Chapter 1867 — Have You Been Well Since We Parted?
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 6
The Master of Miluo Palace gazed into the future, and at this moment, with Shen Mu's obstruction finally gone, every image of the Seventeenth Epoch universe poured into his sight.
From the founding by Hongmeng, to the birth of the Five Supremes, to the emergence of Tai Yi, the felling of the tree, the rise of the Creators, the surging forth of the Ancient Gods, the vast history of seventeen epochs began to unfold in a manner never before seen.
There was no World Tree, no Heaven-Openers, and no Miluo Palace. The Creators waned, Longhan split in three, Chiming continued, Shanghuang stood opposed, Kaihuang rose, and Jingping rose above the wasteland.
Sixty hundred million years of time flashed past, Miluo Palace invaded, the World Tree was reborn, and three and a half billion years of future fell likewise into his view.
His gaze paused as he saw Shen Mu return to the past, then his gaze pressed onward.
That was a future even Shen Mu had never lived through, a many-colored future, even more splendid than when Shen Mu had been present, yet as the Master's gaze traveled ever farther into the future, his Dao heart began gradually to tremble. A thousand hundred million years into the Seventeenth Epoch, the breadth of the universe would already exceed that of the First, yet this universe still showed no tendency to cease expanding.
Two thousand hundred million years on, no new attainers of the Dao were born. Three thousand hundred million years on, the vastness of the universe dimmed the spirit-energy traversing bridges, and they could no longer connect with other worlds.
Only attainers could cross the long and endless starry sky to seek their fellow Daoists.
Yet even the time an attainer spent seeking friends was immensely long, and by then there were no more wielders of powers, and the spirit air and spirit force between heaven and earth had been stretched by the expanding universe until it was incomparably thin.
Four thousand hundred million years on, most stars in the universe had gone out and evaporated, and the once radiant and many-colored universe gradually dimmed. Five thousand hundred million years on, the last sun went out, and the last remaining holy lands slowly lost their energy.
The Yuan Realm collapsed, Xuandu dissolved, Youdu existed no more, the Tianyin Realm evaporated clean away, and one heaven after another walked toward the final void.
Six thousand hundred million years on, the Master of Miluo Palace looked out and saw the last holy land gutter out. The Seventeenth Epoch universe turned black and sunken, with only occasional flickering lights remaining, which must have been the afterglow of attainers.
He looked onward, into darkness, and even that afterglow gradually thinned. He looked toward the end of the darkness, where the last afterglow of the attainers vanished, and the whole Seventeenth Epoch universe was completely flattened, become an incomparably thin membrane without end.
All matter dissolved utterly, breaking down into the most minute particles, evenly spread across the void membrane of the universe.
The universe was utterly voided. The Great Silent Extinction.
With a spurt, the Master coughed out a mouthful of Dao blood, for the Great Silent Extinction eight thousand hundred million years hence had utterly shattered his Dao heart, and all his persistence, all his ideals, in that instant were of no use at all. His powers, his Dao arts, had no place left to be used.
For so long he had prepared for the Calamity of Destruction and the Calamity of Creation, yet before this fated Great Silent Extinction, all his former preparations were wholly useless, and moreover he could think of no solution to it. In a daze, he walked out before the arrival of the Seventeenth Epoch's Calamity of Creation, returned to the Sixteenth Epoch's Calamity of Destruction, and returned to Miluo Palace.