New grief and old grudges, never-ending.
One after another, like flies. Swat one down, and another buzzed up. Absolutely endless, irritating beyond endurance!
He had already yielded time and time again, so why wouldn't they just let a man finish a sweet dream?!
Wen Sheng opened his eyes.
Everything that had turned to ash and dust reconvened once more. The completely annihilated consciousness and soul re-emerged from the void.
Just like time flowing backward.
Everything that had been annihilated, erased, and utterly destroyed converged once again.
No, not merely that...
For a fleeting instant, the world seemed to suddenly collapse into phantoms, revealing its true form. Beyond this endless illusory dream, colossal skeletal remains like mountain ranges coiled around it.
It was a three-headed serpent.
Countless moths fluttered and landed upon the bones, devouring rotting flesh and exposing white skeleton, surging incessantly. As their phosphor-dusted wings opened and closed, human faces were revealed on them...
Every single one bore the likeness of Wen Sheng!
Those self-natures nurtured to maturity within the souls of believers had turned into moth after moth, completely devouring their past self while simultaneously constructing the present ego!
This was a cycle.
A ceaseless cycle of death and resurrection revolving around the Huangliang Relic. Bones and moths constantly transitioned into one another, allowing Wen Sheng to linger on the boundary between life and death, existence and nothingness, bearing endless agony and torment—and through it, ascending, undergoing metamorphosis!
The very foundation of this entire dream was built atop Wen Sheng's bones!
Perhaps this was the complete countenance of the Holy God!
"Now you don't need to have any regrets, Sister Wen,"
Ji Jue sighed softly and said slowly, "Back then, you truly did kill Wen Sheng. You pulverized his bones and scattered his ashes, leaving behind no future trouble."
The Wen Sheng of the past had indeed died.
Yet lingering regrets and unending resentment had gathered once more into a shattered, frantic remnant soul. Driven by this obsession and hatred, it forcibly elevated itself, and after enduring the tempering and nurturing of countless self-natures, it formed its current countenance once again!
Since his soul was shattered, he pieced it back together; since his bones were ground to dust and scattered to the winds, he gathered the ashes once more.
Hatred and obsession had crossed the bounds of death.
Relying on countless souls and self-natures, the 'self' had been reshaped anew!
Thus, regeneration.
Thus, resurrection!
The Ship of Theseus had replaced its very last plank, yet it was still Theseus, still its former self.
And now, even if Ji Jue and Wen Wen ground him to dust and scattered his ashes again, it would be useless. The entire dream was established upon the bones of the Holy God, and the entire dream was under the Holy God's observation.
Countless self-natures of Wen Sheng turned into moths, observing one another, ultimately forming the supreme observer—the Holy God.
Under the observation of the Holy God, even if the constructed soul was destroyed yet again, it could still regenerate in an instant.
To break such a mechanism, one had to first shatter the Holy God's observation. And the prerequisite for doing so was to destroy this dream first. Yet the dream itself was founded upon the Holy God...
A closed-loop cycle had been formed!
Without external intervention, Ji Jue could find virtually no way to break the cycle from within.
Even the trace once left by Chunjun was thoroughly erased the instant it was detected.
"If a man wishes to understand his true face, he must seek inward."
A soft voice sounded, echoing between heaven and earth like a sentimental sigh. "The further inward you go, the more you must discard and abandon. And at the same time, the more you come to understand what constitutes 'I'.
"In the end, the moment you see yourself clearly, you will understand that so-called love, desire, ambition, sorrow, despair, hope... all of it is nothing more than insignificant dust!"
In that instant, Wen Sheng's figure appeared before their eyes once more alongside the shifting of heaven and earth.
"It's really been a long time, Wen Wen. I'm back."
That calm face slowly lifted toward them with a faint smile. "Thanks to you, my Celestial-Human Foundation, 'Myriad Final Aspects,' is complete!"
"Is it really just a Celestial-Human Foundation?"
Ji Jue's brows rose as he examined everything before him closely, pondering and inferring within his mind. "No. Going to such great lengths, beyond a Celestial-Human Foundation, this dream also contains the embryonic form of Eschatology, doesn't it? I see. Such ambition and audacity are truly astonishing!"
Ordinary people already poured everything they had just to become a Celestial-Human, unable to look after anything else.
Yet after enduring so much pain and torment, Wen Sheng actually still had the spare capacity to plan and weigh toward far loftier realms.
He was even looking toward the realms of Sages and Dragons!
Even in terms of Eschatology, this dream was still far too insignificant to even be considered a true prototype, yet it had already laid a crucial foundation for the days to come!
Next would simply be following the steps, adding brick and tile...
"..."
Wen Sheng's smile froze for a moment.
He hadn't expected that merely exposing a slight trace and framework would be enough for Ji Jue to perceive the crux!
His perception clearly wasn't exceptional, yet this vision and instinct of his were downright bizarre.
Even now, with the situation deteriorated to such an extent, he was still instinctively analyzing everything around him, prattling on endlessly.
"Still, the question is, the path of Ascension is supposed to be closest to the Sages, right? Why turn toward the Dragon?"
