Chapter 1771 — Supreme Desolation

In the final Dao-words of the Eldest Young Master Taishang, a vision unfolded of the ultimate void expanding without limit.

The myriad heavens and countless worlds, the Ancestral Court, the Four Extremes Heaven, the Mystic Capital and the Dark Capital—all of them expanded along with the infinite expansion of the ultimate void, until at last everything was flattened, voided, transformed into a membrane of emptiness possessing neither thickness nor mass.

All matter would decompose endlessly with the infinite unfolding of the void; even the tiniest particles would shatter, and after eight hundred billion years be broken down to the level of Grand Primordium runes.

The Grand Primordium rune was already the smallest structure of the Dao. After eight hundred billion years, even the Grand Primordium runes would shatter with the expansion of the void. With the shattering of the Grand Primordium, all great Daos would cease to exist, and every Dao-art and divine power would be reduced to nothingness!

By then, any who had attained the Dao—their Great Canopy Heavens too would expand infinitely and collapse into ruin; their Dao-trees, Dao-flowers, and Dao-fruits would all become void, never to exist again!

The scene depicted by the Eldest Young Master Taishang was the cold silence that would follow the infinite expansion of the ultimate void.

The myriad heavens and countless worlds, the Ancestral Court, the Four Extremes Heaven, the Mystic Capital and the Dark Capital, all life, all matter—all would become adornments upon that incomparably vast membrane of emptiness, invisible and intangible.

No great Dao would have any place to abide.

Even the World Tree would be voided along with it, endlessly unfolding into the void, ultimately transforming into a massless membrane of emptiness.

All energy in the universe would be extinguished, all mass would vanish.

In the end, even the Great Abyss of the Returned Void would exhaust all its energy, evaporate completely, and cease to exist!

Ultimate desolation.

Shen Mu sat quietly there, not moving in the slightest for a very long time.

The results, deduced by the master of the Miluo Palace and revealed to him by the Eldest Young Master Taishang, very likely would come to pass—one could even say they were certain to come to pass!

Because when Shen Mu had first arrived at the ultimate void, he had discovered that it was constantly expanding and growing on its own!

Moreover, even without entering the ultimate void, one could observe this expansion from the trajectory of history.

In the Primordial Era, the universe underwent the transformations of the Five Primal States, evolving the Ancestral Court and giving rise to the Creator, who dwelt within the Ancestral Court. At that time, whether the myriad heavens and countless worlds or the Four Extremes Heaven, all were very close to the Ancestral Court—the Four Extremes Heaven had even been, in the beginning, four holy lands within the Ancestral Court itself!

In those days, "one could pluck the stars by hand" was no idle jest.

As time passed and the ultimate void expanded, the Four Extremes Heaven gradually drifted away from the Ancestral Court. More and more stars appeared in the sky, the universe grew ever larger, the Mystic Capital expanded without cease, and the cosmos continued to grow.

By the early years of the Dragon Han Era, the territory of the universe was already immeasurably larger than it had been in the Primordial Era!

If one took the Four Extremes Heaven and the Ancestral Court as observation points, one would find that the space between them was still continuously expanding!

The root cause of all this was the ceaseless growth of the ultimate void.

The ultimate void drove the unfolding of layer upon layer of void, and these layers of void in turn drove the continuous unfolding of the entire universe, ultimately causing the spaces between heaven and heaven to stretch endlessly, and the stars to drift ever farther from one another.

These were the signs of ultimate desolation.

"Formation, dwelling, decay, and emptiness do not necessarily appear in sequential order; it is also possible for only the stages of formation and emptiness to occur."

The Dao-words of the Eldest Young Master Taishang grew much simpler, no longer containing such complex information. Dryly, he said: "The result of our master's deductions is this: the Seventeenth Epoch will have only two stages—formation and emptiness. He could find no way to break through, and so fell into utter despair."

In former times, the universe's evolution followed formation, dwelling, decay, and emptiness—the universe formed, stabilized, decayed, and was destroyed. Then it would undergo the Kalpa of Birth, re-evolve the universe and primeval chaos, and repeat the cycle of formation, dwelling, decay, and emptiness.

The World Tree and the Returned Void made the cycle of formation, dwelling, decay, and emptiness extremely stable.

But the universe of the Seventeenth Epoch might remain in the stage of formation forever, ultimately transforming into void.

Shen Mu sat there dazed for a long while, then suddenly laughed and said: "Eldest Senior Brother Taishang, what does all this have to do with my coming to rescue Tai Yi?"

The Eldest Young Master Taishang seemed as one who had entered nirvana, utterly devoid of any vital breath. He continued to answer in Dao-words: "The reason our master eliminated Tian Du was also because of this. Tian Du opened the heavens and established the earth in the Seventh Epoch, evolving the universe and the cosmos. The final result was that it led to ultimate desolation. Our master calculated the coming of ultimate desolation, and so, when persuasion failed, he had no choice but to act. Tian Du is Tai Yi."

Shen Mu fell silent.

The two faced each other, each saying nothing.

The Eldest Young Master Taishang had made clear his reason for suppressing and imprisoning Tai Yi—releasing Tai Yi could cause the Seventeenth Epoch to evolve eternally toward ultimate desolation. Therefore he would not agree to Shen Mu's request to release Tai Yi.

Shen Mu also realized this, but he himself did not have sufficient certainty to rescue Tai Yi, and so could only remain silent.

After an unknown length of time, Shen Mu slowly said: "Our master could not solve it, and so entered nirvana. If you keep Tai Yi here, can you solve it?"

The Eldest Young Master Taishang shook his head.

If keeping Tai Yi could resolve the matter of universal emptiness, then the master of the Miluo Palace would not have needed to enter nirvana.

Shen Mu said unhurriedly: "That being the case, why suppress Tai Yi? He has nothing to do with the emptiness of the Seventeenth Epoch. Your suppression of him is of no avail."

The Eldest Young Master Taishang opened his eyes, and within them purple qi surged. Then, within the purple qi, a vision appeared of heaven and earth newly divided, of a universe vast and chaotic in its primeval obscurity. He said: "He is an enemy of the Miluo Palace."

Shen Mu laughed and said: "Then am I to be counted as an enemy of the Miluo Palace?"

The purple qi in the Eldest Young Master Taishang's eyes transformed completely into chaos, as though he had fallen into doubt—even he did not know whether Shen Mu should be counted as a disciple of the master of the Miluo Palace or an enemy of the Miluo Palace.

Shen Mu laughed and said: "The Miluo Palace is really just a gathering place for those who have attained the Dao and share the same ideals. Our master is such, you are such, and I am such. There is no difference in our ideals—our goal is to save the world. You uphold our master's ideals, and every action you take is an embodiment of his ideals. So it is with me. Senior Brother, our master did not kill Tai Yi, nor did he suppress him. Do you think that if our master truly wished to keep him, he could have left the Miluo Palace?"