477: Chapter 477 The Wind Is Coming

The gaze of that greyish-white figure lingered in the Void Realm for a long time.

It lingered so long that Burial Son felt his Soul was drying up and cracking inch by inch, about to become a part of this dead silence.

Then, the wind arrived—a very old, ancient wind, as if blowing from a dusk that had long since vanished billions of years ago, carrying the lingering scent of flowers that no longer existed, brushing across this scarred and devastated scorched earth.

Within the wind, that figure finally spoke.

The voice was very light, as light as a speck of dust falling into an ancient well.

"Taichu."

It was merely two words.

Everything remaining on the battlefield—the cracked scorched earth, the Sky Burial Beast kneeling and trembling, the scattered remains of the Shadow and A-Pan, the shattered carcass of Cang Ming, and even the rolling, delirious whispers in the abyss—was, in that instant, enveloped by an absolute stillness.

They no longer hissed, no longer writhed, as if they had become the most devout listeners, waiting for a verdict that had traversed endless time.

"We meet again."

The voice was not loud, but it was like a pebble thrown into a deep pool of time that had been stagnant for billions of years, sending gentle yet irresistible ripples outward.

Where the ripples passed, the pale ashes that had accumulated over countless epochs rose silently, swirling and scattering like a desolate, slow, and silent snow.

Burial Son's pupils shrank to pinpoints amidst the bloodstains.

It was not because of the unfamiliar name "Taichu"—he did not understand it.

But because of the tone the greyish-white figure used when uttering those two words.

There was no hatred, no anger, not even hostility.

There was only a calmness soaked through by time, a weariness after a reunion so long it was unimaginable, and a detachment that had foreseen this moment long ago.

And... a trace of something perfectly hidden, yet still seeping out from the slightest cracks in the tone, almost imperceptible...

Awe.

This figure, formed from ashes and ancient moonlight, ruling the Burial Land for billions of years, symbolizing the final resting place and annihilation, was actually feeling awe.

Awe for that man in white.

"Hah..."

Burial Son's throat bones squeezed out a sound on the verge of shattering.

A certain irresistible force violently dragged back his consciousness, which was sinking into eternal darkness, forcing him to open his eyes, which were nearly collapsing, to witness a myth that was being slowly unveiled—a myth heavy enough to crush an epoch.

He saw the young man in white move.

He only lifted his fingertips very lightly.

An action so simple it was almost nothingness, yet it seemed to touch a fulcrum that sustained eternity.

The "shell" that enveloped him, making his existence seem blurred and distant, emitted a crisp sound like shattering glass.

Then, it peeled away.

The young man's face began to change amidst the drifting fragments of that invisible shell.

It was not distortion, but a "return"—just like a mask that had been worn for too long and had almost grown into the flesh, being peeled away, inch by inch, gently yet resolutely, by the power of time and truth.

The contours of his bones shifted subtly, the texture of his skin rewove itself, and within the dissipating light dust, his features coalesced into a completely different face.

Young, sharp, and carrying an ancient aura that was out of place in this era.

His brows were like precipitous peaks, his eye sockets were deep, and beneath them were a pair of purple eyes with extremely deep pupils, almost ink-stained, cold and silent as an eternal frozen abyss.

His nose bridge was like a cliff edge, his lip line was thin and clear, and his jawline was clean-cut as if carved by a divine weapon.

Every inch of this face fit perfectly with the previous one, as if they were the same piece of primordial stone, carved into two divergent statues by two opposing forces.

No.

Not carving.

The previous face was a disguise.

It was a mask of exquisite craftsmanship, reaching deep into the Origin of the Divine Soul, altering memory and existence.

It was an ultimate Seal personally placed by that supreme "Origin Immortal Palace," used to bury a certain "past."

And now, under this gaze from the deepest part of the Burial Land, in this greeting that traversed epochs, this mask finally completed its mission, shattering inch by inch, turning into crystalline light dust that filled the sky and drifted down.

A speck of light dust landed on Burial Son's cracked eye corner, chilling him to the bone.

He dared not blink, dared not breathe.

A voice deep within his Soul shrieked, warning him that what he was about to glimpse might be a taboo that connected countless shattered epochs, the most unspeakable, and the one that should never be witnessed by the living.

The young man in white—no, perhaps he should be called by his true name now—the aura around him began to change.

It was no longer the intentionally restrained "Nothingness," so pure it was almost void.

The true, majestic aura that belonged solely to him finally broke through all cages and surged out!

First came the lofty majesty of a god, then the biting Sword Intent that severed Karma and split the Void Realm.

