Chapter 594 - 365: Descaendant

Qian Yunxi and Qing Yan stared in shock as the world slowly began to change.

The suffocating stillness of the rotting boneyard had vanished, replaced by an ethereal sea of translucent phantoms drifting over the desolate plains.

The sky was no longer a sickly violet, but a turbulent storm of crimson clouds and golden lightning, rumbling with the weight of an epoch long forgotten.

Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of spectral soldiers materialized from the blood-soaked soil.

They stood in rank and file, their spectral armor gleaming with spectral brilliance, holding aloft tattered standards that bore the sigils of extinct dynasties and ancient houses.

Then, a heavy, solemn vibration echoed through the firmament—a deep, booming voice that seemed to arise from the very foundation of existence, resonating within the marrow of their souls.

"In the beginning of that great sorrow, the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And out of the great silence, the kings of the dust gathered their hosts, crying out for dominion, and the nations raged, and the kingdoms were moved."

Qian Yunxi and Qing Yan stood frozen, caught within a living river of time.

The phantoms began to surge forward, not as mindless ghosts, but reenacting the greatest conflagration the mortal firmament had ever witnessed: the ancient War of Unification.

It was the apocalyptic clash that forged the boundaries of the world—the brutal campaign that subdued and welded together the North, the South, the West, the Eastern, the turbulent Central Region, and laid the cornerstone for the glorious Imperial Capital.

Across the boundless horizons, the earth shuddered under the tread of countless legions.

Tall, slender elves draped in living leaf-armor drew celestial bows carved from ancient world-trees, loosing storms of emerald arrows that hissed like falling stars.

Beside them marched phalanxes of mortal human soldiers, their iron halberds interlocking into unbreakable walls of steel, chanting hymns of sacrifice.

From the mountain ridges descended the colossi—titans and stone-skinned giants whose shoulders brushed the clouds.

Each swing of their titanic clubs leveled hills and cracked tectonic plates, sending fountains of magma spilling into the sky.

Winged avians dove like screaming falcons from the sun, while scaled abyssal beasts erupted from the marshlands, clashing in the mud.

Every myriad race, every beast, every sovereign tribe had sent its finest sons to be ground to dust beneath the chariot wheels of history.

The deep, solemn voice thundered across the firmament once more, shaking the pillars of heaven.

"Behold, the horse and his rider are thrown into the sea. The sun was turned to darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day. For the strong did not inherit the earth, nor the swift win the race, but every high mountain was brought low, and the valley of slaughter drank the cup of trembling to the dregs."

Amidst this apocalyptic tide of iron and flame, Qian Yunxi’s gaze was drawn irresistibly to the center of the battlefield.

There, standing atop a mountain of shattered shields and sundered banners, stood the true master of the hundred-meter blade.

He was a giant of immense stature, easily four hundred meters tall, his skin the color of hammered bronze, etched with hundreds of battle scars that glowed like molten gold.

From his massive shoulder blades sprouted a single pair of majestic, feathered wings—immense, brilliant, and pure as untouched snow.

Each feather burned with sacred white fire, beating against the howling winds with steady, unyielding power.

He gripped the massive hilt of the hundred-meter sword with both hands, lifting the colossal steel toward the heavens.

Tears of gold and blood rolled down his rugged, bearded cheeks, not from agony or despair, but from pure, ecstatic adoration.

His voice shook the battlefield like a rolling avalanche, filled with fervent devotion.

"Praise be to the Sun of the East! Praise be to the Lord of Hosts who sits upon the golden throne of the Divine Empire! Oh, my master! The immortal, the inviolable, the peerless Six Winged Divine Emperor! Your will is my iron, your decree is my dawn! Let the four corners bow down, and let every tongue confess your glory!"

Around the colossal winged giant, the tide of enemies began to close in like starving wolves.

Regiments of shadow-dwellers, horned demon fiends, and armored human champions surged up the slopes of the bone mound.

Spears of dark matter pierced the giant’s iron-hard thighs; dark sorceries seared his magnificent wings, turning pure white feathers into plumes of acrid ash.

Enormous iron chains were cast over his shoulders, pulled taut by mountain trolls to bring him to his knees.

Yet the giant did not falter.

He did not beg, and he did not show fear.

