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 gushed 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 blade 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?”
Jiu Ying shook his head silently and made his way into the gap between the steel column and the iron frame, the chair directly below the siege hammer. Then, he parted his hair, revealing an alchemy array that extended along his spine, from the back of the neck to the limbs. As the circuit was activated, a layer of iron-like whiteness coated the bronzed skin.
His whole person seemed to be integrated as one with the steel, but he gained no strength from it. Instead, he lost his agility and struggled to even move. He could only move a few parts of his body, like the shoulders, wrists, and fingers.
It was definitely a failed transformation, but committing such a mistake that seemed just right could only be said to be… deliberate.
As he was completely transformed into iron, on top of the siege hammer, an iron gear moved, lowering a partition, almost covering half of his body.
A light lit up faintly inside the partition, illuminating his jaw. As if he was enjoying the stiffness, he slowly moved his fingers, feeling the stability brought by the excessive stiffness.
He held his breath.
After no longer having a pulse, it was as if his whole person had become a piece of iron.
Only the fingers were slightly lifting the grip on the armrest, and as the grip moved, the angle of the “siege hammer” was subtly changed as the iron frame shifted.
“Is it going to begin so fast? I haven’t taken a rest yet.” Bai Heng sighed and looked down at the book in his hand. “Speaking of it, it’s actually the first time we are using it, wait, let me see…” As he said so, he flipped the book open, ignoring the weird name, “Operating Manual of Orion β-type Deep-Layer Sampler,” on the cover, and directly looked at the fine text on the pages behind it.
While referring to the operation method written on it, he pressed the buttons on the siege hammer in a somewhat unfamiliar manner.
“Let me see, what is this red thing? Ah, the real-time corrector of the wind speed… then the distance corrector. Where are the buttons for temperature difference and pressure? Let me see… oh, they’re here, should we correct the humidity? Okay, let’s fix it. Ah, there’s a button to correct the trajectory as well…”
After each section was completed, the specks of light above the “siege hammer” lit up one by one, until finally, a cold beeping sound that gave one goosebumps sounded.
The preheating was complete.
Bai Heng opened the last box, and somewhat laboriously lifted up a box as big as a person’s head. He staggered towards the strange object hanging on the iron frame, and finally climbed onto the ladder and inserted it into the groove. As the machinery operated, it sank into the core of the dark steel, no longer seen.
Icy cold air flowed out of the spots that seemed to be venting holes, making the high platform similar to an extremely cold cellar. Wisps of it were enough to make one shiver because of the cold.
As the final preparation was completed, Jiu Ying’s fingers trembled slightly, seemingly excited. His body tensed, his thumb rubbing against the top of the handle and the red button on it.
“Slow down, be steady.” Bai Heng bent down and patted his arm. “It is the last of the celestial collection of House Bai, we have no second chance.” As he said so, he narrowed his eyes and looked at Heaven’s Gate thousands of miles away. It was as if he could see the heroic figure fighting desperately in it through the storm and the blazing light rising into the sky.
“Jiu Ying, be honored.” He whispered softly, “After Dragon Slayer the Third, it is the last one Bai House left to the world, and using it on such a hero is right and proper.”
In the silence, no sound of breathing could be heard, only the hurricane from afar stirred up a deep echo.
Bai Heng peered into the mirror, where the scene from a thousand miles away was magnified to the extent that even fine hairs could be seen, his gaze fixated on the burning figure.
In the mirror, a red frame the size of a thumb was moving quickly, chasing the figure that was moving freely and unrestrainedly. When the frame enveloped the figure, a sharp noise was produced.
Bai Heng inhaled deeply.
The storm that was stirred up at Heaven’s Gate slowly spread from afar, like a giant advancing on the ground with a rumble. Innumerable specks of sand and dust were shaking violently in it, forming a turbulent sandstorm, and the roar of the wind was like the whine of iron.
Bai Heng squinted.
“Three!
“Two!
“One!”
At the very moment, a crisp sound rang out.
It was the echo from the spring as the activation button was pressed.
The roar of the storm, the sound of breathing, the sorrowful whine of the earth, the echo from the sky. All the sounds seemed to have disappeared.
In the cold silence, only a muffled sound rang out.
It was like pulling out the oak plug from the bottle of red wine.
A ray of light spewed out from the opening, gushing into the distance, and disappeared in the hurricane and sandstorm.
The next moment, the hurricane exploded, the ghastly white waves extending in all directions. The grayish-black sandstorm was cruelly cut into two pieces, like cloth that was torn apart, and the chaotic noise of oil boiling in pots sounded.
The cold was no longer, and the horrifyingly high amount of heat was released from the siege hammer, burning it red in a moment, as if a furnace of hell was brewing up. Tongues of flame several feet long spewed out of the exhaust pipe, licking the ground.
The siege hammer opened and threw out the iron case that Bai Heng had inserted with all his might a few moments ago, but most of its weight had disappeared, as if an invisible hand had taken the weight away.
Only the empty box, that had been burned red, was rolling on the ground, melting in the tongues of flame in the end, producing a stench.
In the horrifying heat, Bai Heng covered his nose and mouth. He did not leave but remained staring at the screen that was already half-melted. Snowflakes flickered on the screen, faintly showing the figure falling from the sky.
At the moment, the “light” that had converged into a line pierced through the wind and dust for a thousand miles. Wherever it passes, everything fell apart under the impact. The terrifying pressure left a straight gully and depression on the ground.
In just a moment, the world created by the Sword of the End was torn apart. The “light” penetrated it, then passed through with a whistle. It passed through the walls of Heaven’s Gate as easily as crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood, then through the city in a slanted manner, flying over the other side of the gates of the city, shattering the skies and disappearing into the darkness of the universe.
The hero’s roar came to an abrupt end.
In the deathly silence, only the flat echo of a broken body falling on the ground sounded.
On the broken skull, the contours of the face in the past could be faintly seen.
A single eye stared up at the sky blankly.
The smile was no longer.
He died.
The rumble that had arrived late reverberated and dissipated in the empty world.
After a long time, a very long time…
Ye Qingxuan’s hoarse roar rang out, “Bai Heng!!!!!!!”
