The Decaying World

Inside the divine palace, Lin Hui surveyed the interior, which had shrunk by more than half.

He put away the letter and turned to the white deer.

"I have a question. The place you’re hiding... is it possible..."

"It is..." The white deer gave a bitter smile. "But the strength requirements are extremely high. If we can go, naturally others can, too. But do you think that place is some paradise? If it were really so wonderful, why wouldn’t we have gone there sooner?"

He sighed and paused.

"Going there is merely our way of avoiding the Calamity. But even we are powerless against decay and the end of our lives. The only reason we’ve survived this long is because our natural lifespans are exceptionally long. Nothing more. But the Restriction... it directly shortens the natural lifespan of every living being."

"In other words, you were able to live this long even with your lifespans shortened?" Lin Hui understood.

"No... In truth, there aren’t many of us left... Of all our old friends from those days, only a precious few remain." The white deer shook its head. "The others couldn’t escape the end of their time."

"..." Lin Hui was silent.

He had originally thought he could borrow their power, to see if he could send his own friends and family there for refuge. But now it seemed...

"So, where is the child now?" he asked after a brief pause.

"She has already reached Black Cloud. After the Daoist Master returns, you should be able to see her. The child looks very much like Guo Shengyu; you’ll recognize her at a glance." The white deer bowed to Lin Hui, thanking him for being willing to take in Guo Xiyan.

Lin Hui himself didn’t even know how many orphans he had taken in. It was never his intention, but he couldn’t stop others from sending them his way, believing his home to be the safest place.

After leaving the divine palace and returning to Black Cloud, Lin Hui saw a small figure kneeling before the gate to his courtyard. Her head was bowed, and she was silent and motionless, like a statue.

Liu Xiao was squatting beside her, asking questions in a low voice, but the girl remained completely silent.

Lin Hui walked over.

The kneeling figure was a child of about ten. She was as exquisitely beautiful as a jade carving; one could only imagine how stunning her mother must have been. And as the white deer had said, her features and bearing truly held the air of Guo Shengyu.

"Guo Xiyan?" Lin Hui asked aloud.

"I am," the child answered with her head bowed. "Xiyan thanks you for taking me in!"

She turned solemnly and kowtowed deeply to Lin Hui several times.

"In return, my father has passed all his ultimate techniques to me. I will write them out from memory and present them to you later."

"Just keep them for yourself." Lin Hui sighed inwardly. He was about to say something more.

Suddenly, a faint tremor came from the far distance.

He raised his head and looked in that direction. It was... the direction of the Crystal Sea.

"Xiao Xiao, take this child inside. I’ll be right back."

SWOOSH!

He left those words behind as he abruptly vanished.

*

*

*

Above the Crystal Sea.

Countless white crystals, like flowing water, boiled, throbbed, and shot into the sky with a life of their own.

The rising crystals formed giant, soft tentacles, thousands of meters thick, that bent and flew rapidly toward the Royal City.

Hundreds of densely packed white tentacles swirled and flowed. After flying for several thousand meters, they pierced into the empty air, as if entering some strange, other dimension to reach a mysterious, distant place.

Lin Hui floated in mid-air, his expression moved as he watched the spectacular scene.

"Guo Shengyu..." He could feel the power radiating from the tentacles; it was the same aura the Martial Sage had left with him before.

This was clearly a contingency that Guo Shengyu had left here long ago, and it was now being truly activated.

It also meant that the battle underground had reached a fever pitch.

The countless tentacles continuously drained the waters of the entire Crystal Sea.

The seconds and minutes ticked by.

More than ten minutes later...

WHOOSH...

Suddenly, a frigid wind swept past.

It blew over all the Crystal Sea’s tentacles, and in an instant, they all froze solid.

CRACK... CRACK...

The faint sound of shattering spread through the air.

Lin Hui watched this unfold, his heart sinking.

He noticed auras of Blood Ancestor Level power in the distance, also watching the scene.

But none of them could perceive it as clearly as he could.

The power of the Martial Sage on those tentacles was rapidly dissipating.

Suddenly, he felt a pull and sent out his Heart and Spirit, closing his eyes.

His surroundings were immediately plunged into darkness.

In the darkness, the countless tentacles of the Crystal Sea reappeared before him. Like endless white ribbons, they converged on a single point.

That point was the floating form of Guo Shengyu.

His back was to Lin Hui as he rushed forward at breakneck speed, charging into the deepest darkness.

As if sensing him, he glanced sideways, his gaze meeting Lin Hui’s for an instant.

Neither spoke, but in that fleeting exchange, much was conveyed.

Guo Shengyu’s entrustment, and Lin Hui’s regret.

But...

"AHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Guo Shengyu burst into laughter, accelerating forward.

"What joy is there in life? What fear is there in death?"

"Kill!"

Without looking back, he charged straight into the distance.

At that very moment, Lin Hui felt something and raised his head, looking even further ahead.

In the darkness, farther still.

A terrifying, colossal Divine Statue, so huge it connected heaven and earth, was slowly lowering its head, its eyes gazing down at this place.

The massive Divine Statue was bound in countless black chains and shrouded in a dense, corrupting aura, its form hazy and dreamlike.

And Guo Shengyu, backed by the unending, full power of the Crystal Sea, was charging fearlessly toward it at maximum speed.

CRACK.

A bolt of purple lightning flashed across the sky, instantly shattering the vision before Lin Hui’s eyes.

He opened his eyes and saw the countless tentacles of the Crystal Sea before him halt their flow, then shatter and fall. They crashed back into the sea, all movement ceasing.

