Douluo: This Legend of the Dragon King is not quite right

Chapter 948 You Can't Take the Ice Abyss Sword Away, I Said.

The outcome has been decided.

Lu Jun sheathed his sword, and the Ice Abyss Sword silently returned to its scabbard. The soft sound of the hilt touching the scabbard was particularly clear in the deathly silent ruins.

He stood quietly in place, his white robes motionless in the breeze, his gaze calmly fixed on the distant figure lying weakly amidst the rubble.

Huo Yuhao did not get up, nor did he try to mobilize the remaining divine power.

He simply lay there, gazing at the gray yet still vast sky. After a long while, the corner of his lips twitched, as if in a smile, or perhaps in a sigh.

"enough……"

His voice was soft, with a hoarse quality that came from years of wear and tear, yet it strangely carried on in the silence.

"These ten thousand years of torment have truly been enough."

He slowly turned his head, his gaze passing through the dust raised by the ruins, and met Lu Jun's eyes in mid-air.

Those eyes, which had always held both ice and fire, now held only unfathomable weariness and a trace of relief.

"To see someone in this era, ten thousand years from now, truly able to defeat me..."

Huo Yuhao paused, each word seeming to be squeezed out from the depths of his chest.

"very nice."

Lu Jun's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.

He heard neither the resentment of the loser nor the sigh of the strong in those words.

What he heard was something deeper and more profound.

A void after the burden has been lifted, an almost cruel entrustment.

In a flash, Lu Jun understood.

This is not just a battle for a supreme artifact, nor is it merely a duel between two supreme beings.

This is the final and most cruel pressure that Huo Yuhao, using himself as a touchstone, exerted on this era and this planet.

He is using his millennia-old obsession and power to force this era to give birth to someone who can surpass him and take over the immense burden on his shoulders.

If no one can defeat him, then it will be his body, already eroded by time and scars, that will face the endless abyss and the returning divine realm.

If anyone can defeat him...

Lu Jun looked at the almost liberated light in Huo Yuhao's eyes and felt a slight sink in his heart.

He took a few steps forward and stopped a few meters in front of Huo Yuhao, his voice calm yet penetrating:

“You didn’t use your full strength. I can sense that you are far from being at your peak.”

Lu Jun's gaze swept over Huo Yuhao's tattered robes, dim divine halo, and the King's Sword, which was covered in cracks and had almost lost its luster.

"The six thousand years of depletion of the barrier, and the ten thousand years of tug-of-war with the Crimson Domain, have long since hollowed out your foundation," he said slowly, as if stating a cold fact. "Today's victory, I won... not honorably."

"If you were at your peak ten thousand years ago, when you unified the continent and your godhood was just beginning, I would have no chance of winning."

This is the truth.

The power Huo Yuhao displayed, even the forbidden power that touched space and time, made Lu Jun realize just how terrifying a being in a complete state who possesses three divine positions and whose spiritual power rivals that of the Supreme God King is.

Upon hearing this, Huo Yuhao slowly shook his head.

This simple action seemed to have exhausted a lot of his strength.

He looked at Lu Jun, his eyes filled with complex emotions.
"I'm not at my peak. How about you?"

Lu Jun remained silent.

Huo Yuhao continued, his voice carrying a desolate quality, as if he had seen through the essence of things:

"The power within you is being restricted, eroded, and probed by that universal law..."

"As you walk through the world, you are constantly engaged in an invisible tug-of-war and suppression with that power that far surpasses the level of a god-king."

"Your bottleneck doesn't come from cultivation, but from permission." "An existence that can be feared and marked by that level of power is itself... a monster that transcends the comprehension of ordinary god-kings."

He paused, looking into Lu Jun's unwavering eyes:
“My soul attack, infused with my millennia of accumulated power and the judgmental power of the Asura’s Eye, couldn’t even shake your soul… This in itself proves your rank.”

“Mr. Lu, you don’t need to be modest, nor do you need to find excuses for my defeat.”

"You won, and you won fair and square. You proved that you are the answer I have been waiting for for ten thousand years."

Answer.

This word weighed heavily on Lu Jun's heart.

Huo Yuhao took a breath, seemingly regaining some strength. He looked at Lu Jun and suddenly asked:
"Do you... still remember the Spirit Pagoda? Many years ago, probably when you were only a teenager."

Lu Jun's eyes flickered slightly, and he nodded:
“I remember. Back then, in the Spirit Pagoda's virtual battle system, I fought against a simulated version of you.”

“That wasn’t a simulation,” Huo Yuhao said calmly. “That was me.”

Lu Jun's pupils contracted slightly.

"To be precise, it is a part of my divine consciousness that I separated and attached to the core system of the Spirit Pagoda."

Huo Yuhao spoke slowly, as if recalling a distant past.

"On the one hand, it's to monitor the infiltration of the Crimson Realm; on the other hand... it's also to see if there are any promising seeds in this era."

His gaze fell on Lu Jun's face:

"Ten years ago, on the virtual battlefield, you, with your Soul Master physique, were the first to defeat me. I have been watching you ever since."

"Therefore, I am not surprised that today's battle will have this result."

Huo Yuhao closed his eyes, as if he had let down his last bit of defense.

"But... it came faster and more thoroughly than I expected."

Lu Jun remained silent for a moment, then suddenly took a step forward and moved even closer.

He looked down at Huo Yuhao, whose life force was waning, and asked a question that surprised everyone:

"How can I get you back to your peak condition?"

Huo Yuhao suddenly opened his eyes, a look of astonishment flashing across them.

Lu Jun's voice remained calm, yet carried an undeniable certainty:

"If you can recover, Douluo Star will have one more true peak God King. Facing the Crimson Domain and the returning God Realm, our chances of victory... will be much greater."

Huo Yuhao stared at him blankly, as if he were seeing this opponent who had just defeated him for the first time.

After a long silence, he finally spoke, his voice hoarse, tinged with disbelief and absurdity:
“Just now… I even tried to seize your Ice Abyss Sword, and even went so far as to use the Necropolis to try and kill you.”

"Now that I've been defeated by you, instead of completely eliminating this potential threat, you... want to help me recover?"

He paused, his tone tinged with a mixture of self-deprecation and inquiry:

"Aren't you afraid that after I recover, I'll strike again and steal your super artifact? At that time, you might not be able to defeat me when I'm at my peak."

Lu Jun met his gaze and slowly shook his head.

"You're not that kind of person."

His voice was soft, yet resolute.

“I can see that the root of all your obsessions and struggles is not greed, but responsibility, and a sense of urgency that is almost desperate, tormented by thousands of years of loneliness and pain.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the cracked sword in Huo Yuhao's hand before finally settling back on Huo Yuhao's face.

"Moreover..." Lu Jun's lips curled into a faint yet captivatingly confident smile, "Even if you were to recover to your peak state from ten thousand years ago..."

"You can't take my Ice Abyss Sword either."

"I said."

(End of this chapter)