Chapter 642 – The End of Days - Part 3

Ten days later.

Patriarch Xie, Patriarch Chifeng, and a group of third rank cultivators were completely spent, battered and breathless.

But they still had wits and luck on their side.

Just when it seemed they had hit a dead end, they found another door.

It definitely wasn’t the way they had come in.

That meant...there was only one possibility.

Patriarch Xie’s bloodshot eyes widened, his disheveled hair whipping in the wind. He stared at the towering door, glowing faintly, and laughed in joy, giddy, almost wild with relief. He looked as if he’d found salvation.

As for the light in the Hall of Life, everyone had already come to an unspoken conclusion. It came from beneath the Soul Furnace, a mix of sun and moonlight. Though the furnace looked close, it was impossibly far away, hence the light was weak.

“The Human Seed Fruit! It has to be! This must be the very end of the Hall of Life!”

He shot a glance at a nearby cultivator from his own clan and gestured toward the door. “Open it.”

Clearly, that cultivator was meant to be the sacrificial bait in case the door was rigged to kill.

But the man snorted coldly, showing no intention of obeying. “Why don’t you open it?”

Patriarch Xie blinked, caught off guard. Then his face darkened. “You dare?”

The cultivator replied coolly, “None of us have much strength left. If you attack me now, you’re just making it harder for any of us to survive. If you won’t give me a chance to live, don’t expect me to call you

Patriarch

anymore.”

Patriarch Chifeng quickly stepped in to defuse the tension.

Before long, the group came to an agreement. They would open the door together. No matter what lay beyond, be it treasure or monster, they’d strike with everything they had. If they found the Human Seed Fruit, they’d deal with it then.

Who knew? There might be other rare treasures nearby as well. And if so, everyone would get a share.

Great treasure often came hand-in-hand with danger. Now that they were all in the same boat, it made sense to face whatever came together.

The cultivators exchanged glances, then activated their domain powers in unison.

Of course, no one was going all out. They each held back a little. But even so, their combined strength was formidable.

BOOM!

A dull knock echoed from the massive door cloaked in the hall’s faint glow. It came from inside.

BOOM!

Another knock.

But the door remained shut.

They pushed harder.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Still nothing.

The group paused.

Patriarch Chifeng frowned. “Maybe we’ve been doing it wrong. The Human Seed Fruit might be outside the hall. Maybe we need to

pull

the door open, not push it.”

Pushing meant entering. Pulling meant exiting.

The logic seemed sound, so they tried pulling.

But the door still wouldn’t budge.

Patriarch Xie shouted, “Stop holding back! If we don't give it everything we've got, none of us are getting out of here alive!”

So they pushed harder. Then pulled again. Then pushed. Then pulled.

It went on for a long time.

Until finally, when they were all running on fumes, with barely a drop of strength left, the door began to move outward...

It was being pushed open.

So it

was

an entrance.

A quiet wave of relief rippled through them. Good, whatever they were looking for, it was still inside this hall.

The ancient door creaked and groaned as it opened. From the widening crack spilled a faint but clearer light, casting twisted shadows like serpents writhing across the floor.

Slowly. Slowly. The door opened all the way.

They peered inside.

What they saw was not some hidden treasure trove, but an even

larger

ancient hall.

RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

The entire building shook violently. But the structure was absurdly solid, not a single stone cracked or fell.

Then someone noticed something.

The view of the reincarnation passage, the one they’d seen through the distance, was slowly pulling away. They were drifting, and fast.

The light inside the hall began to fade. The temperature plummeted.

It was clear now. Some vast transformation was occurring in the world outside. And that transformation was bleeding into the hall.

One cultivator, overcome with panic, turned and sprinted toward the Soul Furnace within the reincarnation passage. He charged straight into the zone that couldn’t be crossed, desperately unleashing his power..

As long as the reincarnation passage remained within reach, there was still a sliver of hope.

Even if no one knew exactly what that hope was worth.

But they had nothing else to cling to.

Even mighty third rank cultivators, in the face of death, were no different from drowning mortals. And when a drowning man saw even a single straw floating by, they would grab it with all their might.

And then, it happened.

A horrifying scene unfolded before their eyes.

The part of a cultivator’s body that had come into contact with the reincarnation passage suddenly began to swell, grotesquely ballooning like a bladder filled with air. His flesh bulged unnaturally, and then...

His blood began to boil, literally.

Bubbles rose beneath his skin, swelling and popping in waves. And at the peak of the swelling, human faces began to appear beneath the flesh, pushing outward as if trying to claw their way free.

But strangely... the reincarnation passage, which had been drifting farther and farther away, seemed to slow, just a little.

Just the tiniest bit.

But even that sliver of delay was enough to ignite desperation.

More and more cultivators charged toward the unreachable zone, trying to force similar connections of their own.

From the perspective of infinite time and space, it looked as though countless threads were forming in the chaos, faint and shimmering, like gossamer strands, linking the Hall of Life to the reincarnation passage.

Among those still present, the former Sect Master, Wood Hall Master, and Puppetry Dean exchanged a glance. These weren’t clueless men. They knew more than most, and they understood that those faces beneath the skin weren’t ghosts. They were the shattered souls of powerful beings, once anchored to the Soul Furnace. now seizing the chance to escape.

Their proximity had drawn the souls near.

The

threads

were formed as a result.

Yet even this grotesque method of connection...could be a path forward.

And at a time like this, even a thread of possibility was worth chasing.

Ping'an took out the sarira, and with great care, placed Meng Xingxian and Bai Xinxuan within it. Then, without hesitation, he raised the sarira and swallowed it whole.

He clenched his sword.

And watched the nightmare unfold.

The chaos swelled like an ocean. The Hall of Life drifted farther and farther. The last remaining cultivators of this age, the final titans of a dying world, were doing everything they could, pouring every ounce of themselves into becoming threads that linked the hall to the reincarnation passage. Fragile, flickering things, like flowers trembling in a storm, like candles sputtering in the wind, like spider silk trying to tether a spinning iron colossus.

And now...Ping'an would become one of those threads.

He had no choice.

He had already made his choice.

And so, he walked forward.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

More and more Ping'ans burst forth, multiplying in a rush, each of them unraveling, transforming into long, glowing threads.

In one of those threads, a monk’s face suddenly emerged.

Ping'an recognized it instantly.

It was the Radiant Treasure Buddha.

Each time a soul had pushed through, he had caught fragments of their memories. The Radiant Treasure Buddha’s presence was no exception.

And in that moment, he finally understood.

The Radiant Treasure Buddha had laid a second trap, He hadn’t just lured people to the reincarnation passage while alive. Even in death, he had clung to its edge, hoping to crawl back out once someone drew near.

But it was too late.

The Radiant Treasure Buddha was gone, shattered and fragmented, his soul now just another part of the tangled network binding this world together.

So many schemes. So many carefully placed pieces.

But in the end...not even the most brilliant strategy could outlast time.