Chapter 424

Chapter 425: Return to Dust

Many clues finally linked up. Many things finally had answers.

There were still mysteries left, but now Yu Sheng could piece together more than eighty percent of the truth:

A thousand years ago, an unknown Dark Angel appeared in the Featherwing star domain in the form of a Crystal Meteorite. It crashed on the Border’s Garrison-3 and tried to parasitize it, but Yun Qing Zi-who happened to be in the Border at the time-noticed. He struck to stop it, never guessing his enemy was an Angel that could not be beaten by “common sense,” and he died.

At the moment he fell, Yun Qing Zi refined his last wisp of soul and forced it to merge with part of the Dark Angel, hoping to suppress it in Garrison-3’s depths. That choice opened a centuries-long process of cycling and iteration. The world believed Yun Qing Zi had died a thousand years ago, but his final remnant soul was in fact entangled with the Dark Angel deep underground, iterating again and again, reviving again and again, locked in stalemate.

Later, the seal Yun Qing Zi left behind was broken. The Dark Angel produced a ‘Yun Qing Zi copy’ under its control and escaped Garrison-3’s prison, leaving an ‘empty shell’ and many confused ‘Yun Qing Zi’ on the planet.

The carried-off ‘Yun Qing Zi copy,’ influenced by the Angel, had essentially become a vassal of the Dark Angel. Whether he realized it or not, his actions shifted to serve the Dark Angel. His current plan was to search for something called the “Sovereign’s Legacy.”

Given the traits that unknown Angel had already shown-seeking valuable new planets to parasitize-it was easy to deduce that the “Sovereign’s Legacy” the ‘Yun Qing Zi’ was chasing was probably not an “object” at all, but a planet.

The Grand Void Spiritual Axis was the biggest possibility.

“Dang it, Xuan Che and the others are in big trouble!” Irene yelped as soon as the logic clicked. “If that’s true, then the ‘bad Yun Qing Zi’ already sent people near the Grand Void Spiritual Axis… which means they’ve already locked on! Won’t they act soon?!”

Yu Sheng pulled out his phone and spoke fast: “I’ll tell Xuan Che and Yuan Ling right now so the Grand Void Spiritual Axis can prepare its defenses.”

“Even with defenses, they’ll only buy time. Dark Angels can’t be killed under normal conditions. Back then, the Algladians threw in several legions one after another and still couldn’t bring down the ‘Goddess of Beauty’,” Xu Jiali said. He did not know the Featherwing region well, but he had caught most of it by now. “We need to stop this early, or do it like we did with Anka Aila… at the very least, we need to find it first, right?”

Yu Sheng turned to the “Yun Qing Zi” fused into the Crystal Heart: “Do you know where that ‘thing’ and the ‘Yun Qing Zi’ it took are hiding now?”

The elder, sunk into crystal, had fallen back into a foggy mumble. Yu Sheng asked twice before he slowly woke. He lifted his head and stared straight into Yu Sheng’s eyes.

“Fellow daoist, that question is odd,” Yun Qing Zi suddenly grinned: “Haven’t you already seen it? This ‘empty shell’ I possess… its lingering instinct keeps it looking toward Sentinel Silence.”

“Of course I figured Sentinel Silence too, but we went there and couldn’t find ‘Yun Qing Zi’, and we saw no sign of a parasite,” Yu Sheng said plainly. “They hid themselves somehow. We accidentally tore open their ‘barrier’ once and found something like a Rift on the edge of Ink City. But when we went back, we never found that Rift again.”

Yun Qing Zi frowned.

“I do not know how they did that… the evil thing’s strangeness is beyond counting. After it iterated a ‘Yun Qing Zi’ under its control, it effectively gained a helper with ‘wisdom’. Many things that were once instinct are now conscious Divine Powers… You truly found no signs of a ‘parasite’ on Sentinel Silence?”

“Yes. None at all,” Yu Sheng said firmly. “We did not spend long there and didn’t search the whole planet, but Sentinel Silence is a highly developed colony now. Even the lonely places have caretakers and monitoring. The Door’s Youth Form Wardens patrol the whole world on a regular schedule. If a parasite really existed and had been growing for years, there should be some traces… unless even those traces have been hidden.”

