438: Chapter 438 Lunar Eclipse - Eternal Silence

"The second wave?"

"No."

This has long since transcended the scope of an offensive. This is the ultimate, mutually destructive storm of annihilation, sacrificed by twenty-seven Prodigies of the alien races who, driven into a desperate corner, completely burned their lives, Bloodlines, Divine Souls, and even their Dao Foundation Origins.

It is a desperate, death-defying counterattack in the truest sense!

Its terrifying power, the tragic nature of the scene, and the determination of their will far exceed the first wave by more than ten, even a hundred times!

This is a tidal wave of the end, intended to drag these ten members of the Human Race, along with the mountains and rivers beneath their feet, the firmament above their heads, and even the very 'existence' of this realm, into the abyss of eternal silence.

The energy of destruction, sufficient to make a True Immortal's Dao Heart tremble, to cause the Divine Souls of ancient mighty figures to perish, and to lead a complete world toward total extinction, has now been compressed to the extreme and erupted with a roar!

And at the very center of this storm of destruction, Chen Shenhuang stood still like an eternal sacred mountain.

Within his double pupils, the scenes of the birth, destruction, and Reincarnation of the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, which had been slowly rotating, suddenly accelerated to an unimaginable speed that defied all cognition!

The pupil of his left eye spun madly with time! Within it, all things flourished, and the long river of time roared, interpreting the supreme Dao rhyme of 'Life' and 'Moving Forward'.

The pupil of his right eye spun wildly against time! Within it, eras ended, and the myriad Daos returned to ruins, interpreting the ultimate true meaning of 'Death' and 'Conclusion'.

Two diametrically opposed yet originating from the same source of supreme Spacetime authority collided fiercely within his eyes, crazily intertwining, and finally... transformed into a chaotic vortex that devoured and confused everything.

"Double Pupil · Spacetime Reversal."

He spoke.

His voice remained calm, yet it seemed to carry the absolute chill of ancient glaciers and the supreme authority governing the flow of time.

The next moment—

On the battlefield, a scene appeared that would make every witness—whether it was the Prodigies fighting in the Secret Realm or the mighty figures and ancient existences of various races watching from outside—never forget, a scene that made their Divine Souls tremble in fear!

The sea of Soul-Devouring Mother Emperor's insects, which had been pouncing from all directions and every dead angle of space, filled with crazy mental pollution and emitting the shrill laughter of billions of human faces, was about to completely submerge and devour the ten members of the Human Race.

Suddenly.

Time seemed to have been pressed with a pause button.

No, not a pause.

It was a reversal!

Like the most brilliant illusionist playing the most complex illusion in reverse, like the invisible film of the long river of time recording everything that had just happened, being suddenly pulled back and played in reverse by an invisible giant hand with absolute, unquestionable power!

The 'forward' motion of the billions of insect wings strangely turned into 'backward'! Their trajectories of pouncing and tearing, in a way that completely violated all Dao Laws and physical cognition of the present world, followed the original path—and shot back!

The harsh, insane, eerie laughter turned into gasps of cold air, like whimpers from those whose throats were being throttled; the countless hideous and twisted human faces on the surface of the insect cloud, like wax figures melted by high heat, quickly twisted, blurred, collapsed inward, and disappeared!

Just one breath.

No, even shorter.

That sea of insects, covering the sky and representing death and madness, was like a tide hitting an invisible embankment, crazily rolling back and contracting at a speed several times faster than when it had pounced!

In the distance, they re-gathered, merged, and solidified, actually transforming once again into the Soul-Devouring Mother Emperor, her palace attire intact, her aura 'as it was'.

On her face, there was even a twisted smile frozen from when she unleashed the forbidden technique, a mixture of the pleasure of sacrifice and the hideousness of destruction. Yet, in her eyes, there was now only boundless confusion, shock, and the excruciating pain and weakness of having the forbidden technique forcibly interrupted at the root and suffering a backlash.

She staggered backward, her aura chaotic and boiling, as if the world-destroying, certain-to-succeed sea of insects was truly just a momentary hallucination, a nightmare that had never actually happened.

And on the other side.

The possessor of the Heavenly Demon Emperor Bloodline, his dark green, eerie 'Dao-Splitting Claws' capable of tearing through Dao runes, the sharp tips of which had clearly touched the most delicate skin on Luo Xiaojiu's neck, could even feel the rhythm of that warm blood pulsing beneath the thin skin! The fierce claw wind had already severed a few strands of her fluttering sideburns.

Just at this billionth of a split second of life and death, where blood was about to bloom like a flower!

His body, along with that pair of deadly claws, suddenly blurred, rippled, and shattered like a reflection hit by a giant rock in the water!

