Chapter 718: The Devil of Loneliness

“Of course not.”

This statement was clearly the truth, the pure, unadulterated truth.

It couldn't be any more real.

To Li Qi, the Advancement Alliance and the insectoids invading the Advancement Alliance were no different. This wasn't to say they had no differences between themselves, but rather, it encompassed all things in the world.

In the eyes of Li Qi, the Shaman, all things in the world were inherently without distinction; all living beings were the same.

This wasn't about the equality of all living beings; the Shaman actually didn't agree with the idea of 'equality of all living beings.' Their view was 'consistency of all living beings.'

Equality was impossible to achieve, because equality meant a lack of fairness. All things in the world were inherently unequal, but this inequality should be based on a foundation of equal conditions.

These conditions, consistent for all things, were natural itself.

Therefore, Li Qi, the insectoids, and the Advancement Alliance were fundamentally no different.

So Li Qi simply stated it directly.

However, considering Mo Long’s feelings, he added, “Of course, don't misunderstand. I’m not saying I’ll help the insectoids, after all, they are invaders and should be resisted. My point is, on the level of life, you, them, and I—the three of us—are no different.”

Mo Long merely nodded, saying in a very weary tone, “I understand what you mean. Alright, let’s leave this topic. I also believe what you said… these people truly have no chance of being saved… Let’s go inside first; there’s something else in there you should see.”

Li Qi glanced at Mo Long but said nothing. Since the other party had understood, that was for the best. Mo Long still had a brain and wouldn’t be manipulated by emotions.

He could understand Mo Long’s current emotions, but he also believed that Mo Long could truly grasp the reality of the situation.

The two continued forward. However, as they walked, Mo Long drew out the heat from the Fusion engine and ignited the pile of Blood Meat Ovum that Li Qi had killed.

No matter what, it couldn't just be left there.

Cremation was better than sky burial.

Li Qi stood by, waiting for Mo Long to finish burning.

Afterward, the two of them entered the stadium together.

The stadium was already empty.

Yes, empty.

What was there was a monster that seemed to be incubating.

A… Blood Meat Ovum.

Mo Long almost vomited. He had only seen it from a distance before being chased out by others. Now, seeing it up close, he felt as if everything before him was challenging his limits of endurance.

Before him was a writhing carpet of flesh, composed of human bodies.

A mass of flesh, formed from thousands of people, where various signs of Fusion could still be seen—human faces, limbs, or torsos—all still in the process of Fusion. This mass of flesh was connected by various tendrils of blood and flesh, suspended in mid-air.

Blood vessels and tumors constantly pulsed, like a heart. The surrounding flesh was swollen and grotesque, covered in nauseating nerves and varicose veins, with various organs fused together. From the Advancement Alliance's aesthetic perspective, it was simply deformed and putrid.

No, it shouldn't be 'Advancement Alliance' aesthetics, but rather, from the perspective of most humanoid creatures, this thing could not possibly be pleasing.

The thumping, thumping, thumping of a heartbeat continuously echoed through the empty stadium.

These heartbeats made one's scalp tingle, as if hearing an unending sound of madness, causing one's own heart to pound along with it.

The resonance between the heartbeats made Mo Long feel extremely uncomfortable, with a suffocating sensation in his chest, as if being swept by infrasound, causing immense pain.

This sound was almost maddening. Listening to it for too long seemed to cause a hallucination: that the Blood Meat Ovum before them was gradually growing larger, gradually twisting.

Nauseating chunks of flesh and hemangiomas constantly pulsed with this heart, and huge, bloated tumors and blood vessels even burst from this dance, spilling blood everywhere before being absorbed back in.

This was a monster's sleeping cradle, a cradle composed of life, death, and flesh.

“Destroy this thing… Destroy it!” An unidentifiable rage surged in Mo Long’s heart. His light blade popped out, and he charged straight forward!

Li Qi didn't stop him; in fact, there was no good reason to stop him.

This thing should be incubating something, perhaps serving as a node for a large Formation, but no matter what, destroying it now was definitely the best option.

