Chapter 124
Huan Zheng and The Singer finished their meditation.
Not finished like someone who barely passed an exam. Not finished like a runner reaching the finish line while gasping for breath. Rather, they finished like a flower blooming in the morning after rain had fallen all night, like the sun rising on the eastern horizon after a night that had lasted far too long, like something newly born into the world with eyes still blind but a heart already filled with hope.
And when they opened their eyes—Huan Zheng's golden eyes that matched his hair, and The Singer's pitch-black eyes like the bottom of a well whose depth could never be found—they saw Ling Xu.
They saw Ling Xu's body, a body that could barely be called a body anymore because too many parts had melted away, too many parts were gone, too many parts had been rewritten into something he no longer recognized.
They saw Ling Xu still standing with his arms stretched out to the sides like a cross, his legs trembling like grass blown by the wind, his eyes closed while his lips continued praying.
"Ling Xu…" Huan Zheng whispered. His voice was no longer wet with tears like when he cried above the pool of blood, but dry and hard, like stone that could never be shattered by anything.
"I'm finished."
And there, amidst the storm of ink that continued crashing into Ling Xu from every direction, amidst Ling Xu's body that was beginning to collapse because it could no longer endure, Huan Zheng and The Singer moved.
Not moving like humans who run, walk, or leap, but moving like the flow of Dao that could never be predicted, like ink writing itself, like a story choosing its own path regardless of what its author desired.
They stood beside Ling Xu—Huan Zheng on the left, The Singer on the right—and together, they raised their hands, and from their palms, light emerged.
From Huan Zheng came golden light like the midday sun. From The Singer came silver light like the moon on a full-moon night. And from Ling Xu—whose body was nearly destroyed, whose cultivation realm was the Leg of Humanity, whose strength had been reduced to mere remnants—came a greenish light like the Cancer plague that had never truly died.
And the three lights merged together, not like water poured into the same container, but like three colors spinning into one, like red, yellow, and blue spinning faster and faster until they became white, like the three Cultivation Wheels—The Silent One, Ling Xu, and Huan Zheng? No. The true three Cultivation Wheels. Ling Xu, Huan Zheng, and The Singer—finally united for the first time in history.
"Now," the Singer whispered. His voice was no longer calm and measured like when he tuned his instrument before a concert, but filled with fire, filled with life, filled with something that could not be expressed with words because words were too small.
"We attack together."
And The Silent One—who saw the three lights merging into one, who saw Huan Zheng and The Singer standing beside Ling Xu with an aura no less terrifying than Ling Xu's aura when he first reached Complexity Dao, who for the first time in this battle realized that he could not win alone—did something he had never done before in his thousands of years of life.
He summoned the soul of the God of the Vast Cosmos.
Not merely allowing the soul to take over his consciousness like before, but merging himself with that soul, becoming one, becoming the same essence, becoming something that could no longer be separated between Pendiam and the God of the Vast Cosmos.
And when the fusion was complete, when The Silent One could no longer be distinguished from the soul that had dwelled within him, his body changed. Not changing like a human changing clothes, not changing like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, but changing like the word "I" becoming "we," like a story shifting from one person's perspective into the perspective of many, like something once small becoming vast, once weak becoming strong, once fearful becoming brave.
"You think you can defeat me simply by uniting?" Pendiam said. His voice no longer carried Pendiam's flat and empty tone, nor the deep and heavy tone of the God of the Vast Cosmos, but instead a dual voice, a voice spoken from two mouths at once, a voice that sounded like a thousand people speaking simultaneously.
"You forget, I am The Silent One. I am the God of the Vast Cosmos. I am the first. I am the oldest. I am the one who has remained silent the longest among the three Cultivation Wheels. And when I decide to speak, the world—no, the universe—no, the story itself—will submit."
And The Silent One raised both of his hands, and from the tips of his fingers emerged ink—not ink that formed storms, not ink that formed apocalypse, but ink that formed everything that had existed, that existed, and that would exist, ink that shaped this infinite universe, ink that shaped the story itself.
And that ink shot toward Ling Xu, Huan Zheng, and The Singer with a speed no eyes could follow, with a force no body could withstand, with an intent that nothing could challenge—an intent to erase them from the manuscript, to erase them from the story, to erase them from existence itself.
But Ling Xu—who had died eleven times, who had risen eleven times, who had reached Complexity Dao and lost it and would reach it again if necessary, who had seen Huan Zheng lying weak upon the ground and The Singer unconscious, who had endured pain no living being should ever experience—did not fear.
He merely focused the Cancer plague.
Not one hundred percent, not one thousand percent, not one million percent, but the entirety of the Cancer plague's nature that had dwelled within him since birth, since his mother died, since he first opened his third eye and saw the world as it truly was—cruel, vile, and never fair.
He released it without hesitation, without conditions, without caring that releasing the entirety of the Cancer plague's nature meant losing himself, becoming a monster, becoming something that could never return.
"Consciousness," Ling Xu whispered. His voice was no longer clear and pure, no longer cold and resolute, no longer gentle and sorrowful, but hollow and empty, like the space between stars untouched by light, life, or hope.
"Join me in this attack. Release yourself. Release everything you once protected. Release everything you once guarded. Because now, we no longer need protection. Now, we are the ones who attack."
And the Cancer plague Consciousness—which for thousands of years had only dwelled within the darkest corner of Ling Xu's consciousness, which for thousands of years had only been a silent observer in every battle and every suffering, which for thousands of years had only whispered, only advised, only reminded—finally emerged.
To be continued….