A sword radiance spread out. It was thin and curved at the outset but quickly erupted into a torrential wave!
This sword traversed heaven, earth, and time itself.
It seemed as though the countless predecessors of the human race had joined the attack as it tore an opening through the firmament.
For whom did the tear in the sky open?
The brilliance lasted but a moment. All splendor and majesty would wither one day, only remaining in the memories of those who had witnessed the scene.
The light slowly receded.
The Pointer Monarch stood completely still with his sword pointing toward the sky.
A laceration had appeared in the firmament, a gash perpendicular to the River of Blood.
This sword had actually rent the blue dome of the heavens!
That ancient book had appeared in the Demon King’s hands at one point, its pages filling the air as they protected the supreme from the attack.
The Demon King didn’t move at all. It was only much later that he let out a sigh, upon which the pages broke down into ashes and disappeared.
A corner of the Pointer Monarch’s robes suddenly broke down into countless specks of sand. The granules scattered into motes of light that hovered in the air.
More and more luminescent blobs appeared, lighting up the area.
Everyone felt as though they had heard a sigh as the light receded. No one knew where it had come from, but its trailing sound rose into the depths of the sky and clouds. It was likely the Pointer Monarch’s sigh, but no one knew what it was for.
The heavenly monarch had become an eternal part of this land.
The Eternal Flame appeared at this point and glanced at the book in the Demon King’s hand. Only the front and back covers remained of this once-thick tome; everything else had been used up.
The Demon King gazed at the spot where the Pointer Monarch had vanished.
“Your Majesty…”
“Oh, you’re here.”
“Are you alright?”
The Demon King laughed wryly. “There’s no way I’d be alright. Ji Wentian had accumulated that single strike for thirty years. If I hadn’t blocked it with this copy of the Book of Darkness, I would have lost half my life right there.”
The Eternal Flame was shocked. “It’s that serious?”
“It’s already a wonder that I’m able to stand.” The Demon King glanced at the Eternal Flame. His aura fell progressively, but his eyes were still sparkling bright, capable of seeing right through the Eternal Flame’s protective blaze. He saw that raging ambition burning deep inside the man.
The Demon King revealed a jaded smile. “Klaus, you’re actually older than me. Do you know why you were never able to take that final step?”
The Eternal Flame was surprised. He hadn’t expected the Demon King to actually address him by his actual name. He hadn’t used this name in a long time, and everything related to the name were memories from his youth.
The Demon King’s question was actually easy to answer. “Bloodline.”
A person’s bloodline would decide the height to which he could go. There had only been two exceptions since time immemorial, the Demon King and Andruil. To be precise, Andruil’s transformation from the Black-Winged Monarch to the Lord of Evernight was an upgrade in the level of origin power. It didn’t have a lot to do with bloodlines. Strictly speaking, only the Demon King Kane had broken through the restraints of his bloodline.
The common theory among the upper echelons of Evernight was that people had misjudged Kane’s bloodline talents when he was young. His real potential developed much later.
The only other person in the entirety of the Evernight World was Qianye.
Hearing Klaus’ answer, the Demon King simply asked, “Did you hear Ji Wentian’s final sigh?”
“I did.”
“Why did you think he sighed?”
This time, the Eternal Flame had no answer.
To an Evernight expert who enjoyed thousands of years of lifespan, a human’s life cycle was simply too short. They were full of emotions, and it was fairly difficult to understand their passion and sorrow.
The Demon King wasn’t hoping for the Eternal Flame’s reply anyway. “One of the most important things to humans is to return to their roots and find eternal rest in their homeland. Yet people like Ji Wentian and Fang came here prepared to abandon their homeland. They say they dare to sacrifice their lives because their lives are short, but think carefully, are we willing to sacrifice ourselves for the race even when we are at the end of our lives? If we did, there wouldn’t be so many hibernating old bastards. Once you lose your courage, it will never come back.”
The Eternal Flame seemed to have grasped certain things in this contemplation.
The Demon King shook his head. “Ji Wentian didn’t need to die.”
This was something the Eternal Flame couldn’t figure out. The might of that last slash could’ve killed anything and everything below the supreme realm. Even a supreme could only hang on for dear life.
That slash bore the fate of the human race and could glimpse at fate itself! The attack was far stronger than a supreme’s!
All the heavenly monarch needed to do was never launch that attack, and no one would dare to force his hand, not even the Eternal Flame.
The Demon King stood there with his hands behind his back, gazing at the gash in the sky. “He sacrificed himself to open the path and wipe away all obstacles for Qianye, for the human race.”
“Sacrificing himself to open a path.” The Eternal Flame was shaken.
The Demon King gazed at the distant Progia and shook his head. He then turned back to the Eternal Flame. “Do you understand now?”
The Eternal Flame was deep in thought. He felt like he understood, but it also seemed like he didn’t.
The Demon King sighed. “You’ve always wanted to replace me, now the opportunity is right before your eyes. If you dare to break a path for our race just like he does, if you can lead the sacred races past the many obstacles in their path, there’s no reason why I can’t give you everything I have.”
The Eternal Flame’s pale flames dimmed and flickered unsteadily.
The Demon King didn’t urge the man, either. He simply gazed up at the sky and said, “It’s a pity. In the end, I never found out what the Lost Season and the Chronicle of Glory are. A so-called supreme isn’t much, after all.”
The Eternal Flame shuddered when he heard about the Lost Season and the Chronicle of Glory. It took a while for his flames to calm down.
He bowed slightly, saying, “Your Majesty, please give me the book. I’ll open the passageway.”
The Demon King’s expression was complicated, yet it was hard to tell what he was thinking. “Klaus, I really hope you can take action.”
The Eternal Flame’s voice was calm. “I want the power and authority that come with being a supreme, but I cannot shoulder the fate of all the sacred races. It is just as you said, once you lose your courage, it will never return again.”
The Demon King said nothing more. “Open the gates.”
The Eternal Flame shot out a stream of fire that enveloped the Demon King. The two vanished from the spot and reappeared on the holy mountain.
The Eternal Flame opened the covers of the book, and following his movements, a deep, bottomless pathway slowly opened up.
The great dark monarch seemed increasingly strained as the passage expanded, the blaze around him shooting toward the passageway in an effort to stabilize it. However, the obstructive force became greater as the tunnel expanded.
The words “Book of Darkness” on the cover flew toward the tunnel, but two of the characters were extinguished along the way. The third reached its target but failed to stabilize the passageway.
The Demon King finally took action. He summoned the three pages sealing the defect in the sky and directed them into the passage, finally stabilizing it.
Once the gateway was formed, a terrifying attractive force began to suck all the nearby origin power into it. The tunnel was like a bottomless hole that could never be sated no matter how much origin power it took in.
The black sun in the sky was also affected by the gravitational force. A barely noticeable bulge formed on one side as wisps of darkness origin power were dragged down.
The sun was no longer perfectly round. It had been compressed by the lacerated sky on one side, and on the other, it was being dragged into the tunnel.
Glancing at the size of the passageway, the Demon King sighed. “This will have to do.”
He glanced around at the tear in the sky before stepping into the passage and heading back to the Evernight World.
The Eternal Flame and Progia didn’t linger, either. One after another, they left the inner world via the passage.
All this time, the passageway was continuously devouring the darkness origin power.