Chapter 387: Beauty Trap (1)

A man was sitting cross-legged on top of a hill of red sand amidst arid land where no life could be felt. He slowly stood up and unsheathed the sword strapped to his waist. Dark blue flames eerily traveled up from the base to the tip.

"Huup."

Tai Wuji took a deep breath and recalled an image of his enemy. A monster made of black mucus appeared out of nowhere on top of the hill of red sand.

Squelch.

The monster was so disfigured that it looked like Play-Doh squashed by a child. Sharp teeth could be seen within his smiling mouth.

'He does not die.'

Tai Wuji fell into thought as his sword blazed with dark blue flames. He was thinking about how to kill the monster that he had seen.

'He didn't die even after I completely vaporized him.'

It was impossible; even a god possessing Deific Essence would die if their physical body was destroyed, and the same went for wraiths that possessed a spiritual form like the Constellation of Fear. There was no being that could survive after the physical vessel that held their Deific Essence was annihilated.

'In other words...'

The source of his power did not come from his physical body, but someplace else.

"Huuu," Tai Wuji sighed deeply.

No matter how much he guessed what the reason could be, it was meaningless unless he thought of a countermeasure.

'He does not die.'

Not only was he unkillable, but the monster possessed a weapon so powerful that it could easily tear apart protection made with Divinity.

'How about sealing?'

Tai Wuji shook his head. The monster had devoured the Constellation of Fear whole; there was no way that he could seal such a monster. They would need as much power as what Seraph had used to seal the Constellations of Evil at the cost of her own Deific Essence, but there was no one among the Constellations with that powerful of a sealing ability. The monster couldn't be killed, ignored, or sealed. There was practically no way to deal with him.

'No, wait.'

Tai Wuji narrowed his eyes and recalled the memories of his battle against the monster again.

"Why did he fall back?"

He had not thought about it because of the state of things at the time, but the monster had surely avoided a battle against him.

Tai Wuji frowned. He couldn't understand why a monster crazed enough to swallow the entire world whole would suddenly fall back.

'Because I used the Constellation of Fear as bait?'

That was a possibility; Tai Wuji had planned to escape from the monster while he was focused on the Constellation of Fear. However...

'He fell back too easily.'

The monster had accepted Tai Wuji's offer as if he had been waiting for it. Thinking about it in hindsight, it was certainly strange.

"He may not be completely immortal."

Tai Wuji shook his head again. There was no way to describe someone who could survive their entire physical form being vaporized as other than completely immortal. That was likely not the issue.

'Maybe...' Tai Wuji gripped his sword handle in deep thought. '... It is his mind that isn't completely immortal.'

The monster had initially possessed full intelligence, but after he had regenerated just from a single drop of blood, Tai Wuji could only feel madness from the monster.

'His mind is degraded the more he regenerates.'

If that was the case, the monster's incomprehensible actions made sense.

'He was weaker than me in all aspects.'

Tai Wuji was sure of that one thing. It would be no issue for him to kill that monster multiple times over if he wanted to, but he had fallen back regardless because the monster did not die.

"His mind..."

That was likely the key to facing that monster. Tai Wuji fell into thought again while gripping his sword. He recalled the monster again and again, analyzing the monster's gaze, actions, speech, and voice with his transcendent senses. Tai Wuji opened his eyes after some time, shining sharply.

'I'm sure of it.'

The more the monster regenerated, the more he lost control over himself. Madness and desire would take the place of his degraded sense of reason and intelligence.

A smile appeared on Tai Wuji's expressionless face. The monster was not unkillable; even if it was an immortal being that would endlessly regenerate, there was a limit to it.

'His weakness is his mind.'

He gripped his sword tighter. The vanity he had felt when facing the monster as if he was looking into an endless abyss, had disappeared. Since he had figured out the monster's weakness, there was only one thing he needed to do next.

"If his mind is his weakness..."

Tai Wuji would just need to kill the monster over and over again until his mind was destroyed, reducing him into nothing but a mindless beast.

Fwoosh.

The dark blue flames enveloping the sword flickered. The imaginary monster made of black mucus in front of Tai Wuji bared its teeth. He swung his sword at the monster, slicing it up into dozens of pieces, but it regenerated in a flash.

"Huuu," Tai Wuji inhaled.

He drew out Qi from his dantian and swung his sword again, slicing the monster countless times. The monster repeated the cycle of being slashed and regenerating. A small amount of the monster's blood got on Tai Wuji while he was swinging his sword.

Crunch!

Excruciating pain traveled from where the blood splashed. Although the enemy had been made using Tai Wuji's imagination, the injury he had suffered was real. Enemies created using his transcendent senses were both imaginary and real at the same time, at least to Tai Wuji himself. If he allowed himself to be attacked by the imaginary enemy, his brain would register the attack as real and inflict injury on his body. If he allowed himself to be fatally wounded, he would die.

"Hup."

Tai Wuji cut off the portion of his body with blood splashed on it without hesitation. If he did not do so, that blood would feast on him endlessly. The blood containing countless teeth fell to the ground. Tai Wuji scanned the monster after widening the distance; the monster was still moving fine.

"Heavenly Dragon Rampage."

The countless slashes tore the monster apart. An endless cycle of death and regeneration continued. The monster's movements slowly turned simple. Its sense of reason had disappeared, and only madness remained.

