pjbooks Chapter 150 Ontology
Chapter 150 Ontology
The moment Kahn's figure completely vanished into the void, the dark golden light of the hundredth floor receded in all directions like a receding tide.
It revealed the true face of the Void Origin, which had been covered by the Apostolic Laws for three hundred years. It was a bottomless, pure darkness, without starlight, without temperature, without sound, only a heavy silence that had existed since time immemorial.
Wang Kai knelt on one knee in the void, the "Dao" sword stuck in the air in front of him, its pure white light dimmed to the point of being almost invisible. His right arm trembled from shoulder to fingertips.
Shen Qingxue stood beside him, the transparent ice armor on her right arm, formed from icy energy, was mostly shattered, leaving only a few thin, cicada-wing-like ice-blue fragments below her elbow. Her breathing was heavy, and with each inhale, she could feel her lungs being pierced by the icy cold in her chest, yet her back remained ramrod straight.
Bing Li leaned against Xuan Ming's shoulder, her long, silvery-white hair cascading messily over her shoulders, her face as white as transparent paper. In her dantian, the ice-blue golden core that had just been repaired by the emerald light of the Immortal Emperor was spinning at a much faster speed than normal—a sign of the core's instability, a hidden danger left over from her overexertion of power in the intense battle.
Zhao Tieshan stood at the very back of the line. The alloy joint of his left prosthetic leg emitted a piercing metallic scraping sound. The flame patterns on his right fist had completely died down, and the skin on his fist was covered with charred blisters from the lingering heat of the burning flames. But he stood ramrod straight. His back was ramrod straight, his right fist clenched tightly, and the remnants of his left prosthetic leg supported him, like an iron pillar that had stood for three days and three nights without collapsing.
Zhang Ziming knelt on the ground, his hands still pressed against the void. The earthen wall he had conjured, having lost its life-giving power after the dissipation of the God-Sealing Domain, was beginning to crumble from its edges. Yellowish-brown specks of light peeled off the wall and drifted away into the void. One lens of his glasses was shattered, and the remaining lens was covered with fine cracks. Through the cracks, one could see his bloodshot eyes still fixedly staring ahead—at the spot where Kahn had disappeared.
Of the 1,100 trainees, not a single one fell ill.
Jiang Chen stood still, the five lights on the blade of the Primordial Sword slowly dissipating. The golden Zhou Tian Star Fire, the dark red Burning Silence Fire, the icy blue Ice Profound Power, the pure black Void Power, and the emerald green Life Power—the power of the five Immortal Emperor Dao Fruits had been pushed to their limits in that last sword strike, and now they were slowly calming down in his meridians, like five raging rivers gradually returning to calm after flowing into the sea.
His right hand still gripped the sword hilt, the six-colored flame patterns on his palm shimmering faintly beneath his skin, casting a play of light and shadow on his face. His uniform bore a hole in the chest area, pierced by the Watcher's Sword, the edges of which were dark gold scorch marks. Through the hole, one could see the newly formed skin beneath—pale, delicate, and without any scars.
"Brother Chen." Wang Kai's voice came from behind, so hoarse it was almost inaudible, but every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, "Kahn...is he really gone?"
Jiang Chen didn't answer immediately. He raised his head, looking at the darkness above him covered by the origin of the void, and remained silent for a moment. Then he spoke, his voice soft yet clearly penetrating the entire void.
"no."
The moment those two words were uttered, all the students in the entire void simultaneously sensed that aura.
Jiang Chen gripped the Primordial Sword tightly, and the five fading lights on the blade lit up again at the same instant.
"Kahn didn't leave." His voice deepened, each word landing steadily in the void as if supported by a boulder. "He's right beneath our feet. In the deepest part of the void's origin."
The void began to tremble.
This was the very origin of the void trembling. For three hundred years, the power of the origin of the void had been "borrowed" countless times by the Apostle Hall, covered, modified, and reshaped by the laws of the Apostles. It had become accustomed to being controlled, dominated, and used as the foundation of the Apostle Realm. But today, Jiang Chen's point of white light stripped away, released, and returned all that borrowed power, and for the first time, the origin of the void felt the weight of "freedom."
That weight awakened it from its 30,000-year slumber.
Dark golden light surged from the depths of the void.
The light converged at the very center of the void, condensing into a massive, dark golden sphere over a hundred feet in diameter where Kahn had vanished. Countless intricate runes flowed across the sphere's surface, each rune more complex, more ancient, and closer to some ineffable essence than any rune seen in the Apostle's Hall before.
The sphere splits open from the center.
Kahn stepped out of the sphere.
His appearance had completely changed. The black robe vanished, replaced by a suit of armor covering his entire body, formed from pure dark golden light. Each scale of the armor was engraved with runes of the Apostle's Temple, the patterns of which lit up, extinguished, and lit up again with each breath he took, like a beating heart. His hair had turned from black to pure gold, growing from short hair to waist length, the ends swaying gently in the void, each movement leaving a fleeting dark golden trail in the air. His eyes had changed from amber to pure gold, the depths of his pupils reflecting the infinite abyss of the void's origin.
He held a brand new sword in his right hand.
"You think that by stripping away the power of the Void Source borrowed by the Apostle Hall, I have lost the source of my power. You think that the power of the Apostles comes from the Void Source, and without the Void Source, the Apostles are nothing."
He took a step forward. A dark golden ripple exploded in the void beneath his feet, spreading rapidly and covering the entire hundredth layer of space in the blink of an eye. Wherever the ripple passed, the darkness of the void's origin was swallowed by the dark golden light, replaced by a power of a higher dimension than the laws of the apostles, closer to the origin of the universe.
"But you're wrong."
His voice remained calm, but every word made everyone present's heart skip a beat.
"The Void Source is not the source of the Apostle's power. The Void Source is me."
He raised the transparent longsword in his right hand, its tip aimed at Jiang Chen. The ancient seal on the blade suddenly lit up, and dark golden light surged from the sword, transforming into a dark golden pillar of light that stretched across the heavens and earth.
"Three hundred years ago, the Apostles descended upon the mortal realm. Not because we chose this planet, but because I chose it. The Void Source had slumbered within me for countless years, and it was the beings of this planet—your fears, your prayers, the awakening power that erupted from your despair—that awakened it."
He took a second step forward.
"The Hall of Apostles is not the anchor point of the Void Origin. The Hall of Apostles is a fragment of my physical body. Each Hall of Apostles is a scale that shed from my body when I slept in the Void Origin. You destroyed the Thirteenth Hall of Apostles, destroyed the Twelfth Hall of Apostles—those were just two old scales that I shed. My true body has never been injured."
Wang Kai's pupils suddenly contracted. He recalled Jiang Chen's words—"The Apostle Hall is a dimensional anchor point embedded in the origin of the void."
"Kahn." Jiang Chen gripped the Primordial Sword and took a step forward. His steps were steady, each one landing on the void, creating a ring of five-colored ripples. "You said the Apostle Hall is your armor, then where is your true form?"
Kahn looked at him, his amber—no, pure gold pupils reflecting the five wildly swirling lights on the Primordial Sword.
"Under your feet."
He said three words. Then he lifted his right foot and stomped it down lightly.
The void shattered. The "ground" of the hundredth layer—that thing everyone trod upon, thinking it was merely an invisible barrier in the void—split open from the center. The crack extended downwards at an incredible speed, instantly piercing through layers of void to reveal an even deeper darkness below, a darkness from which even light could not escape.
Something is awakening in the darkness.
It was a body so enormous that words could not describe it. Its outline was faintly visible in the darkness.
It is Kahn's true form.