But these two appeared for only an instant before being thoroughly swallowed, fused, and sublimated by another power—more primitive, more vast, and closer to the Origin of all things.

Power of Primordial Creation.

The moment this power awakened from the deepest part of his body—

The entire Burial Land, no, the entire space-time structure affected by the battle, emitted a low and magnificent resonance!

That was not a tremor of fear, but a shudder of "reunion."

Like an ancient zither abandoned at the end of time, its strings rusted, suddenly sensing the only hand that could pluck it approaching once again.

Like a divine weapon sleeping at the bottom of the Return to Ruins, its blade forgotten by time, suddenly hearing the clear hum of its former wielder's call.

The scorched earth hummed, and the pulse of the cracked land resonated with it.

The sky whispered, and the shattered threads of rules swayed in response.

The Void Realm rippled, and the shadows in the abyss emitted unintelligible whimpers.

Even that Sky Burial Beast, which had rotted for billions of years and symbolized ominousness and the end, began to tremble uncontrollably in its massive body.

It deeply lowered its hideous head, the eerie green light in its single eye flashing wildly; what surged within was not brutality, but a submission branded deep into the Origin of Creation, almost instinctive.

It remembered this aura... in the ancient times so distant that its memory was blurred, during that world-destroying war that buried countless glories, it had once prostrated itself under the lingering might of this aura.

This was its Dominator, the "Lord of Burials," an existence that had once stood side by side or in opposition to it.

"Pfft!"

Burial Son's pupils shattered completely at this moment.

His irises were truly like shattered glass, blossoming with countless radial cracks, and dark red blood, mixed with broken vision, gushed out from his eye sockets, streaking across his rigid face.

But he could not feel the pain.

All his perception, all his thoughts, were completely swallowed and occupied by the scene unfolding before him.

Behind the young man in white, the Void Realm was not torn apart, but as if a seed had been planted in an unimaginably distant past, it suddenly sprouted, grew, and burst open reality at this moment!

An indescribably magnificent phantom rose silently from behind him, reaching up to the sky and standing upon the earth!

It was a "tree."

A World Tree manifestation constructed from the purest, most fundamental Power of Primordial Creation!

The trunk was so thick it seemed capable of supporting endless mountain ranges and the Universe; on the bark, there were no ordinary patterns, but countless long-lost, unreadable Innate Dao patterns slowly flowing, and the flickering of each symbol exhaled the faint light from when Chaos first opened.

The branches extended in endless directions, piercing through layer after layer of space, delving into the scorched earth, reaching into the firmament, and plunging into the abyss, like a living giant net of rules enveloping the entire battlefield and heaven and earth.

And what made the Soul tremble most was—at the tips of those countless branches, hanging were not leaves, but miniature worlds that were operating on their own!

Some were brilliant with starlight, some had surging ocean waves, some had distinct mountains and seas, and within them, one could even see phantoms of living beings as small as dust, living and multiplying.

Its roots were deeply embedded in the invisible Void Realm beneath his feet, into "Chaos," the source of all concepts, and into the unknown depths even deeper and more ancient than the final resting place represented by the Burial Land, greedily and steadily absorbing the power of the Origin.

He stood quietly before this World Tree that connected "Existence" and "Void Realm."

His white robes fluttered in the silently surging Qi of Creation, and his ink-black hair flew backward.

Those eyes, which had turned a deep purple, calmly and indifferently reflected the greyish-white, blurred figure of the Lord of Burials before him.

And the Lord of Burials gazed at this face before him, both strange and familiar, both young and ancient, and gazed at the giant tree manifestation behind him that seemed to bear the birth and death of countless worlds.

No expression could be seen on this blurred face.

Only a gaze that seemed to pierce through the ages of time slowly swept over the body of Chu Changsheng, over every wisp of his Qi, and finally, landed on the intangible, formless, yet crucial "Chronological Threads" that his very existence was entangled with.

The Lord of Burials did not make a move, nor did he continue to reminisce.

He only used that ancient and calm voice to speak the second sentence.

This sentence was very light, yet it was more earth-shattering than the previous greeting, as if a mountain had been dropped onto a calm lake:

"Taichu, have you changed the River of Time?"

The moment the words fell—

The countless branches and leaves of the World Tree paused slightly.

In the hanging miniature worlds, the flow of time seemed to experience a momentary Chaos.

Deep within Chu Changsheng's deep purple eyes, which had been like an ancient well without waves, a trace of an extremely subtle, complex, and unreadable ripple finally flashed.

The entire Burial Land, along with the countless dead epochs it bore, seemed to fall into an even deeper, all-consuming silence at this question.

Only the snow of pale ashes continued to fall silently.

Endlessly, falling.