Kiiihhh...

The movements of the monster with no intelligence were simple. It began to eat everything around it, driven by madness.

Fwoosh!

Dark blue flames set the monster ablaze. The monster that had lost its reason began to devour itself. It broke down and collapsed.

Tai Wuji sighed deeply.

He sheathed his sword and lifted the concentration that he had maintained to the point that his brain was overloading. The collapsing demon disappeared from before his eyes.

"It's not easy."

Tai Wuji looked down at himself. He was covered in wounds. It was certainly difficult to kill an endlessly regenerating immortal monster without rest.

'I need an easier way to gnaw at his mind.'

Tai Wuji narrowed his eyes.

"Tai Wuji."

Just then, a boy with blank eyes approached him while dragging his feet. Tai Wuji turned around. In the boy's hand was a black object pulsing as if it was alive, the Demon God's legacy.

"What is it?" Tai Wuji asked.

"The Demon God's legacy is absorbing fear."

"What?"

Tai Wuji frowned. The Constellation of Fear's plan had failed; fear was surely directed at Lucifer instead of the Demon God.

"What happened?" Tai Wuji asked.

The boy shook his head. "I don't know."

Tai Wuji remained silent. If the Constellation of Nightmares did not know, there was no way for him to know.

"But there are traces of interference," the boy mentioned.

"Interference?"

"Yeah, but I don't know who."

Silence fell. Tai Wuji took the Demon God's legacy that the boy handed him. The pulsing darkness was aggressively absorbing the negative emotions spread throughout the continent.

'I don't know what happened, but...'

The growth of the Demon God's legacy was a good thing. Tai Wuji placed the Demon God's legacy in his pocket.

'I have one more card to play against that monster now.'

Not even that monster would be a match for him once the Demon God's legacy was perfected.

"And I finished investigating the human that possesses Tian Taihuang's soul," the boy remarked.

Tai Wuji's eyes brightened. "Who is it?"

"Kim Si-Hun."

"By Kim Si-Hun, you mean..."

"Yeah. Gaia's retainer. The same as Oh Kang-Woo."

Tai Wuji remained silent as the gears in his head turned at a rapid rate. The monster posing as Gaia's retainer, and the human that had inherited Tian Taihuang's soul... It was by no means a coincidence that they used the same martial arts.

'This is...'

Tai Wuji lightly clenched his fists. He could strongly feel that there was something about it that would be able to affect the monster's weakness, his mind.

'Not bad.'

Tai Wuji nodded expressionlessly. His bitter loss had been a blessing in disguise, as he was gaining clues to victory one by one.

"You won't be able to forget, even if you wanted to."

The monster's voice echoed in Tai Wuji's mind. Thick bloodlust poured out from Tai Wuji.

'Of course...'

He never intended to forget in the first place. He had been sharpening the blade of revenge in his mind all this time. Tai Wuji passed the boy and walked down from the hill of red sand as he organized the plan that he had thought of.

'To make contact with Kim Si-Hun, I have to divert the monster's attention.'

However, that was easier said than done. Tai Wuji fell into thought as he walked.

"Hm?"

Just then, a woman came into his view. It was Proserpine, the elf with braided blue-violet hair, the god of succubuses, as well as the being with the Deific Name Constellation of Lust. She was blankly staring into nothingness.

'She's been like that ever since back then.'

After meeting the monster, Proserpine was killing time while postponing her mission to infiltrate the ranks of the elves.

"What is it?" Tai Wuji asked in a low voice.

Proserpine looked away from the nothingness and at Tai Wuji. She snorted and turned away. "None of your business."

"I don't think you have any right to say that when you're acting in a way that makes it my business."

Proserpine bit her lip. She looked away from Tai Wuji and stared into the blank space again. Her thoughts were full of the terrifying monster.

'Who could it be?'

Ba-dump, ba-dump.

Her heart beat rapidly. An inexplicable feeling of fear and desire intertwined whenever she thought of the monster.

Proserpine sighed heatedly.

Just like the suspension bridge effect, her fear of the monster was turning into feelings of love as more time passed.

'I want to...' Proserpine licked her lips as she grew more aroused. '... Have a taste of him.'

The goddess of lust recalled the monster as her eyes filled with desire.

"Hah," Tai Wuji chuckled as he stared at Proserpine. Then, he thought of an idea. "I have a favor to ask."

"Hm? What favor?" Proserpine frowned in annoyance.

Tai Wuji explained his plan.

"So you're telling me to divert that monster's attention, right?" Proserpine confirmed moments later.

"Yes."

"Hmm."

Proserpine's eyes shone. Her initial annoyance was nowhere to be found, replaced with anticipation to the point that she was panting heatedly.

"Do you think you can do it?" Tai Wuji asked.

"Do you even have to ask?"

"He is strong."

Tai Wuji would be able to, but Proserpine couldn't face that monster by herself.

"Fufu," Proserpine giggled. "Who do you think I am?"

She slowly stood up and released lustful energy. Her blue-violet hair soared into the sky and turned into squirming black tentacles. Her skin was split, revealing eight eyes. She smiled seductively as she licked the pus flowing out the ends of her tentacles.

"Why would the goddess of lust fight with her fists? I'll seduce that monster with my unparalleled beauty."