As the radiance of the Sword of Virtue gradually faded, the Dark Ocean had vanished without a trace. Along with the lives of the past, all had been extinguished by Huai Shi's own hands.
A crumbling sound ca from atop the Gear Emperor.
Adam, who once tilled Paradise, ultimately t his destruction alongside Hell, crumbling rapidly to reveal the decaying husk below.
Huai Shi pulled out the Sword Blade and collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
As everything drew to an end, he didn't feel the relief of a burden lifted. Instead, he felt the wearying emptiness and helplessness of a long road that led nowhere.
"I'm sorry."
He lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you all."
No one responded.
In the silence, he looked up at the phantasmal lights rising and fading in the sky.
A serene darkness covered everything.
Until the very end, this part of Hell had never seen the sunrise.
"Such a world... is too... ridiculous..."
A hoarse whisper ca from behind him.
That was the first ti Huai Shi heard the Sun Caster's voice. Startled, he turned and saw the figure amidst the wreckage on the throne raise its head.
How could this be... It was not dead yet.
Despite the brutal, penetrating wound in its chest, it propped itself up.
And so, it gazed down at the Hell beneath its feet, gazed at the world it had protected for endless ages—its final holand.
It was unclear if this was reminiscence or mockery, or perhaps a heart full of the pain and anger of bygone eras.
A fervent light began to shine from within the gradually collapsing husk.
A violent surge of Source Fluctuation erupted.
A gale swept by, plunging Huai Shi's vision into darkness. He subconsciously raised his hand to shield his eyes and felt the ruined tower beneath him tremble violently.
Countless tal particles coalesced from the dust. In the Sun Caster's hands, they outlined an intricate matrix that shrank inward. Then, another layer of the matrix erged, took shape, and contracted inward. This process repeated thousands of tis, forming a miniature sun that perpetually churned and burned.
Surrounded by layers of tallic solar discs, it resonated with everything in the world, forming a complete structure and outline. This was the Forger's furnace.
Like the Wind Lamp carried by the Variator, the tools personally crafted by each Forger were treasures belonging only to them—their second life, unequivocally. And now, the Sun Caster's furnace ignited once more.
A violent despair erged from within it, transforming into a dark green halo that radiated in all directions. Huai Shi gasped.
Such a scale of despair and Curse... He finally understood where the Dark Ocean that once filled this place had gone. It's in the Sun Caster's hands now!
It had swallowed all the pain and despair of its forr kin!
Now, intense Source Fluctuations spread from that Mystic Ritual-like structure. Huai Shi's Hand of Confinent sensed a power as vast as a star moving before his very eyes.
It was as precise as if guided by a hundred hands and a thousand eyes, so massive it seed to aim to encompass all of Hell within it.
It was actually a miniature Eternal Frozen Heart! A Forge Furnace that imprisoned only the Sun Caster itself!
A piercing alarm blared once more from the Iron Crystal Throne. The Sun Caster's actions had stirred everyone's sensitive nerves, causing them to look up in shock and cast wary, cautious gazes towards this place. Then, after tens of millions of years, the Sun Caster's forging began anew.
Iron, zinc, copper, manganese, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium... Countless elents rose from the shattered Town of Dusk, flowing towards it, plunging into that miniature sun.
Flas ascended, engulfing the fragnted husk. Then, from the dissipating ashes and dust, an iron-colored skeleton erged, followed by nerves, fascia, internal organs, and finally, skin.
When the flas died out, solemn and cold vestnts re-erged from history, draping the Sun Caster's body. Its pale, tallic-hued hair drifted in the air.
Clutching the Eternal Frozen Heart forged from despair, the Sun Caster raised its eyes once more.
Gazing at everything before it.
The shrill alarm spread wildly atop the Iron Crystal Throne.
"Warning! Warning! The Sun Caster's threat level is rising!"
The communications director, drenched in sweat, stared at the chanical analysis result.
At first, it was rely a Naming Giver. Then, it suddenly advanced to a Clothed one, and as a matter of course, broke through to beco a Crowned one. After that, its level began to skyrocket at an unbelievable speed…
Finally, it barely crossed the deadly red line, stopping in the most lethal zone.
—[Ruler]!
Rejecting both salvation and its end, it chose to truly embrace the Abyss and achieve solidification.
Having consud the despair of its kin accumulated over tens of millions of years, the last remnant of the Forger's soul crossed the most terrifying boundary. With the Abyss's blessing, it had beco a supre Ruler!
Its re gaze made the Hell before it tremble. Its very existence cast a vast shadow that covered both night and dusk!
Now, as Huai Shi sat on the ground gazing at her face, he raised his hand in disbelief, pointed at her, and finally blurted out his discovery:
"You... No, wait... You're a woman?"
"..."
In the silence, the newborn Ruler looked down at Huai Shi, a hint of puzzlent in her slender eyes. Is there sothing wrong with this person? she wondered. Why care about such an insignificant physical characteristic?
A single glance from her made Huai Shi's vision darken. He felt his soul tremble. It's like facing that endless sea of despair all over again...
Without a word, the Sun Caster raised her palm toward Huai Shi's face. Her slender fingers pressed against his face and pushed gently.
Huai Shi's vision went black, as if a speeding train had slamd into his face. He flew backward uncontrollably.
Yet, his physical body hadn't moved. Instead, the Soloist's Stigma within him was effortlessly ejected from his fra by that simple push, powerless to resist.
