The Decaying World

In the distant church.

"The formation is connected, so why aren’t they doing anything!?"

This was the moment that would decide the fate of the entire Human Realm.

All the top powerhouses from the East and West had gathered here.

Master Jade Coin, Mackenzie, and the leaders of the other top factions were all staring intently at the images being transmitted back from the long-range monitoring formation.

They watched as Lin Hui simply stood before the formation, unmoving. A few seconds of waiting was fine at first, but as more time passed, their anxiety grew.

"Just now, Fairy Xinghua was teleported up. I wonder what the situation is?" Master Jade Coin was a skinny Daoist who looked no different from some old fortune teller, with a somewhat unkempt, grizzled goatee, sunken cheeks, and a shrewd glint in his eyes.

"I’m afraid the situation isn’t optimistic..." Mackenzie shook his head slightly.

"What if Infinite Wind feels we’re using him, leaves the formation, and comes for us? How should we respond?" Master Jade Coin asked.

"At that point, our only option would be to board the Crystal Palace together and leave this place..." Mackenzie sighed.

The Crystal Palace was a massive, long-range starship they had built to face the world-ending crisis foretold in the legends.

But this was their last resort, an option they wouldn’t take unless absolutely necessary. After leaving this Realm, they would be uprooted. Even if they could survive for a long time, they would eventually wither away.

Just as everyone’s anxiety was mounting, a sorcerer suddenly exclaimed in a low voice, "Something’s happening! Look!!"

All eyes focused intently on the monitoring formation. In the center of the array, a blurry, humanoid phantom was faintly beginning to appear.

The phantom was a complete blur, like something formed from gray smoke. Only its two green eyes were incredibly clear.

It simply materialized, floating silently in the center of the formation, and raised its eyes to look at Lin Hui outside the array.

"Who... are you?" a cold male voice slowly spread through the Heaven-Reaching Tower.

"It’s basic courtesy to state your own name before asking for someone else’s," Lin Hui said calmly.

"Courtesy is a part of morality. It has nothing to do with me," the green-eyed man replied in kind.

"Courtesy is respect for the one you are questioning." Lin Hui narrowed his eyes. "I was originally planning to ask you a few questions before making a move, but now... it seems you’d be better off dead."

In the next instant, Ruyi at his waist vanished in a flash, blurring for a moment before solidifying again.

BANG!!

The green-eyed man’s figure suddenly cracked and shattered. Though it was made of an intangible, mist-like substance, it seemed to have been condensed into a solid form for a moment, only to be sliced into countless pieces that scattered and vanished.

But after drawing his sword, Lin Hui’s brow furrowed slightly.

He sensed that numerous tiny, fine cracks had appeared on Ruyi Sword’s blade from just those few strikes.

’This guy has some real strength...’

It had been a very, very long time since Ruyi had encountered an opponent capable of cracking its blade.

Although he couldn’t augment it with a wide-area infusion of Star Power here, forcing Ruyi to rely on its own material strength.

Still, this proved that his opponent was no weak, nameless nobody like that Fairy Xinghua.

The next second, Lin Hui’s gaze fell upon the formation. His eyes darkened, and he instantly drew his sword again.

A wild wind howled. With this strike, he directly infused immense Star Power with his own physical strength, thrusting upward at extreme speed along the formation’s invisible teleportation channel.

At the same time, on the other side of the formation, Xue Shi also sensed something. He abruptly raised a hand, grabbing toward the formation with a massive palm.

The green light in his eyes flared dazzlingly.

PFFT!

In an instant, inside the invisible channel, the palm and the longsword met head-on with a muffled impact.

The palm’s power far exceeded the longsword’s, but the longsword’s speed far surpassed the palm’s.

The resulting impact force from their combined attacks was roughly equal.

HUMMM!!

The candle flames on the formation flickered as if they were about to be extinguished by the vibrations. Seeing this, both Lin Hui and Xue Shi felt their hearts skip a beat and simultaneously ceased their probing exchange.

From that single long-distance strike, they both got a rough measure of their opponent’s level.

In a direct confrontation, Xue Shi was a level stronger, while Lin Hui was a great deal faster.

Thus, the two returned to their previous standoff.

"Interesting. I didn’t expect to find a worthy opponent in the Human Realm of all places, when I couldn’t find one in the realm of the Celestial People..." Xue Shi’s voice drifted out from the center of the formation.

"My name is Xue Shi. What’s yours?"

"Qing Fei," Lin Hui replied with a random name.

After this simple introduction, the two fell back into their stalemate.

Time continued to pass. Neither was willing to take the first step toward the other.

Because they would be most vulnerable during the teleportation process. If attacked in that state, they could very well be thrown into an unfamiliar Black Domain between worlds, losing their way back.

After a long silence, Lin Hui was the first to break it. "Speaking of which, why did you come to the Human Realm? There’s nothing here. Anything you can find here, the realm of the Celestial People should have as well."

"Because... I have lost my direction for existence..." Xue Shi answered in a low voice.

"Direction... for existence?" Lin Hui frowned. This was a direct communion of their Heart and Spirit, requiring no translation of language. It conveyed only their truest inner thoughts. Deception was nearly impossible.

"Do you... have your own direction?" Xue Shi asked softly, a strange hint of anticipation in his voice.

"...Perhaps I do. But what I want to know more... is what is the meaning of life’s existence?" Lin Hui replied calmly.

"Without direction, existence itself is meaningless!" Xue Shi declared.

"If existence itself is meaningless, then what use is a ’direction,’ which is merely something to point the way!?" Lin Hui retorted.

"With direction, a life’s existence can find its own meaning!!"

"Wrong! As long as you affirm existence itself, a direction will naturally deduce and manifest itself!"

