581: Chapter 581 So what if I'm crazy?

The Lord of Annihilation's human form was a size smaller than before.

It was no illusion. It was not exhaustion, not weakening—

It was that a portion had been erased.

The Origin of the Lord of Annihilation—this sliver of consciousness that had escaped from the ancient abyss and should have been immortal—had been forcibly burned away by Wufa's lightning.

It was like a corner of the eternal night being torn away, revealing a void beneath that had never been imagined.

"You are burning your Divine Soul."

The voice of the Lord of Annihilation changed. It was no longer that condescending judgment, like the reading of the Laws of the world, but rather—a genuine, unrestrained shock.

Its voice even carried an imperceptible tremor, as if it had touched upon some forbidden truth.

"You are using your own Divine Soul as fuel to burn the Purifying Lightning of the Lightning Spirit—"

It suddenly raised its head. In those purple-black eyes, like rifts in the abyss, Wufa's current appearance was clearly reflected.

This was no longer the appearance of a human.

Wufa's body was becoming transparent in the increasingly intense lightning, like a glass statue melting.

Through that layer of flesh that was nearly gone, one could clearly see the bones inside—these bones were no longer a pale color, but presented a translucent texture, transforming into crystal.

Yet, on the surface of that seemingly immortal crystal—

Fine cracks were spreading.

These were not cracks shattered by external force in battle. This was an irreversible disintegration occurring from within.

It was burning.

He was burning his Foundation—the source of power that supported him as he walked the earth.

He was burning his Origin—the mark of existence that defined why he was "Wufa."

He was burning every proof of his existence in this world—his name, his memories, his Karma, and even the traces recorded by the world.

"You are mad—"

The Lord of Annihilation repeated its own words for the first time, as if to confirm something.

"If you burn away your Divine Soul, you will not even be able to enter Reincarnation—you will vanish completely; not death, but the kind of vanishing where you 'never existed at all'—"

Its words echoed over the empty ruins, carrying a… fear that even it had not realized?

No, it was not the fear of death. It was the fear of "absolute nothingness." It was the fear of "existence" itself being negated.

"I am mad, so what?"

Wufa spoke.

His voice was very soft, so soft it was like a breeze blowing over scorched grass, almost completely drowned out by the increasingly violent roaring of the lightning on his body.

But these three words were like three red-hot, poisoned daggers—precisely, slowly, inch by inch, gouging into the deepest part of the Lord of Annihilation's consciousness.

It was not because these three words contained any earth-shattering energy.

It was because this voice—was too calm.

It was so calm that it did not sound like the voice of someone who was throwing their existence, their past and future, and their very "being" into the flames as firewood.

It was so calm that it did not sound like the voice of an eighteen-year-old youth who should have possessed long years and infinite possibilities.

It was so calm that… deep within the memories that the Lord of Annihilation had sealed for countless epochs, a nearly forgotten image suddenly surged up.

Ancestral Demon.

That ancestor of the Demon Race, during the final battle, trapped in encirclement, facing the strangulation of the Laws of the Heavens—the last glance he cast back.

It was also this kind of look—having burned everything away, leaving only pure, cold determination.

It was also this kind of voice—no anger, no tragedy, only a calm that had surrendered everything.

It was also this kind of… calm—burning all unwillingness, reluctance, unwillingness, all love and hate, all attachments and regrets, all, completely, into ash.

And then, in that pile of ash of the Soul, grinding the last movable thought into the only blade.

"Even if I fall into eternal nothingness, and do not enter Reincarnation."

While speaking, Wufa took another step.

This step seemed to exhaust all the support of the earth.

His crippled leg dragged on the ground, skin torn and flesh mangled, bones shattered, plowing a gruesome trail of blood into the ground deep enough to see bone, and even the writhing of internal organs.

"With my Divine Soul annihilated."

The lightning longsword in his hand began to re-condense.

But this time, what gathered was no longer the dazzling white-gold thunder, nor the violently intense green-purple electric snakes—

It was a light that was nearly transparent.

A light so pure that it could not be defined by color.

This was what remained after the fire had burned up all combustible materials—the color of emptiness.

This was what remained after life had burned up all memories and emotions—the color of nothingness.

"I will also take you—"

Wufa's voice suddenly trembled.

Not because of the extreme pain of the flesh. Not because of the fear of extinction.

But because in this vow, those memories that he had forcibly suppressed and wrapped in rage surged out again like a breached dam.

Mo Yu's smiling face, missing a front tooth but forever incomparably brilliant. Mo Qingyan's gaze, clearly blushing under the bright moonlight, yet stubbornly refusing to look away.

Those thousand-plus vivid faces—those voices that had called him "Your Highness" either respectfully or affectionately, those clumsy figures sweating on the Martial Arts Arena, diligently practicing the sword techniques he had taught, that warmth and noise of crowding around a campfire, scrambling to share a piece of roasted meat...

They were all dead.

Their futures, the chapters they had yet to write—on that desperate night when the blood moon hung high and murderous intent filled the air, along with their last weak breaths—were all ruthlessly erased by the sword edge of the existence before him.

And he, had survived.

It was the Lord of Annihilation that had let him survive.

Not out of a single shred of pity. But because his body still had "use," his Soul still had "value," and everything about him was still a weapon that had not yet been polished and could continue to be refined.

"I lived—"

Wufa's voice suddenly rose, but instantly turned hoarse, as if his vocal cords were also burning—

"Just to use everything of mine—my flesh, my cultivation, my memories, my Soul, everything that makes me, 'Wufa'—in exchange for your death!"

The moment the words fell—

The transparent longsword in Wufa's hand thrust out its final strike.

This strike had no trajectory.

Because it did not pass through space.

It ignored distance, ignored the barriers of matter—directly transmitting from the core of the Lightning Spirit's burning, from this Soul furnace that was crazily disintegrating and squeezing out its last sliver of energy.

The target—

Was the deepest part of the Lord of Annihilation's consciousness. It was the core where its sliver of the abyss Origin resided.

In order to complete this strike—

Wufa's Divine Soul, in that instant, burned out completely.

Not a slow torment, not a gradual dissipation.

But, at the very same instant this strike was thrust, he threw everything he had left—all his fleshly energy, all his cultivation Foundation, all his memory imprints, all his emotional fragments, the sum total of everything that constituted the existence of "Wufa"—all, completely, without a single shred left, into that transparent flame that represented ultimate nothingness.

Boom—

No.

There was no sound.

It was more terrifying than any loud noise—

Silence.

All colors between heaven and earth faded at this moment.

All sounds were annihilated at this moment. All wind stopped flowing, all light solidified in the air, and even the passage of time seemed to have been cut off by an invisible hand.

Everything—

Fell into absolute silence.