Chapter 265: Ch 265 : A Fading Memory of Never-ending Resolve

The space was suddenly drowned in light. It was not the warm glow of a sun, nor the gentle twinkle of distant stars.It was a blinding luminance, sharp enough to split galaxies in half and cold enough to freeze the soul.

This light twisted and hardened into form, birthing ten thousand swords. Some were as small and delicate as sewing needles, humming with a high-pitched frequency that vibrated with the universe.

Others were colossal blades the size of galaxies, their edges shimmering with the promise of death.

But the architect of this grand spectacle was fading. Thera, the Goddess of Divine Annihilation, floated in the center of her creation, a dying Goddess.

Her skin, once radiant and flawless, was now pale as ash. Her lips were cracked and dry, and fine wrinkles of exhaustion were etching themselves rapidly across her face.

Her hair, usually flowing like the starlight, looked brittle, ready to wither away into nothingness. She was burning the candle of her life at both ends to fuel this final stand.

Beside her floated Cai Zhen. His face was a mask of nothingness. He was physically present, but his spirit had shattered.

The revelation about the death of his parents had broken the reality he clung to, leaving him a hollow shell drifting in the storm.

And facing them was Angra. The Demon God, the hunter, the monster. Of the three, he alone looked vibrant, his red skin pulsing with vitality, his massive chest heaving with the thrill of the hunt.

To him, the dying Goddess and the broken God were not threats; they were feathers caught in a tornado, waiting to be blown into the sweet embrace of death.

The swords of Divine Annihilation rang out in the vacuum, Ten thousand points dipped in unison, aiming directly at the demon’s heart.

Angra didn’t flinch. He hefted his massive, spiked mace and grinned.

"Let’s start," he rumbled, his voice a taunt designed to provoke the dying Goddess.

Thera’s hand trembled as she raised it.

She didn’t have the strength for speeches. She had only enough will for one final command.

"Kill him."

She waved her hand shakily.

The swords responded instantly. They sensed the killing intent of their master, the rage fueling their existence.

The blinding white light that formed them bled away, replaced instantly by a deep, viscous, blood-shot red.

They were no longer instruments of justice; they were instruments of slaughter.

Swish.

The first wave shot forward. They didn’t need Thera to guide them. They possessed a rudimentary intelligence of their own. They hungered for blood.

One sword, a streak of crimson lightning, aimed straight for Angra’s forehead. The Demon God didn’t move. He stood his ground, chuckling, watching the blade approach as if it were a child’s toy thrown in a tantrum.

He was a Demon God; what could a sword made of light do to him?

The blade flew past everything, ignoring the resistance of the demon god’s aura, and arrived inches from his face in a nanosecond.

Zzt.

Suddenly, Angra’s massive body jolted. An alarm screamed in his mind, a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time.

His instincts, honed in the chaotic bloodbaths of the Demon Realm, overrode his arrogance. Move or die.

He twisted his head, a blur of red motion. But It wasn’t fast enough.

The sword hissed past his cheek, and with that a gashing wound opened on his face, it began to bleed, as the flesh tried to knit itself back together against the damage.

Angra touched his cheek, pulling his hand away to see his own dark blood. His eyes widened.

The wound wasn’t life-threatening, but it told a terrifying tale. If that blade had struck his eye, or his throat... he would be dead.

"Heh," Thera’s voice drifted across the void, weak and shaky, yet filled with a mockery. "Why are you jumping around like a monkey, Demon? I thought these swords were toys."

Speaking those few words felt like climbing the tallest mountain or diving the deepest ocean. Her vision blurred, black spots dancing in her eyes, but she held her focus.

Angra didn’t reply. He realized with a dawning horror that he had only dodged one.

He looked up. The sky was red. Ten thousand more blades were waiting.

The swarm descended.

Angra moved. He danced a desperate dance of survival. He sidestepped a colossal blade that sought to bisect him, only to find three needle-sized swords aiming for his joints.

He roared, swinging his giant mace in a whirlwind of defense, intending to shatter the red flash of light.