Amidst the thumping of that heart, Mo Long felt his hands and feet grow cold, as if an inexplicable chill gripped his limbs tightly.

But his chest and forehead were burning hot.

The mech activated, the plasma light blade extended. The magnetic confinement device contained the thermal energy within a small rectangle, almost massless, yet capable of cutting through all known Mortals.

This was the scorching heat of the Great Sun True Fire.

Li Qi watched Mo Long leap out, frowning slightly.

His sixth sense felt something was off.

The Advancement Alliance's technology tree was a bit skewed. While they recognized the 'rational' side of this world, they failed to recognize its mystical side. Even though they had encountered places like the Illusion-Reality Domain, they consistently used rationality to constrain their imagination.

The reason, Li Qi felt, was simple: they hadn't lived long enough.

They progressed as a civilization, but individuals replaced each other very quickly. Thus, while the world's grade was not low, the individual's grade was quite low, which limited their ability to perceive another layer of the world.

They inherited knowledge through civilization itself, but knowledge itself could be recorded in a relatively clear manner. This was also why they were destined to lean towards rationality; the wisdom of their predecessors that they accepted could only be recorded in this way.

However, the more emotionally inclined 'subjective experiences'—those things that truly existed in the world but were difficult to describe, such as the Spirit Soul—were very difficult for the Advancement Alliance to acquire through the wisdom of their predecessors, because these were simply not things that a simple symbolic system could describe.

Their backwardness in this aspect was difficult to compensate for; it was a systemic disadvantage of their civilization.

Li Qi watched Mo Long charge forward, wanting to stop him.

This Blood Meat Ovum clearly had some resistance to physical attacks. To destroy it, one should target the foundation of the Demonic Qi below.

Those insectoid civilizations were not like the Advancement Alliance; instead, they were something that utilized mental energy, and to a very high degree. From their appearance, they had not developed technology in the usual sense, and even their civilization itself was still in a primitive, hive-like mode, having become a predatory, pirate civilization.

Their technology was also very poor.

But all their abilities were used to enhance something as ethereal as 'Divine Will.'

Divine Will, Spirit Soul, and various spiritual Qi.

This was a completely different path from the Advancement Alliance, even more extreme.

As Li Qi, a practitioner of the world, he could understand, but Mo Long could not.

Therefore, Li Qi wanted to stop Mo Long—

But, looking at Mo Long charging forward, Li Qi suddenly realized… Mo Long in this state, and himself, seemed to share similar experiences.

It was just at this moment, watching Mo Long like that, Li Qi suddenly had a moment of distraction.

He… at this critical juncture, zoned out.

When Li Qi looked at Mo Long charging forward, a thought came to his mind—

The thought was: Do I really understand Mo Long?

So, he was momentarily stunned.

In that instant, Mo Long charged into the Blood Meat Ovum.

Subsequently, his Spirit Soul rapidly fell into a peculiar state, one that even the mech's mental shielding capabilities couldn't block.

Mo Long felt, strangely, that the weight of the flesh began to lighten, and a purely spiritual essence filled his body.

His Spirit Soul cracked, tore, and then exploded into a ball.

But in the last second before his mind collapsed, he activated the cold Fusion engine's self-destruct sequence.

In that second, he looked at Li Qi.

At this moment, Mo Long suddenly realized that he had never understood Li Qi.

Li Qi also realized that he had never understood Mo Long.

That gaze swept over Li Qi, and only then did he snap out of his daze.

Li Qi abruptly retreated with a burst of speed.

With the roar of the Fusion engine, Mo Long and the Blood Meat Ovum were simultaneously annihilated in the erupting Great Sun True Fire.

Although Li Qi had already withdrawn, most of the distance was still covered by the shockwave pushing him away. However, he activated the repulsion layer and performed an emergency evasive maneuver, so he only received a partial impact.

The nature of the Fusion engine itself determined that its self-destruct damage radius would not be too large, because without pressure confinement, Fusion itself would stop. The explosion was only the damage of that instant; as long as the Great Sun True Fire was avoided, the impact force would only spread for about one or two kilometers.

A one- or two-kilometer radius of the street was reduced to ruins.

