513: Chapter 513 All Worlds Return to One

He gripped the gray longsword and took a step forward.

Just one step.

Time shattered beneath his feet, and space collapsed behind him.

This step did not traverse distance; it traversed the reversal of time and the inversion of Karma—it was as if he had crushed the barriers of the eternal river of time and broken through the fences of life and death Reincarnation.

From that primordial epoch forged of blood and fire into scorched earth, from the final battlefield where one hundred and eight sword lights shone together one last time to illuminate the eternal night, from the end where all his companions had fallen and only he remained, sword in hand... with one step, he arrived here.

A faint wailing came from the Void Realm; it was the weeping of the crushed years.

"Then you—watch closely."

The gray longsword was raised slowly, its tip pointing toward the distant Void Realm.

There was no flowing brilliance, no accompanying phenomena; the sword could not even reflect any light—it devoured light, devoured color, and devoured every concept that attempted to define it.

Only a Sword Intent, pure to the extreme and sharp to the extreme, condensed silently on the edge of the blade.

This was the first gleam of sharpness that split the Chaos when heaven and earth first opened.

It was the first "separation" that severed the Void Realm before all things were born.

The sword strike that the Ancestral Sword Spirit had just unleashed by burning its Origin was of the same source as this Sword Intent, yet it was like a firefly compared to the bright moon, or a stream compared to the vast ocean.

What condensed on the sword before them was the source, the root, the first and final thought that severed the boundary between "existence" and "non-existence."

The source of the Convergence of All Worlds Sword Intent.

The True Intent of Void-Slaying, which Lu Changzhi had personally unleashed to suppress the eternal Void Realm.

"What truly is—"

The Sword Child's voice was very calm, as calm as the solidified surface of the sea before a storm.

"The enlightenment of a remnant."

The moment his words fell, he swung the sword.

There was no earth-shattering momentum, no dazzling trails of light.

He simply, like brushing a fallen leaf from his shoulder or waving away a speck of dust before his eyes, held the sword horizontally and swung.

A streak of sword light detached from the gray longsword and flew toward the Void Realm.

This sword light was indescribable.

It was not gold, not blue, not gray, not white.

It was as if, after stripping away all colors, all attributes, and all concepts, it was the final remaining thing—an absolute negation of "non-existence" by "existence" itself.

A "slay" so sharp that even the word "sharp" could not contain it.

It was thin, as thin as the gap between thoughts.

It was slow, as slow as the hesitation when the gears of fate turned for the first time.

But as it flew toward the Void Realm, everything in its path—the boiling Void Realm energy, the shattered space fragments, the pervasive dark aura, and even those lingering remnants of Law that had not yet fully dissipated—split open silently before it.

It was not severed, nor was it defeated.

Rather, it was as if wherever this sword light reached, "existence" itself became a supreme decree; everything inferior to this decree did not even have the qualification to "be slain," and was only fit to—be annihilated.

The Void Sword Spirit watched that sword light fly toward him.

He wanted to dodge.

But his core was pinned to the anchor point of time and space by the Ancestral Sword Spirit's desperate strike; the final Void Sword strike he had attempted to unleash by burning his Origin had just formed its prototype when it silently disintegrated under the "gaze" of that sword light, like snow meeting boiling water.

He wanted to roar.

But the vast Sword Intent emitted by the sword light had sealed everything.

This was not suppression, but deprivation—deprivation of sound, deprivation of fluctuations, and deprivation of the very possibility of "making a sound."

He could only watch helplessly as that sword light, thin as a cicada's wing, slowly, elegantly, and unstoppably, cut into his dark canopy.

There was no explosion, no roar, no final brilliance.

There was only a "disappearance" that caused the Soul to freeze.

Wherever the sword light passed, the dark canopy parted smoothly to both sides like silk sliced by the most precise cutting knife.

Those dark red, malicious eyes did not even have time to show fear before they were completely erased from existence the moment the sword light swept past—no traces, no embers, as if they had never been born.

In the Void Sword Spirit's consciousness, the final thought that emerged was shattered and twisted:

"Convergence... of All Worlds Sword..."

"The true... Convergence of All Worlds..."

"Convergence... of All..."

Then, his existence, the consciousness he had spawned in the endless Void Realm, and the dark essence he had been nurtured from—were erased from the root.

The overwhelming dark canopy dissipated completely, and the Void Realm suddenly became terrifyingly "clean," so clean that only those pitch-black space cracks that could not heal for a long time remained, like hideous scars, proving that there had once been a tragic war here.

And that thin streak of sword light, after slaying the Void Sword Spirit, did not stop, nor did it dim even a fraction.

It continued to fly forward, flying toward the deeper parts of the Void Realm, toward that eternal Chaos that nurtured everything and devoured everything.

It was as if it had been destined to go there all along.

It was as if its mission was to fly to the end of the Void Realm and slay, to the last, all darkness, all Chaos, and all "non-existence" that attempted to deny existence.

On the Inheritance Plaza, there was a deathly silence.

This was not a silence without sound, but an absolute stagnation where even the concept of "silence" seemed too noisy.

Jian Tanghuang knelt on the ground, her hands covering her mouth tightly, her nails digging deep into the flesh of her cheeks, yet she could not feel the pain.

Tears surged out, blurring her vision, but she dared not blink, staring fixedly at that gray figure who seemed to hold up the entire Void Realm.

She did not know what she was crying for.

Fear? Yes, that Sword Intent that could sever the root made her Soul tremble.

Shock? Yes, that strike exceeded all her imagination regarding the "Dao of the Sword."

But deeper within was a surging, overwhelming grief that even she could not understand—it was as if in that strike, she saw countless burning epochs, countless faces fading into the darkness, a lonely war that had lasted for eternity, and a figure carrying all the departed as he moved forward, never looking back.

