Chapter 2249: There Will Always Be Those Who Come After (3000-Word Bonus Chapter)

No matter how powerful an Ancient God may be, they still must follow their intrinsic laws. A shattered divine soul is shattered; to erupt with even greater power afterward, one would have to detonate another equally powerful Supreme Treasure.

He Lingchuan was the first to recover from the shock:

"He shattered his own Godhead? That black hole that devours everything — is it the manifestation after the Death Godhead shattered?"

Recalling what he had seen yesterday, Lady Lady Lady Mitian had originally been at a disadvantage in the battle within the Sea of Consciousness, about to be dragged into the Sea of Mist by the Dragon God, but then suddenly rallied, imposing and awe-inspiring.

In the end, the Dragon God could only perish together with Him.

The means Lady Lady Lady Mitian used to turn the tide were truly heaven-defying.

"Correct, or rather, He used His Godhead as a final trump card." The Red General nodded. "According to Lady Lady Lady Mitian's understanding of the laws, the Death Godhead contains the most extreme destructive power. Only by releasing such power was there hope of truly shaking and annihilating the Dragon God."

They simply could not imagine how terrifying Lady Lady Lady Mitian's desperate struggle was.

He Lingchuan and Xu Shichu exchanged a glance, both unable to help asking: "The Dragon God... has He truly already perished?"

No one dared believe it.

That was the Dragon God, who had experienced the Ancient War, crashed down the Tianluo Star fragments, dwelled in the Great Fanghu for over three thousand years, and then fought a great battle with Lady Lady Lady Mitian!

Who could believe He just passed away quietly like that?

The Red General fell silent for a short while, gathering her words.

"I think describing it as 'perished' is not accurate." She spoke slowly. "Even Lady Lady Lady Mitian cannot be counted as having 'perished'."

Xu Shichu appeared thoughtful, while He Lingchuan recalled the words the Dragon God had spoken during the great battle in the Sea of Consciousness:

Neither born nor dying, neither still nor ceasing!

"At the end of the great battle, Lady Lady Lady Mitian also knew He was powerless to turn the tables, so He simply shattered His Godhead, releasing all the power of deprivation and separation contained within the Godhead in one go, attempting to fight for a mutually assured destruction." Divine soul self-detonation, Godhead self-shattering — that was Lady Lady Lady Mitian wanting to burn jade and stone together.

"Deprivation and separation." He Lingchuan murmured. "The Dragon God told Lord Zhong that Lady Lady Lady Mitian's understanding of life is order resisting disorder; His understanding of death is the opposite — disorder defeating order, negative pressure overcoming positive, therefore all will eventually perish."

So the process of death, whether fast or slow, is essentially the process of energy, vitality, nutrients, and other energies being stripped away.

The Godhead is the concretization and embodiment of a God's or Heavenly Demon's understanding of power. Lady Lady Lady Mitian shattering the Death Godhead in the final battle was to release its most violent characteristics in a short time, to strip and deprive all energy in the Red General's Sea of Consciousness — whether the Dragon God's or Zhong Wuhen's — completely!

Xu Shichu said: "This Death Ancient God's temperament is truly extreme as well."

"It is said that during the Three Saint Gods period, the Death Ancient God's relationship with the other two Ancient Gods was not very harmonious either." The Red General continued. "Fortunately, the Dragon God's Dao was ultimately a notch higher than the Death Ancient God's. He gauged that the Death Godhead's abilities in my Sea of Consciousness were not 'infinite', so He allowed His own power to be stripped away by Him."

Simply put, the Dragon God allowed Lady Lady Lady Mitian to absorb His power — absorb freely, absorb with all his might — until the black hole burst from overconsumption!

Of course, there was a premise: her Sea of Consciousness battlefield was very special, completely unsuitable for a Godhead to exert its power. If it were in the real world, Lady Lady Lady Mitian using the Death Godhead might have had a hundred tricks up his sleeve, and the Dragon God might not have dared to be so arrogant.

