Chapter 1362: Sacrifice! (Fourth Update)

I am fighting!

My imperial guards are fighting too!

But they, exhausted to the extreme, have no strength left.

Old Luo's blade only nicked a corner of the Void-Splitting Emperor's arm armor, and in the next second, a giant claw covered in dark carapace and entwined with space-tearing power pierced his chest like a teleport, ripped out his heart, and swallowed it whole.

Among the guards, a female cultivator holding a bow let out a mournful cry like a cuckoo bleeding to death; her arrow pierced one lava eye of the lava giant, but was instantly severed at the arms by a strange shadow-blade from another myriad-race powerhouse.

She staggered, spurting blood from her mouth, yet suddenly lifted her head, looking toward my direction, her eyes filled with final resolve.

Then she bit her tongue tip hard, spraying essence blood onto the remaining broken bow; the broken bow hummed and actually transformed into a burning blood-arrow, shot at incredible speed toward another myriad-race powerhouse besieging me, exploding loudly on its back!

And she herself was instantly drowned by several beams of light, turning into flying ash……

Every fallen figure is like a red-hot branding iron, fiercely searing my soul.

I am frenziedly slaughtering!

Using everything!

Killing one myriad-race powerhouse after another!

Purple flames crisscross, sword qi tearing the long sky.

Corpses, on this unparalleled plain, increase more and more as my entire personal guard perishes.

But the wounds on my body are also increasing rapidly.

Scorching magma almost burns through my bones; the space-tearing blades of the Void-Splitting Insect Race leave deep bone-visible wounds on my back; strange myriad-race arts, like bone-eating maggots, incessantly erode my vitality.

Fresh blood soaks through my torn robes, vision blurred by flowing blood.

My cultivation, like water without roots, dissipates rapidly.

Making every breath I take bring the searing pain of shattered viscera.

I have killed many, but the enemy is more.

Boundless and endless……

Gradually, my consciousness also begins to fall into boundless darkness.

But just as the world plunges into total blackness!

A vast, chaotic mess, containing endless sorrow and resolve, like an invisible giant wave, suddenly sweeps in from all directions, fiercely crashing into my sea of consciousness!

This is not an attack, but rather a……resonance!

A final cry from countless dying souls of the entire Ziqing Shanguo!

My vision, at this moment, infinitely rises and extends!

As if the soul has broken free from the dying body, overlooking this shattered land.

I see within the Ziqing Great Realm, those once glorious cities, now only towering flames and rolling black smoke remain!

Countless tiny figures struggle and fall in the fire, desperate cries seemingly right beside my ears.

I see within Feng Haijun, the giant myriad-race totem hovering above the prefectural city, emitting an aura of destruction.

The city walls have long collapsed, the city is in utter chaos, and at the center of the ruins, I see my disciple, Bai Xiaozhuo.

His body drenched in blood, left arm severed at the shoulder, his remaining right hand high holds aloft a broken prefectural great seal!

Around him are countless surviving commoners!

Men, women, old and young, clothes in rags, faces yellow and emaciated, eyes without tears, only a kind of near-numb yet utterly pure resolve!

I see, the western frontier border town, the last few remnant soldiers, now closing their eyes.

I see, the northern ice plains, the frozen scout squad, now dying.

These scenes become an indescribable agony and sorrow, like billions of steel needles, instantly piercing my soul and spirit!

More fierce than any attack from the myriad-race powerhouses!

My country……my people!

Boundless grief, at this moment, forms a resolve transcending life and death!

Like the hardest profound ice, freezing all pain, all despair!

I suddenly lift my head!

My blood-stained gaze pierces the ferocious face of the myriad-race powerhouse before me, pierces the silent outline of the Shi Wushuang Plain, pierces the layered mountain ridges of Nanhuangzhou, and drives straight toward that cycle of rebirth looming above — that indifferent, seemingly eternal — giant mutilated visage.

It remains mutilated, cold, and deathly still.

Like a face stripped of most of its skin, pasted on the boundless azure heavens, indifferent.

And its very existence is the greatest mockery of all joy and sorrow, life and death struggles in the human world.

But now, this ancient observer, this indifferent embodiment of rules……perhaps is the only force capable of prying open the deadlock before me!

The last subjects of Ziqing Shanguo are dying in death.

And I, Ziqing, this exiled, incapable so-called Crown Prince, now what I can do……

"I……Ziqing!"

My voice hoarse and broken, yet carrying a power that shakes heaven and earth, overpowering all slaughter and thunder in Ziqing Shanguo.

"In the name of the Crown Prince of Ziqing Shanguo!"

I spread my arms, my tattered robes hunting in the gale, all my wounds bursting simultaneously, blood gushing like a spring, yet strangely not falling, but transforming into burning blood-colored light flames, entwining my body!

"Sacrifice my mutilated body! Burn my life-soul! Ignite my Dao foundation! Burn everything I am! Burn my past and future — all karma, all cause and effect!"

Every word uttered is accompanied by the most thorough burning of my life origin!

Flesh and blood melting, bones groaning under unbearable weight, soul as if cast into an eternal furnace, the just-recovered cultivation, together with all foundations of my existence, at this moment, transform into the purest, most fervent origin!

"Lead your power! Purify this filth! Burn this chaotic age! Protect my Ziqing country — the last unextinguished flame!"

"May there be a future life!"

"When revival comes, I will sacrifice all I have seen!"

Boom!!

A pillar of purplish-gold light, indescribable, purer and more condensed than the light of Ziqing's national fortune burning, carrying the dignity of a human emperor and boundless resentment, erupted from the burning corpse!

