Translator: CinderTL
The great Dao was destroyed.
Ten types, twenty types, thirty types, forty types...
Until forty-nine types.
When the final great Dao was consumed by the Void Power and ceased to exist, the Panwu Ultimate, who had kept his promise and fought to the very end, faltered.
In the next moment, he vanished into nothingness, joining the Dao Venerables and Supreme Sovereigns who had long since succumbed to the Void.
As the Ultimate Powerhouse and the Human Race's strongest warrior, his death was no different from that of the Dao Venerables and Supreme Sovereigns.
His prolonged resistance wasn't due to superior strength, but merely because the final great Dao Li Chunjun randomly extinguished happened to be the one he had unified with.
Had it not been for this, he might have fallen even sooner than some Dao Venerables.
As he merged his body and soul with the Dao, transforming into nothingness alongside the countless Dao Venerables, Supreme Sovereigns, and Ultimate Powerhouses who had perished, he finally saw the Human Emperor Banner within him with true clarity.
"It's just the Void," Li Chunjun murmured.
This power had always defied definition.
It was only because Li Chunjun had bestowed upon it the concept of the "Human Emperor Banner" that it existed with such awareness.
Yet this awareness was merely Li Chunjun's own perception.
The "void" it represented had always been there, eternal and unchanging.
"It's over," Li Chunjun murmured.
As he extinguished the various great daos, he could clearly sense that as the world of "existence" was compressed, categorized, and eroded, the Void Power on the other side of the cosmic scales began to swell at an unimaginable rate.
Especially when this compression, categorization, and erosion of "existence" reached a critical point, the balance of the scales shattered completely. Both the expansion of the Void Power and the acceleration of the great return surged rapidly, driven by an unstoppable "inertia."
This overwhelming momentum left him powerless to halt it.
It was like driving a massive vehicle down a steep slope, speeding out of control. All he could do was stabilize the chassis and maintain directional control.
Braking...
Had become a futile hope.
However, because Li Chunjun was controlling the direction of the process, the Cosmos first collapsed in the outer regions far from the Human Race as the great dao was eroded, constricted, and subsumed.
Gradually, the collapse spread toward the human race's three thousand great worlds.
During this process, faint ripples emanated from the source of the great dao.
Some of these ripples were so immense that they surpassed even the Human Race's Ultimate Powerhouses.
These were the progenitor divine beings, who resided at the source of the great dao, resisting the encroaching void.
Alas, against Li Chunjun's Void Power, which now rivaled Great Unification-level forces, their resistance was futile.
No force could halt the void's erosion, nor could any power prevent the myriad things from being constricted and returning to void.
The process of returning to void was not instantaneous.
Though it couldn't be measured in terms of hundreds of thousands or millions of years, it was far from a fleeting moment.
In the blink of an eye, a century had passed.
In the hundred years since the great dao had begun to be stripped away, the Cosmic Void had descended into utter chaos.
While the human race's three thousand great worlds were severely affected, their material structures undergoing profound changes, the lingering aftereffects of the Grand Dao Power prevented these changes from occurring instantly.
Just as the sudden disappearance of a star doesn't instantly extinguish all life on its planets, destruction also unfolds gradually.
However, a century marked the absolute limit of this destructive process.
At a certain moment, Li Chunjun suddenly sensed something.
The Void Power's corrosive influence had spread to the final remnants of matter, reaching the Human Territory.
Destruction and nothingness surged toward the human race's three thousand great worlds with unimaginable speed.
Before long, the outermost layer of great worlds began to Voidify and vanish.
The speed of Voidification far exceeded the speed of light, perhaps by countless times.
It also surpassed the propagation speed of the Void Law by an immeasurable margin.
Whether Void Refining cultivators or Supreme Sages, none could escape this cosmic catastrophe, even with the combined efforts of all the Dao Venerables of the Void Dao. Hiding or fleeing proved futile.
After the outermost layer of great worlds was Voidified and annihilated, the destruction progressed inward, layer by layer, until...
It reached the Profound Yellow Great World.
The Profound Yellow Great World, where Li Chunjun now held dominion.
The entire process unfolded with astonishing speed.
The Cosmos contracted, collapsed, and underwent Voidification, all within a century!
The Human Race's three thousand great worlds occupied merely a few minutes of this cosmic drama.
Li Chunjun turned his gaze toward the Profound Yellow Great World.
Over the past century, with the great dao extinguished, all Dao Venerables had perished, and the Profound Yellow Great World naturally suffered the consequences.
Turmoil and chaos permeated every corner.
