Lyra fell toward the ground, unconscious.
Maya appeared beneath her, catching her mid-air. She looked around frantically, searching.
"Where is Cipher?" She wondered.
Lyra had been carrying him. Could he have been hurt during the confrontation?
She focused her senses, reaching out - and finally detected his position.
She turned toward a certain direction and noticed the sword box lying on the ground a few meters away. It seemed Lyra had detached from it when the battle had gotten serious.
The others arrived moments later, landing around Maya.
The sect masters looked toward where the Evil God had fallen.
"Did... did he really die?" one of them asked.
Maya and the rest of the team facepalmed simultaneously.
Didn’t these people know the things they shouldn’t say?
At that moment, the Evil God stirred.
He rose to his feet.
The four could only roll their eyes.
"Well, you’ve jinxed it now," Maya said flatly.
The sect masters tensed, assessing the situation. The Evil God was clearly weakened - his body was battered, his aura diminished. He was on his last leg.
"We can handle him now," Jiang Qing said. "Together."
They charged.
But the Evil God laughed.
A barrier erupted around him - a dome of concentrated demonic energy that knocked the sect masters back the moment they made contact.
"I didn’t anticipate this," the Evil God admitted, still chuckling. "But I haven’t lost yet."
He looked toward Lyra’s unconscious form.
"It seems she used a technique above her level. She won’t be able to make a move for quite some time."
His smile widened.
"Now it’s my turn."
He raised his fist.
And then punched straight through the ground.
The earth cracked beneath him as his arm plunged deep into the ground.
The sect masters exchanged confused glances. What was he doing?
Chen Feng’s eyes suddenly went wide.
"STOP HIM!" he roared, launching himself at the barrier. His fists slammed against it uselessly. "WE HAVE TO STOP HIM!"
"What is he doing?!" Zhao Long demanded.
"He’s trying to destroy the core of the world!" Chen Feng shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "Before, his miasma would capture the world and devour it slowly - but now that he’s desperate, he’s going directly for the core! He has no regard for anyone’s life! Not even his own!"
The sect masters were in shock. This was the run where they had made the most progress. They had injured him. And thanks to Lyra, they had brought him to this pitiful state. They had come so close.
For it to all end just like this...
Nothing had changed.
What could they do now?
...
At that moment, the sky split open.
Everyone looked up.
The clouds parted as if pushed aside by an invisible hand. A beam of golden light descended from the heavens and it landed directly on the sword box where Cipher lay.
The ground trembled.
The air grew thick with an energy none of them had ever felt before.
"What... what is that?" someone whispered.
The sword box began to move on its own. It rose from the ground and stood upright, hovering in the air as golden light swirled around it.
Then it swung open.
Inside, they saw a figure.
A figure of extreme beauty.
His eyes were closed, his features serene - as if he were merely resting. But just witnessing such an existence made them feel as though they should kneel. As though showing reverence was the only appropriate response to what they were seeing.
Even the sect masters, powerful cultivators who had faced the Evil God himself, felt the urge to bow.
Then the figure opened his eyes.
Slowly, he drifted out of the box.
A golden halo materialized above his head, rotating gently, casting light across the battlefield.
He floated forward, unhurried, until he reached the Evil God’s barrier.
The Evil God stared at him in shock.
What was this?
He had just dealt with the strange woman - and now there was a strange man too?
Where had this dog couple come from?
He forced himself to calm down. It didn’t matter. He had used the Evil God’s Treasure to create this barrier. There was no way someone could get through. He was definitely going to...
Cipher passed through the barrier as if it didn’t exist.
"What?"
The Evil God’s mind went blank. Shock overrode every other thought. That was impossible. That barrier was absolute. Nothing should be able to...
But before he could even make sense of what was happening, Cipher extended his hand toward him.
His expression was calm. Indifferent, even.
"Die," he said flatly.
And the Evil God just... died.
...
Everyone looked up at the floating figure.
The golden halo cast its light across the battlefield, illuminating faces frozen in awe and confusion. The sect masters. The disciples. Cipher’s teammates. All of them stared at the being hovering above them.
"Cipher?" Maya spoke, her voice filled with confusion.
Cipher didn’t respond. He simply waved his hand.
Lyra’s unconscious body lifted gently from Maya’s arms and floated upward, drifting through the air until she settled into his own embrace.
He held her carefully, looking down at everyone below.
His expression was calm. Unreadable.
"Looks like I was too late," he muttered.
At that moment, the world began to shake.
The ground beneath them ruptured. Massive fissures tore across the earth, spreading outward from where the Evil God had punched through. Mountains in the distance crumbled. The sky flickered, colors bleeding into each other.
The people below scrambled to hold on, grabbing onto anything stable as the world convulsed around them.
"It seems he still managed to hit the core!" Chen Feng shouted over the chaos, his voice desperate. "What do we do now?!"
Cipher flew a little higher so he could take in all the destruction.
Then he extended one hand.
"Well," he said calmly, "we can always start over."
A bright light extended from his palm.
It spread outward, covering everything - the broken earth, the panicking cultivators, the collapsing sky. The light consumed it all, growing brighter and brighter until nothing else remained.
...
In the next second, Cipher stood outside the Cultivation Gate.
Lyra rested in his arms, still unconscious.
He turned and looked behind him at the gate.
It bubbled for a few seconds, and then... it closed.
The gate vanished completely.
As if it had never existed.
...
A/N: Yes, the evil god does say evil god’s treasure. Probably referring to someone else.