Chapter 116 - Mythical Tyrant (Final Part)

From the moment Harun excavated the Obsidian Soul Stones, Jiyan locked her mind on one thing only: to resist all foes for 10 minutes. Regardless of the changes going on at her back, she didn't shift focus, and so didn't witness the various stages of Harun's transformation. However, the sweet fragrance and kaleidoscopic flames flickering in her beloved's eyes gave her the misconception that Harun performed alchemy on himself. It was as if his body had turned into a furnace, his heart into a flame, and his soul became the pill produced by this esoteric refinement—she was correct. 

When Harun realized that his situation was utterly hopeless, that without extreme measures, all paths ended in death, he made the only choice madmen such as him would: to discard his soul. My soul isn't resilient enough? Fine, I will destroy it and create a new one. Harun's primary target was his soul, all fleshly gains were secondary. 

To complete this mad gambit, Harun first reached minor-accomplishment in the Soul Mystery, summoned his Evil Soul Tree and sated its appetite with the Obsidian Soul Stones. Only then could Harun shatter and feed the fragments of his soul to the tree without fearing it actively devouring them. 

His body became a corpse and his broken soul took over the Evil Soul Tree, enabling him to set it all ablaze. The spiritual fire burned all weaknesses and impurities in Harun's new form, forcing him to transcend himself to achieve a new state of perfection. Likewise, by consuming his corpse, Harun not only drained all it offered, but removed the flaws and perfected himself in this spiritual furnace. 

Although he didn't know of this process beforehand and devised it from scratch, Harun also named it Spiritual Alchemy. And when it reached the culmination point, the Evil Soul Tree turned into a Scorching Soul Tree, with a kaleidoscopic flame at its core: Harun's Internal Flame. 

Now, while he'd yet to break through, Harun's soul became seven-colored, making it comparable to the best among Empyrean Monarchs. No amount of sufferings could restrain him any longer. A kaleidoscopic flame acted as his new heart, his flesh reached the stainless state, giving this criminal charlatan of a man a sacred aura. 

"Impressive. Your fleshly body has reached half-Anasrava level. If you could summon Heavenly Tribulation and condense the first bolt mark, you'd truly step on the refiner road. Refiners are different from cultivators. They do not seek to understand the mysteries of Heaven and Earth, in their eyes, the Dao is worthless. Their only goal is to liberate their fleshly body from all the shackles of existence. Still, thanks to the bolt marks, they can fuse mysteries with their flesh, enabling them to use abilities reserved for cultivators," the System explained. As it said when Harun created his Desolate Corpse Guard, the System had serious doubts on whether he could survive the Suffering and Unyielding stages. The scourge points would turn a dreadful tribulation into an insurmountable nightmare—making all gimmicks pointless.

In such a situation, directing Harun to a road requiring more tribulations was no different from asking him to die. But now...things were different. "That said, it seems that you're not done yet." The System added and was entirely correct. Still holding Jiyan in his right hand, Harun aimed the left at the ceiling, and as the Berserk Colossi recovered from their strongest two's nigh-instantaneous fall, Golden Incense poured out of Harun—morphing into a statue of the Plague Overlord: the Mythical Idol Incarnation. 

With the ever-increasing scourge values, Harun realized that the Mythical Idol was no longer enough to carry him across the Human Realm. Without a new form of existence, he couldn't fulfill his true potential. And since the Six Incarnations Bridge didn't have a pre-made one, he just had to upgrade his own. 

Kaleidoscopic flame tongues gushed out of Harun's palm, merging with and refining his Idol. A multicolored l.u.s.ter replaced the previous golden hue, the idol became one with the flame, and its gentle look twisted into an expression of wrath. With a grasping motion, Harun pulled the Incarnation back into his soul. A light column surged from underneath, wrapping him in its mystical glow. 

That glow went beyond the Mountain Edge World, beyond the Heavenly Dream Land and other Land-verses to connect to a world far in the Ancestral Land. There, angelic beings floated back and forth. Seated monks sang mantras, golden Sanskrit flew out their lips—forming stairways toward the sky where a marble-white temple hovered. There, a hulking monk sat on a lotus throne, with wrathful features that formed a severe contrast with his monastic garb. 

The monk's eyes sprang open, revealing a full-red gaze that could make Emperors cower in utter dread. "Who...who dares contest my Right of Tyranny?" The wrathful monk barked and turned into a black-white meteor that raced through the idyllic sky to land before a mountain-sized stele. On that stele, only one name stood: his. Across millions of years, this status quo remained unchanged. But now the stele trembled, eager to welcome a new name. 