The only saving grace was that with the great dao stripped away, only residual traces of its laws remained. The destructive power of cultivators against all things diminished at an astonishing rate.
Furthermore, as the Star Gates lost functionality due to the erosion of the great dao of the void, even those Void Refining, Dharma Manifestation, and Supreme Sage cultivators whose strength had been reduced countless times found it impossible to travel between great worlds within the century.
As a result, while chaos persisted, it remained confined to extremely localized areas.
Amidst this chaotic environment, Li Chunjun saw the Profound Yellow Sect, the Taixu Sword Sect, the Profound Yellow Grotto-Heaven, and many familiar faces:
Huang Daozhen, the Three Sages of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity, Xuan Mi, Zuo Cheng, Su Fang, Huan Ming, Wuying, Jiang Yuqiu, Jiang Yuxue, Qin Zhou...
And Jiang Wanyu, who had reconciled with her parents.
Ling Zhi, who had finally found happiness in life.
As the final moment approached, all of this was silently erased.
Fortunately, the process occurred so swiftly—faster than human nerves, thoughts, or Divine Sense could react—that those being erased felt no pain or distress.
Their consciousness remained frozen at the moment before their annihilation.
"Is it worth it?"
A voice echoed in Li Chunjun's ear.
Almost completely immersed in the void, he paused slightly, his gaze falling upon the jade pendant hanging from his neck.
It was Liu Yu's clone—the one bearing the Imaginary Dao Venerable's essence.
Of course, since he was currently outside the Profound Yellow Great World, having already unfurled the Azure Star Minor Realm, communication between her clone and true body had long been established.
"Worthiness is irrelevant," Li Chunjun replied. "The vast sea turns to dust, life and death are but grains of sand slipping through one's fingers, the sun rises and the moon sets, the three thousand great worlds are mere fleeting reflections in a mirror."
He waved his hand.
"It's merely adding a few more memories."
Liu Yu's clone, forged by the Imaginary Dao Venerable, disintegrated into countless motes of dust, scattering across the void.
Li Chunjun took a step into the void, bringing the Azure Star Minor Realm with him to a corner of the Azure Sea Domain, a region transformed by a cataclysmic Starquake into a landscape unrecognizable from its former glory.
However...
The Azure Star Minor Realm had only come to rest at a node within the great dao light net due to the Starquake, gaining the potential to establish a Star Gate and thus acquiring value that attracted cultivators.
Before the Starquake, Li Chunjun had never paid attention to the Azure Star Minor Realm's original location within the Azure Sea Domain, nor had he ever cared to investigate it.
Moreover, in this environment where all things were returning to void, even if he had wanted to, he could no longer do so.
As his thoughts flowed, Li Chunjun unfurled the Azure Star Minor Realm in his hand, and Void Power began to erode the world.
With the destruction of the Azure Star Minor Realm—the last remaining resources of the Cosmos—the Cosmos Return to Void entered its final, most critical stage.
Which was...
"Me," Li Chunjun murmured.
He sensed the state of the Human Emperor Banner within him.
This Innate Supreme Treasure...
Or rather, the void great dao that had been born alongside it, had grown unprecedentedly powerful as the concept of "existence" was completely erased. No life could now apply the brakes and restrain it.
Even Li Chunjun himself was no exception.
The unprecedentedly powerful void great dao, having devoured all concepts of "existence," now targeted Li Chunjun himself.
For at this moment, he...
was not yet truly void.
He still retained a trace of the foundation of "existence."
Li Chunjun had anticipated this outcome.
He had made ample preparations.
Now...
He clenched his void hand.
Two distinct fluctuations emerged.
One was his own essence.
The other was the coordinates of the Azure Star Minor Realm.
Despite the misfortunes that had plagued the first half of his life,
if he were to relive it, he would not regret having lived such a life.
Of course, if reliving it were impossible...
Li Chunjun paused, his thoughts lingering.
He glanced at the Human Emperor Banner, which had destroyed the entire world of "existence" to become incomparably powerful.
Then he looked at his own soul fluctuation, which was now almost symbiotic with the "void"...
No!
It could no longer be considered a soul fluctuation.
The void great dao had annihilated everything, including the great dao of the soul.
His only means of survival lay in relying on the void itself—being born from it, emerging anew from its depths.
Thus, in essence, this was now a manifestation of Void Power.
Even...
The void great dao that had been born alongside him.
"According to the plan, the void will not truly annihilate everything. That would only lead to the destruction of the entire Cosmos. Instead, once the void reaches a certain threshold, it will trigger a backlash from the power of existence, ultimately shattering the void in a cosmic explosion. This will complete the cycle from existence to nothingness, and from nothingness back to existence..."
