Legend Management Bureau Chapter 308

[ … words ]

Du Yu’s body trembled slightly.

‘In other words…’

Not only did he have to figure out a way to deal with the two hundred and fifty Arhats right in front of him, but he also had to face the Tathagata, the Eighteen Arhat Venerables, and the Buddha’s Top Ten Disciples in just a few days…

“Are you kidding me…” Du Yu gritted his teeth. “Even if I were a God of Creation, it would be impossible for me to win a battle like this…”

He furrowed his brows. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some kind of logical loophole in what Xiao Qi had just said.

‘But what exactly is the loophole?’

‘If that’s the case…’

Realizing something, Du Yu hurriedly asked, “Wait, that’s not right! Why did Saint survive?!”

‘If I am destined to experience this battle, that means Saint has already lived through it!’

Xiao Qi remained silent for a long time before she finally spoke. “Du Yu, let me ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“If He Suoyi brutally tortured and murdered Dong Qianqiu, Qu Xi, Western Queen Mother, and Houtu, and then slaughtered every Immortal Being in Heaven and the Underworld… and I told you to stay out of it, what would you do?”

“What did you just say…?!” Du Yu’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding?! I would never let something like that happen!”

“But what if it did happen?” Xiao Qi pressed. “What if the only ones left in this world were you and the Seven Holy Heroes? When you returned to the Legend Management Bureau, you became the last remaining Immortal Beings in existence. And at that moment, you saw that the limbs of Western Queen Mother, Dong Qianqiu, Qu Xi, and Houtu had been broken. You saw that they had been slashed thousands of times, as if someone was violently venting their rage. Their bodies were dripping with blood, swinging from the ceiling like chandeliers, creaking back and forth… What would you do?”

Xiao Qi slowly described the scene, and for some inexplicable reason, the gruesome image materialized vividly before Du Yu’s eyes, as if he had witnessed it all himself.

“I would make He Suoyi pay with his life!!” Du Yu roared. “If that actually happened, I would make him feel the exact same agony!”

He clenched his jaw tightly. The image of Dong Qianqiu with every bone in his body broken was still fresh in his memory. If the Immortal Beings he knew were to suffer such a horrific fate, there was no way he would ever let He Suoyi go. Even if it cost him his life, he would drag the man down to hell with him!

“And if I told you to ignore it, to not go after him, to not raise a hand against him… would you listen?” Xiao Qi asked.

“Impossible,” Du Yu spat through gritted teeth. “That wouldn’t be something you could just talk me out of.”

“Do you understand now?” Xiao Qi asked.

“Understand what?” Du Yu frowned, thoroughly bewildered.

Xiao Qi paused before coldly uttering a single word:

“Everything.”

“Everything…?!”

Du Yu pondered her response in silence, digesting the deeper meaning behind it.

It only took a brief moment before he drew in a sharp breath of cold air.

‘So that’s it!’

‘That is what she meant by everything!’

The full picture of the entire situation slowly materialized in his mind…

‘Saint never experienced the battle Xiao Qi mentioned!’

‘Because Saint didn’t return to the Legend Management Bureau on the fifth day! By the time he got back, it had already happened!’

‘The horrific scenario Xiao Qi just described was Saint’s personal experience!’

‘When they returned to the Legend Management Bureau, they only saw the corpses hanging from the ceiling. Mahakala was nowhere to be found!’

‘Driven by uncontrollable rage, Saint was dead set on risking his life to hunt down He Suoyi. If my guess is right, both Xiao Qi and the Seven Holy Heroes vehemently opposed the idea, but Saint refused to listen.’

‘For whatever reason, the apocalyptic battle between the two of them nearly destroyed the world.’

‘The final outcome didn’t matter anymore, because judging by Saint’s behavior…’

‘He regretted it.’

‘He regretted it to his very core.’

‘And that is exactly why he wanted to find his past self and kill him.’

‘Back then, Xiao Nian told me, “If you had just listened to reason, why would we have to do this?”‘

‘Xiao Qi’s reaction just now confirms it as well…’

‘I wouldn’t listen to reason either. If such a tragedy genuinely happened, I would inevitably track down He Suoyi again and fight him to the bitter end.’

‘Everything would repeat itself.’

Wa Rang, the monk from Tianzhu, had once urged Du Yu to give up his role as an Operator.

At the time, he had said, “You and He Suoyi are ‘mutually causative’. If you continue to entangle yourselves in this ill-fated connection, countless people will lose their lives because of you both.”

Only now did Du Yu finally understand what he meant.

If he had stepped down as an Operator back then and thrown himself into the Reincarnation Cycle instead, perhaps none of this would have ever happened.

“Du Yu, you must understand…” Xiao Qi said softly. “Across all timelines, this is the very first time ‘Du Yu’ and ‘Saint’ have joined forces. It’s also the first time Saint has told Du Yu to return ‘on the fifth day’. This makes you completely different from all the others. You have enough time to prepare a defense against this surprise attack…”

“E-Even if you say that…” Du Yu grimaced in dismay. “It’s an opponent that even Western Queen Mother and Houtu couldn’t handle… If I’m there, would it actually make a difference?”

Xiao Qi let out a long sigh. “What else can we do?! You already have one more ‘chance’ than any other version of yourself. If you fail to seize it, you’ll simply be trapped in this Reincarnation Cycle. Are you truly prepared to accept that?”

Du Yu knew she was right. He had already secured a massive advantage. The only thing left to do now was to calm down, quickly resolve the immediate situation, finish the legend as fast as possible, and rush back to the Legend Management Bureau to establish their defenses.

“I believe the Extremely Dark World must have used some despicable tricks back then,” Xiao Qi added. “But because all those Immortal Beings died… we have absolutely no idea how the ambush happened… and there’s no one left to ask…”

“I think so, too,” Du Yu agreed. “If it were a direct confrontation, I refuse to believe Big Cat and Houtu would be ‘brutally tortured and murdered’…”

He raised both hands and slapped his cheeks hard.

“Forget it!” Now fully alert, he declared, “I’ll take things one step at a time! Just dealing with these Five Hundred Arhats right in front of me is headache enough. I don’t have absolute certainty of winning this, so I’ll just have to make a gamble!”

“What kind of gamble?” Xiao Qi asked curiously.

“Gambling for an opportunity! Both of you Xiao Qis, listen up. I have a plan right now that might just solve our current predicament,” Du Yu said with a grin.

“What plan?” the two voices asked in unison.

“We get Saint and Old Zhan to figure out a way to knock down Buzhou Mountain!”

Du Yu stated with absolute seriousness.