578: Chapter 578 His Eyes Changed

The Lord of Annihilation's gaze changed.

It did not change slowly.

It was as if someone had grabbed it by the throat and shoved it into the depths of an icy sea—that perpetual, bone-gnawing mockery vanished in a ten-thousandth of a second, extinguished, cooled, solidified, leaving not even a trace.

It was not fear.

Fear is an instinctive secretion of the weak when facing a natural predator; it did not recognize such a thing.

It was not caution.

Caution is prudence after weighing pros and cons; it had nothing to weigh.

It was not even seriousness—seriousness at least implies an attitude of "equal competition," and it never equated itself with ants.

It was something deeper, more fundamental, surging up from the deepest depths of this ancient vessel's Soul, like the awakening of a cold wave from a frozen era, like the darkness at the very bottom of the abyss beginning to shine on its own.

That deliberate, playful, condescending cat-and-mouse mockery of watching ants struggle vanished completely in an instant, as if it had never existed—it was merely a mask it wore when bored, and it could no longer be bothered to wear it now.

Replacing it was an absolute coldness that made space itself tremble, crack, and groan under the unbearable weight.

It was not the cold of anger.

The cold of anger still has residual warmth, a heartbeat, and a trace of "caring."

It was not the cold of killing intent.

The cold of killing intent still has a target, a purpose, and the obsession of "wanting the other party to die."

This was a more absolute cold—the true indifference that seeps from the marrow of existence after living through countless Reincarnation cycles of the Universe, witnessing too many stars ignite and extinguish, too many heroes rise and fall, too many Dynasty rise and collapse, and too many loves and hates, obsessions and dreams that couldn't even splash a ripple in the torrent of time, leaving no waves in its wake.

An indifference toward meaning itself.

"Demon Race descendant."

The Lord of Annihilation's voice had changed.

That drawn-out, perpetually sleepy tone, laced with the sweet, sickening malice of rotting honey—it was gone.

Replacing it were flat, hard, and rough syllables, each sounding like unpolished meteorite iron colliding against black stone, dull, heavy, and devoid of any Impurities that could be called "emotion."

There was only naked statement.

Its voice echoed in this space torn apart by lightning.

It did not sound like speaking, but rather like reading an epitaph long forgotten at the end of time.

"It really is so similar..."

It paused.

The air solidified at this moment, and even the flow of lightning was paused.

"That damned of yours—"

The last two words were like meteorite iron pellets squeezed from between teeth:

"Ancestor Demons."

Boom—!!!

The moment the words "Ancestor Demons" fell, the entire world—no, this dimension that had been affected by the battle and was already fragmented—emitted a real, physical, and violent vibration.

It was not an illusion. It was not a hallucination caused by mental impact.

The instant the syllables of "Ancestor Demons" were completed, the massive rift in the sky behind Wufa, torn apart by lightning, was violently ripped by a pair of invisible, enraged, and ancient hands that had traversed eons, suddenly expanding wildly to both sides several times over!

The edges of the rift were not smooth.

They were jagged, like spatial faults gnawed by a beast, each serration emitting a silent wail.

Endless Chaos turbulence gushed out from the rift, yet when it touched the residual sound waves of those two words—like ice touching a branding iron, it screamed, evaporated, and retreated, making even the hope of escaping back into Chaos a luxury.

The sky was in fear.

This fragile plane barrier was in fear of what those two words carried, pointed to, and symbolized—that existence long buried in the deepest dust of time, whose very name had become a taboo.

"Back then, that madman was just like this."

The Lord of Annihilation's gaze, for the first time, truly and thoroughly pierced through the violent lightning on Wufa that was enough to blind gods and demons.

But it did not look at Wufa. It did not look at this battlefield. It gazed toward somewhere further away—a place that did not exist in the present, did not exist in any historical records, and perhaps did not even exist in this timeline.

A battlefield that only an existence like itself, which had lived through too many eras, could remember.

In its voice, for the first time, there appeared something that could be called "emotion."

It was not mockery. It was not malice. It was not even hate.

