Chapter 2991: Cross-Realm Ritual Cooperation

Silky smooth.

This was probably why everyone referred to walking the demonic path as "falling" into it. Learning to be bad really was a slippery slope.

Despite clearly lacking Transcendent Perception, Professor Fu found the process surprisingly smooth when he tried to capture that formless fear.

In layman's terms, he felt almost no resistance before his "main perspective" switched to the other side.

It was far more than just a simple shift. At that moment, like a long-deaf man hearing sound for the first time, the entire world became crystal clear in his eyes.

Turning dark and becoming three times stronger really wasn't just a saying. It seemed his Transcendent Perception had been restored...

A moment later, Fu Qian reached out and made the exact same grasping motion as Su Gao.

When he pulled his hand back, a strand of mycelium had astonishingly appeared in his palm.

...

"So what does this represent? I completely fail to understand your logic."

For Professor Fu, this moment was undoubtedly a qualitative leap, but the Old Lady once again proved the old adage that if you didn't get it, you didn't get it.

With her train of thought so utterly chaotic, she had no choice but to deploy logic as a weapon.

"It's not just you. Even I'm having a little trouble understanding it," Fu Qian answered through the head in his hand as he crushed the mycelium and watched it dissipate into the long river.

Yes, he had truly seen it.

Even without the Mask of the Destined God, Fu Qian had actually seen those omnipresent waves once again, along with the sight of a body being torn apart by them.

It was even different from the Mask of the Destined God—this time, it came with a special filter.

The illusory yet viscous, heavy yet flowing "blackness" remained visible, and the "filth" mixed within it now possessed a direct, tangible presence.

The black water surging against the King of the Abandoned Prison's body felt like the embodiment of fangs, claws, and screams, making it profoundly clear exactly where that tearing force originated.

In short, a painting of hell could look no worse than this.

It was hell as seen through the eyes of an enlightened mighty figure, the kind where one could look straight at karmic sins.

He could only say the inner demon perspective lived up to its name. Excellency Master Yuhun's legacy was truly astonishing—wait, what legacy? That had been his own property to begin with.

Reaching out again, he watched the dark filth churn with his movement as a certain feeling within him naturally corrected itself. Even though every detail of that duel remained fresh in his memory, he didn't feel the slightest bit of unfamiliarity with the Dao of "Chan" that had originally belonged to the inner demon.

It had been his own cultivation all along; Master Yuhun was nothing more than a wisp of delusion temporarily bearing its weight.

Even the King of the Abandoned Prison—

As his gaze fell once more upon the complete body with its head intact, Fu Qian seemed to understand the sensation Master Yuhun had once shared.

Such a powerful form of existence, the very incarnation of disaster and ill omen—the world should have lost its color and meaning before Him. Yet at this exact moment, it felt as though he could parse and dissect it...

'I am the King of the Abandoned Prison, but the King of the Abandoned Prison does not represent me. It is nothing more than a Skin I wear.'

The true essence of that False God ritual unfolded before him once more with unprecedented clarity.

Even though this Skin was so flawless it couldn't be peeled off, even with a hundred-and-twenty-percent synchronization rate... it had still loosened in an entirely different way.

It was no longer strictly supreme; it could now be scrutinized.

Could this be the true catalyst for this Tier 1 ritual?

From the initial Original Sin Sage, to donning the Divine Skin to incarnate as a False God, and then going a step further to thoroughly parse and control the Divine Skin from a higher-dimensional perspective... Even the entire Divine Path had become silky smooth.

Even the reason his own advancement catalyst pointed toward the Birthday Party seemed to have an explanation. Only here could his inner demon be torn out in a relatively independent manner, thereby completing this scrutiny.

As long as he abandoned his foolish insistence on the "self."

Strictly speaking, this was even a cross-realm cooperation.

It was clearly the ancient Divine Path, yet the final step required the assistance of extracted "sugar."

This neatly aligned with the overarching reality that the path of the transcendent was already shattered and broken. It certainly sounded like a good story.

What a pity. For an academic worker, it still severely lacked evidence.

Even though the sensation of "hearing sound" was intoxicating, Fu Qian still committed an act that wildly defied his "self"—he actively made himself "deaf" again.

Like abandoning the Heavenly Dao he had just comprehended to return to a fleshly shell of ignorance, Fu Qian astonishingly reversed the previous process, pulling his sense of self back to the side with hands and feet.

The process wasn't easy. After all, water flowed down while man climbed up; it was always harder to go from luxury to frugality.

Fortunately, Professor Fu even had experience turning into a bug, so overcoming this hurdle wasn't too difficult.

All that remained was a technical issue. Although the sheer arduousness of the process was comparable to fighting another miniature inner demon battle, he still had the leisure to glance at Su Gao's hand gripping her sword.

See, even Classmate Su Gao firmly believed Professor Fu would win, having kept her weapon sheathed this entire time...

Not bad at all. Could this be considered proof that his Transcendent Perception hadn't disappeared, but had merely been shielded by the Divine Skin?

Upon returning beneath the Skin of the ignorant King of the Abandoned Prison, the Transcendent Perception he had briefly regained vanished without a trace.

However, Professor Fu, who was always adept at looking on the bright side, continued to draw his conclusions.

"Have we been out for a bit too long?" he asked, turning his head to look at Su Gao for casual confirmation.

"Mm... They should come looking for us soon," Su Gao said, nodding to indicate they wouldn't have peace and quiet here for much longer.

There was no way the situation on Aike's side wouldn't attract attention, which would inevitably lead them straight to Professor Fu for an investigation.

She also lowered her sword hand, shedding the fierce edge she'd displayed earlier.

"We're pretty much done here anyway. We might as well head out first, so we don't have everyone swarming over and turning things into a mess," Fu Qian said, clearly sharing her judgment. He sighed lightly, implying that stealing this half-day of leisure was already good enough.

As for the thing in his hands... he scrutinized it for a moment, but didn't crush it barehanded to sever his inner demon or anything of the sort.

How could an inner demon be severed so easily? The head before his eyes was nothing more than a physical manifestation; the core of the issue always lay in anchoring one's own sense of self.

It didn't even need to be severed—

A moment later, the head on Fu Qian's neck melted away like a candle. He lifted the "inner demon head" with both hands and placed it firmly onto his severed stump.

Since he was already here, even if he hadn't managed to harvest any new inspiration, there was no reason to return empty-handed.

For the rest of the Birthday Party, he might as well walk side-by-side with his inner demon and attend this Hongmen banquet together.

"Nice to meet you. You're far worse than Claudora," Fu Qian finally said to the Old Lady in the quiet, casually taking his leave.

Though the actual content of that farewell...

The Old Lady's mind seemed to have completely ground to a halt. She just stood there blankly, watching the two of them head downstairs.