The Illusory World's Reckoning

"Projections of the real world will eventually return to nothingness; the illusory will ultimately collapse…"

The vast voice echoed across the heavens and the earth, majestic and imbued with a power that shook the soul.

Xiao Chen was stunned. The World of Immortality was… a projection of the real world? Was the entire world false? Then… what was he?

The voice faded, and the boundless desert fell silent once more, as if it had never spoken.

The vast, measureless desert was tinged with fiery red under the setting sun. Golden grains of sand flowed with specks of red light, and the burning clouds on the horizon bordered the connection between desert and sky with veins of gold.

A deathly stillness reigned. The empty desert was silent, desolate, and lonely.

At that moment, Xiao Chen's heart surged like a stormy sea.

But in an instant, he calmed himself. He was real—that was enough.

On the barren desert, there was no trace of life. Yet today, at this very moment, a temple, a Daoist shrine, and a divine island appeared. Xiao Chen gazed at them quietly, but could not approach. A mysterious force blocked his way.

Clear moonlight poured down, and countless stars glittered in the sky. Was it all an illusion? Was it all a projection of the real world? Xiao Chen did not dwell on it. In his heart, there was only the "Self." Under these circumstances, he silently cultivated.

The moonlight was like water, but the temperature in the desert plummeted sharply. Even refined iron could be split by the cold. In this lonely desert under the glittering stars, a sudden "creak" sounded—the door of the ancient temple was pushed open.

In the silent, empty desert, the noise was abrupt and jarring, like a divine fish leaping from a serene lake.

Xiao Chen opened his eyes sharply. In the moonlit night, they were like two bolts of lightning shooting across the void.

After the temple door opened, a small figure stepped out with a steady gait. He wore a wide monk's robe and appeared to be no more than three or four years old, the robe trailing most of the way on the ground.

This was a child—or rather, a little monk. No more than three or four years old, he could nevertheless withstand the extreme cold of the desert, walking out of the temple door with calm composure.

His skin was fair, his forehead full, his eyes large and spirited, his lashes long, his nose straight, and his lips thick. He was a child who looked honest and kind. Among his features, his ears were the most distinctive. Though small, his ears were very large, giving him a blessed appearance. The thick earlobes nearly brushed his shoulders.

Though he saw Xiao Chen, he showed no surprise. He walked past him, circled the entire temple, and headed toward the depths of the desert.

Xiao Chen was quite astonished but did not speak. He watched the child leave in silence.

Just then, the door of the distant Daoist shrine was also pushed open. A little Daoist of three or four years old stepped out unhurriedly. Though a child, he looked exceptionally mature. His eyes, in particular, were profound, as if they could see through all things in the world.

He too walked calmly into the depths of the desert.

An extremely strange feeling—mere children of three or four, yet their expressions and movements were as composed as those of antiques that had lived for countless years.

Flash.

A child drifted lightly down from the tiny divine island in the sky. Hair as black as a waterfall cascaded freely. His eyes were full of spirit—or rather, killing intent, causing even Xiao Chen to feel a bone-deep chill.

He also walked unhurriedly into the depths of the desert.

A profoundly absurd feeling—three children, so mature, none of them even glancing at Xiao Chen as they strode into the desert.

Xiao Chen stood up and followed their tracks. The children's speed was inconceivable. Xiao Chen pushed his own speed to the limit and chased for hundreds of li, but the tracks disappeared ahead, vanishing completely.

But he discovered something new. Ahead lay a pitch-black region, impossible to see to the end. Had he reached the edge of the Ancient-God Wasteland? Staring intently, he sensed that it seemed to be… a spatial rift.

He returned silently to his original spot. Only in the deep of the night did he see the three children return one after another.

At dawn, a ray of morning light illuminated the desert.

A new day had arrived. Though the weather was fair, an extremely oppressive aura seemed to hang in the sky, as if a primordial demon was about to emerge.

"The illusory world will eventually be destroyed…" The vast voice from the day before appeared again.

Then, dark clouds gathered in the sky, pressing down the rising morning glow.

The rolling black clouds hung over the desert like heavy leaden mountains, suffocating.

"Boom!"

Lightning lashed down. Amid the dark clouds, golden war chariots were moving! It was they that had unleashed the world-destroying lightning, radiating a monstrous surge of energy.

"Flash!"

Light flickered, and the ancient temple on the desert shot up like a meteor, crashing into the gray sky. In an instant, it charged into the leaden clouds, and then with a thunderous roar, it smashed into the golden war chariot.

"Rumble…"

The sky seemed to shatter. Amid the earth-shattering noise, the colossal golden chariot was knocked from the clouds. Then, phantoms flickered and the dark clouds churned violently. A mass of gray mist collided repeatedly with the little monk in the sky.

Miles-long spatial rifts of annihilation stretched all the way to the distant stars!

Yes! The towering leaden clouds were scattered. The eastern sun seemed to have fallen, the starry sky appeared, and the spatial rifts of destruction rushed into the void of stars.

Hallucination? Illusion? Xiao Chen could not tell.

The clouds eventually covered the sky again. The mass of gray mist shouted at the little monk in a vast voice, "Why resist? Even this world is an illusion, let alone you. You are originally empty. To vanish like smoke and dust is your final destination."

