Chapter 206: The Moment of Waking (IV)
Chapter 206: The Moment of Waking (IV)
“Huang Biaozi? Huang Biaozi! Am I Huang Biaozi?”
The more Tang Jinbiao pondered, the more a wild suspicion took root.
He simply couldn’t fathom any other reason why Huang Biaozi would “look out” for him so persistently, why he would cling to him so tenaciously.
“No, no, no—how is that possible? If I am Huang Biaozi, then who is the Huang Biaozi I met? Who is Tang Jinbiao? And who… is Wang Feng?”
Yet a closer look shattered this hypothesis instantly.
If Tang Jinbiao was Huang Biaozi, then who was Huang Biaozi?
Who, then, was Wang Feng in Tang Jinbiao’s memories?
“No—still not the core issue. I absolutely am not Huang Biaozi!
Assume the beginning point. Assume I am Wang Feng, Wang Feng is me. If that’s true, then I truly crossed over, possessed Tang Jinbiao’s body, and Huang Biaozi sees me as Tang Jinbiao. Everyone sees me as Tang Jinbiao, even driving myself to believe I am Tang Jinbiao. But in the deepest recesses of my memory, I still clearly recall: I am Wang Feng, supposed to be a university student!
Therefore, I did transmigrate. If I truly crossed over, then I shouldn’t be seeing the past world anymore. When I spoke of that world to Huang Biaozi, logically, it shouldn’t exist!
But… can any of this be reasoned by logic?
No, no, absolutely not. This world is steeped in pervasive strangeness; it fundamentally defies ordinary logic!
Wrong, wrong. If this world disregards normal theory, how do I explain those gases I saw during cultivation last time?
Argh!
Unfathomable, unfathomable, utterly unfathomable!”
Tang Jinbiao wrestled fruitlessly with these thoughts. The harder he tried, the less sense it made. The only remotely plausible explanation was that he himself was Huang Biaozi, and he had forcibly rewritten his own memories. But if that were true, even more contradictions arose.
As Tang Jinbiao grappled mentally, the airborne battle between Red Worm and Young Master Ma had already shifted elsewhere, the two now locked in fierce combat a hundred miles away.
“What’s up with this kid? Ever since he spotted those two, he’s been muttering incoherently, like he’s possessed?”
Azure Dragon sensed something amiss with Tang Jinbiao on his back, though he couldn’t pinpoint it.
He just felt an unsettling familiarity with the scene, murmuring inwardly: Strange… didn’t something like this happen to me before? Though… it didn’t play out quite like this back then…?
Not only Tang Jinbiao, but Azure Dragon too began experiencing déjà vu. Everything unfolding felt like it had happened eons ago.
“No— ‘happened before’ isn’t quite right. More like… it occurred in a dream. I dreamed a scene startlingly similar this!”
However, moments later, Azure Dragon dismissed the notion of prior experience. He settled on the feeling that it must have happened in a dream.
“How peculiar… Why do I genuinely feel as if… I’ve been here long ago?”
While Red Worm and Young Master Ma clashed, Azure Dragon, fearing the battle’s aftershocks, had carried Tang Jinbiao away from the conflict. Yet as they retreated, the entire scene felt astonishingly familiar, like an event from distant antiquity he was replaying.
On the opposite side of the void, Tang Ni and Tang Yilin stood silently, observing the spectacle without a word.
“Ahem, Huang Biaozi, I must admire your ingenuity. Yet the end result… appears unchanged!
Countless years ago, you orchestrated strife between the Seven Rainbow Brothers and the Dragon Emperor. You lured the Dragon Emperor into the Mortal Realm.
The Samsara cycle recurs every hundred thousand years. Experiment after experiment… time and again. Through so many attempts, you still haven’t found the answer you seek.
Perhaps… truly… no one escapes this destiny?”
A hint of sorrow flickered in Tang Ni’s eyes as he silently watched Red Worm and Young Master Ma locked in their inextricable duel.
Tang Jinbiao never managed to figure it out, but Tang Ni was the only person besides Huang Biaozi who knew Huang Biaozi’s plan.
One Millennial Era ago, countless planes rose in rebellion, triggering a conflict known as the War of Gods. Various lower planes united to assault the supreme existence, sparking a war in the Divine Realm.
Though called the War of Gods, it was in truth a God-Slaying War. In the battles, countless great powers of the Divine Realm perished, and numerous God-Kings fell as well.
The cause of that war remained unknown; only its outcome was remembered. Countless planes were obliterated, and the Divine Realm teetered on the brink of destruction, brought to the edge of ruin.
Only after countless years following the God-Slaying War did the Divine Realm finally recover its former prosperity, and it was during that era that Tang Ni rose to prominence.
After he became a God-King back then, he felt he had finally transcended life and death, achieving eternal immortality. Yet gradually, because of his endless existence, he grew numb, operating like a machine.
Until one day, Huang Biaozi sought him out. After a conversation with him, Tang Ni gained a clear realization: what he once pursued had been mistaken.
“Cough, Huang Biaozi, Huang Biaozi! Tens of millions of years of arduous toil ended up being utterly in vain. Or perhaps, just as you said back then!
