Chapter 152: Jing Yuan: "Being Evenly Matched" Is a Common Illusion for a Player
However, Jing Yuan was soon ensnared within another layer of the Heliobus's dreamscape.
"…Master?"
The vision of Jingliu before his eyes was holding someone's arm, her words echoing in the hazy dream. "He is someone worthy of your trust."
Jing Yuan was utterly dumbfounded. His master—the legendary Sword Champion of the Luofu—was dressed in a cat-girl outfit, a blush dusting her cheeks as she shyly instructed him to address the man she was clinging to as "Grandmaster."
What in the name of the Abundance was this bizarre dream?
"Jing Yuan," the dream-Jingliu chided gently, "don't treat your Grandmaster with such an attitude."
Jing Yuan felt like he had to be dreaming. No, he was absolutely certain of it. In the waking world, his master would never, under any circumstances, wear a cat-girl outfit. Much less would she be holding… Rekka's arm.
"I feel warm all over," Jing Yuan muttered, sitting bolt upright in his chambers. "It's as if ginkgo leaves are about to sprout from my very being."
He had only just woken from his rest, yet he felt as if his life was being shaved away. A deep exhaustion settled over him.
"…Heh. It must be a Heliobus."
Jing Yuan pushed himself to his feet, his gaze falling upon a message flickering on the Jade Abacus beside his desk. He scanned it, and a weary understanding dawned on his face.
"Oh… I see. The thing I fear most."
He nodded to himself. The fear was a rational response; this particular individual, Rekka, strained his nerves in ways no Lord Ravager ever could. If this kept up, he felt he might just become Mara-Struck far ahead of schedule.
But another, more pressing matter occupied his thoughts.
That fortune teller's face—Rekka's face. He remembered it with perfect clarity. After causing such a monumental stir across the Xianzhou, even going so far as to impersonate a Lord Ravager to lure out Phantylia, how could he possibly forget?
The real problem was, why had Rekka appeared in that scene from his distant youth? A memory that had long since blurred at the edges.
Jing Yuan closed his eyes, casting his mind back, carefully retracing the faint outlines of that long-lost moment.
Wait. That wasn't right…
A tremor ran through Jing Yuan's hand.
Had that man truly lived from that era all the way to the present day?
'Is this how your fortune-telling works?' Jing Yuan thought with a sense of dawning absurdity. 'If an event hasn't occurred, do you just manually intervene to make it true?'
Arriving at the Garden of Serenity, Jing Yuan found a peculiar scene waiting for him. He watched with a placid smile as the Heliobus, Cirrus, bowed and scraped beside Rekka—a rather impressive feat, considering Cirrus possessed neither a head nor a waist to bend.
In short, its fawning was evident.
"So it was you," Jing Yuan said, his voice smooth as silk, "who invaded my dream."
Though a smile graced his lips, it held no warmth, no trace of humor.
"Hmph! You got here quickly enough! As Teng Xiao's successor, you are far too weak!" Cirrus blustered, its gaseous form flaring with bravado.
Jing Yuan simply rubbed the space between his eyebrows, a gesture of deep weariness.
"Fine. Since you wish to have a bout with me, I will compete with you here. However…"
"However what?" the Heliobus demanded.
"General Teng Xiao was the General of the Luofu, commander of the Cloud Knights. Heliobus was the progenitor of its kind, commander of a legion of demons. A clash between the two was a matter of course, an engagement between equals. But now," Jing Yuan's voice turned cool and indifferent, "I am the General of the Xianzhou, while you are no longer Heliobus—you are merely a prisoner. If you wish to fight me, you will follow my rules. You will defeat my army and fight your way to my command tent. Only then will I grant you that chance."
"What?! You—!"
"You must defeat these friends of mine first," Jing Yuan continued, pointing a finger. Cirrus's fiery form swiveled to follow his gesture. "Otherwise, you are not qualified to face me."
"Hey! What do you mean by that! You're just trying to weasel your way out of this fight!"
'Me, fight Rekka?' Jing Yuan thought, maintaining his serene expression. 'That living ancestor? Am I insane?'
"Oh?" Rekka chimed in, a lazy smirk on his face. "You were so arrogant just now. I thought you actually had some skill to back it up."
"He is my father! How can a son fight his own father?" Cirrus squeezed out the sentence, its tone ringing with a bizarre sort of righteousness.
The words choked Jing Yuan. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it again, but all that came out was a strangled silence.
'You, a member of a formless, non-corporeal species, are claiming a carbon-based lifeform as your father?'
