Chapter 1363: The Path of Ziqing

Prince Ziqing fell.

He did not fall at the hands of the myriad races, but sacrificed himself, melting into the gaze of the Upper Wasteland's remnant face.

Only a skull remained, seeming to contain his lifelong unwillingness, not turning to flying ash but left on the battlefield.

And those who departed with him...

were the entire soul of the Ziqing Shangguo, including Bai Xiaozhuo.

The day they left...

Eastern Wanggu was drenched in heavy rain, lasting a month.

Huangtian also grew overcast, churning for a month.

Meanwhile, within the human imperial capital, Emperor Jingyun did not attend court; he sat alone for several days, gazing southward, lost in silent thought.

Until someone went to Nanhuangzhou and brought back Prince Ziqing's skull, he looked at the skull and let out a sigh complex with guilt.

Afterwards, he had a tomb of extremely high specifications built for Prince Ziqing, and left an edict stating that he himself would also be buried in the same tomb in the future.

Thus, the glory of Prince Ziqing ended.

And Ziqing Shangguo also became history, under the myriad races' concealment, gradually turning into rumor, and ultimately... vanishing into history.

This also included the traveling palaces of Ziqing Shangguo distributed in various places, all becoming ruins, buried in the dust.

Only some of the Ziqing Shangguo people who had left early on scattered, spreading the bloodline belonging to Ziqing Shangguo.

Among them, one branch was in Nanhuangzhou.

With the passage of time, Emperor Jingyun fell, and a new human emperor ascended...

The human race's situation, as the myriad races continued to rise, became increasingly difficult.

And that branch of Ziqing Shangguo people in Nanhuangzhou multiplied and thrived, striving for strength, experiencing generation after generation of effort and struggle, ultimately establishing a new Ziqing State.

But alas... it seemed an invisible curse existed, and after several years, the Ziqing State in Nanhuangzhou was still overthrown by its three major clans within, utterly ceasing to exist.

And the name Zitu began from that moment, originating in Nanhuang.

As for the Unparalleled Plains where Prince Ziqing fell, as time flowed, it seemed to also have a connection with the fate of Ziqing Shangguo...

There had appeared cities there, but in war they turned to ruins.

There had also appeared scavenger camps, but they too did not last long.

Until the human Xuan Zhanli, year 2871, on the Unparalleled Plains, a group of scattered cultivators came, and they built a simple dwelling there, as their place of cultivation.

At the same time, out of compassion, they took in the people tormented by alien substances.

Making that simple city gradually acquire a certain scale, becoming a city.

And they named it, Unparalleled.

Human Xuan Zhanli year 2918.

Nanhuangzhou Tianqi year 135.

After decades of development, Unparalleled City, in this apocalypse, already had some fame, being the largest among the many cities in the Unparalleled Plains.

And today, for this Unparalleled City, is a great day.

Within the city, people come and go, bustling and noisy.

Ziqing wore a coarse hemp long robe, his hair tied behind his back, walking on this lively street.

The candied hawthorn in his hand still carried the warmth of the stove, the amber sugar coating wrapping the bright red hawthorn, refracting a false sweet luster in the noon sunlight.

And the air seemed to still float with the cloying sweetness of caramel, the smoky air of burning sacrificial paper, the faint sourness of crowd sweat, and the grainy aroma of steamed buns, all these thickly mixed together, wrapping around him, also wrapping this city named Unparalleled.

Today, is the Prayer to the Gods Festival.

Everything in the festival is like a pot of boiling soup, churning with the clamor of the marketplace.

In this clamor, Ziqing's expression is calm, gazing at the crowd, sensing the familiar atmosphere around him.

"Fine candied hawthorn! Crisp and sweet!"

The peddler's shout sharply pierced the noise.

"Hope next year is a good harvest..."

The low mutter of the basket-carrying old woman drowned in the crowd.

"Everyone keep order! Do not gather too closely!"

The city guard's shouts vainly blocked the surging flow of people.

"Passing elders and fellow townsfolk, come to my shop to have a look! Three-colored incense paper, most effective for communicating with the gods!"

The paper craft shop's shopkeeper waved the sample in his hand.

Countless voices gathered into a murky warm current, washing over Ziqing's eardrums.

He felt the hardness and icy coolness of the bamboo skewer of the candied hawthorn in his fingertips, his gaze passing through the throng of heads, falling on those few familiar figures in the distance.

This life's father, mother, and the younger brother gently held in his mother's embrace.

The other's small body lay on the mother's chest, like a clueless little beast.

Gazing at them, a trace of reminiscence appeared in Ziqing's eyes.

But this reminiscence, like mundane smoke, had just barely risen when it was blown away by the wind.

"The time is almost here! Hurry and run over!" Several children clutching crude wooden god statues, as swift as wind, brushed past Ziqing's side, rushing toward the towering, coffin-like altar at the city center.

Thus Ziqing closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his mother in the distance seemed to have sensed his gaze.

