At the Milky Way Holy Land, Luo Feng was fortunately in seclusion. No one knew his Divine Power Avatar had dissipated.
In the Origin of the Sacred Land Universe, Luo Feng's consciousness seemed to have fallen asleep, sinking into Endless Reincarnation.
"Ah!!"
A boy was pinned down. He roared and struggled wildly.
Before him, his parents and younger siblings were being tortured by a group of men in black. They cut off their hands, then their feet, then peeled away their skin inch by inch... The victims screamed and begged for mercy, but the men only laughed harder, reveling in it.
"You deserve to die! All of you!" The boy watched those closest to him suffer, consumed by rage, despair, and fear.
He hated them. He raged. But he could do nothing.
"Be angry. Despair. In the end, you'll realize you killed them yourself. We're your demons, your evil. We're just part of you... Hahaha, hahaha..."
The boy's consciousness slowly sank.
When he woke again, the men in black were gone. His parents and younger siblings were dead.
"No! No!"
The boy roared. Every man in black had worn his own face. It was as though he had killed his loved ones himself.
"No, that's not true. It couldn't be me. It wasn't me..." Clutching his head, the boy staggered as pain split his skull and the world spun.
"It was you. It was you, Luo Feng. You did all of it. You killed them. You killed the people closest to you. You deserve to die..." Another frenzied voice thundered through the boy's mind.
Despair, rage, fear—every emotion surged through him.
Then he smiled. He began to laugh.
"Yes, you're right. I deserve to die. Dad, Mom, A-Hua, Xiaoxin, I'm coming to you..."
A knife appeared in the boy's hand. He raised it toward his heart...
Wake up. Wake up. This is fake. It's all fake. The boy's hand suddenly trembled violently. Luo Feng's awareness shone unmistakably in his eyes.
"Damn it." The boy snapped awake, only to sink back under the next instant...
"Please, stop gambling! Our child has a fever of forty-two degrees. If we don't get him to the hospital now, it'll be too late."
A woman's voice came through the phone, frantic and tearful, pleading with him.
"Got it. I'll come back after this round." The man hung up. "Come on, guys, let's keep playing. I still have to win back what I lost."
"What about your kid?"
"It's fine. My wife's a grown woman. She can't wait for me to handle everything. She'll take the kid to the hospital herself."
"Exactly. You can't spoil your wife like that. You've done nothing wrong, Fengzi."
The four men let the call slide and played mahjong with even greater enthusiasm. One round became another, and they lost track of time. Several more calls came in, but Luo Feng hung up without paying them much attention.
Before long, Luo Feng had lost everything.
"Big brother, lend me a little more. I'll pay you back tomorrow," Luo Feng pleaded.
"Fengzi, it's not that I won't lend you more. Pay back what you already owe me first. That's enough for tonight." Hong, his face covered in stubble, patted Luo Feng's shoulder.
"Big brother!" Luo Feng grew anxious. "Big brother, just... Huh?"
Whoosh!
The scene shattered, and Luo Feng sank into another life.
Life after life passed in seemingly endless reincarnation.
"Break! Break open!"
"Break!"
"Wake up."
At first, Luo Feng had to struggle for a while before awakening from each life. But as he experienced more of them, he woke faster and faster, until he could regain awareness almost the moment a new life began.
Yet the reincarnations seemed endless.
Luo Feng broke free of one life only to enter another. A hundred lives became ten thousand...
Gradually, Luo Feng lost count of how many reincarnations he had endured.
A million?
Ten million?
A hundred million?
Or a hundred billion? A trillion?
Luo Feng no longer knew. He knew only that every life was false. Everything was false. He held to a single conviction: break through and shatter every illusion...
Within the arena, as the pure white eye appeared, Galaxy seemed to sink into agony.
Both Miniature Universes vanished at that instant.
The white eye in the void soon began to close, as though overcome by weariness. Then the white membrane around it dissolved into countless points of light that flew toward the falling Luo Feng and merged into him.
Evil Eye appeared where the eye had been. The sinister black currents around his body and head had vanished completely. Beneath his gold-and-blood armor, his skin was black and wrinkled. His head was now clearly visible: a grotesque mouth and three eyes. The one on his forehead was shut, while the two beneath it were hollow and black, their gaze vacant.
"So Galaxy lost after all. Evil Eye's final move was terrifying." Everyone in the spectators' area had witnessed it, and they now saw Evil Eye Domain Lord's strength in an entirely new light.
"Hmm? Something's wrong. Evil Eye's aura is so weak. He's only a Void True God?" City Lord Jing and the others looked toward Evil Eye. Though a formation separated them from the arena, they could still sense his aura. It was shockingly weak.
Thoughts flashed through the minds of City Lord Jing and the others.
