📖 Chapter 1086 - Black Wooden Board!

10 Sep, 2023

The white-haired middle-aged man’s expression was extremely sincere. In the depths of his eyes, aside from sadness and grief, was desperation.

This desperation seemed to be screaming… for his daughter, he would really pay any sort of price. No matter what the conditions were, no matter how difficult, he would do it without hesitation!

Even if… that price was his own life!

The little girl next to him had a pale face and a blank gaze. Her body was sometimes illusory and sometimes clear, and it was permeated by an aura of death.

All of this made Sun De feel lost for words. His own life was already miserable, so he didn’t know why this middle-aged man had come to ask him to save another.

“I can’t.” Sun De felt extremely exhausted. He could barely keep his eyes open, and his body was growing colder and colder, making him shiver a little. He seemed to feel his strength leaving his body, and even his voice had become extremely weak.

The white-haired man fell silent. He raised his head and stared at the old beggar with a bitter expression. After a while, he glanced at his daughter beside him, then back at Sun De. Seemingly having made some sort of decision, he opened his mouth to speak softly.

“Senior, this Wang will also tell you a few stories, okay?”

“Story?” Sun De’s eyes flew open. When he heard that word, he managed to pull himself together and tightened his grip on the black wooden board. He looked at the white-haired middle-aged man with murky eyes full of anticipation.

“This first story happened during the countless kalpas of the second loop. It’s a story about Berserkers, and it’s a story about Destiny…

“The story starts in the Dark Mountain tribe. There’s grandpa and Xiao Hong… and a promise made in a blizzard, walking in circles until their heads turn white with snow…”

Sun De listened quietly as the white-haired middle-aged man spoke slowly. From this story, Sun De seemed to see a person constantly pursuing truth and falsehood, struggling on the path from death to life, until… all the cycles of life and death had one person missing.

“The world is drunk and only I am sober, or the world is sober and only I am drunk, what is the difference… At the end of one path, there is a single person left in the universe. At the end of the other, there is a single person gone from history. Which one is correct…

“What is true and what is false? All of this… is a process of a change in heart. All of this… is obsession! When obsession reaches the pinnacle, only the word Devil can describe it!

“So, this story is… the story of the Devil! At the end of the story, he cut off a finger of Allheaven!”

“Obsession driven, the Devil forgoes reincarnation!” Sun De’s body shook, and his murky eyes suddenly shone brightly. This story was much more exciting than the different stories of the Devil that he’d made up back then.

The white-haired middle-aged man was silent. He didn’t reply to Sun De’s exclamation, and only continued speaking softly a little while later.

“The second story is also a story of obsession. The beginning of this story… is in a place called Planet Suzaku, in the small country of Zhao…”

Compared to the first story, the second story had many more details. This story spoke of a man who sent his clone to turn back time on the world, restarting his life again and again in order to find a way to revive his wife!

It was a story filled with madness, a madness that compelled him to fight gods, fight immortals, and even fight the heavens to take his wife back!

“To obey is mortal, to defy is immortal…”

“Half-God Half-Immortal reverses heaven and earth!” Before the white-haired middle-aged man could finish speaking, Sun De cried aloud, his eyes brightening even more. He felt himself trembling as he listened to this story, and the details made it even more exciting.

“In the end, he also cut off a finger of Allheaven!” The white-haired middle-aged man said slowly. Then, he continued with the third story.

“The third story takes place in the Nine Mountains and Seas. It’s the story of a scholar who, after casting down a wishing bottle, walked the path of a Demon!”

The story described the course of the scholar’s life. He crossed mountains and seas, struggling through despair and eventually becoming a Demon filled with madness. His bizarre laughter contained a madness that made the soul tremble, echoing throughout the Vast Expanse filled with grief and resentment!

“He once said… ‘My fate is to seal the heavens like a Demon!’ Just like the others, he also cut off a finger of Allheaven. Moreover, he went a step further and transformed into Allheaven himself. After obtaining enlightenment of Allheaven’s life, he joined together with several others, and in the end, they… killed Allheaven!” Compared to the second story, this story of the Demon lacked some details, but that didn’t affect Sun De’s eyes from growing brighter and brighter as he muttered in shock.

