My Simulated Road to Immortality Chapter 2277 - 1710: Guardian Hill Turns the Tide

Rather than acting as a simple restraint, the life rope deployed by Saint Taiyi functions as a deadly weapon. Thousands of thin black filaments erupt from the cord, swarming forward.

With the speed of nimble hands weaving a tapestry, a "Lord Guardian Hill" constructed entirely of hemp rope quickly manifests in the air.

The moment this rope puppet takes shape, an inexplicable power seems to forge an unbreakable link between it and the real Lord Guardian Hill.

Confronted by this duplicate of himself, Lord Guardian Hill felt his skin crawl, his instincts screaming of a fatal omen.

The events that followed immediately validated his dark premonition.

A phantom breeze seemed to drift through the void realm.

A single thread from the rope puppet’s body suddenly detached, floating away only to be devoured by the surrounding Dao Yan.

In that exact moment...

Lord Guardian Hill felt a portion of his very being being torn away out of thin air, vanishing into the void!

With the turtle shell crushing him from above and the ancestor bone draining him from his forehead, his situation was already dire.

Already pushed to his limits, this sudden depletion of strength drove Lord Guardian Hill into an even more desperate struggle.

Though he refused to bow his head, his frame was forcibly compressed and shortened by the immense pressure.

Gouts of blood began to seep out, but they were instantly consumed by the ancestor bone the moment they touched the air. The transformation into white bone intensified, making it look as though the artifact was fusing directly onto Lord Guardian Hill’s bent back.

The rope uncurls and the threads pull; his life hangs by a single strand!

The extraction process of the life rope showed no signs of stopping.

Lord Guardian Hill could feel his vitality draining away at an alarming pace.

Under the shadow of death, his mastered Eternal Life Path erupted with a brilliant, unprecedented green radiance.

It fought desperately to mend Lord Guardian Hill’s failing body.

Had he only been facing the weight of the turtle shell and the hunger of the ancestor bone, the resilience of the Eternal Life Path might have allowed him to endure. However, the life rope was directly siphoning his fundamental essence.

As the rope puppet became more shriveled and withered, the spark of life within Lord Guardian Hill grew dangerously dim.

Even though the power of immortality worked tirelessly to replenish him, it could only mend his physical form.

It was powerless to stop the erosion of his lifespan itself.

"The technique of this life rope actually shares a subtle similarity with the divine art of True Yet False!"

"However, instead of using the Dao of Truth and Falsehood to negate my existence, it uses a mysterious force to harvest the essence of life..."

His life was now like a flickering candle in a violent gale, on the verge of being snuffed out.

Yet, Lord Guardian Hill felt neither grief nor joy. He used these final breaths to study the nature of the turtle shell, the ancestor bone, and the life rope.

He searched for a countermeasure.

He even went as far as intentionally abandoning his defense, trading a faster death for the chance to test different responses.

"Despite its small size, that turtle shell seems to embody the infinite weight of the Upper Mountain."

"The Saints claim to be peers of the Mountain Sea, but one only truly feels its crushing gravity when the Mountain Sea descends."

"Even those at the Three Saints realm might find this pressure unbearable."

"Perhaps by comprehending the Mountain Sea itself, one can neutralize the weight, as if one were a natural part of the mountain..."

"The ancestor bone siphons, drawing everything in the body back into itself. It is like the rivers of the world flowing east into the ocean, following an inevitable law. Yet, there are waters that flow west to form a different sea! You may be the ancestor of all life under heaven, but I am the Lord Guardian Hill of the Mountain Sea!"

A low, burning fire ignited in Lord Guardian Hill’s eyes, seemingly echoing his resolve. For a heartbeat, the flow of blood and flesh toward the ancestor bone was halted.

The artifact seemed to hesitate, as if confused by the sudden resistance.

"As for this life rope..."

"This method of essence extraction is nearly impossible to defend against. Once the rope puppet is created, every misfortune that befalls it is reflected onto me. This tethering can likely only be broken through the Changes of Truth and Falsehood."

Lord Guardian Hill caught a glimpse of a way to break the technique but forced himself to suppress the urge to act.

The circumstances were different now; he was already ensnared by the life puppet and parasitized by the ancestor bone.

His internal state was likely being monitored by the void incarnate.

If he used the True and False Change to free himself now, his true presence might be exposed to his enemy.

"Struggling at the edge of the abyss is pointless."

"Let it be."

As he faced annihilation, Lord Guardian Hill’s mind became as clear as a void.

He knew that as long as Li Fan triggered the Hai Zhen once more, he would return from the darkness.

He no longer worried about whether the "me" that returned was truly himself.

However, the dying Lord Guardian Hill felt a strange sense of hollowness.

It was because of this certainty of return that he could not feel the primal terror that should accompany the end of one's life.

This realization made the [Longevity] he had spent his life pursuing seem suddenly trivial.

"If there is no death, what value does longevity hold?"

"True and False Dao, emptying the world!"

...

In that moment, the delayed reinforcements from the Three Saints finally arrived.

Unlike the decisive void incarnate, they seemed hesitant to utilize the turtle shell, ancestor bone, and life rope.

They only released the three treasures when they saw that Lord Guardian Hill was at death's door.

The items coiled silently around Lord Guardian Hill’s form.

Compared to the versions summoned by the void incarnate, these three original artifacts appeared...

Infinitely more malevolent!

The versions used by the void incarnate were merely "objects."

But the items the Three Saints brought forth now felt like sentient, living creatures.

Lord Guardian Hill could even feel three distinct, cold gazes scanning his body from top to bottom.

Ghostly laughter seemed to ring in his ears periodically.

A freezing, sinister energy slithered into his body like a snake.

It caused Lord Guardian Hill to feel an overwhelming sense of "wrongness."

It wasn't quite pain or a physical ache, but a deep, instinctive revulsion and a desperate urge to flee!