Then, in a way that no escape technique or movement skill could explain, completely overturning the cognition of all living beings present—he 'disappeared' into thin air.

It was not spatial teleportation.

It was as if an invisible hand, controlling the authority of time, had plucked him from the time node of 'the present', like picking a leaf. Then, it 'placed' him back dozens of feet away—at the 'past' time point where he had first risen and launched the ambush, at the 'past' spatial coordinates.

He even... maintained that starting posture of rushing to kill, the cruel and bloodthirsty grin on his face having only just bloomed halfway at the corners of his mouth, his eyes filled with disdain and mockery for the prey's fragility.

But the next second.

The grin froze completely on his face.

It turned into incomprehensible astonishment, confusion that touched the depths of his Soul, and an extreme fear that exploded from the deepest part of his spine, instantly freezing the blood throughout his body!

He looked down at his own pair of undamaged claws, which were far from the target.

He looked up at Luo Xiaojiu in the distance, her hair slightly disheveled but unharmed, watching him with a pair of eyes so calm they chilled the heart.

The sensation of that must-kill strike, the feeling of the claw tips touching the warmth, the omen of blood about to spray... Could it be that it was all fake?

Or was it... that time had truly... been reversed?!

Not just them.

Those eleven 'Death Stars', which had been sacrificed by the Star Envoys, stimulated to the extreme, and had already expanded to the critical point, with internal annihilation energy so violent that in the next moment they would turn a radius of a thousand miles into an absolute dead zone, also emitted a burst of unstable humming like a mournful cry!

The trajectory of their expansion came to an abrupt halt!

On the surface of the spheres, those crimson cracks representing self-destruction and ultimate annihilation were gently and forcibly smoothed over, as if by an invisible hand carrying the authority of 'smoothing' and 'solidification', quickly dimming, contracting, until... completely disappearing!

The stellar annihilation energy inside, boiling to the peak and about to explode, was like an ancient angry dragon instantly frozen and tamed, forcibly suppressed, compressed, and reduced to an eerie... calm.

Even the blinding, eye-stinging starlight of destruction quickly dimmed, recovering to its original appearance of slowly rotating and emitting stable, soft starlight, quietly, and even somewhat 'harmlessly', floating in mid-air.

It was as if that desperate, mutually destructive sacrifice, that destructive fluctuation that changed the color of the world, was truly just a... thrilling, yet never-actually-happened, collective hallucination.

Time.

In this area completely locked by Chen Shenhuang's double pupils, it was forcibly, domineeringly, and unreasonably dialed back from the 'present' destruction node to a few breaths ago—the 'safe' past before the attack had truly been launched!

Most of the killing moves seemed as if they had never really condensed, never really been launched!

However...

Not all of them.

The phantom of the 'Ancient Sea God's Wrath of Annihilation', summoned by the Deep Sea Halberd Emperor with the sacrifice of his heart blood and Divine Soul, and that pitch-black singularity representing the 'return to ruins' of all things, condensed by the Heaven-Swallowing Hou burning everything, were only strongly interfered with by the power of Spacetime Reversal.

The solidity of the Sea God phantom and the speed of the black singularity showed visible stagnation and slowing, and the Dao Law fluctuations on their surfaces were also disordered for a moment, like a phantom with a bad signal.

But the energy level and the will to destroy everything they contained were too terrifying, too ancient, and had already initially touched, and at this moment, in a barbaric posture, were resisting this forcibly distorted Spacetime Law.

They... were not completely 'reversed'!

Still carrying the deep cold that froze the ages and the void that devoured everything, they slowly, yet incomparably firmly, rumbled toward the predetermined target!

Destruction was merely delayed, not terminated.

"Sword Two · Severing Calamity · Breaking Karma."

Just as the strange ripples of Spacetime Reversal had not yet completely subsided, and while the minds of almost all living beings inside and outside the battlefield were still immersed in the extreme shock and trance brought about by that earth-shattering, unimaginable scene, unable to extricate themselves—

Sword Child's voice, cold and devoid of any human emotion, yet seemingly capable of cutting through all entanglements and distractions to reach the very source of the Dao, rang out again, crystal clear, like a drop of ice spring from the peak of the Nine Heavens falling into an ancient, waveless cold pool.

"Zheng—"

A slight sword chime, almost imperceptible, yet piercing straight into the Divine Soul.

The wrist holding the sword turned extremely casually and slightly.

It was as if he were just brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve.

The long sword, which sealed a flowing galaxy and was crystal clear, was swung for the second time.

There was no grand sword light that opened the heavens and the earth.

There was no towering Sword Intent sweeping across the eight wildernesses.

There was only a 'line'.

A 'line' as thin as a hair, condensed to the point where it could not be described in words, its color almost transparent, yet 'truly and undeniably' existing in the perception of all living beings.

