517: Chapter 517 The First Generation

This dark golden figure solidified completely in the Void Realm, like eternal black ice, radiating a chill that could freeze time and space.

He stood firm, and the Void Realm beneath his feet seemed to submit, rippling with circles of submissive waves.

His gaze first fell upon Lord Zangxing, whose aura was withered, lingering for only a negligible instant, as if brushing past a speck of dust, before slowly sweeping across this devastated world.

His gaze was cold and indifferent, like Heavenly Dao looking down upon the ruins he had created with his own hands.

He looked at the ancient sword patterns crumbling like withered petals, at the towering stone pillars that had stood tall but now collapsed with a roar, and at the gray-white light dust dancing in the sky, unwilling to dissipate...

Finally, it fixed upon that solitary figure almost merging into the pale white background—Lu Changzhi.

Those pure black pupils, devoid of whites, like an abyss swallowing all light, narrowed slightly at this moment.

"Sword Master!"

The Ancestral Sword Spirit's voice was hoarse and broken, like sandpaper rubbing against rotten wood; his spirit body twisted and flickered violently in the Void Realm, like a remnant candle flame struggling in a storm, ready to be extinguished with a "poof" at any moment. "It is him... Lord Jixing... the First of the Primordials of the Void Clan. Eons ago, he clearly had already—"

"Clearly had already died."

Lu Changzhi cut off the Ancestral Sword Spirit's exhausted words, his voice as calm as a stagnant pool, without a ripple.

His gray eyes reflected the dark golden figure, yet were so deep they seemed bottomless. "It seems that I am not the only one who failed to die completely eons ago."

The tone remained flat, but on his body, which was already more than half transparent and seemed like shattering glass, those hideous dark red lines suddenly accelerated their spread and erosion, as if they were living creatures that had caught the scent of blood!

Like countless hungry venomous snakes, they were frantically gnawing at his remaining Dao foundation and vitality.

This was the Dao injury left by the dao-burying halberd. Now, having lost the forceful suppression of his Divine Soul Origin, it was carrying out its final and most thorough destruction at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Lord Jixing remained silent.

He merely raised his right hand, extremely casually.

The movement was understated, as relaxed as if he were merely brushing a non-existent fallen leaf from his shoulder.

However, with just this flick—

"Boom—!!!"

The Void Realm exploded!

It was not an explosion of sound waves, but a collapse at the level of rules!

An indescribable, ineffable, terrifying power erupted!

This was not the tyrannical dark red of Lord Zangxing, nor the deathly gray-white of Lu Changzhi, but a more ancient, more pure, more overbearing—dark golden tide of light!

This tide of light had no source and no destination; it simply crushed outward in all directions, indiscriminately, with arrogance, brutality, and unreasonableness!

Wherever it passed, the Void Realm did not just shatter; it was directly annihilated into the most basic Chaos Origin Qi!

"Pfft—!"

The Ancestral Sword Spirit could not even let out a full grunt before his spirit body was violently thrown away like a kite with a broken string, crashing through all the floating debris along the way. Dark golden spirit-quality light liquid sprayed from his mouth, and his spirit body dimmed instantly.

In the distance, Jian Tanghuang could not even muster the thought of resistance before being pinned tightly to the shattered ground by an invisible, immense force. Her bones emitted a teeth-grinding, unbearable "creak" of agony, as if she would be crushed into a pulp of flesh in the next second.

And those already collapsed plazas and palace ruins were, before this power, even more fragile than sandcastles in the wind, instantly turning into nothingness finer than dust.

Only Lu Changzhi.

Only the three feet of space where he stood remained calm and peaceful.

It was not that he had blocked this all-destroying tide of light, but that the dark golden torrent, upon touching the three-foot distance before him, seemed to have a life of its own, automatically and submissively flowing to the sides, like raging waves actively avoiding a small reef.

This was not mercy, nor was it hesitation.

This was thorough, undisguised—contempt.

"Sword Lord Lu."

Lord Jixing finally spoke, his voice low, steady, and without the slightest fluctuation, yet carrying the weight of a Heavenly Dao decree. Every word that fell caused the surrounding shattered Void Realm to tremble slightly. "It has been eons; you are... even more pathetic than I anticipated."

His gaze, like a tangible ice pick, slowly scraped across Lu Changzhi's arm, which was transparent enough to see the inner flow of light, scraped across those hideous, wildly spreading dark red Dao injuries, and finally landed on that suspended, luster-concealing gray longsword.

"You even need to borrow the strength of a remnant Soul just to hold a sword."

He shook his head slightly, his movements slow, carrying a rhythm like a judgment. "You even need to force your broken body to stand. The First Sword Master who once dominated the Primordial Era and made all races bow... has actually fallen to this point."

