SEC Chapter 95 The True Form of the Void Disc
Chapter 95 The True Form of the Void Disc
Xiao Qianyu's fingers tightened suddenly as she gripped the Red Lotus Goddess Spear.
She had just taken a half step forward, ready to speak up, when she realized that the old Taoist priest's gaze hadn't lingered on her at all.
Those half-open, cloudy eyes bypassed the top-tier combatants radiating brilliance and fixed directly on Lu Yan at the back of the group.
The divine equipment scattered all over the ground seemed to him as nothing more than a pile of broken copper and scrap iron.
Zhao Leiguang glanced down at the breastplate; black gas was still seeping from the edges of the hole corroded by the black tiger.
He muttered in a low voice, "Who's this old man? He acts even more arrogant than Old Li..."
Lu Yan stood still.
The old Taoist's gaze was incredibly penetrating, as if it pierced through flesh, bone, and blood, and bypassed the barriers of the storage space, locking onto the silent stone disc.
His eyes held a familiarity that came from seeing familiar things, but beneath the calm surface lay an unspeakable sense of vicissitude and sorrow.
"Young friend, how long are you going to hide?" The old Taoist priest flicked his whisk.
Lu Yan remained silent, and under the astonished and uncertain gazes of his teammates, he raised his right hand, his mind racing.
An ordinary, spiral-patterned stone disc is held in the palm of your hand.
It has no dazzling brilliance, no dissipation of energy, and looks like a stepping stone picked up casually from the riverbank.
But the moment the stone disc appeared, the nonchalance in the old Taoist's eyes was utterly shattered. Solemnity, grief, and remembrance—a complex mix of emotions surged within him.
"So...it was here with you." He murmured softly, as if speaking to Lu Yan, or perhaps pouring out his heart to this broken world.
Without further ado, he turned and walked across the barren ground towards the end of the white jade steps. His tattered Taoist robe fluttered in the strong wind.
"Keep up."
His tone was authoritative, but it was as fleeting as a passing breeze.
Xiao Qianyu turned to look at Lu Yan and saw him nod almost imperceptibly. She immediately gave a tactical hand signal. The first squad quickly formed a defensive formation and followed closely behind.
After passing through the half-collapsed and ruined South Heavenly Gate and bypassing the ancient battlefield littered with the remains of gods and demons, the group stopped in front of a dilapidated courtyard.
The courtyard gate has long been weathered by time, leaving only two broken stone lions half-buried in the yellow earth, silently telling the story of past glory.
The scene inside the courtyard was even more desolate, with a dry well and a crooked old tree that was on the verge of death.
"Sit down," the old Taoist priest said, pointing to the bluestone platform on the edge of the well. He then sat cross-legged on the dust without any hesitation.
The group exchanged glances and took their seats in turn.
The old Taoist priest's gaze returned to the stone disc in Lu Yan's palm, then swept over his attire: "Your outfit is so flashy, you must have taken it from those false gods in the west, right?"
Lu Yan remained silent, which was taken as tacit agreement.
"The artifacts of the Western Gods are as powerful as ink; once touched, they stain. They may look imposing, but in reality, they are using their rules to tattoo your soul. The more they are tattooed, the more you will become like them, and you will never be able to wear your own clothes again." The old Taoist priest twirled his faded cuffs. "If you want to use this thing, you must first cleanse yourself."
"How do I wash it?" Lu Yan asked.
"Awaken your mind, forget your worries." The old Taoist priest slightly raised his eyelids. "You can think of it as cleansing your marrow and refining your meridians, but it's not washing away the person you are, but rather your attachment to these external things. Treat them like air, like dust. Only when your heart no longer clings to these things can you hear your true voice."
These words are profound and mysterious, yet every word is piercing to the heart.
Lu Yan knew his weakness better than anyone. The tragic deaths of his parents and the riots in the secret realm had instilled in him an almost pathological thirst for security. Top-tier equipment, invincible mechanics, and a hundredfold drop rate were the foundation of his confidence in this crazy world. Asking him to abandon all of that would be tantamount to skinning him alive and throwing him naked into an icy wasteland.
