Chapter 1929: 起始

Yun Che remained silent, unable to answer.

"You have one last chance," she said slowly. "I can erase all these painful memories for you. You can choose to forget everything entirely, or just retain indifference and hatred towards her."

"This is also what Xia Qingyue wished for."

Yun Che's only response was his continually convulsing body, and the sound of his tears dripping onto his clothes and the ground.

It hurt so much...

His heart... his soul... his beliefs... all riddled with holes, torn to shreds.

The searing pain was ceaseless...

High above, four female figures watched him in silence. Their expressions varied, their hearts heavy, complex, or sorrowful.

He was curled up, trembling, every part of his body wracked with agonizing spasms... yet he couldn't even let out a single cry.

This was the Emperor of the Heavens... a sight they had never imagined.

Yun Che had been slumped there for over ten days, and the pain had not ceased for a single moment.

They didn't know what Yun Che was going through, only watching him silently from a distance, keeping him company.

"Xia Qingyue..." Chi Wuyao sighed, looking up at the sky. "Her arrangements were perfect enough. What truly unraveled everything wasn't so much a flaw or fate, but rather the deep-seated obsession within Yun Che's heart... He had never forgotten Xia Qingyue, and he had always yearned for everything to be false. Thus, even a slight clue would be magnified and pursued by him with all his might..."

"The things I told him over the years, he seemed to listen casually, but in reality... he etched every word into his heart."

Shui Meiyin leaned on Mu Xuanyin's shoulder, weeping uncontrollably, heartbroken by Yun Che's tormented state.

The secret could no longer be kept; she had confessed everything to them.

Qianye Ying'er, who had been silent for a very long time, suddenly moved forward... but was immediately held back by a snow-white hand.

"Don't disturb him," Mu Xuanyin's low, cold voice came from behind her.

Qianye Ying'er closed her eyes, her aura gradually dissipating completely.

She turned away, no longer looking at Yun Che's current state, and murmured to herself, "Why wasn't it me who died?"

Chi Wuyao looked sideways, extending her hand to grasp Qianye Ying'er's palm... the icy touch piercing to her very core.

"The fact that you would think this proves you are no longer the heinous Brahma Monarch Goddess of the past... The past cannot be changed, but the future can."

Qianye Ying'er remained silent.

Soft fingers gently stroked her cold palm, and Chi Wuyao whispered, "As long as you live, you will one day find a way to forgive yourself... no matter how long it takes, no matter how much you have to give or atone for."

"You were with him during the darkest moments of his life. Now, and in the future, your presence is indispensable in his life... I am very sure of this, and you must believe it too."

Her hand was gently released. Qianye Ying'er moved forward without turning around, her voice slightly strained: "Who do you think I am... How could I be as weak as you imagine?"

"My sins are too great for even ten thousand deaths to atone for. Why would I care... because of just one person! Ridiculous!"

Chi Wuyao watched her retreating back, a faint smile gracing her lips before her gaze lowered, and a long sigh escaped her heart.

Let it hurt.

This is what you deserve to endure...

All her sacrifices, her salvation of you...

Even if the pain is like ten thousand swords piercing your soul, I would rather you not remain ignorant of all this.

Yun Che had no idea how long the Void Realm of Recollection had lasted.

It felt like a long, yet real and cruel dream.

He also didn't know how long he had convulsed within the vortex of pain. When his mind finally regained some clarity, he uttered a trembling yet infinitely resolute word:

"No..."

His response was to the offer of erasing his memories of Xia Qingyue.

"As expected, it's still the same answer." The woman's voice, which had always been devoid of emotional fluctuation, now carried a faint sigh.

Yun Che regulated his breathing and slowly opened his eyes.

His eyeballs were covered in burst blood vessels, his eyes seemingly stained with blood.

His thoughts gradually returned to clarity, and he spoke in an incredibly hoarse voice: "You said you would tell me everything."

"Her interfered destiny... the reason she chose to end herself... What is it? Tell me... tell me!!"

"As you wish."

Without any hesitation or evasion, the woman's voice gave him the most direct assent.

The bright light vanished, the space before Yun Che quickly darkened, and his consciousness re-entered that vast, grayish, endless world.

Within his soul sea, her increasingly distant and ethereal voice echoed:

"In an immeasurably distant time and space, chaos was originally a turbid whole, until, through long evolution, it gradually separated into two polarities: Yin and Yang."

Yun Che: "???"

"After an incredibly long period of time and spatial evolution, the center of this two-polarized chaos gave birth to the first living being."

"That was the origin of all beings in chaos, later known as—the Ancestral Goddess."

