Chapter 903: Game Within a Game (Part 2)

"Cough, cough…"

Mr. Duan coughed.

He coughed up a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of black runes.

He slowly raised his aged face, his gaze devoid of fear, revealing pity instead.

"That fellow Ming Ze is still too foolish."

Mr. Duan's voice was hoarse and weak, yet his tone remained lofty and condescending.

"To actually choose to cooperate with a maggot like you."

Hearing the word "maggot", the smugness on Anubis's face instantly froze and turned into rage.

"Death is at the doorstep, and you still dare to be defiant!" Anubis roared, pointing the scepter in his hand fiercely at Mr. Duan.

Mr. Duan ignored him, merely looking at him coldly.

"Even if you truly can kill me, what can you possibly change?"

The corners of Mr. Duan's mouth curved slightly.

"You are nothing more than a pawn of Heavenly Dao, destined to be obliterated by Heavenly Dao."

"You think that by severing my connection with the origin sacred tree, you can replace me? Do you think the Heavenly Dao System will let you, a remnant of the old era, off the hook?"

Mr. Duan shook his head.

"Pathetic ants can forever only see the quagmire right in front of them."

Hearing this, Anubis was stunned for a moment, then shook his head with a smile.

"No, no, no, as long as you die."

The greed and ambition in Anubis's eyes could no longer be concealed.

"Then the origin sacred tree will be within my grasp!"

"Anything you can do, I can do just as well! Moreover, I will do it even better than you!"

"I will devour the power of the origin sacred tree, and I will become a new Transcendent! By then, even the Heavenly Dao System will only be able to tremble beneath my feet!"

The more Anubis spoke, the more excited he became.

However, Mr. Duan looked at him as if he were looking at a fool.

There was no anger, nor any reluctance.

Subsequently, Mr. Duan laughed out loud.

"Hehe…"

At first it was just a low chuckle, but then the laughter grew louder and louder.

"Hhahahaha…"

Mr. Duan laughed so hard his whole body trembled.

Anubis asked with a straight face: "What are you laughing at?"

He gripped his scepter tightly, a sense of unease rising in his heart.

"I don't think someone like you has any qualification to laugh right now," Anubis shouted sternly, trying to conceal his panic.

Mr. Duan restrained his laughter, his gaze turning icy.

"Naturally, I am laughing at your stupidity."

As he spoke, Mr. Duan slowly stood up.

His originally hunched body straightened up completely at this moment.

"Snap!"

Accompanied by a cracking sound.

The runes binding him began to dissipate.

Those Netherworld curses branded on his skin were rapidly dissolving.

The black rune fragments turned into points of light, scattering into the air.

Anubis's pupils shrank violently.

He stared at the dissipating runes on Mr. Duan's body, his lips trembling.

The smugness on his face vanished completely, leaving only shock.

"What?!"

Anubis cried out in involuntary alarm, taking two steps back uncontrollably.

This was the ultimate Seal he had spent thousands of years of painstaking effort to deduce, combining the Netherworld Origin curse specifically targeting high-dimensional divine godhoods.

How could it dissipate on its own?!

Under Anubis's gaze, Mr. Duan's aged appearance gradually faded away.

The wrinkles on his face were smoothed out, and his gray, withered hair instantly returned to pitch black.

His withered muscles plumped up once again.

In just a few seconds.

Mr. Duan returned to his youth once more.

He was still wearing that damaged yet crisp black formal suit, exuding terrifying coercion.

Mr. Duan stretched his wrists, his bones making cracking sounds.

He tilted his head slightly, looking at the dazed Anubis, the corners of his mouth curving in mockery.

"Surprised, aren't you?"

Mr. Duan's voice recovered its former composure and elegance.

Anubis shook his head repeatedly in disbelief.

"Impossible… This is absolutely impossible!"

He brandished his scepter, trying to re-condense the curse, but there was no response at all.

"I clearly severed your connection with the origin sacred tree!"

"You clearly should have been sealed by me!"

Anubis roared, his eyes filled with terror.

"Why?!"

Facing Anubis's breakdown, Mr. Duan smiled at him.

"Unexpected, isn't it?"

"You don't really think that having survived countless years under the nose of Heavenly Dao, I could be fooled by such a cheap trick of yours?"

Mr. Duan stood atop the ruins, his tone calm.

He raised his right hand wearing a snow-white glove, tidying his slightly disheveled collar.

The surrounding spatial turbulence was still raging, but as long as it came within three feet of his body, all the violent energy instantly vanished into nothingness.

Anubis stared fixedly at the man before him who had regained his vitality, his withered face distorted with fear.

His hand holding the scepter was trembling violently.

"Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

He suddenly raised his scepter, pointing directly at Mr. Duan.

"I clearly used the Nether River Origin to sever your connection with the origin sacred tree! I deduced it for thousands of years, and that Seal was absolutely perfect! By what right can you still recover your power? By what right can you still stand here?!"

Anubis gasped heavily for breath.

He had lurked for countless epochs, avoiding the cleansing of Heavenly Dao, and had finally waited until today for this opportunity.

Ming Ze and those few idiots had paid the price of the destruction of both body and soul to buy him this fatal blow.

Yet this man simply stood up casually, and the Seal on his body dissipated on its own.

Looking at the nearly collapsed Anubis, Mr. Duan did not strike immediately, instead stepping on the gravel and walking towards him unhurriedly.

His leather shoes crushed the gravel, making a faint, fragmented sound.

Anubis retreated involuntarily.

"Want to know why?"

Mr. Duan stopped in his tracks, looking down at this former Netherworld Dominator.

Anubis did not speak, biting his teeth tightly, his entire body tense.

Mr. Duan chuckled softly and shook his head.

"Where do you think the real origin sacred tree is?"

"In the Free Federation? In the outside world?"

Mr. Duan threw out two questions in succession, then raised an index finger and shook it gently twice.

"No, no, no."

"That was merely bait I put out."

Anubis's brain buzzed with a hum.

Bait?

That origin sacred tree, regarded as the highest secret by the entire Free Federation, guarded fiercely by countless heavy troops and high-dimensional Formations, and even made him wary for thousands of years not daring to approach easily, was actually just bait?!

"The purpose was to confuse a dark reptile like you."

Mr. Duan's voice suddenly turned cold.

"You rat are too slippery. Ever since the destruction of The Eighth World, you've hidden yourself in the deepest part of the Nether River, so that even the Heavenly Dao System couldn't find your coordinates. If I didn't throw out a bait of sufficient weight to make you think you had grasped my fatal weakness, how could you possibly be willing to crawl out of that stinky ditch?"

Anubis froze in place.

He had thought he saw through the source of Mr. Duan's power, utilizing the hatred of Ming Ze and others to exhaust him, before coming out to reap the benefits as a fisherman.

Not until now did he realize that his self-righteous fatal blow was entirely within the other party's calculations.

"Then… where on earth is the real origin sacred tree?!"

Mr. Duan looked at him.

"The real origin sacred tree has actually always been on me."

As soon as his voice fell, Mr. Duan abruptly spread his arms wide.

A holy radiance suddenly burst forth from his heart.

This radiance carried a high-dimensional aura that transcended the Laws of the present world. Wherever the radiance passed, the violent spatial turbulence in the ruins instantly subsided, and the shattered obsidian ruins miraculously sprouted emerald-green tender shoots.

Anubis was forced to retreat repeatedly by the radiance, raising his withered arm to block his eyes, yet still staring fixedly through his fingers at Mr. Duan's chest.

At the center of that cluster of radiance, the phantom of a tree slowly projected outward.