Chapter 3255: Eternal Continuation (III)

Chapter 3255: Eternal Continuation (Three)

Beneath the night sky of Da Chu, all was quiet and peaceful.

Snow continued to fall, illuminated by the moonlight. Each snowflake was as dreamy and ephemeral as flower petals.

Yu Nü Feng.

The ancient tree stood there, its perennial trunk etched with countless rings. Beneath it, figures with white hair had waited for ten thousand years, yet the snow showed no sign of stopping.

Zheng! Weng!

Innumerable emperor weapons hovered in the air—imperial swords, divine mirrors—all the women’s natal artifacts. They shook around a pile of scrap metal, their buzzing filled with mournful cries.

That wasn't just scrap; it was the Hun Dun Shen Ding.

Ten thousand years ago, when Ye Chen battled Tian Dao, it and the Zhu Xian Jian fought to mutual destruction. After Ye Chen's reincarnation, the fragments of the Hun Dun Shen Ding were painstakingly gathered, but its soul was gone, utterly destroyed, leaving only immortal material.

Ten thousand years passed, and Ye Chen did not return.

Ten thousand years also failed to restore the Hun Dun Shen Ding.

The moonlight was bright and clear.

One by one, the white-haired women leaned against the ancient tree and drifted into slumber, their faces serene. Tears lingered in the corners of their eyes, but faint smiles graced their lips. They must have been having beautiful dreams—of things absent in reality but present in their dreams, like that man named Ye Chen.

"I fear they've already lost the distinction between reality and illusion."

Shen Zun sighed. Emperors with such deep obsessions had clearly descended into madness.

Qi Huan remained silent.

These women were so much like her from the previous era—mechanical, like addicts suffering from a poison. Most of the time, they were barely conscious. The Ancient Road had given all living beings a fleeting chance, a moment when they lived most authentically.

Ah!

Shen Zun withdrew his gaze, surveying the entire universe with a single glance.

Prosperity inevitably leads to decline.

The eternity within the cycle of Tian Dao was showing signs of gradual decay. After ten thousand years, flowers and plants that shouldn't have withered were now doing so; rivers that shouldn't have dried up had. The eternal radiance was no longer as brilliant as before.

From that day onward, no one achieved the status of emperor for a full decade.

Also from that day, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth grew increasingly thin, making breakthroughs far more difficult and the challenge steadily intensifying. Beyond that, an inexplicable sense of oppression lingered.

Beyond the universe, the Nü Di returned.

She had been gone for fifty years, appearing weary and covered in wounds. She had not found another universe and had encountered many hardships in the illusory void.

She could sense the changes in the heavens.

Yet, her cultivation was limited, unable to reverse the course of fate.

She came back, and Shen Zun left.

For many years, the two took turns venturing out, each trip going farther than the last—to search for other universes and for the little one named Xing Zi. They hoped the child would return to the unknown.

Only then might Ye Chen be revived.

Regrettably, the child had vanished without a trace, impossible to find no matter how they searched.

"Another year has passed."

Under the moon, the successive kings of Da Chu gathered together, offering sacrifices before the statues.

Shen Xuan Feng was there, as taciturn as ever.

Qian Shang Yue was also present. The kings all looked at her with peculiar eyes, as they had in the past and still did. It was mainly due to that awkward marriage; such a talented woman, the daughter of the Yue Huang, had set her sights on Shen Xuan Feng. If they considered seniority, most of them would have to address her as an ancestor.

Equally awkward was Chu Cang Zong.

He was like a figure from the mortal world, but he had once fiercely beaten his father-in-law. Even though Chu Cang Zong was an emperor, every time he saw Hong Chen, he felt uncomfortable all over. It must have been from that night when Hong Chen beat him so badly that, even after ten thousand years, the shadow lingered.

In contrast, Di Ji was truly composed.

Bathing in the ten-thousand-year snow, she traveled with Liu Dao across vast rivers and mountains. In so many corners of the world, one could see the two of them together. Apart from Liu Dao being so taciturn and empty, from any angle, they made an extremely well-matched pair.

