A Scroll of Infinite Glory

Chapter 206 Absurd Purpose

The sixth person to arrive here has already consumed three fruits from the Gene Tree. He appears to be a highly educated intellectual, around thirty years old.

But his white shirt was stained with blood, his gold-rimmed glasses were actually empty, and he was carrying a beautifully curved Damascus scimitar.

The scimitar's guard is gilded silver, the handle is made of black buffalo horn, and the blade, covered with beautiful patterns, gleams with a cold light, without a single drop of blood on it.

"You possess a mysterious power that influences all the gene trees; you're Owen and his crew's enemy, aren't you?"

The man in the shirt looked cautiously at the corpse hanging on the wall, but his tone was as gentle as possible. "Owen and his team are the organizers of the competition. Their understanding of the Gene Fruit is definitely far greater than that of us participants. Nobody knows how many people they have hidden or how many arrangements they have made."

"These irrational people deserve to die for killing each other before even seeing a real enemy, but there might be room for cooperation between you and me."

The reason the man in the shirt said such a thing was largely because Shenwu Maha did not possess the power of the Gene Tree fruit, and unlike other fruit owners, he did not have an unusually strong urge to devour the other party upon first meeting.

Shenwu Mohe didn't even raise his eyes. He simply shook the bell again. The power of the fruits emanating from the five people he had just killed was now being calmed and soothed in the soil beneath his feet with the sound of the Mountain-Driving Bell.

The man in the shirt listened intently to the bell, sensing its minimal impact on the Devil Fruit power within him. His confidence swelled, and he stepped forward, lowering his sword. "Let me introduce myself," he said confidently. "I am Oxel. The largest casino and the most prosperous shipping company in Violet City are both my properties. After we join forces and win this competition, I can…"

"You are the sixth."

Shenwu Mohe stretched out a hand, and his bent index finger suddenly snapped out.

Oxer's expression changed drastically. Just as he was about to swing his sword, he suddenly felt his body lighten and float up unsteadily. Although he swung his hand out, he didn't know where the sword in his hand had gone.

He looked down and found that his palm had become transparent, and his vision could pass right through his arm to see the person still standing on the ground.

That familiar hairstyle, that pose with a knife in hand—it was clearly him.

"Where am I? Then who am I...?"

"My soul!!"

When the floating soul realized this, it immediately let out urgent and panicked cries, trying desperately to return to its body.

But the voice of the soul is inaudible to others.

Instead, just as his soul was desperately thrashing about, trying to sink, the wizard's soul-stealing spell suddenly appeared in the air like countless swimming green tadpoles.

The green incantations pulsated, the overlapping chanting sounds so chaotic that they were impossible to hear clearly. In just one second, they could pull the listener's mind into a bizarre and polluted world, first with auditory distortion, and then with the mutation of the soul.

The eerie green soul, like kneaded dough, lost its human form. Its lower body transformed into a wisp of smoke-like tail, while its upper body's arms and torso lengthened and thinned.

With a flick of his finger, Shenwu Mohe sent the soul into a corpse on the wall, whereupon the unusually pale body gained two pale green eyeshadows.

Upon closer inspection, all the corpses on this wall bear such marks.

As soon as Oxel died, the crimson glow of the fruit's power flowed out of his corpse and seeped into the ground, while his body automatically flew up, stuck to the wall, and turned pale, devoid of both blood and eyeshadow.

After Shenwu Maha killed the soul of the first fighter, he used spells to control the souls of all the fighters he encountered afterward, and sent them into the corpses of other fighters. There was always one empty corpse on the wall, waiting for the next visitor.

"As expected, these people will be powerless to resist when they encounter your Soul-Snatching Finger."

Shenwu Guiyi appeared on the long street, hands in his pockets, approaching step by step. "Soul-stealing Finger, Sealing Palm, Life-Taking Fist—the names of these strange martial arts can all be deciphered from incantations. But that fist technique you used to chase me for thirty hours before finally injuring me—it seemed to involve nuclear energy. What was it called?"

"That's called the Uranium Light Wave Fist."

Shenwu Mohe stood up. "You've finally arrived. I've been waiting for you for a long time."

"Uranium Light Wave Fist, a very apt name," Shenwu Guiyi said. "I extracted cells from the injured area that had been contaminated by your punch, and used those cells as a model for genetic optimization. If you still use that punch as the deciding factor this time, you'll probably have to taste the bitterness of defeat."

Shenwu Maha looked puzzled and asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

Shenwu Guiyi stopped just before he reached the edge of the incantations, his expression serious and sincere, and said, "In a battle between sworn enemies, I don't want to kill you with such petty tricks."

Shenwu Mohe looked somewhat enlightened, yet also smiled: "My nemesis, so that's how you see our relationship."

"Isn't that right?"

Shenwu Guiyi's expression became even more serious. "Defeat me fair and square, or even capture me alive. Those in the family who are temporarily forced to submit to you will truly submit, and you will become the most honored person in the Shenwu family."

"Don't even think about denying it. I can sense it. Last time we fought for thirty hours, you had two chances to kill me, but you held back a bit of your strength, just to capture me alive, right?"

"This time, you went so far as to cross the ocean to track me down, sending your subordinates to plot and scheme. You even found a way to influence the Ascension of the Longevity Fruit, all to completely crush me and prove yourself, right?"

Shenwu Guiyi took his hands out of his pockets and opened his arms. "Your men are all dead. As for my ally, I'll leave him behind for now."

"Here, there are only streets, corpses, you, and me. Come, let's see who can ultimately prove themselves!"

