But strangely enough...
That person inside the room,identical to himself,did not immediately harm A-Song.
Which was what forced Mo Fan to clamp down on the urge to crash in through the window.
He concealed himself in the shadows outside the courtyard wall like a ghost,watching every single movement inside the room without blinking.
Over the next several hours...
The more Mo Fan watched,the heavier the chill in his heart grew.
This other"Mo Fan"genuinely displayed no aggression whatsoever.
Instead,it was as though it were retracing,bit by bit,the trajectory of Mo Fan's life within this little courtyard.
When A-Song left to light the stove and cook,it sat at the table,staring blankly at the grain of the wood.
When A-Song brought the food over,it picked up chopsticks in imitation of the way Mo Fan usually did.
Its movements were still somewhat stiff,but it managed to shovel the food into its mouth bit by bit.
Come nightfall...
It even walked into Mo Fan's room with perfect naturalness,lay down on that hard wooden bed,and closed its eyes.
As for whether it was actually sleeping...
Or merely imitating"sleep."
Mo Fan didn't know.
To confirm the situation,he activated[Death Vision]once again.
However...
The scene that appeared in his field of view next made Mo Fan's brow twitch violently.
The fake Mo Fan as it was now...
Not only did it look the same.
Even the aura radiating from its body had already grown infinitely close to his own!
And that soul fluctuation inside it,once a tangled snarl,violent and chaotic...
Had by now become smooth and stable as well.
In fact,if some cultivator who didn't know better came along and sensed it...
They'd likely genuinely believe...
That this was Mo Fan.
No wonder A-Song hadn't recognized it at all.
This thing...
Was assimilating Mo Fan utterly,bit by bit.
Flesh.
Aura.
Habits.
And even soul...
I can't wait any longer.
Deep in the night.
Moonless,with a high wind.
The entire servant district had already fallen into slumber.
Mo Fan knew perfectly well.
He absolutely could not make his move inside this courtyard.
The instant Old Lüand A-Song were startled awake,given the level of eeriness this monster had displayed...
The consequences were beyond all prediction.
Furthermore...
There was even less chance he'd stand by and watch some damn thing that had crawled out of who knows where replace him entirely,bit by bit.
Creak...
A faint sound of a wooden window scraping.
Mo Fan stepped soundlessly into his own room.
And in the very instant both his feet touched the floor...
That"Mo Fan"lying quietly on the bed suddenly sat bolt upright like a corpse jerking back to life!
Without any warning.
Those eyes,identical to Mo Fan's,stared straight through the darkness at the Mo Fan standing before the bed.
Two people.
Wearing the same face.
Facing off in silence in the hush of the night.
It didn't launch an attack.
Mo Fan didn't move either.
"Come on then."
Mo Fan lowered his voice,a taunt curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Aren't you trying to imitate me?"
Hearing these words...
The fake Mo Fan opposite tilted its head slightly,as though pondering something.
Three seconds later.
It truly did not attack.
Instead,it obediently threw off the blanket and,mimicking Mo Fan's gait,stepped down from the bed.
Not a word was spoken the whole way.
Mo Fan walked in front.
The fake Mo Fan followed behind.
The two of them,one ahead and one behind,passed through the silent servant district and gradually entered the dense forest of the rear mountain.
If you didn't look closely,even a careful probe with spiritual sense would make it extremely difficult to tell the two apart.
Perhaps only in the fake Mo Fan's gaze,still carrying a sliver of dead hollowness...
Could one barely find a trace of the"inhuman."
Neither of their footsteps ever stopped.
Until they'd passed through the forest...
And arrived at that all-too-familiar place.
The top of Abandoned Sword Cliff.
Ahead lay a bottomless abyss,ten thousand zhang deep.
Mo Fan finally halted.
He slowly turned around,looking at that"himself"who had also stopped less than three paces away.
"Though I don't know exactly what kind of demon you are."
Mo Fan's voice carried on the howling mountain wind.
"But if you think that draping yourself in a layer of my skin means you can replace me entirely..."
"Then you're thinking far too highly of yourself."
He deliberately spoke a long string of words.
Mo Fan knew perfectly well just how monstrous this thing's imitation ability was.
So right now,he simply wanted to see...