Cultivators defy the heavens to seize life; it appears as if they are wresting fate from the heavens, yet everything remains within the Heavenly Mandate.
Mortals have only a century to live, yet harbor boundless hope within. So long as they hold that hope, even when plunged into Eternal Night, they shall not be corrupted and can preserve the purity of their souls!
Cultivators may live as long as heaven and earth, yet in the end, can they truly escape Samsara?
Even beings like us, who have long transcended causality and Samsara, in the end, find ourselves possessing only endless void and solitude!
That shattered world, rather than being forgotten, might better be said to have been saved!”
Tang Ni gazed at the familiar scenery before him, muttering to himself.
“Yilin, do you feel you are alive?”
Tang Ni turned, looking at Tang Yilin beside him, his expression unreadable as he asked.
“Alive?”
Tang Yilin frowned slightly, seeming puzzled, but after thinking for a moment, replied, “Yilin does not know!”
“Then Yilin, what do you think constitutes hope and happiness?”
Tang Ni continued without acknowledgment.
“Hope? Perhaps… the day when I can avenge my family? At that moment, Yilin should be happy?”
Tang Yilin was dazed for a moment, speaking with a tone of longing.
“Oh, I see. Yilin, come with me!”
Tang Ni acknowledged and then grasped Tang Yilin’s hand. Their figures vanished instantly from the air.
In the blink of an eye, they appeared high above the land of Wuzhou, tens of thousands of miles away.
Countless buildings and palaces filled their view, but a sinister aura of corpse energy enveloped all these structures. Merely seeing it was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
This was precisely the mountain gate of the Corpse Dao Sect, the largest power in the eastern Wuzhou region.
“This is?”
Tang Yilin hadn’t fully registered what was happening. Everything felt like a blur.
She only felt darkness before her eyes. Then, upon opening them again, these numerous palaces appeared before her. Feeling the disorienting corpse energy saturating the air, an involuntary chill of disgust ran through her body.
Tang Ni spoke impassively, “This is the mountain gate of the Corpse Dao Sect — a major force responsible for annihilating the Tang Family. I can erase it from the Divine Wind Continent now.”
“All existence is an illusion; aeons pass, extinction is eternal! Annihilation!”
Ignoring Tang Yilin’s reaction, Tang Ni spoke softly.
Sizzle sizzle sizzle!
As Tang Ni uttered these words, the massive stone hall before them truly began to fade gradually, showing signs of vanishing.
“What? Brother Tang Ni, what’s happening?”
Seeing the Corpse Dao Sect genuinely disappearing before her eyes, Tang Yilin’s beautiful eyes filled with shock and confusion, utterly baffled by the unfolding events.
“Haha, the pinnacle truly breeds loneliness! Yilin, you’ll understand someday!”
The Corpse Dao Sect vanished just like that. A lonely expression surfaced on Tang Ni’s face as he mumbled to himself.
Then he raised his head, gazing at the sky as if seeking to pierce through it. “The blue of the sky—is it its true color? Or is it the vast distance without end? The view from below is just like this!”
After this sorrowful chant, Tang Ni lifted his right hand as though trying to hoist the heavens. Sadness swam in his eyes. “Even freed from the cycle of life and death across countless rebirths—my soul undying, I indestructible—in the end, I remain bound by shackles! Let it end. The outcome was always certain, no matter the path.”
“Samsara, cycle!”
Madness blazed in Tang Ni’s eyes. He tipped his head back as if seeing into distant worlds, roaring at the top of his lungs.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The very heavens shifted at his gesture. Space, once placid, tore apart violently like rending fabric.
“Tang—!”
The instant she glimpsed the celestial upheaval, Tang Yilin’s eyes flashed with terror. But before she could utter another sound, shattered space swallowed her, and she vanished.
“Haha, haha! Huang Biaozi, genius though you are, you can’t escape Fate Destiny’s chains! Everything starts anew!”
Tang Ni didn’t resist. He stood calmly amidst dissolving space, awaiting Death’s embrace.
…
Thousands of miles away, deep within the Hundred Thousand Mountains, the Azure Dragon watched alongside Tang Jinbiao as the battle between the Red Worm and Young Master Ma raged in the distance.
“Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!”
Tang Jinbiao’s composure had shattered ever since seeing the Red Captain Wang. Now, gripped by madness, he frantically repeated “wrong” under his breath.
Sslash!
At that moment, space tore open violently before them. A monstrous vortex erupted, clawing to drag them in.
“Gah! Mother Dragon save me!”
The Azure Dragon shrieked at the sudden black hole—a sight stirring deep memories of his time with Huang Biaozi in the Nether Realm. Instinct kicked in; he recoiled hard.
“Arrgh!”
Yet another dark maw ruptured space behind his retreat path, sucking both into the void.
“Umph!”
Even Young Master Ma and the Red Worm, locked in heated combat, were abruptly engulfed by the devouring darkness, caught utterly off guard.
Everything on the Divine Wind Continent dissolved into oblivion. The entire Mortal Realm shattered beyond recognition, its doom wrought by Tang Ni’s hand.