Chương 80: End

Mo Jian hovered high above Azure Wall City, alone in the skies. Night still held the world in its grip. The sea below churned in its ancient rhythm, black waters folding over themselves in a slow, tireless pulse. Above him, the sky stretched vast and star-strewn, a cathedral of twinkling lights. Yet the truest radiance did not come from the stars. It rose from the island. Azure Wall City blazed beneath him, encased in a vast dome of white power.

The barrier shimmered like forged crystal, seamless and immense, its surface rippling with contained force. It wrapped the island in an unbroken sphere, solid as a mountain and bright as a fallen moon. Every tower, every wall, and every silent street lay beneath its protection, outlined in silver light. Azure Wall City was ready for war. A spark ignited on the horizon. At first it was only a point, red as a coal buried in ash. Then it lengthened, spreading left and right, a molten seam splitting the darkness.

The black of the heavens thinned and softened. Royal blue bled outward. Indigo dissolved into bruised violet and tender pink. Gold threaded through scattered clouds, tracing their edges with living fire. The sun rose. Mo Jian did not look away. The line of light swelled into a blazing arc, and shadows recoiled from its touch. The sea answered first. What had been a brooding expanse of ink transformed beneath the spreading dawn. Waves caught the light and shattered it into a thousand shards.

Whitecaps flashed and vanished, rising like fleeting minarets of crystal before collapsing into foam. The waters no longer seemed somber, but restless, eager, and alive. Far to the west, seagulls wheeled and cried, their sharp voices cutting through the hush. The wind coiled around him, no longer the biting breath of night but a wind in transition, tasting of salt and sun-warmed promise. It tugged at his robes and hair, carrying the scent of brine and distant stone.

The golden arc lifted free of the horizon, becoming a radiant disk. Clouds drifted before it, their pale bellies lit from within. The sky brightened to a clean, lucid blue washed with white. Night retreated fully, surrendering the heavens to day. For a fleeting moment, as the world shifted from darkness into flame, Mo Jian felt the familiar humbling weight of it all. However high a cultivator soared, however vast their power, nature always had a way of putting things in perspective.

The rising sun cared nothing for realms or titles. It rose for all, and over all. The dome around Azure Wall City flared brighter as the sunlight struck it, scattering prismatic shards across the sea like fragments of a shattered rainbow. Then, within that growing brilliance, the air trembled. Old Devil Fu was a Nascent Soul cultivator, and the world acknowledged his arrival. It began as a blemish on the horizon. A smear of shadow that did not blot out the light but devoured its warmth.

From the very point where the sun had risen, darkness seeped outward in slow, deliberate tendrils. The bright blue sky dulled to iron-gray. Gray thickened into bruised violet. Violet sank into a suffocating black. The sea followed, its playful blues curdled. The water darkened, growing dense and viscous, as though the tide had turned to blood. The scent of salt and pine vanished beneath the sharp reek of copper and iron. It coated the tongue. It burned the throat.

The wind that had carried warmth now dragged across the skin like a damp funeral shroud. Clouds swelled and twisted overhead, their amber edges snuffed out. They gathered into a roiling canopy of storm-black mass. Lightning crawled between them in jagged veins, thin forks of crimson that flickered and vanished before the eye could fully grasp them. From night to dawn to hell; one man was overwriting the sky. And- Mo Jian did not move. His hands remained clasped behind his back.

His robes stirred gently in the tainted wind. He watched, face utterly unimpressed, as the darkness pulsed, and within it, the sun lurched. It swelled grotesquely, ballooning outward as though torn free from the firmament. It descended with impossible speed, filling the heavens, devouring the sky until half of Mo Jian's vision was nothing but searing gold. The sea boiled in reflected fire. The dome of Azure Wall City flared in defiance, its white surface screaming against the pressure.

It came closer, larger and larger, until it was blinding and undeniable. Then the illusion shattered. The blazing orb snapped inward, collapsing like a punctured star. Gold contracted into a perfect circle, smooth and polished, its surface reflecting the world with merciless clarity. The false sun dwindled to the size of a handheld mirror, resting lightly upon a calloused, sun-darkened palm. Old Devil Fu hovered in the air a short distance away. His robes hung heavy in the unnatural wind.

The storm bent around him in subtle deference. The mirror tilted once, catching the fractured dawn and casting it across Mo Jian's face in a flare of molten light. Without a word, Old Devil Fu tucked the mirror into his sleeve. The sky remained dark. Mo Jian studied him, eyes steady and unreadable. I might hate his guts, he thought, but damn… that was one hell of an entrance. They hovered in the sky, silent and motionless, each feigning indifference while measuring the other with careful eyes. Mo Jian moved first.