The enormous Stigma unfurled in the void behind Huai Shi. Surging darkness erged, and the Buried Sacred Place abruptly manifested, enveloping everything... only to be ticulously examined from top to bottom in an instant.
After tens of epochs, the nature of beings called Sublimators, their techniques, the principles of the Soul and Stigma, and the existence of Divine Nature—none of these held any secrets. All were understood at a glance.
"Um..."
Amidst his panic, Huai Shi gradually cald himself. Looking at the entranced Sun Caster, he tentatively asked, "Could you, perhaps, let stand up first? The ground is rather cold... Hello? Are you there? Your Excellency... Sun Caster?"
She finally looked over at him.
Even though he faced such an imnse being, he unexpectedly felt no premonition of death, no Death Perception... just a sudden panic in his heart. What is she planning to do?
"So... that's how it is..."
The Sun Caster murmured softly, the tiny Eternal Frozen Heart in her hand unfolding once again.
The congealed dark despair transford into a tsunami, sweeping over once more, solidifying into substance, pouring into Huai Shi's body, roiling and flowing.
In the glow of the miniature sun, Huai Shi's body floated up from the ground, his eyes wide with confusion. Then he felt a burning sensation from his right hand...
His Hand of Confinent, his very Soul, was forcibly manifested. Then, a complex, qualitative change he couldn't comprehend began to erge from within his Soul.
His arm began to transform, rging with his Soul, and started to emit faint strands of tallic light.
As his skin and muscles split apart and levitated, countless intricate, minuscule structures rewove themselves within him, as if he were being reforged in a furnace. This process caused his Soul, body, and Stigma to rapidly fuse into one.
He had ford a Forge Furnace structure, identical to that of the Forgers!
She had not only granted Huai Shi an ascension, helping him complete the fusion of his Soul and Stigma, but had also casually modified and inserted a miniature furnace core into him.
In his shock, Huai Shi realized that from this day forward... he might, just maybe, also be able to call himself a 'Forger'!
And that was not all. As if deeming this work too simple, the Sun Caster presided over the furnace's reconstruction with one hand, while her other hand reached for the Stigma behind Huai Shi.
The Buried Sacred Place trembled violently and then disintegrated into countless fragnts of darkness.
His Source Substance was activated by her and blended into the new Forge Furnace ford from the Hand of Confinent. Then, she began to personally demonstrate the pinnacle techniques of the Forgers to Huai Shi.
The Variator's favored [Bioreconstruction], The Constant's mastered [Equilibrium Scale], The Grower's specialized [Nirvana tamorphosis]... and finally, her own ultimate achievent, the [Unity of All Origins].
In a re instant, Huai Shi vicariously experienced the essence of the Forgers' inherited skills.
Actually, from the very start, Huai Shi had been too dazzled to grasp the complex operations. The Sun Caster seed to have no intention of explaining, rely demonstrating the outcos and directions of the thirteen paths one by one.
Huai Shi could only rely on the Book of Fate to forcibly record everything, resolving to study it all later at his leisure.
At this mont, he was like an apprentice, a puppet on strings, tirelessly imrsed in the forging process under his ntor's guidance, with no ti to comprehend what he was actually doing.
By the ti he finally ca to his senses, the Buried Sacred Place behind him had trembled violently and rapidly disintegrated into countless shreds of darkness. From within, a vast tide of crows howled forth, spreading to cover the sky.
Countless black feathers were shed, replaced by a cold, steely gleam.
It was steel, condensed from Apocalypse!
The massive Iron Crows spread their wings, revealing countless sharp steel feathers. Beneath those feathers lay bodies constructed of intricate machinery, their eyes like crimson gemstones, their entire forms reflecting a sinister, iron gleam.
With the transformation and sublimation of their Source Substance, the vast Crow Flock underwent a colossal change Huai Shi had never anticipated.
"HOLY!!!"
The chanical crows were not the least bit uneasy or confused by their transformation. They even habitually shouted with excitent, hopping and jumping with undeniable exuberance.
And so, they spread their wings, soaring unprotected through the skies of this Hell, unafraid of its terrifying depths or the Abyss's erosion.
When their iron wings collided, they struck dazzling sparks, and piercing sounds echoed in all directions.
"This is... a thank-you gift... for you..."
A dry voice arose before Huai Shi.
As if she hadn't spoken in a very long ti, the Sun Caster's voice was utterly devoid of inflection, possessing a robotic and unsettling calmness.
When she released her hand, a heavy, grey-black Iron Ingot materialized from thin air and landed in Huai Shi's arms.
It was a crystallization of despair that had flowed from the Eternal Frozen Heart—the very essence of innurable Curses and sufferings.
After one last glance at Huai Shi, she turned and walked away.
"Wait, where are you going?"
Huai Shi stood there stunned. Forgetting his exhaustion and the heavy feeling, he instinctively reached out to grab her, but his hand grasped only air.
That solitary figure paused for a mont and told him, "Revenge."
That single word. It was uttered without the slightest hesitation, for it had long been etched into the deepest recesses of her soul, along with all the pain and despair her people had endured, becoming the most profound Curse.
Before her, a steel gate slowly swung open, revealing endless darkness and terrifying silhouettes beyond.
And so, rejecting the salvation so close at hand, the solitary Sun Caster stepped deeper into the Abyss.
She was going to confront her past enemies, to exact vengeance for their blood debts!
The gate slamd shut thunderously behind her, and she vanished with it, without a trace. This ordeal was far from over.
There was still an entire blood feud to be settled, but that no longer concerned Huai Shi.
He remained dazed for a long while before finally collapsing backward. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
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