Even as dozens of black blades penetrated his chest, shattering his spiritual core, and even as his golden blood showered the earth like rain, his singular eye remained locked onto the distant, golden horizon.

With his dying breath, using the last vestige of his life-force, he drove the hundred-meter sword deep into the bedrock of the summit, sealing his oath into the eternal stone.

His head fell back, a wide, bloody smile spreading across his lips, his voice carrying the final whisper of a devoted servant.

"Into your hands... my Emperor... I commend my soul."

With that final declaration of unbroken loyalty, his colossal body crystallized into golden stone, his wings folding gently over the pommel of his blade before dispersing into a blinding shower of divine light.

The voice of the heavens whispered one final lamentation.

"How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! The beauty of the earth is slain upon thy high places. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions; in their lives they were lovely, and in their death they were not divided."

The blinding glare faded.

The thunderous echoes of the ancient war dissipated into thin air.

The phantoms, the marching armies, and the titanic clash dissolved like mist in the morning sun.

The scene ended, and Qian Yunxi was deep in thought and shock.

Her breath was shallow and uneven, her eyes fixed upon the hundred-meter sword that still stood before them in the desolate graveyard.

The sacred words carved upon its fuller, the fervor in the winged giant’s dying prayer, and the sheer scale of the blood spilled for the unification of the world weighed upon her mind like a leaden bell.

It was not just history; it felt like a forgotten memory, a blood-soaked truth that had been buried beneath centuries of silence.

Beside her, Qing Yan frowned and thought, ’Six Winged Divine Emperor... That’s Qian Yunxi’s bloodline.’

A heavy silence settled over the ruined landscape once more.

Qian Yunxi finally snapped out of her thoughts and sighed.

She looked down at the mud beneath her boots—at the skulls half-buried in the black sludge, the broken hilts of swords held by skeletal hands that had never let go, and the rusted armor that had once belonged to fathers, sons, and heroes of a hundred different races.

"To fight with such devotion," she murmured softly, her clear voice carrying a sorrowful tremor that drifted across the quiet plains.

She shook her head. She admired people like these, those who are willing to die for what they believed in.

"... let’s go."

She turned her back to the towering steel blade that pierced the brooding heavens, stepping carefully across the cracked, blood-stained shale.

Her boots made faint, rhythmic crunches over the pulverized bone and brittle iron scattered along the valley floor.

The bitter, copper-scented gale whipped against the hem of her battle tunic, tugging at the ends of her silver-blonde hair.

Every step carried her away from the towering graveyard of that prehistoric age, yet the weight in her chest refused to lighten.

Beside her, Qing Yan kept his pace steady, his eyes continually scanning the jagged horizon.

Around them, the endless slopes of rusted lances, splintered chariots, and hollowed breastplates slumbered in unbroken neglect, silent monuments to millions who had perished under the banners of a dream that time had buried.

But then...

RUMBLE.

The blackened bedrock beneath their boots trembled without warning.

It was not a shallow tectonic vibration; it was a deep, subterranean roar that seemed to tear open the marrow of the earth itself.

The stagnant red pools rippled in frantic concentric rings, and the thousands of rusted weapons thrust into the bone mounds vibrated with a sharp, ear-splitting metallic chime that climbed in frequency until it scraped against the mind like bare steel.

"BEHOLD, THE SCEPTER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS HATH AWAKENED! THE DAYS OF THY MOURNING SHALL BE ENDED, AND THE CROWN OF GLORY IS RETURNED UNTO ZION!"

A loud, booming voice resounded, carrying the deafening cadence of rolling thunder across a sundered sea.

It did not echo from a single throat; it resonated from the very stones, from the low-hanging purple clouds, and from the whistling wind itself.

It was vast, ancient, and heavy with a holy, fanatical fervour that made the spiritual qi inside their veins shudder.

"O EMPEROR! SACRED SUN OF THE CELESTIAL PROVINCES! THOU HAST RETURNED FROM THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW! THY HUMBLE VASSAL WELCOMETH THY MAJESTY BACK TO THE SEAT OF DOMINION!"

This familiar voice startled Qian Yunxi and Qing Yan and they turned around, their boots skidding in the greasy gravel as they whipped their bodies back toward the bone summit in a defensive crouch.

There, standing beside the massive sword, is a spectral form of the giant they had seen.

The hundred meter blade was no longer a cold, dormant monolith.

