Fantasy: I'm Really Not A Supreme Master!

Beyond causality, atop a mountain that transcends time and space.

Zi Ling's painting had already been completed.

Within the painting, there was Nan Feng playing a zither, Long Zixuan throwing punches, Lin Jiu Zheng crafting talismans, Jiang Li playing chess...

They had all been painted by Zi Ling.

"In a past life, you were already my disciple."

Dark Li Fan spoke, his voice tinged with a faint note of admiration, and said:

"The Art of Painting, you've learned it quite well."

"But they are your fellow disciples. Have you ever wondered why they willingly chose to follow me into the darkness?"

"Have you ever considered that I am the true origin, and those within the painting are but fragments of my sinister thoughts?"

His voice was calm and magnetic, almost instinctively persuasive.

Yet, Zi Ling remained entirely clear-headed, replying:

"It doesn't matter whether you're the sorrow left behind by my master or shadows of his past."

"Master is still in the painting!"

If she and Su Baiqian hadn't followed Li Fan here, hadn't seen him enter the painting themselves, perhaps they really might have been deceived by Dark Li Fan like Nan Feng and the others.

After all, Dark Li Fan... indeed appeared identical to Li Fan in every way.

He knew all about the small mountain village, even every detail of Li Fan's thoughts and feelings, every moment Li Fan spent with them.

This was the key reason why Nan Feng and the others believed his words.

"What if he is in the painting?"

"It is destined to fail."

Dark Li Fan spoke softly, then turned to Xinning beside him and said:

"Kill them."

Xinning stepped forward immediately, looking toward Zi Ling and Su Baiqian.

She was the only one who had not been painted into the canvas after all, as she had already ascended to the Supreme realm. No matter how defiant Zi Ling was, she could not capture Xinning within the painting.

"Xinning, have you forgotten Master? You once said you would wait for his return..."

Su Baiqian tried to call Xinning back to her senses.

But Xinning only murmured quietly:

"You are wrong. Big Brother is already in the darkness. I don't want to leave Big Brother... so, I must kill you both."

She raised her small hand and struck toward Zi Ling and Su Baiqian!

Both Zi Ling and Su Baiqian were startled, exerting their utmost efforts immediately.

Zi Ling's brush moved swiftly, drawing barriers and abysses to block the attack, while Su Baiqian unleashed her illusions.

But none of it worked.

Before Xinning's strike, embodying the power of The End of Myriad Paths, everything drawn dissolved instantly, and Su Baiqian's illusions had no effect at all.

Zi Ling and Su Baiqian crashed heavily to the ground, spitting blood.

Grievously injured!

"The entities within the painting are devils, sinister thoughts that should not exist. They are aberrations defying the will of the cosmos,"

Dark Li Fan whispered into Xinning's ear, saying:

"He should not exist in this world. Let him return to silence. Cast him into the Dark Firmament's abyssal prison, where he will never again see the light behind him or find any tether to the present."

Xinning murmured:

"Whatever Big Brother wants me to do... I will do."

She walked over and glanced at the painting on the stone table.

On the stone table was a painting depicting a serene scene: a picturesque mountain forest connected to a small village. Beneath an ancient pine tree on a towering peak that transcended causality and time, sat Li Fan, alone.

At this moment, Li Fan's expression in the painting seemed filled with loneliness and sorrow, despair and confusion.

It was as if he had witnessed a scene in reality: the people he cared about turning upon one another.

"You are but a shadow that should not exist... The abyss of darkness is where you belong."

Xinning murmured, then grabbed the painting.

With Supreme power, she hurled the painting toward the direction of the Dark Firmament.

The painting seemed to traverse time and space, drifting through the Sky Domain and floating across the cosmos. Passing through the Gate of Darkness, it entered the Dark Firmament.

At that moment, within the Dark Firmament, countless powerful beings were shocked and horrified.

"That's... him?!"

"He is in the painting!"

"Activate the abyssal prison with the power of the Dark Firmament, seal him completely!"

At that moment, many Supreme beings spoke.

The mighty Dark Firmament, amidst countless Stars of Darkness, summoned an overwhelming surge of darkness, opening the abyssal prison!

It was an unfathomable darkness, as if it were the source of all shadows. The darkness resembled towering tangible walls, rejecting all light, severing all thought, repressing any hint of retrospection or reflection.

It was a realm of eternal silence, unchanging shadow, primordial ice, and the arrogance of the cosmos.

The entire Dark Firmament seemed to exist only because of this ocean of darkness.

The fundamental laws of the universe intertwined within that darkness.

The painting fell into the abyss and was entirely consumed by shadow, vanishing without a trace.

It was as if the painting had never existed in this world.

Even if it once existed, it had now been utterly erased.

...

At this moment.

On the Nine Forbidden Continents, in the Kaiyuan Continent, within the Kongshou Mountain Forest.

As the painting drifted away, the surrounding mountains and forests suddenly returned to normal, no longer an unapproachable domain.

The peaks were now ordinary mountains, where birds flew and streams flowed, mountain ridges undulated, and mist curled softly.

The tide of darkness sweeping the Nine Continents had also arrived as expected, about to engulf this last Pure Land.

"He will be forever buried in the darkness."

Dark Li Fan murmured, then walked toward the gravely injured Zi Ling and Su Baiqian. With a wave of his hand, his own fundamental laws began to manifest.

"No..."

Zi Ling struggled, raising her brush to attack Dark Li Fan.

But Dark Li Fan, reputed as the second in the world, was one of only two entities beneath the cosmos who had manifested fundamental laws. Even though Zi Ling was a Heavenly Emperor, a Supreme, she was no match for him.

The eyes of Su Baiqian and Zi Ling were slowly enveloped by black mist.

"Hmm... The abyssal prison of the Dark Firmament can sever his connection to the present world."

Dark Li Fan spoke, smiling, and said:

"Now, even the people he cares about in the present world have been corrupted. Even if that connection were restored, what he would find upon looking back would be nothing but emptiness."

"The stronger one is, the more they rely on the support of reality, on finding their anchor in the lives of mundane and insignificant beings. Once that anchor is gone, the stronger they are, the quicker they forget who they are."

"In the end, even if they become the person they once hated the most, they remain oblivious."

He said this and glanced at the Dark Shaman standing behind him, saying:

"What do you think, Third Brother?"

The Dark Shaman's face was grim as he said:

"Darkness is the anchor that all beings must obey!"

Dark Li Fan smiled and said:

"Indeed."

"So, what's next in your plan?"

"Destroy that little mountain village?"

The Dark Shaman shook his head and said:

"It can't be destroyed."

"When I left, that little mountain village was indeed strong, but it was just a gathering of Supreme beings."

"But later, after your own aspect went there and planted trees, built roads, and improved the land... too many changes occurred. That village's status is now beyond the Supreme. Unless The Quiet One intervenes, neither of us can handle that village."

Dark Li Fan said:

"So, go home and rest?"

The Dark Shaman said:

"No, we need to chase someone."

Dark Li Fan asked:

"Oh? Who?"

The Dark Shaman replied:

"The Quiet One's eldest disciple."

"The Lone One."

Dark Li Fan laughed, saying:

"Chase him? Even if he betrayed The Quiet One in the past and survived, in this lifetime, he's just a side character at most. Can he truly defy the heavens?"

The Dark Shaman said:

"In the past, no. But in this lifetime... it's highly possible."

"Besides your aspect, he is the most dangerous entity in this era."

...

Good night.