Exactly how far this monster's learning had come.
The fake Mo Fan finished listening.
On that face identical to Mo Fan's,the muscles twitched faintly.
It opened its mouth.
"Hhhk...hhhk..."
A grating sound like an old broken bellows came from its throat.
It seemed to be straining to imitate the vibration of human vocal cords.
But after a long while of trying...
It still couldn't produce a single complete syllable.
"You can't?"
Watching it in that state,Mo Fan suddenly gave a light laugh.
"Then let me teach you."
And then...
An exceedingly eerie scene unfolded.
Mo Fan,exactly as though teaching a babbling infant,deliberately slowed his speech and spoke to it one syllable at a time.
The monster opposite stared motionlessly at Mo Fan's lips.
The muscles in its throat wriggled and adjusted visibly.
A brief moment later...
"Hu...man..."
The word finally jerked out of the fake Mo Fan's mouth,exceedingly stiff.
Then...
Its voice grew smoother and smoother.
The speed at which its throat and vocal cords adjusted was hair-raisingly fast.
In mere breaths...
"Human."
"Your identity.I need it."
The voice was already all but identical to Mo Fan's!
As though Mo Fan himself...
Were speaking to himself.
And this first complete sentence,spoken like a newborn infant learning to talk...
Carried undisguised aggression.
"Oh?"
Mo Fan narrowed his eyes.
"So what exactly are you?"
"A demon beast?"
"Or some other kind of existence?"
The fake Mo Fan looked at him.
The corner of its mouth tugged lightly.
"Devour."
"Absorb."
"Adhere."
"Assimilate."
In Mo Fan's voice,it calmly spat out four words that made the blood run cold.
Then...
A strange gleam slowly flashed through those hollow eyes.
"Evolve."
Mo Fan's brow furrowed tighter and tighter as he listened.
"Meaning what?"
Though he'd been in the Mystic Realm for a good while now and had seen his share of demons and monsters...
His understanding of the truly hidden,ancient things in this world remained exceedingly limited.
He had no idea at all what sort of unholy contraption this existence before him was.
"Since you're doing this to evolve..."
Mo Fan raised a hand and pointed down at Abandoned Sword Cliff.
"Then why me,of all things?"
"That snake molt left behind by the Blood-Red Python down there...isn't that far stronger than me?"
"You leave a thing like that alone and come running over to be a human instead?What for?"
The fake Mo Fan tilted its head.
As though pondering exceedingly seriously for a moment.
A moment later...
It spoke in a completely matter-of-fact tone:
"Your Spirit Root."
"Is very strong."
"What?!"
Mo Fan's entire body jolted violently!
His eyes went wide in an instant.
Even his breathing stalled for half a beat.
My Spirit Root...is very strong?
Mo Fan almost doubted there was something wrong with his ears.
He was the one who had been branded,by the Azure Cloud Sect's Spirit Testing Stone and by countless people,with what amounted to a death sentence:
A Waste Spirit Root!
Yet this monster before him...
Why would it say his Spirit Root was very strong?
In a flash,the words Lin Dong had said earlier abruptly shot through Mo Fan's mind as well.
The two statements overlapped.
Mo Fan's train of thought stalled for a brief instant.
And in that very instant...
"So."
"Your identity."
"I'll be taking it."
A streak of savagery surfaced instantly on that face identical to his own!
Before the words had even finished...
BOOM!
The rock underfoot exploded with a thunderous crack!
The fake Mo Fan wasted no more words.
Its form instantly turned into an afterimage and closed the distance,appearing right in front of Mo Fan!
And what made Mo Fan's pupils contract sharply was...
The way it channeled its strength was the way Mo Fan knew best of all!
The same opening stance.
The same angle of force.
Even the arc traced by its fist was almost identical!
Not good!
Mo Fan was aghast.
Combat instinct snapped him out of his shock in an instant.
Arms crossed!
Qi and blood surging!
Block it head-on!
However...
In the very instant the two truly collided...
Mo Fan finally experienced firsthand the terrifying gulf between their two physical bodies.
This fake Mo Fan's own strength hadn't come remotely close to the level of a true Golden Core.
But this body of its...
Was constructed from the snake molt left behind by that Peak Golden Core giant serpent!
BAM!!!
