The sword light suddenly rose, initially thin and winding, but in the blink of an eye, it poured forth like a waterfall, a flood, a wave, a sea!
This single sword strike spanned the heavens and earth, across time itself.
Within the sword light, countless ancestors seemed to climb the peaks, rushing towards a crack in the sky.
Who was the sky’s fissure for?
A moment of astonishment always fades, no matter how glorious and splendid. All would wither in the river of time, eventually vanishing, existing only in the memories of those who came after.
The sword light finally faded.
The Finger-Extreme King sheathed his sword and gazed at the sky, motionless.
Another fissure appeared in the sky, intersecting the river of blood.
This one strike had truly split the heavens!
At some point, the ancient tome reappeared in the hands of the Demon Emperor. The pages scattered, floating before him.
The Demon Emperor did not move, and after a long while, he sighed. With his sigh, all the pages turned to ashes, disappearing without a trace.
And then, a corner of the Finger-Extreme King’s robe lifted, turning into countless grains of sand. The sand slowly drifted, transforming into glowing lights, rising and falling.
More and more glowing lights emerged, illuminating the surroundings and the present moment.
When the glowing lights faded, a sigh seemed to come from nowhere, its tailing sound gradually ascending, reaching the depths of the clouds, beyond the sky. It sounded like the Finger-Extreme King, but no one knew what he was sighing about.
At this moment, the Finger-Extreme King had become one with the world.
The Eternal Flame appeared, looking at the ancient tome in the Demon Emperor’s hand. The once thick tome now had no pages, only the cover and back.
The Demon Emperor just stared at the place where the Finger-Extreme King had vanished, as if unaware of the Eternal Flame’s presence.
“Your Majesty…”
“You’ve come.”
“How are you?”
The Demon Emperor smiled bitterly, saying, “How can I be? Ji Wentian spent thirty years on one strike, truly possessing the might to cleave the heavens. If I hadn’t used this copy of the Black Book to block, my life would have ended. Even with the Black Book, I’m at least half dead.”
The Eternal Flame was shocked, “So severe?”
“Still standing is already a miracle.” The Demon Emperor looked at the Eternal Flame. Though his aura was weakening, his gaze remained clear, easily piercing through the protective flames to see the raging fire in the Eternal Flame’s eyes.
The Demon Emperor smiled, his smile tinged with inexplicable desolation, “Klasu, you are actually older than I. But being trapped at the edge of the Holy Mountain for so long, have you ever thought about why?”
The Eternal Flame was startled, not expecting the Demon Emperor to call him by his birth name. He hadn’t used this name in a long time, and the memories associated with it were of his youth.
The Demon Emperor’s question, however, was easy to answer. So he replied, “Bloodline.”
Bloodline determines one’s potential, a consensus among the strong of Evernight. In a thousand years, only two exceptions: the Demon Emperor and Anduia. But Anduia’s transformation from a Blackwing King to the Lord of Evernight was an elevation in the essence of primal force, unrelated to bloodline. The only one who truly broke the bloodline barrier was the Demon Emperor Kain.
The prevailing view among Evernight’s elite was that Kain’s true potential only emerged later, as his early bloodline assessment was incorrect.
If anyone else could break the bloodline limit, it would be Qian Ye.
Hearing Klasu’s response, the Demon Emperor didn’t directly evaluate it but asked another question, “Did you hear Ji Wentian’s last sigh?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he sigh?”
This time, the Eternal Flame did not answer.
For the millennia-lived strong of Evernight, human lives were too short and their emotions too complex. Many of their intense feelings were hard to understand.
The Demon Emperor didn’t expect an answer from the Eternal Flame, musing, “One of the things humans value most is returning to their roots, even in death. But people like Ji Wentian and Fang Shunxuan, when they entered the Inner World, had already decided to be buried in foreign lands. We say short-lived species are brave enough to abandon life, but would we, the long-lived, be willing to sacrifice ourselves for our kind in our final years? If we were, there wouldn’t be so many old sleepers. Once courage is lost, it may never return.”
The Eternal Flame pondered, gradually grasping something.
The Demon Emperor shook his head, “Actually, Ji Wentian didn’t have to die.”
This was also a puzzle for the Eternal Flame. With the power of the Finger-Extreme King’s final strike, he could have cut down anyone below the Holy Mountain, and even the Holy Mountain itself could only withstand one strike without dying.
This strike, gathering the qi and luck of a thousand years, had transcended the bounds of the Holy Mountain.
Ji Wentian need only hold back, and no one would dare press, not even the Eternal Flame.
The Demon Emperor stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the two intersecting sky fissures, sighing, “He sacrificed himself to clear the way, removing all obstacles for Qian Ye, who is returning from the river of blood, and for the human race.”
“To clear the way with his life!” The Eternal Flame was stunned.
The Demon Emperor looked at the distant Palocia, shook his head, and turned back to the Eternal Flame, “Do you understand?”
The Eternal Flame pondered, both understanding and not understanding.
The Demon Emperor sighed, “You’ve always wanted to replace me. Now, the opportunity is here. If you can clear the way like Ji Wentian, leading our holy race through thorns and trials, I will give you everything. What’s the harm?”
The Eternal Flame’s blue flame flickered, bright and dim.
The Demon Emperor didn’t rush, standing with his hands behind his back, gazing at the sky, melancholic, “It’s a pity, in the end, I still don’t know what the Lost Season is or the Beginning of Starlight. The so-called Holy Mountain is nothing more.”
Hearing the Lost Season and the Beginning of Starlight, the Eternal Flame’s whole body trembled, and his flame gradually stabilized.
He bowed slightly, “Your Majesty, please let me take the Black Book and open the path to the world.”
The Demon Emperor’s eyes filled with complexity, “Klasu, I really hope you can do it.”
The Eternal Flame’s voice was calm, “I desire the power above the Holy Mountain, but I cannot bear the fate of the entire holy race. As you said, once courage is lost, it is gone forever.”
The Demon Emperor said no more, only, “Then open the gate.”
The Eternal Flame released a flame, enveloping the Demon Emperor, and they vanished from their spot, appearing on the Holy Peak.
The Eternal Flame opened the Black Book, now just its cover. As he did, a bottomless passage slowly opened.
As the passage opened, the Eternal Flame struggled, firing flames to stabilize the walls. Each expansion met with increasing resistance, and the cover and back of the book quickly thinned, finally disintegrating.
The three runes “Black Book” flew towards the passage, but two dissipated in the air, leaving only one, which could not stabilize the passage.
The Demon Emperor finally intervened, summoning the three pages sealing the sky’s fissures, sending them into the passage, stabilizing it.
Once the passage was stable, a terrifying gravitational force drew all the active dark primal force around it, filling the endless void. The dark sun in the sky was also pulled, deforming under the pressure.
The Demon Emperor sighed, “Let it be.”
He glanced at the sky’s fissures and stepped into the passage, returning to Evernight.
The Eternal Flame and Palocia followed, leaving the Inner World through the passage.
The passage continued to devour the dark primal force endlessly.
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