The aura of Guo Shengyu upon them had vanished completely.

From the moment he’d closed his eyes, only an instant seemed to have passed, yet the vision he had just witnessed had lasted for more than ten breaths.

With a sigh, Lin Hui already knew the outcome.

He ignored the Blood Ancestors in the distance who were attempting to fly toward him, turned, and instantly vanished from sight.

*

*

*

Outside Black Cloud City, at Qingyuan Courtyard.

A figure in black appeared silently outside the courtyard.

The figure was clad entirely in black: black clothes, black hair, and a Black Sword.

He glanced at Guo Xiyan inside the courtyard, whose face was being wiped by Liu Xiao, and sneered, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword.

But in the next instant, a thin layer of shimmering white crystals automatically formed at his feet.

The crystals instantly froze his feet and then spread rapidly upward.

"This!?" He tried to circulate his power to resist, but halfway through, his body suddenly stiffened. Then, the crystals spread even faster, and in the blink of an eye, he was completely frozen solid.

With a crisp SHATTER,

The man and the crystal pillar shattered together, turning into countless fragments that dissipated into nothing.

Master Yunxia’s figure materialized behind, and she glanced at the shattered remains of the man in black.

"Probing is meaningless. Anyone with malicious intent here will trigger an automatic counterattack from the Daoist Master’s aura."

"Master Yunxia, one of the four core members of the Qingfeng Dao, and one of the strongest masters of the Qingfeng Sword from the previous era. The fact that you could detect my presence... it seems this Qingfeng Dao truly has some substance."

Outside the courtyard, a few meters from where the man in black had disintegrated, a veiled woman in a long, purple-black, dragon-patterned dress silently appeared. She watched them intently.

"By order of my Father Emperor, I have come to personally capture the Martial Sage Guo Shengyu’s niece, Guo Xiyan. Master Yunxia, do you intend to stop me?"

"I won’t stop you. I’ll just be standing here," Master Yunxia said with a smile, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of her sword.

"It’s just that I have a bad habit... If someone I don’t like walks in front of me... I can’t help but kill them."

She was currently facing the courtyard, in the same direction as the woman in the purple-black dress.

In other words, if the woman took a single step forward toward the courtyard, she would inevitably enter Master Yunxia’s line of sight and walk right in front of her.

"As expected, you people of the Qingfeng Dao are all this arrogant," the woman sneered.

"We cultivate Gale Swordsmanship; of course we’re going to be a little wilder than most," Master Yunxia laughed. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"..." The woman was clearly not one for verbal sparring and was momentarily at a loss for words. "Such a sharp tongue. You’re courting death!"

CLANG!

Both vanished in the same instant. To avoid being attacked by the Daoist Master’s aura surrounding the courtyard, they had simultaneously relocated.

To avoid triggering the great formation of Black Cloud, they flew directly toward the far reaches of the Jade Sea.

Instantly, the distant sound of thunderous explosions rolled in.

But only a few seconds into the fight, several strange, terrifying, and immense auras subtly emerged from Black Cloud.

Xia Si, Su Yaping, and Fan Lingxi all vanished at the same time.

A few breaths later, a bloodcurdling scream rang out.

Then, all was silent over the sea once more.

Master Yunxia appeared, holding a woman’s head, which she carefully wrapped in a black cloth.

She planned to preserve it and send it to the Imperial City.

"Should we leave a note?" Xia Si appeared beside her and asked casually.

"A note would ruin the aesthetic," Master Yunxia replied, shaking her head.

"Do you guys have to be so twisted? We’re the Qingfeng Dao, a prestigious and righteous sect. Can’t we have a more wholesome image?" Fan Lingxi, a recent addition to the core combat echelon, was still having trouble adjusting.

"That’s where you’re wrong. The more prestigious and righteous the sect, the more ruthless its methods must be. Otherwise, you can’t suppress your enemies, and you’ll never become prestigious and righteous in the first place," Su Yaping said with a smile. "What is ’righteous’? Naturally, it’s beating everyone else until they’re crippled and branded as ’heretics.’ Then, we become the ’righteous’ ones."

"But you can’t just trample on societal morals as you please," Fan Lingxi said with a frown.

"What are morals? They’re just conventions, the unspoken rules everyone agrees on. Isn’t that simple? Just keep those whose morals align with yours and... ’resolve’ the ones who differ. Before long, you’ll be the social consensus. You’ll be ’everyone.’ You’ll be the paragon of virtue, because your every word and deed will naturally conform to the perfect moral standard," Su Yaping explained earnestly.

"You..." Fan Lingxi was speechless.

"Alright, that’s enough fooling around."

Lin Hui’s voice now reached their minds, transmitted through the Wind Chime.

"Yes, sir," they replied, quickly lowering their heads and ceasing their banter.

*

*

*

Underground, beneath the Imperial City.

The unfathomably deep Court of the Abyss.

The still-plump Huang Weijun stood silently at the edge of the abyss, his hands tucked into opposite sleeves, awaiting a response from within.

Just moments ago, he had received the head of the imperial princess sent to Black Cloud to capture Guo Xiyan.

Clearly, the other party had absolutely no regard for them.

"The last time that Daoist Master of Qingfeng, Lin Hui, came, you happened to be away, and I was unable to stop him from leaving. But this time..." Huang Weijun sighed. "This time, it’s clear the entire Qingfeng Dao has shown us complete and utter contempt."

"If you led a team to attack and conquer Black Cloud, could you do it?" a voice echoed from the abyss.

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