question, “Why did you use my terminal to play games with me?”
“So it was you inside the terminal?”
Huo Wuling’s eyes swept over Lai. He had seen the mysterious power inside the terminal before, but hadn’t known who was the master of the energy.
Lai had expected Ji Ning to see through him. He’d already admitted his identity before, but he hadn’t explained it clearly.
“There were several different reasons.” He said, “The first was simply to test whether you had any of your past memories.”
“When teacher first entered the game, the plot I designed required you to draw a teleportation array leading to the Necromancer’s tower. The teleportation array is complicated and if you hadn’t any idea, you could never have guessed it correctly. The game didn’t provide you with any kind of blueprint, but you could still draw the array, which meant that you didn’t have amnesia and were still my teacher.”
Ji Ning frowned, that was indeed his mistake. Due to the pressing situation, he’d habitually asked Future to retrieve the teleportation array from his stored data. As there was no one around him, he was distracted and hadn’t suspected anything.
“The other reason, as I’m sure teacher could guess, was to spend more time alone with you.”
There was a smile in Lai’s eyes, “I am like a god now. The closer I get to a god’s status, the more obvious the divinity is in my body, and the more my humanity is stripped away. I don’t want to lose these emotions and I don’t want to forget everything that happened between me and you, so I used this method to relive our past memories.”
“The final reason is that this was an experiment.”
“Teacher, I know some of your secrets.”
“I’ve seen some of your past and some of your future. You don’t belong ‘here’ and aren’t connected to this place in any space or time, yet you can’t leave it.”
He raised the corners of his lips slightly, “Maybe you don’t understand what I’m talking about because there are some secrets that even teacher doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter-”
He stopped speaking suddenly and glanced over at the window. Huo Wuling and Herinos also seemed to sense something, walking over to the window to look outside.
Crack. Crack.
In just a few seconds, cracks tore through the walls and floor and the villa crumbled around them. Lai used dark elements to create several spherical shields, protecting them from the falling debris as they floated precariously in the air.
Ji Ning stumbled and was caught by Herinos. His expression changed quickly as he watched the scene below them. As if a devastating earthquake had occurred, all the villas and high rise buildings beneath them had collapsed into ruins.
The ground cracked open to reveal huge gaping pits that mercilessly devoured buildings. A monstrous tidal wave swept through the ruins, washing the wreckage into the endless dark holes.
Not only the ground, but even the sky above their heads shattered like a mirror, splitting into countless fragments like the interior of a kaleidoscope. The fragments soon arranged themselves into massive mirrors, each one projecting a different image.
In a palace in the mountains, the silver haired demon lord Ying Qianqiu sat at his desk, reading a book. He seemed to sense something, and raised his head to look out of the mirror projection.
On a vast and boundless coast, several carriages were stationed on top of a long bridge. Amidst the roar of the waves, Qin Ruwang sat quietly with his sword in hand, before he abruptly opened his eyes.
In the middle of a set, on a distant planet, a holographic projection had created a luxurious dinner scene. Under the dimmed lights, Gu Chen, who was filming, held up his wine glass with an elegant smile, speaking softly with the heroine. However his movements froze unexpectedly and his smile slowly faded.
Under a vast starry sky, Fu Qinghan beheaded Lai’s elemental clone. He used his qi to travel through the night air, before he stopped in his tracts.
It was as if every illusion and disguise was slowly fading, peeling away to reveal the real darkness inside.
Watching this terrifying display, Ji Ning had no idea what was going on. Huo Wuling frowned, looking suspiciously at Lai, “Did you do this?”
“No.”
Lai shook his head, smiling, “It was that man from before, he seemed to be called Yun Yuan? What appeared in front of us wasn’t his real body, but an illusion. The real him was in some strange space, but now he’s torn it apart to come back here. This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.”
Was this caused by Yun Yuan breaking the void? Had Lai done these things in order to provoke Yun Yuan to shatter the void? But what was his purpose?
Ji Ning felt more and more confused. At the same time, he felt a creeping uneasiness, this situation was far beyond any anticipated scenarios. He had no idea what the consequences of the current situation would be.
He was about to contact Future, when Lai quickly raised his hand and pointed at the broken sky, calling Ji Ning, “Teacher, look, what is that?”
Ji Ning automatically looked up, but in an instant, his pupils shrank, his expression froze, and his face turned pale.
In the middle of the shattered sky, there was an image of him. The picture showed him lying on an operating table, unconscious, surrounded by various medical equipment used to sustain his life. His head was connected to an instrument he didn’t recognise. Several doctors in surgical uniforms surrounded him, the tools they used coated with his blood.
What…what was this? Why couldn’t he remember this?
Ji Ning’s breathing almost stopped. He swayed dangerously inside the protective shield, his heart pounding, but the next second, a hand came out from behind him and covered his eyes. The fingers that touched his face were cold, plunging his vision into darkness.
“Don’t look.”
Before he fell into unconsciousness, Ji Ning heard a cold voice he was very familiar with. It was his partner, the system ‘Future’.
Standing inside another protective shield, Lai looked over and saw the person standing behind Ji Ning, hugging him tight. A strange smile appeared on his face, as he said slowly.
“You finally appeared.”
The author has something to say: After reading this, my readers may be able to tell that we’ve entered the final arc, and we’re entering the countdown to the end, but don’t be afraid, there’s still tens of thousands of characters left…! =v=
You’re joking, there’s no way…
The first time I read this I almost screamed – maybe my readers are smarter than me but this took me completely by surprise!!
I really love this final arc, the way it’s written is beautiful. I think quick transmigration novels can sometimes feel a bit flat at the end because everything concludes so quickly, but my author has taken a lot of care to conclude every story. Please enjoy!
I SCREAMED when Ying QianQiu came in I haven’t seen him in so long! 😭 And oh, who is this mysterious character that has appeared? The system ?
Future are you the secret ML of this story. 🧐
There’s so many ml’s that sometimes I get surprised when they show up again!!
I KNEW the system was a love interest!!! Future was acting too suspicious for me👀. OK my theory is that Ji Ning had some type of serious accident and Future is protecting him/keeping him alive by putting him through all these worlds???
On a side not Lai is really working his way up my protag faves list by literally showing up and acting cool.
ooh, I like it…I feel like your comment needs a spoiler warning (－‸ლ)
Lai is so cool, but unfortunately the fact that he spent half the novel playing a teacher kink based otome game with Ji Ning means that he’s still a massive nerd~
When i first read this i knew something odd with Future.
Ahh, I feel like such a fool – how did everyone guess?? I thought he was just a cute system!
I just found the system very suspicious. It isnt very helpful to Ji Ning and i remember JiNings original goal was to make the Female Lead fell inlove with him but then the mission changed… So it is very very suspicious.
I…I didn’t see that coming. O_O
I’ve been thinking of Future since the start of this story and fck! He’s really is!
I’ve read a lot of system x mc novels so Future has been on my suspicious radar for a while… the mentions of Future changing and helping Ji Ning and the suspicious disappearance of the system operators…. but dang, Ji Ning, it’s 12 boats now?? I guess he wanted to even it ╮(‵▽′)╭
I knew there was SOMETHING off about future, either a villain or a love interest. Sometimes he’d have his moments where he was like “…you called me a friend” and that was wayyyy too much personality for the system we normally saw.
Oh shit oh shit… Was I right about Future?!
I KNEW IT! FUTURE WASCA LOVE INTEREST HA!
I should start doing prophecies lmaooo
Dang…. I actually had some sus that future might be the childhood friend or perhaps the childhood friend’s soul, in order to save him split his soul to 11 (?) Lol
Yess!! I’ve been wondering about future.