Chapter 3071: The Change of Mind (5)
Nian Shi’s face twisted in fury. "You think you can escape?!" He unleashed his divine sense, trying to lock onto Yin’s presence, to use his control over time to track him through the timelines.
But it was futile. Yin, the embodiment of Uncreation, had vanished without a trace. He had retreated into the void itself, a realm where even the God of Time’s authority held little sway, to digest his feast and complete his recovery.
The Land of Beyond Heaven fell silent once more. The only sounds were the faint crackle of residual energy and Nian Shi’s own heavy, angry breathing.
Nian Shi’s mismatched eyes, one holding the remnants of Yun Lintian’s past, the other blazing with cold silver light, swept across the silent, ravaged battlefield.
The euphoria of absolute power still coursed through the vessel, but a cold fury simmered beneath it. Yin’s escape was an insult, a variable he had not fully accounted for.
His gaze then fell upon two figures cowering near the remnants of the shattered Gate of Beyond Heaven. Long Chen and Qian Jinglei. They had been hiding, hoping to remain unnoticed amidst the clash of titans. Now, with Yin gone, they were exposed, like rats abandoned by a fleeing ship.
A cold, utterly merciless smile stretched across Nian Shi’s lips—a expression that looked grotesque on Yun Lintian’s familiar features.
"Well, well," his voice rang out, smooth and deadly. "Look what the void left behind. Two little traitors, now discarded pawns. Your master has fled, and he didn’t even think to take his trash with him."
Long Chen and Qian Jinglei trembled violently. The aura radiating from the man who looked like Yun Lintian was utterly terrifying, a suffocating pressure that made their souls feel infinitesimally small. This was not the Yun Lintian they knew; this was an ancient, ruthless god wearing his skin.
"L-Lord Nian Shi!" Long Chen fell to his knees, kowtowing frantically, his forehead smacking against the hard ground. "P-please! Spare us! We were fools! We were deceived by Yin! We didn’t know any better! We only wished to serve a powerful master!"
Qian Jinglei followed suit, prostrating himself completely. "Yes! Yes, Lord! It was all Yin’s manipulation! We never truly wished to betray the Land of Beyond Heaven! We see now that you are the true supreme being! Please, allow us to serve you! We will be your most loyal dogs! We will do anything!"
Their pleas were desperate, pathetic. They offered their loyalty freely, hoping to save their own wretched lives.
Nian Shi looked down at them, his silver eye gleaming with disdain. "Serve me? Loyal dogs?" He let out a short, derisive laugh. "I have no need for dogs who would so easily turn on their own master. Your loyalty is as worthless as you are."
He began to pace slowly before them, each step echoing with finality. "Never mind. Since you both betrayed Yun Lintian so thoroughly, I suppose I should do him one last... favor." The word ’favor’ was dripping with sarcasm. "Consider this my act of... avenging him. A final courtesy to the previous owner of this body."
Terror unlike any they had ever known seized the two traitors. They understood. There would be no mercy.
"No! PLEASE!" Long Chen screamed, scrambling backward.
"WE SUBMIT! WE—" Qian Jinglei’s shriek was cut off.
Nian Shi didn’t even bother with a grand technique. He simply waved his hand, as if swatting away two particularly annoying insects.
But the power behind that casual gesture was immense and horrifyingly precise.
Crackle!
The space around Long Chen and Qian Jinglei constricted violently. Then, it began to unravel them.
It was not a clean death. It was a brutal, piece-by-piece dissection of their very existence. Their bodies didn’t bleed; they simply came apart. Flesh separated from bone, muscles frayed into nothingness, bones disintegrated into dust, and their souls were pulled apart like cotton, their agonized screams silenced as their spiritual signatures were erased from the cycle of reincarnation itself.
In less than a heartbeat, two powerful experts were reduced to motes of grey dust that were then scattered by a non-existent wind, utterly unmade from reality.
Nian Shi watched the empty space where they had been, his expression one of mild distaste, as if he had just disposed of some minor garbage. There was no satisfaction, no pleasure in the act. It was merely... tidying up.
He then raised his hand, his gaze falling upon the simple, unadorned interspatial ring on his finger—the ring given to Yun Lintian by his mother, Yun Wushuang. A ring that held countless memories and treasures.
A sneer curled his lip. He rubbed the ring with his thumb.
"Yun Wushuang..." he murmured, his voice a cold whisper that seemed to speak directly to the soul slumbering within the ring. "You hid yourself away in here to protect your son, didn’t you? A mother’s futile love."
He could feel the faint, dormant consciousness within, a wisp of a soul clinging to existence.
"I won’t destroy this ring," Nian Shi declared, his tone laced with cruel amusement. "I will let you keep it. Consider it a window. A front-row seat to witness everything I will do while wearing your son’s face. Watch as I use his body to ascend to the peak of the universe. Watch as I become the god he could never be."
The ring seemed to grow cold against his finger, a silent response of utter despair from the soul within.
Satisfied with this final act of psychological cruelty, Nian Shi lowered his hand. The immediate distractions were dealt with.
Tantai Lanling, who had been waiting silently at a respectful distance, stepped forward and bowed again. "My Lord, the traitors have been justly punished. What is your next command? Shall we pursue Yin?"
Nian Shi glanced at her, his silver eye narrowing in thought. "Pursue him into the depths of the void? A fool’s errand. He has gone to ground to digest the energy he has reaped from this conflict. He will not be easily found."
He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. A faint, chaotic energy—a blend of vibrant creation and silent uncreation—swirled around them, still not perfectly unified, but incredibly potent.
"Yun Lintian was a fool, but he was on the right path," Nian Shi mused, a hint of grudging acknowledgment in his voice. "He had almost completed the integration of these two supreme laws within his Profound Vein. The foundation is laid. The potential is here."
A look of absolute ambition flashed in his eyes. "I will not rush. I will continue his work. I will sit right here, in this Land of Beyond Heaven, and I will finish what he started. I will achieve the perfect fusion of Creation and Uncreation. Once that is done..."
He looked up, his gaze seeming to pierce through the layers of reality itself. "...Once that is done, I will not just be a god who wields power. I will be the fundamental law of existence and ending. Yin, even at his full strength, will be nothing but a shadow. He will never be my opponent."