Holding her young younger brother, she turned her body, her gaze passing through the gaps in the crowd, falling on this son holding candied hawthorn, his face calm to an almost eerie degree.

A gentle smile blossomed on her face, and she slightly raised her chin toward Ziqing.

The young son in her arms also turned his head, the seven-year-old's face tender and clean, eyes clear, reflecting the luster of the candied hawthorn and a hint of not easily noticed grievance.

He saw his brother, saw that string of candied hawthorn, and his eyes lit up.

But the next second, clear tears quickly welled up in her eyes, her eye sockets turned red, and her little mouth pursed.

"This child, why are her eye sockets red again?" came the father's helpless voice from beside, laced with a smile.

And the mother's voice also echoed back.

"Qing'er, you are a man, after all—you cannot cry just because you see your brother leave."

"Look over there, the sacrifice is about to begin."

At the moment these words drifted into Prince Ziqing's ears from afar, his gaze swept past his mother's gentle profile, past his father's broad shoulders, past his younger brother's tear-filled expectant eyes, and finally settled upon the altar, then upon the heavens above—upon that fragmented, icy, eternally congealed remnant face.

"The time has come."

Prince Ziqing spoke softly.

He held a candied hawthorn skewer, like the most silent observer, walking forward.

Toward his kin in this life, toward the……altar he had personally chosen.

And upon the altar, the priest clad in scarlet robes suddenly flung open his arms, emitting a bone-piercing, ice-cold, strange tone like a herald of the apocalypse, which suddenly tore through all the bustling noise of the marketplace.

"In the year 135 of the Tianqi era, the year of the Southern Phoenix, the moon traverses the Ghost Mansion, approaching night!"

"We, lowly ants, prostrate ourselves upon the land of the Two Capitals, daring to offer this foul rite, to declare to the God of the Remnant Face——"

In his voice, Prince Ziqing's calm advance, his calm raising of the head.

His gaze pierced through the priest's dancing red robes, through the fear of the hundred condemned prisoners on the altar, and stabbed straight into the indifferent giant face above the firmament.

That face……remained icy, remained fragmented.

But he knew, the chains of the covenant had already been drawn taut.

When he initially sacrificed himself, offering his being to that remnant face in exchange for the future, he had once said that on the day of return, the sacrifice would behold all that was seen.

Each word of this sentence carried the echo of karma.

"Long ago, the azure jade fell to earth, the black tortoise broke its leg—when your pupils first opened, the red sun melted into molten iron, boiling the Five Lakes, the constellations shattered into flying arrows, piercing the Nine Wilds!"

The priest's chant, within this karmic echo, grew ever more shrill and frenzied.

Thus Prince Ziqing's gaze fell back, resting upon his parents and younger brother.

He saw his father there, seemingly sensing something, brows slightly furrowed, instinctively turning sideways to shield his wife and children behind him.

He saw his mother holding his younger brother, her face still retaining tenderness for the child and unease at the priest's voice.

The young little brother, too, seemed frightened by this killing atmosphere, his small face buried in his mother's neck hollow.

Gazing upon them, Prince Ziqing's heart-lake was a dead, frozen ice—no ripples, no emotion, only the icy clarity of fulfilling the covenant.

And the warmth of the candied hawthorn skewer in his hand was also fading thread by thread, becoming as cold as his palm.

"Now, the ruined walls still spit ghostfire, the living all eat grave soil, yet between thy lashes congealed blood still reflects the dying breath of the myriad beings!"

The priest's voice had risen to a near howl.

"O God!"

"May the remnant breath leaking from thy teeth gaps be the firewood whereby we steal life; may the shadow falling from thy brow bones be the refuge whereby the myriad folk escape calamity!"

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The priest's arms, like the blade of a guillotine, suddenly swung down, pointing at the prisoners on the altar!

"May God close His eyes!"

"May God sleep long!"

"We pray……God……do not open His eyes!!"

"Do not open His eyes!!!"

At this moment, the sound wave surged forth, and as the entire city cried out in unison, amidst the crowd, Prince Ziqing spoke softly.

"I have returned."

"With all that I have seen, I fulfill the vow of my former life."

At the instant these two sentences were transmitted……

Above the firmament, that anciently sealed eyelid, like a fissure in the abyss, suddenly twitched!

Upward……it lifted a slit!

No light, no emotion—only a pure, icy, indifferent void, seeping forth from that slit.

Covenant……completed.

Boom!!

The soundless annihilation trembled suddenly deep within Prince Ziqing's soul.

That was the icy echo of the covenant's fulfillment.

The world before his eyes began its destined end.

Weathering!

In that gaze, the bricks, timber beams, streets—every solid structure of Shuangshuang City—lost their foundation under the remnant face's gaze, instantaneously.

Silently collapsing, they turned into billions of grayish-white dust particles, as if swept up by an invisible storm, madly reversing flow toward the heavens!

The entire city was being erased bit by bit from the earth by an invisible great hand!

"This……this……"

"God has opened His eyes!"

"No……"

Innumerable piercing wails instantly replaced the silence, erupting throughout Shuangshuang City.

