The corrosive hallucinogenic agent rendered Gu Ya unconscious for nearly a month.
Upon waking, Gu Ya, enduring profound physical and emotional pain, slew his phantom parents and Hu Na. To escape the illusions completely, he had to be ruthless.
Checking the current time flow, which was 1800 seconds to 1 second, Gu Ya felt a weight lift from his heart. "This means that during the month I was unconscious, only twenty-odd minutes have passed in the outside world."
Unexpectedly, Hei Yang's temporal inversion trick had inadvertently saved him.
Suppressing the effects of the hallucinogen, Gu Ya utilized the abilities gained from consuming Hei Yang to disguise his assimilation rate at around 80%.
With the lingering threat of the corrosive hallucinogenic agent resolved, Gu Ya, unburdened, climbed to the tallest building in the city, deployed his digital domain, and finally located Hei Yang.
It was curled up within a virtual atomic nucleus on the other side of the world.
The moment Gu Ya discovered Hei Yang, Hei Yang also detected Gu Ya.
Before he could escape, Gu Ya simultaneously controlled three giant mechs and attacked Hei Yang.
The bizarre battle instantly commenced.
Hei Yang's body, initially the size of an atomic nucleus, suddenly expanded to an immense scale, transforming into a densely woven gray-white giant net that descended from the darkened sky, enveloping the three giant mechs.
The instant the three mechs touched the giant net, they shattered into countless plastic mech toys, only tens of centimeters tall.
Gu Ya roared and unleashed his Fa Tian Xiang Di technique. Gu Ya, as vast as the sky, grasped the giant net and flung it skyward, summoning the Khornate Chrono-Relativistic Missile Cannons from his arms and firing wildly at Hei Yang in the sky.
Giant brass-colored shells flew from Gu Ya's arm cannons. Before they could hit the ground, they transformed into countless hair-like white filaments that re-entered his arms.
Hei Yang, in the sky, inverted time to 1 second against 7200 seconds, attempting to regain control of the illusory world in an extremely short period in the real world.
Next, Hei Yang transformed into a funnel-shaped giant mountain, its peak pointing downwards, pressing down on the colossal Gu Ya. Sunlight was blocked by the mountain, casting a shadow over the land.
Gu Ya clenched his fists, his eyes resolute, and rapidly altered the code of the earth and air. The entire illusory world suddenly became a vast ocean, firmly encasing the unstoppable giant mountain!
Subsequently, Gu Ya converted all the virtual atoms composing this world into atomic bombs! A series of ear-piercing explosions sounded, and the entire ocean, sky, and even the entire illusory world instantly dissolved into nothingness.
This was a domain where nothing existed, including space, time, and all scientific principles.
Gu Ya intended to embrace death to find life!
Hei Yang's body rapidly dispersed into immeasurable fragments, becoming the myriad things that formed the Great Thousand Worlds, supporting this heaven and earth.
Just as heaven and earth were being reshaped, a boundless gaping maw suddenly appeared in the sky!
The colossal, boundless Gu Ya, standing outside the world created by Hei Yang, swallowed Hei Yang's world into its mouth like eating a strawberry cake from a plate.
Hei Yang transformed into elusive, wispy matter and stealthily flew out from the back of Gu Ya's head. With a change, the entire universe became its domain.
Stars flowed in the universe, galaxies were born, myriad stars appeared, and countless civilizations and species emerged and perished within this universe.
Hei Yang still intended to completely devour Gu Ya!
But Gu Ya smiled faintly, standing proudly among the myriad stars like a cosmic emperor. With a raise of his hand, a Klein bottle materialized, instantly containing the entire universe.
Hei Yang struggled fiercely to escape the bottle, instantly transforming. The entire universe was compressed into a single mass, even distorting the senses and perception!
Gu Ya saw his own voice from a hundred quadrillion quadrillionths of a second ago, heard strangely eerie scents, tasted exquisite musical notes in his mouth, and past selves from countless timelines filled this universe, touching them felt like touching the singularity of the universe. Even memories transformed into indescribable, countless fluffy substances, forming the roots of karma, the past, and the future, plaguing Gu Ya's cognition.
But Gu Ya knew it was all false!
"Before a more powerful will, all illusory realms are but nothingness."
With Gu Ya's faint words, the surroundings instantly shattered like fractured diamonds into shimmering dust, scattering away.
This plan having failed, Hei Yang, trapped and without options, conjured myriads of deities – cultivation, alchemy, astrology, divination, Lovecraftian horror, magic – all manner of incomprehensible anomalies, presenting them like a troupe of performers before Gu Ya.
Gu Ya forced a wry smile, then his eyes widened in fury, and he berated them sternly, "What are you all? How dare you defile the world of science!"
With a single roar, the entire chaotic assembly of deities and spirits instantly turned into two-dimensional particles, scattering like the wind and vanishing.
