C1651 Battle of the Mind
"You've finally revealed your true self."
Youyu spoke icily as he peered through the phantom of the Abyssal Leviathan within the Mindscape, witnessing the Mirage of the Mind launch an attack on Yu Yuan.
"This is the moment I've been waiting for."
The once subdued gray-white world that Youyu had overtaken suddenly erupted with the wails and cries of countless ghosts and devil souls.
The billions of light beams he had sent forth to seek out the followers of the Origin Deity morphed into billions of streams, some crystal clear, others murky.
Ghosts seemed to drift within these streams, where profound mysteries tied to the soul materialized into beams of light and arcane rules.
Beside Yu Yuan, the Lunar Spirit appeared to gaze upon the hidden Root of the Lunar Meridian beneath the vast Everlands, now transformed into billions of rivers revealing both their pristine and sullied aspects.
These rivers, imbued with the essence of the Lunar Meridian, meandered through the Mindscape. Utilizing the Spirit Magic he had mastered, Youyu was able to penetrate and claim dominion over this peculiar world.
The realm Youyu inhabited was but a fraction of the expansive Mindscape.
Yet now, this small world was swiftly expanding, becoming increasingly vast.
Initially, Youyu hadn't intended to exert his full power, still uncertain and testing the waters.
He was curious whether this enigmatic Mirage of the Mind shared a close bond with Taiyin.
Once he saw the Mirage of the Mind strike at Yu Yuan in the tangible world, his hesitation vanished.
He resolved to conquer the Mindscape!
Elsewhere.
Whoosh!
A towering figure donning a multicolored mask, his eyes ablaze with fury, materialized within Yu Yuan's Mindscape.
He was a tall human male, dressed in immaculate white.
In his hands, he wielded a resplendent prism-shaped shield and a spear of the same lustrous material.
He was the Mirage of the Mind, bearing distinct male characteristics.
"You are his successor. I had no wish to engage in battle with you, but you chose to side with the Abyssal Leviathan against me."
The male Mirage of the Mind's voice within Yu Yuan's Mindscape was no longer soft and melodious but became gruff and raspy.
With a swift motion, the spear lunged at Yu Yuan's projection of the Solar Spirit, and instantly, a deep green bolt of lightning streaked forth.
Since Yu Yuan's Solar Spirit had been tempered with Primal Blood, its soul had merged into his new form, making it exceedingly difficult to channel Soul Power back to his own consciousness.
Therefore, the projection of his Solar Spirit within his Mindscape was merely a phantasmal shadow.
It possessed no tangible offensive power, nor did it have an actual spirited body.
When the deep aquamarine lightning struck, it merely hit the phantom without stirring a single ripple.
The Lunar Spirit resided in the Mindscape's ocean within the soul stone, close to Youyu, while the Solar Spirit was merely Yu Yuan's projection. In his own spiritual realm, his Dominant Soul was all he could utilize.
His Dominant Soul had not yet evolved into a Primordial Spirit and had experienced no fundamental transformation.
The Dominant Soul maintained the same appearance as his real body, also taking the form of a spirited body. Within the spirited body, delicate meridians were refined by the remnant soul, and the brain area housed memories and soul marks.
The Mirage of the Mind, also a spirited body, was taken aback to see its lightning strike had no effect on the ethereal projection.
"With the Lunar Spirit outside, and the Solar Spirit lacking the Soul Power to penetrate the depths of your soul, you are left with only the Dominant Soul. Yet your Dominant Soul has not fundamentally transformed," he mused, attempting to discern any hidden secrets within Yu Yuan's Dominant Soul.
Puff! Puff! Puff!
Numerous unseen soul thread tendrils, hundreds of times finer than a strand of hair, stealthily approached Yu Yuan's Dominant Soul like a cap, attempting to envelop it and seep inside.
But in an instant, they vanished into nothingness.
Yu Yuan watched with an enigmatic smile as the Mirage of the Mind forcefully intruded into his Mindscape. He observed the enigmatic giant beast, which had shifted from her to him, "You're preoccupied with both Youyu and the Mindscape, while also guarding against the Abyssal Leviathan outside. Yet you still seek to probe my secrets and destroy my Dominant Soul. Don't you understand the folly of biting off more than you can chew?"
"Youyu is a handful, and the Abyssal Leviathan is not to be underestimated, but you..."
Beneath the Mirage of the Mind's mask, a trace of scorn was evident in the eyes.