"Wait!" Yun Che interrupted. "What I want to know is what happened to Qingyue, not the origin of chaos!"

"Her existence and destiny must be traced back to the beginning of chaos."

Yun Che froze, his newly-clarified thoughts once again thrown into chaos.

Qingyue's destiny...

The beginning of chaos!?

He heard every word clearly, yet understood none of them.

Without speaking further, Yun Che concentrated, silently listening to the voice in his soul sea.

"She, who was later called the Ancestral Goddess, gradually gained complete consciousness and wisdom. She created language, created profound energy and profound arts... But the more complete her consciousness became, the more she felt an endless solitude."

"She was born within chaos, her power and aura connected to both polarities of chaos. If she continued to exist, all the vital energy of chaos would gather upon her, making it impossible for any other life to be born."

"Finally, one day, she decided to annihilate her own existence to transform chaos into a world for all beings. Thus, she restructured chaos and established the laws of its operation."

"After completing everything, she dispersed herself, scattering her life and power across chaos... Before her complete dissipation, she imprinted part of her memories and power onto eight special fragments of life."

"From then on, chaos ushered in a new era. Countless living beings began to be born, and the first gods and devils arose from these eight life fragments. Four fell into the Northern Chaos, giving birth to the Four Devil Emperors, and four fell into the Southern Chaos, giving birth to the Four Creation Gods."

"With them as the starting point, the Age of Gods thus began."

These ancient secrets were thoroughly documented in the God Realm. Yun Che had heard the Golden Crow's soul spirit speak of them even when he was in the lower realms.

However, the voice that followed completely overturned Yun Che's understanding.

"Although the Ancestral Goddess's life and power dissipated, her consciousness did not collapse with them; instead, it remained fully present between heaven and earth."

Yun Che: "!!?"

"Because she wanted to personally witness what kind of world this realm, to which she had given life, power, and laws, would ultimately become."

"Time flowed... hundreds of years, thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, billions of years..."

"Within chaos, countless beings and races gradually came into existence. Planets were created one by one, star regions gradually formed, and countless races became extinct, countless planets shattered..."

"Under the laws she established, the world continuously derived and perfected numerous other laws and rules, further maintaining and balancing itself."

"Above mortal beings, the higher beings that governed chaos, with Yin and Yang as their two poles, gradually divided into two mutually exclusive races: the God Race and the Devil Race."

"Her consciousness wandered the world, witnessing every step and every subtle or drastic evolution of the Age of Gods in its entirety."

"Unbeknownst to her, an incredibly long period of time had passed. Yet, she never extinguished her consciousness, for after observing for so long, she had developed a special affection and attachment to this world."

"She wanted to continue watching, to admire the myriad forms of human life, and to witness the unpredictable changes of time."

"Until one day, the Age of Gods faced its trigger for demise."

"Mo E, the Heaven Punishing God Emperor, discovered the forbidden union between the Elemental Creation God Ni Xuan and the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor Jie Yuan. He used the Heaven Punishing Ancestral Sword to banish the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor from chaos... and with that, completely sowed the seeds of hatred within the Devil Race."

"Mo E's life force was prematurely exhausted due to excessive use of the Heaven Punishing Ancestral Sword. Not long after his death, the brutal war between the two races, whose seeds had long been sown, finally erupted..."

"Unlike the ceaseless minor and major conflicts of the past, this eruption ignited complete ferocity and uncontrollability..."

"The power of the Divine Realm erupted wildly between heaven and earth, afflicting countless innocent mortals, destroying untold spaces, and imperceptibly, little by little, distorting and collapsing the aura and laws of chaos."

"Throughout this brutal war, the Ancestral Goddess remained an indifferent observer. The drastic changes, endings, and successions of eras were, to her, merely the consequences chosen and wrought by the beings of the present world. She would not sigh for them; instead, she anticipated what kind of era chaos would usher in after the war."

"Then, at a certain moment towards the end of the brutal war, she suddenly detected an abnormal disturbance in the aura of chaos."

"Primordial chaos energy, divine spiritual energy, dark devil aura... within the constantly turbulent chaotic space, they began to silently dissipate in a single direction..."

"The Abyss."

"It was also at this time that she discovered that the laws she had bestowed upon the Abyss had, at some unknown point, developed gaps and cracks."

"The Ab...yss?" Yun Che unconsciously murmured aloud.

"The foundation of existence is balance," the woman's voice slowly continued. "Where there is life, there must be destruction."

"The chaos you know now is only half of the original chaos."

"The chaotic space you live in is the World of Life, while the other half of chaos, unknown to you, is the World of Destruction."

"The Ancestral Goddess named it—the Abyss."