Yunze walked up to Gu Yuena, who looked utterly dejected. With a faint smile, he said:"Losing to me is actually very normal. No need to feel discouraged."
Gu Yuena pouted, her lips pursed in grievance. She gave him a resentful glance."Is that how you comfort people?"
"I'm just stating the truth. Losing to me really is normal," Yunze replied honestly.
"But… my strength is clearly much greater than yours, yet I still lost. This… is just too demoralizing," Gu Yuena muttered weakly."And besides, this time you didn't even use any of your martial techniques. You only relied on the power of this world."
If Yunze had used techniques, she could at least fool herself with excuses. But he hadn't—and still defeated her. That left her no room to console herself.
"I did use my battle armor, didn't I?" Yunze said.
"That gave me a huge boost, narrowing the gap between us. The actual difference between us isn't as wide as you think—at most, it's about ten levels of soul power. Considering that, it's not strange at all that an old monster like me, who's lived for countless eras, could beat you while weaker by ten levels."
Gu Yuena's eyes lit up a little. Hearing it that way, she did feel better.
"Like I told you before: losing is normal. As long as you don't lose the confidence in your heart, as long as your fighting spirit doesn't die, even if you lose a thousand times, a hundred thousand times—it doesn't matter."
"No one in this world can win forever. There will always be defeats. That's why you must have a heart strong enough to bear failure," Yunze lectured gently."If you can't even accept one or two defeats, that's the real loss. Do you understand?"
Gu Yuena showed a look of contemplation, nodding uncertainly. She seemed to understand, and yet not quite.
Seeing her like that, Yunze realized she only half-grasped his meaning. He didn't push further. Some truths had to be realized personally.
"Come on, let's head back for dinner," Yunze said, no longer dwelling on it, and walked toward Ditian and the others.
"Oh…" Gu Yuena snapped out of her thoughts and quickly jogged after him, her mood no longer so low.
"You've lost before too?" she asked curiously.
"I have. When I used to spar with my father at equal strength, I lost all the time. Probably tens of thousands of times," Yunze answered calmly.
Those defeats were real, and nothing to hide. He could accept them with peace of mind long ago.
"Your father must've been really strong then," Gu Yuena said with a laugh. Hearing that Yunze had lost tens of thousands of times, she couldn't help but feel a little schadenfreude.
Yunze nodded. "Yes, he was quite powerful. But later, I surpassed him. After that, whenever we sparred, I was the one who won. He got beaten by me plenty of times."
As he recalled those moments, the corners of Yunze's lips curved into a rare heartfelt smile. Memories surged, but he quickly suppressed them, regaining calm and clarity, not letting the past disturb him.
"Uh…" Gu Yuena gave a strange look. What kind of father-son relationship is that? So harmonious that the son can beat up the father?
Sensing her thoughts, Yunze chuckled and explained:"At that time, both of us had reached peak strength. If we fought with our true bodies, the destruction would've been catastrophic. So we created stone avatars to fight in our stead. What I was beating up was actually my father's stone avatar."
"Oh, I see," Gu Yuena said in sudden realization. Then she continued curiously:"Besides your father, have you ever lost to anyone else?"
The gloom of her earlier defeat had already faded. She was like a curious child now, her mind full of questions.
"I have. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here today," Yunze said frankly.
"I remember you mentioned once that you were almost killed when people ganged up on you, right?"
"That's just too shameless—ganging up on you! If it had been one-on-one, you might not have lost," Gu Yuena said indignantly, speaking up on Yunze's behalf.
She didn't know exactly how strong Yunze had been in the past, but surely he was a peerless figure—an unrivaled existence. Such people didn't lose easily.
Yunze just shook his head with a smile."A loss is still a loss. There's no need to find excuses. I simply wasn't as skilled as them.
"If I had been strong enough, no matter how many there were, I could've crushed them with my palms, making them fall before me. Instead, I was driven to a desperate escape, nearly killed. That was my weakness."
"You're being too harsh on yourself," Gu Yuena said softly after a moment of silence.
"Maybe. But it's also the truth. I wasn't strong enough. Otherwise, what's there to fear from a siege?" Yunze's voice was calm as ever.
There was no hatred in his eyes. All of it was etched deep in his heart. When the time came and his strength was sufficient, he would reclaim it all one by one. For now, hatred was useless.
"…Mm." Gu Yuena didn't speak further. Yunze's words struck her deeply, making her reflect in silence.
Soon, the two approached the others.
"Miss, are you alright?" Ditian asked cautiously.
"I'm fine," Gu Yuena shook her head. She wasn't forcing it—she truly was fine.
"That's good," Ditian and the others said with relief, seeing she really seemed unhurt.
Ditian then opened a spatial passage, bringing everyone back to Dragon Phoenix Hall.
Gu Yuena's injuries weren't serious. With Bi Ji's healing, she quickly recovered. Her mood, too, rebounded swiftly—unlike last time, when she had been depressed for days.
At dinner, not only did her appetite not shrink, she ate even more—enough for seven or eight people.
Seeing her like this, Ditian and Bi Ji both sighed in relief. Good, she's not crushed by the defeat.
After dinner, Yunze went up to the tenth-floor workshop, beginning the manufacture of his self-developed ninth-level soul tool.
This ninth-level device was different from conventional ones. The arrays it required were either simplified by him, or entirely of his own creation.
The soul power requirements were low—well within his capacity. But the difficulty of carving them was vastly higher. Hellishly difficult, even.
There were thousands of details to pay attention to while inscribing the array. A single mistake would render the entire thing useless.
Even an old veteran ninth-level soul engineer like Gu Ming would face an extremely high failure rate. Without decades of research and experimentation, success was nearly impossible.
Of course, that difficulty was relative. For others, it was like climbing to the heavens. For Yunze, it wasn't that big of a challenge.
Meanwhile, Gu Yuena returned to her own room to carefully attune herself to her quasi-Dragon God bloodline, while also reflecting on the earlier battle.
She had lost to Yunze for two main reasons: first, her lack of combat experience and technique; second, her unfamiliarity with her own power.
In the fight, she hadn't even used many of her abilities. If she had, the outcome might not have been the same.
If Yunze had given me the chance to use them, Gu Yuena thought to herself.
It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to. It was just that Yunze's relentless storm-like assault had left her with no opening.
(End of Chapter)