"Uh, well, he isn't my actual father," Cirrus quickly amended, "but in my heart, his greatness is that of a father!"
"Didn't you call him 'ancestor' before, Cirrus?" a new, tinny voice piped up from nearby. It was Tail, exposing the lie without a shred of tact.
"What do you know?" Cirrus flared, glaring in Tail's general direction. "Calling him 'ancestor' is a show of respect! Calling him 'father' is a show of closeness!"
"Spineless," Tail declared flatly.
"I don't have a spine! He's powerful, so I'm proud! Do you have a father like this?"
'Why are you taking pride in this?' Jing Yuan wondered, the absurdity of it all starting to chip away at his annoyance.
Watching the comical exchange, much of the General's irritation actually began to dissipate. He looked the little green flame up and down, then glanced at Rekka, who wore an expression that screamed, 'This has nothing to do with me.' Jing Yuan decided this was infinitely more interesting than processing paperwork all day.
"Fine," Jing Yuan nodded, though it was unclear if he was acknowledging Cirrus's claim of paternity or something else entirely. "Then how do you propose we fight? You can't possibly expect your father to step in for you, can you?"
"Of course not!" Cirrus's flame shot up, burning brighter. "I want to have a fair and square bout with you!"
"You were just ambushing me in my dreams a moment ago," Jing Yuan pointed out mildly.
"Teng Xiao ambushed Heliobus! This is merely returning the favor! An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!"
Jing Yuan paused, recalling the historical records.
Teng Xiao, ambushing Heliobus?
Oh, right. The Lightning-Lord had indeed smashed Heliobus to pieces with a single, unannounced strike from the heavens.
"Very well," he conceded. "Let us have a fair and square bout."
Cirrus's body of flame rapidly expanded, coalescing and manifesting a new, towering form. As the giant Memory Zone spirit under the Heliobus's control took shape, however, Jing Yuan's brow furrowed.
"Remembrance…?"
"That one was crafted by March," Rekka commented idly from the side. "It's rather ugly."
He then held up a large, clear jar for Jing Yuan to see. It was swirling with faint, placid lights.
"Look, most of the cleansed Heliobi are in here. What Cirrus is controlling now is just a large mass of residual emotion… to it, these are nutrients."
Jing Yuan's gaze shifted from the jar to Rekka, his eyes sharp. "You even possess the ability to cleanse the negative emotions of the Heliobi?"
"March did it," Rekka replied without missing a beat.
A genuine smile touched Jing Yuan's lips. "As expected of a Trailblazer from the Astral Express."
Sixty seconds later, Cirrus's manifested form exploded.
Forty-five of those seconds were spent with the Lightning-Lord engaging the Memory Zone spirit. Since Jing Yuan wasn't exerting his full power, the misshapen creation proved to be a bit more troublesome than expected.
The remaining fifteen seconds were spent with the Lightning-Lord catching up to the fleeing Cirrus and, with a single, decisive slash, obliterating its will to fight.
Cirrus's true form—a tiny, green, eyeball-like flame—drifted unsteadily from the center of the dissipating energy, circling dizzily in the air.
It opened a mouth that wasn't there, its voice now significantly weaker.
"I… I wasn't ready… Again!"
Jing Yuan stowed his Array Glaive, not even bothering to summon the Lightning-Lord again.
"Again? Your strength is far too meager. 'Being evenly matched' is a common illusion for a player. This match on the board was never fair from the start—my power is completely superior to yours."
"I wasn't ready… One more time! This time I'll definitely—!"
"You no longer have the chance."
Rekka's voice, cool and indifferent, drifted over from the side.
Cirrus's tiny green form froze mid-air. It slowly, tremulously, turned toward Rekka.
"…In the end, I am not Heliobus."
Its defenses finally shattered, the little flame seemed to shrink in on itself, slumping into an emo funk.
"I am just a flame… useless…"
"As long as you know," Rekka said. "Now, get in there."
He casually scooped Cirrus out of the air, stuffed it into the dissipating remnants of the Memory Zone spirit to clean it off, and then unceremoniously shoved it into the large glass jar with the others.
"Alright, Huohuo," Rekka said, turning to the timid girl who had been watching from a safe distance. "These are all clean Heliobi inside. Find a place in the Ten-Lords Commission to store them."
Huohuo stared at the container, her eyes wide with apprehension. "Eh… Is-is this glass jar some kind of specialized dharma tool?"
"No," Rekka replied plainly. "It's just an ordinary glass jar."
An ordinary glass jar, now filled with a swirling concentration of high-density Heliobi.
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