Chapter 475: The Perfect Answer

"What is he trying to do?"

Nilly muttered from within the shadows, her face filled with confusion.

Although her dear nephew looked even more dazed than before now that he had entered his focused state, he shouldn't be doing something reckless at a time like this.

Was he stalling for time, waiting for her to comprehend the Stone-Heart?

No way.

Nilly suddenly felt a twinge of guilt. At this critical moment, she honestly couldn't be of much help.

Where was she supposed to find a Stone-Heart anyway?

Maybe she should borrow one from the ancestor?

As she was lost in thought, a slime suddenly appeared on her shoulder out of nowhere, its stubby little arms crossed, looking completely at ease.

"Huh, Your Majesty, why are you here?"

Chen Yu adjusted himself to a more comfortable angle on her shoulder and said lazily, "I'm here to watch the show, of course."

"A show?" Nilly blinked in confusion.

Chen Yu wiggled his gel in response. "Yano has already comprehended it. Or rather, he's found the only way to counter his own divinity."

Hearing this, Nilly couldn't help but glance toward Yano through the shadows.

There stood Yano before the Stone Descendants, back straight as a ramrod. Though his body was covered in wounds, as long as he stood there, he was like an unyielding city wall.

He raised his knight's sword, the tip pointing directly at Hopkins.

"Come." His voice was calm and hoarse. "Defeat me."

Hopkins furrowed his brows slightly.

He refused to believe that an outstanding knight would do something so irrational at a moment like this.

He had seen people trapped in desperate situations before, but those people were either filled with rage or despair, having completely lost their reason.

But the Yano before him was so calm he didn't fit any of those categories.

He seemed like someone who had prepared everything in advance, simply waiting for an inevitable conclusion to arrive.

Then Hopkins thought of something.

Could it be that he was undergoing a trial?

He was inviting him to become an opponent on his path of trial.

Hopkins quickly began to calculate.

If he attacked Yano, there was a chance he would be playing right into his hands, helping him cross the threshold into Legendary.

One Legendary Stone Descendant was already troublesome enough. If this knight also crossed that threshold and joined forces with Hailam, there was no way he could win.

But what if he retreated now?

No, that wouldn't work either.

The Stone-Heart granted immunity to mental control, posing too great a threat to him.

Among all the spells he commanded, his greatest asset was his mental control over the Stone Descendants.

A stone statue posed no threat to him, but a Stone Descendant immune to mental control was his natural enemy.

He weighed the pros and cons in an instant.

He couldn't retreat.

Legendary Trials always had harsh conditions for passing.

A knight's trial was nothing more than defeating a powerful enemy, or breaking through their limits in a desperate situation.

If he was intimidated by Yano and retreated in defeat, that would only boost the other's momentum and help him pass the trial.

He couldn't retreat. On the contrary, he had to personally crush this knight's pride and turn his trial into a complete joke.

Hopkins raised his staff and gave it a light wave.

The octopus received the command and swung its tentacles in a sweeping strike.

In his focused state, Yano pushed his evasion techniques to the absolute limit, predicting the trajectory of the tentacle's descent in advance and sidestepping.

The tentacle brushed past him almost intimately, missing its target.

Hopkins narrowed his eyes. The octopus's tentacles came one after another, like an endless dark tide battering against the shore, yet Yano always managed to dodge at seemingly impossible angles.

However, even the most perfect technique struggled to evade the densely falling tentacles.

Over a dozen tentacles swept across simultaneously, covering every possible escape route.

Yano's form hesitated for a brief moment, and a tentacle struck him square in the chest, sending him flying like a cannonball into the forest, snapping a thick tree in half.

"Mr. Yano!" A Stone Descendant guard couldn't help but step forward.

"Don't move." Hailam's deep voice suddenly rang out. "This is his trial. Do not interfere."

The Stone Descendants exchanged uncertain glances, gripping their weapons as they held their ground. While keeping their guard up against Hopkins, they anxiously peered toward the forest.

With a loud crash, Yano pushed the tree trunk off himself and slowly rose to his feet, stumbling back.

His entire body was trembling, yet he still walked steadfastly back to stand before Hopkins, gasping for breath.

"So this is the power of a Legendary Mage. My strength... is utterly insignificant."

