The Empress's No.1 Lackey-Chapter 401: In my dreams, can I still let you bully me?

Whoo—

The Peach Wood Sword was unleashed, and the snowy sky seemed to darken to a crimson hue, as the crowd erupted into sharp screams followed by utter chaos.

On the pedestrian street, Zhao Douan was eating something in the crowd when he suddenly looked up towards the abruptly disturbed throng ahead.

"Murder!"

People scattered in all directions like a tide, and for a moment, Zhao Douan felt like a rock entrenched in a raging current, with men and women fleeing in terror around him, leaving him standing alone in place.

He looked up, gazing beyond the crowd, finally seeing an old Taoist approaching with a Peach Wood Sword in hand, his expression ferocious.

"Tch, finally arrived, have you?" Zhao Douan smiled, walking against the flow of people, and the old Taoist, noticing him, also stopped in his tracks.

Between high-rise buildings, on the suddenly empty streets, lay patches of trampled snow and haphazardly discarded trash.

The world seemed to have quieted, perhaps because of the dreamscape, and as the two met, those fleeing people vanished into thin air one by one.

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What was left was this silent, bustling world.

Snowflakes fluttered down, landing on the hair of Zhao Douan and the old Taoist.

"It's you."

The two spoke simultaneously with this phrase.

The difference was, Zhao Douan looked composed, while the Taoist appeared confused and startled.

"What exactly are you?!" The next second, the Gu Huo National Master almost screamed hoarsely, raising his Peach Wood Sword upright.

His cheeks twitched, and his pupils moved rapidly from side to side, constantly on guard for any looming danger.

From the time he had appeared before the public, the State Preceptor had always been mysterious, dangerous, yet powerful, with a smile that seemed to see through people's hearts.

But at this moment, the old Taoist in Zhao Douan's eyes had completely lost the composure of the "State Preceptor," appearing somewhat mad, like a lunatic from an asylum.

It wasn't that the State Preceptor wasn't calm; it was because the dream was too bizarre, and when one witnesses something beyond their comprehension, emotions inevitably fluctuate.

"You invade my dream and then have the audacity to ask me?" Zhao Douan chuckled disdainfully, casually throwing the snack in his hand onto the ground, and with his hands in his pockets, smiled and said:

"I didn't expect we would meet again so soon, Lord State Preceptor."

He stressed the last title.

Thus, the phrase took on a mocking tone.

The Gu Huo National Master took a deep breath, trying hard to suppress the emotions in his heart, realizing his own disgrace, and then threw his sword coldly, eyes turning indifferent.

The Peach Wood Sword circled around him and reinserted itself into the scabbard on his back.

"This Daoist doesn't care what you are, but you're right, it was I who invaded your dream."

The old Taoist seemed to be awakened, pulling up his sleeves, regaining his proper demeanor, and a wicked smile crept back onto his face:

"I must admit, you arrived earlier than I had anticipated."

You have a strong mental fortitude, huh… Zhao Douan curiously said, "Oh? You knew I would come?"

The old Taoist appeared quite pleased, his grey eyes gleaming:

"What else? Do you think, when I tried to approach you during the day and conversed with you, it was really just to win you over?

Heh, perhaps you also thought that you weren't affected then? Believed that by killing the puppet I controlled, you wouldn't be under the influence of Magic?

No, you're mistaken. At that time, I had already planted a seed in your heart sea, cultivating in you an intense desire to seek me out, casting aside everyone else."

Realizing that as an intruder he should not be fearful, he spoke more fluently:

"Don't believe me? You might as well reflect on your actions throughout the day—have they become reckless? Less cautious? Did you feel a sense of underestimating the enemy? Thinking that relying on inherited cultivation, you could restrain me?"

Seeing Zhao Douan furrow his brows, the old Taoist's smile grew more ferocious:

"Haha, have you figured it out? Do you think all your actions stemmed from your true self? Little did you know, your eager thoughts of finding me were just amplified desires!

But indeed, your quick arrival was a surprise to me. I had intended to deal with a few enemies tonight first before baiting you proactively with a clue... However, it seems like you can't wait to come and seek your own demise."

Zhao Douan looked at him peculiarly and said, "Are you still trying to bewitch me at this moment?"

The old Taoist paused, his complexion changing: "Why would I?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Perhaps it was because of the transmigrator's soul, or because at this moment they were conversing in the form of "Divine Souls."

It was even harder to conceal one's thoughts.

At this moment, Zhao Douan could easily discern the other's intentions,

including the deliberate release of the "Gu Huo" power, which was all crystal clear in his perception.

Zhao Douan smiled softly, saying in a ghostly manner:

"Don't you find this way of masking fear quite clumsy? I indeed cannot judge whether my hasty search for you is truly under your influence, but I am certain that you are panicking inside because everything in front of you is out of your control.

Thus, you still attempt to use words to unsettle me, in an attempt to control the initiative of this dreamscape."

He sighed softly, looking up at the gently falling snowflakes in the sky, and said in a soft voice:

"You think you hold the upper hand, perhaps you are fully prepared for this return, to counter the court's methods.

For example, your manipulation of puppets to spread Gu Huo is indeed a headache, and maybe, you even have a method to confront the Martial God, so you feel assured in dealing with me, thinking that devouring me—a favorite of His Majesty—would be true revenge... But…"

He lifted his hand, catching a translucent snowflake, allowing it to melt into water in his palm.

