482: Chapter 482 The Harvesting Scythe

Its "words," here, underwent a bizarre, involuntary fracture—as if they had touched upon some forbidden zone of description.

It was not stopped by an external force, but rather the form of "sound" itself collapsed, twisted, and disintegrated when attempting to carry that unspeakable concept.

Only the core "meaning" remained, like the final thought of a dying person, forcibly squeezing into the depths of the listener's consciousness:

"—A scythe used for harvesting."

"This world, the entirety of this space-time, the endless stars, races, civilizations, glories, loves, hatreds, births, deaths, and everything called 'meaning' and 'existence'..."

"Are all just His... crops."

"The Void Clan is His scythe."

"When an era's flame of civilization burns to its most intense and dazzling point, when the flower of wisdom blooms to its most prosperous and splendid state, and when the 'density' and 'weight' of existence accumulate to a certain... scale that makes that Shepherd feel 'full,' feel that it 'can be harvested'..."

The Lord of Burials' hand, composed of pure light, slowly and heavily pointed to the boundless, pitch-black scorched earth beneath his feet that had devoured all light and heat.

"The scythe will fall."

"The harvest begins. Devouring all light, all heat, all memories, all possibilities. Cooling the boiling era into ash, grinding the splendid civilization into powder, returning all 'being' to the purest... 'nothingness' that awaits the next sowing."

"Then, waiting. In the absolute silence without any observer, waiting for a faint spark to occasionally burst forth from the depths of the ashes. Waiting for the tender shoots of 'existence' to stubbornly and ignorantly sprout once more in the hotbed of nothingness. Waiting for new crops to sprout naively, struggle to grow, prosper ignorantly, and once again, ignorantly, walk toward that already predetermined... season of maturity."

"Then."

"The scythe falls again."

"Cycle after cycle."

"Repeating in a loop."

"From the beginning to the end. From the first moment 'being' was born, to the last day when 'being' is completely forgotten, and even 'forgetting' itself loses its meaning—"

"Never mistaken, never delayed, never... by the will of any life, by the light of any miracle, by any blood burning to the extreme, or by any soul sacrificed completely..."

"Changed in the slightest."

The Lord of Burials' voice was no longer a voice in the usual sense. It had transformed into a cold, unquestionable declaration, like a Law of physics, directly inscribed upon the Foundation of the Laws of this world.

As each syllable of this declaration fell, the "color" of the already dim Burial Land seemed to peel away and fade, layer by layer.

This was not physical fading, but rather the concept of "color" itself, in the face of such truth, feeling weary and meaningless, was heading toward extinction on its own.

Light, that remaining, faint light symbolizing "visibility," was slowly extinguishing—not being devoured by darkness, but abandoning its duty to "illuminate" itself.

The Sky Burial Beast's rotting, mountain-sized body was no longer "kneeling"; it was as if all its bones and will had been extracted, completely "melting" as it collapsed and clung to the scorched earth.

It seemed to want to bury itself again, returning to this matrix that birthed everything, to escape this suffocating, ultimate realization.

Its only remaining eye, ghost-green like a will-o'-the-wisp, was tightly shut. Its rotting eyelids trembled violently and silently, yet not a single tear could flow—because the emotion of "fear," in the face of truth at this level, had become a trivial, even somewhat luxurious, encumbrance belonging to "life."

Deep in the cracks, those ancient nightmares, the unwilling sighs of the Necro-Bone Titans, the resentful wails of the Blood Infant Mist Nightmares, the curses of rubbing pitch-black withered branches... all the final remnants of clamor and resentment belonging to the "buried ones," at this moment, died down into absolute, deathly silence.

Not suppressed, not dispersed.

But strangled by a larger, more absolute, all-encompassing truth—the truth named "both are prey"—which gripped the throat of all expression and extinguished the spark of all sound.

They, along with those they once hated, fought, and feared, and even the Void Clan that buried them here, were not essentially different from a grander perspective.

They were all just... crops in the same field, at different times and locations, harvested by the same scythe.

On the Burial Son's cheeks, the two dark red bloodstains that had seeped from his completely shattered pupils and long since dried and solidified appeared exceptionally glaring in this absolute, meaning-deprived silence, yet also exceptionally... small and insignificant. Like two forgotten insects accidentally crushed on the road rolled over by the giant wheel of history.

His consciousness was sinking toward a place deeper than this Burial Land, darker than nothingness itself, a place where even the concept of "sinking" lost its meaning.

There, there were no flames of anger, no tides of sorrow.

Only a piece, after completely "understanding" everything, of remaining, absolute, vacuum-like—emptiness.

He finally understood that the destruction of the ancient era was not a lost battle, but an inevitable result of the program running.

Finally understood that what was buried in this Burial Land beneath his feet was not simply the corpses of enemies or compatriots, but indiscriminate waste produced by a huge, cold, repeating "harvesting process."

Finally understood that himself, as well as all the memories, obsessions, glory, and pain he carried, in the eyes of that unspeakable Shepherd, before that scythe named "Void," in these repeated harvesting cycles, were as small as dust, as fleeting as morning dew, and... without any surprise.

Chu Changsheng still stood there.

Dressed in white, untouched by the surrounding surging, conceptual deathly silence, he was as clean as if he stood independent of this space-time.

His black hair, in the nearly frozen air currents of space-time, also seemed to have solidified into a still ink painting.

The World Tree behind him, with its branches drooping and leaves dim, seemed to be silently listening to this cold declaration that ended all hope and denied all meaning.

On his face, there were no ripples of emotion. No shock that should come when hearing a heaven-shaking secret, no gloom that should be there when facing ultimate despair, no anger that should be directed at the high-and-mighty "keeper," and no pity for his own situation as a "crop."

Only one kind, deep into the marrow, stripped of all Impurities and emotions... understanding.

That understanding was not an endorsement of this absurd setting, nor a surrender to this cold cycle.

It was a kind of "seeing."

Like a peerless swordsman, in the instant before a life-and-death duel, drawing his sword, finally seeing clearly the opponent's precise position, the subtle angle of the sword move's start, every trajectory of power flow, and even the single "point" that the Sword Intent finally locked onto.

This "seeing," this "understanding" itself, was a kind of extremely concentrated, extremely calm, and free-of-all-distractions—confirmation.

Then, he spoke.

His voice was calm, indifferent, clear, like the sound of two pieces of the hardest black ice at the peak of an ancient, unmelting snow mountain, gently colliding in absolute silence.

"So."

These two simple words rang out in this world where meaning was flowing away, colors were dying, and even despair seemed stale and boring.

Clear, like the first ray of light at the creation of the world, tearing through the eternal Chaos.

"The enemy of the ancient era is not the Void Clan."

He slightly lifted his eyelids.

In the depths of those deep purple, ice-sealed pupils, that point of cold-star-like, pure Sword Intent light suddenly—magnified. Brightened. Sharpened.

It pierced through the omnipresent, suffocating, heavy curtain regarding "cycles" and "destiny" brought by the Lord of Burials' words.

"It is that..."

He paused, his tone without the slightest fluctuation, as if merely stating an already confirmed fact, merely finding a temporary, yet sufficiently precise "coordinate" to "locate" an existence that could not be named or described.

"...the thing that keeps them as livestock."