Its fuller burned with roaring, molten gold luminescence, the Clear Universe Imperial Writing blazing so bright it seared the swirling clouds into white mist.

Standing tall beside the great hilt was the colossal apparition of the fallen warrior.

He rose four hundred meters into the sky, his form woven from shimmering, translucent amber light, yet looking as solid and immovable as an ancient mountain.

His broad, chiseled face was weathered by thousands of forgotten campaigns, framed by a thick, braided beard that drifted like burning smoke.

From his massive shoulder blades, a single pair of feathered wings stretched outward, spanning fifty fathoms across the ruined sky.

Each spectral feather burned with pure, blinding celestial fire, radiating a holy heat that instantly dried the stagnant blood pools below into fragrant, white steam.

His singular, burning golden eye, vast as a temple bell, lowered from the heavens to fix its undivided, weeping gaze straight upon Qian Yunxi.

"You..." Qian Yunxi’s eyes widened, her breath caught in her throat.

The spiritual pressure rolling off the phantom was not hostile; it was an immense, oceanic wave of unconditional reverence, love, and devout ecstasy that washed over her like warm rain.

Beneath her shoulder blades, her six dormant celestial wings throbbed with a sharp, frantic heat.

Beside her, Qing Yan’s pupils contracted to needlepoints, his teeth clicked together in raw, silent apprehension, his spine pressing rigid as he witnessed the ancient phantom overlooking the young maiden.

The giant did not move to strike, instead, the colossal warrior sank slowly onto his right knee.

THUUUUM!

The impact of his ethereal knee striking the summit shook the surrounding mountain of skulls, sending thousands of rusted shields clattering into the gullies below.

He lowered his massive bronze-hued brow, placing his colossal palm flat over his breastplate, bowing his head before Qian Yunxi with the unreserved submission of a faithful hound reuniting with its sovereign after ten thousand winters in the dark.

"For countless generations, this dust hath waited in silence," the giant spoke, his voice vibrating through the soles of their boots, layered with the echoes of a million fallen warriors. "The stars grew cold, the great deep dried up, and the wicked plundered the holy sanctuaries. Yet the oath of the covenant hath not failed! The divine light of the six wings hath manifested once more upon the sacred earth!"

He lifted his gaze, his burning eye locked onto Qian Yunxi with unshakeable conviction.

"Arise, O Sovereign! Shake off the dust of mortality and put on thy garments of beauty!" The giant’s voice climbed into an ecstatic, world-shaking hymn that tore the purple gloom from the sky. "The throne of the Four Winds standeth empty, waiting for the righteous heir! The nations have raged without a shepherd, walking in vanity and confusion! Take up the sword of judgment once again, and we shall tread down our enemies like the mire of the streets! Let the banners of the Divine Empire be lifted upon the high hills! We shall rule this land once more, let the glory fill the earth and subdue it from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the world!"

As he proclaimed these words, the phantom lifted his colossal left hand, gesturing toward the horizon.

In the wake of his gesture, the desolate wasteland rippled with mirages of gold.

Ghostly palaces of white marble and shining lapis lazuli seemed to rise from the blood-soaked hills, celestial cities crowned with golden spires that pierced the upper firmament, and vast legions of winged beings kneeling in endless ranks, awaiting only the downward sweep of an imperial hand to begin a holy crusade that would sweep across the continents like a cleansing wildfire.

The sheer scale of the claim, the ancient weight of an entire prehistoric empire being thrust into her hands, made Qian Yunxi take a step backward.

Her fair face was pale, her brow furrowed in deep, resistant confusion.

"Hold your tongue!" Qian Yunxi shouted, her clear, ringing voice cutting through the rumbling hymn with sharp, unyielding clarity. "Calm yourself, ancient warrior!"

The giant blinked, his burning eye dimming by a fraction, tilting his massive head in gentle, puzzled reverence. "My Emperor...? Doth the master of the dawn reject the cry of her faithful watchman?"

"I am not who you think I am," Qian Yunxi said, shaking her head firmly, her tone leaving no room for falsehood. "I am Qian Yunxi, the young mistress of the Spirit Hall from the modern Eastern Region. I am not the Six Winged Divine Emperor! The sovereign you serve died hundreds of thousands of years ago in the ancient wars!"

