"Human, Blade Likes."

Yu Hongzhi's completely carbonized body was still burning with Amaterasu's black flames.

The divine fire from Hell greedily devoured every inch of its target's substance.

The charred body was slowly sublimating beneath the extreme heat.

Only that strange blade remained untouched. Its bizarre blade and multicolored hilt isolated it from all of Amaterasu's black flames.

"No, it wasn't isolating them!"

Only after Huo Yuhao approached did he suddenly realize that every wisp of Amaterasu's black flame that neared the blade was silently erased.

"But Amaterasu's black flames aren't matter—they're energy!"

"Can this blade erase energy too?!"

"That man is already dead. Why does this blade still exist?"

Huo Yuhao secretly counted himself lucky. If his cheat abilities had not been powerful enough, he really would have been screwed this time.

The next time he encountered something like this, he would start with Amaterasu no matter what, then use Tsukuyomi to control them.

Question Sasuke, mock Sasuke, understand Sasuke, then finally become Sasuke.

Amaterasu was seriously useful. In his hands, this ability had finally succeeded in killing someone and earned a kill record. It was no longer just an assist.

Still, a blade capable of erasing both matter and energy was something he had never even heard of.

He had never seen any similar theory in his previous life either. This was an entirely unknown field.

"Dreams..."

After their exchange just now, he had also discovered that the enemy's Martial Soul was strongly connected to dreams.

And the [Dream] Authority was one of his Three Authorities.

For the two Authorities of [Understanding] and [Fantasy], he clearly knew how to increase his degree of control.

Discover new knowledge, obtain new items through Lottery Draws.

But the [Dream] Authority required him to weave a Dream Kingdom, and he did not have the slightest clue where to begin.

To this day, the only ability of his Spiritual Eye Kaleidoscope that had anything to do with dreams was the Realm of Origins.

Huo Yuhao did not dare use that ability lightly. It consumed an enormous amount of energy and was a life-saving skill.

As a result, Huo Yuhao knew very little about the [Dream] Authority.

The blade before him was clearly connected to dreams and was very likely the key to unlocking the [Dream] Authority.

Returning to the matter at hand, Huo Yuhao had already approached the burning mass of charcoal.

"Kagutsuchi!"

The sword-shaped pattern in Huo Yuhao's eyes began to rotate.

The undying black flames of Amaterasu began to fade away.

They revealed a pile of black ash. The air was thick with the smell of charcoal, while the blade stood beside the ashes.

It was also dissolving the ground at a visible rate as it slowly sank downward.

"Come on, don't tell me this thing could bore straight through to the center of the earth if no one stopped it?"

Huo Yuhao was getting a little anxious. He did not dare grab the blade directly. If it infected him with something nasty, he could only hope the Realm of Origins could resist being turned into a dream.

Considering that even that Soul Emperor had been unable to withstand this blade...

Soul Power probably could not block its terrifying ability at all.

Huo Yuhao was unwilling to give up on the key right in front of him. If he missed this chance, the only way he could come into contact with the Dream Authority again would be to hunt Soul Beasts with related traits in the future.

"Spiritual Power doesn't work."

He first tried using his strongest asset, Spiritual Power, to see whether he could communicate with the blade.

Clearly, this was not a Zanpakuto. Communication was useless.

The moment his Spiritual Power approached, it was erased. The entire blade was a Perception Black Hole.

"Soul Power?"

Next came the pitifully small amount of Soul Power inside his body. As expected, it was slapped apart by the blade before it could even get close.

"Heh, pretty tsundere, aren't you?"

"Come on, let Brother Huo see whether you developed properly."

The blade continued its cold refusal as it sank bit by bit into the ground.

The Colored Light Ribbons winding around its hilt seemed to carry a faint mocking undertone.

Now Huo Yuhao was truly out of options. He seemed to have no abilities capable of doing anything to this blade.

As more than half the blade had already sunk underground, Huo Yuhao suddenly remembered that he still had another kind of energy he could use.

That was the Entropy Power produced by reversing Soul Power.