Hopkins's brow furrowed even deeper.

Is he provoking me?

Trying to make me attack him with even greater ferocity?

What is he after?

Hopkins couldn't figure it out, so he suppressed his doubts and cautiously waved his staff once more.

The massive tentacle fell mercilessly, sending Yano flying once again.

Yano's body snapped through several trees, tumbling continuously through the shadows until he finally collided with a rock and came to a stop.

All the Stone Descendants watching clenched their fists, a sense of helplessness rising in their hearts.

They couldn't see what was happening deep in the forest, only hearing the dull thuds of bone against rock, each one making their hearts tremble.

A moment later, Yano's figure actually staggered out of the forest once more.

He had several more wounds than before, his leather armor was completely torn apart, and blood was streaming down his forehead.

He walked back step by step, wavering as he steadied himself before Hopkins.

"You know what, I'm truly grateful to you."

"Oh? Grateful to me?"

Yano wiped the blood from his forehead and continued, "That's right. It was you who made this body of mine realize its own inadequacy."

"It has mastered every skill and power it could learn, followed every step it believed to be the perfect choice, yet it has no way to reverse the situation before it."

"What do you mean?" Hopkins frowned and waved his staff for the third time.

The tentacle came crashing down like a stone pillar, blasting Yano away. This time, he snapped even more trees before disappearing deep into the forest.

But his voice soon rang out from the forest again, growing increasingly clear.

"My body, it needs to find something. It can only perfectly control what already exists, but it cannot cope with true unexpectedness."

Yano staggered out of the forest once more.

This time, the wounds on his body were healing noticeably faster. The wounds were scabbing over at a visible rate, and his steps were much steadier than before.

"It needs the help of my will. It longs to be tamed by me. And now, I only need one chance to prove myself."

In the shadows, Nilly couldn't help muttering, "When did this guy start speaking in riddles? What's all this 'he' and 'I' business? Who's who exactly?"

Chen Yu lay on her shoulder and spoke slowly, "Remember what Yano said about there being another consciousness inside his body?"

"You mean that thing that takes over his body when he's in his focused state?" Nilly paused. "Your Majesty, are you saying he's contending with that consciousness?"

Chen Yu said, "Exactly. The other him possesses everything he has, able to push his skills and techniques to the absolute limit, and squeeze out every last drop of power hidden in his body."

"But even with the most perfect execution, he's still just an Extraordinary profession holder. He can't possibly defeat a Legendary."

Nilly seemed to half-understand. "So what's his solution?"

Chen Yu gazed at the figure that was drawing his sword once more. "It should be... mastering the changes that 'Perfect Yano' cannot master."

Outside the shadows, Hopkins's brow was furrowing tighter and tighter.

He didn't have enough clues to determine what Yano was doing, but a vague premonition told him that something was slipping beyond his control.

He decided not to give this guy any more chances to struggle.

Hopkins raised his staff, and a deathly gray stream of energy shot from the tip, striking Yano directly between the eyebrows.

[Spell of Terror]

This was a control spell commonly used by enchantment mages. It could strike directly at the depths of a target's soul, amplifying the deepest fears of any living being to an unbearable degree.

And in the hands of a Legendary Mage, that spell was even more terrifying, enough to engulf even the most battle-hardened warrior in boundless terror, leaving them frozen stiff.

Yet in reality, even after these formless terrors enveloped Yano, they couldn't make him stop for even half a step.

"Stop! Slave!" Hopkins barked, his staff glowing once more.

[Spell of Human Immobilization]

Yano's form was indeed frozen in place, as if invisible chains had bound every joint in his body, rendering him unable to move.

Hopkins was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw Yano's figure begin to tremble violently.

It was as if he was summoning every muscle in his body to wrestle against this invisible restraint.

Then, through the arduous struggle, Yano took a second step.

He's resisting my mental control?

Hopkins's heart jolted violently.

The scene felt utterly familiar to him.

Every individual who could break free from his mental enslavement through sheer willpower possessed a soul of unshakeable firmness beyond ordinary comprehension.

This made him see the shadow of Hailam in this knight.

His gaze unconsciously drifted toward the massive figure deep in the forest, and at the same time, Hailam returned his gaze, locking eyes with him.