“So this is… ‘fate bound, the Demon seals the heavens between the mountains and seas!’

“Then, what about ‘the Eternal Will arises from parts unknown’? Tell me that story!” Sun De’s breathing was heavy as he looked at the white-haired middle-aged man with eager eyes.

“Senior, this story… I can’t tell you.” The white-haired middle-aged man was silent for a long time before replying in a soft voice.

Sun De fell silent. He tightened his hand around the black wooden board several times. After thinking for a long while, he seemed to comprehend something and nodded.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“My daughter is ill. Even I… can’t save her. I sought out many people for help, and in the end, someone told me that this illness… can only be cured by the Immortal!

“I searched all the innumerable kalpas of the second loop, searched through every single moment in time for any possible trace of the Immortal. In the end… I found a stele!

“I didn’t hesitate to turn against others. After refining a bit of the stele, I used the curse of myriad kalpas to finally enter the legendary Never-Ending Dao Domain that sealed the Immortal. And then… I discovered a secret!

“A secret about the Never-Ending Dao Domain, a secret about the Immortal. This Wang wishes to offer this secret in exchange for Senior saving my daughter!” The white-haired middle-aged man’s eyes shone as he looked at Sun De.

At that moment, Sun De’s murky eyes were also shining. He was silent for a long time before finally speaking bitterly.

“I really want to know the secret, but… I don’t know how to save her. I’m not some senior, I’m just a storyteller…”

“As long as Senior agrees, it’s fine!” The white-haired middle-aged man’s eyes were filled with stubbornness.

Sun De sighed.

“Alright, I agree!”

The white-haired middle-aged man took a deep breath. His eyes were filled with excitement as he cupped his fists and bowed toward Sun De again!

“Many thanks, Senior. The secret I discovered is that this place… is not the real Never-Ending Dao Domain!

“At the beginning of the second loop, the first kalpa birthed the Never-Ending Dao Domain, but it wasn’t the real one. The real Never-Ending Dao Domain is outside the loop itself!”

As soon as he heard those words, Sun De’s body trembled violently. He didn’t know why he was trembling, but he couldn’t control it at all. It was as if there was some other consciousness in his body and soul trying to burst out, and the world in front of him began to blur. The figures of the white-haired middle-aged man and the little girl in front of him distorted, and cracks appeared in the void. It was as if all of heaven and earth was collapsing!

He instinctively grabbed the black wooden board that had been with him all his life. Perhaps it was due to his current state, but his grip was so strong that cracks appeared on the black wooden board. If the board had instead been a person, then their body would have shattered. It would have been painful, so very painful!

As for Sun De, unfortunately… even when the world in front of him completely collapsed, the fluctuations of awakening in his soul seemed to have reached their limit, and the consciousness within him failed to successfully awaken. Instead, it began to… dissipate.

It was a true dissipation.

But it wasn’t death. Rather, it was permanent assimilation into heaven and earth. Before Sun De’s mind faded, he suddenly had a flash of comprehension. The dissipating consciousness was the remnant soul of Ancient, and the time limit of the curse – that is, the end of the second loop – must be arriving soon. However, Ancient’s consciousness had forever lost its chance to awaken.

Ancient had lost, because his remnant soul failed to awaken.

But he also won, because Allheaven had been slain.

Sun De suddenly wondered about the story of the Eternal Will that the white-haired man hadn’t told him, but he quickly decided not to think about it anymore.

“Stop thinking about that, think about yourself instead. Sigh, who would have thought that the story I told all my life… was about myself in the end.” Sun De smiled. His body collapsed and dissipated into the world, and the black wooden board that had accompanied him all his life, the board that was now filled with innumerable cracks, also disappeared, falling into the void.

In that dark and cold void, it continued falling and falling…

One life, two lives, three lives, four lives… the cracks on the board were gradually healing…

And as the cracks healed, mysterious changes gradually came about that had never happened since time immemorial.

Finally, when the void changed from darkness to light and the starry sky died and was reborn, the board turned into a ray of light. In this new world, the ray of light ended up in a forest of an ordinary planet, entering the womb of a doe that was about to give birth…