Chapter 338 - 314: [End of Dharma]
Standing at the center of the vortex where the Fire of All Living Beings and the Embers of Karma converged, Qi Yun gazed at the torrent of Cultivators that blotted out the Celestial Vault, poised to rain down destruction.
Qi Yun chuckled and gently flicked his sleeve.
With this flick, the End of Dharma—already stained by billions of gray Embers of Karma and transformed into an indescribable shade of dim, deathly gray—suddenly trembled!
Immediately after, it silently "bloomed."
The dim, gray flame, like an ink stain spreading in water, flowed upstream at a speed that defied logic, following the path paved by the burning Fire of All Living Beings.
Along the edges of the enormous, burnt-through hole in the sky, it silently spread, seeped, and diffused!
In the blink of an eye, it tainted the entire exit of the hole and the vast celestial region beyond with a sickly, dim luster—as if all things had been drained of color and life.
[The next second.]
The gray dimness touched the very vanguard of the Cultivator torrent pouring out of the hole.
A middle-aged Cultivator in a shimmering Flowing Light Daoist Robe, his face as severe as an ice sculpture, was leading the charge on a wisp of clear cloud, intending to be the first to descend and crush the ants below.
His aura was powerful, for he had already reached the Yin Spirit Realm.
Dao Rhyme flowed around his body, and a Protective Spiritual Light shielded him.
But the instant his figure was about to pass completely through the hole, the brilliant Protective Spiritual Light around him dimmed and grew sullied, as if splashed with a potent, invisible acid!
The glowing talismans on his Daoist Robe visibly lost their luster, becoming dull and old.
It even began to show minute signs of damage and filth, as if it had been eroded by a thousand years of time.
The Cultivator himself shuddered violently!
The vacant coldness on his face instantly shattered.
In its place was an extreme bewilderment and... an indescribable sense of loss.
He looked down at his own hands in astonishment.
He saw his skin, once as smooth as jade and brimming with powerful vitality and Spiritual Light, rapidly lose its luster. It grew withered and gaunt as ashen spots and wrinkles appeared.
His fingernails turned grayish-white and brittle at an astonishing speed, growing long before snapping off.
"Urgh... Ah..."
He tried to circulate his Cultivation Skill and channel his Magical Power, only to find that within his Purple Mansion, his once perfectly formed and condensed Yin Spirit was rapidly "melting" and "withering" like a snowman under the scorching sun!
His insights into his Cultivation Skill, his comprehension of the Great Dao, and even the memories imprinted from years of cultivation all began to blur and fragment, like a thousand-year-old sandcastle crumbling at the slightest touch.
The Daoist topknot on his head came undone on its own. The Jade Hairpin holding it in place lost its spiritual nature, shattered, and fell.
In an instant, his black hair lost its luster, turning as white and withered as grass, then visibly fell out and decayed.
A viscous sweat, stinking of decay, soaked through his inner robes from his armpits.
In the space of a few breaths, this once-formidable Yin Spirit Cultivator transformed from an enlightened master with a powerful aura into a living corpse—gaunt and desiccated, his Divine Soul dispersed, and reeking of the thick stench of encroaching death.
The last spark of individual Spiritual Light in his eyes was completely extinguished.
Only endless emptiness and ashen decay remained.
"Pfft."
A sound so faint it was almost inaudible.
This Cultivator, along with the filthy Daoist Robe that had become tattered rags, dissolved into a cloud of fine ash that drifted away, merging into the dim grayness that permeated Heaven and Earth.
Body and soul obliterated, not a single trace left behind.
Not even the slightest residue of his Divine Soul remained, as if he had never existed in this world.
Silence.
A deathly silence, as if time itself had frozen the instant the cloud of ash dispersed.
But this silence lasted for less than a breath.
Because the gray dimness of the End of Dharma had not stopped.
The second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth...
"PFFT." "PFFT, PFFT." "PFFT, PFFT, PFFT..."
At first, they were just scattered, faint sounds, like autumn leaves detaching from their branches.
Then, the sounds grew so dense they merged into one, becoming a scalp-numbing SHUSH—as if all of creation was simultaneously disintegrating into oblivion!
One Cultivator after another—regardless of whether they had been riding dazzling Escape Lights, manifesting majestic Dharma Aspects, or wielding terrifying Magical Power just a second before...
...the moment they touched the gray dimness, they all inevitably reenacted that horrifying process of decay:
Their protective radiances were sullied and extinguished, their magical robes and artifacts rapidly grew filthy and old, their physical bodies shriveled and withered at an incredible speed, their splendid hair instantly wilted and fell, and their Divine Souls melted and shrank like ice and snow under a blazing sun...
In the end, with a soft "pfft," they turned into a worthless cloud of ash and scattered in the wind.
There was no intense struggle, no spectacular exchange of Magic.
Only a one-sided, silent, yet utterly and despairingly complete... collapse.
"It’s raining..."
Below, in the Imperial City, a Royal Court Attendant stared blankly at the sky and muttered to himself. He had been lucky enough to avoid the direct touch of the End of Dharma, but he was still incredibly weak, his connection to karma severed.
Yes, it was raining.
It was a rain of dim, gray ash, mixed with the "remains" of the few who hadn’t completely disintegrated, their desiccated human forms still intact.
At first, it was just a sparse "rain of ash."
In the blink of an eye, it became a torrential downpour!
Dense and endless!
The army of Cultivators, once a world-blotting torrent of steel, was now "dissolving" and "disintegrating" at an unprecedented rate!
The Cultivators at the front turned to ash in droves.
The Cultivators farther back had not yet touched the gray core of the End of Dharma.
Yet, the spreading Dao Rhyme of decay already caused the Spiritual Light around them to flicker violently, their movements growing sluggish and stiff.
