479: Chapter 479 Embers After Civilization Was Burned

"Void."

Two words rolled from the lips of the Lord of Burials.

In an instant, the entire world—faded.

It was not painted over, nor was it covered; it was as if an invisible, indescribable existence had slowly siphoned away the very attribute of "color" from the Foundation of "existence."

Like a hand reaching into water to snatch away a reflection; like a breeze blowing through a dream, scattering its contours.

First, the red.

The red deposited deep within the scorched earth, the red dripping from the wounds in the firmament, all the restless and bloody red, like a bead of blood dropped into clear water, spread and faded in wisps.

It struggled, unwilling, and finally faded into a deathly gray—just like the last trace of color on skin being licked clean by time after a heart stops beating.

Then, the yellow.

The last struggling light in the broken sky, the light reflected on shards of glaze from long-forgotten eras occasionally unearthed from the depths of the Burial Land—those which had once been domes of palaces, crowns of gods, and treasures in the palms of children.

They extinguished, one by one, melting into a pallor, a white devoid of all warmth and meaning, like ash after a fire, like a face after it has been forgotten.

Finally, even the black—that deepest, thickest black which devoured all light and bore all sin and death—began to thin.

Like a drop of thick ink falling into a bottomless cold pool, struggling to disperse, swirling as it sank, but ultimately in vain, leaving only the empty, chilling transparency of the pool water itself.

This was the emptiness after even the abyss had collapsed; it was the silence after even despair had died.

This was not a visual deception.

This was the Foundation of "existence" trembling uncontrollably as the tentacles of the "Void" lightly grazed it.

It was the fear engraved in the deepest parts of the Bloodline of all things, a fear older than life itself—the fear of "never having existed."

Behind Chu Changsheng, the phantom of the World Tree, which pierced through reality and the Void Realm, rooted in the past and future, and saw civilizations rise and fall with the stretching of its branches, suddenly stiffened.

It was not the wind moving it.

It was a convulsive tremor erupting from the core of its most ancient growth rings, from deep within every tree ring inscribed with the Law of Origin and end—like a sleeping giant touching the coldness of its own bones in a dream.

Hum—

On the trunk, those runes that had slept since the beginning of time came alive.

They lit up one by one, their light not radiant, but carrying a scorched, stinging pallor.

They were resisting, in a manner ingrained in their instinct over billions of years, repelling the approach of a certain concept—like touching an old scar branded deep in the Soul, where the flesh would curl and scream before the pain could even reach consciousness.

The World Tree "remembered."

It remembered that era.

The era when even its roots were pulled up and its growth rings ground into dust. It remembered the taste of the "Void."

The Burial Son lay there, his pupils already shattered, having bled the last drop of blood that belonged to "life."

But the moment those two words pierced his eardrums like ice picks—

his "body" awoke.

Every inch of his Burial Dao Divine Body, every particle that constituted this immortal corpse, was emitting a silent scream that shook the Divine Soul!

It was not fear, but something more ancient and savage awakening—it was the absolute rejection of "non-existence," sealed at the source of the Bloodline, engraved at the very beginning when "existence" was first bestowed!

It was the most primal alarm buried in the marrow when the Creator molded the first vessel of flesh.

His bones were creaking; this was not the wail of impending breakage, but a "frequency" that had been silent for eons being reactivated, resonating with an invisible abyss.

Every bone was trembling, every tendon was tightening, and a nauseating "vitality" that defied all Laws of life was being awakened from the depths of his dead shell—like a corpse nailed into a coffin for a thousand years suddenly hearing a sound from outside the funeral bell.

He could not feel "fear."

He only felt a sense of "detachment" from top to bottom, from inside out.

It was as if the Foundation of what made him "him" was being gently pried by some force, like prying a nail driven into a wooden board, inch by inch, removing him from the map of "existence."

Light and darkness repel each other, life and death loathe each other, existence and non-existence... never coexist.

This is the iron Law, the cold inscription written before everything else, the backdrop of the Universe that is older than the Heavenly Dao and more immutable than fate.

The blurry figure of the Lord of Burials, condensed from ashes and the radiance of a waning moon, slowly rotated half a turn in the Void Realm.

It became even more "faded."

Not from weakness, but because it was pouring more "existence" into the two words it was speaking.

Power seeped out from every tiny crack in the Burial Land, surged from the depths where the shattered dreams of countless eras were buried, and converged from every grain of scorched earth, every wisp of dead wind, and every fragment of shattered space-time, condensing into the support for its speech—like a dying man squeezing out the last bit of warmth from his marrow, just to speak his final words.

"Primordial."

Its voice suddenly changed.

It was so light it was like a sigh drifting from the eternal past, so thin it would scatter at the slightest breeze, yet the moment it touched reality, it caused ripples in the "stability" of the entire space—like a pebble thrown into stagnant water, like a whisper piercing a dream.

"Do you know why this Burial Land..."

"...exists?"

Chu Changsheng did not answer.

He raised his deep purple eyes, his gaze falling, containing no doubt, no ripples, only a calmness frozen for eons, and beneath that calmness, a near-ruthless "knowing."

He stood there like a reader who had already finished reading the ending, just quietly watching the character in the story recount the cruel truth he already knew.

Like a statue watching the rise and fall of the mortal world; like an ancient sword listening to an epic of blood and tears. Unmoving, unstartled, unquestioning.

The figure of the Lord of Burials swayed imperceptibly, like a candle in the wind, like a reflection in water.

Weariness permeated every inch of its existence, a weariness so profound that it seemed as if it were not an individual, but a phantom gathered from the collective fatigue of countless sleeping Souls—the shared sigh of all who were buried, the shared silence of all who were forgotten.

