Boom—
Before Chen Xun had even finished speaking.
All clamor between heaven and earth had already vanished.
It was as though some heavy will that had spanned hundreds of millions of years had loosened at this very moment.
In the distance, an elderly man of the Vast Clan first trembled slightly, as though he had forgotten how to bend his own back. The joints bent crooked by time gave off faint crackling sounds before he—slowly knelt.
Thud.
The sound was not loud, yet it seemed to strike the heart of the entire world.
Then—
A second person.
A third.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
No one cried out. No one wept. There were not even any needless movements.
They merely knelt.
As though they had rehearsed it countless times already.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sounds began to merge into one, low and heavy, like ancient war drums being struck anew from the depths of the earth. They were also like silent tides rising and falling, layer upon layer, spreading toward the End of Heaven and Earth.
The old knelt.
Women knelt.
Children, too, were gently pressed upon the shoulders and made to kneel alongside them.
Hundreds of thousands.
Millions.
Tens of millions.
Across the scarred earth, dust slowly rose from the tremors, then quietly settled amid the shifting light and shadows, as though even heaven and earth dared not disturb this scene.
There was no wild joy on their faces.
No gratitude.
Not even excitement.
There was only a numbness—one that had nearly frozen solid.
It was the gaze of those who, after being suppressed for hundreds of millions of years, had long forgotten how to express emotion.
Yet deep beneath that numbness was an exceedingly faint light, one so steadfast it could not be shaken.
Like a spark buried