Chapter 1868 — The One Who Shepherds the Gods

Again a strange tremor came from the universe. Young Master Taishang and Taiyi said nothing. Only Lan Yutian spoke: "Young Master Wuji, that old rival, has evaporated in the void. Of all the holy lands in this world, only Jade Capital and Jingping remain."

Jingping lived within the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron. Jade Capital was the supreme treasure forged by the master of Miro Palace and the various Young Masters. These two great holy lands became the universe's last refuges, still able to sustain life and let it multiply.

Yet even the Dao Achievers of these two holy lands felt their own great Daos gradually voidifying.

Sooner or later, their Daos too would crumble piece by piece. They too would become mortals, and like other mortals, become void.

After Young Master Wuji evaporated, the Ancestral Court's Primordial Cauldron and Jade Capital began to split and expand, filling all with boundless despair.

They looked out and saw only darkness in the universe.

The sky had gone dark.

"Has the Chaotic Space still not bloomed?" Xu Shenghua, white-haired, had begun to age as well.

The void Filth Field Shen Mu had left behind had vanished completely. Of the present universe, besides Jade Capital and the Primordial Cauldron, only the Chaotic Space remained.

Countless years after Young Master Wuji's death, Ling Tianzun and Yue Tianzun returned.

"Matter and Energy Unchanged cannot alter the void. My cultivation is voidifying as well."

Ling Tianzun said: "I can use divine ability to sustain Jade Capital and the Primordial Cauldron, but how long I can hold out, I cannot say."

Ling Tianzun's arrival slowed the void's evolution for a long while, yet it was all in vain.

After six hundred billion years, her divine ability failed. The Primordial Cauldron and Jade Capital began to decompose. The great Dao gradually turned to void.

And the Chaotic Space still had not bloomed.

After Ling Tianzun's divine ability failed, Matter and Energy Unchanged became utterly useless. The divine ability had lost all its power.

Just then, Chaos qi surged in the void. The mighty Long River of Chaos came rolling in, injecting one final measure of energy into the universe.

Shen Lingyun, bearing Zhanji, trod the Long River of Chaos to the side of the shattered Primordial Cauldron and said: "My father told me—sacrificing the past sixteen universes can delay the Great Silence."

Young Master Taishang sighed. The Daughter of Chaos had come after all.

He understood another thing now: why Chaos had insisted that the pregnant Ling Yuxiu cross the sixteen Long Rivers of Chaos. Shen Lingyun had been born within the Calamity of Destruction, drawing upon the power of sixteen Calamities of Destruction.

Her one year was one year. She had grown within the Calamities of Destruction. Only she could draw the sixteen Long Rivers of Chaos to inject one final measure of energy into the Seventeenth Epoch.

Yet the sixteen cosmic epochs would likely be destroyed along with it.

He understood another thing too: why the master of Miro Palace had insisted they return to their own universes, that they not attempt to go to the Seventeenth Epoch.

It was because the master of Miro Palace had likely seen this future as well!

If they returned to their own universes, then the Silence would be delayed somewhat.

Only...

Taishang suddenly shuddered: "Only—if Teacher saw this scene, does it not mean the future never changed? All the efforts of the Seventeenth Epoch, all of Chaos's efforts—Teacher saw them all? The future never changed!"

He despaired, returned to Jade Capital, and entered extinction.

At last, like the master of Miro Palace, his Dao heart died. Only no one mocked him anymore for imitating his teacher.

Taishang's funeral was simple. Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua attended. Taiyi wept there until heaven and earth went dark. His rival of two lifetimes had still died in despair.

Lan Yutian looked around. Jade Capital was filled with white-haired elders. Those former rivals had aged too.

"Are you my mother?" Shen Lingyun sought out Ling Yuxiu, lying on a sickbed, skin like a chicken's, hair like crane's down, and asked.

Ling Yuxiu embraced her and wept bitterly. Her life too was nearing its end, and at the very brink of death she had finally seen her own flesh and blood.

"I will protect Mother, until the day Father returns."

Shen Lingyun was full of confidence: "The sixteen Long Rivers of Chaos can sustain the Seventeenth Epoch for a very long time."

The voidification of the Sixteenth Epoch's Long River of Chaos came faster than she had expected. This universe, because of the invaders' onslaught, had little energy to begin with.

After a million years, the Sixteenth Cosmic Epoch was like a painting spread flat upon the void, the people and things upon it vivid and clear.

The people in the two great holy lands looked up and could see this painting. A few years later, the Sixteenth Cosmic Epoch gradually dimmed. The people and things in the painting vanished without a trace.

The Fifteenth Epoch's Long River of Chaos lasted somewhat longer. In the end, that image too gradually disappeared.

In the image of the Thirteenth Epoch, Taiyi saw Young Master Wuzong. Wuzong too, with the void's extension, turned to nothingness.

When the Great Silence reached the Tenth Epoch, Yue Tianzun raised her head and saw Young Master Zixiao and his wife. The two embraced in the image within the void, their faces brimming with smiles, appearing most happy.

Faintly, Yue Tianzun seemed to hear that qin melody again—most lovely, holding emotions she herself did not possess.

As one after another Long River of Chaos was voidified, Shen Lingyun too gradually grew weak. The vanishing of each Long River of Chaos stripped her of strength.

"Father will return. He said the Chaotic Space will burst open like fireworks—the brightest light in the void." She spoke weakly to Ling Yuxiu.

The Calamity of Destruction of the First Cosmic Epoch was also gradually voidifying. That was this universe's final barrier.

Yet even the First Universe's Calamity of Destruction could not withstand the void's silence. Shen Lingyun grew weaker and weaker because of it. When the void reached Miro Palace, it finally met resistance.

A withered skeleton sat enthroned in Miro Palace, revealing its form. Its Dao Tree blazed with light, its Dao Fruit radiance ten thousand fathoms—holding back the void's onslaught!

"Teacher!" Taiyi bowed to the withered skeleton.

The surviving Dao Achievers in Jade Capital bowed to the withered skeleton as well, tears streaming down aged faces.

In the end, the master of Miro Palace's withered skeleton, Dao Tree, and Dao Fruit could not hold back the void. He too turned to void. The long eight-hundred-billion-year history of the First Epoch spread out like a scroll upon the void, fading by degrees.

The master of Miro Palace in the scroll was peerless in elegance. His gaze seemed to look toward the Chaotic Space. The Chaotic Space remained—but it had not bloomed.

His gaze dimmed, and with the First Epoch's scroll, he dispersed into the void.

In Jade Capital, hall master after hall master and Miro Palace's Dao Achievers bowed down. In the instant of their bowing, their forms turned to void.

Jade Capital, like a painting, unfurled beside the Primordial Cauldron, gradually growing hazy.

"There is still one path of life."

The aged Lan Yutian rallied his spirits: "The Ancestral Court's Dao Realm system attains the Dao within. We can transform ourselves into Ancestral Court Great Luotians, letting all living beings dwell within our Great Luotians, sustaining their lives. Thus we can hold out for a very long time!"

"We cannot hold out long. We too will soon turn to void."

Some Dao Achievers shook their heads: "To do this for mortals..."

"Gods exist for the use of man."

Xu Shenghua wore a radiant smile: "Fellow Daoists, fellow brothers—we are gods! The last gods!"

The Dao Achievers fell silent.