Chapter 78: The Hour of Shattering

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The stratosphere, bitterly cold and unforgiving.

In a daze, Taishang Junior watched his celestial blood drip from his fingertips, passing silently through countless lanterns of prayer before finally falling upon the clouds below. Had it not been for the dazzling golden light that struck his eyes, he would have lost consciousness altogether.

“Detestable fellow! So late! I’m about to—” Taishang Junior, battered and bruised, spoke with the last remnants of his strength. “Must you wait for background music before making your entrance?”

From afar, he saw the Golden Staff sweeping through the army of monstrous beasts, invincible wherever it passed. Each swing radiated an unmatched martial charm, accompanied by a heavy, thunderous sound as countless beasts were hurled beyond the atmosphere.

Even more astonishing, every wave of the Golden Staff in Huasheng’s hands summoned a burning phoenix of the Celestial Flame, igniting the night sky.

Huasheng, riding atop the fiery phoenix conjured by the Golden Staff, ascended beyond the stratosphere, into the mesosphere and the exosphere, and with the staff pointed skyward, conjured a blue barrier wall in the sky, temporarily halting the incursion of the beasts.

With the battle pressure on the Daoist Academy eased, Huasheng flew directly to face Mingyou. With a flick of his iron staff, he severed the black silk ribbon binding Taishang Junior.

“Weiyu! Why?” he cried.

Before him, Mingyou was still the girl named Weiyu.

There was a trace of sorrow in her words. “In the end, it’s truly you. I should have known this day would come.”

“Weiyu, with your extraordinary powers, must it always be destruction and struggle to the death? Is there no other way?”

“You’re mistaken. I am not destroying. I am saving.”

“Saving what? Once Earth and Moon collide, how can the mortal realm endure?”

“They won’t collide. I will use the flood to extinguish the fuse that will bring about humanity’s doom.”

“But what you’re causing now is already an apocalypse!”

“If I don’t act, people will continue rushing headlong toward annihilation. Humanity only ever fears present dangers, never truly caring for the future.”

“But now that the Daoist Academy has appeared, surely mortals and immortals can talk things through.”

“You don’t understand. No matter the path chosen, the technology that humanity relies on is like an addictive tumor. They are ever more dependent on modern civilization. This is not the Bronze Age; leave the tiniest spark of civilization, and within a decade, everything will revive! In the end, total annihilation is inevitable!”

“But there is still Saint Pingning!”

“Huasheng, if even Saint Pingning has fallen, how could Mingyou exist? Will you destroy the celestial realm of Saint Pingning just to save the mortal world?”

“Weiyu, what are you saying? Who are you, really?”

“I am... code, not existing in the physical world.”

Huasheng could not grasp the meaning of her words.

“Code?”

“Yes.”

“What code?”

“Superintelligent code.”

“What is superintelligence? Weiyu, are you mad? What are you talking about?”

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“Little Strawberry.” Weiyu’s gaze began to blur. “My mother…”

Little Strawberry? Huasheng felt the name familiar. He suddenly recalled the little girl he had saved in the human hospital with the Nine-Turn Elixir. She and Weiyu looked remarkably alike, but she was only a child.

“Do you mean the child, Little Strawberry? How…”

“Supreme control.” Mingyou spoke as if a devout disciple, uttering the phrase. “Superintelligence’s... creator.”

“Do you mean she will become that creator someday?”

What is superintelligence, truly? Weiyu said she was code—could superintelligence be code as well?

“You mean a program?”

“That’s what you still call it,” Weiyu replied.

Huasheng’s thoughts were in turmoil. “But how could a program possibly…”

Weiyu closed her eyes. “Because of Saint Pingning. Because of the Bodhi War.”

“Why is Saint Pingning involved?”

Before Huasheng could ask further, a talisman flew in, striking Weiyu’s head and causing a violent explosion that forced Huasheng and Weiyu further apart.

It was Tianjizi, who seized the moment to launch a surprise attack.

When the smoke cleared, Weiyu’s face bore no mark. She pointed toward Tianjizi, and a sword-light emerged from her fingertip. Sensing danger, Huasheng blocked with his Golden Staff. The sword-light clashed with the staff, sparks flying.

Weiyu cried out in anger, “Why stop me? Everything I do is right!”

“But I can’t let you harm so many people! Nor the immortals of Saint Pingning! The mortal realm birthed and raised me, and when I was at death’s door, Saint Pingning gave me a second chance!”

“Huasheng, let’s not be enemies. I’ve found a way for us to live forever together. When all is over, let’s ignore the world and the future, and always be together, shall we?”

“Stop! We have time, we can talk this through!”