The giant remained kneeling, his expression unmarred by anger, only looking upon her with the patient, unshakeable adoration of a dog listening to a master who had lost her way.

"Names are but shadows cast by the sun upon passing clouds, O Sovereign," the giant answered, his voice dropping into a tender, rumbling cadence that sounded like stones rolling down a quiet riverbed. "Call thyself Yunxi, call thyself what thou wilt in this fleeting age of dust. But the light of thy countenance cannot be hidden under a bushel. Dost thou believe the blind earth can forge the six-winged seal by chance? Doth common clay bring forth the solar marrow of the Primeval Throne?"

He pointed a colossal, glowing finger toward her chest, where her heart beat frantically against her ribs.

"Thou carryest the true flame in thy bosom. The blood of the first king floweth within thy channels, unpolluted, unbroken, and pure as the first morning of creation. Even now, thy spirit fluttereth beneath thy shoulders, crying out to spread its wings across this sky! Doth a daughter not inherit the vineyard of her father? Doth the branch not bear the fruit of the ancient vine?"

Qian Yunxi tightened her grip on her golden blade, her teeth gritting as she felt the uncontrollable resonance coursing through her marrow.

"Having the bloodline of an ancestor does not make me that ancestor! I have my own life, my own path, and my own loyalty! I serve no ancient empire, and I have no desire to drown this world in blood just to rebuild a dead throne! Look at this battlefield! Look at these bones!"

She swept her arm toward the mounds of rotting flesh and rusted iron stretching into the grey horizon.

"Your Six Winged Emperor led all of you into this ditch! You died with chains around your limbs and black iron in your heart, singing praises while your brothers were eaten by crows! Is that the glory you want me to bring back? Another million corpses stacked into the sky?!"

Her words struck the quiet valley like lances of ice.

Qing Yan, standing behind her, held his breath, his eyes wide as he watched her defy an ancient phantom whose aura could have crushed them into dust with a careless flick of a finger.

The winged giant closed his singular eye, a low, sorrowful hum escaping his chest that made the rusted swords groan in sympathy.

"The way of the world is paved with stumbling blocks, O Emperor," the giant murmured softly, his wings drooping by an inch. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! In that ancient dawn, we bled because the kings of the dark would not yield their abominations. We fell so that the light might endure. This ditch is not a monument of defeat; it is the threshing floor where the wheat was gathered into the barn, and the chaff was burned with unquenchable fire."

He opened his eye once more, the sorrow melting away, replaced by an unyielding, burning flame of prophecy.

"Thou mayest turn thy feet from the path, thou mayest deny the crown before men, but the heavens have already marked thy brow. The days of this fallen era are numbered. The seals shall be loosed, the great dragon shall rise from the abyss, and when the dark waters overflow the banks, there shall be no shelter in the houses of the small kings. In that day, thou shalt take up the sword of thy fathers. Thou shalt spread thy six wings, not for conquest, but because there is none other under heaven that can deliver the children from the furnace."

The giant lowered his palm until it rested upon the gravel fifty paces before her boots, creating an enormous, glowing bridge of amber light that pointed directly toward the hilt of the hundred-meter sword.

"The seal of the Eastern Realm is thine. The oath of the First Host is thine. It shall sleep in this dust no longer."

The giant’s form began to billow like gold smoke, rising into the sky as his voice echoed in a final, fading proclamation.

"HEAR, O NATIONS! THE SCEPTER OF JUDAH HATH NOT DEPARTED! THY SEAT IS PREPARED, O EMPEROR! WHEN THOU ART READY, CALL UPON THE HOST, AND WE SHALL COME FORTH FROM THE TOMB TO DO THY PLEASURE!"

With a final, dazzling flash of solar fire, the colossal apparition dissolved into ten thousand golden embers that rained down across the bone mound, sinking into the dark earth.

Silence rushed back into the valley, heavier and more suffocating than before.

The hundred meter sword remained standing at the peak of the hill, but its blade was no longer dark and dormant.

The Clear Universe Imperial Writing burned with a faint, steady silver-white light that pulsed in rhythm with the heartbeat inside Qian Yunxi’s chest, casting a quiet, eternal vigil over the silent dead.

Qian Yunxi stood frozen on the black slate, her hands trembling, staring at the glowing characters on the colossal blade as the mountain wind whipped her silver hair across her pale, troubled face.