On their cold faces, once forcibly unified by "Heaven’s Will," subtle, uncontrollable expressions of terror and struggle—born from primal instinct—began to appear.
A rout! An unstoppable rout had begun!
It was no longer an orderly advance, but chaos. They shoved and pushed, trying to retreat, but the torrent behind them was still surging forward, leading to trampling and a total collapse!
Countless Escape Lights spiraled out of control and collided, erupting in final, feeble bursts of Spiritual Light.
Enormous flying vessels and sky-pavilions lost control. Like giant birds with broken wings, they plummeted from the sky with mournful wails, trailing long, dissipating wakes of Spiritual Light. They crashed into the mountains and rivers below, exploding into plumes of smoke mixed with debris and ash.
It was as if the sky had begun to pour down a grand and tragic "rain of death," composed of ash, remains, Broken Magical Artifacts, and uncontrolled Spiritual Light.
The torrent of Cultivators, once endlessly majestic and oppressive, was now visibly thinning, tattering, and falling into disarray.
The defeat was like a landslide.
Qi Yun quietly watched it all: the ash and remains falling like rain, the torrent of Cultivators rapidly disintegrating and melting away, and the gray End of Dharma creeping through the hole, spreading silently toward the depths of the vast and magnificent Cangque True Realm on the other side...
The fingers hidden in his sleeve flexed slightly.
’Next, it’s time to meet... the main players.’
The torrent of Cultivators that once blotted out the sky was now mostly routed. Endless ash and remains drifted through the air, a tragic and eerie sight.
But in the next instant!
Waves of scorching, domineering, and overwhelmingly powerful auras rose up from all corners of the True Realm!
These auras were majestic, righteous, scorching, and pure, containing a Dao Rhyme that could incinerate all things yet also nurture life.
’Yang Gods...’
Standing below, a glint flashed in Qi Yun’s eyes.
’As expected. Although the End of Dharma is potent, capable of defiling the Spiritual Mechanism and making the Ten Thousand Laws wither, it is ineffective against those in the Yang God Realm. They have already generated Yang from the extreme of Yin, the very nature of their Divine Soul has transformed, and they have comprehended and mastered a sliver of the Great Dao of Qian Heaven Pure Yang.’
’The Pure Yang Dao is the ultimate in hardness and righteousness. It inherently possesses the ability to resist external evils, purify defilement, and maintain one’s own immortality.’
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!...
Streaks of rainbow light, each a different color but all dazzlingly brilliant and bright enough to illuminate the ages, shot up from every corner of the True Realm!
Ignoring all distance, they crossed ten thousand miles in an instant.
They all gathered at the mouth of the sky-piercing hole!
The rainbow lights subsided, revealing the figures within.
One, two, three... a total of thirty-seven figures!
Each figure emanated the Pure Yang pressure of a Yang God Great Power—a pressure as vast as the Star Sea and as scorching as the great sun!
These thirty-seven pressures converged, forming a suffocating, invisible force field that bore down on the lower realm!
RUMBLE—!!!
The sky seemed to freeze under the will of these thirty-seven figures.
The falling ash and remains were silently annihilated upon coming within miles of them, reduced to nothing but the finest dust.
Even the pervasive gray dimness of the End of Dharma was forced back and greatly diluted by the combined force of their Pure Yang auras.
These Yang God Great Powers stood at the edge of the hole like thirty-seven deities from ancient myth, their faces solemn, their eyes cold and indifferent.
At this moment, time seemed to stand still.
Yet Qi Yun seemed to feel none of the world-crushing pressure. He tilted his head back slightly, his calm gaze meeting their thirty-seven cold stares, a faint, almost imperceptible curve playing on his lips.
"Finally... decided to come out?" he murmured to himself.
In the very instant the thirty-seven Cang Que Yang Gods’ pressure dominated the world, granting them absolute power over life and death—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!...
Auras just as scorching and domineering, just as boundless in their Pure Yang nature, erupted from the ground below and soared into the sky!
One, two, ten, twenty... fifty!
A full fifty pillars of Pure Yang light tore through the thick, distorted air above the Imperial City—warped by the combined pressure of the End of Dharma and the True Realm’s Yang Gods—converging in the sky behind Qi Yun in an instant!
The pillars of light subsided, revealing the figures within each.
They too stood suspended in the air, their bodies surging with Pure Yang auras, faint golden halos swirling above their heads.
Although the condensation of their auras and the profundity of their Dao Rhyme seemed slightly inferior to the veteran Yang Gods opposite them, who had cultivated for ages untold...
...there were a full fifty of them!
Thirteen more than their opponents!
Fifty versus thirty-seven.
Two Pure Yang pressures, both equally vast and scorching, representing the very Status of "Yang God" in this world.
At this moment, beneath the burnt-through firmament, within a Broken world of Heaven and Earth filled with ash and despair—
—they violently collided!
VMMMM—!!!!!
The sky was torn open by countless spiderweb-like cracks that flickered with an interwoven light of gold, white, and gray.
The earth shook violently. The buildings of the Imperial City trembled as bricks and stones tumbled down.
A violent, ring-shaped shockwave of Pure Yang Qi spread out madly in all directions.
Wherever it passed, the lingering gray dimness of the End of Dharma was further dispersed. The very ground was scraped away by several feet, revealing the scorched earth beneath!
A mere collision of auras was already this terrifying!
Qi Yun stood at the very forefront of this terrifying clash of pressures, his Deep Blue Daoist Robe whipping about in the violent shockwave.
He slowly raised his right hand, pointing at the thirty-seven True Realm Yang Gods at the edge of the hole. His voice was not loud, yet it pierced through the deafening roar of clashing Laws and rang out with perfect clarity:
"Leave none alive!"
...