Chapter 872: Dao Fruit of the Dayu State Preceptor

"But did you truly think you could easily best me?"

Though calculated against, Guan Shanhai showed not a shred of panic. He was merely unwilling to fight, not incapable of it!

Furthermore, Meng Junzi had yet to discern what his Dao Fruit truly was.

Yet, the words that next escaped Meng Junzi's lips caused his heart to skip a beat.

"If my deductions prove correct, Fellow Daoist Guan's Dao Fruit possesses the function of assimilation—it can completely transform one individual into another. Were it not so, you could never have achieved the restoration of Dayu."

Long ago, Meng Junzi and Jiang Ping'an had taken note of Guan Shanhai's existence, noticing his burning ambition to restore the Great Yu Dynasty.

Guan Shanhai's Dao Fruit was unrecorded in any historical text. Restoring Dayu was no simple matter of slaying the Jiang family and taking their place; through a hundred thousand years of evolution, Dayu and Daxia had become entirely different dynasties.

Both men suspected that Guan Shanhai's Dao Fruit could facilitate this restoration, and to that end, they had made countless conjectures.

And just now, seeing Guan Shanhai transform a corpse into the second Imperial Preceptor, Meng Junzi finally confirmed his hypothesis.

In truth, Meng Junzi's guess deviated slightly from the reality; Guan Shanhai had named his power the "Rubbing Dao Fruit."

For instance, using a corpse of the Tribulation Transmutation stage as a vessel, he could imprint the second Imperial Preceptor from his memories onto that very corpse.

This was no mere copying of memories; even the appearance, physical memories, embryonic Dao Fruit, instinctive reflexes, and unique constitutions could be perfectly restored, differing scarce a whit from true resurrection!

He was only unaware of the events that transpired after the second Imperial Preceptor entered the Ascendant Sect, which meant the replicated Preceptor lacked any memories of the moments leading to his death.

And using a living person as a vessel yielded far greater results. Imprinting upon the dead produced nothing more than a physical form endowed with memory, but if imprinted upon the living, it could completely alter a living soul into the soul of another!

The power of the state destiny connected the common folk of Daxia, and it was precisely this connection upon which Guan Shanhai cast his gaze.

Within his mind lay the entire panorama of the early Dayu era—the age Daxia referred to as the "Wu Yao Golden Age." Every person, event, and object was etched flawlessly in his memory; the Wu Yao Golden Age had endured for three thousand years, and he remembered the entirety of those three millennia.

By harnessing the power of the state destiny, he could imprint the people of the Wu Yao Golden Age onto present-day Daxia, transforming its citizens into the people of that bygone era!

For example, he could employ his Rubbing Dao Fruit to turn Lu Yang into a genius of the Wu Yao Golden Age.

Only such an act could truly be called the restoration of Dayu!

In truth, he did not strictly need the power of the state destiny to transform Daxia into the Dayu of his heart, but doing so without it would be exceedingly slow, and Jiang Ping'an would assuredly intervene; it was far less swift than utilizing the state destiny.

However, he had yet to initiate the refinement of that destiny. Ever since Meng Junzi appeared, he had remained in a state of vigilant alert, daring not to divide his attention further.

A figure below was currently directing an army into the Imperial City with frantic urgency.

"Quickly, quickly! Every one of you, get to the positions I assigned! Open the grand array! If even the slightest error occurs, prepare yourselves for martial law!"

This was the Imperial Guard, stationed near the capital. Now that the Imperial City was in peril, though they could not sway the outcome of a battle between Immortals, they could erect barriers to shield the city from being devastated by the fallout of such a conflict.

The man commanding them was none other than Meng Jingzhou's third uncle—the border general who once guarded the Demon Locking Pass, known as the Confucian General, Meng Poci.

Meng Poci looked up at the two eminent figures in the sky, clutching the reassignment order he had just received, muttering softly under his breath.

"Transferring me from the Demon Locking Pass to the Imperial City last year... could it have been solely for today's battle?"