A whirlpool formed beside the monument, and to the hulking monk's outrage, Harun's soul appeared. Though the monk stood over two meters tall, with an aura so despotic that even the sun and moon dared not illuminate his skin, Harun ignored him, and stretched out his finger toward the stele. 

"Impudence! On the Six Incarnations Bridge, who dares challenge This Ancestor's Dominion?! SCRAM!" The wrathful monk's voice thundered across the ancient world, interrupting the meditation of billions of monks. Countless Divine Senses locked on the stele, Nirvana Saints emerged from their eons of seclusion, wondering who still dared engrave his name on the Stele of Tyranny. 

But when even those Nirvana Saints could only submit to the wrathful monk's command, once it neared Harun's form, the storm triggered by his voice dispersed. Before the billions of monks and Saints' awestruck gazes, multicolored mist surged from the Stele, sheltering Harun from the wrathful monk's fury. Harun turned, facing the monk with his Gold and Purple Double Pupils. The monk's seething rage collapsed instantly and, mouth agape, he staggered. Under the gaze of billions of experts, under the nose of an Ancestor, Harun raised his fist and punched the stele—it shattered instantly. 

Multicolored filaments flew out of the broken stele, feeding Harun's soul to complete the final step and turn his Mythical Idol Incarnation into...a Mythical Tyrant Embodiment! 

Harun's soul vanished from that world, but his double pupils never left the wrathful monk's gaze. And despite the soul-tearing pain wreacking him, he focused on those eyes only. Endless emotions flashed on his face. "It was true. The rumor was true. Revelation is alive, so Master...still breathes! Master still breathes!" Convulsing from excitement, the wrathful monk burst into laughter and spread his voice across countless worlds.

"Our single opportunity to correct the past mistake has come. Dispatch all our experts at the Reincarnation Realm or above, scour the omniverse! Master is alive and needs us to lift him back to the peak! So long as Master returns, the Devil's erratic reign...must end!"

…

Meanwhile, Little Six and Dilnaz passed day and night in one another's company. Well, more accurately, clingy Dilnaz didn't let go of Little Six, despite all his best efforts. 

"Look, Dilnaz, I love you but...don't you have a life to go back to? No seriously, how many weeks has it been since you came into this mausoleum? I've already taught you so much. Aren't you tired of me yet? Cause I'm tired of you!" Little Six ranted while Dilnaz prepared a dinner table with several heavenly dishes. 

"Master, open your mouth and say aaaa," ignoring all of Little Six's false complaints, Dilnaz raised her cake-filled spoon, and dangled it before him. 

"Really? Who do you think I am? Truly believe that a bit of cheesecake is going to make me fall? Huh, I must prove you wrong," Little Six said before opening his mouth wide—letting Dilnaz spoon-feed him. Meanwhile, the commandant hid in a corner and shook his head in disappointment. "The ancients were right. The garb doesn't make the monk." 

After his initial refusal to take her as his disciple, Little Six collapsed before Dilnaz's instance and agreed to teach her some tricks in exchange of a few good meals. Little did he expect that Dilnaz actually carried cooking wares in her cosmic pouch and was more than ready to oblige. Defeated times and times again by the Saint-Empress' culinary skills, Little Six realized that if he didn't let her go now...he might never be able to. 

At the same time, Dilnaz had forgotten why she first came already, and wholly enjoyed this odd master-disciple dynamic. The initial apprehension had vanished as well, and now, even without the Duality Severing Secret, just by staying by Little Six's side, Dilnaz felt at ease. Better, while this coarse cavern couldn't compare to her magnificent palace, across over 200,000 years of existence, Dilnaz...never felt more carefree. 

"Oh my heaven...by all the lords and ancestors this feels sooo good! In other circ.u.mstances, I'd marry you." Little Six jested and tore through Dilnaz's dishes. 

"Mhm...we can still arrange that. Though I must warn you, I have a daughter. That tends to put off some." Dilnaz followed suit. 

"What time is this? Negative 9,000th century? That's fine. We can find someone that acts just like me to entertain her, so I can keep you all to myself," Little Six carried on with the joke, but here Dilnaz's tone took a dramatic change. "Master, there is no one like you."

A blend of sweetness and seriousness laced her words, but before Little Six could argue the opposite, his eyes went bloodshot. The bowl he held dropped on the ground, and he vomited blood.

Under Dilnaz's astonished eyes, Little Six's form blurred like a defective hologram, and as the missing parts of his memories flooded him—the golden-eyed monk neared destruction.