下一章 (Chapter 651)

The starry sky, an endless ocean of glittering lights and constellations; was now an empty vacuum of space, a void absent of light.

“You are the last otherworldly constellation*, the last remnant star to dare defy his fate.” Du Yufei began to speak. “Look around you, there is nothing in this desolate world worth fighting for. The universal board, once an immutable pillar to this world’s stability, is now crumbling into dust and decay. There is no longer any fate, any destiny! You seek to reverse all this death and destruction… what blind futility-! You companions are dead, their threads of fate, cut and burnt! What do you hope to gain from struggling all this time?!”

Sean Wu did not answer. His back faced the ground as he lied on the celestial body, unmoving. His hair, once long and flowing, was now burnt and charred, and covering half his face. His Daoist robe, once glowing white and enveloped a golden aura, was now tattered in loose threads.

A silence overcame the two. Du Yufei stood there, still and undaunting. Across the infinite expanse and vacuum of space, a darkened figure stirred. Sean Wu gradually got up and cocked his head. There was no need for any further discussion, his gaze was indomitable and resolute. Sadness, anger, sorrow, melancholy, regret; a nigh-endless tide of emotions came over him, but his weary demeanor- his expression, did not change.

With long flowing hair, he straightened his back and readied his blade. Du Yufei saw this and did no further to continue any meaningless attempts to dissuade him. Sean raised his violet world-slayer, the blade resonated with an aura of life and desolation; an unborn life, of unlimited prospects and talent, could no longer be born into the world; a legendary figure whose feats and exploits would change the very face of the era, would never rise to appear; a beautiful woman, her loving expression contrasting her snarky words, now faded from memory and existence; the faces of loved ones, friends and family flashed as the blade began to brightly glow.

Pang Zi… Fa Shu…. Mu Lao Hu… An Waoyi… Ku Meng Jun… Baek Gun Min.. Won Tian Fang... Fu Bao Luwei... Ga Yao... Duk Ma Bei.. Wu Dakang... Li Tian.. An Kan Mi.. Fei Bak Chai.. Koudai Fang Jin.. Ming Xi Lacai... Sun Tian Wu... Fu Di.. Wucai Han Li.. Yu Din.. Bai Qinbek...

A single tear fell from the young man’s cheek, disappearing into empty darkness beneath him. Sean remembered his journey through it all. The ups and downs; the times of laughter and sorrow; the hardships of cultivation, of fighting through life and death. So many people, their lives and destinies cut short so that he himself could live in this world. Sean thought to himself, if he had not met Pang Zi, that humorous fellow, would he have not met such an early demise? Where would he be now…?

There is no need to dwell on such thoughts.

Sean’s moment of reflection lasted for only a brief time. He thought back to his two hundred years of cultivation, a vast amount of time, yet so very short;

So this is how it ends.

The violet sword his hands, now a collapsing star, grew brighter with each unperceivable passing measurement of time.

As the light began to fade completely, as consciousness and will, existence and memory; fate and destiny- all these things which once existed; unto the world itself which once teemed with life, as everything began to fade away… a distant voice resounded within his head…

“There is dao within every living being; anyone and anything can ponder the dao; what conclusions they arrive at can only be considered their own. What… is your dao?”

“Imagination!” Sean Wu quietly muttered.

“Slaughter!” As if the two had arrived to a conclusion at the same time, from across the expanse of space, a distant Du Yufei yelled as he charged.

..

Without thought, there is no reason; without reason, there is no self; what use is there to ponder that which cannot be perceived, cannot be understood… the dao is vast and endless, it exists within anything and everything. When one cultivates past a certain point, he seeks to form his own dao, to form his own dao; he controls this aspect, and wills it into absolution!

My dao is within reason, it is above reason. Without reason, there is no logic; without logic… anything is possible! This will of mine, this imagination and dao are limitless!

One blade to cut forth space, one stroke to slice apart time. One thread to connect life, one cut to sever an existence!

Du Yufei drew near, with him came the same attack he used to destroy all life across the starry sky. A devilish expression could be seen on his face. This attack would be his strongest yet, an attack to invoke meaning behind his lifetime of pondering the dao.

“結束動作(Ultimate Move), Universe-Encompassing Fist!!”

A further distance away, beyond any perceivable point in space and time, at the end of this nigh-unstoppable attack, a young man named Sean Wu took his last breath.

Qi Fudai… Ji Mo Fan…. Shi Huang Djin… Bai Hao…

A smile formed across his lips, as the light began to envelop him, his being, and very essence. At the center of a collapsing star, where there once existed a shining bright sword, a black hole began to form which not even light, space, and time could escape its grasps- No, it was something even greater. Space and time were mutable concepts grounded in reality, this was an attack that dared to even tear those laws apart. Du Yufei grimaced and shouted at the top of his lungs, intending to diverge himself from the path, however no sound escaped his mouth.

As all of space and time began to condense within a finite point, a fleeting thought, which once belong to a young man, loved by his companions and everyone around him, finally came to a complete stop.

“結束動作(Ultimate Move), I am Nuclear!“ Sean laughed.

And then, there was nothing.

結束

THE END

EPILOGUE

White waves crashed against rocks beneath a cliff. Across a golden grass field, and accompanied by a light breeze, a young woman opened her eyes.

“Little Mo, what am I going to do with you. Falling asleep wherever you please.” A middle aged woman with sharp eyes and silver hair stood beside her. This person was Dia Shixuang, Ji Mo Fan’s dao protector and mentor.

“….I had a dream. There was a young man, I cannot remember his face. I died in his arms.” Ji Mo Fan brought a finger to her cheek, as if feeling the spot where the tears from his eyes fell on her face. “It was so vivid. My death, his pained expression.”

