Chapter 72: Separation.
Inside the sealed “little black room,” Xie Qiyang and Li Tianxing faced each other awkwardly. Ye Zhuxian’s suggestion of resolving everything here and now? They didn’t dare, not with so many eyes around.
“Don’t you have anything to say to me?” Xie Qiyang asked, hands behind her back.
“Don’t you have secrets too? How about we both spill?” Li Tianxing, as if anticipating her, answered smoothly.
Xie Qiyang fell silent, saying nothing more.
“Why dig so deep? Even the closest Dao companions don’t need to be joined at the hip. Some secrets are better kept inside—it’s healthier than airing them out, no?” Li Tianxing stepped forward, reaching to pat her head, only to realize… she was taller now.
While he froze, Xie Qiyang seized the moment, ruffling his hair with a cheeky grin.
…
The two emerged from the black room.
Ye Zhuxian’s spatial barrier dissolved quietly. “Sorted things out pretty quick, huh?” she teased.
Before her words settled—
Boom!
Not thunder, but a sound more soul-shaking.
The sky seemed torn apart by an invisible giant hand. A massive rift opened at the horizon’s edge.
Its borders weren’t black void but shimmering with chaotic, primal light, spilling billions of radiant rays.
The glow wasn’t gentle but carried an ancient, desolate aura, as if pouring from time’s origin, dyeing half the sky crimson, painting the clouds red.
Beyond the rift wasn’t a paradisiacal realm. Instead, an endless pale expanse stretched out—white not of snow, but of ice frozen for eons, a slumbering wasteland of countless eras.
A primordial chill, even from afar, pierced the souls of all who dared peer in.
“The realm’s open—enter now!” Ye Zhuxian’s voice rang like it crossed time itself, carrying undeniable authority. With a flick of her sleeve, a gentle breeze enveloped Xie Qiyang and Li Tianxing.
Their bodies lightened, like feathers, swept uncontrollably toward the terrifying rift splitting the sky.
Alongside them, dozens—hundreds—of brilliant light clusters flared in the void, each a prodigy from Holy Lands, Imperial Clans, or mighty Otherkin, streaking like meteors into the ancient, chilling unknown.
Gales roared in their ears, space twisting around them. As they neared the rift, the chaotic rays grew wilder, laced with star-like ice crystals glinting ominously.
The rift’s chill seemed to freeze time itself, slowing even their thoughts.
Li Tianxing instinctively gripped Xie Qiyang’s hand tighter. Their eyes met, both heavy with resolve.
In the next moment, their figures were swallowed by the all-consuming pale light, vanishing into the massive rift linking the present world to the Nether Ancient Realm.
Ear-splitting winds howled, capable of shredding steel. Before them, chaotic, shifting visions swirled.
Space seemed shattered like glass, fractured law-threads flickering around them, radiating a mix of destruction and creation.
They plummeted toward the desolate, ice-sealed world.
Li Tianxing’s voice cut through the chaotic law currents, grave and solemn, reaching Xie Qiyang clearly: “A Great Emperor… or one touching that supreme threshold… their power transcends mortal imagination.”
His gaze pierced the boundless pale below. “They can twist universal laws, forging a ‘domain’ ruled by their own Dao.”
“But this ‘realm’ before us, though brimming with supreme might, isn’t a true ‘world.’ It has form but no spirit—no thriving life, no cycle of sun and moon, no natural order of seasons, no complete laws of birth, death, or karma…”
“It’s just a cold, lifeless cage of laws, frozen by absolute power.”
“Countless prodigies, reaching this level, seek the next step—glimpsing true immortality through ‘world creation’!”
“They search for desolate stars or carve chaos itself, trying to build a world rivaling or surpassing our vast cosmos, with complete cycles of life and heavenly order.”
“If they succeed, merging their will and essence into that new ‘Heavenly Dao,’ they become the world itself, achieving… a form of eternal life.”
“Emperor Realm?!” Xie Qiyang’s heart jolted, the concept as distant as myth. She rarely saw Li Tianxing so solemn, tinged with… pity?
This wasn’t like him! A nameless unease stirred.
Fearless in the face of death? No, not battle-born resolve.
In his eyes’ depths was a serene acceptance, as if he’d sacrifice everything for her, gazing at a foreordained end!
“You…” Her heart clenched, a mix of anger and panic surging. She hated his cryptic half-sentences! She reached to pinch his waist, demanding the rest.
Whoosh!
The gentle breeze carrying them turned sharp, irresistible.
An unseen hand, precise and cold, tore their clasped hands apart.
“Tianxing!” Xie Qiyang’s cry was cut short as a mighty force yanked her like an arrow into the icefield’s depths, toward an unknown destination.
She whipped her head back, glimpsing Li Tianxing’s shrinking figure, swept by another breeze toward a distant region of jagged ice peaks.
Distance stretched infinitely under the laws’ power. Gales and chaotic law fragments blocked sound and blurred sight.
Xie Qiyang opened her mouth, desperate to shout, to demand answers, to grasp the truth behind that heart-stopping moment…
But the icy winds forced her words back, leaving only a hollow chill in her heart, colder than the eternal ice below.
Their figures, like lone meteors falling into this ancient graveyard, traced separate, unknown paths of fate in the endless pale silence.