The Final Battle

Hong Yun clearly had not gone out much these past years, and he still wore his red robe.

Only, the lightness that usually lingered in his eyes and brows had become far more subdued before this great calamity sweeping through the Primordial World.

Qing Xuan descended before the mountain gate and glanced at the Earth Book already held in Zhen Yuanzi's hands.

"Has something happened in the west?"

"Not yet."

Zhen Yuanzi said, "But in recent years, the Black Lotus Demon Marks within the western Ancestral Vein have become far more active than before."

"Especially in the main veins near Mount Sumeru. Even the Earth Book can no longer clearly see what is happening within them."

The group did not linger at the mountain gate and returned together to Wuzhuang Temple.

Zhen Yuanzi soon placed the Earth Book upon the stone table in the courtyard.

The ancient tome opened of its own accord, revealing the mountains and terrain of the western Primordial World before them.

Compared to the last time Qing Xuan had seen it, the changes upon its pages were already unmistakable.

In the region closest to Mount Sumeru, the Earth Vein patterns that had once been barely discernible were now almost entirely obscured by a layer of dark, murky aura.

The black demonic patterns once hidden deep within the mountains and rivers were no longer as fine as strands of hair. They had linked together, like a vast net continuously spreading beneath the earth.

Only farther outward did these changes gradually lessen.

And within those Earth Veins that could still be seen clearly, specks of azure light remained quietly submerged in the deepest places.

Those were the Creation Seeds they had left behind several Epoch Cycles ago.

Qing Yi stood beside the table and lightly placed a fingertip upon one of them.

The azure light on the page brightened faintly.

"They are all still there."

Zhen Yuanzi nodded.

"For all these years, I have continuously nurtured them with the Earth Book without disturbing the Demon Marks Luohou left behind."

Qing Xuan watched for a while without inspecting them further.

As long as the key branch veins on the outskirts remained unharmed, their preparations from back then were still effective.

As for the areas closer to Mount Sumeru, they had never been something a few Creation Seeds could resolve.

"Then we wait."

He said, "When Luohou truly makes his move, the Earth Book will know before we do."

Zhen Yuanzi thought the same.

There was no point entering the west in advance now. It would instead be easy to alert those Demon Marks already deeply entangled with the Earth Veins.

Rather than risk touching something Luohou had arranged over countless years, it was better to remain on Longevity Mountain and act from the outskirts of the Earth Veins only after the true changes emerged.

Once the matter was settled, the days became peaceful again.

Qing Xuan and Qing Yi remained at Wuzhuang Temple for the time being.

Zhen Yuanzi spent most of his time observing the west through the Earth Book, occasionally adjusting several arrangements they had left behind with Qing Xuan.

Hong Yun no longer traveled everywhere as he had before. Each day, he merely picked spiritual fruits from the mountain, or simply sat beside them and listened as they discussed the Earth Veins.

No one stared at the pages every moment of every day.

At their level, when true changes came, none of them could possibly fail to notice.

Yet this rare tranquility did not last long.

Several hundred years passed, and the sounds of slaughter across the Primordial World began to diminish.

At first, only some remote battlefields gradually fell silent.

Then, even the large-scale conflicts that had lasted thousands of years began to cease one after another.

The three clans had not made peace with one another, nor had any side truly yielded.

They were simply all doing the same thing.

The Dragon Race withdrew from vast waters in the north and west of the Primordial World, directly abandoning even rivers, lakes, and marshes they had cultivated for several Epoch Cycles.

Countless dragonkind returned eastward along the waterways, scarcely entangling themselves with the Phoenix Clan and Qilin Tribe along the way.

The Phoenix Clan also began recalling its members from the central regions of the Primordial World.

The cries of phoenixes that had once echoed across countless spiritual mountains and fire veins grew fewer by the day, while large numbers of phoenix descendants gathered once more toward the south.

The Qilin Tribe withdrew its strength from mountain ranges and branch Earth Veins everywhere, gradually pulling its scattered clans back into the central Primordial World.

This great calamity, which had lasted for untold ages, unexpectedly entered a rare period of quiet just as it neared its conclusion.

Yet the more it did, the heavier the Calamity Aura between heaven and earth became.

