From the end of the world

Chapter 674 Xuanming Closes His Eyes
The orange-yellow sea of ​​fire that covered the entire city quickly weakened and then completely dissipated. I also withdrew my own orange-red sea of ​​fire.

After the two seas of fire that had engulfed the sky and the earth vanished, the city was no longer so brightly lit; instead, it became as dark as a room where the lights had suddenly been turned off. For a moment, I thought my eyes hadn't adjusted to the absence of a strong light source, so I looked up at the sky.

The sky was pitch black. It took me two seconds to belatedly realize that it was the dead of night. Before, the sky was ablaze with bright flames, and I hadn't even noticed it was dark.

I landed on the ground, and as soon as my feet touched the ground, I stumbled forward a couple of steps, almost falling. Even my mind wasn't very clear; my thoughts felt heavy, like a sponge soaked in mud. The scenes I observed with my senses were intermittently bright and dark, and my thought process seemed to be on the verge of breaking down at any moment.

The fact that Zhenling was so severely injured is truly unprecedented. If I were to suffer another attack from Xuanming, even just half an attack, I feel that my life would crumble like a stack of unbalanced building blocks.

I took a deep breath to calm myself, then looked up ahead. Xuanming in the distance was still trying to get up, but he couldn't and quickly fell to the ground again.

He was so badly injured that "injured" hardly suffices to describe his current state; it wasn't even a final burst of energy before death. We are both masters of destruction, and one of us, already severely wounded, took the full force of the other's attack. At this point, there's no need for further explanation. He is, in effect, dead.

To be precise, he is "dying".

"Death" is not a concept applicable to the present continuous tense. It's like pressing a button on a switch; once it's off, it's off. Generally, there's no intermediate state like "being turned off." However, the scale of the impermanent soul is so vast that even if it suddenly loses all structure and collapses, from a holistic perspective, this process of losing shape is a slow one.

Even when a human dies, the body retains a lingering warmth for a period of time. Even after a campfire dies out, the ashes retain a slight, warm glow. Xuanming is currently in this strange intermediate state; he appears capable of thought and movement, yet he is already a corpse in the process of dying.

He seemed to want to try again to see if he could rise from the ashes, but he did not possess the ability of immortality. Or rather, all Great Impermanences could actually simulate high-level immortality by manipulating the power of abstract conceptual domains, but similarly, the Great Impermanences' intense killing intent also possessed the power to restrain most immortal beings.

Xuanming, unlike Mingzhuo and Huangquan, didn't possess any special expertise in that area, so his current attempts were futile. It was like repeatedly trying to light a lighter that had run out of fuel, producing only a few tiny sparks before falling silent. I walked up to him, and he seemed to have finally accepted reality, ceasing all attempts.

He looked up at me, glanced at me, and then said, "You won."

"Are there any last words, or anything you wish me to do?" I asked. "As long as it doesn't violate my principles and is within my power, I can do it for you."

As I spoke, I gathered a high density of fire magic in my palm, preparing to deliver the final blow.

The person before me is Xuanming, after all. Even in this desperate situation, I must not let my guard down. The attack moves I have prepared are also to guard against a sudden counterattack when he is about to die.

It's an incredible feeling. We've fought to this point, a fight to the death, and I'm still on guard against his last-ditch counterattack, yet I haven't disliked Xuanming for a single second. Although we have many incompatible ideas, even fundamentally incompatible ideologies, I feel that if we met in other circumstances, we might become good friends... That's my feeling.

“I hope you will defeat Meng Zhang and the mastermind behind the scenes. But even if I don’t specifically ask you, as long as you continue to follow your own style, you will naturally clash with them.” Xuanming looked at me. “As for hoping that you will sacrifice your life for human civilization in my place, I don’t think you have that kind of noble spirit, so there’s no need to go to such lengths.”

"In fact, I still believe that you and the mastermind behind the scenes are essentially the same kind of people. Entrusting the mission of protecting civilization to someone like you will likely only lead civilization, intentionally or unintentionally, into the most dangerous dead end, and you might even enjoy it."

"but……"

As he continued, he abruptly changed the subject, raising his palm and revealing a small, orange flame burning at his fingertips.

I immediately went on high alert, but I quickly realized intuitively that Xuanming's action carried no hostility. He pointed in my direction, and the flame, as if afraid I would misunderstand, drifted towards me at an extremely slow speed. Finally, the flame touched my chest and disappeared into it like a pebble thrown into a lake.