He smiled as he looked at the Demon Daoist across from him with an uncertain expression, saying:

"But... who will devour whom, that's still up in the air."

The atmosphere between both sides had become tense and hostile. With Zhao Douan's realization, the Gu Huo National Master stopped wasting words. His fierce face turned red-eyed, and his pupils suddenly darkened as he said in a low voice,

"Good, very good. Once I devour you, I will know exactly what you are, heh heh. Today, the Daoist will teach you what it means to devour dreams!"

As his voice fell, the buildings on both sides of the street suddenly started shaking as though they were about to collapse, and the ground began to tremble.

Zhao Douan was surprised to see that the world on the Taoist's side had suddenly changed.

The modern buildings turned into antique towers and shops, the marble floor into green bricks, and the modern street lamps were replaced by rows of large red lanterns.

Only the sky had not changed much.

"Crack, crack..."

Clear shattering sounds echoed across the entire sky.

At this moment, with the two men's standoff as the dividing line, the entire dream world seemed split in half, one part ancient, one part modern.

Where the two worlds met, buildings began to press against each other and snap.

Shopping malls and ancient taverns were forced together like toys, like fighters in a boxing ring or like black and white pieces on a chessboard, competing for dominance.

And with the Taoist's nearly mad laughter, the modern world began to be replaced by the ancient one, step by step.

Steel and concrete crumbled into pieces, falling from the sky.

"Haha, Daoist doesn't care what kind of weird things these are, but how can your meager memories of a mere twenty-something years contend with the National Master?"

Daoist Na Yi spread his arms wide, and from the buildings behind him, streams of white mist gathered in the sky, seemingly condensing into the phantom of an enormous, ethereal deity.

Zhao Douan stood still in a world that was almost entirely collapsing, as if he were a rock facing a dark tsunami.

There was no panic or fear on his face, just contemplation and a dawning realization:

"So, the so-called 'devouring' is really just a matter of size."

"Whose memory is vaster, simply overwrites the other."

"Like overwriting data on a hard drive?"

He seemed somewhat disappointed.

The laughter of the Gu Huo National Master abruptly stopped, and he stared intensely at the young man in a down jacket standing on the edge of the collapsing world: "What did you say?"

Zhao Douan came back to his senses, smiled, and said, "Nothing much, I just suddenly remembered a line from a movie."

"Oh?"

Zhao Douan smiled and said, "In my dreams, you think you can still bully me?"

The next second, the Taoist only heard countless roaring sounds like tearing through the sky overhead.

He looked up in astonishment, his pupils contracting sharply, only to see a myriad of red lights igniting in the dark snowy sky.

Under the veil of night, a massive space fleet array silently hovered above, following bright flares, steel rain poured down in a silent, fiery blaze.

And behind Zhao Douan, the world stretched infinitely, seemingly endless, with Godzilla, Transformers, giant mechs... A powerful life force as far as the eye could see, like an approaching military formation on the plains, destroyed the small world behind the Taoist with a momentum like tidal waves and thundering roars.

The white-bearded National Master's eyes brimmed with madness. Before being swallowed up, he let out a final, hoarse roar:

"Demon—Path—"

...

...

Outside the dream, in the night of the Capital of Great Yu.

Ma Yan, cloaked in a cape, stretched a shadow, leaping from rooftop to rooftop on the endless buildings.

He looked up, the eight-direction play tower before him already clear in sight.

And even at this distance, he could clearly feel the Mana fluctuations coming from that place.

Ma Yan let out a low shout, almost stepping across the space in an instant, appearing above the grand courtyard of the play garden.

In the courtyard, Wu Ling, dressed as an actor and wielding a flower spear, was attacking like a fierce storm. He was up against three arresting officers who had joined forces to form a Military Formation and were barely resisting.

The commotion of the battle had already startled the entire play garden.

Lights lit up in house after house, but no one dared to approach, and the actors in the garden had already fled in fear after sensing the Cultivators' magical warfare.

"Woo woo!"

Wu Ling flicked his flower spear, making a whistling sound as it swept across, sending Hou Renmeng, who was slashing with a broadsword, flying through the air.

With a difference of one Great Realm, even three of them combined were no match for Wu Ling, and by this point, everyone was injured.

Hou Renmeng was sent flying, his palms splitting open and spewing blood as they went. Bloodshot eyes bulging, he slammed into the ground, creating a shallow crater, but still trying to push himself up, determined to continue the fight.

"Run! Get out of here!" Zheng Laojiu and Shen Juan quickly grabbed Hou Renmeng and started to flee in another direction, trying to draw Wu Ling away.

However, the next second, they were shocked to see a tall figure strike across the cold night sky.

With overwhelming force, a palm strike flew out!

"Boom!!"

Wu Ling, dressed as a general and spewing fresh blood, was slapped back to his original form by Ma Yan. His actor's costume dissolved on its own, and with a thud, he fell into the courtyard flowerbed, his eyes wide with shock.

"Lord!" Hou Renmeng and the others were overjoyed, having survived the ordeal.

Ma Yan floated down, his iron hand grasping Wu Ling's neck, lifting him like a chicken, and his tiger eyes swept over the three with a sharp and urgent gaze: "Where is Zhao Douan?!"

——

Next chapter before midnight