The trigger was pulled; the bullet took flight.
Like a thunderclap, a scarlet streak abruptly emerged across the firmament. As the sonic roar ripped outward, countless ribbons of crimson seeped from the straight trail of afterglow, fanning out to both flanks.
It was like a wound carved out of the void by a razor-sharp blade.
Relentless lingering hatred ignited from that moment.
A deluge of blood poured down.
The instant the bullet burst forth, the colossal handgun completed its mission. Accompanied by the fading giant hand, it disintegrated into flying ash. Meanwhile, the scalding red torrent spewing from hell surged forward in a straight line.
In an instant, it tore through the endlessly billowing rainbow light, accompanied by relentless, deafening sounds of shattering.
Spinning through the air like glazed crystal, the bullet moved as if time had slowed ten thousandfold, advancing inch by inch. Wherever it passed, it gouged expanding cracks into the invisible barrier.
The avatar of the worldly abomination holding up the firmament cast an indifferent glance and finally raised a hand.
It interposed the palm in front of the bullet.
Effortlessly, it held that endless lingering hatred at bay.
Yet at that exact second, within Quancheng, the brilliant radiance that had previously grown dim suddenly surged upward—bursting, churning, erupting!
—It was the mortal wedge formed from Lord Tao's broken husk!
It was as if the magnanimous, far-sighted elder of bygone days were making another move.
Compared to the worldly abomination, this lingering sliver of remaining power was undeniably frail. Its shift was slight, effortless, yet it was like slicing through empty space without resistance. Right at the critical crux, it severed a pivotal conduit, causing the abomination's spiritus supply to destabilize for a single heartbeat.
Lu Changsheng's three eyes went round.
Incredulity.
Following the thunderous boom, the containment crumbled to pieces, and fractures spread.
Upon the massive palm blocking the bullet, a penetrating bloody hole appeared. Fractured bone and pulverized flesh were starkly visible as blood rained down.
Behind the wound, a deep bullet gouge had carved into that stunned face. Boundless lingering hatred, venom, and bitter resentment spread from the crevice, billowing and igniting like blazing flames.
It was as if, beyond his three eyes, another eye had been added!
Boom!
Amidst the earthshaking roar, the workshop behind him—once towering into the clouds like a pillar of heaven—violently swayed. Then, accompanied by the nonstop shattering sounds blanketing Quancheng, countless conduits maintained to that moment severed with a deafening crash.
The darkness receded, revealing the horrific ruin atop the highest tier of the workshop.
Countless spiritus circuits manifested from the void and dissolved. Flecks of Sovereign Virtue essence and Profound quintessence rose from the workshop like blood, spewing out and melting away into nothingness.
Kanemoto took a step back.
Before him, Ye Xian remained impassive. Her bloodstained face was covered in fractures, her right hand severed clean at the root. At her feet, broken fragments of blades and swords were piled almost into a mountain.
All of them were Kanemoto's masterpieces.
Finally, Kanemoto lowered his head and looked at his chest.
At the gaping hole bored straight through, and at his overburdened soul pushed to its absolute limit.
He sighed soundlessly.
In the lexicon of Embers, there was no such thing as benevolence, righteousness, or moral scruple.
Quite the contrary—their doctrine was to hit the blind, curse the mute, and kick the cripple's good leg.
A widow's gate was easy to kick down; a dead-end lineage's grave was the easiest to dig.
While Ji Jue had relied on the Celestial Rail to unleash a frenzied Deus Ex Machina across Quancheng, savagely backstabbing the heavy lifter Lu Changsheng, Ye Xian had unhesitatingly seized the opportunity.
Externally, there was the Alchemist Association's infiltration and grappling; up close, there was Ye Xian's sudden breach and assault. On top of that, maintaining Quancheng's stability and the artificial Celestial Rail required a tremendous amount of focus and upkeep...
Assailed from within and without, Kanemoto had fallen into unprecedented weakness.
Finally, a single slip in vigilance...