After all, he had issued the challenge. He spread his arms wide and turned his palms upward toward the darkened heavens. At once, two objects shimmered into being and hovered above his hands, one cradled in each. In his left hand stood a banner. Its wooden shaft was a pale blush pink, and at its crown unfurled a square red flag, heavy with intricate golden embroidery. It spun and snapped in the wind, strangely beautiful against the brooding sky, its threads catching what little light remained.

In his right hand rested a small bronze chariot. Smooth and polished, yet subdued – almost dull and pitted – besides the splendor of the banner. Atop it stood a lone statue, one finger raised, pointing straight ahead as if passing judgment. Fu Zhan was dead, his head burned to ash, so the banner would have to serve in his place. As Mo Jian had promised, he now stood with Old Devil Fu's grandson's "head" in one hand and the divine treasure in the other. Old Devil Fu did not react.

There was no flicker of anger, or grief, or even greed on his face. His gaze passed once over the two treasures Mo Jian presented, then returned to Mo Jian's face, calm and measuring. After a breath, Mo Jian lowered his hands. The banner and bronze chariot dissolved into streaks of light and shot back into his storage pouch. He did not speak. He did not need to. What he wished to say had already been said. Old Devil Fu watched him for a few moments more before finally stirring. His voice, when it came, was mild.

"That's it? That was all you had to show me? I expected something grander for you to pin your hopes on. Or is it that you think the technique you used last time will let you win?" Mo Jian shrugged, swallowing a faint smile.

"I have no intention of using that technique," he said evenly.

"It has too many downsides to rely on again and again. The boost it would give me at my current level is enough to fight you seriously for a while… but I still doubt it would let me win." His gaze did not waver.

"However, I don't need it. I am confident I can handle a few blows from you, no matter what, and that is all I need." A faint breeze stirred between them, heavy with iron and storm.

"The rest," Mo Jian said calmly, "I can accomplish with what I already have." Old Devil Fu finally reacted. A smile crossed his face, but it was not a pleasant one. There was something hard and jagged in its contours, cold anger and bared teeth masked behind a veneer of civility.

"Is that so?" he said. The storm clouds shifted, as though leaning closer.

"Then it seems I must crush whatever hope you have, inch by inch, until this whole place remembers who I am, and what I am capable of." His tone softened, almost gentle.

"Fret not, Mo Jian. Your name will live on after I am done with you today. People will whisper it for a hundred years when they speak of the consequences of provoking my wrath." Mo Jian looked at the powerful, almost godlike cultivator before him… and felt a wave of pity. Not for the man himself, but for what he had become. That threat felt small and petty. Like a child tearing the wings from a fly simply because no one was there to stay his hand. Was this what came of reaching Nascent Soul without true rivals?

Of standing so high for so long that nothing remained sharp enough to cut you? Old Devil Fu had not attacked. He had not flared in anger. He still hovered there, cautious and careful, prodding with words instead of striking with force. Compare that to Core Formation cultivators like Mo Jian himself, who had clawed forward through blood and terror. The battle against the Gu. The escape from the dragon in the Lake of Lamentation. His prior clash with this very man.

Each struggle had been a whetstone, grinding away hesitation and sharpening instinct. If their positions were reversed, Mo Jian would have struck already with his full strength. He wouldn't have wasted time on speeches or indulged in theatrics. True, he would have remained on the lookout for hidden knives, but he would not have let them dictate his strategy. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Yet the old man hesitated, likely fearing a trump card.

And it wasn't like he was wrong to. Mo Jian had not lied. If Old Devil Fu had attacked the moment he arrived, as Mo Jian had expected, he was prepared for that. He could withstand a few true blows. That much he was certain of. The rest… he could settle. So, when he spoke again, it was with a trace of pity, and something colder beneath it.

"You need not concern yourself with my name," Mo Jian said evenly.

"Where it spreads, and for how long, has nothing to do with you." The wind pressed against them, taut as drawn wire, carrying the weight of a storm that had not yet broken, tangling itself through their robes and hair as if the heavens themselves had paused to watch.

"After all," Mo Jian continued, his voice steady and unhurried, "you are already dead." His eyes bore into the old man's with a calm that did not waver, without a flicker of fear.

"I am merely waiting for your corpse to catch up." He spoke the truth. When Old Devil Fu had first torn open the sky and stepped into dawn like a conquering god, the Netherworld Scorpion had already been watching. It had been perched upon Mo Jian's shoulder through the sunrise, pearlescent and translucent, its body like carved moonlight. When the false sun swelled and collapsed into the Hell Reflecting Mirror… when the storm gathered and the heavens darkened…

when the two men began their measured exchange- It had taken flight. Slowly and deliberately, it had crossed the distance between them as lightly as drifting ash, passing through wind and storm without resistance. It left no trace, whisper, or hint that it had been there at all. To every eye but its master's, it was a ghost; to all senses but his, it was nothing. Not unseen, but nonexistent. A true ghost, untouchable and undetectable, a creature that belonged to one soul alone.