Before the Stone Descendants even knew what was happening, Hailam slowly spoke.

"It seems... he has found the true Stone-Heart."

Stone-Heart?!

The word exploded in Hopkins's mind.

He knew exactly what that meant.

Stone-Heart meant permanent exemption from mental control. It meant his greatest weapon would become completely useless against this knight.

Once he crossed his trial, he would face two Legendary Stone Descendants.

He didn't dare hesitate. The octopus's tentacles snapped back, and in an instant, he vanished into the darkness.

But Yano was far faster. The next second, he was chasing after him on his sword, blocking his path.

He held his knight's sword horizontally before him, and at this moment, a hazy radiance was flowing across the blade, suggesting that he had somehow broken through a certain boundary.

Yano closed his eyes, calmly facing him.

"I've been pondering a question these past few days."

Hopkins tried to go around him, commanding the octopus to strike at him with its tentacles.

Yano simply sidestepped the attack with a light shift of his body, then, as if he hadn't felt the attack at all, continued speaking on his own.

"If there truly exists a physical Stone-Heart deep within the souls of Stone Descendants, then the other me should have no reason not to find it. After all, he knows this body better than I do."

"Unless the Stone-Heart exists in a place the other me cannot grasp."

"He possesses everything I have, but the one thing he lacks is my free will."

"You're just a slave!" Hopkins roared, waving his staff repeatedly as several magical rays shot through the air.

But these rays, upon making contact with Yano's body, were swallowed up by his stone-like skin, as if they had been absorbed.

Yano tilted his head, easily dodging the other spells, his tone still unhurried.

"And so, I finally understood—"

"The so-called Stone-Heart perhaps never existed in the first place."

The moment these words were spoken, the Stone Descendants erupted in commotion, unable to believe what they had heard.

"Doesn't exist? Then how did the ancestor become a Legendary?"

"If the Stone-Heart doesn't exist, then the trial we've been persisting in all this time..."

Yano stood in midair, facing them, and calmly spoke the cruel truth: "The so-called Stone-Heart actually refers to a kind of will, a tenacious will that only sprouts when facing the brink of death."

"It is not a physical substance."

After hearing this, the Stone Descendants turned in unison toward Hailam, their eyes filled with a desire to uncover the truth.

Hailam slowly closed his eyes, and finally let out a sigh, nodding. "That's right. The true meaning of the Stone-Heart, originating from the soul... is a kind of will."

Then why... The Stone Descendants wanted to speak but stopped themselves.

Yano answered this question on Hailam's behalf.

"This is precisely the paradox of the Stone-Heart Trial."

"When you know that the Stone-Heart is a will, unrelated to the Medusa Queen's gaze, this trial loses its meaning for you."

"Only when Stone Descendants face unknown death, when they are in desperate straits, does the Stone-Heart have the possibility of sprouting."

"But once you know the true nature of the trial, even if you experience true desperation in the future, any shred of doubt will prevent the Stone-Heart from sprouting."

A flash of understanding crossed Hopkins's mind, and he relaxed slightly, staring at Yano as he spoke slowly.

"So that's how it is. Although I don't know why you were foolish enough to reveal this secret to me, now that you know the truth, you've lost the possibility of passing the trial."

Yano suddenly laughed. It was the first time he had laughed out loud during his focused state.

"You're right. If it were just me alone, there would indeed be no way to pass the trial."

"What do you mean!" A sense of foreboding rose in Hopkins's heart.

Yano said slowly, "For me to pass the trial, or rather, for my body to pass the trial, there is only one way."

"And that is to submit to me, to be completely mastered by me."

"Only by fully mastering my own divinity can I command everything about this body, freely alter my own will, and condense the Stone-Heart."

"And this is also the only perfect choice it can make."

In the shadows, Nilly's eyes went wide.

Damn it, how did this guy who only ever thinks about his wife suddenly get so smart!

He actually managed to come up with a solution following His Majesty's line of thinking.

That's right. Since subconscious Yano could only make the optimal choice, why not make "letting oneself tame the subconscious" the optimal choice in this predicament?

She had thought His Majesty was just spouting nonsense, but it actually worked.

She wanted to say something more, but suddenly saw that in the void, Yano's body erupted with dazzling light.