In other words, everything would begin anew.
Including himself.
"All I need to do is maintain my clarity of mind and wait for billions, tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions of years. I must wait for the Cosmos to retrace its path before the great return, to evolve anew, until the moment the Azure Star Minor Realm emerges, until... I see her again, and..."
Li Chunjun's thoughts trailed off.
He didn't know if he would see her alone, or the two of them together.
But whichever outcome awaited him, he was willing to accept it.
Even if he ended up as a third party...
He could still accept it with equanimity.
At that moment, two special fluctuations were injected into the essence of the Human Emperor Banner, which embodied the void great dao.
Then...
He relinquished himself, allowing the void great dao to devour him completely.
During this process, he seemed to clearly see his Life Level plummeting:
Life Level: 48, 47, 45, 41, 33, 17, 1...
He felt as if he had entered a special state, his form seemingly trapped in an endless descent.
This descent was impossibly swift, surpassing the speed of light, transcending time itself, and even defying the cycles of karma and reincarnation.
At this accelerated pace, a single second could stretch into a year, a century, a millennium, or even an eon!
The very concept of time became utterly blurred and distorted.
In this altered state, he could witness the evolution of the Cosmos over billions of years unfolding in an instant.
He could also perceive the ant's-eye view, where crawling ten miles required the entirety of its lifespan.
One moment, his gaze was fixed on the formation of a Lesser Thousand World.
The next, that world had already plunged into destruction.
Yet when he sensed something amiss, the Lesser Thousand World reappeared before him, perfectly intact.
This state made him realize something profound:
Time.
More precisely, spacetime.
Spacetime no longer presented itself in the familiar way he understood it, but rather as fragmented sequences of events.
This discovery left him somewhat bewildered.
Immediately afterward, he was overcome with joy.
For if his gaze could transcend space and time, then...
Li Chunjun turned his attention with utmost speed to the most pivotal moment in his life.
He couldn't afford to linger on the scenery along the way.
Amidst these landscapes, innate divine beings were being born anew, embodying the great Dao.
Ultimate Powerhouses were emerging once more, their presence shaking the cosmos.
They might be the same progenitor divine beings from the original era, or perhaps Tian Wen, Return to Zero, Pan Wu, Boundless, Heng Guang, or none of these at all.
They might hunt the innate divine beings for the great Dao they embodied.
Or they might collaborate with these divine beings, jointly exploring the realms beyond the Cosmos.
There might even be brilliant minds who, from nothingness, would create the fiftieth and fifty-first great daos beyond the original forty-nine, perfecting the Cosmos.
Everything was happening, shifting, and transforming within this region.
It could be a moment, or it could be an eternity.
And whenever these changes went awry, a new cycle would be initiated.
The Void would gestate, selecting suitable targets to accompany its birth.
Just like now...
Someone was fulfilling this purpose, seeking only the peace of mind to return to the place they had dreamed of, to see the person they had longed for.
Even if he had given everything, sacrificed everything, and even allowed some deeply cherished memories to fade, seeing her again made it all worthwhile.
In that small courtyard, already ravaged by flames and where memories seemed to blur, it was an afternoon when he was thirteen, returning home from school.
Moss clung to the weathered gray walls, and dappled sunlight filtered through the towering sycamore tree, illuminating the rusted iron doorknob.
A faded blue clothesline danced in the breeze, its movement harmonizing with the tender green scallions sprouting from enamel basins at the base of the wall.
Li Chunjun stood there, lost in a daze.
Though it had been a long time, everything before him felt as vivid as yesterday.
"Little brother," a youthful girl called from the doorway of the courtyard house, her face radiant with a smile. "Go wash your hands and have some water. I'll start cooking for you in a bit."
Li Chunjun stared at her, transfixed.
Twilight painted the horizon with a crimson blush, and a warm breeze stirred the hem of her floral-patterned dress, creating ripples like gentle waves. The pale blue ribbon in her hair fluttered loose, strands of silk-like hair brushing against her porcelain-smooth earlobe.
Youthful vitality, the perfect moment in time.
In that moment, she was the world.
(End of the Novel)
Thank You Everyone for reading. It has been a wonderful journey. If you want to read more, please checkout more of my novels:
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2. Record of a Demon's Cultivation
3. Nightmare Strikes
4. Martial Fist: Adding Points in Dreamland
5. Demonic Cultivation: Starting as a Horse Bandit