"After the Dragon God defeated Lady Lady Lady Mitian, He borrowed the Death Godhead's trend of self-repair once more, taking the opportunity to fuse His own power with Lady Lady Lady Mitian's within it, forming a brand new power core, or what could be called a Divine Energy Core —" The Red General paused. "That is the dark red existence you saw; I still don't know how to describe it."

He Lingchuan blurted out without thinking: "Chaos?"

"Chaos?" The Red General savored the word carefully. "Hmm, it truly is remarkably fitting."

Ever since coming into contact with the Great Fanghu for so long, He Lingchuan had always found it strange — what was the deal with that single Chaos always swimming in the vast Red Sea.

Keeping a fish inside a gourd — however you looked at it, it was weird.

Now he finally understood. That seemingly living thing was actually one of the cores of the Great Fanghu's power.

It integrated the Dragon God's philosophy — an existence neither living nor dead, neither still nor ceasing — the fusion of the two worlds' top-tier powers, and also the fusion of the two worlds' laws.

No wonder it was incomparably powerful.

Xu Shichu asked: "Then what about the Death Godhead?"

"It was also embedded into it."

"Worthy of the Dragon God." He Lingchuan clapped his hands in admiration.

To this day he still hasn't passed the Fate Godhead's second trial, yet the Dragon God fused the shattered Death Godhead in the snap of a finger and developed new uses for it.

This kind of deconstruction and utilization of laws was a new height he had never imagined.

Observing the Dragon God and Lady Lady Lady Mitian's divine soul battle gave him enormous inspiration.

"This battle within the Sea of Consciousness represented the two great Gods' different understandings of the mysteries of death." He Lingchuan mused. "The Dragon God believed that life and death themselves are not important; they are merely the transfer and circulation of energy. Even if He and Lady Lady Lady Mitian 'perished' in the usual sense, their energy transferred into the Chaos. This transfer is precisely the Dragon God's practice of His own understanding."

Just as the Dragon God once told Zhong Shengguang, the battle between Him and Lady Lady Lady Mitian would ultimately be a contest of laws.

"Well said! General Huyi's insight is penetrating." Xu Shichu nodded repeatedly. "Energy remains, therefore the Dragon God remains, hence neither born nor dying, neither still nor ceasing."

The Dragon God once said to Lady Lady Lady Mitian: the battle in the Sea of Consciousness — for both parties, was it not transcendence?

It was precisely by borrowing this battle that He truly transcended life and death.

He Lingchuan felt deep regret. As a later comer, he had no chance to meet the Dragon God in the Great Fanghu — this was truly a heaven-sized regret. But he understood: the Dragon God had never left, merely transformed into another form of existence.

He Lingchuan deliberately let out a long sigh: "The Dragon God can rest easy letting go, but what about the mortal world from now on?"

"I asked. He said, even if He is not here, there is still Panlongcheng." The Red General turned her head, looking toward the setting sun sinking in the west. "Even if Panlongcheng is gone, there will still be those who come after. The mortal world will always have new hope."

He Lingchuan was slightly moved.

……

After the battle in the Red General's Sea of Consciousness concluded, Lady Lady Lady Mitian temples large and small across the mortal world — whether the title was Lady Lady Lady Mitian, Moon God, or others — the statues in the temples all collapsed to varying degrees. Inside Panlongcheng, a huge Lady Lady Lady Mitian stone statue had originally been enshrined; at this moment, with a few muffled *kala* sounds, the stone head suddenly fell off!

Thus the mortal world knew: the God Lady Lady Lady Mitian had met with misfortune.

This scene was exactly like Miao Zhantian's fall in reality.

Before long, the Demon Realm would also know.

Lady Lady Lady Mitian's death had far-reaching influence, but the eye of the storm it caused was only just beginning to form.

The victory in the ambush at Spirit Lake let the Beijia army in the Honghe Region receive no support, forcing them to retreat in sorry state.

The Panlong Army therefore secured the central-northern territory of Xiluo.

Beijia, enraged, dispatched another fifty thousand troops.

However, Huang Jing, a power in the central-eastern part of Xiluo, surrendered to the Panlong Army a step ahead!

