247: catastrophe

Looking back at the ever-collapsing abyss, Xiao Zhuo's expression was ashen.

Despite all his preparations, the heavy sense of guilt still weighed on his heart like a tangible burden.

Choosing the Blood Palace meant choosing slaughter and plunder. The Blood Demon Realm was a hotbed of the Demonic Path, where the Law of the jungle was ingrained in its very essence. Xue Tian's ambition for world advancement meant the fires of war would never cease.

With the Origin of the Minghu Realm acquired, the Blood Demon Realm now held four World Origins.

However, Xiao Zhuo knew that for a Middle Thousand Worlds to ascend, nine Origins were the cornerstone.

The path of plunder was not even halfway complete. And with Xue Tian's current momentum, the upcoming boundary realm wars were bound to be even more aggressive.

This was the elegy of the cultivation world: the weak perish, the strong endure.

The Minghu Realm was weak and neighbored the Blood Demon Realm; its demise was merely a matter of time.

Xue Qin had already led her fleet in pursuit of the Dao One and Nether Soul Realms. With this matter concluded, he too would rush to rendezvous with her.

Boom—rumble—!

With its Origin stripped away, the earth let out a dying groan.

Tectonic plates cracked and overturned like decaying wood, and the chain of collapses swallowed everything within sight.

"Mo Duo!" Xiao Zhuo said, his face expressionless and his voice as cold as ice, "Order the Blood Demon Army to withdraw immediately!"

"As the Saint commands!" Mo Duo, bowing behind him, responded and accepted the order.

Xiao Zhuo no longer wished to stay. With a single step, his figure vanished into the Void Realm.

Scenery flashed by, and before he knew it, he had landed above a city.

The intense tremors of the earth had already reached this place.

The thirty-foot city walls swayed precariously, and the Mortals within the city were like leaves in the wind, struggling to even stand, unaware that utter destruction was upon them.

With its Origin seized, the best fate for the Minghu Realm was to become a desolate star with depleted Spiritual Qi. More likely, it would completely disintegrate, turning into fragments of debris in the World Sea.

Xiao Zhuo was powerless.

His strength was not yet enough to support a Middle Thousand Worlds on the verge of collapse.

He hovered in the air, indifferently looking down at the crying, rolling, ant-like struggling beings in the city.

In a clothing shop in the city streets.

A richly dressed Young Miss was frantically trying to lift a toppled giant solid wood display cabinet.

Her mother was pinned beneath the cabinet, blood oozing from the corners of her mouth, her eyes filled with despair, yet she hoarsely urged her daughter, "Yuan'er! Run!"

The shop front groaned in its death throes amid the continuous tremors.

Maternal love had overcome the desire to live. The woman was in tears, wishing only for her daughter's escape.

A fallen female shop assistant struggled to get up and rushed over, trying to help the Young Miss lift the cabinet.

How could two Mortal women move such a colossal object?

The woman's desperate cries pierced their ears. The shop assistant looked up and glimpsed the dust-showering roof. A look of grim determination flashed in her eyes. Ignoring the Young Miss's cries, she desperately dragged her out of the shop door.

How could a pampered Young Miss contend with the strength of someone who toiled year-round? The Young Miss was finally dragged out of the shop door.

Boom—!

Before she could steady herself, a deafening crash erupted behind her! The entire shop instantly turned into ruins.

A broken giant beam fell like divine punishment, striking the shop assistant's back! Blood gushed like a waterfall, splattering the Young Miss's head and face.

The Young Miss stood frozen, her face covered in crimson, staring at the pile of rubble that had instantly swallowed her mother, staring at the shop assistant who had just saved her but now lay silently on the ground, her eyes hollow, slowly slumping down.

All of this fell into Xiao Zhuo's eyes, without a single detail missed.

Though he didn't personally extract the Origin, he was a crucial part of this destructive tableau.

He had raised his hand several times, immortal Qi flowing at his fingertips, wanting to save the mother and daughter from the collapse.

But his hand ultimately did not move.

Under his Divine Sense, the outcome was clear: both the mother and the shop assistant had perished.

All of it was due to his complicity.

Xiao Zhuo had walked a path of widespread slaughter, but those he killed had all brought about their own demise.

Yet, this hellish scene before him carved a tiny crack in his rock-solid Dao Heart.

Standing with the Blood Palace, was this path... truly without error?

Beneath the faded sky, Xiao Zhuo's figure was like a silent specter, moving through the violently shaking, collapsing city.

His aura completely concealed, he was like a speck of dust.

Only his keen eyes etched every tragic scene of this human purgatory, in minute detail, into his mind.

The earth tore apart with a mournful cry.

In the city's most prosperous western market, a gigantic, bottomless chasm suddenly opened, like a greedy maw of the underworld.

Screams, wails, and desperate roars were instantly swallowed by the roar of collapsing earth and stone.

Hundreds of fleeing Mortals, along with shops and houses, were swept like dust into the swirling smoke and bottomless abyss.

A mother's figure, holding her infant high, flashed and disappeared into the dust, leaving only a mud-stained tiger-head shoe at the edge of the collapse.

Xiao Zhuo's gaze lingered on that shoe for a moment, his fingertips slightly curled.

He continued forward.

A towering pagoda emitted a dying groan, breaking in half!

The heavy upper half, carrying desperate screams, crashed down onto the crowded refuge-seeking populace below.

Smoke mixed with a strong scent of blood rose into the sky.