The moment the gunshot sounded, without the slightest warning, the Sword of Moxie held tightly in Ye Xian's right hand abruptly shattered and exploded.
Mutual destruction!
Even Kanemoto had never imagined that, holding a matrix relic that had stepped into the realm of the Celestial-Human, Ye Xian would shatter and detonate it on a whim.
Treating a Celestial Craft fit to be passed down through generations as a disposable consumable, she had turned it straight against Kanemoto's workshop.
Having ruined who knew how many works by others with her Dissociation Art, Ye Xian naturally possessed abundant expertise, even treating the dissociation of her own work as another method of destruction.
Not even Kanemoto had foreseen it...
In the dead silence, the Profound grandmaster let out a sigh of regret and shook his head.
"What a pity."
"It's nothing more than a tool. If it's ruined, I'll just make another," Ye Xian said indifferently, tossing aside the broken hilt with an expressionless face. "Cut what must be cut, discard what must be discarded—that was the lesson I learned when I broke away from the school.
"Grandmaster, you've fought with that man for so long. Why are you still so indecisive?"
Kanemoto said nothing.
After a long while, he waved his hand, and a heap of sundries flew out from the shattered walls of the workshop, landing on the ground. Among them, two lumps of quicksilver were particularly conspicuous—one hard as iron, the other supple as silk.
"Give them back to him," he said. "Nuisances. Keeping them is an eyesore."
Ye Xian frowned in confusion. "Grandmaster, you're leaving?"
"What else? A mountain of nine fathoms fell short by a single basket of earth. Lu Changsheng can't hold out any longer; am I supposed to stay here and be his sacrificial cushion?"
Kanemoto said coldly, "I lost a round to a kid. And then to his teacher, I lost yet another. In a single day, I have lost more than enough face."
Ye Xian shook her head coolly. "If Grandmaster hadn't been obsessed with total perfection and had let go of one or two things, you wouldn't be in such a wretched state today, would you?"
Just as she had said from the beginning...
One always had to make compromises.
Sometimes, wanting to have it both ways would only end in having neither after all the wasted effort.
Possessing all, being omniscient and omnipotent—it was nothing more than a dream.
In the past, it was precisely because Kanemoto had been obsessed with 'completeness' that he had succumbed to fanaticism and demonization, willing to cast himself into Stagnant Rot. Now, again because he obsessed over 'completeness' and refused to let go, he had lost this hand to Ye Xian.
In a sense, even without being tainted by abomination, that arrogant heart of his was already destined to belong to Stagnant Rot!
Simultaneously maintaining the artificial Celestial Rail and Quancheng's Profound conduits, repelling the Association's counterattacks and erosion, and still sparing the mental focus to combat Ye Xian's infiltration and assault...
Every single one of those tasks was enough to exhaust an ordinary artisan's vitality. Yet before the total collapse, he had not fallen behind in any of the three, even effortlessly suppressing the fierce assault of the younger generation.
Until Lu Changsheng was trapped by the weight of the mortal realm, the Security Bureau mounted a full-scale counteroffensive, and some unlucky wretch named Ji Jue dumped a hundred thousand more straws onto the camel's back...
Relying on the Celestial Rail, he had launched a Deus Ex Machina DDoS assault, ratcheting up immense pressure through every conceivable opening.
Thus, one failure led to the collapse of all; one loss ruined the whole game.
Why did it have to come to this?
Hearing her words now, Kanemoto could not help but let out a contemptuous sneer. "As expected of that man's student. You speak in the exact same tone as your haughty teacher.
"I have sought perfection all my life, through all my rises and falls. How could you know I cannot attain it?
"If I were to retreat in the face of difficulty, how would I be any different from that man?!"
"Who knows?" Ye Xian shook her head, thoroughly indifferent. "If Grandmaster is obsessed with the name of orthodoxy, please go take it up with him.
"I'm just a renegade who broke out and set up her own door, my name long struck from the registry. Would you mind not dragging me into those matters anymore?"
"Only at times like this do you resemble him the most."