The woman beside her did not speak. Dia Shixuang continued to face the ocean, with arms crossed behind her back as if reminiscing a scene she could no longer recall. A young man, with black hair fluttering his the wind. His eminent figure, hiding a lifetime of pain behind a veil of jokes and laughter. She too had a vivid thought of such a person. This person, who did not exist. Dia Shixuang paused for a moment, before turning to look at her apprentice. “Let us go, nightfall is approaching.”

Ji Mo smiled, “yes, master.”

Underneath an orange sky of golden accents of yellow brush strokes, where the sounds of ambient birds drew ever so farther in the distance, an apprentice and master duo walked off into the horizon.

With the setting sun, another day comes.

So too flows, the river of time. Unending, unceasing.

Author’s Note:

Thank you to all my readers who accompanied me through these 8 years.

Writing this novel has been my life’s work, and now it is complete.

It has been a pleasure writing Sean Wu’s character growth through these ~ 650 chapters,

Please support my next work!

TL/ Reader Q & A:

Question: So what exactly happened in the end? Did Sean Wu die? Did Du Yufei succeed in destroying the universe?

Translator Answer: That’s a tough one to answer. The author was somewhat vague in the aftermath of what happened. I’ll try to answer these in order.

Regarding the end, It is heavily implied that both Sean Wu and Du Yufei were obliterated from existence after being encompassed by the existence beyond that of a black hole, however it was never explicitly stated. And yes, Du Yufei did succeed in destroying all life in the universe since only him and Sean Wu remained in the end, however, Du Yufei did not entirely succeed in destroying the foundation of the universe. Even if all life were obliterated in the present, the river of time would still persists, meaning in a different timeline, everyone would still be going on about their lives unhindered with the exception of both Du Yufei and Sean Wu, since they were both “apparently” obliterated from existence. They will not be present in any further timelines. Had Du Yufei had succeeded in destroying the foundation of the world, then everything would associated with the world would no longer exist, including past, present, and future.

Question: I don’t understand what’s going on. What is the universal board, and how does it tie into the destruction of the universe and the river of time?

Translator Answer: If you go back and read chapter 310, it should give you a general understanding of why things are the way they are. To give you a brief explanation, Sean Wu is an otherworldly star*, someone who is unbound by the “will of heaven”. Every living thing in the world is bound by the strands of fate, dictated by heaven’s will. For example, Pang Zi and An Waoyi were supposed to live on to become pillars of the orthodox society. As heaven’s will would have it, their fate was to live on a member of the center council. Instead, they gave up their lives to save Sean Wu in chapters 110 and 271 respectively. The two of them were not supposed to die in this way. Sean Wu, being an otherworldly star*, is not bound by fate and time. As you just read, he is filled with conflicting emotions because everyone he met along the way was an unintentional stepping stone for him to get this far. They gave up their lives so that he could live, and ultimately, fight Du Yufei.

The universal board was never explicitly stated to be physical or corporeal. One could it imagine it to be a large board, stretching far across the vast expanse of space, interweaving the constellations (fates and destinies) of those currently born into the world. It could also be “symbolism” for a transcendent cultivator’s ability to look into ‘net’ of the world and see what talents are bound to rise, rather than being physically present. We don’t know. Nevertheless, heaven’s will IS the universal board, whether physically or conceptually, and all we know is that Du Yufei somehow reached a cultivation realm that allowed him to tear the universal board apart, either in concept or physically. In addition to Du Yufei, Sean Wu’s original goal was to destroy the universal board as well. Of course, the difference between Sean Wu and Du Yufei is that Sean Wu wants to destroy the board to give everyone an equal chance to live their lives, unhindered by fate and destiny. Du Yufei, on the other hand, follows the dao of slaughter and destruction, he wants to sever his connection to the world and reach for a higher realm unrestraint, going so far as to target the river of time.

If the universal board is the control system imparting heaven’s will, then the river of time is the hidden cog beneath the engine that unceasingly turns to keep everything running. You can destroy the control systems to cease unwanted interference, but you still need to deal with the root of the machine to stop its function. The river of time provides a separate “save and load state” for everything which currently or could “exist” in the world. Despite there being an immeasurable number of separate ‘timelines’, as heaven’s will would have it, most of them will end up flowing along the same track. However, in some of these tracks, the presence of an otherworldly star could cause a chain reaction, severing the strands of fate and leading to unforeseen changes. Sean Wu is otherworldly star that can defy fate and destiny, passively influencing everyone he interacts with and those around him. However, with the universal board now destroyed across all timelines, we are left open endings as to how things turn out.

Question:Is Du Yufei an otherworldly star? Why was he trying to destroy the world?

Translator Answer: Du Yufei is a different case. He is not an otherworldly star, however he somehow broke free of the strands of fate and cultivated to such a transcendent level that he could break free and rival heaven’s will for control over his concept of “self” (dao). The author never clarifies how this happened as normally heaven’s will would never make such a mistake. Du Yufei wanted to tear apart the foundations of the world to break free and see what comes after, as he was essentially confined within a ‘fishbowl’. We are never given concrete details as to whether there is anything past the world itself, so whether he could have succeeded is left to speculation.

Question: Can someone explain the epilogue? Were Dia Shixuang and Ji Mo Fan revived?

Translator Answer: The epilogue was added to the author’s blog two months after the novel ended. The two we see in the epilogue are separate versions of them from another timeline. This passage also confirms earlier suspicions, Sean Wu is entirely absent from the cycle of reincarnation, having obliterated himself and Du Yufei from existence. We do, however, see traces of him in temporary thoughts, implying that he is not entirely lost. Maybe we will receive a definitive answer in future novels that may reference his whereabouts or ultimate fate.