Boom.
The heavens trembled.
Another explosion tore through the scarlet sky, shattering clouds into spirals of fire and ash. Mountains collapsed like brittle clay, their peaks reduced to dust beneath waves of spiritual force. Across the broken battlefield, thousands clashed in a storm of blades, techniques, and roaring beasts.
"Kill him!"
"Don't let him escape!"
"Destroy Mo Jiang!"
At the center of the chaos stood a single man dressed in black, his robes torn, his long hair stained with blood that was not entirely his own. His aura rose like a dark sun, swallowing the light around him.
Mo Jiang laughed.
The sound cut through the battlefield—low, steady, almost amused.
"So you have all come," he said, eyes sweeping across the circle of figures surrounding him. "How interesting."
A man in golden armor stepped forward, sword blazing with divine light. "You are going to die today. All your allies are engaged in separate battles. No one is coming to save you."
Mo Jiang tilted his head slightly. "You have calculated everything so carefully."
"Even now, you are proud," a woman in blue robes snapped. "On the verge of death, you still look down on us. Are you a fool?"
For a moment, something flickered in his eyes—something ancient and tired.
"You were once my friends," he said quietly. "You know me well. I know you well."
His lips curved faintly.
"Even if I begged for my life, would you spare me?"
Silence.
The battlefield raged, but within their circle, the air tightened.
"There's something wrong," someone muttered. "Be careful."
Another cultivator frowned. "Where is his artifact? I cannot sense it."
Mo Jiang's laughter returned, sharper this time.
"You fools," he said. "You think I don't know? You want me dead for that bracelet. Your greed is written across your faces."
"Shut up!" the golden-armored man roared. "We will kill you and rewrite the ownership of that object. It belongs to the realm—not to a madman!"
"A clever plan," Mo Jiang replied. "But why would I share mine with you?"
His aura erupted.
Boom!
Spiritual energy exploded outward in a tidal wave. Several cultivators were thrown back, coughing blood. Lightning coiled around Mo Jiang's body as he stepped forward, striking with terrifying precision. Every movement was lethal. Every breath shattered the ground.
The war did not end that day.
It stretched on—months, then years. Entire sects were dragged into the conflict. Armies rose and fell. Rivers ran red. Races that had existed for millennia dwindled to the brink of extinction. Even the proud Phoenix Clan, sovereigns of rebirth, found themselves nearly erased.
And still, Mo Jiang fought.
They called him madman.
They called him lunatic.
But none could deny his strength.
At last, after endless battles and countless sacrifices, the circle tightened once more.
Mo Jiang stood alone.
His body was covered in wounds that no cultivation could fully heal. His aura flickered like a dying star. Around him stood the last of the coalition forces—former friends, rivals, righteous heroes, and hidden schemers alike.
"It's time," the woman in blue said coldly. "Your death has been delayed long enough."
Mo Jiang looked at them, and for the first time, tears gathered in his eyes.
"Best of luck," he murmured softly. "My dear friends."
The sky darkened.
A pressure descended—vast, suffocating, absolute.
"Wait—!" someone shouted.
But it was too late.
Mo Jiang raised his hand, and the world screamed.
BOOOOOOM—
Light devoured everything.
Space shattered like glass. The ground vanished. Even the flow of fate trembled as a terrifying force burst outward from his core. It was not an attack.
It was annihilation.
Mo Jiang destroyed his body.
His soul.
Even his karmic threads.
He severed himself from destiny itself, sealing his existence so completely that no divination, no heavenly law, no supreme being could trace his future.
When the light faded, there was nothing left.
Only silence.
A few survivors coughed and staggered to their feet.
"…What a shame," one muttered. "We couldn't capture him alive."
"We will find the artifact," another said. "He must have hidden it somewhere."
A young woman stood apart from the others, her silver robes stained with blood. Her hands trembled.
"You are fools," she whispered. "Do you truly think you can find it?"
The others turned to her.
"He hid for billions of years before," she continued. "Did we ever find him? If I am not mistaken… his belongings were never hidden in this realm."
A chill passed through the group.
"Impossible," someone breathed. "There is no place beyond this realm."
"Isn't there?" she replied hollowly.
No one answered.
They began their search anyway, scouring every corner of the shattered world. But nothing remained—not the bracelet, not a trace of his aura, not even a remnant of his fate.
And then the purges began.
Forces once loyal to Mo Jiang were wiped out overnight. Sects burned. Clans vanished. The upper realm trembled under waves of silent assassinations and political upheaval.
"If he were alive," a man said quietly to the silver-robed woman, "would they dare act so boldly?"
Her composure broke.
"No…" she whispered.
Then she fell to her knees.
"No! That can't be… it can't be possible! How can he be dead?"
Her cries echoed across the devastated battlefield.
"Mo Jiang," she sobbed, tears falling freely. "Why didn't you listen to me? Why…?"
Those nearby exchanged uneasy glances.
"Our lady truly loved him," someone murmured.
High above, beyond the broken sky, countless hidden beings watched in silence. Ancient eyes peered through the fabric of reality, searching for traces of the man who had defied them all.
But they found nothing.
No soul.
No destiny.
No future.
Blood flowed like oceans across the upper realm. Entire races dwindled. The balance of power shifted irrevocably.
And yet—
In the deepest layers of existence, in a place untouched by this realm's laws,
something stirred.
A faint pulse.
A hidden spark.
The coalition believed they had won.
The heavens believed balance had been restored.
But Mo Jiang had never been a man who accepted death so simply.
And somewhere
beyond their reach, beyond fate itself—
The greatest deception in history had only just begun.