“…Hidden from every pair of eyes on the whole planet?” Irene muttered on his shoulder.

No one could answer the little doll’s murmur.

Another cracking sound from the Crystal Heart broke the silence.

As it sounded, Yu Sheng saw cracks suddenly form on “Yun Qing Zi’s” body. The life in the elder’s eyes began to drain away, and it was visible to the naked eye.

Irene panicked: “Hey, hey, old man, why are you fading so fast…”

“Not fast, not fast. I have already lasted longer than I thought,” Yun Qing Zi said, smiling slowly. After another round of cracks, his decline sped up again. With each passing second, his expression stiffened further, becoming more like lifeless stone. “You, girl, so full of yin and gloom, and you still care.”

Normally, if anyone teased Irene like that, she would immediately read them their family tree and start roasting. Now she acted like she had not heard him at all. She spun and shook Yu Sheng’s head: “Think of something! Aren’t your Divine Powers vast?”

Yu Sheng said nothing. He just pressed Irene’s arm, then stepped up to Yun Qing Zi.

“Fellow daoist, do you have anything else you want to ask?” Yun Qing Zi lifted his head. All the life in the crystal cavern had gathered into that “heart,” yet even so, only the elder’s upper chest and above could still move. His voice grew stiffer and slower. “My head can stay clear a bit longer. I can still say a few more words.”

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I’ve asked what I needed,” he said. “But if there’s something you want me to do, tell me. I may not manage it, but I can try.”

“You toss a hard question back at me,” Yun Qing Zi said after thinking. Then he smiled. “The true Yun Qing Zi died a thousand years ago. What’s here are shells born from obsession and cycles. What wish would there be? Even if there was one, after a thousand years of wear, it would mean nothing… Enough of that. I’m not the sentimental sort.

“However, if you truly have a chance to turn the tide, if you truly meet the ‘Yun Qing Zi’ who has become the evil thing’s claw…”

His voice sank slower and lower. Cracking from the Crystal Heart’s core spread to its shell. The tiny lights inside it flickered like a dying candle. As the first shard fell from the “heart,” Yu Sheng heard the last request from this elder-who might or might not still count as “Yun Qing Zi”:

“…Do not hold back.”

The last glint of life faded from the crystal eyes. Deathly gray spread from the Crystal Heart and raced across his body, along with countless cracks.

At the very end, “Yun Qing Zi” turned to Foxy-with a smile.

“How good, that in my final moment I still have a flash of humanity…”

The next second, the smile shattered on the ground.

The Crystal Heart collapsed.

Its inner glow went out. The force holding the crystal together vanished with the end of the “cycle.” With a run of sharp cracks, the giant crystal fell into countless tiny shards, dropping from pillars and crystal branches. Right after, the whole cavern-and even the structure of the underground caves-filled with dense sounds of collapse.

This underground space had been supported by the “crystal branches” everywhere. Now that all life was gone, the Cave System could no longer hold.

“Boss! This place is gonna cave in, meow!”

Bell yelped and dashed behind Xu Jiali. The sphere in her hands lit up, and in the blink of an eye a psionic shield unfolded. Her slit pupils showed some nerves, but even more of a strange excitement: “Next is a thrilling cave escape? Like when we blew up the Katosh Hive? Do we start running now? Now?”

She had barely started to get excited when Yu Sheng casually pulled open a Phantom Door. On the other side lay the surface.

Foxy and Luna ran through the Door to call out to Engineer Sun, telling him to get everyone back to a safe distance. Yu Sheng glanced at Xu Jiali and Bell: “Why are you two still frozen-move. Go up and grab Engineer Sun and the others. I’ll open a Door straight to the Special Affairs Bureau. You take the collected samples back first.”

Xu Jiali finally snapped out of it and hurried toward the Door. Bell stared wide-eyed from behind: “…Huh? Wait, isn’t this the part where we… Hey! Boss! Wait for me, meow!”

Everyone went through the Door to the surface. Only Yu Sheng and Irene remained in the collapsing cave. Just before stepping through, Yu Sheng turned back one last time.

Yun Qing Zi-hundreds of them over a thousand years-returned to dust.

“Let’s go,” he breathed, then stepped through the Door. “There’s still a lot to do.”