Chapter 121
"A fragment of my flesh has already been sent into the Singer's body. She will be able to see what happens, Ling Xu. She will become your witness. And if you fall, if you lose, if you die for the thirteenth time, she will tell your story to the universe, so that you will not be forgotten, so that you will not be erased, so that you may continue to live within the memories of those who still believe that love—a love willing to die eleven times and die yet again countless more times—is something worthy of remembrance."
And the ten paragraphs reached Ling Xu.
Not reaching him like waves crashing against rocks, not like a hammer striking a nail, but like ink seeping into paper, like words entering the mind, like a story becoming part of memory, impossible to separate ever again. Ling Xu felt his body—which had only just risen from the twelfth death with the glory of Complexity Dao, which had only just radiated the three colors that made Silence feel fear for the very first time—begin to fade.
Not fading like colors washed away by water, not fading like memories buried beneath newer and more important ones, but fading like something being rewritten, like something being edited, like something being erased from the script and replaced with another version that was weaker, more fragile, easier to destroy.
"This attack…" Ling Xu whispered, his voice sounding distant, as though it came from the end of a long and dark corridor.
"… It's rewriting my history. Not only my body, not only the foundation of my cultivation, but every step I have taken since I began this journey. Every Star I seized, every Longitude I perfected, every death I endured and every rebirth I achieved—they are all being rewritten, scrambled, their order altered, so that I never became strong, so that I never became a threat, so that I never became the Ling Xu you fear."
And The Silent One, who from afar saw Ling Xu begin to stagger, who saw the three colors around Ling Xu's body flicker like lights running out of electricity, who saw Ling Xu's third eye glowing in grayish green begin to dim like embers abandoned without firewood, laughed.
Not a loud laugh like when he watched Huan Zheng cry over a pool of blood, but a low, deep laugh that emerged from his chest like the tremor of an earthquake, inaudible to human ears yet felt within bones, joints, and marrow.
"This is only the beginning, Ling Xu," The Silent One said, his voice no longer filled with madness, but calm, terribly calm, like a teacher explaining a lesson to his most foolish student.
"Those ten paragraphs were merely a warm-up. Now, I will show you what it truly means to rewrite a story."
And before Ling Xu could steady his ragged breathing, before he could command the Cancer plague within him to repair the layers beginning to crack apart, those ten paragraphs transformed into ten chapters—not chapters like those in an ordinary book, but chapters each composed of thousands of words, thousands of sentences, thousands of descriptions of death, destruction, and wounds beyond the meaning of severe, ten chapters rushing toward Ling Xu with ten times the previous speed, ten times the previous power, ten times the previous intent.
Ling Xu could not dodge.
He could not run, could not hide, could not beg for mercy or bargain or pray to gods and goddesses long since dead.
The only thing he could do was endure—endure with every remnant of strength he still possessed, endure with every remaining layer of Cancer plague flesh within the foundation of his cultivation, endure with every memory of Huan Zheng still warm within his chest like embers that had never truly gone out despite having no firewood left to feed them.
And those ten chapters struck him like ten mountains falling from the sky, like ten oceans overflowing from their depths, like ten deaths arriving at once with none willing to wait their turn.
He felt his memories of the Lower Star—of the time he first learned that this world was cruel and that no one would save him except himself—begin to exchange places with memories of the Common Star, of the moment he killed for the first time and felt an enemy's blood soak his trembling hands.
He felt his memories of the third death—when he died after being poisoned by someone he trusted as a friend—begin to merge with memories of the seventh death, when he died after being pushed from the highest cliff in the universe by someone striking him from behind.
He felt the foundation of his cultivation—which he had painstakingly built through eleven deaths and eleven resurrections, which he had layered with the flesh of the Cancer plague from the Lower Latitude all the way to the Supreme Dao Dew—begin to shrivel, begin to contract, begin returning to its original form like a balloon losing air, like a plant withering because it had never been watered, like something never given the chance to grow large.
"Do you see now, Ling Xu?" Silence whispered, his voice no longer calm like a teacher's, but overflowing with satisfaction he could not hide, with pleasure he could not deny, with happiness born from watching his enemy slowly crumble word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter.
"I am not merely rewriting your history. I am scrambling it. I am turning your past into chaos, into disorder, into something illogical. So that you can no longer rely on your experiences, because your experiences are now meaningless. So that you can no longer rely on your power, because your power is no longer consistent. So that you can no longer rely on yourself, because you no longer know who you truly are."
And when Ling Xu was on the verge of collapsing—when his knees began to weaken, when his breathing became broken like a drowning man who could only occasionally lift his head above the surface to gasp for air that was never enough, when the three colors surrounding his body—red, yellow, blue—began to fade into gray, into pallor, into near nonexistence—those ten chapters transformed into ten major arcs.
Not arcs like the story arcs of ordinary novels, but arcs each composed of thousands of chapters, millions of words, billions of sentences, arcs containing Ling Xu's journey from the very first chapter until he and Huan Zheng nearly broke through into the realm of the 10 Cosmic Falling Crystals, arcs spanning nearly eighty thousand words, arcs that, if written upon paper, would fill every library throughout this boundless universe, arcs that shot toward Ling Xu at a speed no longer measurable by time itself because time had already forgotten how to move forward.
And Ling Xu—whose consciousness had begun to feel like shattered glass scattered across the floor, whose memories felt like colliding dreams refusing to yield to one another, whose body no longer felt like his own because every second a part of him was being rewritten, erased, replaced with another version he did not recognize—could only endure.
To be continued….