Chapter 385: The End (Part 2)

  The blow landed.

  This was truly not empty space. The strike, which had poured in all of his soul, all of his spirit, and all of his strength, had already cleaved into the opponent's body. He could clearly feel how his power, his spirit, and his soul had swept away all obstacles on this body—cutting open the collarbone, snapping the ribs, tearing through the muscles, slicing the organs—and then exited from the waist.

  It was not just the destruction of the physical body; everything was shattered and decomposed under this one strike. Whether it was the grey armor around the Lich King's body, the surprisingly tough muscles and bones within, or that mysterious and inscrutable functional structure, before his congealed, condensed, and burning-hot will to fight, killing intent, and power, they all disintegrated like frost.

  What he struck out with was not a blade, but himself. He had condensed all that he was into an unprecedented point of concentration and cleaved it into the Lich King's body.

  No matter what the power, as long as it can be condensed to its peak, it is the strongest, the clearest. Before him, in this unprecedented state of utmost clarity and concentration, nothing seemed able to resist.

  Just like that, he had won? He was victorious? Ethan knew very well that under this strike, everything had been destroyed. No matter what that body was, it had been split in two. But Ethan felt not the slightest bit of excitement. Because the Lich King had not dodged or parried, but had simply stood there, motionless, waiting for his strike.

  At this moment, the Lich King suddenly extended his hand and grasped Ethan's. It was a very strange sensation. Though cold, it was not rigid, even having a softness that was gradually dying. There was no hostility, like the handshake of a friend. This sensation did not just remain on the skin, but extended into his body, his spirit, to the very depths of his senses. What was being grasped was not a hand, but a soul.

  "I've been waiting for you for a long time. I knew you would definitely come." Although the Lich King's body had indeed been split apart, indeed been destroyed—Ethan could even clearly feel that the Lich King's body was indeed "dying"—a hollow voice sounded directly in the depths of Ethan's mind. "I also knew you would definitely do this, and that you could definitely do it."

  "You?" Ethan was completely stunned.

  What came was not just a voice, but also countless images and thoughts. He didn't know if it was because of the clasped hand, or because of the strike in which he had condensed all his spirit and soul to cleave into the other, but his soul seemed to have connected with the Lich King's soul.

  The desperate struggle in the Diya Valley... the difficult choice in the Royal Capital and the dream that shone like gold... the gamble that staked all belief and life... the vivisection in the dim hut... the gamble and modification in The Radiant Citadel, and that feeling as if being summoned... to go and take that jet-black sword hilt, which held an incomparable attraction for him, as if it were the ultimate meaning of his life...

  It was like phantoms transmitted in an instant, or like certain memories accumulated from experiencing long, painful things, repeatedly stacking on top of each other, spreading and infecting his own thoughts. In just an instant, he could almost no longer distinguish who he himself was—whether he was the self who would risk death to destroy The Black Star, or that young man named Rodhart, who had struggled and wandered, only to sink deeper and deeper into darkness and despair.

  It wasn't just Rodhart's thoughts and memories. More, darker, bloodier, sharper, and more intense images and thoughts surged forth, not the heavy, hollow death-aura from The Black Star. It seemed there were other souls in this body. One was a fierce, savage, cruel, and ruthless monstrous beast of flesh and blood, as if condensed from all the ferocity and brutality in the world. What filled this soul were only animalistic instincts and desires. But no animal's savagery could be this strong, this brutal. The savagery mutated from humanity is more savage than any savagery.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  There was the figure of another soul, one even sharper, more lonely, and more twisted than Rodhart, a soul that was likewise sinking and struggling in the boundless darkness.

  In the consciousness transmitted from this soul, Ethan could see many memories he was familiar with. This soul's disgust and hatred for him were so intense, yet it was inextricably intertwined with his own life's path. He even had a feeling that this was another self of his.

  Unlike Rodhart's, these two souls were not complete. They were the souls of two people who had already truly "died," and perhaps because they were too close to The Black Star's fluctuations, they had managed to remain by clinging to this body. This Lich King could be said to be an integration of the consciousness of three people: Rodhart and these two others.

  He could not even refuse, could not resist. What flooded into his consciousness was the entirety of the three souls, the entirety of these three lives, down to the most minute details, not just their general appearances.