It was a kind of cold, bloody appreciation that bordered on nostalgia.

"Burning oneself, burning everything that could be burned—"

With every word it spoke, the lightning in the air dimmed by a fraction. It was as if even light feared the scene it was describing.

"Lifespan."

A patch of lightning was extinguished.

"Soul."

Another lightning region fell into dead silence and darkness.

"Bloodline."

The lightning patterns flowing on Wufa's body began to fluctuate violently, as if gripped by an invisible hand at the lifeblood.

"Qualifications for Reincarnation."

Wufa's pupils constricted to pinpoints in that instant.

The Lord of Annihilation's mouth slowly curled into an arc. There was no warmth in that arc, only a god-like indifference, standing atop the ruins of history, looking down at the white bones beneath the dust.

"Just to wound the Heavenly Lord of my race by one more inch."

It suddenly laughed. A silent, cold laugh that withered all things.

"He succeeded."

Four words. Four light, floating words.

Yet they were like four ancient war hammers weighing billions of tons, slamming heavily into the hearts of everyone who knew that sealed history.

"He wounded the Heavenly Lord of my race."

"And then?"

The Lord of Annihilation slowly raised its hand, which was wreathed in purple-black mist.

It was not mist.

It was the materialized power of Annihilation, which had existed for countless eras and condensed the despair of billions of living beings.

It looked deeper than the abyss, emptier than nothingness, and more non-existent than "nothing."

It slowly spread its five fingers. The movement was as gentle as caressing a lover's cheek.

The surrounding space emitted a mournful sound like shattering glass.

Then, it did this in the Void Realm—

A gentle squeeze.

"He died."

"His Demon Race was also annihilated."

"His Bloodline scattered for countless eras, hiding in various lower planes to survive, skulking like rats in a sewer, not even daring to mention the name 'Demon Race' again."

With every sentence it spoke, the power of Annihilation in its hand grew denser and deeper in color—from purple-black to pure black, to a darkness that transcended the concept of "color" itself, devouring everything.

"Until—"

It suddenly clenched that hand.

Crack—!!!

It was not a sound. It was "coldness" itself screaming.

The temperature of the entire combat dimension plummeted in a thousandth of a second to a value that should not exist in any physical Law. It was not frost, not snow, not any "cold" that could be perceived.

It was an absolute coldness that acted directly on the Soul, on the essence of existence.

It was as if someone had splashed the core of the Yellow Springs, from the deepest depths of the Nine Netherworlds where even time could be frozen, onto the Soul core of every living being.

The lightning burning on Wufa's body appeared to pause for an instant at this moment—not extinguished, but frozen.

It was briefly frozen by the trembling that surged from the level of the Soul, stemming from the instinct of life, written into the deepest depths of every carbon-based life form's genes.

"Until your generation, where you finally raised one or two who are as crazy as he was."

The moment the Lord of Annihilation finished speaking—

Wufa's sword moved.

No warning.

No buildup of power.

No roar.

No prelude of thunderous force.

Just as light needs no reason to travel in a vacuum, just as time needs no explanation to flow forward—

The long sword condensed from lightning thrust out in a way that transcended the very concept of "speed."

It was not fast. Because "fast" is a comparison.

It was light itself.

It was the fastest, sharpest, most unstoppable, and most natural—beam of light in this world.

The sound was soft. As soft as a needle piercing a piece of paper.

The Lord of Annihilation looked down.

The lightning long sword had pierced through the position of its heart, exiting from its back, with a mass of boiling, roaring, seemingly living purple-black mist caught on the tip of the blade.

The moment those mists touched the pure lightning of Heavenly Punishment—like ice thrown into a furnace, they burned and evaporated frantically, emitting a harsh sound like billions of dead Souls screaming simultaneously.

The power of Annihilation was being purified.

It was being destroyed.

It was being negated at the conceptual level.

The Lord of Annihilation slowly lowered its head and glanced at the blade piercing through its chest.

Its expression did not change at all.

No pain. No anger. Not even a trace of surprise.