"You don’t understand anything!! As long as you have a direction, you can search, from the outside in, and everything will fall into place!!"

"Idiot! Existence itself should have meaning! Why were you born? Where did you come from? What is your purpose in this world? Once you determine these things, the direction you must travel will present itself! Everything comes from the inside out!!"

In an instant, both felt as if their core philosophies had been met with a colossal challenge.

"Shut up!!" they both roared.

In almost the exact same instant, a flash of a sword and a palm thrust through the formation toward the other side—two terrifying forces so immense they made all onlookers tremble.

One silver, one green, they suddenly collided within the channel and exploded, briefly severing the connection.

"It seems you are the root of all distortion! I will purge you!" Invisible currents of air spun and surged wildly around Lin Hui.

His eyes shone with the light of countless galaxies.

The Star Breath Sword Manual operated at full power. He raised the Ruyi longsword high, pointing it toward the starry sky.

A pitch-black shadow flickering with starlight rapidly spread out from behind him, blanketing the area.

Even though the Tianluo was frantically devouring and redirecting the Star Power flooding into the area, it still couldn’t withstand the violent surge of Lin Hui’s power.

The Infinite Wind Disaster Energy was rapidly converted into Star Power, and at this very moment, a Secret Technique from the Star Breath Sword Manual was fully unleashed.

’Breath of a Myriad Stars!’

The next moment, above the Heaven-Reaching Tower, the sky rapidly darkened. In an instant, the heavens for tens of thousands of miles around transformed into a pitch-black, starry night.

In the star-filled sky, constellations glittered with blinding light, casting down countless silver-blue rays.

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「On the other side, in the realm of the Celestial People.」

Trembling with rage, Xue Shi’s face was contorted in a savage expression.

The truth he had always held onto had been shaken by a few of his opponent’s words, filling him with a rage born of fear.

"All things will eventually turn to desolate ruin! Everything within the heart is a reflection of the external! What do you know!? What do you know!? What... DO YOU KNOW!!!!"

He spread his arms wide, and withered, yellow roots shot out from his back at incredible speed. All the roots plunged deep into the ground.

"You demon who dares to shake my heart!!"

"I’ll kill you!"

"I’ll kill you!!"

"KILL!!!!"

An invisible, transparent force field began to expand rapidly, fueled by his fury.

At the same time, the center of Xue Shi’s chest abruptly split open.

BOOM!!

A dark red pillar of light, somewhere between solid and ethereal, blasted out from his body.

The pillar was only as thick as a fist when it first appeared, but after traveling just a meter from his body, it rapidly expanded, growing to the width of a washbasin in the blink of an eye.

Wherever it passed, fine, chaotic, distorted cracks appeared in the surrounding space.

It was a complex pillar of light, its edges sometimes shattering, sometimes shrinking, sometimes expanding, even showing granular particles and gelatinous states.

It wasn’t straight. After flying out, it followed a bizarre, refractive curve, as if bouncing off a mirror, and shot instantly into the arrival formation.

The formation was already teetering from the earlier probing clash. Now, it was flooded with two terrifying powers, each dozens of times stronger than before.

The array’s runes immediately began to crack apart. Fissures also appeared continuously along the inner walls of the channel.

CRACK...

RUMBLE!!!

Within the channel, somewhere in the Black Domain Void between the Human Realm and the realm of the Celestial People.

A point of light, a tangled weave of red and silver, suddenly flared, then rapidly expanded, grew, and exploded.

In this Void, which lacked any medium for sound, a terrifying, massive explosion unfolded in silence, annihilating everything within a diameter of tens of thousands of kilometers.

A few World Fragments, some unknown beings living in the Black Domain, and a world-traveler who just happened to be passing through all had the worst luck imaginable. In an instant, they were engulfed by the explosion and reduced to dust.

The Human Realm and the realm of the Celestial People were like two enormous, colorful spheres. Their barriers, originally very close, were now rocked by ripples from the blast, which left two deep, sunken scars upon them.

In that instant, as the excess power from their collision bled into the Black Domain, both men—one in the Human Realm and the other in the realm of the Celestial People—instantly realized their opponent’s identity.

Calamity Fusionist!!

If not for being backed by the Infinite energy of a Calamity’s Disaster Energy, no one else could squander power so extravagantly.

Infinite power—this was a privilege only Celestial Calamity Spokesmen like them were qualified to enjoy.

Unfortunately, the channel had now been completely shattered and severed.

From this point on, all contact between the Human Realm and the realm of the Celestial People was cut off.

The two could no longer speak to one another.

"There is more than one channel... Just you wait, you demon... I will immediately return to create the Gate of Desolation, unleash everything, and completely destroy this realm! A mistaken existence like you is not worthy of fusing with me. You are only worthy of destruction!!" Xue Shi’s face was ice-cold, his green eyes flashing with a piercing killing intent.

*

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"If the channel weren’t so fragile, today would have marked the beginning of your repentance."

「Human Realm.」

The Heaven-Reaching Tower snapped and collapsed, triggering a massive avalanche on the snowy mountain.

Lin Hui floated in mid-air, gripping his sword in one hand, his robes whipping loudly in the fierce wind.

’The strange Disaster Energy on my opponent was somewhat similar to the Wind Calamity.’

’But the Wind Calamity decomposes everything, whereas that Disaster Energy brings chaos to everything.’

’This new Disaster Energy is something I’ve never seen before. It seems my only option now is to find Master Qimei and ask him to come out of seclusion. The realm of the Celestial People on the other side is mostly destroyed anyway. I might as well ask Master to erase that realm completely and purge the source of all distortion.’

The instant he made contact with his opponent, he had a strong premonition that the man was connected to the anomaly in the cycle of decay.

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