by Feng Yue
After exhausting that which the Yuan family had accumulated, the bridge spanning life and death, the explanation of the truth of destruction and the terrible artifact that simulated the end of the world were formed from Yuan Changqing’s bones.
At the moment that he died, he finally completed the long-held wish of his ancestors to forge his own soul and bones into a container for these four destructions.
Under the reflection from the four blades, the earth was laid to waste and cracks appeared in it. The scorched earth was covered with frost. The sky was ashen and the wind shrieked.
The light of the stars could not be seen through the cracked sky because the stars had already been destroyed by this eternal catastrophe.
Between heaven and earth, a terrible crack leading to the heart of the earth appeared. But there was no geothermal heat in this crack. The core of the planet had cooled.
A broken skeleton sat upright between the shattered heavens and the earth.
There was no life left in the world.
Only the tragic wreckage of the planet indicated that anything had ever existed.
This was the end of the earth, the sky, the stars, the world and everything in it. It was a scene where everything was destroyed, and everything had lost its meaning.
At this moment, under the cover of the Sword of the End, Heaven’s Gate screamed and swayed and was caught in that scene of the end times. It was weathered rapidly, and the soldiers on the walls cried out as they wilted bit by bit.
Even the coalition force had to retreat in the face of this power, leaving the land covered in dead bodies.
At this point, only non-humans could interfere with the battle.
It was a war between monsters and the world, between a hero and death.
Between the shattered heavens and the earth, the heavy weapon collided with the Sword of the End and the horrible battle reached its climax. As the battle changed, the four continued to merge and split, leaving a scar on Mr. Hu’s body.
Even though he had died, Yuan Changqing’s laughter still seemed to reverberate through this eternal destruction. As the battle grew fiercer, the old man’s once insane figure grew clearer and clearer.
Even though he was dead, he could still experience the joy of battle in this way.
He could experience… the thrill of the slaughter!
For the first time, Mr. Hu was forced to retreat under that fierce assault.
It was like a replay of the match between Ye Qingxuan and Yuan Changqing.
He sought victory would attain victory, he who sought death would attain death.
If he didn’t want to get pulled into suffering the same fate as Yuan Changqing, he could only be overwhelmed by him. It was difficult to counterattack.
Outside the battlefield, there were still a few places where heads of families drew near the battle. They continued to provide Yuan Changqing with power through the City in the Sky, allowing him to freely squander and spread destruction.
Faced with these four attacking streams of light, the burning hero once again lifted his heavy might and thrust it forward.
This time he did not retreat.
The fierce sun once again operated in the dead silent world. Terrible heat and eternal cold clashed together.
At the last second, Mr. Hu looked behind him, revealing a smile.
Goodbye.
…
“Mr. Hu…” In the wilderness, Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes and looked no more.
772 The Hero’s End
It was simply impossible for Ye Qingxuan not to feel the violent quake from the Battle of Heaven’s Gate. In fact, the terrifying shock waves from Heaven’s Gate could probably be detected anywhere in the entire Aurora.
From the moment all the enchantments and instruments of the harmonious melody of Heaven’s Gate were activated, he sensed the aether waves coming from over there, the tens of thousands of them, along with the vibe of war.
Bai Heng came too fast.
After mobilizing his elite troops, the army marched hurriedly for two days and one night, and appeared outside Heaven’s Gate, as if they were following Ye Qingxuan’s footsteps closely.
After Ye Qingxuan came to the Aurora, he seemed to have become a crow, a bringer of ominous signs. Wherever he went, he brought disaster. Even though he was unwilling to get involved in the disputes, he still had no way of avoiding them.
From the beginning to the present moment, through the New Testament Sword, Ye Qingxuan saw everything clearly.
For a moment, Ye Qingxuan wanted to take action and prevent all this from happening, but he was rejected by Mr. Hu’s gaze as the latter looked back.
Mr. Hu could have been asked him for help the night they dined together.