"Indeed." It whispered, its voice dragging the weight of billions of years, every word like a sunken wreck salvaged from a deep well, "This land... is the 'Ruins'."

"It is the final, and only, remains... of the previous era—the glorious age known as the 'Taigu'."

It paused.

The scorched earth below silently split open into an abyss.

No heat surged out, no magma erupted, only a pure, deathly gray-white radiance seeped out from the core of the earth, sharing the same source as the light around the Lord of Burials—cold, pale, silent, like the sunset of the last world reflected in the pupils of the dead when they open their eyes.

This was the embers after countless civilizations had burned out, the lingering echo after vast Luck had been severed, the... last bit of cold light after billions of stars had fallen.

"That battle buried everything." The voice of the Lord of Burials sank into the ground and then spread out with the gray-white light, seeping into every grain of dust, into every crack, "The Heavens, the myriad Dao, infinite races, trillions of living beings, all known and unknown civilizations, all glorious and struggling fates... all returned here."

It raised its blurry arm, slowly sweeping across the desolate world before it.

The arm left a faint, dissipating trail of light in mid-air, like the final trajectory of a meteor, like the final ink stroke of a suicide note.

"Look at every grain of scorched dust; it is the crushed bone remains of a world after it has wept dry its blood and tears."

"Listen to every wisp of wind that passes by; it is the wail that trillions of Souls cannot utter in eternal silence."

"Every inch of 'desolation' you perceive is the once-vibrant 'existence' itself that has been thoroughly 'erased'."

The voice echoed, and the Burial Land responded.

Crackle...

Fine cracks spread from the Lord of Burials as the center toward the boundless eight wildernesses, crawling like spiderwebs over everything in sight.

Beneath the cracks, the gray-white light pulsed like the earth's veins; it was the sleeping, vast collective memory named "End" slowly awakening—like a giant buried deep underground turning over, the babble leaking from its dream being the final truth of this world.

Not far away, the mountain-like body of the Sky Burial Beast trembled violently and bowed low.

In its giant, ghostly green eye, fear originating from the source of life was clearly reflected—it was something older than fear, the primitive rejection of the "Void" engraved deep into its genes, the scent of the apocalypse that even a beast could perceive.

It remembered.

How could it not remember?

Before becoming so vast, so hideous, and so entangled with death and resentment, it had once been a small, ordinary, yet truly "living" creature in that buried glorious era.

It too had once seen the sunlight, drunk from the stream, and under a certain starry sky, had its own insignificant joys and sorrows.

Then, "they" came.

The Void Clan.

No reason, no declaration of war, not even "hostility," an emotion belonging to existence.

They just arrived, and then... erased.

Like an eraser passing over handwriting, like waves smoothing out a sand painting, as if it had never existed.

No struggle, no resistance, not even a scream—because a scream is also a proof of "existence," and they did not even allow that.

Chu Changsheng's eyelashes trembled, ever so slightly.

Just once.

The "Qi" of the entire world solidified.

It was as if a peerless weapon, in its endless slumber, had for the first time sensed another edge sharp enough to sever it, and from within its sheath, emitted a faint sound that no one could hear, yet which made all things freeze—it was a greeting between swords, a resonance between killing intents, two trapped beasts in the darkness simultaneously opening their eyes.

"The Void Clan."

He spoke.

His voice was calm, his words clear; it was not a question, but a confirmation.

It was as if, in the endless labyrinth of time, he had finally touched the only correct, cold core puzzle piece; as if, in the mountains of corpses, he had found the last remaining tablet inscribed with the truth.

The blurry head of the Lord of Burials seemed to nod downward, making an incredibly heavy gesture of affirmation.

The amplitude of this nod was so small, yet it seemed to exhaust all its remaining strength—like a withered tree bending in the wind, like an ancient pagoda tilting through the years.

"The Void Clan."

It repeated, every syllable seeming to burn the bit of gray-white radiance it relied on to exist, every word like pulling a piece of red-hot coal from its throat.

"They are not creations, nor are they derivatives." The voice of the Lord of Burials lowered further, so low it was like a whisper, or perhaps a prayer, as if afraid of waking something, or as if stating a taboo that even "language" itself could barely bear, "They were born together with 'Being'."

"When Chaos cracked, the Grandmist was first judged, the clear and the turbid first separated, the moment 'existence' was established from the Void—"

Its blurry arm raised, pointing to the boundless Void Realm, to the endless Burial Land beneath its feet, to the end of all meaning.

The arm was trembling, not because of weakness, but because the act of pointing itself was a great act of courage.

"As the absolute opposite of 'existence,' 'Void' itself... also manifested."

"They are the will of 'Nothingness,' the entity of 'non-existence,' the... ultimate erasers that this vast Universe set for itself at the very beginning of its birth."

Chu Changsheng's pupils contracted slightly.

The degree of contraction was so small, so small it was almost a hallucination, so small that even the Burial Son, who was close at hand, might not have been able to catch it.

But in this instant, the entire Burial Land, along with the gray light flowing over it, the howling dead wind, the trembling cracks, and even the phantom of the towering World Tree... everything, absolutely everything, fell into a state of absolute stagnation.

It was not silence, but a "suspension" deeper than silence.

Like time had stopped flowing, like fate had stopped turning, like the entire Universe was holding its breath.

It was as if an ancient sword, already stained with the blood of all the Heavenly Gods and demons, had finally sensed in its eternal loneliness the only other sword capable of rivaling it—the absolute silence of that life-and-death moment before the edge was unsheathed.

This was the final second of tranquility before the storm, the moment two giant beasts looked at each other when they met, the one heartbeat after the gears of fate had engaged, but before they had yet turned.