532: Chapter 532 Eternal Years

This light lasted only for a moment.

Like a tiny flame in the endless cold night, suddenly fanned by a gale, it only had time to flicker once, illuminating a few drifting sword shadows nearby, before being strangled by a grander, more ruthless "Rule" — this was the suppression of the Heavenly Dao from the creation jade disc, cold, absolute, and unquestionable.

These longswords, in the end, could not take flight.

They were too old.

So old that the runes engraved on their bodies had become blurred, so old that even the edges that once drank blood were coated in thick rust from the passage of time.

They were too worn.

So worn that many blades had long since snapped, relying only on a thread of lingering spirituality to barely maintain their final form, like withered bones refusing to fall.

Eternal ages, like the most patient sandpaper, had ground away their wonders and sharpness bit by bit, wearing down the power that could sever galaxies into dust in the wind.

Eternal waiting, like a ruthless cold current, slowly froze their desire to awaken, cooling their fervent spirituality into dead, silent ashes.

They had waited silently on Heaven and Earth Sword Mountain for ten thousand years.

Waiting for the mountain winds to howl, waiting for the sun and moon to turn, waiting for the galaxies to flow.

Waiting until the mountains that bore them collapsed into rings, waiting until their bodies were covered in rust and cracks, waiting until that final summons made them exhaust all their strength to ignite the last, and weakest, spark of their lives —

Then, before the eternal darkness descended, that spark was extinguished.

In the end, they had not waited for what they sought.

They did not manage to wait for the person who could once again hold them tight, bestowing upon them sharpness and meaning.

Lu Changzhi watched those sword fragments that drifted powerlessly, eventually returning to the Void Realm.

Deep within those eyes, once stained with blood but now seemingly having settled all madness, something was violently surging and colliding, almost breaking through the sockets.

This was not sadness.

Sadness is tears, is sobbing, is the pain that can flow out.

This was not anger.

Anger is fire, is roaring, is the fury that can burn everything.

This was a pain duller and heavier than sadness, more dead and silent than anger — it was as if the dust of eternity, the vanished stars, and all the unspeakable losses and regrets had been compressed into the depths of the Soul... the pain of the Void Realm.

He looked at those fragments, yet his gaze pierced through them.

He saw the bloody battle from ten thousand years ago, where the slaughter shook the heavens and earth, and stars fell like rain.

He saw sword light like rainbows, and he also saw blood light like waterfalls.

He saw familiar comrades fall amidst roars, and saw the halls of the Legacy collapse in flames.

He saw The Sword Lineage, that brilliance which once illuminated the heavens, how it dimmed inch by inch, perished inch by inch in desperate resistance, until only a solitary mountain remained, along with the countless silent swords upon it.

He saw his Revered Master. That back, always straight like a pine, how at the final moment, in order to buy him a sliver of hope for survival, it had decisively turned to face the sky full of enemies — and then collapsed like a mountain, shattering into a wound in his memory that would never heal.

He saw the Ancestral Sword Spirit. The cold, icy figure of the youth, when finally shattering, turned into sky-filling ice-blue, gentle, and sorrowful points of light, like a sigh, dissipating in the wind.

All the scenes, all the suppressed, forgotten, and deeply buried memories and emotions, at this moment, like a burst galaxy, poured back into his consciousness that was about to dissipate.

The glory and pride of ancient times.

The blood feud and coldness that soaked into his marrow during the extermination.

The endless loneliness and waiting during the eternal slumber.

The exhaustion of struggling to awaken time and again in Reincarnation, only to be forced to flee.

The relentless, death-defying pursuit that followed like a shadow after awakening, and the panic and humiliation of fleeing all the way.

Until the end, this counterattack that poured out everything and burned everything away —

Everything, the thread that ran through the long passage of time, the cause that bore endless weight, all converged at this end of fate, twisted into a rope that could not be broken free from, and finally strangled out two bloody words —

Unwillingness.

But he did not roar these two words.

Roaring requires strength, and his strength, along with the desire to roar, seemed to have settled down into that surging torrent.

He just, extremely slowly, withdrew his gaze.

His sight fell back onto his palms.

Here, the broken hilts of the dragon-subduing imperial weapon and the Ancestral Sword Spirit, cold, dead, silent, like two miniature tombstones.

Then, he smiled.

