Outside of Time - Chapter 1380

Chapter 1354 The Path of Ziqing

The Ziqing Crown Prince fell.

Not at the hands of the myriad races, but as a sacrifice, melting into the gaze of the desolate Shanghuang.

Only his skull, seemingly containing the resentment of his entire life, did not turn to ashes, but remained on the battlefield.

Departing with him…

was the soul of the entire Ziqing Shang Kingdom, including Bai Xiaozhuo.

On the day they left…

a torrential rain fell in Wanggu, lasting for a month.

The heavens were also shrouded in gloom, churning for a month.

In the human capital, Emperor Jingyun did not hold court. He sat alone for several days, gazing south, lost in thought.

Until someone went to Nanhuangzhou and retrieved the Ziqing Crown Prince’s skull, he looked at the skull and let out a complex and remorseful sigh.

Afterwards, he built a tomb of extremely high standards for the Ziqing Crown Prince and left an edict stating that he himself would be buried in the same tomb in the future.

Thus, the glory of the Ziqing Crown Prince came to an end.

The Purple-Azure Kingdom became history, gradually fading into legend under the cover of countless races, and ultimately… vanished into the annals of time.

This included the palaces scattered throughout the land, all reduced to ruins, buried in the dust.

Only a few descendants of the Purple-Azure Kingdom who had left long ago continued to spread their bloodline. One branch of this lineage lived in the Southern Phoenix Continent.   As time passed, the Mirror Cloud Emperor fell, and a new Emperor ascended the throne…   The human race’s situation became increasingly difficult with the continued rise of other races.

The branch of   the Purple-Azure Kingdom in the Southern Phoenix Continent thrived, striving and persevering, and through generations of effort and struggle, finally established a new Purple-Azure Kingdom.   But alas… as if an invisible curse existed, years later, the Purple-Azure Kingdom in the Southern Phoenix Continent was overthrown by three powerful internal clans and completely destroyed.   And from that moment on, the name Purple Land originated in the Southern Phoenix Continent.   As for the Wushuang Plain where Prince Ziqing perished, it seems to have become intertwined with the fate of the Ziqing Upper Kingdom in the flow of time…   Cities once existed there, but were reduced to ruins in the war.   Scavenger camps also appeared, but they didn’t last long.   Until the year 2871 of the Human Race’s Xuanzhan Calendar, a group of rogue cultivators arrived on the Wushuang Plain. They built a simple dwelling there as a place for their own cultivation.   They also showed compassion, taking in people tormented by the alien entity.   Gradually, that simple city grew into a city of considerable size,   and was named Wushuang.   …   Human Race Xuanzhan Calendar 2918.   Tianqi 135 of Nanhuang Continent.   After decades of development, Wushuang City had gained considerable fame in this apocalypse, becoming the largest of the many cities on the entire Wushuang Plain.   And today, for Wushuang City, it was a big day.   Within the city, people came and went, and the atmosphere was bustling with activity.   Zi Qing, dressed in a coarse linen robe and with his hair tied back, walked through the bustling street.   The candied hawthorn skewer in his hand still carried the warmth of the stove fire; the amber sugar coating encased the bright red hawthorns, reflecting a false sweet luster in the midday sun.   The air seemed to still carry the cloying sweetness of caramel, the smoke from burning offering paper, the slightly sour smell of sweat from the crowd, and the aroma of steamed cakes—all these mingled together, enveloping him and the city called Wushuang.   Today was the Prayer Festival.   Everything during the festival was like a boiling broth, churning with the clamor of the marketplace.   Amidst this clamor, Zi Qing remained calm, gazing at the crowd, sensing the familiar atmosphere around him.   ”The best candied hawthorn skewers! Crispy and sweet!”   a vendor’s sharp cry pierced the noise.   ”Hoping for a good harvest next year…”   the old woman with the basket murmured, drowned out by the throng.   ”Everyone, keep order! Don’t gather too much!”   the city guards’ shouts futilely tried to stop the surging crowd.   ”Fellow villagers passing by, come and see my shop! Three-colored paper offerings, most efficacious to the gods!”   The paper offering shopkeeper waved his samples.   Countless voices merged into a murky warm current, washing over Zi Qing’s eardrums.   He felt the hardness and coldness of the candied hawthorn skewers in his fingertips, his gaze passing through the throng of people, landing on a few familiar figures in the distance.   His father, mother, and his younger brother, held gently in his mother’s arms.   The little boy’s small body nestled in his mother’s embrace, like an innocent little animal.   Looking at them, a trace of reminiscence appeared in Zi Qing’s eyes.   But this reminiscence, like mortal smoke, had just risen into the air when it was blown away by the wind.   ”The time is almost here! Hurry up and run!” Several children, carrying crudely carved wooden statues of gods, swept past Zi Qing like the wind, running towards the towering, coffin-like altar in the center of the city.   So Zi Qing closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his mother in the distance seemed to have noticed his gaze.   Holding her youngest brother, she turned around, her gaze piercing through the crowd to land on her eldest son, who held a candied hawthorn skewer, his face strangely calm.   A gentle smile bloomed on her face, and she slightly raised her chin towards Ziqing.   Her younger son, also in her arms, turned his head. The seven-year-old’s face was delicate and clean, his eyes clear, reflecting the luster of the candied hawthorn and a hint of barely perceptible grievance.   He saw his brother, saw the candied hawthorn skewer, and his eyes lit up.   But the next second, his clear eyes quickly welled up with tears, his rims reddened, and his little mouth pouted.   ”This child, why are your eyes red again?” His father’s helpless voice, tinged with amusement, came from the side.   And his mother’s voice echoed as well.   “Qing’er, you’re a man, you can’t cry just because your brother left.”   “Look over there, the ceremony is about to begin.”   These words, spoken from afar, reached Zi Qing’s ears. His gaze passed over his mother’s gentle profile, over his father’s broad shoulders, over his younger brother’s tearful, expectant eyes, finally settling on the altar, on that broken, cold, eternally frozen face high in the heavens.   “The time has come,”   Zi Qing whispered.   Holding his candied hawthorn, like a silent observer, he walked forward.   He walked towards his family in this life, towards the altar he had chosen with his own hands…

