Picking Up Attributes In Martial World-Chapter 66: He Who Comprehend The Void
Ye Jun wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t. The blade struck the earth, and the world simply came apart at the seam.
Fractures exploded outward from the point of impact in every direction simultaneously, swallowing what remained of the battlefield whole, consuming the dead and the Infernal Creatures alike without distinction.
The flames poured into those fractures like water finding its level, rushing downward into the earth’s depths and then erupting back upward in geysers that turned the horizon a deep, suffocating red.
Everything was ending.
And still the creature drove the blade deeper.
Space buckled and folded around it like old cloth. Chasms opened that had no visible bottom to them, only that same red glow burning from somewhere impossibly far below.
The sky cracked next, physically cracked, hairline fractures of darkness spreading across it the same way they had spread across the ground, as if the world above and below were finally giving in to the same inevitability.
Ye Jun stood amid it all, untouched in the way that only a witness could be, and felt the coldness in his chest deepen into something he had no name for. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
This battle here had been lost.
This was a world that had been finished.
The next moment, the world exploded into fragments, and the Eternal Void beyond released tendrils of darkness that consumed everything right before his eyes.
’I shouldn’t be seeing this.’
But he did. He saw the end of a world right before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do.
Lost in thought, Ye Jun floated in the same void. After what felt like an eternity, he heard a deep, heavy voice come from all around him, as if existence itself was speaking to him. And he was familiar with it.
YOU MUST UNITE THEM.
"Unite who?" he asked back.
THE CONVERGENCE IS NEAR. THE HEAVEN IS FRACTURING. THE SEEDS ARE READY TO BLOOM.
Ye Jun sighed. "So the world is ending and you’re throwing that information at me. Who are you even?"
YOU MUST UNITE THEM.
PRESENCE OF MONARCHS IS IMPORTANT.
"Didn’t you say they’re dead?" Ye Jun muttered.
There was a long silence which made Ye Jun’s heart beat rapidly, as if something dreadful was approaching him. As if a calamity was about to descend upon him.
HE WHO COMPREHENDS THE VOID RETURNS.
...
Ye Jun woke up with a gasp, sweat trickling down his face and back, dampening his already torn robes. It even mixed with the dried blood.
’W-What the hell was that?’ Ye Jun shivered as he tried his best not to remember the final moments.
That voice had spoken something... someone’s name at the end of that strange dream. The moment it was uttered, the void had shattered, and Ye Jun remembered something trying to consume him.
That something instilled primal fear in him, as it threatened to devour his entire existence, but it couldn’t do it for some reason.
’The protection... that man, whatever he was, must have saved me.’
He looked around and realized he was north of the Whispering Valley in a clearing. He tried to sense any Spiritual Beasts nearby but found none.
’The Envoys must have cleared them.’
Then he lay back on the soft grass and closed his eyes. He needed some time to process the information he had obtained and recover from the scene of watching a world die.
’For all I know, it could just be an illusion set by some old monster. I shouldn’t trust the memory so easily.’
But that didn’t mean he dismissed it entirely. If there was any truth to it, it would impact his life and the lives of those close to him. After all, if there was no world, where were they supposed to live?
’The Convergence must be an apocalypse. Is this world really going to face an apocalypse?’
Ye Jun groaned, feeling too exhausted to think about world-ending events. The whole day had been a mess for him. First, he spent his time hunting beasts and running around the Wildlands.
It definitely included hunting down Ye Clan members.
Then he had to go through the tomb’s trial and experience the Gravity Stairs. Following that, he fought a battle to the death and enacted revenge on his younger brother.
It gave him joy, but also exhaustion.
As if that wasn’t enough, he also had to witness a world-shattering battle and learn that the world itself might be ending. And there was no one left to defend it.
All of this exhausted him, both physically and mentally.
’Fuck it! The world isn’t ending anytime soon,’ Ye Jun cursed mentally. ’I will just discuss this later with Meihui and Liangxue. They’re more knowledgeable about the world than me, so we can decide what to do with this information.’
For now, he just needed rest.
After spending a few minutes lying there, he decided to go back. As he stood up, his gaze fell on his right wrist. A tattoo of a black serpent coiled around it came into view.
’I didn’t have it before.’
Instinctively, he poured Qi into the symbol, and suddenly he felt a strange pull from different directions. He blinked in surprise, stood up, and tried to follow the directions the symbol gave him.
’One leads north, while others are south. Maybe the Central Lands and other Plains. But what is there?’
He was curious but pushed the matter to the back of his mind. As he stopped pouring Qi into the symbol, the pull also disappeared, though he could still faintly sense it.
’They will come back if I give Qi to this symbol. Whatever it is.’
Shaking his head, he dragged his worn-out body, bloodied in many places, back toward the main Whispering Valley. The sun was still up, which meant the Martial Exchange was still ongoing.
Even if that wasn’t the case, he knew Meihui would wait for him.
Thinking of her made him feel much better as warmth spread through his heart and his lips curled slightly. ’A month can really do wonders.’
He made his way back and finally reached the Whispering Valley. There, he found a young man sitting on the corpses of two giant tigers. He fanned himself while muttering something in annoyance.
Ye Jun smiled. He was back.
The world hadn’t ended. Not yet.
