Fallen Demon Hunter VS. Superpowered Individual 8

It was only then that I realized I seemed to have made a grave mistake.

Zhuang Cheng said his flames were his spirit. My understanding of this statement was that his spirit, in its dormant state, was just an ordinary spirit. Only when he activated his superpower would his spirit act as fuel for the flames, or transform directly into the flames themselves.

But what if that wasn't the case?

Zhuang Cheng was a superpowered individual capable of freely transforming between himself and flames. If his spirit wasn't ordinary in its dormant state, but instead possessed the attribute of furiously burning flames, or was even more akin to "flames mimicking spirit" in form...

Then wouldn't my actions be as foolish as reaching into a running incinerator?

Reality surpassed even that metaphor. At that moment, I experienced a hallucination of seeing the sun.

The instant I unleashed my ability on Zhuang Cheng, I felt like I had collided head-on with a blazing sun. Destruction, death, annihilation, vaporization, sublimation... I vividly saw such outcomes.

Simultaneously, many questions I couldn't understand before were resolved in my mind. For example, why Zhuang Cheng said he had never encountered an abnormality before.

He wasn't lying; he probably truly hadn't.

Abnormalities are attracted to each other, which is common sense in the human world. However, this cliché couldn't bind a true powerhouse. It would even cause a backlash, making other abnormalities retreat.

Abnormalities acting on instinct would shy away out of fear. Intelligent abnormalities would unconsciously avoid paying attention to him. Even abnormalities that appeared purely as phenomena would pass him by due to unknown laws.

Now, I could also understand why I couldn't sense any mana fluctuations from him. It wasn't due to any special attribute he possessed, but because we were not on the same dimension. Just as a 2D being cannot perceive or interfere with a 3D being, unless the object of my perception was the flames, which were fragments of his spirit, or if he deliberately lowered his dimensional level, I wouldn't be able to sense his mana fluctuations.

"The mountain dweller knows not the mountain." To me, he was too immense a being, and to him, I was too minuscule. He probably couldn't sense my mana fluctuations either, just as he was completely unaware when I launched a soul attack at him before.

This was clearly the domain of Great Wuchang...

Wait... why wasn't I burned to death yet?

I snapped back to reality. The illusion had long ended. Zhuang Cheng stood before me, seemingly waiting for me to make my move.

"What's wrong? Aren't you going to attack?" he asked. "If you don't come, I'll go."

As he said this, he took a step towards me. I couldn't help but retreat, simultaneously checking my spirit and ability.

I immediately understood why I wasn't dead yet. Before the illusory sun could burn me to death, the activation of my ability had stopped on its own.

The illusory sun would have killed me in an instant, but the time it took for my ability to activate and then deactivate was less than an instant. Just like how a mantis shrimp can generate temperatures exceeding the sun's surface for an instant, but cannot cause significant damage, contact for less than an instant couldn't kill me. The problem wasn't there; the problem was why my ability stopped on its own.

It wasn't because Zhuang Cheng used mana to block my ability, nor was it because my ability had some protective mechanism. It was simply because the duration of the ability had ended.

The time my ability trapped a target in a dead-end illusion depended on how much emotion the target's spirit would generate in such an illusion, similar to my own experience. If the ability ended on its own immediately after contact with the target... it meant, it meant...

My ability was overcome by his spirit before it could be shattered by his mana...

"No, impossible, I don't accept it... I don't accept it!"

An inexplicable rage caused me to shout uncontrollably.

"Don't accept what?" he asked, looking bewildered.

The contact with my ability was too brief; he seemed to have no idea my ability had even activated.

Ignoring his reaction, I desperately, even beyond my limits, manipulated all the shadows around me.

Countless shadows surged from cracks and corners, transforming into blades and shooting towards Zhuang Cheng from all directions like a barrage of arrows. He conjured waves from the sea of flames around him, sweeping away all the shadow arrows. But this was merely my diversionary tactic. At this moment, I controlled the shadows even on the floor below.

As he focused his attention on the visible attacks, the floor beneath his feet shattered under the surging shadows, swallowing him whole.

The shadows then dispersed, and Zhuang Cheng, who was in the center, vanished without a trace. He simply evaporated.

He hadn't dodged my attack; I had directly transferred him to the Shadow World.

Banishing a target to the Shadow World yielded no benefit for me, so I had never considered using this move against anyone before, not even now.

But now, I just wanted Zhuang Cheng dead!

Normally, even he shouldn't be able to think or survive in a world without time and space, let alone return!

However, the scene that unfolded next shattered my hope.

Zhuang Cheng reappeared. With a flash of fire in the air, a humanoid figure made entirely of flames materialized above the crisscrossing steel and concrete structures.

I couldn't comprehend how he could return and quickly gathered all the surrounding shadows, forming a giant snake to attack him. But I knew this seemingly grand attack was merely a facade, futile against him.

He simply raised his right hand and made a chopping motion towards the shadow serpent.

I didn't understand what happened. I only saw a blinding flash of fire, and then I was engulfed by an explosion. My body was blown far away by the shockwave, like a leaf caught in a storm.

I was blasted out of the unfinished building, flying even higher than it.

In my inverted view, I saw a spectacular waterfall of flames surge upwards, splitting the entire unfinished building in half vertically!

The shadow serpent was completely annihilated, and the deafening roar of explosions continued unabated.

How could I possibly fight such an absurd opponent? If I escape into the shadows immediately after landing... I'll definitely be caught...

No, even if I could escape...

I...

Scenes from my past life flashed through my mind one after another.

My youthful yearning for a world of magic and abnormalities, my despair and kneeling in dead ends as a young man, my sacrifice of conscience and slaughter in pursuit of power in middle age...

The words of the Monster Maker from the past were interspersed within:

--When you are truly desperate and resigned, believing that all is lost...

--The Seed of the Heart will leave you.

The last thing imprinted on my consciousness was Zhuang Cheng's expression, completely unaware that I had activated my superpower.

I closed my eyes, feeling an immense emptiness.

The Seed of the Heart I had nurtured until now vanished from my body like a soap bubble.

And the power that permeated my entire body lost its core and began to run wild, tearing my body apart from the inside