On the altar, the priest, clad in a scarlet robe, suddenly spread his arms wide, his voice, piercing to the bone and chilling to the bone, like a horn announcing the end of the world, abruptly tearing apart the clamor of the marketplace.

“In the year 135 of Tianqi, the year is Nanhuang, the moon is in Guixiu!”

“We, mere ants, crawling in the land of Shuangdu, dare to offer this foul offering to the god of the broken face—”

With that voice, Ziqing calmly walked forward, calmly raising his head.

His gaze pierced through the priest’s fluttering red robes, through the fear of the hundred prisoners awaiting execution on the altar, and straight to the indifferent giant face in the sky.

That face… still cold, still broken.

But he knew that the chains of the contract had been taut.

When he sacrificed himself to that broken face in exchange for the future, he had said that on the day of his return, he would sacrifice everything he had seen.

Every word of that sentence carried the echo of cause and effect.

“In the past, the Azure Jade fell to the ground, the Black Tortoise broke its leg, and when your eyes first opened, the scorching sun melted into molten iron, boiling the five lakes, and the myriad stars shattered into shooting arrows, piercing the nine fields!”

The priest’s chant, echoing this cause and effect, grew increasingly high-pitched and frenzied.

Zi Qing’s gaze returned to his parents and younger brother.

He saw his father, seemingly sensing something, his brow furrowing slightly, instinctively turning to shield his wife and child behind him.

He saw his mother holding his younger brother, her face still bearing the tenderness for her child and the unease from the priest’s voice.

His young brother, seemingly frightened by the somber atmosphere, buried his face in his mother’s neck.

Gazing at all this, Zi Qing’s heart was a frozen, lifeless lake, devoid of ripples, devoid of emotion, only a cold, clear-headed fulfillment of a contract.

And the warmth of the candied hawthorn skewer in his hand was slowly fading, becoming as cold as his palm.

“The ruins still glow with will-o’-the-wisps, the living devour the grave soil, and the blood clots between your eyelashes still reflect the dying breaths of the common people!”

The priest’s voice was almost a roar.

“God!”

“May the last breath that leaks from between your teeth be the fuel for our survival; may the shadow that falls from your brow be the refuge for the common people!”

The priest’s arms, like the guillotine’s blade, swung down fiercely, pointing at the prisoners on the altar!

“May God close his eyes!”

“May God sleep forever!”

“May God… not open his eyes!!”

“Not open his eyes!!!”

At this moment, a wave of voices suddenly rose, and in the instant the whole city shouted in unison, Zi Qing whispered from the crowd.

“I have returned.”

“With all that I have seen, I fulfill the promise of my past life.”

The instant these two sentences were uttered…

in the sky, the eyelids that had been closed since time immemorial, like the cracks in an abyss, suddenly moved!

Upward… a crack opened!

No light, no emotion, only a pure, cold, indifferent nothingness leaked from that crack.

The contract… was complete.

Boom!!

A silent sound of annihilation suddenly reverberated deep within Zi Qing’s soul.

It was the cold echo of the contract’s fulfillment.

The world before him began its destined end.

Weathering!

In that gaze, the bricks, wooden beams, streets… all the solid entities that made up Wushuang City, under the watchful eyes of the remnant, instantly lost their foundation.

Silently disintegrating, turning into billions of gray-white dust, as if swept up by an invisible storm, frantically flowing backwards to the sky!

The entire city was being wiped away from the earth bit by bit by an unseen hand!

