The Heavens' Judgment Divine Light pierced the sky, while the Chaos World-Ending Black Axe tore through the void.
The two ultimate killing moves stretched across heaven and earth, one following the other. Wrapped in terrifying power capable of crushing the foundations of the universe, they crashed toward the center of the formation's eye.
The entire shattered world fell silent in an instant. The wind, the sound of explosions, and the distant rumble of rippling shock waves were all swallowed by an aura of utter destruction. Between heaven and earth, only two blinding pillars of light remained, one black and one white—one righteous, one evil, one ordered, one chaotic—sealing off every possibility for Lin Chen to dodge, resist, or retreat.
Not far away, the three heavily wounded figures on the ground all watched with constricted pupils, an unbearable helplessness welling up in their hearts.
Kallen braced himself against his broken body and tried to rise. Most of his meridians had been severed, and his purple battle aura was completely spent. He had barely lifted an arm before it fell heavily back down, leaving him able only to watch the fatal scene unfold. For the first time, a trace of despair appeared in Frieza's usually icy eyes. His imperial power was exhausted, and his Law of Ice had shattered. Though he had once ruled the starry river for countless ages, now he wasn't even qualified to raise a hand and intervene. The Golden Super Saiyan's aura was in disarray, his essence nearly depleted. His golden eyes remained fixed on the formation's eye, and for the first time, his composure—steady for countless ages—was thrown into turmoil.
The defenses they had built with everything they had were utterly broken. They couldn't stop the Supremes' and Chaos's joint killing blow, much less protect Lin Chen, who stood alone guarding the heart of the chess game.
Everyone believed that, in the next instant, all would be over.
The last Fate Defier in this world would be crushed by the two ultimate forces in an instant, his soul annihilated and his Dao foundation erased. The chess game of defying fate, carried on for countless ages, would finally end, becoming spoils of war for the Heavens and Chaos.
But just as the Judgment Divine Light and the Chaos Black Axe were about to touch Lin Chen, a sudden change occurred.
On the Black and White Jade Disc, the blood-red patterns of resentment that stretched endlessly suddenly stopped stirring.
The once-rampant, savage tide of blood-red resentment, filled with the grief of countless ages, froze in midair as if someone had pressed a stop button. The clouds of resentful energy that had churned across the sky no longer surged in every direction or eroded the world's essence. The entire out-of-control sea of resentment fell silent in an instant.
In their place appeared countless fine, ancient, cryptic Gray Runes.
These runes surged out from the deepest core of the Jade Disc's essence and rapidly spread along its blood-red cracks, covering the entire disc layer upon layer. Blood-red on the surface, gray beneath; one bright, one dim, one manifest, one hidden—the sight was eerie to the extreme.
The unfamiliar divine consciousness that had lain dormant for countless ages, silently devouring the world's essence, shed all its disguises at last and erupted without reservation.
A cold, silent gray aura, transcending both order and Chaos, exploded from the Jade Disc and instantly engulfed the world for tens of thousands of miles.
The moment the Heavens' Judgment Divine Light touched the gray barrier, its supreme power of order visibly dissolved, faded, and disintegrated.
The Supreme divine light that could pass judgment on the starry river and erase universes fell upon the Gray Runes like water flowing over stone. It could not advance by even an inch. Instead, wisps of gray aura consumed and refined it, turning it into the blandest nothingness.
Close behind it, the Chaos World-Ending Black Axe struck the gray curtain of light. The pitch-black torrent of Chaos shuddered violently, and the Chaos Power that devoured all things began rapidly to recede and break apart.
The unsealed, fully restored Chaos Power—the dark essence that stood above all the Heavens' techniques—felt an instinctive fear before these unfamiliar gray Dao laws. Like natural enemies facing each other, it dared not touch them at all.
Boom!
The two killing blows slammed into the gray curtain of light, raising an energy storm that swept across heaven and earth, yet they could not break through even a fraction of the seemingly fragile barrier.
Light clashed wildly across the sky, and the roar shook the ages. Yet the tiny pocket of space at the center of the formation's eye remained eerily peaceful.
Lin Chen stood at the heart of the storm. The wind howled around him, and the power of destruction surged. His robes whipped in the gale, but his body didn't move an inch.
His soul, however, was enduring an unprecedented force of restraint and torment.
Countless Gray Runes followed the essence pathways connecting him to the Jade Disc, then streamed along the bonds of his soul and poured into his sea of consciousness. The runes didn't take his life, destroy his essence, or shatter his body. Instead, like thousands upon thousands of chains, they wound around, sealed, and imprisoned the very core of his soul.
A cold, indifferent will had taken complete control of every rhythm of this chess game.
"I told you, today the chess game's pieces must be collected."
The ethereal whisper rang through heaven and earth once more. It was no longer the faint murmur from before; now it rang with authority, echoing through every inch of the void and reaching everyone's ears.
Above, the true forms of the Seven Supremes trembled in unison. The divine abysses that stretched across the starry river contracted slightly, and for the first time, their supreme aura grew visibly grave.