And Li Qi, after being thrown back, sat slumped in the rubble.

Mo Long was dead, but his reaction before his death—plus the thought that popped into Li Qi's mind during that moment of distraction—

Made Li Qi involuntarily fall into thought.

Mo Long's death immediately made Li Qi realize that the 'Mortal perspective' he had been seeking recently, and the 'misunderstanding' between Mo Long and others, was fundamentally this.

The Dao outside means interpreting the world with the Dao.

The Dao within means interpreting oneself with the Dao.

The Advancement Alliance was good at interpreting the world but not at interpreting themselves.

Li Qi seemed to have understood why everyone's 'Dao' was different.

Every person born into the world is alone.

Everyone is imprisoned in a room that belongs only to them, able to convey their thoughts to others only through symbols, and these symbols have no common value, so their meaning is vague and uncertain.

This was a typical Chinese room.

Everyone desperately wanted to transmit the treasures in their hearts to others, but others lacked the ability to receive these treasures.

Therefore, the Dao seekers could only walk alone. Although their bodies could lean on each other, they were not truly together, for they neither understood others nor could be understood by others.

It was believed that at the very beginning, every Dao seeker, after comprehending their own Dao, would joyfully express their thoughts and feelings to others. But in the end, they would all discover that the object of their incessant chatter was a wall.

They were not actually walls; they just couldn't understand you.

This cycle repeated again and again, until finally, disheartened, they realized that they themselves were also a cold stone, with others ceaselessly chattering at them, something they had never noticed.

This was the outcome of the process.

Everyone seemed to live in a different Universe. Since the Universes were different, the interpretations were naturally different.

Although everyone had various wonderful and profound things to say, they were limited to a few stale, mundane phrases within the symbolic system of 'language.'

Everyone's mind was filled with various thoughts, beautiful like heaven, full of the most wonderful and beautiful fantasies, capable of understanding the most subtle and profound feelings down to the minutest detail.

And all they could utter were words like, “This sunset is as red as an apple.”

Red as an apple, what kind of talk is that? Can it truly describe the reality of things? Are all apples red in the same way? Is red an apple?

The paleness and powerlessness of language were especially evident at this moment.

No one could truly understand another person.

Living beings are different from all things because of thought, and at the same time, are destined to be lonely forever because of thought.

Everyone could find a beautiful answer in the chaos of the Universe, an answer belonging only to them, drawn with the tool of thought. But this answer was so exquisite that any clumsy attempt to depict it was foolish.

It was like someone writing a poem, or painting a picture, or creating a game—in short, creating a work unique to them.

This work was his everything; he integrated his thoughts, his soul, his entire life into the work.

He hung this work outside.

But at this time, most people would only find it strange.

They couldn't say what it truly was; everyone would have a different view of this work, as if there were different ambiguities in the painting.

But the work had no ambiguity; the ambiguity lay in people.

The Dao belonged only to oneself.

Even fellow Daoists could only barely glimpse a little, extending their understanding from themselves to others, but they were not truly 'fellow Daoists.'

This realization left Li Qi stunned, slumped on the ground for a moment.

This seemed correct.

Li Qi always felt that something was a little off.

Li Qi was thinking about why he couldn't integrate into the Mortal perspective, why he was becoming increasingly 'indifferent,' why he was increasingly losing his original perspective on the world.

The closer he got to the will of heaven, the more he felt this distinction.

And now, the answer provided by this perspective indeed explained why he began to be unable to understand the Mortal perspective, but this perspective also simultaneously obscured his other possibilities.

He didn't want this answer; people should be able to understand each other, not like what this answer suggested.

But… Mo Long’s situation, and the more than half a year spent with Mo Long, seemed to perfectly confirm his realization.

People simply cannot understand each other.

As he found himself unable to refute this answer, Demonic Qi suddenly began to emerge from Li Qi's body.

Yes, everyone is unique, and people cannot understand each other. You cannot confirm whether the other person is a 'person,' or just a wall, or a zombie?

So, by admitting one's destined loneliness, one admits: there is only 'I' in the world—

Then 'I' must be…

A Heavenly Demon?