Chapter 1157: Sending Off

Author: Three Hundred Jin's SmileLast Updated: July 20, 2020Chapter Word Count: 5390 words

He simply kept smiling.

Xu Zhi remained silent, standing quietly in the distance. He watched the old man, his life force ebbing away, the first god-devil to open up the heavens and earth.

He was an unyielding figure who had never wept—not when he wandered the desolate chaotic universe desperately seeking a future, not when he painstakingly carved out paths through monotonous repetition in his youth, nor even after slaughtering his disciples and unleashing the calamity of the dark god-devils. Yet now, at last, he was laughing while tears streamed down his face.

The heavens and earth were in turmoil; three Great Dao Saints had just achieved enlightenment only to fall, and various anomalies appeared simultaneously, dazzling like a meteor shower.

Yi Mang remained silent, and Xu Zhi continued to stand on the sidelines.

The meteor shower poured down, like a torrential rain across the heavens and earth, bidding farewell to the three great Saints of the cosmos.

After an unknown time in the rain, Yi Mang finally turned around, his face regaining its composure. "This universe is truly a realm of suffering, Dao brother. Let's go sit somewhere."

He returned to the planet they were on before.

Back in the vast grassland, it was raining there too—real raindrops pattering down. However, the rain was murky and irregular.

"The Great Dao of Heaven and Earth still needs perfecting," Yi Mang mumbled, sitting at the edge of a pond in the rain. "For instance, this rainwater is quite unappealing."

Xu Zhi sat in the rain as well, watching the water without speaking.

Suddenly, wailing cries came from nearby.

"Master, Master, how could you just die of old age...?""Master...""This isn't the aging and death reserved for Great Dao Saints, is it? Master hasn't even achieved enlightenment!"

A group of black monkey students were prostrate on the grassland, weeping and wailing over the corpse of an old monkey.

"So... beings are born amidst cries and depart amidst cries." Yi Mang's gaze, however, swept past the wailing on that part of the grassland and took in the entire plain.

On the previously vibrant grassland, withered weeds had appeared, and animals were beginning to die of old age.

"Everything is no longer full of vitality. This world developed very quickly before, even recovering so rapidly after the great destruction...." He picked up a withered weed and murmured, "Because even the grass was immortal; it just kept growing, furiously absorbing cosmic matter without any cycle of decay and renewal. Of course, it developed very quickly at first, but now it will slow down and become balanced."

"Now is a new era, the era of acquired beings; they must be cut down." Yi Mang smiled. "I had no choice but to kill those three disciples."

"I know," Xu Zhi replied.

"I had to bring them into the grave, to fall with me."

Yi Mang's expression was calm and unruffled. "The question my ninth disciple, Nü Yi, asked me years ago has always reminded me: Is the decay of life merely coincidental, or is eternal life destined to decay in the future? To this day, I have no answer. I can penetrate all the mysterious rules of the universe and deduce its end, but I cannot penetrate the hearts of living beings. The only thing I could do was to make them martyrs, to let them achieve sainthood at their most glorious moment in life—in their youth, full of dreams and aspirations—before their potential decay. They established imperfect rules for the universe, but as the enforcers of these 'rules,' they could ignore them. Therefore, I had to take them with me, lest they decay in the future and potentially overturn everything established today."

The three disciples who had achieved sainthood were the only beings who could transcend the established lifespan rules. At this point, Yi Mang chose to take them all with him, to fall together. From this moment on, no one in this universe could ever again bypass the predetermined lifespan limits.

Xu Zhi knew what he was thinking: he wanted to eliminate all variables before his departure.

"Ha, I truly am a sinner! Since my birth, the entire universe has been good to me; all my disciples have revered, loved, and fanatically followed me with pure hearts. Yet I killed seven of them; I am unworthy of being called their benevolent master..." Yi Mang let out a laugh, mockingly adding, "The world treated me with sincerity, but I failed the world... I am indeed a sinner unlike any other in history."

