Jiang Huai quietly looked at the strange tree. His gaze was calm, without much emotion—he simply watched it like a roadside tree or a stone in the mountains. He said softly:
“What’s wrong with that?”
“As living beings, you Extraterrestrial Demons have brought so many lives toward Nirvanic Extinction.”
“I should avenge them.”
The tree responded. Its voice no longer trembled or panicked, but carried a kind of devout calmness:
“But life and death are part of the Cycle.”
“This world has reached this point. It is time for Nirvanic Extinction.”
Its tendrils swayed gently, pointing toward the broken crystals and the deathly silent heaven and earth:
“We are the Will of the World.”
“You are resisting the World.”
“You think the World belongs to you, the living beings.”
Its voice lowered, carrying weariness:
“But the World is not your world. The World does not care how much you struggle.”
“Is it really a good thing for you living beings to exist forever like this?”
The tree’s tendrils swayed softly, as if sighing:
“If living beings existed eternally, leave aside cultivation, sooner or later the World might head toward Nirvanic Extinction because of your existence.”
“Then you living beings will no longer exist.”
After all, from its understanding, the World was always like this: living beings, Nirvanic Extinction, living beings born from Nirvanic Extinction, then heading toward Nirvanic Extinction again—cycling endlessly, repeating without end.
This was the truth.
Jiang Huai shook his head.
He once again offered up Ji’s Crystal Coffin.
A flash of white light. The Crystal Coffin appeared, its lid opened, and the tall figure in blue robes floated out stiffly, hovering at his side.
He said softly:
“You and I differ. Perhaps there is no right or wrong.”
“What the future of living beings will be can only be left to the living beings themselves.”
“The essence of living beings lies in life, and the essence of life lies in survival.”
Jiang Huai thought for a moment, then replied:
“These are matters for the living beings themselves.”
He offered up Essence Blood and then cut his wrist.
A drop of blood seeped from his fingertip, suspended in the air like a tiny sun.
That drop of blood drifted slowly toward Ji Xi, sinking into her brow.
Connecting himself and Ji Xi.
“And as a Yin-Yang Body, my only task is to protect our living beings and protect the people I care about.”
“Whether Extraterrestrial Demons or anyone else, none of them is allowed to take them from me.”
“Our affairs as living beings will be resolved by ourselves.”
He lifted his head, his gaze directly meeting the great tree:
“Not for you to uniformly lead us to Nirvanic Extinction.”
“The meaning of life is to thrive endlessly.”
Behind him, the four dragons stood, staring at his back in silence.
Ji Xi’s eyes snapped open!
In those pupils, black and white slowly rotated, like a Taiji Diagram spinning.
That light burst from her eyes, surged from her entire body, erupted from every corner within her—a vast, overwhelming Qi.
The Qi was as vast as the sea, as boundless as the sky, carrying a momentum that crushed everything, sweeping out in all directions.
A Yin-Yang Longsword solidified in her hand.
The blade was a flow of black and white, long and slender. The edge shimmered with uncertain light, exuding a suffocating pressure.
She gripped the hilt, the sword tip angled toward the ground, and swung fiercely at the strange tree!
The sword light intertwined black and white, forming a massive sword aura dozens of zhang long, tearing through the air, tearing through the Demonic Qi, tearing through everything in its path.
The tree did not resist.
It simply closed its eyes.
Its tendrils no longer danced, its branches no longer trembled. It stood there quietly, like an ordinary tree, like a stone in the mountains.
As if heading toward its own Nirvanic Extinction.
It left behind a reverberating voice that lingered long in that heaven and earth:
“Cycle of Life and Death, Nirvanic Extinction of All Things.”
All the crystals shattered.
Hundreds of millions of pitch-black crystals simultaneously fractured at that moment, turning into countless tiny, flickering specks of light that danced in the air like fireflies.
The specks grew more numerous, denser, converging into a River of Light that flowed through this heaven and earth.
The tree disappeared.
Its body dissipated bit by bit—from trunk to crown, from crown to roots—transforming into countless tiny, earth-yellow specks of light that merged into the River of Light.
This world began to change.
The sky was no longer dark purple but gradually took on a faint blue. The earth was no longer cracked and broken but slowly became smooth, as if smoothed by an invisible hand.
The air no longer reeked of decay and rot.
Ao Yao felt a sense of delight.
She took a deep breath, her green dragon eyes narrowing slightly, a look of enjoyment spreading across her face.
She felt that the air around her was filled with Life Force, like the smell of all things reviving after the first spring rain.
Jiang Huai felt a strange sensation.
His heart was pounding—fast and powerful, like a drum, like a war song.
The Small World inside him was resonating with this world.
That nascent, incomplete Small World was spinning at an unprecedented speed.
Ming-Yang Qi churned wildly within it, as if about to burst out.
“What’s wrong, Jiang Zhun?” Qin Zhengqu was the first to notice something off. He asked anxiously, his dragon eyes full of concern.
He stepped forward, reaching out to support him.
From Jiang Huai’s Small World, a great deal of Ming-Yang Qi surged out.
The black and white light burst from his body, like two swimming dragons, coiling, winding, and rising around him.
That Qi interwove with the Qi of this world, indistinguishable from each other.
It began to establish a connection with this world, like two hearts beating in sync.
From the center of this world, a burst of light rose.
It emerged from the depths of the earth, piercing through layers of soil and rock, through layers of chaos, and materialized before Jiang Huai.
“Such pure Life Force,” Ao Yao exclaimed in amazement. Her green dragon eyes widened, and her small mouth opened slightly. “I’ve never seen Life Force so pure!”
This was a world reborn after Nirvanic Extinction.
Those devoured living beings, those souls trapped in the crystals, those specks of light that dissipated into the air—they had not truly died. They had merged into this heaven and earth.
They had become the foundation of this world.
Essentially, a world reborn.
Jiang Huai reached out. His hands trembled slightly. The moment his fingertips touched the cluster of light, it surged into his body, into his Small World, into every meridian, every inch of flesh and blood.
The core of this world poured into Jiang Huai’s Small World.
His Qi skyrocketed. The Small World expanded wildly—the earth extended, the sky rose, rivers flowed, grass and trees grew.
That originally barren world was now becoming vibrant, just like this reborn world.
At this moment, it was as if he had become the master of this new world.
He was the core of this world; this world was his extension.
He waved his hand, and rivers surged. The dry riverbeds were refilled with clear flowing water.
The water murmured like a zither, like a whisper.
The sun rose. A red orb ascended from the horizon, casting golden light over the earth.
Everything was becoming full of life.
Small grass blades pushed out of the soil—tender green, vibrant, with dewdrops. Flowers bloomed, colorful and fragrant.
Trees grew, branches lush, leaves thick, birds returning to their nests.
This world, which had lain in deathly silence for who knows how many years, had finally come alive.