Puzzled, Ji Jue asked, "Abandoning the orthodox origin of Creationism to adopt the apocalyptic end of God-Abomination Theory instead? Isn't that doing twice the work for half the result—just asking for trouble?"
Among the Twelve Supreme Goodnesses, Huangxu was the closest to the 'Dragon' representing destruction, whereas opposite Huangxu, the essence of Ascension was closest to the Sages representing origin!
Admittedly, between Sages and Dragons, one was origin and the other conclusion, with creation and destruction holding no superiority over each other. But Wen Sheng's choice was almost like Ji Jue giving up Tianmen University right at his doorstep and his strongest mechanical engineering major to run off to Nanlin to study liberal arts... Looking for misery—what was he after?!
"Yeah, why indeed?"
Wen Wen knew full well. Glancing at her brother without hiding her mockery, she knowingly asked, "Probably because a child who grew up lacking love still holds unrealistic delusions in his heart?"
"Oh? How so?"
As if curious, Ji Jue conjured a handful of nuts and began cracking them.
Before Wen Sheng could even speak, he watched the two of them huddle together, whispering into each other's ears and pointing at him, giggling and chatting as melon seed husks and nut shells nearly covered the ground.
During the brief silence, that face remained unchanged from start to finish—only growing colder and colder.
He could no longer stand having those two detestable faces before his eyes!
"Hopeless, after all—"
That scornful face slowly rose as a magnificent portal manifested behind him, countless reliefs shifting and flowing across it, dazzling the senses.
Like the gates of heaven.
Yet that was no gate... but the drooping skeletal jaws of the giant serpent, gaped wide!
The Realm of Ultimate Bliss opened here!
When the first drop of water slowly seeped out from behind the door, it gave off a crisp echo; when the first wisp of phantasmal light flowed like spring water, it reflected dreamlike, kaleidoscopic iridescence.
Yet a boundless, torrential flood erupted like all seven seas bursting their dikes, surging out like a geyser. In the blink of an eye, it shrouded the vault of heaven, covered the earth, and filled all existence!
Countless inverted delusions, unquenchable mad desires, unending twisted phenomena.
That was no dreamlike, beautiful thing. It was the delusional thought and madness extracted from countless souls immersed in bliss from the inception of this Huangliang Dream until now—a soul poison nurtured out of infinite hunger!
There was no room left to dodge, no space to retreat.
Even a single drop was enough to rot any resolve, fester any consciousness, and dissolve any soul...
Yet at this moment, the scale before Ji Jue was virtually infinite!
Over such an expanse of time, just how brutal an extravagance and revelry had unfolded within the Realm of Bliss, and how many souls had been twisted beyond recognition in abandon?
This flood was the answer!
Before the Age of Chaos, ancient records once described that when the mortal world became filthy and sinners ran rampant, the gods would send down a cataclysmic great deluge to cleanse everything; all heretics would drown in the waters, while the righteous, led by the prophet, would cross the disaster and usher in a brand-new era...
Yet now, there were no righteous men, nor any prophet.
There was only the deluge of destruction, blotting out the sky and roaring forward!
The world-destroying deluge descended here.
Swallowing all, regardless of friend or foe.
"Holy shit—"
In a corner of the dream, on the shattered earth, the old Kitan geezer, who had still been stealthily slacking off and watching the show, froze. He looked up, paralyzed on the spot.
Dumbfounded.
No, damn it, I only slacked off for a moment—just one moment!
The white froth on my lips isn't even dry yet, so how did things get this messy?!
His vision went dark in waves.
Panic seized him.
Logically speaking, from an artisan's moral standpoint, he should have made a snap decision right now, slapped his backside, and left. But dammit... he had finally run into a brat who suited his taste, and never mind that he hadn't finished recruiting him as a subordinate yet, but dammit...
Of all things, the bastard had to be a Mohist!
Sure, Ji Jue wouldn't admit it; the damn mongrel never had that awareness and only found it troublesome. But with Non-Offensive in hand, Quicksilver acknowledging him, and Fluid Alchemy taught to him, if you claimed you weren't one, weren't you kind of kidding yourself?
It was just a matter of going through the formalities!
Mohists held affection for each other and universal love for all things.
This mercy made no distinction between self and other. The Mohists of old were forged by it, and this precept of cherishing one's comrades was the truly inviolable and unbreakable bond.
"Dammit, what a bloody loss!"
After an instant of hesitation, the old geezer bared his teeth, stamped his foot, clutched the snake hat in his arms, pried the snake's mouth open, and thrust his hand inside. Ignoring the snake's retching and glaring, he reached all the way to the bottom and gripped the trump card pressed at the very bottom of the chest.
Regrettably, he never managed to pull it out...
His movement stopped.
Trembling.
In that instant, right before him, formless darkness slowly rose, turning into a faint eye.
Looking down upon him.
With just a single glance, Bao Dacai—no, the master expelled by the Association, the Mohist Fan Qian—abandoned all wishful thinking and resistance.
He sighed with a bitter smile.
So that was it.
"...I can barely save my own skin, so how can I speak of anything else?"
Immediately, he was swallowed by the oncoming darkness.
In the end, he only had time to look toward that distant, tiny figure high up in the vault of heaven.
Kid, you're on your own...
Chapter 541