Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

“No! Impossible!!!”

The Ancient Supreme of the Reincarnation Sea let out a sharp, piercing shriek. He had lived through countless ages and endured several great upheavals between epochs.

He had witnessed Great Emperors fall and survived the bitter winter of the Age of Dharma’s Decline, yet never before had he been seized by such bone-deep terror.

Acting on instinct, he raised a hand and struck his brow. His life-bound Imperial Weapon instantly flew out from the depths of his soul. Profound light of reincarnation flowed across its surface, while countless phantoms of living beings being born and dying emerged upon it.

This was the foundation upon which he had ruled the Reincarnation Sea for eternity. It was his ultimate trump card, capable of twisting space-time and reversing life and death—the greatest support upon which he had relied to dominate the world.

“Great Dao of Reincarnation, protect me!”

He roared as he drove every shred of his origin power to its limit. The Reincarnation Disk blazed with light, attempting to envelop him and form an absolute defense.

He even sought to use the power of reincarnation to reverse space and flee back to the deepest reaches of the Reincarnation Sea, where all calamities were unable to reach.

But in the next instant, the despair on his face deepened severalfold. The radiance of the Reincarnation Disk was visibly fading at an astonishing speed.

The laws of reincarnation flowing across the disk seemed to have encountered their natural nemesis. Under the seemingly placid aura emanating from Gu Changge, they shattered and disintegrated inch by inch, unable to maintain even the slightest trace of their Dao resonance.

Nor was that all. The ancient defensive barriers surrounding him, drawn from the forbidden zone of the Reincarnation Sea, melted away silently before that aura as though they were made of paper, unable to offer even the slightest resistance.

Everything on which he had relied, everything of which he had been proud—the laws of reincarnation, his life-bound Imperial Weapon, the defenses of the forbidden zone—was as fragile as a bubble before this man. He did not even possess the right to resist!

“Ultimate sublimation! Quickly—ultimate sublimation!!!”

The Godslayer of Deathless Mountain reacted the fastest. Having witnessed the entire process of the Supreme of the Sea of Samsara’s trump card failing, his soul shook violently. The only thought left to him was the frantic urge to burn everything he had, and he roared in terror.

He was just about to detonate his imperial foundation and force an ultimate sublimation. He knew that at this moment, only a desperate gamble could offer even one chance in ten thousand of survival.

“Stop wasting your effort.”

Gu Changge spoke calmly, cutting off their futile hopes.

As his voice fell, an invisible force of restraint had already enveloped the three newly arrived Supremes.

They were horrified to discover that they could not move even a single finger, much less perform an ultimate sublimation.

They were like insects frozen in amber. Even the right to fight to the death had been stripped from them.

Gu Changge’s gaze swept across the entire scene. He did not immediately move to annihilate them, but instead seemed to be examining something.

“The Immortal Domain is flawed, and ascension is impossible. You severed your own cultivation, concealed yourselves within forbidden zones, and clung to life in whatever way you could. Though you chose mere survival, you still carved out a different path of cultivation. There is no right or wrong in that.”

His voice was not loud, yet it rang clearly in the heart of every Supreme.

“But to prolong your own lives, you treated all living beings as blood food, repeatedly unleashing dark disturbances.

“You harvested the masses, severed the paths of others, destroyed their inheritances, and caused the heavens to weep blood and the universe to mourn. That is sin.”

As he spoke, he released no pressure whatsoever. Yet every Supreme—whether those collapsed on the ground or those restrained in the void—felt a tremor and insignificance that came from the depths of their souls.

It was as though their entire lives—from their rise to power, their glory, their self-mutilation, and the dark disturbances they had unleashed…

Everything they had ever done was merely a predetermined and insignificant trajectory in the eyes of the man before them.

He spread his five fingers and gently clenched his hand toward the thirteen Supremes lying on the ground, their auras faint and their strength exhausted; the three who were restrained; and the Golden Crow and Lei Peng in his grasp.

In an instant, an invisible force surpassing the laws of the ten thousand Daos swept across the entire scene. It was not a violent aura of destruction, yet it caused the entire void to tremble.

The laws of heaven and earth in the Profound Yellow Great World issued a low resonance at that moment, as if paying homage to the supreme sovereign.

There was no earth-shaking explosion, no heart-rending scream. There was only an extreme silence—yet it was more suffocating than any great calamity.

The nineteen ancient Supremes present, whether their auras were feeble, their bodies immobile, or their movements completely restrained, all began to disintegrate in unison.

Their bodies, souls, Dao fruits, and even the traces of karma they had etched into the endless river of time began to crumble.

From their limbs and bones to the origin of their primordial spirits, everything gradually transformed into particles of light so fine they could scarcely be seen.

Each particle of light contained fragments of the Supremes’ remaining consciousness and the power of their origins. There was the unwillingness of the Golden Crow Ancient Emperor, whose Solar True Flame still burned; the arrogance of Ancient Emperor Lei Peng, who had once commanded the Dao of Thunder; and the obsession of the Supreme of the Sea of Samsara, who had controlled reincarnation.

There was also the final fear and resentment of the Supremes who had once ruled their respective domains and looked down upon entire epochs.

Yet these origins and obsessions, which carried the accumulated foundations of countless ages, were completely purified and dissolved the instant they came into contact with the Dao resonance surrounding Gu Changge.

Not even the slightest trace remained. In the end, they all transformed into the purest origin energy of heaven and earth and merged into the world.

The shattered laws of the Dao left behind by the imperial battle began to slowly re-form under the nourishment of those pure origins. They glimmered with a gentle radiance as they intertwined and resonated with Gu Changge’s aura.

More than twenty Supremes who had unleashed boundless calamity were silently erased, like guttering candles in the wind.

Even the mountains and rivers of the distant Profound Yellow Great World seemed to sense this final ending. Faint rosy light spread through the heavens and earth, dispelling the last traces of deathly aura.

In the span of only a few breaths, those ancient Supremes who had once looked down upon eternity and caused the myriad heavens and worlds to tremble were thoroughly erased, along with the lingering might of their Imperial Weapons and every trace of their Dao fruits.

They returned to the most fundamental void, as though they had never existed in this world.

Across the starry void, only a tranquil silence filled with the promise of new life remained.

The Great Emperor of Annihilation quietly gazed at the void where the Supremes had vanished. A remarkably complex emotion flashed through his deep eyes.

There was wistfulness, indifference, and even a sliver of deeply hidden, indescribable relief.

He had once been the Lord of the Annihilation Abyss, and he had once been one of the Supremes. He had walked a similar crooked path, wandering through darkness and decay for endless years.

If not for the Honored Master’s guidance and the new life he had been granted, the one transformed into countless particles of light and destroyed in body and Dao at this moment might well have included him.

The same starting point, yet entirely different endings.

A single thought could mean the difference between eternal clouds and mud.

He looked toward the green-robed figure standing quietly in the void. In his heart, only an increasingly steadfast determination to follow him, along with reverence, remained.

Gu Changge looked toward the Profound Yellow Great World, now ravaged beyond recognition.

After successive imperial battles—especially the final impact of the Supremes’ ultimate sublimations—the entire great world lay broken, its mountains and rivers shattered and its spiritual veins severed.

The earth was covered in bottomless rifts. Space-time fissures filled the sky. All things had withered, leaving behind an apocalyptic scene.

Boundless sorrow and deathly aura permeated heaven and earth.

“Dust to dust, earth to earth. The old wounds should be healed.”

He murmured softly to himself.