Beneath the ruins, scattered, heart-wrenching groans were soon drowned out by new sounds of collapse.

Xiao Zhuo's brows furrowed, a trace of indescribable vexation, like an icy needle, swept across his mind.

He averted his gaze, no longer looking at the newly formed graveyard.

In the eastern part of the city, in the low-lying residential area.

An old man, with white hair and beard, his back hunched, was using his last strength to push a crying toddler towards the open street.

However, a falling boulder, like divine punishment, struck his waist and abdomen! His lower body instantly turned into a bloody pulp.

Excruciating pain contorted his face, but he clenched his teeth, his cloudy eyes fixed on the bewildered child in the street, his chapped lips silently moving: "Huwa! Run... run quickly...!"

Xiao Zhuo's steps halted.

He watched the rapidly extinguishing light of life in the old man's eyes, watched the toddler's bewildered fear in the face of a desolate apocalypse, and a sluggish, heavy feeling clogged his chest.

He slowly raised his hand, a barely perceptible wisp of immortal Qi swirling at his fingertips.

Just a trace would be enough to move the toddler, or even protect the old man's lingering soul for a moment.

Just as the immortal Qi was about to leave his fingers, the corner of his eye caught another scene—

Beneath the broken walls not far behind the old man, a doghouse half-buried by rubble.

A gaunt, slightly pregnant mother dog had clearly just given birth.

A broken beam was pressing down hard on her hind leg, blood soaking the dry grass beneath her.

She didn't wail; she just painfully stretched out her tongue, again and again, gently licking the three unseeing, trembling pups beneath her.

When she licked one of the pups that was already cold and stiff, her movements suddenly paused.

She lowered her head, her nose gently touching the tiny, lifeless body, and a nearly inaudible whimper escaped her throat.

Immediately, she no longer looked at the dead child, continuing to focus on licking the other two still-warm pups.

Her movements became slower and slower, weaker and weaker... Finally, her head slowly drooped, resting gently on the living pups, and she moved no more.

The two pups ignorantly nudged their mother's cooling body, letting out faint whines in the roaring world.

This scene, like a silent thunderclap, violently tore open the churning guilt and hesitation in Xiao Zhuo's heart!

The old man sacrificing himself to protect the toddler was good.

The mother dog licking her pups until death was also good.

But this goodness, in the face of irreversible cosmic collapse, was as fragile as a candle in the wind.

Even if that child survived this moment, what awaited him was the eternal darkness and annihilation after the boundary realm's collapse.

How long could those two pups, having lost their mother, struggle in a crumbling world?

The mother and daughter in the clothing shop, the female shop assistant who tried to save them... did their deaths stem from the Blood Demon Realm's plunder?

Yes, but not entirely.

The root cause lay in the world that nurtured them—it was too weak!

So weak it couldn't protect the beings upon it, so weak it could only become a stepping stone for the strong to ascend.

Heaven and earth are unkind, treating all beings as straw dogs!

What is good? What is evil?

Saving one person is good, saving millions is good. But if these millions are ultimately to perish with the world, where does this goodness lie?

Slaughtering living beings is evil, seizing a world's Origin is evil. Yet this evil is the only ladder by which the billions of beings in the Blood Demon Realm can survive, or even ascend to a higher existence!

In this world, where is absolute good or evil? Everything is like the gathering and scattering of clouds, dependent only on one's true heart and what one seeks!

The flickering immortal Qi at his fingertips silently extinguished.

His gaze once again swept over the dying old man and the bewildered toddler, swept over the dead mother dog and the pups unaware of their fate, swept over the ravaged city groaning at the edge of destruction... The last ripple of struggle in Xiao Zhuo's eyes completely subsided.

In its place was an icy calm, a profound and resolute clarity after piercing through the fog.

The heavy sense of guilt did not disappear, but it seemed to be enveloped and settled by an invisible yet more resilient substance, transforming into a cold cornerstone of understanding.

His path was now clear.

Standing with the Blood Palace, becoming a plunderer—this was the path to strength he had chosen!

Upon this path, bones were destined to pave the ground, and the elegies of boundary realms would be ceaseless.

Pity and hesitation would only be shackles that bound his hands and feet, ultimately to be swallowed by this cruel World Sea.

To grasp the authority of the Great Dao, free and unfettered, fearless of all heavens, one must pay a commensurate price—this price was the bloodfire that burned worlds, the overturning destruction, and like the Minghu Realm before his eyes, world after world drained of vitality!

What I seek is freedom and transcendence, the pinnacle of the Great Dao!

For this, even if I bear the blood debt of ten thousand worlds, becoming an Asura of the heavens... I shall have no regrets!

With this thought, his Heart Demon instantly vanished!

The aura around Xiao Zhuo, which had been slightly disordered by the tragic sight, suddenly condensed, purified, and became sharper, surpassing its former brilliance.

He cast one last glance at this rapidly collapsing, wailing land, his eyes now devoid of ripples, as if examining an old painting about to fade.

No longer lingering, he turned and took a step.

Space rippled like water, and his figure instantly vanished from above this hellish city.

Behind him were accelerating collapsing mountains and rivers, and the desperate requiem of billions of living beings.

And he, unburdened, broke through the Void Realm, heading towards the direction of Xue Qin's fleet's pursuit, towards the next plunderous journey destined to be stained with blood.

The world named Minghu, along with the billions of struggling beings upon it, had, at the moment his Dao Heart was tempered and settled, completely... become a thing of the past.