As long as Mr. Hu had asked him to, Ye Qingxuan would have stayed in Heaven’s Gate. And as long as Ye Qingxuan was present, with the strengthening effect of the Land of Dreams, 100,000 or 200,000 attacking troops would just be a meaningless number.
Had the two joined forces, no matter how many musicians attacked together, the musicians would have been no match.
Heaven’s gate would be held forever.
But Mr. Hu didn’t say anything, thought Ye Qingxuan.
He doesn’t want me to stay, and he doesn’t want to involve me in it. Even now, at the very end, he has said nothing to seek my help.
His only hope of me is for me to leave Aurora with Bai Xi.
It is not Ye Qingxuan’s homeland, nor his country. All the disputes have nothing to do with him, thought Mr. Hu.
He has no obligation, nor any excuses, to intervene in the war that is not his to fight in.
If someone is destined to sacrifice for the country, then having me as the only hero is already enough.
Along his journey in the past two days, riding his horse, Ye Qingxuan galloped hurriedly all the way. At the moment, the walls of the Imperial City was already in sight, but he found it hard to advance any further.
As if sensing his hesitation, the hero who was at Heaven’s Gate, far away from him, looked back and gave him a carefree smile.
Don’t wait anymore, Ye Qingxuan.
What are you still hesitating for?
Don’t you have something important to do?
The person you want to take away at all costs is in the city in front of you. Isn’t that pretty good?
See you.
It was the final goodbye. Mr. Hu smiled and turned back, rushing to meet the end belonging to heroes.
“Mhmm, see you.” Ye Qingxuan nodded, low-spirited, gazing at his figure, and witnessed a hero’s end.
Outside the Heaven’s Gate, flames rose into the sky.
It was as if the flames intended to ignite the cold and silent world completely.
The hero was burning, roaring at the sky.
Endless light and heat erupted from his body, forming a mighty and brilliant sun above the skies. It spilled down a majestic brilliance, igniting the ground and the sky, awakening the embers buried in the core of the earth.
Where the blade of the Sword of the End pointed, angry lava spewed out from the earth’s crust. Shock waves swept across, and together with by the gravitational pull of heavy mass weapons, they wrapped themselves around the incorporeal field of force, forming brilliant flares like that of the core of a star.
As the inhuman force equivalent to 1,000,000,000 jins in weight slammed down, a strong, horrifying light like that of stars exploding, expanded! It engulfed the sky and covered the earth, dispelling all coldness and silence, throwing everything into a cruel furnace to be re-forged, and ignited the fire of the living.
It was a reversed end!
The shadow of the child shook turbulently. Under the direct bombardment, the element of punishment frantically tremble, cracks emerging on it, and it fell apart.
After abandoning a quarter of itself, the other three swords of the formation joined forces to attack, chopping an arm off from Mr. Hu’s body. Aetherized blood spewed out, burning, and gu
shed into the weapon in his hand. It also sprayed on the fiery lava, increasing the fierceness and might of the flames.
“A world where nothing exists. Such is what you desire?” Mr. Hu laughed and walked towards the phantom of Yuan Changqing. “You don’t know life, yet you seek death! What problem can you solve with pure destruction? It will only bring about an eternal emptiness!”
The scorching sun waved around by his arms. Peals of thunder sounded, and they were the bangs resulting from the world shattering. A terrifying impact burst forth, causing cracks to appear on the domain of deathly silence.
The Swords of Death and End whined forlornly, criss-crossing as they surrounded the phantom image of Mr. Hu and almost frantically attacked him.
Outside the domain, the expressions of the heads of households who enjoyed peace of mind after Yuan Changqing’s death, turned solemn again.
For Yuan House, the power of catastrophes was not particularly worth mentioning, for it wasn’t as if they hadn’t killed one before. Although the inhuman force equivalent to 1000,008,000 jins in weight was terrifying, when had there ever been a shortage of artifacts that were destroyed under the swords of members of Yuan House?
