The broken face’s eyes didn’t completely open. They only cracked open slightly.
But the moment they cracked open, Xu Qing shivered as indescribable pain swept through him in a furious wave. Shredded strips of bloody flesh flew off him in all directions. His blood vessels collapsed, and his bones shattered. Unable to keep standing, he collapsed to the ground. His soul and cultivation base both dimmed as though they might cease to exist. He was like a burning candle that powered the broken face’s eyes. Unfortunately, his cultivation base wasn’t sufficient, and thus, even after the eyes had only cracked open, he was already drained to the point of being empty.
However, the eyes just cracking open was enough to cause the entire world inside the Moon Palace to go deathly silent. The projection of Crimson Mother from the past howled in grief, then began to melt, becoming a red mist that rapidly vanished. The wooden door trembled and decayed, letting off a black steam along with a cry of terror.
“The Father God....”
The Heir Apparent and the siblings were shaken to the core. Their faces were pale as their bodies experienced serious invasion. This move from Xu Qing affected everyone equally. As long as they were within this world, they were affected.
The Captain was no exception. He had entered his past-life body and then turned into a host of blue bugs, most of which had been fighting Crimson Mother or devouring the door. But there were a few that were in hiding on the ground below. They had been in the process of merging together to make a new body, but now... they screamed, and their eyes shone with terror.
However, that terror wasn’t because of the broken face of the god in the dome of heaven. Rather, it was because of the red moon itself.
Specifically, as the Captain howled, he looked at the lands of the red moon... and seemed like he wanted to say something. Except, in a very gruish development, no words would come out of his mouth. If someone was able to look down from an extremely high position, and take in all of the red moon at once, they would see that the world of the Moon Palace was also being affected.
A ruined city was visible over all the lands, blurry, almost as if it were a ghost city. And a rain of blood fell onto it. The sky was dark, with bolts of lightning streaking across it. There was no thunder. And the rain fell without sound.
High above was the broken face of the god, hīs expression one of neither joy nor sorrow. It was cold and apathetic, as if to hīm, cultivators, mortals, and even gods... were all the same.Mutagen from the broken face surged, invading everything. It was domineering and terrifying in a way that surpassed all other gods. In other words, even other gods would be invaded by it.
After all, in Revered Ancient, hīs gaze would make a forbidden region. And when hē looked at a forbidden region, it would become a forbidden ground. If hē looked at a forbidden ground, it would become a god domain!
The Moon Palace was a type of god domain.... And no one knew what would happen if the broken face looked at a god domain. From the time the broken face had appeared in Revered Ancient until now, it had never happened. Never would the broken face look at something more than three times.
Hīs gaze could make god domains. But after a god domain formed, hē wouldn’t look at that spot again!
The broken face that had appeared came from Xu Qing’s memory images. But the broken face’s personhood was just too advanced. Even though the image wasn’t on the same level as the true form, it still had godly might. In all of the countless years of history in the Revered Ancient mainland, this was completely unprecedented.
The broken face’s eyes were fixed on a god domain.... The Moon Palace and the red moon itself seemed to freeze in place... and then they transformed!
That transformation was profoundly mysterious and abstruse. The first thing that happened was that the Moon Palace and the red moon itself seemed to separate from the same time that governed Revered Ancient. The palace and the moon decayed, then formed back anew.
Mountains. Boulders. Palaces. The moon itself. All of them were changing. And that change had to do with time itself.
The flow of time on the red moon exploded dramatically! The moon would suddenly look incredibly ancient, only to then collapse into destruction, and then would be restored. It was as if it were jumping back and forth between different time periods.
It was only happening on the red moon. Everything beyond the moon was normal. Everyone present was shaken to the core by the dramatic developments.
Then High God Moonfire cried out from the wooden door.
“Stop! If the Father God looks at a god domain, something terrifying will happen! Stop!!!”
High God Moonfire’s voice became a shrill scream that sounded like metal scraping against rock.
However, because the red moon was jumping back and forth between different points in time, hēr voice couldn’t travel very far. And thus, shē eventually had no choice but to project a message to the Captain.
The Captain, whose body had just reformed and was now laying there shivering, was unable to stop himself from screaming. Eyes filling with terror, he looked at Xu Qing.
“Stop, little Ah Qing! If the broken face looks at a god domain... it’ll turn into a god world . God worlds are incomprehensible and absolutely terrifying!”
The Captain started crawling anxiously toward Xu Qing.
