Toward the Predestined

“The game has already been decided. Regardless of victory or defeat, we must finish this final round.”

On the main peak of Mount Xuanshui, in the Eastern Divine Continent.

The resplendent radiance of the earth-shaking battle unfolding in the distance, where the Sky Demon Fang Jin had been, was as dazzling as daylight breaking across the heavens. Though it was extremely far away, one could see the countless beams of light piercing the firmament simply by looking up.

Moreover, countless rainbows were still flying toward that destined battlefield of mortal combat.

Several powerful auras shot over Fangjin’s head, leaving behind only faint traces of tribulation-crossing energy.

At the summit of Mount Xuanshui, Fangjin wore a Confucian scholar’s robes and cap. His youthful face was remarkably handsome and composed as he gazed at the landscape before him, where the mountain stream cascaded down from the peak like a waterfall.

“Boluo’s move isn’t exactly a good one.”

The earth veins shifted, and a clay figure rose from the ground. It had no facial features or expression, and its utterly calm voice seemed to come from nowhere.

Fangjin glanced over, his tone carrying a trace of displeasure.

“If you refuse to play this game, someone else will play it in your place. You never truly rejected it, which means you tacitly agreed. That has always been the rule.”

“If you’re afraid of death, you should never have taken up Yuanqiong’s name. Every breath you draw now was bought with the lives of countless members of our own race.”

“The world isn’t made up solely of good things waiting for you, and no one will always be there to clean up after you.”

The clay figure shot before Fangjin in an instant, its voice tinged with anger.

“You junior! That is no way to speak to your senior!”

Fangjin remained fearless.

“Today, with all of us facing disaster together, I acknowledge you as my senior. But if today you still intend to act like a stray dog without a tail, then I have no regard for you as the senior of such a useless wretch.”

The clay figure had neither features nor eyes, yet the shifting mud somehow conveyed the presence of a pair of eyes glaring fixedly at Fangjin.

“Boluo intends to gamble everyone’s lives on this game. There will be no retreat and no room for maneuver. Once we fail, we will never have another chance. Everything we carry on our backs will become empty words, and our people’s hopes will turn into nothing more than the reflection of the moon in the water.”

Fangjin did not yield in the slightest.

“We can still fight with our backs to the water now. But in the future, we may not even have the chance to make such a last stand.”

“Chu Xingchen was born in response to the calamity. His very existence represents the Heavenly Dao beginning its final purge of us. Time is not on our side, and we have already wasted too much of it.”

“We entertained too many thoughts we should never have had, believing that time would remain on our side, believing that if we simply waited, there would be another chance to rise again.”

“And so we waited until the path to ascension under the Heavenly Dao was severed, leaving behind countless prodigies from across the ages to wage a decisive battle against us.”

“We thought there would always be an opportunity, that by prolonging the timeline and taking control of the Immortal Sects, we could still turn things around. For that reason, Boluo even entered the Great Thunderclap Temple.”

“But in the end, we got Chu Xingchen.”

“We failed to cherish the time we had, and we failed to cherish the opportunities before us. We always assumed there would be more in the future.”

“After everything we have experienced, Senior, do you truly believe we will have another opportunity? A better one?”

“You can deceive yourself, but reality will not.”

“Zhong Su came to find you as well. I don’t know what the two of you discussed, but Zhong Su has always disliked Boluo. And yet, he is now in that hellish battlefield.”

“We have already wagered every trump card we possess. Admittedly, Senior has every right not to participate.”

“But you have no reason not to.”

The clay figure listened silently until Fangjin finished. Then it clenched its teeth and said, “This is suicide! Boluo is leading us all to our deaths, trying to die our way into an impossible possibility.”

Fangjin straightened his scholar’s cap and robes, his voice resolute.

“Then I will go and die, even if Boluo’s choice and arrangements are wrong.”

“But Boluo personally chose to die first in the Lotus Pond. Knowing it was certain death, he still went.”

“Regardless of success or failure, Boluo has lived up to the name Boluo.”

“Unlike you, Senior. You bear the name Yuanqiong, yet you are not even willing to show me your true body.”

“You hid the demonic servants preserved from those years ago so that none of us could discover their whereabouts. But Boluo hid Hengwang in the Lotus Pond.”

“Senior was unwilling to part with your demonic servants, but did Boluo truly find it easy to abandon Hengwang?”

The clay figure was about to speak again.

But Fangjin’s figure had already completely vanished.

Only a faint aura surged toward that place where the Dao’s resonance whirled amid a deadly struggle.

The clay figure’s mud and sand began to circulate at astonishing speed. Then the mud dispersed, revealing a frail old man with a pale face and a worried expression hidden within.

If Fangjin had still been there and had seen this body, even Yuanqiong would have been shocked. The Yuanqiong who had once fought with fearless vigor was now unbelievably aged and decrepit.

Yuanqiong’s true body appeared. His face was filled with confusion and exhaustion as he gazed toward the increasingly brutal battlefield of destined slaughter.

Back when the demon race had been defeated, some of the demonic creatures they had commanded were unable to be gathered and had scattered throughout the distant lands and seas.

But the elite troops and battle-hardened generals who could be recovered had all been gathered by Yuanqiong, the senior-most among them.

Although Yuanqiong had never told any of the Sky Demons where he had hidden those troops and generals, after all these years, Boluo had still managed to deduce their location.

He had indeed hidden those elite forces in the Eastern Divine Continent, near this very place.

Boluo’s choice of the Lotus Pond as the final battlefield was perhaps meant to force Yuanqiong into making a decision.

Either abandon everything and fight for success, or carry his final troops and generals while wandering through this world forever.

Boluo was truly clever…

Linglong’s death might have been a choice as well.

Yuanqiong’s eyes lowered slightly.

Now that things had reached this point, even Yuanqiong, no matter how unwilling he was to admit it, understood that Fangjin had been right. This world was already carrying out its final and most dangerous purge.

Boluo might have been cunning and manipulative, but he had still chosen to die without hesitation.

He had indeed lived up to the name Boluo.

“These are the final sparks.”

Yuanqiong forced out a bitter smile, the corners of his mouth drooping with helplessness. Then those corners quickly rose, revealing a savage grin.

“Little ones, you’ve been hiding for long enough.”

“Let us… set this world ablaze once more.”

A gorgeous black longsword appeared in Yuanqiong’s hand. A suit of armor, clearly far too ill-fitting, formed piece by piece over his body, merging directly into his flesh.

Although the spiritual energy of the Eastern Divine Continent was far richer than that of the Western Ox Continent, it would have been laughable to expect its spiritual veins alone to sustain the troops and battle generals Yuanqiong had gathered.

All these years, Yuanqiong had cultivated those elite soldiers with the power of his own origin. During that time, he had also recruited many outstanding newcomers from beneath the command of other Sky Demons.

The Outer Heavens.

That was the name Yuanqiong had given to the place where he concealed the demon race’s elite troops and battle generals.

Yuanqiong was one of the oldest Sky Demons. The power of origin he carried was the purest and most abundant, and he could restore his origin on his own.

Over these countless millennia, Yuanqiong had drained every last shred of origin from his own marrow.

The cultivation of the elite troops and battle generals of old had long since reached heights far beyond the past.

Yuanqiong raised his longsword toward the destined battlefield of slaughter and shouted sternly:

“Burn this world to ashes!”

As his voice fell—

The mountains collapsed and the earth split apart.

Countless crimson rays shot up from beneath the ground, rising into the sky like scarlet clouds that blotted out the heavens.

They flew toward their destined battlefield.

P.S. This has nothing to do with the Qixi Festival. And to all my friends, I wish you happiness!