640: Chapter 640 The Milky Way Spreads Beneath Her Feet

Luo Xiaojiu felt as though she had fallen into a void.

This was not darkness, nor was it silence—darkness still has boundaries, and silence still has echoes, but here, there was nothing.

There was no up, down, left, or right; there was no time or space; even the concept of "non-existence" itself did not exist.

She was like a loose thread forcibly torn from the fabric of reality, falling into this ancient, uninhabited blankness behind the stitches.

It was not the black of color, nor the quiet of sound. Here, even "nothingness" seemed too concrete.

She was simply falling.

In an absolute void, she maintained a paradoxical posture of falling.

She did not know how much time had passed—an instant? Ten thousand years? Or perhaps, time itself was a joke here?

The darkness tore open.

It was not pierced by light; rather, the darkness itself split, like a beast that had slumbered for eons finally slowly opening its eyelids. Then, the stars surged in.

Not one or two, not thousands or hundreds—it was billions of stars, like a bursting flood, like a collapsing celestial river, pouring in with a roar, instantly filling every corner of her vision.

The galaxy spread out beneath her feet, swirled above her head, and circled around her.

This was not a docile projection in a planetarium, but the real, roaring, burning Universe itself.

She saw stars being born in the tearing Void Realm, saw supernovae detonating epochs in splendor, and saw black holes devouring everything and spitting everything back out at the singularity.

She was a stationary speck of dust in the deepest womb of the Universe; there was no solid ground beneath her feet, no firmament above her head, only endless starlight flowing slowly like blood through the veins of the Universe.

No—it was the Universe itself that was flowing.

And she was the only unmoving point in this flow.

The end of the galaxy—the word "end" was absurd here, for there was no end.

But Luo Xiaojiu saw it.

In that contradictory place, so far away it seemed forever unreachable, yet so near it seemed within reach—a dojo, floating in the starry sky.

This dojo was so vast it caused reason to collapse.

It was not a building; it was a world, a Law.

These galaxies that she had once felt were boundless were now nothing more than tassels hanging under the eaves of this dojo, swaying gently with some invisible breath.

Before it, the stars became tiny specks of light on a backdrop, like gold dust scattered outside an infinite palace, pitifully humble.

The dojo was built entirely from Materials that Luo Xiaojiu had never seen and could not imagine.

It was neither gold nor jade, neither wood nor stone, but existed between all matter and transcended all matter.

Ancient patterns flowed across its surface; every pattern was not carved—it had grown from within the dojo, like flesh and blood, like bone, like a form of existence that transcended the definition of life.

Luo Xiaojiu stared at the nearest pattern.

Her pupils suddenly contracted.

Within this pattern, mountains and rivers rose and fell, the sun and moon rotated, and life was born and perished.

A complete world had been compressed into a single stroke.

This was no carving—this was Creation.

Around the dojo, the galaxy flowed like a loyal servant, and Chaos Qi surged like a curtain, occasionally parting to reveal the deeper, Soul-trembling darkness behind it.

Countless tiny specks of light flickered on the surface of the dojo—they were not decorations.

Luo Xiaojiu suddenly understood.

This was time itself.

The scars left on this dojo by the billions-of-years-long River of Time.

She fell.

Falling from the void, passing through the galaxy, passing through Chaos.

Finally, her feet landed on the dojo.

The moment the sensation arrived, Luo Xiaojiu almost knelt.

It was not from weakness, but because the sensation was too real.

After experiencing the long void and vastness, this solidity was almost too much for her to bear.

The stone slab beneath her feet was warm and smooth like jade, but warmer than jade—it was not temperature, but life.

Deep within the stone slab, a heart beat, and blood surged; this dojo was alive.

She steadied herself.

Golden blood slid down her broken skin and dripped onto the stone slab of the dojo.

Drip.

The sound exploded in the absolute silence, deafening.

The blood did not spread out but was silently absorbed by the stone slab—like an earth parched for eons finally sipping the first drop of morning dew.

A faint golden halo appeared on the stone slab, fleeting, but it was not a reflection; it was a sigh of satisfaction.

Luo Xiaojiu looked up.

She saw—a person.

No, not a person.

A god? A demon?

It was an existence that transcended all concepts and could not be defined by any language.

It was a Golden Giant.

So tall that space itself lost its meaning.

He was sitting right in front of her.

The distance seemed very close, but Luo Xiaojiu knew this was just an illusion.

There was an uncrossable chasm between them—not a distance of space, but a barrier of dimensions.

She was like someone watching a projection spanning eons, standing on the boundary line between reality and illusion, peeking at an existence that should not be peeked at.

The giant's body was golden.

He sat cross-legged in the center of the dojo, a simple golden robe draped over him, the robes spreading out to cover most of the dojo.

