When the body of that woman had mostly solidified, she glared at Ren Qingquan's position.

As I expected, she can see through Ren Qingquan's invisibility! Seeing it, I quickly asked Ren Qingquan to activate all of his magical techniques.

Without much nonsense, that woman just punched her hand in a seemingly slow yet fast movement. Although that action made her look a bit silly and even cute, but [Scan] detected an extremely scary scene.

That woman's gentle punch actually affected the spirit within the surrounding areas and made them move violently toward Ren Qingquan.

In a split second, a huge fist shadow made of qi appeared and quickly flew toward Ren Qingquan. Upon touch, that fist directly destroyed every single defense he created. Whether it is Armament Transformation that has been turned into a shield or the Super Duper ... Turtle Shell Technique, all of them collapsed within a touch of that fist shadow.

In panic, Ren Qingquan activated [Storage] and created a deep hole in the ground before jumping into it while madly digging and refilling the hole above him using [Storage].

He also pushed himself deep into the hole using several whips created by Armament Transformation, which increased the speed of his descent up to 50 meters/second.

When he was only several dozen meters deep, I detected the punch that the woman sent hit the ground and caused an earthquake that affected most of the city.

Deep inside the earth, Ren Qingquan also felt the earth tremble which almost squeezed him to death. In panic, he activated his Super Duper ... Turtle Shell Technique.

When he barely took a breather, the earth above him exploded and Ren Qingquan's shield shook crazily. Next, the earth above him instantly split open and he once again saw the evening sky.

Soon, the woman reappeared in front of him. This time, much more translucent than before. When she reappeared, Ren Qingquan tried to calm her down. "Senior, I think there is a misunderstanding between us."

What Ren Qingquan replied is that woman's cold voice, "The status of a Tribulation Transcender must not be defiled! How dare you attack my soul and even try to pry at my memory!"

Once he heard that woman's voice, Ren Qingquan immediately thought of me as he screamed, 'System! What the hell did you do?!'

Whoops, guess it's indeed my fault. But wtf old hag, I merely swallowed a quarter of your soul and maybe tried to pry open your memory. There is no need to overreact like this!

Not waiting for Ren Qingquan's response, she waved her hand while muttering "Dao of Illusion: Reality is the greatest illusion."

I don't understand why she muttered the name of her skill. But following her chant, the surrounding scenery around Ren Qingquan distorted just like a wet painting that got spilled by water.

While Ren Qingquan instinctively sent more energies to his Super Duper... Turtle Shell Technique, both of us stared in disbelief at the weird scene currently happening.

Except for that woman, the scenery outside of Super Duper... Turtle Shell Technique has been distorted beyond repair. One moment they look like a vortex, another moment they look like flowing water. It looks like the woman is standing amidst an abstract painting.

What scares me the most is [Scan] actually detected those scenes to be real and not an illusion. Which means that woman has directly twisted reality and turned it into this messed up thing.

Soon, the Super Duper... The Turtle Shell Technique that Ren Qingquan used also started to distort.

Without much thought, I activated the [Devour] located on the necklace containing that woman's soul and swallowed random things.

Just like usual, good ol' Heavenly Will summoned a space crack directly above that woman. Thanks to the destruction brought by good ol' Heavenly Will, the rate of distortion around Ren Qingquan decreased.

Waving her hand, I saw the Tribulation Transcender woman once again distorting reality and weaved that crack out of existence.

Feeling itself challenged, the Heavenly Will summoned another crack. This time on a much bigger scale than before.

Realizing something is wrong, the woman doesn't send any attack this time. Instead she observed for a moment before muttering, "Hmm? The power of heaven?"

After a thoughtful look, she waved her hand once again and removed the space crack.

At this time, the distorting space has passed through Ren Qingquan's shield. One of his palms has even turned into a wriggly shape as I heard him scream in pain.

Just when I prepared myself to take some bloody loss and activate [Transfer] to teleport Ren Qingquan far away, Heavenly Will finally sent its third attack.

It summoned a space crack around a quarter of the city in radius, the space crack immediately sucked many things in the city.

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From afar, a cacophony of screams can be heard as many people get sucked toward that crack.

Feeling guilty when he saw those people flying toward the sky, Ren Qingquan summoned his Armament Transformation and created several hundred whips using his spirit qi. He then controlled every single whips toward the people sucked by Heavenly Will's space crack and held them tightly.

When more and more people are sucked above, beads of sweat start to appear on Ren Qingquan's forehead as he summons more tentacle- whip to hold them in place.