  Being abandoned, anger, being killed, being forsaken, being used, the desire to be strong, the unwillingness to accept fate, the struggle, the desire to transcend everything, the desire for victory, the desire to never feel that pain again, to find compensation in the wails of others, to find satisfaction in the kneeling of others... and then to pass all of this on to others, to let them repeat it all...

  The darkness, the bloodshed, the savagery that appeared on the surface were all accumulated and piled up from countless other things. He could clearly feel that beneath this broken, incomplete darkness were all the roars, struggles, loneliness, terror, and pain that had been twisted and created by the environment, by other people, by this mortal world.

  From the moment a person is born, wailing and crying out their first sound, they are fated to be refined and tormented together in the great crucible of the mortal world...

  Sorrow, despair.

  This was the only emotion left in his own consciousness now.

  The memories of the four people were all congealed and entangled with each other, countless chaotic fragments separating and scattering, with only one feeling becoming clearer and clearer.

  Powerlessness, emptiness.

  "Perhaps you couldn't feel it before, but you should know now. Our meeting here is indeed because of fate."

  It was still the same hollow voice. But Ethan now understood why it was hollow: because this world was inherently empty.

  There was no longer desire, no longer gaining or losing; everything was so meaningless and futile. It should end.

  "Yes, I can feel it," Ethan murmured in reply.

  He could indeed feel it now. He could vaguely feel the veins, the developmental sequence, of this entire world. It was something so vast and boundless that it transcended all meaning, all concepts. There was no good, no evil, no light, no darkness—just like an incomparably vast and incomparably precise machine, operating without emotion, without bias, connecting all things in the world, with nothing able to escape this binding, this sequence. Or rather, this is the meaning of the world itself.

  He could not comprehend it, he could only feel it. This was, after all, a realm that a human could not comprehend, just as an ant cannot transcend itself to understand the movements of the stars and celestial bodies, or to understand its own place in the animal kingdom. This was just a memory transmitted from the Lich King, and this memory was, in turn, just the sediment from within The Black Star.

  The Black Star was originally the condensation of the world's aura, so it would naturally guide the progression of all things in the world. From the moment he was born, or even before he was born, before Rodhart was born, before Clovis was born, it was destined that they would reach this point. No matter the process, the outcome was already set.

  Ethan had heard this kind of statement more than once, but he had always been able to resist, to disbelieve, to fight back. But this time he could not, because he knew, he understood, he had truly felt it with his own soul.

  Everything that had happened, whether it was his or Rodhart's, or that of the other two broken, dark souls, or of this mortal world—all the terror, all the loneliness, all the evil, all the struggle—was, in the grand scheme of the cosmos, how insignificant it all was, like a speck of worthless dust.

  "This is the end, our end. We've walked so far and finally arrived here." Rodhart's hollow voice began to distort, because his body had started to collapse.

  Ethan's strike had long since split his body in two, and then the two halves had begun to fall apart and crumble, scattering into small limbs and pieces. Now, the disintegration had reached his chest.

  "Actually, everything I have, you gave to me. You gave me too much. Now it is time for me to give it back to you." This was the Lich King's, and also Rodhart's, final sentence. Then, with the hand that was about to completely collapse, he shoved the hilt of The Black Star into Ethan's left hand.

  Clatter. The Lich King's husk completely became a pile of fragments on the ground.

  With the body gone as its anchor, the soul also completely dissipated. But his memories, along with those of the other two souls, were now all in Ethan's consciousness, never to be separated again.

  "Yes, this is the end," Ethan murmured. The familiar aura of The Black Star surged forth again, the boundless darkness seeming capable of devouring everything.

  He didn't know if it was Rodhart's and the other two souls' adaptation to this aura over this time, or his own acceptance after having those memories. Faced with this boundless darkness, this time he felt no fear, no rejection, only a very relaxed indifference, an indifference of having finally reached the end.

  And then, this darkness was no longer darkness, only emptiness.

  "Let everything end here." He tightened his grip on the sword hilt, pointed it towards the sky, and the surrounding darkness shattered.

  Outside the darkness, everyone who saw him was stunned, including even Gru.

  The Robe of the Lich Lord had transformed into a set of simple and archaic armor, enveloping his entire body. His right hand still gripped the blade that had slain the Lich King, but in his left hand was the jet-black sword hilt. The aura emanating from him was no longer jet-black, but a field of indifferent nothingness.