Luo Xiaojiu looked at the folds of these robes—these were not depressions formed by fabric, but the twists of space-time itself.

In the shadows of these folds, she saw mountains and rivers rise and collapse, saw the sun and moon rise and set, saw civilizations rise and perish.

Within his robes, infinite worlds were hidden.

His face, Luo Xiaojiu could not see clearly.

It was not obscured by light, not shrouded in mist—it was that this face itself existed within some Law that could not be looked at directly.

She could see that there was a face there, but when she tried to focus, her gaze always slid away, as if a Mortal's mind was simply insufficient to carry the information contained in that face.

It was like looking up at the firmament; you can see the sky, but the sky has no face—the sky is just the sky.

But that pair of eyes, she saw clearly.

Golden eyes.

The same gold as her own eyes, yet completely different.

The gold in her eyes was fire, resistance, the final burning of a dying life.

But the gold in this pair of golden pupils was stars, epochs, the sands of time flowing deep within the pupils of the eternal River of Time itself.

In these eyes, stars condensed from nebulae, life awakened from Chaos, civilizations built bridges over the River of Time, and bridges collapsed into dust within the River of Time.

Birth and death, rotation, infinity, eternity—all concentrated in those two golden flames.

At this moment, these eyes were looking at her.

The gaze fell.

What Luo Xiaojiu felt was not pressure, not fear, but a kind of... warmth.

Like a wanderer far from home pushing open the door to see the hearth still warm; like a lost traveler looking up to see the North Star still in its place.

In this gaze, there was gratification, a sigh of relief, a kind of nearly greedy joy that had waited for too long, so long that even time had worn away its patience, yet finally waited for a response.

Then, the giant moved.

He lowered his head slightly.

This simple action caused the galaxy circling the dojo to tremble, caused the surging Chaos to solidify.

His lips parted, and a voice sounded.

This voice was not loud.

But it did not "come from" anywhere—it sounded simultaneously from all directions, from the past, from the future, and from the deepest part of Luo Xiaojiu's Soul.

Ancient, deep, and gentle, it carried a terrifying power that made the stars resonate and space-time vibrate.

Every syllable was not a vibration of air, but the expression of the Law itself.

"Future Desolate Ancient Sacred Body."

The voice echoed in the dojo, echoed in the galaxy, echoed in Luo Xiaojiu's bones, in her blood, in her Soul.

"This seat has waited for you—"

A pause.

This pause was very short.

But Luo Xiaojiu felt the weight of a whole epoch within it.

"For a long time."

A long time.

This phrase was an understatement.

But Luo Xiaojiu knew that this "long time" was not a few years, not a few hundred years, not a few thousand years.

It was all the years between the last time the Desolate Ancient Sacred Body shone in the world and the present moment when she stood here.

It was the endless time from when this existence sat here and began to wait, to the moment when its gaze finally touched the object of its waiting.

Luo Xiaojiu stood on the dojo, looking up.

Her body was broken beyond repair.

Golden cracks covered every inch of her skin like a spiderweb, and blood dripped continuously from her fingertips, elbows, and ankles, blooming into fleeting golden flowers on the stone slab of the dojo.

Her power was draining away, her life was draining away, and her consciousness was teetering on the edge between reality and illusion.

But her spine was straight.

It was not a straightness forced by effort.

It was a straightness that emanated from her bone marrow, an innate straightness.

It was as if her spine was not bone, but a sword—a sword that would maintain its straight posture even if broken.

Her gaze was calm.

No fear—faced with such an existence, fear was too insignificant.

No panic—she had experienced death several times, and panic was already a luxury.

No humble worship, no fanatical faith, only a clear, almost naive, heart-stopping calm.

Then, she tilted her head slightly.

Just like the action she had done before in front of the Blood Butcher.

With a bit of casual curiosity, a bit of childish inquiry.

This action appearing at this moment, appearing on this starry dojo, appearing under the gaze of this Golden Giant—was absurd enough to make one laugh, yet reasonable enough to make one's Soul tremble.

"Who are you?"

Her voice sounded.

Not high, not low, neither humble nor overbearing.

Her voice was still weak from excessive blood loss, but every word was clear, steady, like pebbles thrown into a silent lake, sending out ripples of calm.

The Golden Giant looked at her.

He looked at her broken body, her straight spine, her calm eyes, her tilted head.

In these golden pupils containing the birth and death of stars, a look of gratification rose like a tide, submerging all the waiting, all the loneliness, all the eternal nights.

Then—on this ancient, unlookable face, it seemed—only seemed—that a faint smile appeared.

This smile was too faint, so faint it almost did not exist.

But the moment this smile appeared, the billions of stars circling the dojo brightened by a fraction simultaneously.

As if the entire Universe were smiling for this moment.