“This…this…”

“God has opened his eyes!”

“No…”

Countless mournful cries instantly replaced the deathly silence, sweeping across the entire Wushuang City.

One by one, lives around Zi Qing, accompanied by the echoing cries, began to mutate!

A woman’s skin tore open, her bones cracking!

Children swelled into mountains of flesh, covered in pustules and sharp claws!

Elders’ skulls split open, revealing compound eyes!

Men’s muscles proliferated, covering them with scales and growing fangs!

The peaceful Wushuang City, at the moment Ziqing fulfilled his contract, transformed into a grinding mill of flesh and blood!

Those not mutated suffered even more tragically, their bodies shattering directly into blood mist, rising into the air, becoming a rain of blood!

Life, in the form stipulated by the contract, withered away in droves.

Ziqing’s gaze pierced through the swirling gray-white dust and scarlet blood mist, coldly landing on the distant location of his parents and younger brother.

He saw his father suddenly turn around, trying to protect his mother and younger brother, but his broad back had only just leaned forward, the horror and determination on his face not yet fully solidified… when his body, like a sand sculpture blown away by the wind, turned to ashes inch by inch, starting from his fingertips!

There were no screams, no process, instantly swallowed by the dust rising into the sky, disappearing without a trace.

He saw his mother, holding his younger brother, her gentle expression instantly replaced by overwhelming bewilderment and fear. She didn’t even have time to look in the direction her husband had disappeared before her entire body stiffened abruptly…

like a candle thrown into a furnace, melting rapidly and silently, starting from the top of her head!

Her jet-black hair, fair skin, gentle eyes… everything about her as “mother” melted into a viscous, dark red liquid under Zi Qinglu’s gaze, flowing down the small body of her younger brother in her arms!

“Ugh…”

He saw his younger brother let out a short, terrified whimper, falling from the still-warm, dark red pool of blood formed from his mother’s blood, crashing heavily onto the ground, which was also covered in viscous blood.

His small body curled up in the blood, trembling, stained with his mother’s blood.

At that moment, the grayish-white dust in the air seemed like mourning paper money, mixing with the viscous blood rain, falling softly.

Death, utterly and completely, even mutations… often crumble at the moment of distortion.

And the rain of blood grew heavier.

In the rain, Ziqing trudged through the warm, viscous blood, step by step, towards the small figure curled up in the pool of blood.

Finally, he stopped before the figure. He

looked down at his younger brother.

The boy’s small shoulders trembled violently, the blood rain soaking his thin clothes, like a young animal abandoned in a sea of blood, only silent, immense fear and bewilderment remaining.

Now, under his gaze, the boy slowly raised his head

, revealing a small face completely smeared with blood, tears, and dust.

Those once clear eyes were now only filled with boundless emptiness and immense fear, like two dry wells filled with despair.

Broken syllables, laced with bloody sobs, were squeezed out of his throat with difficulty.

“Brother… Father and Mother…”

Hearing his younger brother’s voice, his purplish-blue lips moved.

The bamboo skewer for the candied hawthorn in his palm had somehow become deeply embedded in his flesh.

Warm drops of blood rolled down the skewer, dripping onto the equally sticky ground, mingling with his mother’s blood, with the blood of the entire city.

But he felt no pain, only the cold echo of the fulfillment of the contract reverberating in his chest.

So, he offered no explanation.

Any words were a hypocritical desecration before the destruction he had created with his own hands.

He had fulfilled his promise, nothing more.

In the end, he simply placed his bloodstained hand more steadily on his younger brother’s equally cold, blood-stained head.

The movement carried an almost ritualistic heaviness.

At the same time, he held out the string of candied hawthorns, stained with his own blood and filthy, to his younger brother.

His cracked lips parted, and the words that escaped were calm and even, like the final words of a eulogy, clearly piercing through the rain of blood and the fading sobs.

“Younger brother,”

he whispered, looking into the eyes filled with immense fear.

“…Don’t cry.”

His hand fell!

But just as his hand was about to touch his younger brother’s head, at that moment, the heavens and earth seemed to split open, a deafening roar rising from the sky!

Beneath that incomparably violent sound, light tore through space and time, appearing in an instant!

Illuminating the sky, illuminating the earth, illuminating the rain of blood!

It was the light of dawn!

Obscuring everything, boundless and vast, like a sea, replacing the entire world. It

also enveloped Zi Qing’s place.

And from this vast, astonishing, and dazzling light of dawn, a hand reached out…

and grabbed Zi Qing’s arm that was about to decapitate his younger brother.

He grabbed it tightly!

Then, with a sudden flick of his wrist, he flung it into the distance!

Zi Qing’s body jolted violently; under this terrifying force, he was thrown out and landed some distance away.

His eyes gleamed with a strange light as he stared at the figure now revealed in the light.

“You’ve finally arrived here.”

(End of Chapter)