He paused, then spat out the last four words, each one like ten thousand years of cold ice: "Truly, pathetic."

Lu Changzhi remained silent.

He merely, extremely slowly, raised that hand which had almost ceased to exist once more.

The gray-white light patterns arduously outlined the phantom contours of five fingers, trembling as they reached toward the hilt of the gray longsword before him.

The moment he grasped it—

"Sizzle!"

The light patterns on his arm suddenly flashed frantically and erratically, as if they would completely disintegrate in the next moment, along with that illusory palm turning into specks of light.

But in the end, he gripped it tight.

As his five fingers closed, a spray of fine and sorrowfully beautiful light particles erupted between them and the hilt.

Lord Jixing watched quietly as he completed this simple yet incredibly difficult action; in his abyss-like black eyes, there was no pity, no mockery, not even the slightest ripple.

This was an absolute indifference, viewing all things as straw dogs, viewing struggle as dust and smoke.

"Zangxing."

He turned his head slightly, looking at Lord Zangxing, who was catching his breath not far away.

Lord Zangxing looked up abruptly; in his dark red eyes, the rage and madness previously suppressed by Lu Changzhi now completely transformed into a scorching, nearly insane excitement.

"Jixing! You have come just in time!"

His voice was even more hoarse and grating due to excitement. "Lu Changzhi is at the end of his rope, his lamp is exhausted! If you and I join forces, today we will surely bury him completely, destroy his Divine Soul, and cast him into eternal damnation—"

"Noisy."

Lord Jixing interrupted him, his tone unchanged, yet it caused all of Lord Zangxing's subsequent words to be stuck firmly in his throat.

"Since I have come in person, it is not to watch a play."

Having said this, he took a step.

When he took the step, he was still a hundred feet away, his figure blurred. When his foot landed—

He had appeared out of thin air before Lu Changzhi, at a distance of three feet!

There was no spatial fluctuation, no lingering afterimage, and not even any disturbance to the air currents.

This was a bizarre method that transcended the concept of speed, a displacement of "existence" itself. It was so fast that time lost its meaning, so fast that in Jian Tanghuang's vision, the dark golden figure seemed to have "grown" directly out of the Void Realm!

"Zheng—!"

Lu Changzhi did not even "react".

The gray longsword, the longsword that had coexisted with his remnant will and the Sword Spirit for eons, had already moved on its own!

The sword body emitted a trembling sound of extreme sorrow, not the clear whistle before an attack, but an instinctive counterattack in a desperate situation!

A gray-white crescent sword light, condensed to the extreme, slashed out with the momentum to sever Karma and divide Yin and Yang, striking directly at Lord Jixing's throat!

This sword strike was a flower of death blooming in a desperate situation, the final tacit burning of Lu Changzhi and the Sword Spirit—fierce, decisive, and unreserved!

However—

Lord Jixing merely raised his hand calmly and extended two fingers.

Two fingers, wreathed in a faint dark golden halo and cast like divine metal, closed gently at the critical moment, right at the most intense core of that destructive sword light.

"Hum————!!!"

What the gray longsword emitted was no longer a clear chime, no longer a trembling sound, but a wail so sharp it could tear the Soul apart, filled with endless fear and pain!

This Primordial divine sword, which had once drunk the blood of the strong and cut down starlight, now, like a child with its throat choked, emitted an instinctive, deepest shudder between the two fingers of Lord Jixing!

Lu Changzhi's gray pupils contracted suddenly to pinpoints.

"A mere vessel of aggregated spirit power dares to wail before me."

Lord Jixing lowered his gaze, indifferently examining the sword body held between his fingertips, as if looking at a slightly flawed toy. "Sword Lord Lu, the eons of sinking seem to have not only worn away your power but also your discernment."

Before the words faded.

He twisted the two fingers holding the sword body, extremely casually.

"Cr...ack..."

A faint yet incredibly clear sound, as if a glass heart were being crushed, suddenly spread throughout the silent battlefield!

On the body of the gray longsword, a brand new, hideous crack, flickering with ominous dark golden light, appeared abruptly!

It was not an ancient scar, but a mark of destruction created forcibly at this moment!

"Sizzle—!"

Gray-white light liquid, like the final hot blood of life, gushed wildly from the crack!

"Ah————!!!"

At the same time, in the distance, the limp Ancestral Sword Spirit curled up violently and let out a heart-rending wail that was definitely not human!

This was the transmission of excruciating pain from the Sword Spirit's connection to the sword body's Origin, a shared life and death; it was the ultimate agony of the spirit body being torn apart inch by inch!

His figure, at this moment, was almost too faint to see.

The sword body wept blood, and the Sword Spirit wailed.

All in the span of a single finger.