Kanemoto shook his head and let out a mocking sigh, though whether he was mocking Ye Xian, her teacher, or himself was impossible to tell.
Only, when he raised his head, his gaze involuntarily drifted toward that high-suspended speck of phantom light. He suddenly asked, "What is his name?"
"Ji Jue," Ye Xian replied. "My student, Ji Jue."
Kanemoto nodded in understanding. He turned his head for a final glance at the opponent before him, unable to suppress a wry chuckle.
For the sake of orthodoxy, he had fought that man his whole life, yet that man's most favored student had broken out of the sect and cast it away like an old shoe.
A teacher who looked down on the Profound path of Stagnant Rot had taught a bizarre student who hovered between Sovereign Virtue and worldly abomination.
And then there were those who chased death and destruction, yet immersed themselves in a radiant dream of Sovereign Virtue... And absurdly, he, a Profound grandmaster, actually felt a pang of pity for it.
So-called destiny was ever so bizarre.
No, perhaps this was simply how artisans were.
Even after abandoning morality and conscience, they could never let go of the single obsession in their hearts—clinging to it until death.
"Artisans..."
With a soft sigh, he waved his hand.
A tide of shadow rose, swallowing him and his workshop, dissolving silently until nothing remained.
In the thinning rain of corruption, Ye Xian lifted her head, looking at the fractured, churning city of Quancheng—at everything seemingly sinking toward hell. Finally, her gaze settled on that speck of light shining like a star in the firmament.
She felt no joy or triumph from snatching a victory from a Profound grandmaster. Instead, she could not resist shaking her head with a soundless sigh.
To be saddled with a student like this... it truly took eight lifetimes of bad luck.
Maybe she should find an opportunity to expel him?
At least that would spare her from being dragged down by whatever cataclysmic disaster he managed to provoke in the future...
In the heavens above, the colossal wound silently closed.
Radiance illuminated all, billowing and spreading. Without the projection of the Vortex, the weight of the mortal realm surged again. Sounds of splintering erupted from the worldly abomination's body as fractures spiderwebbed across it.
"Things have come to this; little can be done now."
The phantom of the old monk manifested before Lu Changsheng, holding up the fishbowl in his hands. The fish within lazily flicked its tail, and the old monk spoke:
"It asks you: why cling to this obsession any longer?"
"This was a war and a challenge I initiated. How could I let it end with a whimper?"
The worldly abomination avatar smiled faintly. Glancing at the collapse of decades of painstaking effort, he suddenly grew calm. "If I were to discard my armor, tuck my tail, and scurry off now, wouldn't Tianyuan laugh at me?
"When I descend to the netherworld one day, how could I have the face to see Lord Tao?"
"Incorrigible to the bitter end, Lu Changsheng," the old monk sighed softly.
"Isn't that just who I am?"
Lu Changsheng did not care in the slightest. Raising his head, he gazed past the veil of night into the vault of heaven, watching the surges of fiery radiance, and grinned. "Kanemoto has left. All of you may go as well; do not trouble yourselves on my account.
"I still have the next round to fight!" he said.
At that moment, within every surviving sanctuary throughout Quancheng, high, resounding chimes pealed in unison.
The boons and quintessences of numerous high-tier abominations circulated, pouring into Lu Changsheng's body. He casually waved his hand, completely indifferent as he let his subordinates scatter and flee in all directions.
He simply raised his hand, peering through the gap between his palm and fingers toward the speck of light suspended high in the heavens.
Ji Jue.
What a pity that, across such a distance, nothing could be seen clearly except for a face.
And yet, that look in his eyes...
It was unmistakable!
Even if they were fortunate enough to cross paths amidst a vast sea of people in the future, he would never confuse him for anyone else, would he?
"Venomous hatred, blood-feud vengeance, pure to such an extent—truly rare and precious."
He could sense within the wound that still throbbed with faint pain the circulating, shifting auras and natures of various worldly abominations: Stagnant Rot, Frenzied Slaughter, Abyssal Void, the Tower, and the Wolf...