But he had no other choice.
His gaze lingered for a moment between the Void Disc and the unfathomable old Taoist priest. He closed his eyes, forcibly suppressing the throbbing in his heart, and tried to empty his mind.
This is destined to be a brutal process of self-removal.
In his mind, the equipment's attribute panel was always with him. Fifty percent damage reduction, double dash, absolute defense... these cold numbers were already etched into his bones. Whenever he tried to erase them, the fatal sense of crisis of losing protection would gnaw at his heart like a venomous snake, forcing him to instinctively grab these "lifelines" again.
Cold sweat trickled down his forehead, soaking through the lining of his combat uniform.
The entire first squad held their breath, no one daring to make a sound. They could see that Lu Yan was undergoing a life-or-death transformation that no outsider could interfere with.
Just as his mind was on the verge of collapse, the old Taoist's voice, like a morning bell and evening drum, struck straight to his soul: "A common man is innocent, but possessing a treasure is a crime. What you fear is never losing the object itself, but possessing the 'treasure' without the power to guard it. But have you ever considered that the 'treasure' in your hands is itself the most ultimate power in this world?"
A word to awaken the dreamer.
Lu Yan felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
He had always regarded the Void Disc merely as a tool to defy fate, a useful cheat code. He had never truly acknowledged the terrifying power inherent in this supreme object, which even extraterrestrial gods feared!
The obsession shattered with a crash.
The complex equipment data and the morbid thirst for absolute security that had been swirling in my mind vanished without a trace, like the receding tide. My mind became clear and pure like never before.
The moment he completely severed his dependence on external objects, an invisible bridge was built between him and the stone disc in his palm.
Consciousness plunged into an endless abyss of darkness.
There is no direction, no light or shadow, only absolute nothingness.
In the deepest part of that void, he finally saw the true nature of this supreme artifact.
That wasn't a stone disc with a spiral pattern at all.
It is a lotus flower!
A world-destroying black lotus composed of nine overlapping dark lotus petals!
Each lotus petal is not a physical entity, but rather woven from thousands upon thousands of divine chains of laws, with no beginning and no end. These chains intertwine and entangle, outlining the shape of the lotus and radiating an ultimate Daoist aura that devours all things and reduces everything to nothingness.
It turned out to be the case.
The so-called spiral pattern on the mural is nothing more than a layered illusion seen by mortals when their vision is distorted as they look down at this black lotus from a higher dimension!
The moment I saw through the illusion, a cold system notification exploded in my mind.
[A clear and tranquil mind, stripped of the complex imprints of external deities...]
[The unique supreme artifact—'Void'—has unlocked its second form, 'Black Lotus'!]
[Core Capability Upgrade: Talent Plunder → Dao Principle Stripping!]
[Taoist Principle Stripping: Allows for the designation of a target (including but not limited to deities, divine artifacts, and world rules) to forcibly strip some or all of its "Taoist Principles" for one's own use. The degree of stripping is related to the host and the artifact's own capacity.]
Lu Yan suddenly opened his eyes.
The stone disc in his palm remained ancient and gray, but in his vision, the whole world was completely different.
Everything is deconstructed into its most fundamental laws. The core of Xiao Qianyu's Crimson Lotus Goddess Spear is a leaping "Flame" Dao principle; Zhao Leiguang's Dark Gold Heavy Armor is a product of the crude "Sturdiness" and "Earth" Dao principles forcibly stitched together.
Those top-tier divine equipment that were once defined by quality, terms, and data are now nothing more than crude pieces of a puzzle of laws in his eyes.
He raised his head and looked at the old Taoist priest opposite him.
That seemingly frail and aged body was actually empty, yet it also seemed to contain everything, forming its own profound and boundless universe.
"How do you feel?" The old Taoist priest looked at him, and a hint of approval finally appeared in his cloudy eyes.
Lu Yan lowered his eyes to look at the stone plate in his hand, feeling the immense power that was enough to rewrite the underlying logic of the world, and his Adam's apple bobbed slightly.
"Unprecedented."