Not Bad

Dead silence reigned. Jiang Tongguang staggered forward, panting heavily as his gaze locked onto the enemy before him. The remains offered no words, wrapped in unchanging silence. Only Jiang Tongguang's expression shifted—from shock to confusion, then to madness and fury. He had staked his very life and exhausted every resource he had. To launch this fourth thrust into the Profound, he had compromised again and again with the other directors, altering himself until he was barely recognizable, degraded into someone he himself despised. Driven solely by vengeance, he had not hesitated to send the Association's finest talents to their doom, exerting every ounce of strength just to reach this place. He had come to fulfill his mission, and even dying in the attempt would have brought no regret. Yet now, when he pushed open the final door, he found no enemy awaiting him. His foe was already dead. Dead? *How the fuck could you be dead?!* *Get up! Right now, immediately! This instant!* He clutched his face, letting out a soundless roar. For a fleeting moment, he teetered on the brink of madness, nearly losing control altogether. Yet at the final precipice, what pulled him back was the hypocrisy he had sickened over for all these years—and Gustav's parting request before their departure. "Even if only one remains." At the very last moment before parting, the solitary director-general had softly pleaded: "Please, bring back as many of them as you can." And so, Jiang Tongguang lowered his head and looked at the remains once more. With absolute concentration. Without a doubt, this was Beigong's corpse. The aura and physical traces were indistinguishable from Beigong himself, and even the wound of Consonance left upon the chest by the Molder matched the Association's records precisely. He was dead? No, that was wrong! Once his composure returned, Jiang Tongguang shook his head resolutely. "Something isn't right." When a commoner died, fury flared and blood merely splattered five paces; when an emperor died, the realm shook and rivers of blood floated shields. The weight of one life was never equal to another. Unlike Kanemoto, who had drifted along the periphery, Beigong was a Tormented Demon deeply bound to Stagnant Rot—virtually an extension of Stagnant Rot itself. If Beigong had died, Stagnant Rot would have suffered an irreversible, catastrophic blow. Beneath the Vortex, a violent turbulence would have erupted. Forget whether Embers would have sensed it; every observation organ in the mortal realm would have detected the ripples stirred by that death. Regardless of whether a multitude of things flourished in its wake, the fall of such a leviathan could never have unfolded so quietly. Yet before him now, Beigong was nothing more than a desiccated corpse. An empty shell?! When he walked behind the corpse, he caught sight of that tiny slit—as if a butterfly had broken from its cocoon, something had torn its way out of the body— In that instant, the truth laid itself bare. "Reification?!" The moment the door was opened, the long-delayed upheaval finally surged from beneath the Vortex, rippling outward in every direction. Amid the violent collision and resonance between Supreme Virtue and Great Sin, the grim tidings echoed in everyone's ears. The dice cup had finally been lifted. Yet there were no dice inside. Only a corpse! "—You killed him?" High above, Tianlu looked at Elder Zhen close at hand. Staring at the frail old man who seemed to have one foot in the grave, he could hardly resist clapping in admiration, let alone holding back his laughter. *You pulled even this off?* *Truly, nothing less expected of you!* "Isn't this all thanks to what you gentlemen bestowed?" Elder Zhen replied nonchalantly. "As fellow artisans bound to Stagnant Rot, I could hardly sit by and watch him endure endless torment without any achievement to show for it." In a sense, Beigong should have died long ago under the encirclement of the three grandmasters. Yet the final straw that truly broke the camel's back was not incurable injuries, but Elder Zhen lurking behind the scenes. It had not even required much effort. A gentle nudge was all it took to send the Grandmaster Beigong—long mired in reification and unable to sustain himself—tumbling off the cliff, thoroughly assimilated by Stagnant Rot. To conceal Beigong's death, Elder Zhen had spared no expense in forging that sealed door to the black box, locking everything behind it into eternal darkness. As long as the door remained shut, no one would ever know. For all these years, Beigong had supposedly lived in seclusion plagued by grievous wounds, never once appearing in public. Yet his steady aura and the shifts in the Profound convinced everyone of his continued existence. Meanwhile, his faction was steadily swallowed by Elder Zhen, and everything that was once his fell into Elder Zhen's hands until, at last— "Truly worthy of you, old turtle." The moment the realization struck, Tianlu could no longer contain his laughter, clapping and rocking back and forth. Putting aside enmity, he was nearly moved to applaud this meticulous scheme nurtured through decades of patient concealment! It was not merely the sinking of the four seas among the Thousand Islands or the insidious, gradual corruption of the Association. For this single day, Elder Zhen had prepared for who knew how many years! Without absolute certainty, he would never strike. Lacking absolute confidence in victory, he would bide his time in patience. Waiting for the opportune hour, waiting until heaven and earth aligned, waiting until All Things Self-Transform, until all things achieved completion on their own! By the time he finally stepped into the open, victory was already firmly in his grasp. Even now, he displayed not the slightest hint of pride or smugness. No matter how Tianlu provoked him, he refused to give this junior any opening that could threaten him, enduring every insult with stoic composure. That left only one final question: Beigong's corpse had been abandoned in the workshop, tucked away inside the black box behind that door. Where, then, had Beigong's lifelong creations and the quintessence of Stagnant Rot gone? Where were his soul and the abomination born of his reification? Where could they be? No answer was needed. Tianlu lowered his gaze, looking down. Here was the answer. Right under everyone's noses, right within that Pillar of Perdition! *Boom!