Ten years later, Shen Zun returned.

This time, his arrival caused a tremendous commotion.

He had found a universe, just as Ye Chen had long ago—a shattered small universe, not very large, roughly the size of Nan Chu. Its civilization had long perished, and Shen Zun, embodying eternity, had spent considerable time to infuse it with life.

Boom!

Accompanied by a thunderous boom, the small universe merged into the greater heavens.

In that instant, the cosmos erupted in brilliant colors.

Then, eternal light rain poured down, revitalizing the gradually decaying universe. That very day, people achieved the Dao and became emperors—and not just one.

This was an excellent beginning.

If enough universes could be found, eternity could be prolonged.

Where there is fortune, there is calamity.

On the second day after Shen Zun's return, an unknown creature appeared—a humanoid monster, a genuine Huang Di level being, manifesting as a vast black cloud that shrouded the entire universe.

The battle beyond the universe raged for many years.

Nü Di and Shen Zun fought fiercely, even more brutally than the first time, taking a full hundred years to slay the humanoid monster. For this, both nearly perished.

"Exactly how many terrifying entities lurk beyond the universe?"

The emperors' hearts were unsettled, filled with awe for the illusory void.

It was simply that their cultivation was too low to glimpse another realm.

Nü Di went into seclusion, and Shen Zun did the same, taking ten years to heal their wounds. The killing intent left by a universe-level monster ignored even eternal bloodlines—a fact they had long been aware of. Eternity was not omnipotent.

"Old Seven."

The sound of gongs and drums echoed through the starry sky, resounding across the universe time and again.

It was that ox and that monkey.

As sworn brothers, they were truly dedicated, drumming wherever they went. But today, their appearance was far from harmonious; they had been beaten beyond recognition. It was their own fault for recklessly teasing Hong Lian Nü Di, and they paid the price.

They were still in better shape than the others, who were laid up at home.

Hong Lian had a fiery temper, and as an evil demon with a violent streak, she always had some foolish upstarts provoking her for no reason. She and Hong Lian Nü Di had rounded up the brothers and beaten them all, even dragging in a few of their supreme allies for a thrashing.

Even then, Mo Yuan and Mu Liu Qing hadn't gotten involved.

See? Without their Old Seven, some people couldn't hold their ground at all.

The more it was like this, the more they had to beat the drums.

They needed Ye Chen to come back from the dead and lead them to show off and soar together.

This was a peach blossom forest.

Snowflakes drifted, and peach blossoms danced, creating a truly dreamy immortal realm.

Deep within the trees, one could see Meng Mo and Zi Zai Tian.

It was a night of beautiful flowers and a full moon, perfect for a game of chess.

At the quasi-Huang Di level, their chess was no ordinary affair; they held pieces that represented the Dao itself, evoking all sorts of visions and phenomena, with ethereal heavenly sounds echoing endlessly.

Besides them, there was another person.

It was Di Zun, bound hand and foot and hung from a tree, swaying in the wind. He was restless again and had been given a thorough beating by Meng Mo, left hanging for several decades. In terms of presence, his ninth life was impressive, but his first life was embarrassing—once a fierce destroyer of Tian Xu, now thoroughly subdued.

To this moment, he still had a rag stuffed in his mouth.

The two women were quite leisurely, completely ignoring him as they played their game.

Meng Mo furrowed her delicate brows slightly; she was at a disadvantage.

Both at quasi-Huang perfection, she was still a step behind Zi Zai Tian, who had once been self-proclaimed as Tian Dao after self-severing a blade. That alone put her far beyond Meng Mo's reach. Zi Zai Tian held her piece for a full ten years before placing it on the board.

On the eleventh year, she gently made her move.

However, midway, she suddenly paused, instinctively looking up.

Zi Zai Tian did the same.

Even Di Zun, hanging there, rolled his eyes up, down, left, and right.

It had stopped.

The snow that had fallen for ten thousand years halted in the previous instant, without any warning.