When had another such seed emerged along the Profound path?
In the days to come, the mortal realm and the Profound domain would likely know no peace because of him.
Who would have thought that today, beyond Tianyuan, another great scourge would be born?
Truly delightful!
Truly a pity...
"I have no more chances," he said, retracting his gaze with a regretful sigh. "And neither do you."
At that instant, Lu Changsheng finally let go.
He let that weight of the mortal realm bestowed by Lord Tao slip from his grasp.
Vast celestial light poured down like a deluge. In the deepest depths of Quancheng, the Decree of Tianyuan gifted by Lord Tao surged outward like a tidal wave. Crisscrossing brilliance instantly stripped away every lingering remnant of the Evil Transmutation Cult, severing all traces of the worldly abomination.
With this, victory and defeat were irrevocably decided!
Yet with the release of that crushing shackle, the aura of the worldly abomination surged and transformed, expanding magnificently. As he slowly rose to his feet, boundless rainbow light converged once more, enveloping everything.
Even grievously wounded, his ruthless, savage aura seemed even fiercer than before!
"The vastness of Tianyuan, the weight of the mortal realm... I have duly learned Lord Tao's lesson!"
He reached out and stroked the fracture across his chest—the Tianyuan wound driven straight into his abomination body. Unwilling to erase it, he looked back toward the heavens. "Forgive me for keeping you all waiting. I wonder, which of you will let me experience your might?"
The newcomers were silent.
Frigid, piercing gazes cast down from the vault of heaven, looking down in cold detachment.
The Lou clan, the Tong clan, the Jiang clan, the Yu clan, even the Ji clan of Midtown and the Li clan of Huangzhou... More than a dozen Celestial-Humans had manifested here, their murderous intent gruesome and raw!
With the failure of Quancheng's corruption, the wager had settled: Tianyuan swept the board. The abominations throughout the Federation suffered a crushing defeat, scattering once more into a heap of loose sand. The various factions that had placed heavy bets or watched anxiously came away with nothing, forced to slink away in resentment.
Such was the turn of Heaven's Mandate. Lu Changsheng had bided his time and concealed his claws for decades to prepare for this day, leaping to become a pivotal piece capable of deciding the future course of the mortal realm.
Had he succeeded in one fell swoop, ten thousand abominations would have flocked to his banner, and becoming the worldly spokesperson for the Vortex would have been well within reach. Yet now, within a single day, he had lost the entire game. Naturally, no aid or stroke of luck remained.
Yet one truth remained unchanged: so long as he still lived, so long as he drew breath, he was a scourge upon the mortal world!
The hour of reckoning had arrived.
At that moment, thunder erupted and rainbow light surged.
Amidst maniacal laughter, the earthly scourge transformed once more, soaring boldly into the sky and crashing unhesitatingly headfirst into the inescapable snare that had long been prepared for him!
Courting death!
In an instant, within the chaotic night sky after the dark clouds dispersed, a multitude of colors shifted. Tempestuous gales howled, fierce radiance clashed, and a thrilling surge of spiritus tides rippled in every direction.
Amidst hysterical laughter, that bizarre rainbow light blazed as if on fire, charging left and right, colliding head-on in fierce opposition. Blood poured down like a downpour, yet before it could reach the ground, it was completely vaporized.
In an eye blink, countless Domains and chronowedges enveloped the area in lockdown. The billowing rainbow light was ground down inch by inch, strangled and crushed.
At last, amidst the burning stars, a pair of vast, magnificent eyes slowly opened.
Looking down.
With just a gaze, it seemed to freeze the stars and solidify all phenomena. Everything was reduced to dust and ants, utterly unable to show insolence before that supreme might.
That was the apex of the Tianyuan path, the worldly incarnation of the Sovereign Virtue's power.
—The so-called Heavenly Overseer!
Then, the Absolute Sentence descended.
The rainbow light across the sky froze, halting in its tracks.
Then, the rasping laughter came to an abrupt halt. In the dead silence, the body of the worldly abomination crumbled and dissolved, its divine soul annihilated, erased completely and utterly from the entire world...
