"Now," she said softly, her voice echoing like a decree, "the warm-up is over."
The world seemed to tremble, as Qian Renxue made her move.
Mind Storm.
A violent surge of spiritual power exploded outward from her, enveloping the battlefield in an invisible tempest. The air distorted, around her shimmered as if bending under an unseen weight.
Ren Xuan's eyes flickered crimson as warning after warning flashed before him.
[ Emergency! Emergency! ][ Energy consumption for Mind Shield increased. Estimated stability: 1 hour. ]
Ren Xuan's expression hardened. His composure shattered, and the arrogance he had moments ago disappeared.
His seventh and ninth soul rings flared simultaneously, their brilliant radiance illuminating the fractured earth.
"7th Soul Skill: Martial Soul Avatar!"
A colossal phantom of his Xuan Yuan Sword manifested behind him—its ancient form vast enough to pierce the clouds, its presence radiating a pressure that could rend mountains.
"9th Soul Skill: Heavenly Slash!"
The sky itself seemed to split as energy condensed into a sword light so massive it threatened to obliterate the entire area. The very air screamed under its pressure.
This time, Ren Xuan had no intention of holding back. All thoughts of subduing her had vanished. He wanted her broken..
Yet as his attack reached its crescendo, Qian Renxue only smiled.
A calm, knowing smile.
And then,
Something buried deep within the recesses of his mind, exploded
The seed of "Mental Plague."
She had planted it in him long ago, at their very first meeting, just before the system had put up all of its defences.
Ren Xuan's mind imploded with a thousand whispers, each more deranged than the last. His thoughts fragmented, consumed by illusions and hallucinations. His concentration shattered; his energy rampaged uncontrollably.
He coughed a mouthful of blood, his once-stable form now trembling violently.
Qian Renxue blurred forward. The distance between them vanished as her eyes glowed with divine madness.
She opened her mouth—
Mind Dragon's Roar!
A wave of psychic force exploded outward, shaking the heavens. Invisible voices filled the air—murmurs of despair, madness, and divine authority. Ren Xuan clutched his head, screaming as the mental pressure clawed at his soul.
[ Emergency! Shields breached! ][ System integrity compromised! ][ Preparing to detach… ]
But Ren Xuan no longer heard. His sanity was already in tatters.
Blood streamed from his eyes as he laughed like a lunatic.
"You… think you've won? Hahaha! You—hah—you've only just begun to lose!"
Using the last flicker of his reason, Ren Xuan gathered every ounce of his remaining soul power. The air warped violently; his body became a vessel of blinding energy—unstable, volatile.
He was going to self-destruct.
Qian Renxue's sigh was soft, almost melancholic, as if the weight of what she was about to do had pressed upon her chest. Letting the system detach and cling to someone else was a recipe for disaster—she knew the chaos such a thing could cause.
But she didn't fully understand the working principles of the system, and caution demanded a single, decisive course: destroy it.
She extended her thoughts, reaching deep into the innermost layers of her spirit, and invoked her ace in the hole—the possession of her martial soul.
The moment she did, the air around her seemed to warp. The wind halted. Even the scattered debris of the tavern outside remained suspended, as though the world itself paused to witness the awakening of a mythical entity.
Ever since she had become a demigod, she understood why her previous instincts had screamed at the idea of fully possessing her martial soul. Because her martial soul possession meant transforming into a mythical creature, something that is beyond even the comprehension of the strongest in Douluo continent.
If she had tried fully then, she would have been in a state far worse than death, devoured by the primal instinct of her own power.
Her mind raced back to the first time she had tested it after becoming a Demigod. Her incomplete mythical creature form, should have been a incomplete young Mind Dragon—
However her possession revealed a complete different form, probably due to the rules of different world. Her body was instantly encased in grayish-white dragon scales, each scale etched with faintly glowing runes that seemed to float and rotate in three-dimensional space. Her eyes elongated, iris and pupil melding into a draconic slit, while the 12 golden wings of her angelic form transformed into grayish-white wings, layered with arcane, shifting symbols that glimmered faintly with every beat.
Her appearance was simultaneously beautiful and terrifying, a perfect fusion of ethereal grace and lethal menace. The aura of her Mythical Creature Form radiated authority.
Qian Renxue thought calmly. 'The world itself recognizes this as a power not meant for mortals.'
Ren Xuan—the first creature to witness even an incomplete version of her mythical form—froze. The last threads of his sanity shredded under the pressure, his mind screaming in confusion and terror. His soul, already battered by the Mind Dragon's Roar, was now entirely unprepared for the overwhelming presence of her draconic angel form.
Meanwhile, the system scrambled, utterly unprepared for the unknown power it was now analyzing.
[ Alert! Alert! Intrusion of an unknown power! ][ Analyzing the unknown power… ][ Analysis start: 1% … *@%%@# ][ @&#+°¥√¥=… ]
The system's output devolved into incomprehensible symbols, runes, and errors—its mind unable to parse the entity that Qian Renxue had become. For the first time in its existence, the system fell utterly silent, overwhelmed and powerless.
Her draconic eyes glinted with a dangerous light. "It seems," she murmured, voice carrying the resonance of both angel and dragon, "that your time, little parasite, has come to an end."