By the time Old Devil Fu's mild voice had turned sharp with threat, the scorpion had already reached him. It had skittered across his robes without so much as disturbing the fabric. It climbed the heavy folds, traversed his torso, and made its way upward with patient certainty. While Old Devil Fu spoke of crushing hope and turning Mo Jian's fate into one of whispered agony, it ascended his back and settled upon his shoulder. There it waited.

Its body shimmered faintly in the dying light, translucent white, its curved tail arched high. The stinger at its tip gleamed a milky, opalescent hue, delicate as frost, but fatal as judgment. Old Devil Fu did not notice. Of course he did not. After all, that was the scorpion's power. It did not hide. It simply was not there, for anyone else. And when Mo Jian declared that the man before him was already dead, the Netherworld Scorpion stilled in response. Its tail drew back. The storm groaned overhead.

Old Devil Fu fell silent in the face of those words, narrowing his eyes. His eyes fixed on Mo Jian, not in anger or outrage, but in something sharper. A stare that pressed forward like a blade testing armor. A gaze searching for cracks. Whatever he had intended to say next, he swallowed. It seemed his patience had run dry.

Without a sound, the Hell Reflecting Mirror emerged from his sleeve, materializing beside him in the storm-tossed air, a disk of polished perfection that captured the fragmented light of dawn and darkened sky alike. The storm bent inward. The air thickened as power gathered. The moment teetered on the brink of violence. The fight was about to begin. The Netherworld Scorpion struck. Its ghostly stinger pierced the skin of Old Devil Fu's neck, sliding in and out like an unseen breeze passing through tall grass.

Old Devil Fu's qi winked out, extinguished as though it had never been. He did not make a sound. His expression did not change. In fact, he had not even felt it. One heartbeat he stood poised to unleash a Nascent Soul's fury upon the world- The next, he was a corpse. His body tipped backward and began its long fall toward the darkened sea below, robes fluttering in the storm he himself had summoned. Mo Jian reacted without hesitation.

He extended a hand, and the Hell Reflecting Mirror jerked violently in midair, torn from its masterless orbit. The storage pouch at Old Devil Fu's waist snapped free as well. Both streaked across the sky toward Mo Jian, obedient to a new will. At the same instant, the Netherworld Scorpion leapt clear of the falling corpse. It landed lightly upon the hovering mirror, its pale form stark against the polished surface. Together, treasure and ghost crossed the final stretch of air and came to rest before Mo Jian.

Behind them, Old Devil Fu's body dwindled against the vast sweep of sea and storm, just another shape falling toward the indifferent waves. Silent, Mo Jian examined the two objects in his hands for a long, measured moment before tucking them away. Then, slow and deliberate, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding emerged from his body, streaking toward the sea below. It hovered just above the surface, the lid sliding aside as Old Devil Fu's body landed inside with a muted thump.

Not a drop of blood escaped before the lid slammed shut. And then, like oil meeting flame, the ding erupted in blue fire, fierce and unrelenting, painting the stormy horizon with its brilliance. Within seconds, there was no trace left of Old Devil Fu. The duel was over. Mo Jian had won. ………………………………………………………………………… Of course, it wasn't over just like that. Even as Mo Jian hovered in the sky, victorious, he could feel the hidden observers scattered around Azure Wall City react.

These were the watchers who had stayed in place all week, keeping vigil over the city and its few inhabitants, either for themselves, or more likely as spies for local powers. Mo Jian wondered what they were feeling. Shock. Disbelief. Fear. The impossible made real. He was ready for anything: an attack born of outrage or horror, a panicked retreat, or some other reaction. After all, all their predictions had been overturned in an instant. So, he wasn't surprised when the spectators turned and fled.

They abandoned stealth, hiding, and pretense, and simply ran. Mo Jian had half-expected an opportunistic demonic cultivator to strike while he was distracted, but apparently sanity still held sway. After all, he had just annihilated a Nascent Soul cultivator moments ago. That was enough to give even the boldest pause. Yet he could not let them all escape unscathed. A pillar of the Thousand Shattered Islands had just fallen, and the victor, still crowned in his foe's blood, had to announce himself.

He had to show that his triumph was no fluke, that his might stretched far beyond what they could imagine. And that was well within his power. After using Ye Chen's secret technique, and surviving that ordeal with the help of his original self, Mo Jian had grown stronger; far beyond any Core Formation cultivator, though still not quite equal to a Nascent Soul one. But that hardly mattered to onlookers. To them, he might as well be a Nascent Soul powerhouse.

Whether a mountain fell on an ant or an island, the result was still the same: obliteration. The Heaven Enshrouding Ding, still hovering near the waves, shot upward at his command, moving faster than the eye could follow, returning to his hand in an instant. Its lid sprang open, revealing a boiling storm of cerulean fire and silver lightning swirling within. The storm above, having been momentarily freed from Old Devil Fu's influence, stirred back to life.

