531: Chapter 531 An Irresistible Fate

Lord Jixing closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, those black eyes that had once reflected the birth and death of galaxies and the rotation of ten thousand worlds were now empty.

All emotions, all thoughts, and every glimmer belonging to "existence" had been stripped away.

Only the most primitive, coldest, and purest killing intent remained.

This killing intent did not boil or burn; it was dead silent—like the absolute zero that had remained unchanged since the dawn of the Universe, mechanical, precise, and unquestionable.

He did not need to think.

Thinking was a luxury for living beings, but at this moment, he only needed to become the rule, the program, the very concept of "End."

He only needed to complete this one strike.

Then, this Karma that had been entangled for eons, this long nightmare flowing with blood and fire, would reach its destined conclusion.

He lifted his hand, which held the creation jade disc, with extreme slowness.

This jade disc, which bore the supreme authority of the Void Clan, began to emit a mysterious golden radiance as viscous as time itself.

The light did not dissipate; instead, it gathered, collapsed, and took shape in his palm—finally condensing into a short blade.

It was not a halberd. A halberd was a weapon of war and plunder.

Nor was it a sword. A sword was an extension of protection and faith.

It stood between the two, its form twisted and bizarre, carrying an ancient and savage aura. The blade was curved like a dying crescent moon, covered in ferocious barbs, and every barb was inscribed with unrecognizable primordial runes.

This was an execution tool specifically designed to end beings at the level of "Lord," the oldest, most solemn, and most cruel ceremonial weapon of the Void Clan.

He used it to end Lu Changzhi.

This was not charity, nor was it contempt.

On the contrary, it was the highest—acknowledgment.

Acknowledging that the enemy kneeling in the Void Realm before him, with his sword shattered and body broken, was worthy of having this ancient ceremonial weapon, which had been silent for countless epochs, used to send him off.

This was the final and most cruel tribute to a respectable opponent.

Lord Zangxing's mouth twitched imperceptibly.

He looked at this ceremonial weapon that symbolized the end, and a trace of extremely complex emotion flashed deep in his eyes—perhaps the chill of a rabbit dying and the fox grieving, or the throb of empathy for one's own kind.

But in the end, all ripples were swallowed by a deeper indifference.

He remained silent, merely gripping the dao-burying halberd in his hand tighter. The dark red tip of the halberd flickered with a halo of Dao-annihilating light, steadily aimed at Lu Changzhi's heart, forming a fatal trap alongside the mysterious golden blade on the left.

Lord Jixing spoke, his voice piercing through the dead silence of the Void Realm, plain yet as heavy as the stars of eons: "Sword Lord Lu."

This time, beneath that plainness was a solemnity that bordered on ritual.

"Eons ago, you failed to stop the footsteps of our clan. Eons later, the ending remains the same."

He paused slightly, as if to imbue this declaration with greater weight. "This is not your fault. It is the irresistible destiny of this Heaven and Earth, of this era."

The fingers holding the mysterious golden blade tightened slowly, his knuckles turning white, and the barbs on the blade seemed to come alive, emitting a hungry, faint hum.

"Be on your way."

Lord Zangxing remained silent.

His dao-burying halberd was his language—he did not want to send him off, but to bury him completely.

To bury Lu Changzhi, to bury the Dao of the Sword, to bury this obsession and resistance that had plagued the Void Clan for eons, along with this broken Void Realm, into the eternal nothingness.

Lu Changzhi did not look up.

His entire world seemed to have collapsed onto those two cold points of contact in his palms.

In his left hand was the broken hilt of the dragon-subduing imperial weapon.

The Dragon patterns that were once brilliant and dazzling, symbolizing supreme imperial power and strength, were now completely dim, as if drained of all blood and Soul.

This five-clawed golden Dragon that had once been so lifelike, as if it would break through the wall and take flight at any moment, was now stiffly curled up in the cold metal relief, like a sleeping scar that would never wake again.

In his right hand was the hilt of the Ancestral Sword Spirit. The last hexagonal ice crystal guarding the Origin core of the sword spirit had shattered.

One half was missing, annihilated in the previous energy turbulence; the other half, like a frozen teardrop, was stuck tightly on the hilt, with no radiance flowing, leaving only a bone-deep, desperate cold.

His fingers were trembling.

This was not out of fear—fear had burned out long ago.

Nor was it out of anger—anger had vanished into nothingness along with the shattered sword.

This was a tremor that transcended the control of his will, originating from the Origin of his life.

It was the mournful cry of his riddled body, about to completely disintegrate, in its final moment.

His fingertips began to become transparent, turning into fine, grayish-white light dust, drifting away in the Void Realm bit by bit, silently.

His grip was fading rapidly; soon, even this final "holding on" would become a luxury.

But he still did not let go.

From the moment the two swords shattered with a mournful cry, these two pieces of cold metal became his only remaining, final connection to everything in the past.

He knew they were "dead."

Inside the hilt of the dragon-subduing imperial weapon, that trace of Origin Dragon Qi that had accompanied him across the Universe had burned out its last glimmer of light and heat in the final strike; in the hilt of the Ancestral Sword Spirit, the cold and loyal consciousness had also returned to eternal extinction along with the complete shattering of the ice crystal.

What he was holding were merely remains, tombstones, the cold embers left behind after two glorious legends came to an abrupt end.

But he could not let go.

Because what came from his fingertips was not just the coldness of metal.

It was the low, suppressed, and resonant sword hum from the dragon-subduing imperial weapon before it fell into complete silence, filled with unwillingness and attachment.

It was the whisper that seemed to come from across time the moment the Ancestral Sword Spirit's consciousness dissipated, carrying the sincerity of a youth and final release—

"Disciple... this sword... is still... usable..."

It was the countless days and nights of standing side by side, the entrustment in life-and-death situations, the resonance when blades crossed, the silent tremor at the moment of victory.

It was the final body temperature of The Sword Lineage, flowing through eons.

And now, this faint, precious warmth was irreversibly, bit by bit, slipping away from his gradually transparent fingertips, swallowed by the endless cold of the Void Realm.

Overhead, the mysterious golden execution blade and the dark red dao-burying halberd had risen to their highest point.

The light condensed into substance, and the killing intent locked on like a heavenly net.

Two distinct yet equally fatal auras of destruction wove into a net, firmly enveloping him.

This light was so dazzling, as if two suns representing the end were about to fall, carrying out the final judgment.

Lu Changzhi finally, extremely slowly, lifted his head.

Those eyes that had once been as clear as stars, then as fiery as blood, and now seemed to be filled with the exhaustion of eons and shattered galaxies, slowly swept across Lord Jixing's indifferent face, grazed Lord Zangxing's cold eyes, looked at the creation jade disc that determined fate, and gazed at the dao-burying halberd that harvested everything.

Then, his gaze passed beyond them.

Towards that more distant, more broken place—Heaven and Earth Sword Mountain.

No, there was no "mountain" to speak of there.

The Holy Land that had once stood majestically, with Sword Intent piercing the sky, was now nothing but a tragic ruin.

The massive mountain body had completely disintegrated, turning into countless jagged rocks of various sizes, floating weightlessly in the dark Void Realm, slowly rolling and colliding, forming a desolate and silent ring of debris.

And the countless swords on the mountain—those long swords that had once belonged to generations of Sword Cultivators, carrying countless dreams, glory, and obsessions, whether they were long broken, rusted and mottled, or had lost their spiritual light—were all detached from the mountain body, scattered in all directions with the collapsing torrent.

They drifted, rotated, and fell in silence.

Like a rain of cold, metallic ash falling across the sky after a grand funeral.