The Spaceti Dolphin Bridge.
The weaving figures of the Void-Whiskered Swallowing Dolphins grew distant and faint. Pure white streams of light had almost driven away the darkness before them. The bridge was about to disappear.
In the last monts before it did, three silhouettes reappeared on its surface.
Zhang Jizu watched with sharp, guarded eyes. Cheng Shi's expression was grave. Hong Lin still stood far away from Cheng Shi at the other end — gripping her spear tightly in both hands, her gaze fixed on sothing beyond the horizon. Her will was certain. Her resolve was absolute.
"Don't say anything. Don't ask anything. This is my own choice. When you get back... don't ntion
to anyone."
She pointed at the divine aura surrounding her and glanced at Cheng Shi. "You should understand what I an. A contaminated will cannot be allowed to affect your world. You might not fully understand now — but based on the rate you're going, it won't be long. I don't know whether the answer we found is the final answer. But I believe in him."
With that, Hong Lin smiled — and that smile was blazing and sincere. Her hair stread behind her like a flag in the wind. She turned partway, glanced back at Cheng Shi, and broke into the most open, wholehearted smile imaginable:
"I know you won't leave easily. So watch closely before the bridge disappears. Fate Weaver — don't let my blood go to waste."
And with that, Hong Lin leaped forward without hesitation, ignoring the hands that reached toward her, and vanished directly beneath the bridge.
The next instant — the Real Universe lit up.
A single stream of seven-colored light rocketed upward against all expectation, shooting into the depths of the endless starry sky. That brilliant radiance trailed like a rainbow's wake, bathing the sky ahead in dazzling brilliance. But that single stream was only the beginning. One. Ten. A hundred. A thousand. Ten thousand — from every direction, countless streams of light erupted skyward in unison, their wills resonating, entwining and rising, mirroring one another in splendor.
The seven-colored streams of light wove together — like new shoots pressing against each other, or like ancient vines entangling into one — twisting and binding, spreading to their farthest edges. For a mont they looked like an enormous, boundless canopy drawn in light across the starry sky.
The prosperity of the universe that [Prosperity] held in its heart had finally, in this instant, blazed into full bloom in the Real Universe itself.
Yet the seven-colored streams crisscrossing the sky, like [Prosperity]'s very will, were brief and brilliant. Quickly, in the midst of their endless convergence, the light began to dim — no longer so vivid. But they kept flowing forward, refusing to stop, as though each stream understood the will of every other, affirming one another, affirming themselves — and in their ever-accelerating fusion, they slowly took shape.
Countless streams poured inward without returning. Almost indistinguishable now from a white hole too bright to look at directly — and in only a few breaths, it cradled into being, with its own hands, a blazing white sun of such intensity that all voices fell silent throughout the Real Universe, and all colors in the cosmos faded before it.
"!!!!"
Ten thousand rays of light utterly failed to capture the spectacle before them. That blinding white radiance seed to strip the sight from every living being that dared to look at it.
In that mont, the faces of both n on the bridge changed dramatically. Their bodies went rigid. Cheng Shi felt his scalp go numb — he felt as though the scene of [War] surging upward for its charge was being replayed before his eyes. But this ti, the scale was unmistakably greater than anything that had co before.
[War]'s fire and blood perhaps couldn't burn through the Creator's experint. But the Creator's own power — what of that? The aggregate of countless [Origin]-powers — could it blast open the experint ground that had held countless billions of sliced universes in its grip?
The answer was... no.
Because the great sun had barely risen when it fell.
"Crack."
A crisp sound — of uncertain direction. You couldn't even be sure it had been a sound at all. Just sothing that suddenly rang out — formless, traceless, elusive, as though so concept of sound had exploded simultaneously in the consciousness of every living being present. Yet searching for it closely, one could find no evidence it had ever existed.
And after that impossibly strange crack — that blazing great sun shattered midway through its ascent. It never even reached the height where [War] had once bled itself dry. Far short of that Creator's divine throne high above, it exploded with a thunderous boom — and instantly beca countless scattered threads of white light, tearing through the sky, spreading like a spider's web, like a great canopy's leaves bursting into sudden growth — and vanishing in a flash.
Gone.
Everything returned to stillness. Everything sank beneath the darkness.
No hum. No tremor. No shockwave.
As brilliant as its rise had been — that was how quiet its fall was.
The scene was so overwhelming that Cheng Shi nearly lost the ability to think. He instinctively grabbed the equally stunned and motionless Zhang Jizu beside him — tried to call out "let's go" — and found he couldn't make a sound.
Fortunately, the silent detonation had only been a massive impact on the soul. Not a hair on either of them had been hard. Zhang Jizu ca back to himself from the shock of the sun's fall sooner, gave a sharp start, seized Cheng Shi, and pulled them both off the bridge below.
In that last instant before consciousness fell into darkness, both n's minds flashed with the sa single thought:
[Origin]... can never be defeated.
...
anwhile. Elsewhere.
In the void, before a world about to be annihilated.
The brilliant firework display of the Real Universe was not sothing every living being in every world could witness — but even without experiencing that shock firsthand, certain beings had shocks of their own.
Herobos looked at the "visitor" before him, his expression complicated.
Before the [Void] epoch, this visitor and he could never have t in circumstances such as these. And yet here they were now — two beings who had once clashed at full force, looking at each other at close range.
Everyone knew [Oblivion] had declined. But out of respect for [Void]'s situation, no divine being had co to make trouble for Herobos.
Was today the day that trouble arrived?
No, Herobos didn't think so. In the current state of the universe, anyone might co to make trouble for him — except for the one standing here. This rat in the gutter would never take a single unnecessary risk. As long as this one couldn't inherit its patron's divine throne, couldn't beco an invincible true divine being, it would never co to him for "revenge." So there had to be another reason for this visit.
Herobos regarded the visitor — and said, quietly: "State your purpose, Yu Go. Otherwise, you will be annihilated here alongside the world at my back."
"..."
Yes. The one standing before Herobos was [Decay]'s sole surviving Envoy — the Last King of Decay Vultures — Yu Go.
As a servant god who reacted to even the faintest wind and was known for extre caution, Yu Go never took risks. Once upon a ti, it would never have done sothing as self-incriminating as walking into a trap. But this world had beco more and more incomprehensible to it lately.
A single mortal could be protected to the death by multiple divine beings — and even dared to demand a divine throne from right under Justice (Order)'s nose. And the most maddening part: it worked.
Was this still the universe where the gods ruled and faith overrode everything?
Even if both the era and the epoch had entered [Void] simultaneously — it couldn't have beco this void, could it?
Yu Go was afraid. Genuinely afraid. Its patron was decaying to its final end — and when that throne opened up, would that insatiable mortal truly not co looking for it?
No — it absolutely would.
And when the ti ca, could it escape?
It could not.
Yu Go knew itself very well.
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