They gazed down at the world shrouded in gray mist. The mockery and contempt vanished from their eyes, replaced by endless suspicion and wariness.
"Heterodox Dao Laws? They belong neither to the order of the Heavens nor to the disorder of Chaos. What kind of power is this?"
An ancient, majestic voice rang out, trembling with disbelief.
The Heavens commanded the order of countless ages and ruled over myriad dimensions, their knowledge encompassing the past and present of the universe. Chaos gave rise to endless darkness and nurtured the world's disorder, encompassing all things and every form. Yet the gray Dao laws before them transcended the understanding of both. They were absent from the records of the ages and existed outside the laws of heaven and earth.
They had plotted for billions of years and harvested countless universes, yet had never encountered such a strange, overbearing power—one that stood above all else.
Not far away in the void, the immense shadow of the Chaos King churned violently, its hollow eyes filled with the utmost wariness.
It instinctively feared this gray aura. The restraint it exerted at the level of their very essences made his unsealed, fully restored Chaos Power shrink back again and again, afraid to spread even a fraction further. The feast of devouring he had been sure to claim had now become an unpredictable crisis.
He had lain dormant for countless ages, devouring the world and believing he had seen through the true nature of the chess game. Yet he had never imagined that, from beginning to end, the true player had never been the Heavens, nor Chaos, nor even the ancient sages.
It was this Gray Existence hidden within the essence of the Balance Jade Disk, buried in the deepest resentment of all living beings—unknown and unnoticed by anyone.
The chess game of the ages had changed hands from the very beginning.
At the center of the formation's eye, Lin Chen forced his turbulent soul to steady itself and gritted his teeth against the Gray Runes' restraint.
At last, he fully understood the cause and effect behind everything. A storm surged through his heart as every doubt, every question, every mystery fell into place.
The ancient sages had been wrong.
They had believed they were using all living beings as kindling to set an against-heaven scheme in motion, seeking to overthrow the Heavens and hold Chaos in check. They had believed themselves to be the players. Little had they known that the world-shaking plan they had devised was, from the start, the result of someone's deliberate manipulation.
They had harvested the obsessions of all living beings, forged the Balance Jade Disk, and defied the tide while bearing the blame of countless ages. It had seemed tragic and resolute, but in truth, they had only been accumulating nourishment and laying the foundation for this Gray Existence.
The Supremes of the Heavens had been wrong, too.
They believed they controlled the cycle of the chess game, harvesting this world generation after generation, treating all living beings as livestock and ants in a granary, with life and death in their hands. They had no idea that their incursions across worlds, their dimensional sanctions, and their crushing of the laws had repeatedly intensified the world's conflicts, forcing the resentment of all living beings to settle and accumulate. They had been helping the hidden being nurture a fury that could destroy heaven and earth.
The Chaos King had been wrong as well.
He had devoured the world's essence amid the chaos, grown stronger while the chess game was in turmoil, and sought to reap the benefits as a third party, devouring the remains of the universe to attain the supreme Chaos Dao fruit. In the end, all his devouring, plundering, and fomenting of conflict had merely served someone else.
The suffering of all living beings, the ancient sages' resolve, the Heavens' slaughter, Chaos's plunder...
Every sacrifice, conflict, calamity, and upheaval across the ages had been for this very moment.
To make the Balance Jade Disk lose its balance completely, to make the resentment of countless ages boil over, to force the Heavens and Chaos to fight with all their might, and to expose the deepest shackles of the chess game—ultimately paving the way for this strange Gray Existence, hidden throughout the ages.
"You used the ancient sages to accumulate resentment, the Heavens to throw the game into chaos, and Chaos to break through the defenses..."
Lin Chen's voice was hoarse as his soul struggled to move, fighting against the layers of Gray Runes binding him. "You endured for countless ages, watching generation after generation of living beings sacrificed, watching the world suffer again and again. From beginning to end, was your sole purpose to use the chess game of the ages to nurture your Dao fruit?"
A silent laugh slowly echoed, cold and indifferent, devoid of the slightest trace of human feeling.
"The Heaven and Earth Chess Game was a furnace for nurturing the Dao from the very beginning."
"The Heavens upheld order and made the cage permanent, keeping all living beings trapped for eternity so they could settle their obsessions for me. Chaos upheld disorder and shattered the laws, denying the world any peace so it could stoke fury for me. The people of antiquity, clever in their own minds, defied the tide and laid their plans, gathering scattered resentments from the ages for me and concentrating them in the Jade Disc's essence."
"For billions of years, the cycle repeated. Order and Chaos struggled back and forth, and living beings passed through life and death again and again. Everything was done to grind away every shackle of the old world."
"If the old order is not broken, a new Dao cannot emerge. What I wanted was never the remains of this universe, never the resentment of all living beings as nourishment, never the Balance Jade Disk's essence of equilibrium."
At those words, Lin Chen's whole body shuddered, and an unprecedented chill rose in his heart.
"What I want is—the chess game itself."
The gray light suddenly blazed. The curtain of light enveloping heaven and earth rapidly contracted, all of it returning to the Black and White Jade Disc.