He maintained a wide-open stance, waiting for Shenwu Maha to launch the first attack, just like the last battle, but this time, he would definitely achieve a different ending.

Shenwu Mohe looked at him for a while: "You seem to have misunderstood something."

"I've already killed everyone in my family who I didn't like. The rest are people I don't care about. Do I need to prove myself to the dead or to things I don't care about?"

Shenwu Guiyi scoffed, "If you don't care, why bother explaining? In the end, are you just born as a flawed product, too afraid to openly admit your feelings?"

"I think fighting with someone like you who has this kind of mentality would make this battle a bit ridiculous, so let me tell you the truth first."

Shenwu Maha displayed the bell in his hand, "My target has always been the owner of this thing. I held back last time because I was afraid of shattering you. After all, your body was originally prepared for him."

Shenwu Guiyi's expression stiffened slightly, his eyes fixed on the bell.

He quickly recognized what it was: the Mountain-Driving Bell, a treasure belonging to Qin Shi Huang, according to ancient texts.

The seventh volume of the Tianzhong Ji quotes the Yutang Xianhua: "Yichun borders Zhongshan, and there is a gorge of several tens of miles. Its water is the Yichun River. It meanders and is crystal clear, and its depth is unfathomable. Once, a fisherman caught a bell-shaped vessel while fishing."

"When the fisherman lifted it, it made a sound like thunder, and the sky darkened... Some knowledgeable people said that this was the bell that Qin Shi Huang used to drive away mountains."

Qin Shi Huang is a historical figure with multiple evaluations. Some praise his greatness, while others focus on his tyranny. But no matter which angle you look at it from, this "emperor" who abolished the feudal system and established a unified dynasty can be said to have emerged in response to the times.

But that's only from the perspective of his achievements. From the perspective of spiritual practice, he was born in a rather unfortunate era.

At that time, martial arts and magic in this world were still in their infancy, and the ignorant and inefficient witchcraft and ritual practices had not yet been completely eliminated.

A person's achievements are ultimately influenced by their perspective. In that era when the supernatural system was crude and chaotic, even if one could reach the five-star level with their own talent, they would probably only be able to leave behind a four-star technique. The drawbacks of the technique might even affect the lifespan of the creator.

In comparison, those who reincarnate are incredibly lucky, having access to an unparalleled wealth of knowledge resources. Experienced reincarnators can even use their own perspectives to participate in discussions and improvements on cultivation techniques that are higher in rank than themselves.

In short, in order to obtain flawless immortality, Qin Shi Huang of this world made many efforts. Some of the plans he devised were to be tried at that time, while others required a long period of planning. One of these plans was entrusted to Xu Fu.

Using the immortal fruit that Xu Fu found at sea as the core, and five hundred boys and girls as materials, the bloodline that is most compatible with the immortal fruit is adjusted to create people who can live forever from birth.

This is the origin of the Shenwu family.

Another aspect of this plan is to use some of the Longevity Fruits to spread throughout the land, and to use magic to plant the refined fruits in the earth's veins to absorb the local cultural essence. Whether it is in writing or in songs, the people of the land can never avoid talking about the First Emperor. These spiritual symbols of the First Emperor are the only nutrients that the modified Longevity Fruits can absorb.

When Xu Fu's descendants created a flawless race of immortals, they could take the immortal fruits from all over China, combine them in pairs, and bring back the consciousness of the First Emperor, who was wandering in the underworld, to reality. This would allow him to bring his most trusted civil and military officials to a new immortal body, live a second life, and begin a new chapter.

Unfortunately, after the First Emperor died, in order to bury his body at the sacred site in the East China Sea that he had chosen during his lifetime, Prince Fusu escorted the coffin into the sea, but never returned. The Qin Dynasty perished after only two generations, all plans were disrupted, and the most secure guarantee was lost.

After the Chu-Han Contention, and then the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there were always some outstanding figures who explored ancient sites and sought out the remnants of the First Emperor. Some did it to seize treasures, while others did it out of curiosity. All sorts of plans to seek immortality were thus destroyed.

The fact that Xu Fu could casually plant fruit anywhere in the vast land of China and have it dug up by Qiu Ran Ke and turned into a declaration of war speaks volumes.

Thus, what should have been the most secretive and most likely to be completed plan was delayed again and again. The Shenwu family went to live overseas, and after thousands of years, no one cared about Qin Shi Huang anymore. The research on immortality became their own pursuit of interests.

Even Shenwu Guiyi, the most legitimate descendant of the Shenwu family, never considered carrying out Xu Fu's original plan. And Shenwu Mohe, who personally slaughtered most of the Shenwu family members, actually…

"You!" Shenwu Guiyi exclaimed, his voice trembling with absurdity, "You want to summon back Qin Shi Huang?"

Once the other party revealed this, he immediately understood why Shenwu Maha had not absorbed the power of those fruits.

Only when the power of the fruit is no longer being fused with others can it be easily extracted by Qu Shanduo from the original part that belonged to the Yuhua Guxu Longevity Fruit, in order to awaken the First Emperor's consciousness.

This fact forced Shenwu Guiyi to believe the other party's story, making it even harder for him to accept. "Are you crazy? What good could this possibly do you?!"

Shenwu Maha shook the bell.

If he were truly just a native of this world, then there would be no benefit in doing this; he would definitely choose to seize the power of these fruits himself.

However, he is a reincarnator.

From his very first chosen mission, that life-changing adventure, Shenwu Mohe was destined to have more connections with the figure bearing the name of Qin Shi Huang.

(End of this chapter)