Unfortunately, Xu Qing’s mind was a blank right now. He had no sense of self or soul. It was on instinct alone that he lay there looking at the transformations occurring to the red moon. As he perceived it, time was like a string with a fixed beginning and a fixed end. But the red moon had no permanent position on that string, and was jumping back and forth between different positions. Every time it moved, it went somewhere different, and the frequency of movement accelerated until it was a blur. As the blur intensified, transformations began to occur in the outside world.
Outside of the red moon, a second red moon became visible! Then a third and a fourth.... Soon, countless red moons filled the void.
“Space-time... is out of control...” the Captain murmured, his voice trembling. “At first, the broken face’s gaze caused the red moon to fill with the concept of time. Then it erupted into movement. After that... it was assigned a fixed point in space. Then countless points of space appeared, along with countless red moons. That combined into space-time. Actually, it could be one, or it could be many.”
Moaning, the Captain kept crawling forward.
There was no end. Originally, all of the red moons were moving in space-time. In other words, they all flickered in their own time. But with an innumerable amount present, they... no longer conformed to their own individual place in space-time. As they moved, their space-time interfered with each other, creating overlapping superimpositions. They scattered, sometimes becoming dozens, sometimes becoming hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands. As they swirled, they interacted chaotically.
There was no order or rule at play!
Xu Qing and everyone else felt immense pressure. As of this moment, gods and cultivators were on the same level! This was something they couldn’t face and couldn’t resist. Everyone was collapsing, bleeding, reeling.
Eventually, the countless red moons fused with each other, turning all of their space-time into a haze. And behind that haze... there was something.
Xu Qing looked on in astonishment. And when things became clear, he shivered from head to toe. At the same time, all of the red moon’s heaven and earth froze in place and ceased to move. It wasn’t just the red moon where Xu Qing was. All of the red moons went still.
Then, they stopped building their power, and instead began to destroy themselves! One red moon after another collapsed and dissipated. They were wiped out as if they had never existed to begin with. Eventually, the only left was the one Xu Qing was on. And then the concept of time disappeared from it.
However everything appeared before, that was how it went away. In an instant, the red moon was back to normal. The Moon Palace was restored. Everything went back to the way it was before. The surrounding ruins vanished. The broken face disappeared.
From beginning to end, hē only opened hīs eyes a sliver. Xu Qing’s power couldn’t sustain hīm, and thus... hē closed hīs eyes. As of now, the violet crystal did not contain any image of the broken face of the god.
As everything went back to normal, the time surrounding Crimson Mother from Zhang Siyun’s memories shattered, and along with it, shē turned into ash. Time vanished, and Zhang Siyun was revealed. Hē hovered there trembling, hīs expression no longer calm and tranquil. He looked terrified. And hīs body was rapidly withering as if with age. The trembling wooden door of High God Moonfire was rapidly disappearing. The Heir Apparent and the siblings were unconscious.
The Captain... had climbed over to Xu Qing, and had opened his mouth as if to bite Xu Qing awake. Seeing everything returning to normal, his eyes went wide.
“Little Junior Brother,” he said in a low voice, “you’ve got to promise me not to use that move in the home of a god....”
Xu Qing looked exhausted. Gasping for breath, he struggled into a seated position. Lingering fear spread through him. Moments before, he’d had no idea the reasons for what was happening, but he had definitely felt immense terror.
With some effort, he looked up at the Captain, and then at the distant Zhang Siyun.
Zhang Siyun was crumbling into nothing. Hīs legs vanished. Hīs arms disappeared. Hīs torso started collapsing into dust. Ultimately, hē was wiped out of existence. Xu Qing watched hīm disappear. The crown of thorns on hīs head emitted cracking sounds as it crumbled, ultimately leaving behind... a single section!
That small section glittered with violet light. Based on what Xu Qing could sense, it was somehow similar to his violet crystal. As it shone, Zhang Siyun appeared within the light, and hē spoke in a hoarse voice.
“So close. Xu Qing... you came so close to wiping my true form out of existence.... But in the end, my true form is still here. I’m unharmed.”
Xu Qing’s pupils constricted, but his facial expression didn’t change much. That was because he was the type of person who always liked to have a backup plan.
“Your Majesty,” he said softly.
Emperor Ancient Spirit materialized directly in front of Zhang Siyun. He was not there to fight. Instead, he had something in his hands that he shoved toward Zhang Siyun’s face.
Then he disappeared. As he faded from view, he couldn’t help but glance at Xu Qing, his gaze filled with apprehension.
Meanwhile, Zhang Siyun’s expression transformed. Something had been put onto hīs face.
It was a mask. More precisely, it was the facial skin of an old man, his expression one of sorrow, his face full of wrinkles.
The mask’s name... was Mercy.
Deathblade's Thoughts
There is a detailed explanation of the significance of this mask in the