480: Chapter 480 Sword Leaves Two Marks on Water

" It cannot be killed. "

Chu Changsheng spoke.

The three words were as flat as stating " The sky is blue. "

There were no ripples, no questions; he could not even be bothered to use an extra ounce of effort from his lips and teeth.

Yet, deep within that voice, something was settled—like an ancient sword tempered by eons of time, resting at the bottom of the clearest cold pool, having retracted all its sharp edges, leaving only a pure " stillness " that instinctively froze the Soul.

Stillness to the extreme is the edge that severs all.

" It cannot be killed. "

The Lord of Burials replied.

In its voice, fatigue was no longer an emotion, but a " state "—a background color that lived and decayed together with this scorched earth, these gray lights, and this segment of memory.

This fatigue was so heavy that even the word " despair " seemed frivolous, noisy, and meaningless before it.

" They are not living beings, not Souls, not anything that can be ' ended. ' "

It raised the arm outlined by ashes and residual light, its movement heartbreakingly slow, as if every simplest gesture had to struggle against the stagnation of eternal time, squeezing out the strength to exist inch by inch from the endless void.

It pointed toward the Void Realm, toward the end of the Burial Land, toward those wounds in the earth that could not heal, from which gray-white light bubbled out.

" They are ' Nothingness ' itself. To kill a member of the Void race... " The Lord of Burials' voice paused, like a dull knife scraping across sandstone, like bone shards grinding against broken rock, " is like swinging a sword to cut water. "

" The sword passes, the water splits. The sword leaves, the water mends. As if that sword strike never landed, as if that edge... never existed. "

Chu Changsheng was silent.

Only deep within those deep purple eyes, it seemed as if stars were dying, Chaos was reopening, and some kind of giant wheel, sealed for endless epochs, was being slowly pushed by an invisible force for its first rotation.

The gears engaged, grinding over the skeletons of time, emitting a muffled echo that made the Soul suffocate.

" It cannot be extinguished. "

He said.

The moment the words fell, the entire Void Realm " froze " for an instant.

It was not the wind stopping, nor the sound ceasing; it was that some fundamental rule constituting " this place " had been lightly tapped by these three words, emitting a trembling sound on the verge of shattering that only supreme existences could perceive—like an ancient bell of eons, touched by a fingertip, emitting a hum that could not be heard but shattered the Soul.

" It cannot be extinguished. "

The Lord of Burials confirmed again.

This fatigue grew heavier, as if every repetition was draining the last bit of support from its already illusory existence, draining away a wisp of obsession that should not have existed long ago.

" You can grind their bodies into the finest dust, seal their Origin into eternal silence, and completely erase their names from all records, memories, and even the lines of Karma— "

It stopped.

The gray-white figure fluctuated slightly, like countless dead Souls simultaneously swallowing a gulp of non-existent bitter water, like the lamentation of the entire Burial Land finding the same throat at this moment.

" But as long as ' Being ' is still here, " the Lord of Burials' voice suddenly became exceptionally sharp, like the final screech of a string stretched for eons just before it snaps, like a rusted knife being snapped in two, " as long as the concept of ' existence ' has not been completely annihilated from this world... they will breed again from ' Nothingness, ' awaken again from ' Silence, ' and return again from every forgotten, denied, and abandoned corner. "

" Like... a shadow. "

It found that metaphor.

A metaphor so cold it froze the marrow, so cold that one lacked the strength even to tremble.

" Sever the light source, and the shadow dissipates. But as long as there is one spark of unextinguished fire, as long as there is one ' existence ' that can cast a shadow... the shadow is undying and indestructible. "

" Light and shadow, existence and nothingness... born together, opposing each other, entangled for eternity, until... everything is nothing, or everything is existence. "

Rumble...

Deep within the Burial Land, the painful spasm of the earth's core came.

This was not a sound, but the lament of the " remains " of this world itself—it was a dead world turning over in its grave, the last groan of broken earth veins in the darkness.

In the countless cracks, gray-white light surged, like billions of wronged Souls sleeping underground, opening their eyes, which had long since turned into light dust, at the same moment.

The figure of the Lord of Burials almost dissipated in this surging, cold light, like a dying candle struggling in a hurricane, like memory fading into oblivion.

Yet its voice pierced through the light, pierced through time, like the sharpest ice pick, nailing into the barrier of reality, into Chu Changsheng's eardrums, into an old wound in the deepest part of his Soul:

" Their power... comes from ' Devour. ' "

" They do not drink, do not eat, do not practice Qi circulation. Their very existence... is Devouring. "

Every word was like a poisoned curse, squeezed from the ashes of its Soul, dug out from its long-dead chest, carrying the scent of decay, carrying the lingering warmth of despair.

" Matter, energy, Soul, memory, Karma, fate, time, space... all ' Being ' that can be defined, perceived, and spoken of, is their food. "

" Matter is devoured and returns to nothingness. Energy is devoured and turns into dead silence. Soul is devoured and dissipates for eternity. Karma is devoured and fate is severed. Time is devoured and history becomes void. Space is devoured and the world collapses... "

Its voice became lower and lower, deeper and deeper, as if dragging some unspeakable, terrifying core, as if every extra word spoken was dragging itself deeper into that lightless abyss.

" Every time they devour the Origin of a world, they become one point more ' solidified. ' Every time they swallow a glorious fate, they become one point more ' complete. ' Every time they consume all the memories and traces of a civilization... "

The Lord of Burials' gray-white figure twisted violently and painfully, as if resisting saying the final answer, as if that answer itself were a knife gouging out its heart.