This move caught Beijia completely off guard. Huang Jing's military strength was naturally far inferior to Beijia's or the Panlong Army's, but his position was advantageous; he controlled numerous strategic passes and river mouths.

Once he surrendered, the Panlong Army quickly took over these key locations, gaining a geographical advantage over Beijia.

The seven or eight battles after that, Beijia fought exceptionally hard.

At this time, the news of Mietian's downfall also spread throughout Lingxu City Wang Ting. Its explosive nature even far surpassed that of Miaozhantian's downfall in later ages.

Miaozhantian fell in the Inverted Sea, having perished together with Qianhuan, the result of mutual destruction between peers of equal power.

But Mietian's downfall was not caused by the demons!

Bei Jia initially could not discern the cause, but Wu Xian first submitted a memorial reporting the full course of the battle at County Magistrate Lake, which of course also mentioned Mietian's grand divine descent.

The gods of Lingxu compared these two events and discovered that Mietian had almost certainly fallen at this time.

That is to say, at that time Mietian descended in his true form—otherwise, if only his avatar had been lost, his true self would not have fallen—and he had shattered the divine descents of three heavenly gods, yet afterward he fell without cause.

In this context, the most abnormal thing is the Panlong Army!

Logically, since their guardian god had suddenly fallen, the Panlong Army should have been thrown into extreme panic.

Yet their performance was abnormally fierce, even after Mietian's downfall they surged forward with renewed vigor, attacking and capturing multiple regions in succession.

Especially after Huang Jing surrendered to Panlongcheng, the Red General's figure reappeared on the battlefield, slaying two of Bei Jia's great generals in succession, his momentum greater than before.

Lingxu City had originally been monitoring the Red General's movements. She is Mietian's mortal form; with Mietian fallen, how could she possibly remain unharmed?

This second abnormal occurrence forced Lingxu City and the Heavenly Palace to suspect that Mietian's downfall was actually related to Panlongcheng!

Could it be…… that Panlongcheng betrayed Mietian and secretly plotted against Him?

Otherwise, outsiders truly cannot imagine a second possibility for Mietian's downfall.

But could Panlongcheng and the Red General alone defeat the demon realm's war god? This idea sounds utterly unreliable no matter how one hears it—even the heavenly gods shake their heads repeatedly, declaring it impossible, absolutely impossible!

Yet no matter what, Panlongcheng, with its dazzling appearance, once again drew the gaze of the heavenly gods.

Tonight is a rare ceasefire.

The Panlong Army is stationed in Kecheng, which is the capital of the future Ying State.

At this time, Kecheng is merely a small town, lacking the Ying royal palace, lacking noble mansions, lacking any excavated artificial lake, yet the terrain feels familiar. He Lingchuan stands on a high ridge in the wilderness, gazing over the city district, unable to help but sigh at how the mountains and rivers remain as before, while the people and affairs have changed.

In real history, this land experienced dynastic succession over the following one hundred fifty years or so, and did not enjoy prolonged peace.

I do not know whether, in the Panlong world, it and Panlongcheng's fate could both be changed?

He Lingchuan gazes at the night sky, then lets out a yawn.

Recently, the Panlong Army has advanced eastward in rapid succession, the war pace swift; as a commander of troops, he is indeed fatigued, and tonight he ought to have rested early, yet he has never dared to close his eyes.

Tomorrow brings new duties.

But the anomaly of the Panlong world has persisted to this day. When he lifts his eyes, he sees a vast shadow drifting slowly across the sky beyond the firmament.

This great entity has been swaying back and forth for a long time—could it also be urging him to depart quickly?

He is truly worried that, upon opening his eyes tomorrow, he will……

He Lingchuan sighed, turned, and entered his tent.

Before falling asleep, the last thing he recalled was Sun Fuzi.

+++++

The volume "Cangyan" ends here. Thank you for your support; the next volume, "The Age of Great Contention," officially begins~——

Fengxing Shuiyun Jiu Fangye,

Today there is a tea gathering! Afterwards, keep scrolling~~~~~