At the moment, the battle was no longer one purely between quantity and quality. In the mad fight between the two, they burned themselves, their powers surging endlessly, increasing by such a horrifying extent every single second.
The decisive factor of the battle at the moment was the obsessions inherited from previous generations, the clash between heroism and death, between the 15-year pain and the 20-year wait, between steely determination and desire, between sacrifice and madness…
Assuming that souls existed, at the moment, the battle was a deathly fight between the souls. The deceased souls that had burned themselves and turned into flames used the mortal realm as the grounds for their duel, forgetting about the matters of life and death, immersed in the alarming fight.
The others could no longer stand aside and watch them. They must completely get rid of the monster here, even if they might be eroded and affected by the elements of the Sword of the End.
As the Torch Dragon roared, the water level in the Lake of Nine Levels of Hell surged again, the liquid boiling. Tsunamis and torrents swept out of it. Together with the 12 spinning wheels, the evil spirits of the official departments of hell appeared.
The mighty and brilliant palace of heaven opened. Countless giant spirits expanded in size. As Zhangsun Jigui’s face turned pale, the bestowing of divinity upon the spirits was completed. The 800 spirits and the 3,000 soldiers of heaven had been transformed completely.
What followed closely was the lock of the Armageddon. Amid the drumbeats, peals of thunder shook the earth. Thousands of peals of lightning turned into chains, shrouding the heavens and the earth, tightly binding the mortal realm. It restrained Mr. Hu’s music theory from the inside out.
In a flash, the burning hero was pierced by the Sword of the End.
In the darkness between the heavens of the earth, only the hoarse laughter sounded. “Lake of Nine Levels of Hell? Ghostly beasts and spirits have been reared for 300 years, withstanding the burning winds, thunder, and lightning. They suffer from it every day, hovering between the states of human and ghost, but can they become immortal? Torch Dragon? It’s merely a corpse-guarding ghost, get lost!”
In the sea abyss of darkness, he lifted his eyes, and the flares of the blazing sun burst forth, like burning pieces of iron falling into a pool of water. The black ghostly beasts whined forlornly and roared, rapidly evaporating. “Immortal-bundling lock? It’s in charge of meting out punishment from the skies, and it overlooked the mortal realm, holding power over life and death. But can it restrain the hearts of the people? Armageddon? It’s nothing more than scrap copper and iron, get lost!!”
Bang, bang, bang! As the hero roared, countless bolts of lightning broke down, wailing forlornly as they were crushed by the horrifying force equivalent to 1000,000,000 jins in weight, and dissipated in the sky. “The palace of the emperor of heaven? You have been eyeing the throne greedily for centuries, and every person on the streets knows your wild ambitions, but have you gotten any close to the crown land? You care not about the people’s livelihood, unaware of their suffering, so what use do you have for the spirit officers and soldiers of heaven?
“You contemptible scoundrel making a fool out of yourself, get lost!!!”
Boom! The palace of heaven shook, and the hero moved forward, flames of fury spilling everywhere, the burning weapon swept across, crushing the doors of heavens, destroying the jade palaces. In comparison, the 800 spirits and the 3,000 soldiers of heaven merely had shape but not soul!
“Is that all from you all?!” From the collapsed palace of heaven, the burning hero slowly walked out, bathed in blood, his body broken. Against the Sword of the End, he slammed down with a force surpassing mortal imagination!
Boom! boom! Boom! Under the terrifying impact, flames shot out, then extinguished. Mass expanded and dissipated.
Under the layers of constraint, in the core of the incorporeal field, a very small and fine speck of darkness emerged. It was the core of the super-mass tidal brake valve, the sign of chaos that would only occur when stars were annihilated.
It was like the soul hidden in the deepest part of matter after an endless mass had evaporated.