The arc of his lips was very light, very faint, like the last trace of melting ice patterns on the surface of an early spring lake.

It was not a bitter smile of bearing everything, not a miserable smile of being at the end of the road, and certainly not a crazy smile of madness and despair.

It was a kind of... relief.

As if a traveler who had trekked for eternal ages had finally reached the end of the journey — although there was a cliff beneath his feet and pursuers behind him — he could finally set down the burden that had long since merged into his bones and blood.

A calm, almost transparent smile spread from the depths of his eyes, softening the last trace of sharp lines on his face.

His hand holding the hilts began to move.

Very slow, very difficult.

Every tiny movement was accompanied by gray-white light dust dissipating as his body accelerated its disintegration.

He exhausted the last strength of this broken body, bit by bit, raising his arms from his kneeling knees.

The movement was solemn, as if performing an ancient ritual.

He raised the two sword hilts to his chest.

The sword tips pointed downward, pointing to the Void Realm, and also pointing to his own end.

The hilts pointed upward, like two silent monuments, and also like a final offering and farewell to something.

This was the oldest and most noble ritual in the Sword Cultivator Legacy — to pay tribute to an opponent worthy of a battle, to pay tribute to himself who had reached the end, and to pay a final, silent salute to this Dao of the sword, which was written in blood and fire, yet ultimately had to stop here.

He maintained this posture, his blood-red eyes lifted, calmly looking toward his "ending".

Looking at Lord Jixing's empty, indifferent eyes.

Looking at the cruelty and pleasure burning in Lord Zangxing's eyes.

Looking at this fated enemy who had entangled him for eternal ages, driving him and everything he represented to a desperate end.

His lips moved slightly.

This time, a faint airflow rubbed out a sound. Very light, very light, light as a butterfly brushing past a dying candle flame, light as a snowflake falling into a waveless deep pool.

But in this Void Realm where all things were dead silent and even time seemed to have solidified, every syllable was as clear as if it were beating directly on the eardrums of the Soul.

"The Sword Lineage..."

He paused.

Not out of hesitation, but because the last bit of something supporting his "existence" within his chest cavity was undergoing a violent collapse.

The gray-white light core in his broken chest emitted its final, and most violent pulsation, like the last struggle of a dying heart, turning all remaining energy into a final burst of power, pushing it up his parched throat.

"...Rather shatter..."

The voice here inevitably became stagnant and hoarse. It was not that his will wavered, but that the "vessel" carrying the sound was irreparably collapsing.

Finally, the last two words, like two stones sinking to the bottom of the water, carrying the weight of a thousand jun, fell into the Void Realm:

"...Than bend."

The moment the words fell —

His body shook violently!

It was not an attack from the outside, but the total disintegration of his internal support.

Gray-white light dust, denser and more majestic than any time before, like a volcano suppressed for eternal ages, erupted from every crack in his body, every pore, every inch of his skin that was becoming transparent!

Like an avalanche swallowing the last ridge, like a sandstorm annihilating the last oasis, like a towering iceberg that had witnessed countless years, at the very last moment when the sunlight touched it, it completely collapsed, turning into a sky-filling, cold, brilliant, and desperate dust storm.

His left arm completely turned into a stream of light and dissipated.

His right arm snapped, peeled away, and shattered from the shoulder blade.

The huge crack on his chest spread crazily, instantly covering his entire torso, like broken porcelain.

This gray-white light core, which served as the core of his power and the final symbol of his life, was completely exposed in the Void Realm, rapidly shrinking, dimming, and dissolving at a speed visible to the naked eye, like charcoal about to burn out.

Only those blood-red eyes were still shining.

They still calmly watched forward, watching those two instruments of the end that were about to fall.

Deep within his eyes, there was no fear of impending death, no ant-like begging, and not even the slightest regret for his past choices.

There was only a kind of near-sacred calm, a clarity of calmly accepting everything.

Like the surface of a lake after a storm, reflecting the impending, destructive starlight.

Lord Jixing's hand, holding the dark gold blade, paused imperceptibly for a split second under the gaze of those eyes.

Perhaps because of the solemnity of that ancient ritual.

Perhaps because of the power transcending life and death contained in the four words "Rather shatter than bend".

Perhaps, it was simply because of that overly calm "Nothingness" in those eyes.

But this momentary stagnation was enough.

"Die — — !!!"