The commander of the Imperial Guard was not originally Meng Poci. Yet, after the Emperor of Xia feigned death and Guan Shanhai took the stage, Meng Poci suddenly received a voice transmission from Meng Junzi, bidding him hasten to the Imperial Guard encampment to assume command, accompanied by a written order bearing the imperial jade seal.

Meng Poci had been utterly stupefied upon seeing Meng Junzi, never expecting the Ancestor to manifest at such a juncture.

Casting aside his astonishment, he hurried to the military camp outside the city.

The Daxia military was replete with veteran generals whose seniority and cultivation far surpassed Meng Poci's, yet when it came to defensive arrays, none stood as his equal.

Guan Shanhai paid no heed to the commotion below; he cared nothing for how the Imperial City might react. From beginning to end, his sole adversary was Meng Junzi alone.

"Fellow Daoists of the Heavenly Court, it is best to leave this matter to me. What say you?"

Meng Junzi spoke politely to Ao Ling and her two companions, fully aware that the three were essentially on his side.

Ao Ling and the others could not intervene in a clash of Immortals, and moreover, the duration of Ao Ling's Immortal form was drawing to its close. Remaining would only hinder Meng Junzi, so the three tactfully withdrew from the battlefield.

"It seems a battle between you and me is inevitable," Guan Shanhai said, his smile failing to reach his eyes.

Simultaneously, the second Imperial Preceptor of Dayu erased his own karmic ties and vanished into thin air, abruptly materializing behind Meng Junzi. Raising a dagger forged from Immortal Stone, he thrust it savagely toward the crown of Meng Junzi's head!

Meng Junzi raised a hand and caught the Preceptor's wrist. With a slight exertion of force, he crushed the bones completely.

"An embryonic Karma Dao Fruit is indeed troublesome to handle, but that is only for a half-Immortal. For a true Immortal, it is far from enough!"

The second Imperial Preceptor's wrist shattered, and the dagger slipped from his grasp. Meng Junzi reached out to claim his spoils, for such an item could be deemed an Immortal Treasure, an exceedingly rare prize.

Boom—

Without warning, the dagger detonated, releasing a toxic, azure smoke that billowed around Meng Junzi.

This was a poisonous mist condensed from the grievances of hundreds of millions who perished at the end of the Daqian Dynasty; those afflicted would be consumed by the resentment and disintegrate from within!

The second Imperial Preceptor seized the opportunity to flee into the distance, likewise departing the battlefield.

He excelled in ambushes and curses, yet neither held sway against an Immortal. His true purpose in the ambush had been to trigger the dagger's self-destruction.

Meng Junzi heard countless wails echoing around him, lamenting the injustice of heaven for bringing war upon the world, and cursing the unprincipled dynasties that disregarded the lives of the common people.

"Cease your crying. You speak as though these matters are my fault."

Completely unaffected by the resentment, Meng Junzi inhaled, drawing the toxic mist cleanly away into nothingness.

Regardless of how his adversaries judged him, he had always walked a righteous path with a clear conscience.

When Meng Junzi cleared the mist, he discovered five figures now standing behind Guan Shanhai.

General Yu, the Nightmare Sovereign, the Daoist Lord of Myriad Laws, the Wood Seal Master, and Emperor Wu Yao of Dayu during his half-Immortal period!

Five half-Immortal entities!

Save for General Yu, the other four were all replicated using Tribulation-stage corpses as vessels.

General Yu understood the current situation well enough, but the remaining four were entirely oblivious.

Emperor Wu Yao’s expression shifted drastically. He recalled that he and his master had just dealt with the Nightmare Sovereign and were preparing to conquer the final province, and his master ought to have been a half-Immortal as well.

Yet here, the Nightmare Sovereign was present, his master had achieved Immortality, and the gargantuan city below belonged to nowhere in his memory.

Recalling his master's embryonic Rubbing Dao Fruit, it was not difficult to deduce that he was a replicated figure.

"Master, what era is this? Whom are you fighting?!"

Guan Shanhai knit his brows imperceptibly. Replicated entities possessed this exact flaw—they were identical to the real person, and thus beyond his absolute control.