Departure

"Creak."

"Creak."

Treading through the snow to the abyss, as the vast blizzard stirred up by the Heavenly Punishment gradually settled like dust, the pavilion that had contained the two men of the older generation was no more. All that remained was the enormous Black Abyss. The maimed young man, blood flowing with every step, arrived at the place where the grudges of the previous generation had come to an end.

His body, damaged by the aftershocks, was continually mended by the laws of death. Xu Yuan quietly gazed into the black stillness below, and for no reason at all, his mind drifted to that first mountain.

Heaven Gate Mountain, Great Yan's tallest peak, soaring into the clouds.

Everyone in the world believed that the terrifying hollow atop it had been carved out by the life-risking sword strike of the Heaven Gate Sword Immortal.

But now it seemed, the Heaven Gate Sword Immortal had indeed struck out with a sword, yet even that strike had failed to overcome the Heavens, causing him and his sword technique alike to be annihilated beneath the Heavenly Punishment.

The exact same overwhelming power.

It had turned the Tianshan of old into Heaven Gate Mountain.

It had turned the imperial mausoleum of today into the Imperial Abyss.

The power that had annihilated all three people capable of threatening the Heavens.

"Huff."

The warmth of his breath turned into white mist and dissipated.

Xu Yuan slowly bent down and sat in the snow beside the abyss. Looking up at the heavens where that giant eye had vanished, a trace of bewilderment showed in his pupils.

After the Heavenly Punishment descended, the heavenly eye at the vault of the sky had disappeared, along with the auras of the two men beneath it.

Even in their final moments,