One by one, lives also began to mutate around Prince Ziqing, accompanied by the echoing wails!

Some women's skin tore apart, bones exploded with sound!

Some children swelled into flesh mountains covered in pus-filled sacs and claws!

An elder's skull split open, revealing compound eyes!

A man's muscles proliferated, covered in scales, and fangs grew out!

The peaceful Wushuang City, at the moment Prince Ziqing fulfilled his promise, turned into a flesh-and-blood millstone!

Those not transformed suffered even more tragically, their bodies directly shattering into blood mist, rising into the air, becoming blood rain!

Life, in the form stipulated by the contract, withered in swathes.

And Prince Ziqing's gaze pierced through the sky-filling grayish-white dust and scarlet blood mist, coldly falling upon the position of his parents and younger brother in the distance.

He saw his father suddenly turn around, attempting to shield his mother and younger brother, but just as his broad back made a forward-leaning posture, the shock and resolve on his face had not even fully solidified... his body then, like sand sculpture blown away by the wind, began from the fingertips, inch by inch turning into flying ash!

No wail, no process, instantly swallowed by the dust stream sucked into the sky, vanished without a trace.

He saw the mother holding his younger brother, the gentleness on her face instantly replaced by immense bewilderment and fear, she didn't even have time to look toward the direction where her husband disappeared, her whole body suddenly stiffened...

Like a candle thrown into a furnace, from the crown of the head, rapidly and silently... melted!

Her black hair, fair skin, gentle brows and eyes... everything belonging to the "mother," under Prince Ziqing's gaze of fulfilling the promise, melted into thick, dark red liquid, flowing down along the small body of her younger brother in her arms!

"Wuu..."

He saw his younger brother emit a short, extremely terrified sob, falling from the pool of still-warm dark red blood water melted from his mother, heavily landing on the ground similarly covered with viscous blood plasma.

The other's small body curled up in the blood plasma, trembling, soaked in his mother's blood water.

At this moment, the sky-filling grayish-white dust seemed to have become mourning paper money, mixed with the viscous blood rain, falling rustlingly.

Death, thoroughly descended, even if it was mutation... often collapsed at the moment of anomaly.

And the blood rain, grew heavier and heavier.

In the rain, Prince Ziqing stepped on the warm, viscous blood plasma, step by step, walking toward the small figure curled up in the blood pool.

Finally, before him, he stopped his steps.

Lowering his head, he looked at his younger brother before him.

The younger brother's small shoulders trembled violently, the blood rain soaking his thin clothes, like a young beast abandoned in a sea of blood, left only with silent, immense fear and bewilderment.

At this moment, under his gaze, he extremely slowly lifted his head.

Projecting a small face completely smeared with blood plasma, tears, and dust into his field of vision.

Those eyes that were once clear, now only held boundless emptiness and immense fear, like two dry wells filled with despair.

Broken syllables, accompanied by sobs like blood foam, were difficultly squeezed out from his throat.

"Brother... Father and Mother..."

Hearing his younger brother's voice, Prince Ziqing's lips moved.

The candied hawthorn skewer in his palm had, unbeknownst when, deeply pierced into his flesh.

Warm blood beads rolled down the skewer, dripping onto the similarly viscous ground, merging with his mother's blood, and with all the blood of this city, into one.

But he felt no pain, only the cold echo of the contract's completion reverberating in his chest cavity.

Thus, he gave no explanation.

Any words, in the face of destruction wrought by his own hands, are hypocritical desecration.

He fulfilled his promise, that's all.

Finally, he merely placed that blood-stained hand more steadily onto his younger brother's equally cold, blood-stained little head.

The action carried a weight almost ritualistic.

At the same time, he extended the other hand holding that string of candied hawthorn stained with his own blood, filthy and unclean, toward his younger brother.

The cracked lips opened, uttering a sound calm and unperturbed, like the final line of a memorial text, clearly piercing through the sky-filling blood rain and the wind-eroded sobs.

"Younger brother."

Gazing at those eyes completely occupied by immense fear, he spoke softly.

"... Don't cry."

Palm, falling!

But just as his palm was about to touch his younger brother's skull, the heavens at this moment sounded with the voice of heaven opening and earth splitting, surging upward!

Under that unparalleled violent roar, light tore through spacetime, instantly appearing!

Illuminating the heavens, illuminating the earth, illuminating the blood rain!

This was the light of Mount Zhaoxia!

Blocking everything, boundless and endless, like a sea, replacing the entirety of this world.

Also enveloping Prince Ziqing within it.

And within this vast, astonishing, brilliantly extreme Mount Zhaoxia light, a hand stretched out...

One hand, grabbing Prince Ziqing's arm that was about to fall onto his younger brother's skull.

Gripped tightly!

Then, suddenly flung toward the distance!

Prince Ziqing's body jerked violently, under this terrifying force, directly flung out, landing in the distance.

In his eyes appeared a strong strange light, staring at the figure now revealed in the light.

"You finally, came here."

(End of Chapter)