"You are merely a cultivator of the Unbound realm. In the Ashlands, I have slain dozens of human cultivators at your level over the years. Without ascending to a Primordial Spirit, how can a human's Lunar Spirit, Solar Spirit, and Dominant Soul possibly withstand my spiritual might?"
He lifted his shield.
Beneath Yu Yuan's watchful eye, the starlight on the shield's surface sprang to life, teeming with energy like a swarm of fireflies, transforming into a dazzling stellar sea. The power to disrupt memories surged from the radiant "star sea" on the shield. Yu Yuan's deep-seated memories, his soul mark, and the meridians refined by his remnant soul were all affected.
Had it been an ordinary human cultivator at the Unbound Stage, their mind would have been thrown into disarray by the Mirage of the Mind's innate talent. The mere casting of its spell within the cultivator's Mindscape would have instantly led to mental turmoil.
Should the Lunar Spirit, Solar Spirit, and dominant soul all be present, the Mirage of the Mind's talent would unleash even more formidable power. A human cultivator at the Unbound Stage, with their Lunar Spirit, Solar Spirit, and dominant soul, would spiral into a chaotic internal battle, leading to their demise without the Mirage of the Mind needing to lift a finger again.
Yet Yu Yuan felt only a slight disturbance—a mere sensation, and a faint one at that...
In truth, he was completely unaffected!
With a casual glance from his dominant soul, he observed the prism-shaped shield raised by the Mirage of the Mind. The brilliant stellar sea on the shield, with its multitude of whistling points of light, was in fact... the very battle unfolding within the Mindscape!
Youyu had already deployed his powers, manifesting countless streams of clear and murky Lunar Meridians with the authority of the God of Ghosts, which filled the Sea of Anomalies in a sweeping raid.
Beneath the Mindscape, the phantom of the Mirage of the Mind, shaped like a colossal clam, was using Mind Magic to entice the souls and consciousnesses that had been drawn in. These souls and consciousnesses assailed the little world where Youyu and Yu Yuan's Lunar Spirit resided, while the Mirage of the Mind's beast soul carefully evaded the myriad streams of the Lunar Meridian below.
"His spirited body is at the very bottom of the Mindscape," Yu Yuan's Lunar Spirit noted, standing beside Youyu.
"It seems the Mindscape is indeed linked to the sea. We're suspended above the sea, with an unseen ocean beneath us. And he is even further down—so that's the reality. The Mindscape shares many similarities with the actual world," Youyu mused, nodding in realization. He continued, "Your real body, along with the Abyssal Leviathan in its realm, resides on a star that he has fully refined. On that star, he can wield his powers to morph into the Everlands or shape the world of the Starborn. Yet that world relies on the actual star, and he possesses the capacity to alter it."
The Mindscape is a purely illusory sea of consciousness, a reflection of the real world he is most familiar with, as if his giant beast's body lies hidden at the ocean's bottom. His spirited body also resides beneath the waves.
As he spoke, billions of streams, both clear and murky, shot straight downward, like a volley of arrows targeting the unseen depths of the sea that Youyu could neither see nor sense.
"You!" The Mirage of the Mind, wielding a shield within Yu Yuan's Mindscape, groaned.
The shield, akin to a mirror of the mind, indeed reflected the Mindscape, but it was shrouded in mist, obscuring the truth from casual glances.
Yu Yuan's dominant soul barely gave it a glance, yet he managed to see through the fog and uncover the hidden reality.
He saw the Star Sea on the shield, which was acceptable as a projection of the Mindscape, but Yu Yuan also spotted the spirited body he had concealed within, invisible even to Youyu.
"How can this be? It's impossible..." The Mirage of the Mind, holding the shield in one hand and the spear in the other, murmured in confusion.
He sensed something was off.
The Mind Magic, which had always succeeded for the Unbound cultivators of the Human Tribe, failed to affect Yu Yuan, stirring unease within him.
Yu Yuan, with his dominant soul firmly in place, had not yet shown any extraordinary Spirit Magic, but the aura he exuded grew increasingly formidable, making him more and more inscrutable.
"In my Mindscape, in my world of consciousness, you dare to wield mystiques linked to the soul and the mind?" Yu Yuan chuckled in disbelief.
To date, no one who has dared to meddle in his Mindscape has come out ahead.
The Abyssal Leviathan's rampage in the Glimmerdrift Nebula was not due to the Heaven-Opening Sword Array but because it glimpsed the traces of the Primal Soul deep within his dominant soul.
Subsequently, the Abyssal Leviathan descended into madness and fled in a state of frenzy.