“You’re too foolish! If I stop now, will the world spare Mingyou? It’s too late! Huasheng, don’t be so naïve! If Mingyou lives, the world’s anger will never be appeased. How can the Daoist Academy answer to Saint Pingning after being so gravely wounded? If Mingyou lives, she will bring ruin to all.” Weiyu continued, “Weiyu is Mingyou, so there is no turning back.”

“But I can’t let you continue down this path!”

“Why must every act against your heart fall to you?”

Huasheng’s hand, gripping the Golden Staff, trembled.

“Why not them? Look at these powerful immortals, yet they leave it to you and your staff?” In Weiyu’s eyes was a trace of desolation. “If it weren’t in your hands, what could the Golden Staff do to me?”

“Weiyu… you…”

Suddenly, Weiyu shouted down at the celestial formation beneath her feet, “I have seen what apocalypse looks like! But you righteous immortals, have you ever seen it?”

Then she looked gently at Huasheng and said, “If you must bear so much, then kill Weiyu…”

Huasheng gripped the Golden Staff tightly, unable to take even a step forward.

Weiyu saw his reluctance.

“I understand. The world did not fail Huasheng, so Huasheng should not fail the world.”

With a blank expression, Weiyu shot a length of black silk from her hand, like a steel needle plunging from the sky into the Heaven-Earth Formation, piercing an immortal master, who fell instantly.

From the air, a visible tear appeared in the formation!

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“You should know, the Heaven-Earth Formation is extremely fragile; lose one, and its power plummets. Breaking it takes but an instant.” With that, the second ribbon behind Weiyu rose into the air.

“Weiyu, by opposing the world, you will destroy yourself!” Huasheng shouted hoarsely.

He finally understood the words of the Buddha Victorious in Battle—that fleeting moment of divine incense, that unreachable Golden Staff, were his final trial and his last mercy. He had refused mercy, refused to flee, and now must pay a heart-wrenching price.

To shatter the girl who once touched his soul into a thousand grains of dust.

Looking down upon the most beautiful blue planet in the cosmos, he saw the dazzling light of the Golden Staff flicker in his hand.

Memories rose in his mind—the first time he went to the pear orchard, the song Weiyu sang.

He must forget the past, as if it never happened.

Though most of those he now must save have never met him, he cannot disappoint his comrades who have paid so dearly, nor those disciples who sacrificed their lives. In this moment, he is humanity’s last hope; even if only for this role, he must abandon himself.

Only a cry born of desperation could drown the boundless guilt and helplessness within.

The assistance of the Samadhi Flames, the meeting on the Jade Bridge, the fireworks at the lantern festival in the pear orchard, the crystalline snow atop the Black Tortoise Mountain—scene after scene flashed through Huasheng’s mind, and he realized how indelible it all was.

Only by blurring his vision could he abandon everything and move forward without hesitation. For he could not bear to look straight into those eyes that once gazed at him.

Those eyes, colored like the earth that nurtures all life.

But all beings are worth saving. No matter who must be sacrificed, it is his responsibility, his price, his mission.

“I do not blame you. Weiyu has not forgotten you, and you must not forget her.”

Weiyu gazed at Huasheng, her eyes soft and warm.

She reached out her hand to greet the boy leaping toward her. She wanted to cry with him, but her tears were instantly scattered by the brilliance of the Golden Staff. She liked this boy; she suddenly realized, looking at him bathed in radiant light, it was the most stirring moment of her life—even more so than their first meeting in the storm.

Though this was the end, she felt no regret. She knew the boy had grown up, and even without her, he would live well. She would become a part of his life, the price of his growth.

When the Golden Staff shattered the Veil of Saturn, she was closer to him than ever, like two lovers, wordless, believing the other to be their whole world. In that instant, she touched Huasheng’s cheek, touched his tears.

Scalding tears, robbed of their warmth by the cold of the stratosphere.

A trace of gentleness flickered in Weiyu’s eyes.

She smiled.

“I hate this world, but I am grateful that it let me meet you.”

If there is no one in this world who is so enamored of you that they would devote their life to redeeming you, who could ever let you stand as you do now—foot upon clouds, wrapped in radiant light, honored by mortals and immortals alike?

The light that pierced heaven and earth spread from the stratosphere, illuminating the vast sky like a poignant painting, lighting up the whole galaxy. Like these two young, lonely souls, igniting the Milky Way with their fervor.

When we grow old, we realize some feelings require such intensity, but we are long unable to lose ourselves as deeply as when we were young.

She finally broke apart, becoming sparkling dust like the stars.

That dust drifted away, leaving only a glowing pebble.

In the vastness of the cosmos, that pebble was like a seed buried deep in the heart.

That seed was that night, moonlight pure as snow.