The little monk was extremely calm, unruffled. "Illusion and reality—who can truly say? One flower, one world; one blade of grass, one heaven; one leaf, one Bodhi; one grain of sand, one bliss; one direction, one Pure Land; one smile, one worldly bond; one thought, one clarity. Likewise… the entire world can be as empty as flowers and grass."

"Fine words, Buddha! Do you dare mock me?! For us, strength is strength. No matter how lofty your state of mind, you are ultimately illusory!" The vast voice came from the mist. "This world is doomed. The Twenty-Four War Swords will return."

"Destruction often begins with oneself…" The little monk was as still as dead wood, calm and composed.

"Hahaha…" Laughter rang from the dark clouds. "This world has lost its Ancestral Gods, and the Half-Ancestors have fallen one after another. How can it resist? A single Ancestral God from the real world would be enough to destroy all of this, not to mention more than ten Half-Ancestors accompanying them. The illusory World of Immortality will ultimately return to nothingness. With only you—Buddha, Primordial, and Tongtian—can you stop this?"

As he spoke, the spatial rift hundreds of li away rumbled without cease. Black mist roiled, dark clouds blotted out the sky, and more than a dozen golden war chariots streaked across the sky, arriving!

The entire world was shaken!

"Chi chi!"

Bolts of chaos sword-qi pierced through the dark clouds. The divine island in midair shot upward, slamming heavily into a golden war chariot. A child of three or four leaped up, his eyes blazing with fierce killing intent.

Then the Daoist shrine on the desert also shot up, crashing into another golden chariot and shattering it.

Below, Xiao Chen was utterly shaken. The little monk was actually Buddha! The little Daoist in the shrine was Primordial! And the child on the divine island, reeking of slaughter, was none other than Lord Tongtian! Three years ago, he had… personally cut off their heads!

"Destroy the illusory…"

From more than a dozen chariots in the leaden clouds came energy fluctuations that oppressed heaven and earth. The entire Ancient-God Wasteland seemed to tremble.

Buddha, Primordial, and Tongtian likewise radiated a power that shook the heavens and the earth, contending with the Otherworld Half-Ancestors in the more than a dozen golden chariots amid the dark clouds.

At that moment, the void was continuously shattered. A dazzling sun appeared in the sky. It was the Sun Holy Deity, but now his true form was merely a three-year-old golden child.

At the same time, a black-clad child surrounded by surging demonic energy and demonic mist appeared—he was the Great Demon Lord Satan.

Then, the three Saint Spirits of the Western Tribe manifested as children.

Sage Zhunti also appeared in the form of a child.

The void shattered again. The first Palace Lord of the Heavenly Demon Palace, the first Celestial Maiden of the Cihang Sword Lodge, and the White Tiger Holy Emperor—all manifested as children.

The sacred artifacts in Xiao Chen's hands flew away one after another, until not a single one remained. All the Half-Ancestors whose heads he had cut off had manifested here as children. If the Seven-Colored Sacred Tree had not immediately appeared above his head, cascading down beams of multicolored light, Xiao Chen would have been scorched to ashes by the blazing desert—for even divine tools would melt here.

"You set a trap to lure us to the World of Immortality? But… it is all in vain. An illusory world without Ancestral Gods will soon collapse and return to nothingness."

A butterfly fluttered its wings. Zhuang Zhou appeared, his spiritual fluctuations echoing: "Dreaming of the butterfly, the butterfly dreaming—what is illusion and what is reality? Relatively speaking, you are nothing more than a dream."

"Then let battle commence!" The more than a dozen chariots simultaneously sent out vast voices.

"Roar…" A long cry. The White Tiger Holy Emperor's foot-long body suddenly expanded to the size of a mountain. A mountain-like tiger claw slammed violently toward a chariot in the sky.

Lord Tongtian wore the diagram of the four swords on his head, partitioning the four dire swords to each direction. Strands of chaos sword-qi swept toward a chariot in the dark clouds, their world-destroying killing intent piercing the heavens.

Sage Zhunti shook the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree repeatedly. Beams of seven-colored light scattered the dense clouds before him and even overturned a chariot.

The Sun Holy Deity held the sacred stone aloft, its radiance illuminating all directions, shattering vast swaths of leaden clouds before charging onto a golden chariot.

Primordial, holding a long sword in his right hand and a jade ruyi in his left, cleaved apart a golden chariot and engaged in fierce combat with the mass of gray mist inside.

Xiao Chen's heart surged; he could hardly remain calm. This… was destined to be a battle on the level of Half-Ancestors and even Ancestral Gods, unknown to the world, determining the direction of the World of Immortality's survival.

At that moment, he clearly heard a sighing voice: "What should have come did not; what shouldn't have come has arrived… This is a failed ploy."

From the spatial rift hundreds of li away, a monstrous surge of energy erupted and reached this place in an instant!

Buddha, Primordial, Tongtian, Zhunti, the Sun Holy Deity, and the others all changed color. They knew that the enemy's Ancestral God had arrived!

But at that very moment, from the south of the Ancient-God Wasteland, in the direction of the Eternal Continent, another ineffable, vast fluctuation shot through and arrived in an instant!

"An Ancestral God?! How could the Eternal Continent still have an Ancestral God?"