A deathly silence blanketed heaven and earth.
That utterly oppressive stillness spread like an invisible boulder weighing heavily on every heart, until all living beings almost forgot to breathe.
The astral wind stopped!
The tribulation light dissipated!
Even the sun, moon, and stars, which had revolved ceaselessly above the Nine Heavens since time immemorial, seemed to freeze at that moment.
No one spoke.
Or, more precisely, no one dared to speak.
Every gaze remained fixed on the far end of the sky.
There, the figures of the Elder of Chaos and Hongjun had long since vanished, leaving only an empty expanse of void and a wisp of lingering chaos energy that had yet to disperse completely.
The Heaven-Opening Divine Axe had been taken away.
The Elder of Chaos had taken it away in full view of everyone.
And Gu Changqing had not made a move from beginning to end.
Only after a long while did a Mighty Expert recover from that indescribable shock and daze.
He was an old cultivator with white hair and a white beard, whose cultivation stood at peak quasi-saint, making him a figure of considerable renown in the Primordial World.
At that moment, his lips moved faintly, releasing a murmur like words spoken in a dream.
"It's over... it's really over..."
Those few words were very soft, so soft they were almost swallowed by the wind.
Yet amid that silence, where a falling pin could have been heard throughout heaven and earth, they were like a pebble dropped into a deathly still lake, instantly stirring ripple after ripple.
They jolted countless living beings awake.
"It's over?"
"Yes... it's over..."
"The Heaven-Opening Divine Axe... the Elder of Chaos really took it away..."
After a brief silence, it was as though a dam had burst. Countless living beings