It was as if what had been pierced was not its body—not the vessel that carried the power of countless eras—but a garment it was temporarily wearing, which could be taken off and discarded at any time.

"Using the lightning of Heavenly Punishment from a Thunder Spirit to purify the power of Annihilation?"

It slowly raised its hand, its five fingers closing slowly, grasping the section of the blade protruding from its chest.

Purple-black mist surged from between its fingers—no longer scattered mist, but condensed into a viscous black fluid like living venom, colliding violently with the platinum lightning on the sword.

Sss—ssss—!!!

Not an explosion. Not a roar.

It was corrosion.

It was Annihilation eroding Judgment.

It was two diametrically opposed, mutually antagonistic powers of Law, wearing each other down, devouring, and destroying at the most fundamental level.

At every point of contact, a tiny "non-existence" was being born.

"The line of thought is correct."

The Lord of Annihilation's voice remained calm. It even carried a hint of... approval?

Its fingers, grasping the blade, suddenly applied force—

Creak—!!!

This blade of punishment, condensed from pure Heavenly Punishment lightning and capable of severing the authority of gods, was actually forcibly pulled out of its chest by it!

The moment the blade left its body, the heart wound that had pierced through from front to back, which should have completely destroyed its vitality—began to heal at a speed that defied logic and violated cognition.

It was not that the lightning didn't destroy fast enough. It was not that it wasn't thorough enough.

It was the existence of the Lord of Annihilation itself—its repair mechanism was already so fast that even the destruction speed of the Heavenly Punishment lightning could not catch up.

The purple-black mist, like a bursting river of the Underworld, surged wildly into the wound.

It was not repairing—it was covering. Extinguishing, devouring, and digesting the remaining lightning, and at the same instant the lightning was annihilated, it reconstructed new flesh, bones, and even deeper Law meridians with the pure power of Annihilation.

The entire process was so fast that a single thought couldn't even be completed.

So fast that it was as if that piercing wound had never existed.

"But you forgot one thing."

The Lord of Annihilation casually flicked away the segment of the lightning blade that was still struggling and hissing in its hand.

That air of nonchalance was back.

It was not feigned contempt, not deliberate mockery—but a kind of certainty, rooted in countless eras of undefeated records, a composure already engraved in the essence of its existence.

"Thunder Spirits do indeed restrain the power of Annihilation. This is an iron rule established in the era of Primordial Divine Martial Arts, a compatibility engraved in the root Laws of the Universe."

"But—"

Its voice turned cold abruptly. So cold that space began to peel off in flakes, like skin in winter.

"You—"

Not a Thunder Spirit.

The last four words were not spoken.

Because the Lord of Annihilation—

Disappeared.

Not disappeared.

It was its speed, at this moment, exceeding the limit of "existence being perceivable."

So fast that Wufa's lightning perception network, which was capable of capturing the passage of time, only captured a field of absolute blankness.

So fast that even the causal order of the previous moment and the next moment experienced a brief fracture.

The next moment?

No.

It was the same moment.

The Lord of Annihilation's figure appeared simultaneously on Wufa's left, right, behind, above—and in every possible and impossible blind spot.

Then, those countless figures merged into one.

Appearing on Wufa's left.

A punch.

A simple, straightforward punch.

No flashy techniques, no earth-shattering momentum, not even a hint of wind was stirred up.

Only the absolute pure, compressed to the extreme, after crushing and reconstructing the concepts of "speed" and "power" themselves—

Absolute violence.

The purple-black power of Annihilation condensed, rotated, and collapsed on the fist—forming a black hole spiral that was tiny to the extreme but radiated a light that devoured everything.

It was not trying to destroy. Not trying to pierce through.

It was trying to drill open.

Drill open the weakest joint gaps in the Thunder Spirit armor on Wufa's body.

Drill open the Heavenly Punishment defense that seemed invincible but had actually had a crack found by this punch.

Drill open the connection point where this body fused with lightning.

Then, send the purest Annihilation—

Into the deepest depths of his Soul.