In the arena, Evil Eye trembled all over.
"Gone. Gone. Everything's gone." Evil Eye could feel that much of his memory had been erased. The insights he had gained through the Replication Secret Art were all gone. With most of his soul's insights lost, his realm and will had fallen to the early Void True God level. Any Eternal True God could crush him.
His aura was barely that of a newly advanced Void True God.
"Hmm? Galaxy?" Evil Eye suddenly looked at Luo Feng. Trapped in my Infernal Reincarnation, even his peak Saint Realm will may be lost in endless reincarnation. I'll enslave him first, then find a way to wake him. With a fighter like him, I won't have to fear those old bastards outside.
Evil Eye reached Luo Feng in an instant.
He immediately condensed his Soul Force into a Soul Mark and drove it into Luo Feng's body.
Galaxy has the will of a peak Saint-level being, but his soul is still only at the Eternal True God level. I should be able to succeed. Evil Eye waited expectantly.
The next instant, his expression changed.
"What? I can't enslave him?" Evil Eye felt his Soul Mark strike some obstruction and vanish outright.
"Again." Evil Eye condensed another mark from his Soul Force and sent it into Luo Feng.
Hiss, hiss, hiss!
The mark met the same resistance and was completely annihilated.
"I can't enslave him?" Evil Eye panicked.
He had no idea that when Luo Feng had become the master of the Star Tower, his soul had fused completely with the Tower Pearl. As the core component of the God King Level Supreme Treasure, its soul defenses were far beyond anything a Void True God could shake, even while Luo Feng was unconscious.
Back when Luo Feng had been only a Universe Master, the combined Soul Attack of over a thousand Universe Masters had failed to shake those defenses in the slightest.
Moreover, certain properties of the Star Tower put the extent of its defenses, in some respects, beyond even Mountain Guest's understanding.
"If I can't enslave him, I'll kill him. I'll shatter his True God Heart." Desperate though he was, Evil Eye made his decision without hesitation.
Teacher, I was forced to use a forbidden move. My realm has fallen to Void True God. The next Canglan Domain Lord must die! Evil Eye knew that even if he killed Luo Feng and left the arena alive, the old monsters outside would still be waiting for him. He was doomed, but he would not let the next domain lord live.
After sending the message through his Communication Token, he glared venomously at Luo Feng, who was still trapped in agony. "Galaxy, this is all your fault. I can't enslave you, but I can still kill you. Die in your endless reincarnation!!"
Evil Eye burned his divine power once more. Even as a mere Void True God, he could kill an unconscious Eternal True God.
An Eternal True God still had a True God Heart. Shatter it, and he would die.
Boom!
The staff in Evil Eye's hand became a streak of light. Pouring nearly all his strength into his most powerful strike, he smashed it toward Luo Feng's True God Heart.
"Die!" Evil Eye roared madly.
Boom!
Break open! Luo Feng's will seemed to roar. The layers of illusion that made up the endless reincarnation finally shattered. His consciousness returned in an instant.
Inside that endless reincarnation, the time he had spent breaking through those layers of illusion felt longer than countless cycles of the Primal Universe—many times longer than his entire life.
But Luo Feng's resolve was unshakable. He knew his own heart and held fast to it.
His heart did not embrace all things. Luo Feng's Heart Like a Blade accepted what he believed in and rejected what he did not. It was an uncompromising path. If his heart rejected something, then it was an illusion. With his heart as a blade, he would cut through it.
Know your heart. Hold fast to it!
Once he knew the endless reincarnation was false, he needed only to break through it. However many lives there were, they were all illusions, and he would break every one. His heart had never wavered. Falsehood remained falsehood, no matter how much time passed.
"Evil Eye." Luo Feng's expression was indifferent. Evil Eye was now only a Void True God. Under Luo Feng's pressure, he trembled helplessly, unable to move.
The gap was too great.
An Eternal True God stood a full major realm above a newly advanced Void True God.
"Galaxy." Evil Eye looked at Luo Feng and laughed wildly. "I've lived for countless years. That's enough for me. But if I die, you die too. My teacher will avenge me! Hahaha..."
"My killer is Galaxy of the human race." Evil Eye sent one last message. Then...
Boom!
Evil Eye chose to self-destruct. Laughing wildly, he unleashed all his divine power in an instant, becoming a blazing sun as a violent shock wave swept outward.
But a Void True God's self-destruction was weaker than a single strike from an Eternal True God. Luo Feng blocked it easily.
"Evil Eye's teacher?" Luo Feng frowned. For Evil Eye to have been so powerful, his teacher might be Saint-level or higher. Yet Luo Feng had never heard that Evil Eye had a teacher. Where had this person come from? Was he Saint-level—or a God King?