It seemed not to be a physical entity, but rather a 'line' of Law, manifested after the 'Severing' Dao Law, the true meaning of 'Breaking', and the authority of 'Extinction'—the most fundamental in the world—were intertwined, tempered, and sublimated to the extreme!

The moment it appeared.

It did not reflect any light in the world.

It did not emit any energy fluctuations.

It did not even... occupy 'space'.

It just quietly 'extended' forward along a trajectory so profound that it could not be described in words, as if it simultaneously pierced through 'Cause', 'Effect', 'Calamity', and 'Fortune'.

Chi.

A faint sound, so light it seemed not to exist, yet it rang in the depths of everyone's Dao Heart.

Those eleven 'Life Stars', which had just been forcibly 'reversed' from the 'self-destruct' state back to a stable form, were still quietly floating in mid-air, and the weak and precious connection to their original source had not even fully recovered—

Before the terrified Star Envoys, who were attempting to re-establish the connection, could react.

They were gently and swiftly grazed by that transparent 'line' that seemed capable of severing the Foundation of 'existence' itself.

There was no deafening explosion.

There was no dazzling light of energy annihilation.

There was no terrifying ripple of space shattering.

There was only an absolute, conceptual-level 'erasure' that made the Souls of all witnesses tremble.

The eleven Life Stars, representing the Origin of the Star Saint Body, with a hardness exceeding most divine metals in the world and containing vast stellar power, were gently erased from this painting called 'Reality' by the purest 'Nothingness' eraser, used by the most brilliant painter, along the trajectory the transparent 'line' had swept.

Silent and soundless.

Completely.

They disappeared.

Not even a speck of dust was left, not a trace of stellar energy leaked out, and not a ripple of their former existence remained.

It was as if they, along with the part of 'Karma' associated with them, that 'trace of existence', had been completely 'severed' and 'deleted' by this sword from the most basic, most fundamental rule level of this world.

"Puff—!!! Uh... Ahhhhhhh—!!!"

Almost at the same instant, the eleven Star Envoys were struck head-on as if by the ancient thunder of Chaos!

Their bodies convulsed violently at the same time, bending forward abruptly, as if they wanted to vomit out their own Divine Souls! What they spat out was no longer blood, but large clumps of dark golden liquid mixed with fragmented light of stellar Laws, broken fragments of the Dao Foundation, and rotten visceral tissues!

"Crack, crackle—!!!"

Above their heads, the phantom of the 'Life Star Ring', which symbolized the Major Achievement of the Star Saint Body and of which they had once been so proud, shattered inch by inch like the most fragile glaze exposed to absolute zero, turning into spots of light and dissipating into nothingness.

The aura on each person's body plummeted crazily, like an avalanche or a bursting heavenly river! In an instant, they fell from the pinnacle of Soul Transformation to a miserable state not even comparable to a Golden Core Cultivator, and this decay, like a maggot attached to the bone, was still irreversibly continuing!

"No... No... My Dao... My stars..."

They collapsed on the ground like worms with their spines removed, their eyes unfocused, filled with boundless fear, despair, and the deepest confusion. They could feel with absolute clarity that their 'Star Saint Body', which they were born with and regarded as their Dao Foundation and glory, and their connection to the stellar Dao in the dark, had been severed by some incomprehensible, irresistible power from the very root...

It was ruined!

This was not just a regression in cultivation; this was the complete severance of their Dao path, the ultimate verdict that there was no possibility of further progress in this life! It was a punishment a billion times more terrifying to them than the destruction of both body and Soul!

And just as this extreme silence and despair spread, the Heavenly Demon Emperor Bloodline possessor, who had just struggled out of the astonishment and fear of the Spacetime Reversal, his eyes flashing with fierce light again, Demonic Qi boiling, preparing to ignore everything and pounce on Luo Xiaojiu again, the moment he was about to move—

"Lunar Eclipse · Eternal Silence."

Long Yue's voice, cold as if coming from the deepest part of an ancient ice abyss, sounded without the slightest fluctuation.

She didn't even glance to the side, didn't even look at the Heavenly Demon Emperor Bloodline possessor who was seething with killing intent.

She just slightly raised her head, toward the bright moon above her head—its clear brilliance seemingly condensing all the beauty of moonlight in the world—and extended her right hand, carved like jade.

Then, her five fingers gently grasped toward that bright moon.

As if grasping some invisible authority that controlled 'Brightness' and 'Darkness', 'Existence' and 'Silence'.

Hum...!

All the light, all the colors, all the sounds in the world... seemed to dim, fade, and fall silent for a moment under this grasp.

The only thing clear was the point of 'Eternal Darkness' that devoured everything, condensed at her fingertips.