Layer by layer it decomposed.

The temporary workshop existing as a container unfolded, and when the last curtain was lifted at that moment, thousands of strands of a spiritual circuit burst forth.

The Matrix emerged, spreading like a giant tree, at the branch tips and critical points, twelve instances of third-degree transformation blessings revealed their brilliance, resplendent!

Like the fierce sun, illuminating everything.

Where the light reached, all physical properties were confused and blended, heaven and earth were blurred as if unopened, all phenomena indistinct as one, chaos between heaven and earth.

The Circle Realm unfolded, the Time Wedge was unanchored!

This is, Matrix Gan Jiang!

Or perhaps, it could be called...

—Matrix Holy Relics·[Gan Jiang]!

Bestowing souls to matter, transcendence to mundane objects, after successive processes of Ascension, extraction, Purification, and Integration, man-made objects gained consciousness and souls, embedding the soul into the Matrix through modern Alchemy blessed melding, and finally, with thoughts and tactics that transcend mortals, elevated it to the realm of Heavenly People!

At this moment, right before Duan Mu's eyes, the position of the Heavenly People, which he longed for his whole life but could never achieve, was accomplished by a creation he could never possibly make!

Rage, shame, despair, fear, wandering...

In the end, it turned into a hoarse cry of weakness.

"Why... didn't you ever..."

Duan Mu struggled to understand, fought fiercely, and roared, "Why, why!"

With such talent, with such capabilities, why endure so many troubles, prefer to grant the position of the Heavenly People to a dead object rather than continue moving forward!

That path he chased all his life and could never reach...

"How much do you need to humiliate me until you're satisfied?!"

"Because it's meaningless." Ye Xian replied coldly.

"..."

"Seven years ago, I was already standing in front of that door," Ye Xian shook her head, "I still haven't figured out the things outside the door. Temporarily, I'm not interested in what lies behind it."

She said, "What I want isn't there."

Duan Mu, breathless, murmured something unclear.

Despair chokes.

Or perhaps, a miserable self-mocking laugh.

A lifetime of suffering and struggle, like a joke.

Even the last struggle, like a clown's final performance, grotesquely revealed.

He had nothing left to say.

Yet he heard Ye Xian's voice.

"Lord Duan, within the misdeeds of the association, I alone respect you a fraction. Unyielding isn't just lip service, nor should it mock, if those wastes had even a third of your obstinacy, they wouldn't have fallen to such a mediocre state, right?"

Ye Xian said, "I'm not as good as you."

Duan Mu closed his eyes, silently, even lacking the energy to burst into rage.

"...Finally, let me say something unrelated."

Ye Xian raised her head, looking at the hollow skies, "Recently, I took a student... and suddenly realized, the cruelty of Embers is the same for everyone.

I am the same, he is the same, and so are you.

Only, narrow-minded as I am, if I endured the same circumstances and dilemmas as you, I probably couldn't have lasted as long?"

"I've failed at a project for twenty years. I've wanted to give up, more than once... There have been too many times when I overestimated myself.

I don't even know if I still have the courage to endure further."

She said softly, "This isn't to console you, nor do I intend to seek any sympathy from you. But I suddenly realized, aside from an opponent like you, there's no one else to talk to about some things."

Silently, Duan Mu managed a weary smile.

"Truly lonely."

"Yes."

Ye Xian sighed lightly.

A fractured sound emerged, from Duan Mu's face, limbs detached, silently falling.

His body fell into the mud. His pupils slowly turned, looking towards the sky that Ye Xian watched—so vast and high, yet so cold.

The stars dimmed.

Just as he had seen them before, unchanged.

So, it seems, until the very end, he never managed to keep moving forward...

He just chose to fall.

The wind that met him was because of stepping onto the cliff, the changing landscape whistled by, had long since, plunged into an abyss.

Nothing could be undone anymore.

But even if it could be undone, everything could be started over, could he take that path once more?

"Ye Xian, the road is too long, I can't... walk anymore..."

From an unstoppable downfall, he tiredly closed his eyes, "Just continue forward alone..."

Thus, the final farewell. Curse or blessing, the line between them so blurred.

Indistinguishable.

Gan Jiang and Mo Ye's blades intersected and fell.

Evil was beheaded, crumbling apart, only the last ashes, carried by the wind, ascended into the sky, sprinkling down, merging into the countless spreading Fierce Flames below.

Like ashes scattered inside a furnace, finally rose a spark.

A moment of sparkle and rise.

Gradually traceless.

In the silence, distant footsteps approached, drawing near.

Ye Xian turned back, looking at the blood-stained path that snaked from the outpost.

Among countless Disaster Beast corpses, the glow of residual spirits, someone holding two broken swords filled with notches approached step by step. Wherever he passed, blood spewed, corpses strewn.

Lv Yingyue.

"Master Kong said something happened here, after dealing with the trouble, I rushed over."

A smile appeared on the blood-stained face.

"Am I late?"

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