The Greater Will held Lu Mingfei by the shoulder and gave him a gentle push.
Lu Mingfei fell into darkness as though plummeting from the heavens. Unlike his bewildered arrival, this time he crossed the passage with his mind clear. Space and time lost their shape here. Light reached its end at the instant of its birth, and everything underwent infinite, repeated reflections.
Lu Mingfei tried extending his spiritual power to experience this rare opportunity. Countless abstract lights, shadows, colors, and symbols reflected in his eyes. At last, the disordered gibberish began to converge into regular lines and images, with life, time, and evolution all twisting within them.
Everything was heading toward its end, expressed through all manner of deaths. Some deaths were glorious, some filthy, some momentous, some unknown... The laws of the universe were neither good nor bad. It was humanity's distinctions between deaths that gave events meaning.
In a daze, he reached out.
Time froze at the instant flames climbed the girl's body. The fire illuminated the face beneath her hood, casting a healthy flush over her skin. Her burning clothes stirred in the hot wind, and points of light hung around her like pearls of every size.
The Frenzied Flame surged toward her. Melina lowered her eyes, ready to meet death.
The flames parted before her like waves striking a reef. She looked up. There was clearly nothing before her, yet the fire traced an outline in empty air. An illusory figure reached out as though to stroke her cheek.
Across a gulf of space and time that even gods could scarcely cross, she reached out and clasped the figure's hand. At that moment, the strings of fate were forcibly plucked. Many who had died would no longer die. Fleeting dreams and shadows would no