Her whole body trembled uncontrollably, like a fallen leaf in the cold wind.

On the other side, the young man from the Gong Clan stood stiffly in place, the expression on his face completely twisted and broken.

This was not a distortion brought about by fear, but a tragic struggle erupting from the deepest part of his Soul.

The dark red patterns deep in his pupils jumped and spread crazily, as if a living thing was scratching frantically behind his eyeballs, attempting to break through the final Seal.

His body began to spasm uncontrollably, his hands opening and then clenching into fists tightly, his knuckles popping with a chilling, crisp sound, his teeth clenched, making a "clacking" grinding sound.

"No... no... get out... get out of my head... get out—!"

A broken roar was squeezed from his throat; it was his own voice, full of desperate resistance.

"Heh..."

Another voice came from the deepest part of his body.

This voice was old, cold, and hollow, carrying an absolute indifference that looked down upon the birth and death of billions of stars.

In its cognition, flesh and blood were dust, the Soul was fuel, civilizations were fleeting sparks, and even time and space were merely food available for chewing.

"A mere mortal ant, yet you dare to resist my descent?"

"Your Bloodline, your Soul, everything from the beginning of your birth... was originally the seed I had long ago sown."

"At this moment, it is merely... time for the harvest."

The young man from the Gong Clan's struggle suddenly stopped.

He suddenly lifted his head, and his pupils were swallowed and covered by endless dark red in an instant.

In those eyes, there was no longer any human emotion, only a pure, bottomless darkness that seemed to connect to the eternal Void Realm.

This was an essential "emptiness," an absolute negation of all existence.

His body slowly floated into the air, his pitch-black long hair dancing wildly without wind, each strand seemingly transformed into a crack that devoured light.

An aura, countless times more terrifying than that of the Void Sword Spirit from just before, erupted like a doomsday beast that had slumbered for countless epochs and was slowly waking up in a graveyard of star remains!

The Void Realm trembled, and turbulent energy rotated crazily around him, forming a huge dark red vortex.

Deep within the vortex, the scene was horrifying—countless shattered star remains rotated slowly, broken Dao Laws broke and recombined like chains, phantoms of annihilated civilizations flickered and wailed, and the desperate roars of billions of living beings in their final moments gathered into a silent storm... This was a graveyard of ten thousand worlds that had been devoured, digested, and completely reduced to "nothing"!

"Lord... Lord Zangxing?!"

The Ancestral Sword Spirit's voice trembled uncontrollably for the first time.

This was not fear, but a mixture of extreme hatred, dread that went deep into the bone marrow, and... a trace of trepidation belonging to "living beings" that had almost been erased by the long passage of time.

He stared fixedly at that floating dark red figure, the gold and blue light in his eyes flickering violently like a candle in the wind, and fine, nearly disintegrating cracks even appeared on his Sword Spirit body.

His words were hoarse, as if squeezed from a shattered chest:

"You... you parasite that devours ten thousand worlds... how could you... also not be completely dead?!"

The floating figure slowly turned around.

His dark red pupils swept indifferently over the Ancestral Sword Spirit's broken spirit body, grazed Jian Tanghuang's terrified and grieving face, and finally, landed steadily on the gray figure standing below with a sword.

The corners of his mouth slowly curled into an arc.

This was a smile without any temperature, without any emotion.

It was like a butcher seeing livestock waiting to be slaughtered, like a natural disaster looking down upon a city-state about to collapse, like "non-existence" itself, gazing at an exceptionally tenacious "existence" that would eventually be extinguished.

"Lu Changzhi."

He spoke, his voice not loud, yet it caused the entire Inheritance Plaza, and even the endless Void Realm beyond the plaza, to begin to groan under the unbearable weight.

Laws wailed, time and space twisted; just by having this name spoken, it seemed to touch the switch of some eternal taboo.

"Long time no see."

His voice paused, and this indifferent gaze seemed to penetrate the Sword Child's current body, seeing the figure behind him that was older, more distant, holding the First Sword, and fighting him at the end of the epochs.

Then, he gently spat out the last few words, carrying a near-pleasurable, cruel confirmation:

"You are still like this..."

"An eyesore."

"The Sword Child" gripped the gray longsword and slowly looked up.

His gaze met that pair of dark red pupils that seemed capable of devouring all light.

Deep within his gray eyes, it remained calm, as calm as an ancient well that had buried all storms.

But if anyone could see the slightest tremor in his pupils, they would discover that beneath that calmness was a resolve heavier and deeper than the birth and death of stars.

His right hand tightened around the hilt of the sword unconsciously.

His five fingers had knuckles protruding from excessive force, his fingertips digging deep into his palm, revealing a bloodless pallor.

The wind in the Void Realm seemed to have solidified, and time was stretched at this moment into a suffocating instant.

Countless shattered images perhaps flashed before his eyes—burning galaxies, fallen companions, those one hundred and seven sword lights that had extinguished one after another on the final battlefield, and this... eternal nemesis before him who had devoured all of it.

He remained silent for a long time.

Long enough for Jian Tanghuang to almost think that time had stopped, long enough for the Ancestral Sword Spirit's spirit body light to flicker uncertainly, as if it would collapse in the next moment.

Finally, he moved his lips gently.

Only two words were spat out.

The voice was very light, very faint, like a sigh, and also like a destined greeting that had been waiting in the passage of time for hundreds of millions of years.

But within those two words, it seemed to carry the blood and fire of eternity, bury the hatred and war of countless epochs, and condense the uncooled Souls and wishes of all the departed.

"Zangxing."

The two words fell.

In the Void Realm, the invisible murderous intent exploded with a roar!