CRACK!

The mace collided with a medium-sized sword. But the sword didn’t shatter. The mace did.

The weapon, forged from one of the strongest metals and soaked in blood, exploded into tiny fragments.

The sword continued its trajectory, unbothered, and sliced a deep furrow into Angra’s shoulder.

"Damn you!" Angra screamed. He turned, running in the opposite direction, his speed creating afterimages in the void.

But the swords were relentless. The ones he dodged didn’t vanish. They wheeled around in perfect arcs, turning back to attack him from behind.

He was trapped in a grinder of crimson light. He tried to tear space, to open a portal back to the Demonic Realm, but the swords swarmed the rift, their sharpness cutting the very portal destabilizing it before he could enter.

He was a rat in a cage of blades.

His massive body was soon filled with agony. Thousands of scratches, deep cuts, and gashing wounds covered him.

Dark blood splattered everywhere, invisible against the black void but painting the glowing red swords in a gruesome Dark colour.

While the battle raged in the physical world, a different scene played out in the shattered mind of Cai Zhen.

He was no longer in the cold space. He was standing in a warm, sunlit garden, the air filled with the scent of blooming jasmine.

He was small, his perspective lower to the ground. He looked down at his hands and saw the soft skin of a seven-year-old boy.

"Mother," the young Cai Zhen said, looking up at the beautiful, gentle woman sitting on a stone bench. "I will become the strongest cultivator in this world."

His mother smiled, a radiant expression that outshone the sun. She reached out and dotingly ruffled his hair.

"I know you will, my son. But why stop at just this world? It is just a small speck of dust in this grand universe."

The boy’s eyes went wide with wonder. "Mother, how big is the universe?"

It was the question that had started it all. The spark of his ambition.

"How big?" His mother laughed, a sound like wind chimes. "It is said that if you wanted to explore everything in a single universe, you would need hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years."

"Soooo big..." The child Cai Zhen spun around, trying to imagine a space that vast. "Then... what comes after the universe, Mother?"

"After the universe," she explained patiently, "is the Multiverse. A place that contains billions of other universes inside it, like grapes on a vine."

The boy stopped spinning. He looked at his mother, his small face setting in a mask of serious, childish determination.

"Then I will become the strongest in the Multiverse," he declared. "I will protect you and Father from anything that comes our way. I will give you the happiest life in all the multiverse."

The memory shifted. The sunlight dimmed. The garden began to wither.

The woman on the bench didn’t change, but her expression did. The joy faded, replaced by a profound, loving sadness.

"My child," she whispered, her voice echoing as if from a great distance. "Wake up. It is not your fault. Stop blaming yourself."

The adult Cai Zhen, trapped in the body of his seven-year-old self, looked at her. The weight of of failure crushed down on him.

"Mother..." he choked out, tears trickling from his large, childish eyes. "I wasn’t able to protect you. I wasn’t able to protect Father. I failed. I failed as a son. I failed as a God."

The image of his mother stood up. She walked to him, kneeling so they were eye to level. She kissed his forehead, a touch that felt warmer and more real than anything he had felt in his life.

"You tried your best, my child. You survived. That was our wish."

She pulled back, her hands gripping his small shoulders. Her eyes hardened, showing the courage of a mother, even after the death.

"Now, wake up, Cai Zhen! Are you going to fail again? Are you going to protect your friend, or are you going to let her die too?"

The question struck him like a thunderbolt. Thera.

"Go my child, i believe in you"

The garden dissolved. The sunlight vanished. The darkness returned.

In the void, the blank, dead eyes of the broken God suddenly snapped into focus.

The tears that had been frozen on his cheeks evaporated in an instant. A spark ignited deep within his dantian, a place that had been cold and empty for so long. It wasn’t Qi. It wasn’t Mana. It was the purest energy, the Faith.

Cai Zhen looked at the space in front of him. He saw the dying form of Thera. He saw the demon god trapped in the vortex of the crimson blades.