It tore apart the bloody night shrouding the Shi Wushuang Plains, tore apart the blockade jointly laid by the strong of myriad races!

Carrying a resolute will to die together in mutual destruction, like a reversed flow of purple star river, it pierced through endless void and fiercely struck the remnant face above the firmament!

At the same time, within Feng Haijun.

Bai Xiaozhuo seemed to sense something, gazing toward the direction of Nanhuangzhou, tears streaming down, then he laughed maniacally, weeping blood as he mutilated himself, leaving only half his face, matching the remnant face!

Then he shouted loudly.

"Born upon this soil! Die upon this soil! Soul also guards this soil! I follow the Crown Prince onward, I shall awaken a thousand years before him, to guard his Dao!"

"Sacrifice!"

With his sacrifice, the surrounding people of Feng Haijun supported each other, encircling their governor, forming a great human ring.

Elders, women, children…… they raised their heads, gazing at the ancient, aloof face hanging high in the sky, coldly overlooking the human tragedy——the remnant face!

Afterwards, each and every one of them, their expressions turned mad, all opened their mouths!

"Sacrifice!"

Countless voices gathered into a torrent that tore apart heaven and earth!

Elders, women, children…… all remaining people of Feng Haijun, regardless of age or strength, simultaneously performed the same act…… self-mutilation, becoming remnant faces!

Without hesitation, without retreat, only a resolve to die and be reborn, shaking the universe!

In an instant, countless faint yet extremely pure points of life light, like reversed-flowing sparks, detached from each self-mutilated figure!

Scattered points, converged into a river, then surged into a sea!

A stream of life light formed from the final will of the remnant souls of Ziqing Shangguo's people, silent yet resolute, carrying the wail of burning everything, rose together with their Crown Prince…… piercing the heavens!

Piercing the firmament!

At the same time, in the western border garrison of Ziqing Shangguo, the last few remnant soldiers lit the beacon fires, amidst the soaring flames, facing the remnant face in the sky, they wept blood and mutilated themselves, their figures twisting in the blaze, turning into points of light……

In the northern ice plains of Ziqing State, the frozen scout squad, with their last strength, plunged their blood-stained battle flag deep into the frozen earth, facing the direction of their homeland, facing the remnant face in the sky, collectively mutilated themselves, the crimson faint light merging into that soul tide sweeping heaven and earth……

Within the realm of Ziqing Shangguo, in countless places, countless corners, in countless scattered, desperate, yet supremely tragic life-and-death struggles, countless faint wills.

At this moment, unanimously chose the same path!

To offer themselves as sacrifice! To use remnant souls as guide! To present the last of Ziqing Shangguo to that remnant face hanging high above myriad ages, coldly overlooking all beings!

Rising into the sky!

Like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, crossing endless spatial barriers, instantly gathering, entwining around that purplish-gold light pillar emanating from their Crown Prince!

Following their Crown Prince…… jointly sacrificing!

Only hoping…… for Ziqing's future, to return to Wanggu!

Time, as if, at this moment, completely came to a standstill.

The slaughter on the Shi Wushuang Plains solidified.

The ferocious intent on the faces of the myriad races' strong froze, replaced by shock and fear born from life's instinct!

The entire heaven and earth, only that upstream-flowing purplish-gold flame remained, along with the endless souls from all directions accompanying the sacrifice, and then…… the ancient, indifferent remnant face above the firmament!

Then……

That ancient, unchanging, icy remnant face, in this instant, slowly, opened its eyes.

Within, a blood-colored vortex burned with endless icy and chaotic fire!

Like the day of extinction!

An indescribable majesty, surpassing the limits of living beings' comprehension, as if the laws of the entire star ring were condensed into a single gaze, suddenly descended!

This gaze, icy, indifferent, carrying the absolute will to scrutinize myriad ages and penetrate all falsehood.

Afterwards, this gaze focused!

Gazing upon…… the source of that purplish-gold light pillar.

Gazing upon…… within the light pillar, the…… me, rapidly dissipating.

My body, at the instant the blood-colored gaze descended, like snow thrown into the blazing sun, began from the fingertips, inch by inch turning into flying purple dust.

Flesh, bones, soul…… everything constituting the existence of "Ziqing," under that remnant face's gaze, was completely decomposed, reduced to origin.

I felt no pain.

Only a sense of icy emptiness.

As if consciousness too was drifting away with it.

At the final moment of complete dissipation, under the icy gaze of that blood-colored vortex, I heard a low voice.

"Approved."

The moment this voice echoed, an indescribable terror, like the initial opening of the universe, like an invisible apocalyptic tsunami, suddenly erupted toward the entire Shi Wushuang Plains!

Annihilating all!

Time, as if, had been stretched into eternity.

My consciousness, in this final storm sweeping all things, like the last spark of a candle in the wind, completely…… dissipated.

Only that pillar piercing heaven and earth, ignited by the final will of myriad remnant souls, still burned, surged, and was extinguished…… within the blood-colored vortex of the opened remnant face!

As if a silent, die-to-be-reborn…… funeral song.

……

In the year 9315 of the Ziqing Calendar, autumn, the Crown Prince fell in Nanhuangzhou.

The Crown Prince's disciple, Bai Xiaozhuo, the last governor of Feng Haijun, uttered a mournful, bitter laugh, wept blood as he mutilated himself, leaving only half his face, matching the divine remnant face.

Before death, he once said.

"I follow the Crown Prince onward, I shall awaken a thousand years before him, to guard his Dao."

—

I said before, the concluding phase, updates are unstable……