Gone without a trace.
In the dead silence, the eye of the Heavenly Overseer swept across the dust of the world, lingered for a heartbeat upon the Celestial Rail, and then indifferently moved away. Finally, it closed without emotion and vanished.
The many Celestial-Humans dispersed in all directions.
Every anomalous phenomenon was gone, as if nothing had ever happened.
It was almost unimaginable that just moments ago, an arrogant, vile folly of an abomination had sought to churn the mortal realm here—an ambitious schemer who had wanted to leap beyond the chessboard and seize Heaven's Mandate...
"With such immense power, why wait until now?"
Standing before the ruined window, Ji Jue gazed at the empty night sky, raising his head to ask, "Is playing the mortal world like a game of chess truly so thrilling?!"
No one answered.
It was as if the dust's bewildered words were too insignificant to be heard.
Or perhaps Heaven's Mandate was too lofty to bother replying.
Ji Jue closed his eyes.
When everything reached its end, the life-and-death struggle came to a close.
Quancheng sank once more into silence. Salvation or corruption had come and gone, yet the ruins remained ruins.
Only the final weeping faded into the distant wind.
Amidst broken streets and collapsed masonry, the monsters wandered within their old homeland, with nowhere left to go. Yet at this moment, none of it seemed to matter anymore.
Amidst harsh, grating scraping sounds, they dragged their bodies, step by step, out of the shadows.
Blood still clung to their hideous faces; corpses were tangled in their claws and fangs.
Yet now, they looked up blankly toward the vault of heaven, gazing at that dreamlike, flickering radiance.
Beneath the reassuring, lofty night sky, specks of starlight flickered and converged, turning into a vast river rushing toward the unknown distance.
Looking toward the mortal dust, it cast down a gentle, crystalline glow.
Thread by thread, strand by strand, they wove together.
Like a tender caress.
Illuminating those faces brimming with madness and anguish.
Those scarlet eyes seemed stung by the gentle light, shrinking and retreating in terror, yet reluctant to pull away.
Only black tears trickled slowly down, falling into the dust.
There was light.
Relentless lingering hatred had burned away completely in the long darkness. When the excessively long nightmare finally reached its end, the departed souls gazed blankly at the likeness of the stars, filled with terror, yet utterly enchanted.
Even if they could not see the sun.
In the silence, the sound of fracturing rang out once more.
When the gift of miracles reached its close, winding cracks surfaced from rusted steel. Mutilated bodies gradually broke down, tumbling to the earth. In their final moments, the monsters raised their heads, shrieking at the top of their lungs toward that lonely figure high in the heavens.
The tears had run dry; the weeping had ceased.
When the end arrived, why did the sound seem almost like laughter?
Ji Jue fell silent.
As the countdown on the screen neared its finish, he reached out his hand once more toward the quiet world.
One last time, he mobilized the power of the Celestial Rail.
A gentle ripple spread outward.
One by one, the streetlamps struggled to ignite anew, illuminating spiderwebs, dust, and all that was broken.
Gentle light stretched along the ruined streets, wandering through empty alleys, lighting up dormant shopping malls and shattered buildings. Dust-covered mannequins stood in display windows, proudly flaunting their grime-laden skirts. Inside office cubicles, dull, faded documents rustled softly in the breeze.
Beneath the night sky, neon lights and lamplight flooded like a tide.
Within the light, everything seemed to return to its original form—towering edifices lined the avenues, verdant greenery flourished, and a cool, moist breeze blew in from afar. The clamor of human voices seemed to rise once more from the streets; an invisible flow of pedestrians bustled along the sidewalks; car horns echoed; and vehicles sped down wide boulevards.
The rain of suffering and despair had completely fallen.
At the end of a phantom dream, brilliance remained as of old.
Ji Jue raised a hand, wiped away the moist trace at the corner of his eye, and looked upon everything he had forged.
And so, just like them, he chuckled softly.
"How truly beautiful this world is."
Chapter 243