The Gray Runes completely subdued the rampaging blood-red resentment. It meekly clung to the surface of the Jade Disc, no longer the least bit savage, only deeply silent. The world's Dao foundation, on the verge of shattering, was forcibly stabilized by the gray power. Every broken ley line, collapsed stretch of void, and distorted law was forcibly smoothed out.
The world that had just been on the brink of destruction, trapped in a deadly situation on all sides, steadied completely in a mere instant.
But this stability was not salvation or a chance at life. It was utter confinement and control.
This world, this chess game of defying fate that had continued for countless ages, had completely escaped the contest between the Heavens and Chaos and fallen entirely into the hands of the Gray Existence.
And Lin Chen was the final—and only—piece on the board.
Countless Gray Runes took root along the pathways of his soul, locking down his essence, bloodline, memories, and will. He could clearly feel the bonds between himself and this world, the Jade Disc's essence, and the chess game of the ages being forcibly reshaped, bound, and deepened by this power.
He was no longer a Fate Defier who had entered the game.
He had become the heart of the chess game, the vessel through which this Gray Existence controlled the world across the ages.
"Why did you bind me?" Lin Chen demanded, his voice low, his eyes full of defiance. "Countless people before me inherited the essence. Why me?"
"Because you're the only one who has ever made it through the entire chess game."
The indifferent voice slowly explained, revealing the final secret.
"Those who entered the game before you were either trapped by selfish desires, killed by the Heavenly Dao, or reduced to pawns in the contest. No one ever uncovered every secret, inherited the complete essence, or shouldered all the obsessions of living beings across the ages."
"You hate fate, pity all living beings, defy the Heavens, resist Chaos, bear the sins of countless ages, and safeguard the world's chance at life. Your will, your soul, and your Dao heart are the most perfect Chess Core nurtured by billions of years of the game's cycles."
"No one but you can take your place."
As the voice fell, the Jade Disc turned slowly in midair. Its black-and-white essence was completely fused and brought under the control of the gray Dao laws. An immense, boundless force of control flowed slowly into Lin Chen's body along the bond to his soul.
He could clearly feel himself gaining the highest authority over the entire chess game. He could control resentment, mobilize ley lines, summon the power of heaven and earth, and even contend with the Supremes of the Heavens and suppress Chaos's essence.
Yet behind this supreme power lay an absolute loss of control over himself.
His will remained, his soul had not perished, and his Dao heart endured, but the chess game had firmly locked down his body and essence.
In the distance, the heavily wounded Kallen, Frieza, and Golden Super Saiyan struggled to their feet, their expressions grave as they stared at the changes at the center of the formation's eye.
They could clearly see that the aura around Lin Chen had changed.
It was no longer the gentle resolve of one who stood guard over all living beings, nor the fierce determination of one who resisted the tide. Instead, it now carried the dead gray of someone who gazed down upon the ages and regarded worldly affairs with indifference.
Half of him still followed his original heart and defied fate; the other half had fallen into the chess game's silence.
Two utterly different temperaments, contradictory yet eerily fused within him.
Above, the Seven Supremes finally could no longer hold back.
Sensing that the chess game had changed hands completely, and that an unknown, uncanny power had taken control of everything, the true forms of the Seven Supremes moved at once. Their seven supreme divine might converged. No longer testing or threatening, they brought the full force of their attack across worlds, intent on destroying everything, and crushed down once more.
They would never allow the chess game they had cultivated for countless ages to fall into the hands of some unknown, uncanny being.
At the same time, the Chaos King poured out the essence he had left. An endless torrent of darkness erupted again, desperately battering the gray restraints.
The contest between old and new, the ultimate showdown, began once more.
Yet faced with the full counterattack of the two ultimate forces, the Black and White Jade Disc floating in the void merely trembled lightly.
The gray patterns clinging to it glimmered faintly. A detached will that encompassed heaven and earth, commanded the chess game, and transcended the ages looked slowly toward the sky through Lin Chen's eyes.
Lin Chen's consciousness remained clear and his Dao heart steadfast, but his body slowly raised a hand without his control.
Wherever his palm pointed, the gray Dao laws surged through heaven and earth, and the power of the entire chess game of the ages converged in his palm.
Deep in Lin Chen's soul, the being that had lain hidden for countless ages finally revealed its true purpose—it would use Lin Chen's hand and the Fate Defier's original heart to slaughter the Heavens and Chaos, completely destroy the old world, and then bring forth an entirely new, supreme Chess Dao!
But just as Lin Chen was about to raise his hand and strike back, deep within his battered sea of consciousness, a fragment of ancient memory—sealed away for billions of years and never before revealed—suddenly shattered and lit up.
It showed a scene more ancient than the sages' plans, older than the birth of the Heavens, more distant than the dawn of Chaos.
In that scene, countless Balance Dao Artifacts identical to the Black and White Jade Disc floated through the endless void. Each one housed a wisp of the same gray, silent divine consciousness.
So the chess game of the ages had never been the only one!
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