Mortal Griefsmith

Once more, he drew his blade. Once more, he pressed forward. Once more, he began to destroy, eradicate, and slaughter, tearing every mutated thing from the earth by its roots— Ji Jue had made his choice without the slightest hesitation! Kill! And then, kill again! Kill until there was nothing left, and keep on killing. He would keep going until everything unrecognizable before him was burned down to ash. Even if in the end all would return to the beginning, so long as he existed for even a single day, this world would not be allowed to complacently wallow in such hideousness! Flames ignited once more. The visions of doom underwent transformation and rebirth yet again. The old was incinerated to cinders, the newly remade plunged back into the mire, and then the flames arrived anew. Time seemed to be accelerating relentlessly. Tragedy replayed itself again and again; apocalypse arrived one after another. Once! Twice! And once more! An endless cycle began, with no end in sight. After dozens, hundreds of cycles, the flames into which the artisans had transformed seemed to dim faintly, as though they were beginning to waver— Just how long did they have to kill before it would finally end? To what degree did they have to change things for it to be over? How long must they endure before there would be an answer? When the world fell naturally into the mire, all they could do was reach out time and again, vainly delaying the apocalypse. Yet when they looked back on everything before their eyes, they could find no reason for the decline, nor could they reach any final answer. There was only ceaseless overlap and creeping numbness. Until yet another cycle began. Amidst rolling yellow sands, the artisans raised their heads once more to look up at the dim, murky sky. Above the canopy of heaven, at the end of boundless darkness, a pair of eyes seemed to faintly emerge. With each recurring cycle, they grew clearer, looking down with cold contempt upon every reckless rebel. Stirring fate, brewing bitter fruit, casting down ruin. Under the witness of those eyes, every shift was destined to be led toward the worst possible outcome. Countless twisted trivialities piled together, forging an everlasting apocalypse! No matter how the artisans resisted or corrected it, this was a descent decreed by fate. All things bring about their own doom; creation itself is a griefsmith! "At last—" Ji Jue murmured in realization, letting out a soft laugh. The moment they perceived this, what welled up in the hearts of the artisans was an indescribable vigor and resolve, as if they had finally found the path forward. Rally and begin anew! If decline was the destined outcome, then they would make an enemy of that outcome! Even if every scheme was exhausted and a hundred precautions still left a single flaw, one day they would find the ultimate loophole within the endless cycle and utterly overturn this predetermined result! And so, Ji Jue drew his blade once more. Once more, he cast himself into the cycle. Time accelerated again. The cycle restarted yet again, and again, and yet again—seemingly without end. The light of the flames extinguished time and again, only to reignite time and again. Since destruction was endless, recreation would be equally boundless. Only beyond Eschatology, amidst dead silence, did Tianlu's brow furrow deeper and deeper, his expression turning grave. In just a few short minutes, the cycle within the apocalyptic projection had repeated an untold number of times, yet anomalies and deviations grew ever more frequent. Amidst the unending cycles, many unprecedented disruptions and aberrations began to emerge. Even the loops began to warp and fracture, like a sandbox suffering from rendering errors: heaven and earth inverted, flora sprouted from the ocean, and sharks flew across the sky— The world was on the brink of collapse; the apocalypse teetered. Yet even after crumbling to such an extent, the growth of Eschatology continued without the slightest wavering, its speed only mounting. In this natural evolution, after having its power stripped away bit by bit by the artisans, was it actually turning around to empower the artisans instead?! In that instant, Tianlu closed his eyes, as though foreseeing the shifts to come. He could not help but let out a silent sigh. They were wrong. And by the time the artisans sensed the anomaly, it was already too late. Bolstered by the apocalypse, their transmutations and creations had begun to surge forward by leaps and bounds, manifesting countless unexpected variations and power. In fact, it was not merely their creations—even the artisans themselves were growing stronger and stronger with every cycle! By the time they wished to stop, it was already too late. They could not even help themselves! Driven and commanded by the evolution, they were like characters whose control had gradually been seized, sprinting forward in the directions they had chosen! This was not Elder Zhen's interference, but an intrinsic link within Eschatology! Evolution and thesis had never been distinct. If this was a forging, then they were the materials cast into the crucible. Once they had proven their attributes and made all their choices across cycle after cycle, even they themselves became part of the transmutation. There was no way to hide or disguise it, nor was there any room for sophistry or ambiguity. There was only fact. They would inevitably act this way; it would inevitably turn out like this! Now, when the materials in the crucible recklessly sought to overturn the predetermined transmutation, when the program running in the system turned around to challenge the ironclad laws that forged the system itself, the final outcome was already sealed. Again and again, futile struggles that consumed themselves. Until the sound of shattering rang out. *Boom!