The tiniest and smallest “remnants of stars” created by humans in the past was just a tiny speck, yet it was incredibly heavy. Like the soul of the deceased, it greedily swallowing everything in the material world all the time, and even light could not escape its bondage and pull.
As the hero activated it at full force, the extremely small speck rapidly expanded, but due to it being so small, after expanding dozens of times, it was still not much different from how it originally was.
Only its weight changed.
While it was originally of an extent unimaginable by humans, at the moment, it had surged to the limit tolerable by the physical world. Even the sea of aether was distorted under the horrifying gravitational pull, forming a closed ring. Innumerable torrents of aether flowed rapidly in the twisted space, and the burning brilliance was attached to the horrifying force, forming an impact strong enough to tear everything apart.
Then, as the hero roared, the slender speck was lifted. Bound by the field of force, it struck towards the front!
It was…
The fall of a star!
After a moment, loud, sorrowful bangs coming from the heavens and the earth spread in all directions.
A hurricane strong enough to sway the mountains swept forward, making Heaven’s Gate shake like a hut, blowing away the vanguard of the army of the nobles who had joined forces in the blink of an eye. Countless people broke their bones, turning into meat pulp under the high pressure of the wind. Then, the earth rippled like water, and the frenzied shock waves swept in all directions, causing a collapse that was almost like a disaster.
After just a single blow, the ground within a thousand-mile-radius sunk by a few meters.
The three surviving swords, first in the line of impact from the bombardment by the remnants of stars, all whined forlornly, striking forward. Cracks emerged, one after another, and in the end, they completely fell apart.
Only one, covered in cracks, was left.
As three out of four major elements, namely punishment, slaying, and trapping, were completely destroyed, all the power gathered on the last sword, causing the wrecked sword to emit a brilliance that could pierce through stars.
Even the power destroying it had merged into the destruction it represented in itself!
The closer it was to destruction, the stronger the power it represented.
Why would there be a need to have four swords representing the actual Sword of the End?
One was enough!
One sword was enough to annihilate everything!
Such was the final step. In the fierce and tragic battle, the fleeting and incorporeal blad
e inherited all the elements, and the very last bit of its own tangibility was wiped out.
Only a crack-like wound was left, remaining between the heavens and the earth.
It was the wound of the world.
The final battle kicked off.
…
A thousand miles away, on the broken hills, dark beams of steel were stacked high.
Far, far away from the main formation of the army, a secret force stayed where Ye Qingxuan fell from the sky. They did not advance towards Heaven’s Gate along with the coalition army of the nobles, but stayed where they were instead. With the help of musicians, soil was piled up to form buildings and hills. After being processed by movements of the school of modifications, a mountain of iron had been built.
The top of the mountain of iron was carefully cut until it was perfectly horizontal, and after making sure that not even the slightest mistake had been made, screw anchors made of alloy were inserted in the corners.
Then, the heavy and complicated iron frame was constructed.
From the beginning to the end, all the equipment, all the items, and all the assembly were personally handled by the man named Jiu Ying. Even though he had already taken off his shirt, he still felt so warm that he sweated all over. In contrast was his expression of steel-like indifference throughout.
In the end, two huge iron boxes were opened. The heavy steel lying in the black velvet and the chemical fiber which was definitely not the product of this era was lifted up. A heavy mechanical part as thick as the waist of an ordinary person was installed on the frame. As the ground tremored wildly, the hydraulic valves around squeaked.
However, after several layers of shock absorption, the huge creation resembling a siege hammer at the very top remained absolutely horizontal.
As the scale rotated, at the top of the “siege hammer,” the opening that was only as thick as a thumb turned toward the direction of Heaven’s Gate, aiming at the battlefield where the fight was taking place, thousands of miles away.
“It’s ready? Seems like I am late.” Bai Heng, who came fairly late, boarded the high platform, holding an old scroll in his hand, and looked in Jiu Ying’s direction. “We still have some time, do you need to take a break?”