I am not sure what the woman thought of, but upon seeing the city sized space crack the Heavenly Will created, she allowed herself to be sucked inside.

Before being sucked inside, that woman casted a defensive spell toward the unconscious boy as she spoke, "A life for a life. With this, I cut off our ties."

With her words, the currently unconscious boy's face frowned. Ren Qingquan instinctively activated his Turtle Divination Technique and saw the luck of that boy decreased by a quarter with only 1.5 Young Master Gu's worth of luck left.

Next she glared really hard at Ren Qingquan and finally disappeared into the crack. With her disappearance, the space crack above instantly closed and every floating thing fell back down to the earth.

***

Unlike everything that has been sucked by the Heavenly Will before, both the woman and the necklace she attached into doesn't immediately break upon being swallowed. Instead, it arrived at a familiar location.

From [Scan], I detected several shiny things around her, which is exactly the same one as what I saw through Azure Emperor's [Scan].

At this point, the woman's body has turned extremely transparent. Her previous consecutive attack and reality distorting power has likely consumed most of her energy.

The amount of energy [Scan] detected on her also agreed with this.

In her unconscious state, I saw her control the necklace as it flew amidst the void following a direction.

Humph! Do you think you can escape just like that?

Luckily, unlike the Heavenly Will that can detect which item is the one responsible for using [Devour]. The female Tribulation Transcender's soul is unable to do so.

As she already returned to unconscious state, the [Devour] I left on the necklace easily sucked the remaining power on her soul, which somehow netted me a total of 20.000 points.

Without the help of that woman's soul, the necklace quickly shattered and I lost my connection with it.

With this, I should've thoroughly killed that woman.

Wait! wait! Don't plant a flag, me. Let's stop thinking about such a thing. Remember those villains that survived an explosion because the protagonist stupidly asked 'are they dead?'

So, I tried to focus myself on another thing in case the flag I planted turned into reality.

At this time Ren Qingquan is exiting the city.

After the previous battle which I am actually responsible for, Ren Qingquan is too embarrassed to stay any further or even say his farewell to the guard and that sales woman.

Looking at the scene of destruction caused by that battle, both of us shuddered. The initially small alley has turned into a wide chasm as if a meteor has struck it.

Several hundred meters away, there is still the trace of fist from that woman's punch.

Furthermore, every building and road within a hundred meter radius has been distorted into a swirling shape just like the sky in Van Gogh's The Starry Night painting.

Luckily, the center of that battle is located in an alley filled with empty stores and the residence of a strong family. When they sensed that battle, the people inside that family had already escaped far away.

While flying above the city, Ren Qingquan passes by the Weapon Refining Association while in an invisible state.

He opened a system map to check the condition of the guard, sales woman, and branch manager. Once he saw everyone were alright, Ren Qingquan paused and spent several energies to create and transfer some spirit stones to the guard and sales woman before silently flying away from the city.

Outside of the city, Ren Qingquan stopped at an empty opening nearby the road connected to the city. 'System, don't you have anything you wish to say'

[Sorry.]

There are no excuses here. I am indeed the one responsible for starting the battle with that Tribulation Transcender woman.

'Sigh, I'll be the bigger man here and accept your apologies. But don't you think you need to give me something else?'

[Devour has been upgraded. Current radius: 15 meters]

'The power of my [Devour] is already enough, increasing it further doesn't have much effect for me. System, can't you show some remorse and give me actual useful things?'

[Congratulations for completing a sudden quest: Survive.

You have been rewarded with A special storage space. Please check your personal panel for further information.]

'System, can't you give me some points? I heard that Tribulation Transcender said her soul is attacked. I am sure it is your attempt at trying to [Devour] it.'

Darn, he is sharp. Why did he turn smarter all of a sudden?

Just when I am going to give him some points, the word I wrote at the corner of my vision comes into view.

-If Ren Qingquan turns smarter than me, do self introspection!

As if hit by a bolt in daylight, realization dawned into me.

Wait a minute, is he trying to guilt trip me and suck me dry?!

[That is the most the System can compensate you for. The points gained from swallowing the soul are used to upgrade your 'Devour'.]

Of course that is merely a half truth, I am playing a word game here. After all the points I gained are indeed used to upgrade [Devour], but another half are kept in my pocket.

Humph, you can try to get my energy over my dead body. If I have a body at all in the first place.

That's right, even after that half death encounter, I am still greedy. Haven't you heard the saying, birds die for food, systems die for energy?

If you haven't, that's normal, because I just made it up right now.

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Sigh, I think my 'talk to nothingness' illness flared up once again due to stress.