Chapter 1430: Breaking the Pot and Sinking the Boat

No... This won't do!

In its current body, there was no way it could outrun the Scourge of Mockery. Scourge of Thought felt its lungs wheezing like bellows and its heart on the verge of dissolving. Its mind raced as the overwhelming aura of the Scourge of Mockery pressed down on it, triggering its most primal sense of crisis as an apocalyptic disaster. It knew that if it didn't find a way to break free, the ruins of Ruoshui Domain would become its grave. In its current state, it couldn't defeat the Scourge of Mockery. To break free, it either had to find a way to become stronger... or...

Scourge of Thought watched the figure in the theatrical robe slowly approaching, and a glimmer of light appeared in its chaotic thoughts. A scarlet, sinister smile stretched across the black, audience-like face. The figure in the theatrical robe had a look of cat-and-mouse amusement, as if thoroughly satisfied with the thrilling chase and still eager for more. Its gaze seemed to say: *Run... Why aren't you running anymore?*

Scourge of Thought decided not to run. The longer this dragged on, the worse it would be. A profound expression flickered across its aged face. It raised a fingertip and began to sketch in the void before it.

Its Ninth-Tier Demigod Domain expanded, instantly engulfing the entire Ruoshui Domain. The dilapidated plaques, yellowed newspapers, road signs buried beneath the ruins, and books almost reduced to ashes—all these remnants of textual civilization in the ruins seemed to receive a summons, trembling slightly! One by one, characters flew up from the paper, plaques, and road signs. Dense black specks surged from the silent ruins, like an overwhelming swarm of black insects, swirling and converging towards Scourge of Thought. These characters coalesced around the aged body, building higher and higher, eventually sketching the outline of a magnificent obelisk!

At this moment, millennia of textual evolution seemed to gain an ineffable weight of civilization. A crushing pressure, capable of overwhelming everything, radiated outwards from the textual obelisk.

Book God Path, Ninth Tier, Monument of Ancient Texts.

Boom—!!

An invisible suppressive force, like a monumental tablet from the void, slammed heavily onto the shoulders of the figure in the theatrical robe! The figure in the theatrical robe jolted violently, as if staggered by the monument's weight. Immediately after, an abyssal, colossal pit exploded with it at the center. The earth's thickness, thin as paper under the monument's weight, was instantly torn apart. Both the earth and the figure were crushed, plummeting wildly as if descending straight to the earth's core.

Simultaneously, a torrent carrying the entire domain's history, using these characters as its medium, frantically surged into the mind of the figure in the theatrical robe! Every newspaper print, every plaque hung by hand, every baby babbling its first words before a book, every student answering exam questions... Each character contained emotion and the past. When they converged, the power unleashed was such that even a King of Apocalypse could not easily break free.

Scarlet blood flowed from the seven orifices of the aged body. Scourge of Thought's vitality drained at an alarming rate! This time, Scourge of Thought had almost recklessly unleashed the power of Pugui Sect. If this power were wielded by Pugui Sect thirty years ago, it might have been released stably, but for the current aged body, it was undoubtedly an act of suicide. But Scourge of Thought no longer had time to consider how long this body could last.

As the figure in the theatrical robe was suppressed into the earth's core by the Monument of Ancient Texts, moments later, a scarlet beam of light, piercing heaven and earth, erupted directly from that abyssal chasm!! That was the power of absolute negation. Every character forming the obelisk, the past they carried, and the meaning they contained, were all negated by the malicious audience. The characters surrounding the aged figure also burst open, creating a gaping hole!

Simultaneously, a figure shot directly upward from the shattered obelisk. The red-backed, black-patterned theatrical robe flapped loudly in the air, and fury emerged in its scarlet eyes! Crimson clouds burst from its body, and countless scarlet tentacles wildly struck the characters around Scourge of Thought. A continuous roar of explosions echoed through the sky. Ruins were pulverized into dust, one after another. The clash between the two apocalyptic scourges could effortlessly level an entire domain!

While Scourge of Thought used the Book God Path to directly counter the Scourge of Mockery, it pointed one hand towards the sky. A formless storm of thoughts surged wildly. This enigmatic phantom, lurking in the mental world of thoughts, unleashed its own power to the extreme at this moment! The nightmare island of the long-slumbering storm, the enigmatic phantom at the end of thought.

Scourge of Thought seemed to divide itself into two entities: one wielding the peak of humanity's Book God Path, and the other commanding the apocalyptic power of thought. Material and spiritual forces attacked the Scourge of Mockery simultaneously at this moment! If Scourge of Thought had been given more time to repair this human body, its combat power, possessing both human demigod abilities and apocalyptic power, would have reached a terrifying level, even allowing it to contend directly with the Scourge of Mockery at its peak... Unfortunately, it had encountered the 'wrong person' at the wrong time. The rapid degradation of its aged body meant that Scourge of Thought's all-out, desperate struggle could not last much longer.

Meanwhile, the figure in the theatrical robe, trapped simultaneously within the textual obelisk and the storm of thoughts, struggled wildly. In terms of material world combat, the Scourge of Mockery, possessing the power to negate everything, would absolutely not be defeated by the Book God Path. But in the spiritual world, no one could defeat the enigmatic phantom at the end of the storm, not even the Scourge of Mockery. Countless characters frantically drained the figure in the theatrical robe's power, forcibly keeping a portion of its energy in the real world. At the same time, Scourge of Thought's consciousness had already burrowed into the Scourge of Mockery's mind. A battle of thoughts, invisible to the naked eye, had already erupted!

The storm raged, and countless consciousnesses surged within the Scourge of Mockery. Scourge of Thought could clearly sense the presence of each one, their malice towards it, and their madness in vying for control of the body. Normally, if Scourge of Thought's storm invaded the Scourge of Mockery's mind, these audience consciousnesses would have long since risen in rebellion. But now, they were embroiled in internal conflict, a large portion of their energy consumed in battling each other. Even if they detected Scourge of Thought's arrival, they couldn't muster their full strength to resist. In other words, the Scourge of Mockery's mind was now a scattered mess, the perfect opportunity for external forces to invade, just as the Red King had invaded here before.

The surging storm spread within the Scourge of Mockery's consciousness. It did not attack these individual consciousnesses, knowing that there were simply too many. Even eradicating dozens or hundreds now would be meaningless. Instead, it would make more of the audience wary of it, or even cause them to cease their internal strife and prioritize dealing with it.

Scourge of Thought was diligently searching for something among these consciousnesses within the Scourge of Mockery. That was its last hope for a comeback. Just as it prayed to find it before its own life force was depleted, the calm figure, sitting alone like a spectator outside the multitude of consciousnesses, caught its attention...