Chapter 118
And when Ling Xu's body disappeared, when nothing remained of him except a pool of greenish blood upon the ground slowly seeping into the pores of the earth like a secret no one was ever meant to know, the reality surrounding them—which since the beginning of the battle had been manipulated, altered, twisted, and nearly destroyed by The Silent One—returned to normal.
Not returning like a reset button being pressed and everything restored to its original place, but returning like a wound that has healed while leaving behind scars that will never truly fade, like a memory that weakens but never truly dies, like something that has changed and can never be changed back no matter how desperately everyone in the universe tries.
And upon the ground still damp with blood, Huan Zheng—whose unconsciousness had finally ended, whose eyes slowly opened like flower petals blooming in the morning after an entire night of rain—sat there in confusion, not understanding why he was lying on the ground, not understanding why his body ached in several places, not understanding why there was a strange feeling in his chest as though something was missing, something he could not identify because he did not even know he had lost anything.
The Singer—whose body was still weak because the physical nature of the God of the Vast Cosmos residing within him continuously attempted to seize control yet always ended up restrained, whose unconsciousness also began fading several seconds after Huan Zheng awoke—heard the news directly from The Silent One.
Not because The Silent One felt the need to tell him, not because The Silent One's conscience had suddenly awakened from a long slumber and begun to feel guilt, but because The Silent One, standing in the distance with his half-burned body and a smile he could not hide no matter how hard he tried, could not stop laughing.
His laughter was not the joyful laughter of someone who had just won the lottery, nor the mocking laughter of someone satisfied by the destruction of an enemy, but laughter that burst from his throat like a reflex, like when someone cannot hold back their laughter after seeing something absurdly funny even while knowing they should not laugh, even while knowing their laughter will hurt others, even while knowing they will regret it later.
"He's gone," The Silent One said between fits of laughter that grew louder, sharper, more uncontrollable, like war drums beaten by hands that never tired.
"Ling Xu is gone. I killed him. I killed him with the Ink Arrow, and now he will never return, never rise again, never threaten me again. Do you hear me, Huan Zheng? Do you hear me, The Singer? Ling Xu is dead. For the twelfth time. And this time, he will not come back. Because I erased him from the manuscript. I erased him from the story. I erased him from existence itself."
And The Singer, upon hearing that news—hearing that Ling Xu was gone, that Ling Xu had been erased, that Ling Xu would never return—felt as though something exploded inside his chest.
Not an explosion that was loud and destructive like a bomb, but a silent explosion, one audible only to himself, an explosion that made him want to scream yet no sound emerged, made him want to cry yet no tears fell, made him want to strike something yet his hands would not move because he was too shocked to command his muscles to do anything at all.
"You… you've gone too far, The Silent One," The Singer finally whispered, his voice no longer melodious as usual, no longer carrying the resonance that made anyone hearing it wish to close their eyes and dream of something beautiful, but hoarse and rough, like someone awakening from a twenty-year coma and forgetting how to use their vocal cords.
"You've lost your mind. You've completely gone insane."
Huan Zheng said nothing.
He merely stood—or rather, tried to stand, but his legs could not support his weight because they were still weak, still trembling, still unable to believe that Ling Xu, who half an hour ago had still been standing beside him with his third eye glowing and the Cancer plague pulsing through every pore of his skin, who had died eleven times for him and risen eleven times for him, who had chosen to unleash the nature of the Cancer plague and risk everything—his soul, his body, his identity, his sanity—just to protect him, was now gone, erased, nonexistent in any universe, nonexistent in any manuscript, nonexistent in any story, as though he had never existed, as though he had merely been an illusion, merely a nightmare unworthy of remembrance after waking.
He collapsed again, falling to the ground, dropping to his knees upon the still-warm pool of greenish blood that had only minutes ago flowed from Ling Xu's body, and there, upon the blood of his beloved that slowly seeped into his pants, soaking his knees, soaking his shins, soaking the tips of his toes that could no longer feel anything because they were either too cold, too shocked, or too shattered to feel at all,
Huan Zheng—the lazy man who had never been serious when explaining anything, the man who preferred sleeping over fighting, the man who had once chosen death eleven times rather than betray Ling Xu—cried.
Not hysterical sobbing like someone who had lost his sanity, not quiet weeping like someone trying to hide his grief from others, but crying that burst from his chest like a river overflowing after rain that had not ceased for forty days and forty nights, crying that made his shoulders shake violently, crying that forced broken sobs from his throat beyond his control, crying so painful that even the Singer standing beside him felt his chest tighten despite not being Huan Zheng, despite not sharing a romantic bond with Ling Xu, despite being nothing more than a witness who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Ling Xu…" Huan Zheng whispered between his sobs, his voice wet and shattered, like someone drowning and capable only of speaking the name of the person they love before the water closes over their head for the final time.
"You… you can't leave… you can't abandon me… you promised… you promised you would always stay by my side… you promised you would protect me… you promised… you promised…"
And his hands—trembling, stained with blood and dust and the mucus-like residue of the Cancer Plague still clinging everywhere—reached forward, reached toward the place where Ling Xu's body had last been seen before disappearing, reached toward nothingness, reached toward emptiness, reached toward something that no longer existed and never would again, and there, amidst emptiness and despair, Huan Zheng realized that he could not move forward, that he could not fight The Silent One in such a condition, that he would only die meaninglessly if he tried, and for the first time in his life—after dying eleven times, after witnessing Ling Xu die before him over and over again, after enduring everything a cultivator could possibly experience through eleven lives—he felt powerless.
To be continued…