Chapter 119
The Silent One, who from afar watched Huan Zheng sobbing over the pool of Ling Xu's blood, who watched The Singer standing frozen with a deathly pale face like someone who had just seen a ghost, laughed harder, louder, more uncontrollably than before, until his laughter reached its sixtieth second, until he nearly ran out of breath from laughing too much, until tears—not tears of sorrow, but tears caused by excessive laughter—streamed down his half-burned cheeks, wetting his still-open wounds and intensifying the pain, though he did not care because to him, this victory—a victory over Ling Xu, a victory over the only person capable of matching his strength, a victory over the greatest threat to his plan of reclaiming the boundless universe—felt sweeter than honey, warmer than a lover's embrace, more intoxicating than the finest wine ever crafted by human hands.
But then, at the sixtieth second of The Silent One's laughter, when he was drawing in a long breath to prepare for another wave of laughter, when Huan Zheng was still crying with his head lowered over the blood that had begun to dry, when the Singer still stood motionless with an empty mind too shocked to think, a voice was heard.
Not a loud and thunderous voice like a storm, not a soft and soothing voice like a lover whispering into one's ear, but an ordinary voice—extremely ordinary, extremely familiar, unmistakably distinct—a voice emerging from the throat of someone no longer unfamiliar to Huan Zheng and The Singer, a voice that for years had been part of their lives, a voice they believed they would never hear again because its owner had already been erased from the manuscript, erased from existence, erased from everywhere within this infinite universe.
"You're laughing too soon, The Silent One," the voice said, and Huan Zheng—upon hearing it, upon hearing that cold and resolute tone he could never imitate no matter how hard he tried, upon hearing the resonance hidden behind every word that belonged to only one person in the entire infinite universe—lifted his head, his tear-filled eyes widening, his mouth still trembling from sobs falling open, and he saw.
He saw something he could not believe despite witnessing it with his own eyes, saw something impossible according to logic, reason, and every law of nature he had ever known, saw something that made him smile for the first time after believing he would never smile again.
The Singer, who also heard that voice, who also lifted his head with jerky movements like a puppet whose strings were being yanked by an impatient child, saw the same thing, and within his chest—tightened by shock, grief, and disbelief—something began to grow, something people who still believed miracles existed might call hope, the belief that death was not the end, that love—love sincere enough to die eleven times and willing to die countless more times—could overcome anything, even ink that had written death into a manuscript that could never be changed.
Because in the sky—in the sky that only a second ago had still been empty, still gray, still resembling a blank canvas untouched by brush, pen, or imagination—Ling Xu descended.
Not descending like someone leaping from a great height and landing with legs spread to maintain balance, not descending gracefully like someone flying with their hair dancing in the wind, but descending with his body folded inward, with both legs placed within the deepest bends of his elbows, in a posture usually seen only among hermits who had reached the highest level of enlightenment, monks who had abandoned all worldly attachments, beings who no longer considered the physical body important because to them, the body was merely a vessel, merely a tool, merely temporary, while what endured eternally was the soul, consciousness, the very essence of existence itself.
And Ling Xu's body—which now resembled that of a devout worshipper, solemn and sacred, like the statue of a Goddess displayed upon the highest altar within the holiest temple—radiated light.
Not one color, not two, but three colors at once.
Red like the blood flowing through the streets when his mother died, red like the flames that burned his body when he died for the first time, red like love that never faded despite dying eleven times.
Yellow like the midday sun when no clouds dared obstruct it, yellow like the golden color of Huan Zheng's hair that Ling Xu had always admired in silence, yellow like something warm and comforting like a mother's milk before sleep.
And blue like the ocean depths untouched by sunlight, blue like sorrow he could never express through words, blue like something cold and piercing like the memories of death that had never truly disappeared from his mind.
Those three colors revolved around his body like planets orbiting the sun, like electrons orbiting an atomic nucleus, like words circling meanings that could never fully be grasped, and from that vortex of colors—from the vortex of red, yellow, and blue spinning faster, faster, faster until they could barely be distinguished from one another and appeared only as a blinding white light—the voice of the Cancer Plague Consciousness emerged, no longer whispering in the darkest corner of Ling Xu's consciousness, but echoing from every corner of reality, from every crack between space and time, from every concept ever born and ever destroyed within the minds of beings across the boundless universe.
"The Complexity Dao that has yet to be perfected," declared the Cancer plague Consciousness, its voice no longer gentle like a mother stroking the hair of her feverish child, no longer proud like a teacher watching their favorite student graduate with the highest marks, but overflowing with pride it could no longer conceal, with admiration beyond the limits of language because words were never designed to describe the feeling of witnessing someone rise from death for the twelfth time stronger, more complete, closer to the true essence of existence itself.
"That realm is not something widely known, Ling Xu. It lies hidden far beyond the understanding of most beings. Even figures such as Huan Zheng and the Singer never realized it existed. Only The Silent One and the soul of the God of the Vast Cosmos understand and command that domain. And you, Ling Xu—you who died for the twelfth time, you whose body was shattered by the Ink Arrow, you whose name was erased from the manuscript—have reached it. You have reached the Complexity Dao. You have passed the trial of the Destruction of Dao Meanings, you have meditated for sixty minutes between life and death, you have destroyed endless streams of Dao one by one, minute after minute, without ever surrendering, without ever complaining, without ever stopping even though every stream of Dao you destroyed felt like tearing apart a piece of yourself. And now, Ling Xu—now you have risen. Not as a Supreme Goddess, not as a human, not as a cultivator, but as something else, something in between, something without a name because names are shackles, and you have cast away every shackle that once bound you except for two—your hatred toward those who killed your mother, and your love for the man who became your home. And with those two things, Ling Xu—with only those two things—you will defeat Pendiam. You will defeat the soul of the God of the Vast Cosmos. You will defeat anyone who dares stand in the way of your love for Huan Zheng."
To be continued…