The clear daylight once visible above Longevity Mountain had also dimmed bit by bit over these years.

Sometimes, when Qing Xuan sat beneath the Ginseng Fruit Tree and looked up, he could even see wisps of gray-black Calamity Aura drifting across the distant sky.

The sensation was exactly like the oppressive heat before a torrential downpour truly began.

Heaven and earth were waiting.

Waiting for that final thunderclap that would shake the entire Primordial World.

Until one day, Zhen Yuanzi, who had been sitting quietly within Wuzhuang Temple, suddenly opened his eyes.

At almost the same time, the Earth Book floating at his side opened by itself.

No changes appeared in the mountains and terrain upon its pages, yet in the east of the Primordial World, a Fate Aura that had lain dormant for a long time suddenly began to surge sharply.

Qing Xuan also raised his head at that moment.

It was not only the Earth Book. The ground beneath all of Longevity Mountain was trembling faintly.

At first, it was barely perceptible.

Then, the tremors traveled continuously along the Earth Veins, as though some colossal being were slowly awakening in a place endlessly far away.

The group almost simultaneously walked out of Wuzhuang Temple.

The distant heavens had already changed.

In the east, an endless radiance of crimson gold rose from where sea and sky met.

Countless waterways resonated with it, and the Dragon Race's Fate Aura, accumulated over innumerable years above the Four Seas, was completely stirred at that moment.

Vast waters gathered from every corner of the Primordial World, ultimately forming a dragon silhouette at the edge of heaven and earth that obscured sun and moon.

Before the dragon's roar had truly reached Longevity Mountain, its pressure, forcing the spiritual energies of heaven and earth downward without cease, had already swept over the mountains.

Then the south lit up as well.

Boundless phoenix fire spread across the heavens, while layers upon layers of crimson cloud-seas extended northward.

Before Yuanfeng had truly appeared, the phantom of phoenix wings, which would nearly cover half the southern sky when spread wide, slowly rose from the sea of fire.

The final change came in the central Primordial World.

The rumbling from deep within the earth grew heavier with each passing sound.

Countless mountains and Earth Veins simultaneously shone with a dense yellow light, and the Qilin Tribe's Fate Aura, once scattered throughout the Primordial World, rapidly converged.

It ultimately became a colossal dharma form, standing upon the mountains and bearing the firmament upon its back.

The Fate Auras of all three sides rose to heights never seen before at almost the same time.

Within Longevity Mountain, no one spoke.

Even though Hong Yun had long known this day would eventually come, his expression still involuntarily grew grave as he truly witnessed those three Fate Aura manifestations that nearly covered the skies of the Primordial World.

Qing Xuan watched for longer.

Many memories from his past life concerning the Dragon-Han Tribulation became exceptionally clear at that moment.

Yet no matter how many words those stories used to describe the final battle between the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin clans, when it truly unfolded before his eyes, they still seemed far too slight.

This was not a contest between three powerful individuals.

It was three vast clans that had once ruled the Four Seas, the skies, and the earth respectively, staking everything they had accumulated through countless Epoch Cycles upon this single day.

The three distant Fate Aura manifestations continued moving toward the same point in heaven and earth.

At first, they could still be clearly distinguished from one another.

Until several days later, the crimson-gold dragon silhouette from the east and the phoenix fire spreading from the south finally collided for the first time.

It was as though the heavens had been torn apart from the center.

A black fissure stretching across an unknown number of miles emerged between the two Fate Auras, then rapidly expanded amid the dense yellow light rising from the central Primordial World.

The true sound came much later instead.

Only several days afterward did that belated thunderous boom cross endless mountains and rivers, rolling over Longevity Mountain.

The countless branches and leaves of the Ginseng Fruit Tree shook violently at once, while vast clouds were blasted into surging waves on either side.

The Earth Book in Zhen Yuanzi's hand also flipped open without wind at that moment.

Mountain ranges and terrain flashed across its pages one after another before finally stopping in the west.

The black demonic patterns once buried in the deepest parts of the Earth Veins lit up simultaneously for the first time.

Qing Xuan lowered his eyes and glanced at them.

The true final battle of the three clans had begun.

And Luohou, who had been waiting for this day all along, clearly had no intention of waiting any longer.