* Sea and sky shuddered violently. Amid unending laments, deafening roars rang out without pause. The Pillar of Perdition—which had served as a disguise and a cover—collapsed in a thunderous roar. From within the crumbling stone pillar, what had lain buried deep inside had already sprouted in silence— Countless fragments and corrupted creations unfurled in every direction like a colossal tree. Once the layers of disguise were stripped away, a magnificent, surging tide of emerald flames erupted toward the heavens! From the very beginning, the Pillar of Perdition had never required a second Grandmaster to maintain it. Beigong's creations buried within served as the finest seed; it needed only a splash of water to take root, sprout, and flourish. This was a sacrifice, a transmutation. Through the sinking of the four seas, it embraced the creations of Beigong rising from beneath the Vortex. Through the Duel of Embers and the Profound, the Mutual Transmutation of Virtue and Vice took place, gradually shifting the concealed Beigong from a creation of Stagnant Rot toward Embers, step by step. Using the artisans of the Profound as the price and raw materials, the Association's counteroffensive as the fire, and his own intellect as the anvil, he remade Beigong! To this, Elder Zhen bowed his head, clasping his hands in a respectful gesture of gratitude toward Tianlu: "I must express my thanks to the gentlemen of the Association. This turning of vice into virtue has washed away the final layer of rust and dust from my creation." "Is that so?" Tianlu nodded. "Then kowtow to me." "If necessary, I will." Elder Zhen did not hesitate, his expression showing neither joy nor anger. "Rather, I am curious: in the eyes of the contemporary Tianlu, how does my attainment measure up?" "The concept is solid, the craftsmanship fine, and the preparation complete. It's just that the premise is far too ghoulish." Tianlu glanced at it, seeing through it as clearly as a burning flame. "An instrument of a Saintly Fool? If you can come up with something like this, bringing any grand master to your household wouldn't save you." Beigong, buried deep within the ruin, was undeniably dead. Thoroughly reified, his sense of self had long since vanished without a trace, devoid of even the slightest intellect or instinct. Yet to Supreme Virtue and Great Sin, he was unquestionably still alive. Under Elder Zhen's wondrous touch, his chronowedge and obsession, the creations and philosophies he had pursued his entire life, remained intact. Indeed, they were grander than ever before! The mortal world served as the furnace, creation as the craft. Through his own death, Beigong had attained his ultimate form—the final Beigong! Amid the violent collapse and tremors, the Pillar of Perdition peeled away layer by layer like a worthless eggshell, finally revealing the corrupted masterwork nurtured within. It resembled countless twisted, entangled fingers kneading together, shifting unpredictably. The clustered arms retracted inward into a vortex, suspended high between sea and sky. Tears poured like a tempest from the firmament. The vast ocean was dyed a deep crimson under its reflection, resembling a sea of blood, with countless deformed limbs rising and falling within. An illusory glow surged outward, projecting a vision of the end of days across the earth! That was— —Eschatology! Taking advantage of the breach opened by this Mutual Transmutation of Virtue and Vice, Elder Zhen had woven the essence of Great Sin into Supreme Virtue. Nor did it end there. He intended to elevate the reified Beigong to the rank of Sage and Dragon, completely shattering the barrier separating the Vortex from the mortal realm to forge a new Saintly Fool! Offering the sinking of the four seas as a sacrifice to bear Beigong aloft, he channeled the Mutual Transmutation of Virtue and Vice from the Duel of Embers and Stagnant Rot to integrate it into the mortal realm! He even used this as leverage and deterrence. Through the equilibrium established by the Mutual Transmutation of Virtue and Vice, he threatened everyone, leaving them afraid to act lest they break the vase to catch the mouse. Otherwise, once external forces broke the balance between virtue and vice, no one knew if the resulting chain reaction might blast a colossal breach between the mortal realm and the Vortex! Once Beigong's creation became a Dragon of the mortal realm, it would be omnipresent from that moment on! Elder Zhen, pulling Beigong's strings from behind, would consequently leap to the very pinnacle. Under the influence of Beigong's doctrine, every artisan's destiny would be steered toward Stagnant Rot! Through negligible variations, every shift would be driven toward ruin. Like a sword hanging overhead, held at the ready without falling, it generated an overwhelming terror. Perhaps he could not grant an artisan success, but with Beigong in his grasp, he could dictate who would never succeed! Now, before everyone's eyes, only one final step remained— To thoroughly engrave all of this—this fully gestated doom—into Supreme Virtue and Great Sin, writing it into Heaven's Mandate! The water receded, exposing the rocks; the dagger showed as the map unrolled to its end. Elder Zhen stood silent, watching it all unfold. The most perilous moment had arrived. Facing the strongest artisan of the contemporary age—perhaps the strongest Tianlu across all generations—he knew full well the staggering pressure and threat he was up against. Thus, he was entirely focused, as if confronting a mortal enemy. Yet Tianlu did not move. As if finally understanding, he let out a faint sigh. "Not bad." He exhaled a breath of relief, speaking from the bottom of his heart. "Could be worse."