Time seemed to slow down. The withering heavens, the wasting earth, the minds of all living things… they all slowed. Slowly but surely, the spinning vortex and the Greatsword of the North approached each other… and then made contact.
Then, a massive, deafening, ear-splitting boom rang out, the volume of which surpassed anything that anyone had ever heard in all of history…. The Greatsword of the North slashed into the vortex, sending out fluctuations that surpassed the quasi-celestial level, and reached the point of a true celestial!!
If you likened this world to a paper model, then the fluctuations of the true Celestial Realm were like flames that would engulf it!
The crumpled heavens couldn’t sustain the force anymore, and a massive rift opened up. Then a second rift appeared, and a third. More and more appeared, until there were eight in total, ensuring that the sky above… had been torn into nine parts!!
It was possible to see through those rifts into what lay beyond… a strange world….
An aura that did not belong to the Heavenspan Realm then began to seep in through the rifts and spread about.
As that was happening, the lands were equally shaken. Intense rumbling sounds filled the Heavenspan Realm, including the Wildlands, as the ground was ripped into ten parts.
As of this moment, the Heavenspan Realm… had nine heavens and ten earths!
The entire world was being torn to pieces!
The living beings throughout the realm were trembling, their gazes blank as the world was destroyed around them. Indescribable terror filled them from the destructive fluctuations they felt.
Meanwhile, the Greatsword of the North finished slashing through the vortex, which was powerless to fight back, and in the end, exploded!
When Daoist Heavenspan was hit by the devastating blow, it was like an enormous mountain had slammed into him. Blood sprayed out of his mouth, and his hair whipped about in wild fashion as he was flung away. Blue light was reflected in his eyes as he dodged to the side, and yet, his efforts couldn’t prevent his right arm from disappearing in a haze of blood!
“Impossible!!” he screamed, blood splattering his lips and chin. He simply couldn’t accept how powerful Bai Xiaochun was, and how majestic the Live Forever Lamp had been. Worse was that his top apprentice of years past had finished forging the Greatsword of the North, a fact that drove him into further madness.
Although he had recently come to be certain that his top apprentice hadn’t really died, and had also known of the supposed world treasure, he hadn’t particularly cared. After all, he knew of one important fact. A demigod… could not unleash the full might of a world treasure!
However, the shocking sword energy which had just been released was almost impossible to believe.
“Impossible. This is impossible!!” Trembling in terror, he suddenly thought back to a point he had overlooked…. Backing up, he said, “The laughing-crying ghost face’s true form!! Dammit, it must have been him!!”
As for Bai Xiaochun, he was just as blood-spattered as Daoist Heavenspan. It didn’t matter how strong his powers of regeneration were, they couldn’t immediately heal him from the backlash of using the Greatsword of the North, which contained true celestial fluctuations.
The injuries were inconsequential. Nor did he care that his consciousness was fading. He bit his tongue to maintain clarity, and then, bursting with killing intent and a murderous aura, hefted the Greatsword of the North and transformed into a bright beam of light that shot directly toward Daoist Heavenspan.
“Time to die, Daoist Heavenspan!!”
Even if the heavens were being destroyed and the earth was being decimated, his killing intent had not lessened.
Daoist Heavenspan’s anxiety skyrocketed as he saw Bai Xiaochun using every last bit of energy in this final attack. The blue beam of light which descended upon him was not the type he could fully avoid. Pupils constricting, he dodged to the side, only to have his left leg wiped out of existence.
The pain caused a wild shriek to erupt from his lips, and yet the maddened Bai Xiaochun didn’t slow down at all. Taking advantage of having gained the upper hand, he attacked again.
The look in Bai Xiaochun’s eyes made even the powerful Daoist Heavenspan shiver in fear.
“Du Lingfei isn’t dead!” he shouted in a thunderous voice. Although it was a shocking revelation to Bai Xiaochun, he was so maddened that he didn’t slow down for even a moment.
Seeing that his tactic had failed, Daoist Heavenspan gritted his teeth and self-detonated. Massive force erupted from his battered body, and a glowing ball emerged, a mass of magical symbols that almost looked like a seed. Moving with incredible speed, it shot away from Bai Xiaochun and headed up into the crumbling sky.
Bai Xiaochun wasn’t willing to just let the Celestial destroy his own fleshly body for a burst of speed to escape. Coughing up blood, and his injuries worsening with every moment that passed, he shot off in pursuit. Unfortunately, Daoist Heavenspan achieved a final burst of speed… and massive rumbling sounds could be heard from the sky as the nine pieces which now made it up… crumbled into nothing!
The heavens were destroyed!
A massive shockwave spread out in all directions. Bai Xiaochun had been struggling just to keep his injuries in check, and was unable to evade the force. As it hit him, his mind began to spin, and he began to tumble through the air, completely out of control.
Even as his consciousness began to fade, he jerked his eyes in the direction of Daoist Heavenspan, only to see him being overwhelmed by the shockwave. It was impossible to tell if he survived or died….
Bai Xiaochun wanted to see for himself, but couldn’t control his own body. Slowly but surely, he began to lose consciousness. The last thing he saw was…
As the heavens were destroyed… a massive black hole sprang into being high above. Intense gravitational force erupted out, which rapidly transformed into teleportation power. That power descended into the Heavenspan Realm and reached out to all of the living beings within it. In the blink of an eye, they vanished, to reappear in random locations in the world beyond, although Bai Xiaochun had no way to know that.
Everyone from the River-Defying Sect. Everyone from the Wildlands. Every person from the Heavenspan Realm was teleported away….
Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were completely bloodshot as the heavens were destroyed and the earth decimated. In his bitter blankness, he thought back to everything that had happened, and wondered if it was all real. It didn’t seem like it.
“My home… is no more….” he murmured. The future seemed like a blank as he slowly descended toward unconsciousness. He fell through the air, and the light of teleportation wrapped around him…. Then he vanished.
In the last moment before he passed out, he heard a cacophony of voices ringing out from the world beyond the heavens. Some were excited. Some sounded greedy. Some seemed profoundly sinister.
“It broke open! The Arch-Sovereign’s body broke open!!”
“Hahaha! We've been waiting a long time for the people from that world to come out! Quick, notify the Vile-Emperor! The people of the Arch-Emperor Dynasty are going to be teleported to all sorts of random locations in the Eternal Lands! There’s no time to waste! Enslave all of them!!”
“Hmph! The Saint-Emperor is obviously going to covet the bloodline of the Arch-Emperor Dynasty, the sanctimonious bastard. But he won’t be able to outdo us! Once our Vile-Emperor Dynasty enslaves everyone from the Arch-Emperor Dynasty, then the people of the Saint-Emperor Dynasty are done for! It's a good thing we went to war over the issue of setting up teleportation formations all over the body of the Arch-Sovereign!”