A flood of information exploded in my mind.

"This is..." I couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

This unassuming flame actually contained countless intuitive experiences and insights about power from Xuanming, and even information about the locations of all the divine seal fragments he possessed!

After making this move, Xuanming's aura noticeably weakened. "Is there any need to be so surprised? Passing on the torch is what I understand as the 'true essence of fire.' On the verge of death, of course, I want to pass on as much important experience and secrets I've accumulated as possible," Xuanming said weakly.

"...But didn't you think I was a troublemaker? Why did I come here..." I said, bewildered. "Do you hope that I will take control of the Divine Seal in the future? Or do you think I will destroy it after obtaining it, just as you want to do?"

"Please don't misunderstand. If there were no other options, you wouldn't even be on my shortlist," Xuanming said. "Furthermore, if I didn't tell you where I hid those divine seal fragments, they would fall into the hands of others due to various accidents, such as the culprit who created the world we live in today... That's not something I want to see."

"Instead of that, it would be better to let you obtain the Divine Seal. Although you have no vision of an ideal future society, it may not be a bad thing if you become the one who wields the Divine Seal."

He paused slightly, then continued, "Besides... you might not be as evil as you imagine."

"What did you say?" I was taken aback.

“To protect the people you care about, you stepped forward and risked your life to defeat me… I feel this will more deeply than anyone else, so I will tentatively believe this side of you and place some hope in you.” Xuanming looked at me.

His life force plummeted, and he was on the verge of disappearing completely.

"Finally... let me tell you one more piece of information," he said wearily. "Although this is just a vague speculation based on some clues I got from Yama, just listen to it for reference."

The clue was obtained from Yama, the master of the Gospel Institute? It should be that Xuanming found out from the Gospel Institute when he was searching for Xiaowan in the afterlife through the Gospel Institute... Although I really wanted to ask more questions about this, I didn't have much time left, so I focused on the most important part and only said one word: "Okay".

Xuanming nodded, then said, "There should be two divine seals."

"—Two?" I read aloud in surprise.

“These two divine seals were originally one, but due to the wishes of the seal holders, they were accidentally split in two and became the two we have now. In a sense, they can also be regarded as two extremely large fragments of divine seals,” Xuan Ming said solemnly. “One of them represents the real world we live in, which I call the ‘Present World Divine Seal,’ and the other represents the end of the world, which I call the ‘Doomsday Divine Seal.’”

"The Divine Seal of the Present World is very likely in the hands of the Seal Holder, while the Divine Seal of Doomsday belongs to the Lord of the Divine Seal whom we have all come into contact with."

"Do you remember what we discussed before? The Divine Seal is in a contradictory state of being both intact and fragmented. In fact, the intact one is what I call the Divine Seal of the present world, while the fragmented one is the Divine Seal of the apocalypse. All the fragments of the Divine Seal we have collected so far come from the Divine Seal of the apocalypse."

"Both seals possess extraordinary power to change the world, but you must remember that if you want to save the world, you must combine them into one and make them a truly complete seal again."

He's actually entrusting me with the responsibility of saving the world? What a terrible choice. He should understand this perfectly well. Could it be that he has some deeper meaning that I can't fathom? I didn't waste my energy refuting or questioning him. Instead, I nodded again and said, "Okay... I'll remember."

Xuanming's expression relaxed, and then, as if he were getting sleepy, his eyelids started to droop.

He first glanced with difficulty at the sky covered by the city's barrier, then looked at the ruins and rubble around him that had been razed to the ground by our fierce battle, and a regretful expression appeared on his face.

Seeing this, I summoned and manipulated light, creating numerous illusions around me. Countless modern buildings of varying sizes sprang up from the ground, and illusory figures moved through the streets, as if the scenery of civilized society had temporarily returned.

I'm quite inexperienced at this kind of thing, and I didn't do many of the details well. It's not just because it was my first time, but also because I'm currently seriously injured and can't even see things clearly, let alone do it.

However, Xuanming now seemed to be unable to see things clearly. He strained to open his eyes wide, looking at the things that had been lost on this land, the colorful scenery reflected in his eyes.

His lips moved, as if he were saying something silently. Then, he slowly closed his eyes and remained still.

(End of this chapter)