The clouds, having lightened for a moment, deepened into inky black. They spread relentlessly, devouring the sky from one horizon to the other. Silver lightning shimmered through the darkness, not mere arcs of power, but living creatures of storm. Dragons carved through the clouds, scales gleaming like molten silver. Birds shrieked, wings slicing through the tempest. Winged tigers bared fangs of crackling light, their roars echoing through the heavens. The power crested, then shattered the heavens.

Lightning rained in hundreds, then thousands of strands. Night became day as sky and sea were connected by a living forest of silver-blue lightning. And these storms were not indiscriminate. The creatures of power hunted the fleeing cultivators, pursuing them through the skies, relentless, unstoppable, and divine. Mo Jian had no interest in chasing them further. Even this display, grand in scope and stretching horizon to horizon, was meant more to announce his newfound strength than to truly hunt them down.

But there was one watcher he would not allow to escape so easily. He had a message to send. Mo Jian's spiritual sense, already unfurled, traced the qi signature he sought. His body dissolved into lightning, flowing through the air with the ease of the Divine Water Lightning technique, vanishing into the distance. In that instant, he became a streak of living storm, connecting his starting point to his target in a single, unbroken line of fulminating light, its entire length born in the same moment.

Lightning struck the empty air and coalesced into a human shape. Mo Jian hovered in the sky, one arm outstretched as if to snare his prey. In the next heartbeat, a figure clad in concealing black robes slammed straight into his waiting grasp. His fingers closed around their throat and lifted them high into the air.

"Huang, right?" he asked cheerfully. At the same time, the full weight of his aura descended upon the Core Formation cultivator in his grip, like a collapsing heaven, freezing them in place. Their natal artifact, a thin dagger already unraveling into hair-fine strands of impossibly sharp wire, halted mid-transformation. Without warning, it was trapped inside a translucent blue ding that manifested around it.

The artifact fluttered uselessly within its prison, lashing out with strands that could have sliced mountains. They failed to leave so much as a scratch upon the illusory Heaven Enshrouding Ding. The figure in black thrashed and twisted, but they might as well have been a child raging against a tsunami. Mo Jian did not even glance at their struggles. This was not a gulf that could be crossed. His grip tightened.

"Yes," Huang croaked at last. Mo Jian smiled as though greeting an old acquaintance. Huang, already shaking, felt a fresh wave of dread.

"Good. Just the fellow I wanted to see. You watched the whole fight, didn't you? You can deliver a message to Qing for me." A spark of anger flared in Huang's heart at hearing Lord Qing's name spoken so casually, and so disrespectfully. But it never took form. Before this man, they were less than an ant before a giant. Right now, care was survival. Fan Mei's obvious betrayal of their secrets could also be dealt with later.

"If-" Huang swallowed as lightning continued to rain from the heavens above.

"I can carry whatever message you wish to Lord Qing. As long as you let me go. Neither I nor my master hold enmity towards you." If they survived this, Lord Qing would deal with him later. They only needed to leave alive. Mo Jian's brow furrowed slightly, as if puzzled. Then understanding dawned, and his smile widened.

"Ah, I should have phrased that better." The air seemed to thin. Huang felt their breath falter.

"I don't want you to deliver a message. You are the message." The illusory Heaven Enshrouding Ding flared into brilliant blue fire. Inside it, the Dagger of Braided Death began to burn. Huang screamed. They screamed as though their own flesh had been set alight. The sound tore raw from their throat, echoing across sea and storm. Mo Jian's expression tightened faintly, but he did not release them. He held them there as the flames consumed the artifact completely. Minutes passed.

At last, the dagger was reduced to ash. The screaming stopped. Huang hung limply in his grasp, eyes unfocused, body trembling in the aftermath of the severing. Mo Jian drew them closer until his lips were inches from their ear.

"Brand this into your spirit," he said softly.

"Tell Qing that if he wishes to speak to me, he may come and do so face to face. If I find another of his strays lingering nearby, they will not be returning. And if I must go to him…" His voice lowered further.

"He may accompany Old Devil Fu on his journey into Hell." Huang could not have answered even if they wished to. However, no answer was required. Mo Jian loosened his grip, and Huang fell. They tumbled end over end through the open sky before striking the sea below. Something snapped in their leg; pain flared bright and sharp, but it was nothing compared to the hollow devastation where their natal artifact had once resided. They… they had to rise. They had to deliver the message. No… they were the message.

As consciousness faded, Huang glimpsed a figure suspended high above, outlined in blue against the returning sun; a solitary man standing amid the remnants of the storm like a god from ancient tales. A new power, Huang thought dimly. Then the waves closed over them.