" ... they become one point more ' like ' us. "

Chu Changsheng's brows twitched, almost imperceptibly.

It was not fear, not being moved. It was a deeper palpitation, as if touching the underlying code of life, mixed with cold realization and instinctive repulsion.

Like seeing an inverted, strange self in a mirror.

Like hearing a heartbeat exactly the same as one's own at the edge of an abyss.

" They devour, " Chu Changsheng's voice remained calm, but like an undercurrent beneath the ice, carrying the chill of insight into all essence, carrying a certain verified, unpleasant certainty, " in order to... become ' existence. ' "

This was not an inference; it was an awakening.

It was the dusty inscription buried at the very bottom of his consciousness, which, after being tapped by an external force, autonomously emerged—like sunken remains floating to the water's surface, like a dream emerging into daylight.

" ... Yes. "

The Lord of Burials' voice was as light as a sob, a whimper from the deepest part of the epoch's grave, dried up for eons, like wind passing through the hollow cavities of withered bones, like water seeping into the cracks of a desert.

" They were born from ' Nothingness, ' yet they yearn for ' Being. ' This is the eternal hunger engraved at the source of their race, the irresistible instinct that drives them to devour all that is. They do not devour for destruction... "

" It is to fill. "

" To fill that Innate, bottomless... ' Void. ' "

" They are hungry ghosts that can never be satisfied. They devoured the Primordial era, devoured infinite worlds, devoured trillions of brilliant civilizations... "

The Lord of Burials' voice became ethereal, like a wisp of smoke about to dissipate, carrying a mockery bordering on pity, not knowing if it was for the nothingness, or for the " them " of the past who once thought they could defeat nothingness.

" They are still hungry. "

" And will... remain hungry forever. "

The voice drifted across the desolate world, and the gray-white light in those cracks flickered with it, like a cold and painful ocean breathing—tide rising, tide falling, every time was the last gasp of a dying world.

In the light, billions of twisted faces vaguely emerged, wailed, and shattered; that was everything that had been devoured, struggling eternally in the stomach of ' Nothingness, ' existences deprived even of death, emitting screams in the belly of the void that no one could hear.

" In the Primordial epoch, we... did not fail to fight. "

The Lord of Burials' voice suddenly rose, its gray-white, blurred outline erupting with a brief and intense brilliance, like the last bursting spark of dying embers, like the final brightness in the eyes of a dying person during their last moments.

That was the last, and most tragic, dignity of the defeated.

" Ten thousand worlds united, billions of races allied! Gods and demons stood side by side, Dragon and Phoenix made a covenant! All Innate divinities, all kinds of Acquired practitioners... all who ' exist ' cast aside their past grievances and raised the banner together! "

" We once thought that by gathering the full strength of ' Being, ' and burning the blazing flames of ' Existence, ' we could surely pierce through the eternal darkness and cleanse the nothingness! We once firmly believed that the blade of light would eventually pierce the heart of darkness! "

" We... "

The voice stopped abruptly.

It was not a stop, but being fiercely throttled by some invisible, enormous force, and then... smashed to pieces.

Like a war banner being torn by the wind at its highest point, like a war song having its throat cut at its most passionate moment.

That brilliance instantly annihilated, and the shadow of the Lord of Burials became so faint it was almost transparent, as if it would be completely blown away by the wind from the graveyard in the next second, as if it had never existed, as if all this were just another dream fading away on the Burial Land.

" Wrong. "

Two words exhausted its last bit of strength.

" A crushing... defeat. "

" Ten thousand worlds overturned, billions of races exterminated, infinite civilizations... all returned to dust. "

Its figure trembled and swayed violently, the gray-white light points that composed it flickering like a candle in the wind, as if it would disintegrate at any moment and return to the endless sea of gray-white light of the same Origin beneath its feet.

Yet its voice was strangely clear and stable, carrying a determination to use itself as a tombstone to inscribe the final truth—like a dying person using their last body heat to cover the coldest stone on their chest.

" That war... how long did it last? I cannot remember. Time was devoured, epochs were confused. I only remember... "

It paused, and the " gaze " composed of gray-white halos seemed to pierce through Chu Changsheng, casting toward even more distant, more shattered space-time rifts—casting toward those epochs where even memory no longer existed and only names remained, casting toward those worlds where even names had vanished and only silence remained.

" Watching helplessly as one ' world ' after another, bearing infinite living beings, were extinguished one after another like candles in the wind. "

" Watching helplessly as one ' race ' after another, glorious throughout the ages, dissipated without a trace like snow meeting boiling water. "

" Watching helplessly as the brilliance of those civilizations, the songs of those stars, the epics of those fates... were devoured bit by bit, piece by piece by the giant mouth of ' Nothingness, ' leaving behind only... ' Emptiness, ' more desperate than darkness. "

" We fought back, struggled, burned everything, bet everything... "

The Lord of Burials' voice lowered, so low it seemed like an echo from deep underground, so low it seemed as if the Burial Land itself was finishing the last words for it.

Finally, the voice turned into a sigh so long it seemed to pierce through ancient and modern times, dissipating in the never-ending wind of the Burial Land, dissipating between the flickering of those gray-white lights, dissipating into the eternal silence where even time had died.

" Yet our power, before them... was like throwing snow into a great furnace, instantly melting, leaving no trace. "