Fist met arms!
Mo Fan felt as though he'd slammed headfirst into a mountain range of steel!
Crack!Crack!
Two teeth-grating snaps of breaking bone rang out abruptly at the cliff top!
In a single exchange...
The two arms Mo Fan had used to block were shattered outright,the bones bending at eerie angles!
"Pfft!"
A mouthful of blood sprayed out!
Mo Fan's whole body flew backward like a kite with its string cut,slamming heavily into a boulder a dozen or so meters away!
BOOM!
The boulder shattered with a roar.
"Hsss..."
Enduring the drilling agony from both arms,Mo Fan struggled to lift his head from the pile of broken rock.
Too hard...
There's no way to fight this!
Though this fake Mo Fan was still far from able to bring out the truly terrifying physical strength a Golden Core demon beast ought to possess...
Still,that near-indestructible hardness of flesh,paired with the combat techniques it had learned from Mo Fan...
Was already more than enough to drive a man to despair!
"Mo Yan!"
"Unit 004!"
"Unit 003!"
"WTF!"
"All of you,get out here!"
Facing a thing this utterly unreasonable,Mo Fan didn't hesitate at all,instantly linking to the[Necrotic Realm]!
Hummm!Hummm!Hummm!
Streaks of grayish-white summoning light flashed one after another!
Mo Yan,Unit 004,Unit 003,and WTF gripping the Pale Bone Scepter appeared around Mo Fan almost simultaneously!
Guarding him firmly at the center!
And upon seeing these several undead that had appeared out of thin air...
The fake Mo Fan,which had been about to continue its pursuit,halted its steps for the first time.
It looked at Mo Yan.
Then looked at Unit 004.
And within those eyes,an exceedingly obvious bewilderment surfaced for the first time.
It seemed utterly unable to comprehend...
Why these skeletal frames without flesh or blood could move.
Even less able to comprehend...
Just what method Mo Fan had used to make these things appear out of nothing.
"Go on,learn it."
Mo Fan spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva,his gaze turning abruptly vicious.
"Why aren't you learning this one?"
"Kill!"
The order was issued!
The undead legion instantly closed the ring!
However...
Facing the joint siege of several major undead,the fake Mo Fan paid them no mind whatsoever.
Relying on nothing but that body,terrifying to the point of absurdity,it began brutally steamrolling through them!
CLANG!
Mo Yan's cold-iron longsword hacked viciously into its shoulder.
Leaving only a shallow white mark!
Unit 004's vast body crashed in with a roar,only for the fake Mo Fan to use the momentum and slam a fist into the edge of the bone shield.
Great swaths of bone shattered instantly!
Unit 003 pounced from the flank.
WTF's spells crashed down one after another.
Explosions and death energy kept blasting apart across the cliff top!
But it was still nearly impossible to damage its flesh.
Whereas the undead legion...
Was being beaten into retreat step by step under the fake Mo Fan's increasingly familiar attacks.
Bone fragments flew constantly.
The formation,too,began rapidly collapsing!
Damn it!
Can't hurt it!
Can't hurt it at all!
Watching his several underlings being pressed back and back,the viciousness in Mo Fan's eyes gradually climbed to the absolute extreme.
Physical attacks were no good.
The snake molt couldn't be broken.
So then...
Only one thing left.
Run the same play again.
Mo Fan clenched his teeth hard.
Enduring the searing pain of both broken arms,he once again gathered the immense soul power inside him.
DIE!!!
[Soul Shock]!
Hummm!
An invisible soul spike instantly crossed the space,streaking straight for the fake Mo Fan's brow!
However...
In the very split second[Soul Shock]was about to truly slam into the depths of its soul...
That fake Mo Fan,locked in battle with the undead legion...
Astonishingly stopped.
No dodging.
No resistance.
In fact...
It actively dropped every last defense.
Mo Fan's pupils contracted violently.
The next moment...
The fake Mo Fan slowly turned its head.
On that face identical to Mo Fan's...
The corner of its mouth hooked upward,bit by bit.
Baring,once again,that smile Mo Fan knew all too well...
A smile.
It gazed at Mo Fan.
Parted its lips slightly.
And in a voice almost too faint to hear,said slowly:
"Finally..."
"I've been waiting for you."