* Besieged by countless reified corpses, the elderly artisan twitched for a split second, went rigid, and lowered her head to look at the rupture across her chest. Beneath the fissure, emerald flames surged, resembling an eye slowly opening. In her final moments, she only had time to loosen her grip and toss the dachshund in her arms far into the distance. "Go, baby. Find someone else. Don't come back." The dachshund whined, looking back to see the final helpless expression on its master's face. Despina smiled wearily as her youth faded entirely, gray hair cascading outward. Immediately after, the flesh across her body ruptured, and bones surged forth like gigantic trees while rolling crimson gushed like a tidal wave—instantly swallowing the entire city. Innumerable hands of flesh and nerve reached toward the earth and the heavens, turning into a towering pillar of flesh that spanned the sky! Countless eyes opened and closed across the giant pillar, devoid of human light, leaving only hollow damnation. Reification and corruption! Amidst the apocalyptic griefsmithing, the first worn-out artisan met her demise. Immediately following were the second, and the third— The rampant, violent flames gradually dimmed and died out, right before everyone's eyes, stinging Tianlu's gaze. "Mortal strength has its bounds; there is always a limit." Elder Zhen murmured with emotion. Reaching out, he stirred the strands of wailing flame across the distance, sighing with pity. "Do you see, Lord Tianlu? This is the original sin and sorrow of the mediocre like us. "For a powerhouse such as you, it is something you can never empathize with, and an experience you will never have the chance to understand— "The pain unto death! "The so-called Griefsmith!" The proof of the griefsmith never lay in the outcome, but in the yearning! Yearning for peace, one met war; yearning for survival, one met collapse; yearning for success, one met ruin; yearning to possess, one was left empty. The meeting of enemies, the parting from loved ones, the agony of unfulfilled desires— Seeking, yet never attaining! The mortal world's greatest griefsmith was none other than humanity itself! This was a torment and pain that peerless, prodigiously gifted masters could never experience or comprehend. The sorrow of being born doomed to decline, the powerlessness of mediocrity, the helplessness of chasing what was destined to be lost, the exhaustion of wandering in place after a lifetime of seeking, the indignant despair of climbing with all one's might only to never reach the summit, the desolation of pouring everything out and achieving nothing! The griefsmith of the mortal world lived within you and me. It lived within everyone— Right here, right before their eyes! From the very start, Elder Zhen had not cared at all about the artisans' interference and sabotage. In fact, he had cheered and applauded it, eager to welcome them with open arms. The moment they entered Eschatology, everything was already destined to receive the griefsmith, even using themselves as consumables to elevate its completion by another level! How many artisans had immersed themselves in the creation of the Embers, foolishly believing they could recreate all phenomena and take for granted the changing of everything, yet never considering that what was being changed was not just the world, but themselves?! This was the deep-seated original sin of the Embers! Arrogance was inevitable, and damnation was equally inevitable. Presumptuously entangling themselves endlessly with calamity, they failed to realize they had unknowingly become the source of calamity itself. Striving with monsters for too long, they had naturally turned into monsters! The transformation of Stagnant Rot was not manifested in form, but originated from the heart! When this single obsession could no longer move forward, the only thing it led to was a dead end. When the mediocre poured out everything and still could not take flight, sinking and falling were already predetermined. At this moment, amidst the rumbling, the Saintly Fool Instrument violently shook, causing the apocalypse to swell once more, stepping toward its absolute zenith as the final completion began! "—Today, through the transformation of such fine materials as you, we shall attest to the endless griefsmith of the mortal realm!" When the truth of the griefsmith was no longer concealed and truly manifested from the apocalypse, the acceleration of time grew ever faster, and endless cycles and collapses unfolded accordingly. Allowing the artisans their futile resistance, it merely steered everything toward despair with cold, contemptuous indifference. It was like a reckless mortal playing tug-of-war against the entire world; after countless victories, a single slip meant utter defeat. The more one altered, the more was destroyed; the more one sought, the more was lost. The harder one struggled, the deeper one sank into the mire. Until one was thoroughly and completely unrecognizable! There was no longer any need for the apocalypse to validate the thesis of the griefsmith—they themselves were the genuine proof of the end! Yet at this very moment, throughout the entire apocalypse, among all the artisans, who was the one who altered the most, sought the most, and struggled the hardest? When Jiang Tongguang raised his head in bewilderment, he saw a pillar of pitch-black flame rising slowly at the end of the apocalypse, spanning heaven and earth. Swallowing the earth, igniting the sky, recreating all things! High above, the eyes of the griefsmith manifested once more, looking down full of commendation. Boundless corruption and quintessence poured down continuously, spurring aberration and driving reification, injecting power from the apocalypse into that perfect vessel, urging him a step further—toward greater heights, toward more thorough destruction, advancing irrevocably forward! Ji Jue!