Disordered, chaotic, and difficult to control, this Entropy Power seemed somewhat similar to the symbolic meaning of this blade.

Dreams had always been disorderly—the wild imagination of Life toward the world.

They were the interweaving of all kinds of strange and fantastical things.

Chaos and uncontrollability were also characteristics of dreams.

Thinking of this, Huo Yuhao felt it was worth a try. He had no other methods left anyway. Since he was already here, he could not go back empty-handed.

"Reversal Technique, activate!"

Dense blue runes began winding around his right hand, mysterious and noble.

Then the scarce Soul Power in his body began to reverse, turning order into disorder.

Gray-black Entropy Power appeared in his right hand. Huo Yuhao could barely control it with a massive amount of Spiritual Power.

The moment this mass of Entropy Power appeared, the surrounding air began to tear apart around it with piercing shrieks. All the Blue Silver Grass nearby lowered themselves as though they had seen a natural predator.

Unknown bat-like Soul Beasts in the sky also darted wildly through the night. All Life instinctively fled from this mass of energy.

It was like students actively avoiding their homeroom teacher when they spotted them on the street.

Huo Yuhao's face turned pale. He covered his right hand in Entropy Power and used Spiritual Power to form a barrier around it, preventing it from touching his body.

Then he extended his right hand and cautiously approached the hilt formed from interwoven Colored Light Ribbons.

The instant the blade showed any reaction, he would immediately retreat. He absolutely would not touch it.

When his right hand was only a finger's width away from the hilt—

The blade, which had been cold and aloof while radiating a terrifying aura, suddenly began to tremble violently.

It was clearly nothing more than a lifeless blade, yet Huo Yuhao felt it radiating intense longing, like a traveler in the desert receiving a sip of sweet spring water.

As if it had eyes, it seemed to grow anxious when it saw that Huo Yuhao still was not touching it. It tilted its hilt on its own and touched his right hand covered in Entropy Power.

Huo Yuhao was startled and tried to pull his hand back, only to discover that it seemed to have been glued to the blade.

He could not pull away.

Then the Entropy Power on his hand was rapidly absorbed through the hilt, and the blade began to emit a multicolored glow.

"This is bad. I don't have enough Entropy Power."

Huo Yuhao had never possessed much Soul Power to begin with, so naturally he could not convert much Entropy Power.

As the Entropy Power on his hand dwindled, the hilt began to slowly move closer to his hand.

Huo Yuhao started to panic.

Fortunately, the blade seemed to truly possess self-awareness. Once it noticed that Huo Yuhao's Soul Power had been depleted, it stopped absorbing Entropy Power on its own.

The moment the suction on his hand disappeared, he hastily pulled it back and gasped for breath.

He watched as the blade before him, now glowing with multicolored light, began to change.

The Colored Light Ribbons forming the hilt slowly drew together and compressed until they bloomed with white light.

Within that white light surged waves of color, layered upon layer—an eerie strangeness that could only exist in dreams.

And the hilt no longer carried that terrifying aura capable of erasing everything.

Huo Yuhao sensed that the blade was actually sending him an affectionate emotion.

It wanted him to take the hilt in his hand.

After hesitating slightly, he still stepped forward, grasped the hilt, and pulled the blade from the ground.

"It really worked!"

The blade truly did not erase Huo Yuhao as well. Instead, it actively transmitted some information to him.

"Gray. Tasty."

"Human. Blade likes."

The corner of Huo Yuhao's mouth twitched as he said,

"Good grief, you really do have self-awareness."

"That's insanely awesome."

But Huo Yuhao soon noticed another problem. This blade was far too flashy—he would get a hundred percent head-turn rate walking down the street with it.

"Um, Blade?"

"Can you be a little dimmer? You're kind of conspicuous."

The blade first conveyed a puzzled emotion. Then, seemingly after understanding, it turned entirely into bubbles.

Those bubbles entered his right hand bit by bit until a multicolored blade-shaped tattoo appeared on the back of it.

"Human. Done."

Huo Yuhao glanced at his right hand and could sense that he could summon the blade at any time.

"Guess I can't take the civil service exam now."