Xu Zhi remained silent for a moment, not responding.

"Is there nothing you want to say to me?" Xu Zhi suddenly asked.

"Something to say?" Yi Mang suddenly laughed, and his voice grew faint. He lingered for a moment in the rain, bathing in the final moments of his life, as raindrops fell, seemingly washing away the sins of his existence. "A long time ago, I always wanted to know who you were, and I had a deep obsession with it. But now, it no longer matters. I've experienced so much, endured so much; the burdens I carry have become suffocating. I no longer want to understand new things; I've lost the drive of my youth. As my disciple said, I've decayed; my youthful thirst for knowledge is gone..."

"Dao brother, perhaps you are from a prehistoric universe? Or perhaps you are the consciousness of the entire universe? It no longer matters."

Xu Zhi simply smiled as he listened.

Yi Mang was truly more open-minded than ever before. He had experienced too much, and the burdens he carried were unimaginable. No one in his position could have done better than him.

The heavy rain continued. The curtain of rain beat against the grass; everything seemed shrouded in mist, and in the distance, students on the lawn were still wailing, clutching their teacher's corpse.

"I wonder what this limited mortal realm will be like in the future, a world where mortals will age and die just like celestials? It's a pity I won't have the chance to see it," Yi Mang said, a hint of regret flashing in his eyes as he looked at them.

Xu Zhi paused, then suddenly couldn't help but laugh. "In the world to come, now that everyone has a lifespan, their time will no longer be wasted as it is now, aimlessly passing like in chaos. Over hundreds of millions to tens of billions of years in the future, beings will begin to cherish time, eager to seize every second to achieve brilliance in their finite existence. They will live in the present, for the moment, composing anthems with their limited lives. Time will be utilized very efficiently then; much can happen within a few centuries. Unlike now, when time is not valued during long ages, the universe will unfold many incredibly exciting stories, centered around the themes of 'finite' and 'infinite'."

As Yi Mang listened to Xu Zhi's description, he gradually turned to him, his eyes sparkling with a strange light. He suddenly burst into hearty laughter, completely unburdened and forthright. "If so much can happen in a few centuries, then in tens of billions of years, won't it be unimaginably vast? If that is the case, my Dao is sufficient! I can depart with peace of mind!"

His voice gradually weakened.

Xu Zhi knew that Yi Mang's last lingering worry had been resolved. Even though he had made such deductions, he wasn't sure what the future would truly hold, or whether he was right or wrong. This aged man, at the end of his life, had always been terrified that his actions at this moment were mistaken. But Xu Zhi's explanation brought him complete peace and release, making all his sacrifices truly worthwhile.

In the final moments of his life, Yi Mang talked a lot with Xu Zhi. Xu Zhi's intellectual prowess was far inferior to that of this great being who opened the heavens and earth, but his knowledge was highly developed, coming from a future more than ten billion years away, allowing him to gain much insight.

Yi Mang's voice grew fainter and fainter; in his final moment, he was very happy and departed without regrets.

At the very end, Xu Zhi couldn't help but ask him, "Is Tenth Stage the ultimate, with no further realms beyond it?"

Back then, Yi Mang had slaughtered his own disciples and become a being of five Great Dao bloodlines, all in an attempt to prolong his life, to struggle and find another path, but he had failed.

Yet, Xu Zhi still couldn't resist asking one last question: "Is there a realm beyond the Tenth Stage?"

"Beyond the Tenth Stage?" Yi Mang's voice grew lower and lower, tinged with decay. "There are no more realms. How could there be? The Eleventh Stage, that's just a vague, illusory concept..." He suddenly froze, his expression rigid, then looked sharply towards the end of his lifespan. It was as if he had finally grasped something completely after allowing his disciples to achieve sainthood. "That is a contradictory realm that doesn't exist, but perhaps... it does exist?"

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