Hei Yang reformed into a mass of gray-white smoke, standing still in place.
Gu Ya sneered, grasping Hei Yang in his hand, and said dismissively, "Fear? Heh... not nearly enough."
Then, Gu Ya shouted with all his might, "I will kill Ye Ying!!"
A boundless abyss of consciousness appeared beneath his feet. "Let Hei Yang taste the power of the abyss of consciousness, hahahaha!" Gu Ya's lips curled into a cold smile as he leaped into the abyss.
When the white gate of the abyss opened again, Gu Ya reappeared in the void. He solidified a piece of land beneath his feet and, like spitting phlegm, expelled the coin-sized Hei Yang onto the ground.
"Now you know fear!" Gu Ya looked at Hei Yang playfully, his eyes filled with a cruel triumph.
He wished he could crush this thing to death right now, but it wasn't the time; Gu Ya still had many questions for Hei Yang.
"Answer my questions honestly, and I can spare your life."
The minuscule Hei Yang reformed into human shape, though its gray-white body had become even more transparent.
"Was the person named Wang Chuan you?" Gu Ya asked coldly.
"You..." Hei Yang said in a less fluent voice, "Did it yourself."
With that, Hei Yang's body suddenly split, revealing a boy about ten years old.
Gu Ya immediately realized this boy was his past! It was the appearance of the original Gu Ya as a child.
The little boy dissolved into a bubble, and with a flash, merged into Gu Ya's body.
A memory instantly appeared in Gu Ya's mind.
After being discharged from the hospital, Gu Ya planned to defeat Hei Yang.
His plan was to separate his consciousness, use the abyss of consciousness for oblivion, and at the most crucial moment, have his separated self personally kill his parents and Hu Na, breaking through the illusions with the strongest emotional conflict.
Gu Ya said coldly, "You definitely knew the Xi Shen Yi Weng was with my clone, so why did you let it return to me, and then transform into Liu Feng to deceive me? Even now, you're still lying!"
Saying this, Gu Ya's face contorted in ferocity as he grabbed Hei Yang, opened his mouth, and directly inhaled Hei Yang into his stomach.
As he digested, Gu Ya gradually completed Hei Yang's theories, principles, programs, and the entire system, naturally also learning the more obscure secret.
It was indeed Hei Yang that had abducted and assimilated Gu Ya's consciousness clone, "Wang Chuan."
However, for the sake of caution, Gu Ya employed a "kami separation" tactic: Wang Chuan held the Xi Shen Yi Weng, while Gu Ya mastered its usage.
Unable to master its usage, Hei Yang then transformed into a deliveryman to return the Xi Shen Yi Weng and disguised himself as Liu Feng, guiding Gu Ya to "Liu Feng's" home to seize the usage method.
However, due to his consciousness clone, Gu Ya became increasingly forgetful, even forgetting how to use his abilities.
Coupled with the unexpected invasion by the mechanical Gu Ya and Zeng Lang from eight hundred years later, Hei Yang, to protect itself, had no choice but to return the Xi Shen Yi Weng.
It was also due to the mechanical Gu Ya's invasion that Gu Ya's assimilation rate decreased, and he remembered how to use his abilities.
"It's all over now. Hei Yang has been assimilated by me, and I know all its plans and program codes," Gu Ya said faintly, waving his hand to restore the entire consciousness world.
He reappeared in the hospital, but his former parents and girlfriend Hu Na had become unfamiliar passersby, walking past him indifferently.
This was the beginning of this illusory world, and it should also be its end.
"Well, before I leave, there's one more thing to do: use the consciousness anchor to call them back."
Gu Ya glanced one last time at the backs of his parents and girlfriend, settling his lingering concern, and placed his hand on his chest.
Suddenly, the entire world began to tremble!
The surroundings gradually peeled away, burning away like smoldering paper, and scenes that had appeared in Gu Ya's mind continuously shifted around him; one moment it was Wu He City, the next it was Cai Hua City.
"What's happening? I haven't even used the consciousness anchor yet!" Gu Ya sensed something was wrong, looking around in astonishment.
"Could Hei Yang still be alive?"
Gu Ya quickly tried to figure out what had happened, only to discover the time flow was 1 second to 7200 seconds.
This meant that while he was fighting Hei Yang, many days had passed in the outside world, and now the instability of the illusion must be related to the outside.
Just as Gu Ya was in doubt,
A mechanical voice, indistinguishable as male or female, suddenly echoed from the sky, resonating directly with his soul.
"Gu Ya, you've finally arrived!"
As the voice faded, a mech taller than the sky appeared outside the planet! It overlooked Gu Ya through the atmosphere.
On its hazy, colossal mechanical head, myriad towering mechs were erected!
Gu Ya looked up in stunned disbelief, "What in the world is going on?"