CHAPTER 652: ABSOLUTE VOID

A massive fissure tore through the sky which was dyed in an eerie scarlet hue. In an instant, a faint breath of decay spread, exerting a suffocating pressure over everyone down below.

The doctor, who was still entangled with Jin Jiuchi, spread his arms wide and tossed his head back, laughing uproariously. "It’s time!" he exclaimed with frenzied thrill and anticipation. "Oh my Omnipotent Lord, the ruler of all universes and beyond, I welcome your divine presence in this realm!"

"Fuck!" Jin Jiuchi cursed under his breath.

Without sparing another glance at this shadowy nightmare creature who simply wouldn’t die no matter how many times he punched and gnawed on him, Jin Jiuchi broke into a mad sprint—straight toward where he had sensed Shen Nianzu was.

His speed was unprecedentedly fast, so much that he was about to turn into a blur of shadow. He covered a long distance in a single breath, not paying attention to the wreckage and corpses all around—including that of a certain garuda with torn wings, who had died with his eyes wide open.

Overhead, a colossal shadow descended, but it was not the Nightmare as the doctor had expected.

The creature was so enormous that all that could be seen was the trailing edge of his tattered cloak fluttering in the air, and whenever its gleaming scythe moved, Jin Jiuchi saw that all colors faded to gray, sound was swallowed into silence, steel buildings crumbled into dust, and every living thing, down to the smallest blade of grass, perished in an instant.

Even the oxygen in the air ceased to exist.

It was as if every inch of this Cycle was being overwritten—erased one-sidedly. This was not a battle. This was a total annihilation that did not distinguish between friend from foe, organic from inorganic objects.

"Nian’er!"

With a loud holler, Jin Jiuchi leaped and tackled the running Shen Nianzu to the ground, curling his huge body around the jade doll and covering him from head to toe.

"Let go...!" Shen Nianzu lashed out against him, kicking, scratching and punching, tears streaming down his face, but Jin Jiuchi did not relent. He firmly restrained Shen Nianzu’s hysterical struggles, not allowing the latter to escape the range of his shadow. "Let me go! Xinxin is ahead...! I saw him– he’s just right there! I have to—"

The scythe brushed gently above them, carrying a faint breeze of death, and Shen Nianzu’s mournful cries were abruptly cut short. No matter how loud he shouted and how much he cried, his voice could no longer be heard.

Gritting his teeth, Jin Jiuchi gathered his jade doll into his arms, concealing him from the eyes of death. But in doing so, he was exposing his own unguarded back to it. And in a corner unseen by the silver-haired siren, his flesh rapidly corroded as though strong acid had been poured over his back, and yet the attack did not stop there, reaching deep into his bones and inner organs as well.

He swallowed the blood down his throat while mouthing something to Shen Nianzu, a crooked grin tugging on his lips, but alas, Shen Nianzu failed to read the man’s lips through the tears blurring his vision.

Only the distant, shattered voice of the doctor reached him, "No... NO! How could this– how could this be possible?! My Lord, the Omnipo—" before that, too, abruptly ceased into silence.

Elsewhere, the Divine Oracle, who had mostly been playing the role of a salted fish captive in this Cycle, was still locked away in the research facility which had been reduced to half-ruin following the collapse of the Sky territory. As panic and terror engulfed everyone present, his calm and composed demeanor created a stark contrast. He looked up at the ceiling, as though his blind eyes could see through the concrete to land on the God of Death looming above.

"It’s so difficult to change fate," he muttered with a melancholic sigh. "What a tragedy ah..."

Before the scythe could reach where he was, he decisively tore up a free pass and took his exit from his doomed Cycle.

A similar scene occurred in multiple places across the Cycle. High-ranking players, who happened to have a free pass at their disposal, used it without hesitation once they confirmed that the progress of this Cycle was already beyond salvation. While the rest could only flee in terror, trying desperately to escape the clutches of death, only to be reduced to ashes once the gigantic scythe brushed past them.

Eventually, not a single sound remained in the entire Cycle—not the cries of the dying, not the groans of the collapsing ruins, not the pitter-patter of the rain, not even the hum of insects beneath the desolate earth.

The world had entered the state of absolute void, where nothing existed but death and silence.

The third day the players had been waiting for would never come, for in this Cycle, the sun would never rise again.

In this state where everything had faded to gray, only a single area still retained a color, like a drop of ink spreading through still water. Crimson, such a bright and striking color. Vivid and jarring. It soaked deep into the ground around Noir and Gu Luoxin, soaking their bodies in a hue that not even death itself could wash away.

It was the color of Gu Luoxin’s blood.

Even with the Joker skill card, Noir still failed to erase this unsettling color that dominated his field of vision.

Staggering to his feet, Noir swayed slightly—as half of his body had turned into that of a skeleton. The combination of synthetic steel and bone spurs growing on his body was such a bizarre sight, giving the impression of a haunting and eerie beauty. It was in this half-dead and half-living state that he held Gu Luoxin’s lifeless body closer to him, as if to shelter him from a world already lost.

"Let’s go," he muttered under his breath, his voice echoing loud and clear amidst the void, reaching every nook and cranny of the Cycle—

—though unfortunately, it could no longer reach the one person it was intended to.

"I will take you out of here."

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Cycle 7: House of Evil — The End (force terminated)