Myth Beyond Heaven

“Epoch’s End: Final Sunset,” Nian Shi intoned, his voice flat and absolute.

Rip—

A beam lanced from the tip of the blade. It was not gray this time, but a deep, void-like black, shot through with silver threads of annihilated time. It moved, but not through space. It moved through concept, through the very connection that Yue Bingyao had forged.

It was an ending delivered directly to the source, a declaration that the moon’s cycle stopped here.

Yue Bingyao’s reaction was instantaneous. She knew his intention the moment he moved. A cry of denial, the first raw emotion she had shown, escaped her lips. The God Slaying Sword, which had merged with her form, materialized back into her hand in a flash of desperate silver light.

“Eclipse!” she uttered, her voice echoing with the anguish of the moon itself.

She didn’t try to block the beam. She knew she couldn’t. Instead, she poured every last drop of her waning power into the sword and swung it in a desperate, horizontal arc aimed directly at Nian Shi’s neck. It was a gambit—a counterattack meant to force him to defend, to break his concentration on destroying the moon.

The moonlight around the God Slaying Sword blazed with a final, defiant brilliance, so bright it hurt to look upon. It was the last stand of the moon’s light, concentrated into one ultimate strike.

Nian Shi saw her move. He didn’t defend. A wild, manic laugh burst from him, filled with scorn and triumph.

“CAN YOU STOP IT?!” he roared over the screaming energies, his eyes wide with fervor. He accepted her strike. He would take the hit to ensure his own landed.

The two attacks crossed in the space between them.

For a moment, everything was silent. Then, light and darkness consumed the world.

Bang!

A clash of forces too fundamental to describe erupted. It was not an explosion, but an unraveling.

The golden Forbidden Zone, Tantai Lanling’s ultimate technique, shattered like glass, its runes extinguishing with pathetic whimpers. The backlash sent her flying, blood spraying from her mouth.

Outside, Long Qingxuan and Long Niu were thrown backward by the shockwave, their massive dragon forms skidding across the ravaged ground. They could only watch, their hearts freezing in their chests.

The light faded as quickly as it had come.

Silence descended once more, deeper and more absolute than before.

In the center of the devastation, two figures stood.

Nian Shi remained where he was, but a thin, clean line of silver was etched across his throat. No blood flowed, but the wound shimmered with unstable temporal energy, a mark from the God Slaying Sword’s final, desperate kiss. He was injured, but very much alive.

Yue Bingyao stood a few paces away, her back to him. She was still on her feet, but her form was solid again, no longer made of light. The glorious robes of moonlight were torn and stained with vivid, shocking crimson that stood out against the silver and white.

The God Slaying Sword was still in her hand, but the magnificent moonlight that had sheathed it was utterly gone, leaving behind only dull, lifeless obsidian.

She trembled slightly, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

Then, a sound like the universe itself breaking echoed from above.

C-c-c-CRACK!

Long Qingxuan and Long Niu looked up, their eyes wide with dawning horror.

The magnificent blue moon in the sky, the true celestial body, was covered in a spiderweb of black cracks. The light that had poured from it was gone, extinguished.

For a heartbeat, it hung there, a broken masterpiece.

Then, with a final, silent sigh, it shattered.

The moon exploded into a billion fragments of cold, dead rock with the final lingering light. The shards scattered in all directions.

The source of her power was gone. Destroyed.

“Ugh!” Yue Bingyao’s legs finally gave out. She collapsed to her knees, the God Slaying Sword falling from her numb fingers to clatter on the ground.

She clutched at her chest, blood staining her robes darker. The light in her eyes, the light of the moon, faded completely, leaving behind only the exhausted, pained eyes of Yue Chuntao.

She had lost.

Nian Shi touched the silver line on his neck, his smile cold and victorious.

“Not bad. You actually managed to make me bleed.” he said coldly with a hint of mockery.

Swoosh!

The sight of Yue Chuntao collapsing broke the frozen horror that had gripped Long Qingxuan and Long Niu. Their massive dragon forms shimmered and shrank in flashes of azure and silver light, returning them to their human forms. They landed softly but urgently beside her, their own injuries forgotten.

“Chuntao!” Long Qingxuan cried out, dropping to her knees. Her hands, glowing with the faint remnants of her light energy, pressed against the grievous wound on Yue Chuntao’s chest, trying to stem the flow of lifeblood and stabilize her fading spirit.

Yue Chuntao’s eyes fluttered open. They were clouded with pain, but for a fleeting moment, a ghost of Yue Bingyao’s ancient calm and resolve shone within them. It was the last ember of the Moon God’s consciousness.

She looked up at Long Qingxuan, her voice a weak, rasping whisper. “I… I have failed to stop him…” Each word was a struggle. “But… it was not… without a fight…”

A faint, sad smile touched her bloodless lips. Then, her eyes closed, and her head lolled to the side. Her body went limp in Long Qingxuan’s arms. The last vestige of life left her.

“No… Chuntao, no…” Long Qingxuan whispered, tears finally breaking free and tracing paths through the dust on her cheeks.

But before their grief could fully consume them, something miraculous happened.

The sky, now empty and black, suddenly shimmered. The billions of scattered motes of moonlight, the dissolved fragments of the shattered moon, had not vanished entirely. They had been hanging in the void, unseen.

Now, they responded to Yue Chuntao’s final sacrifice, to Yue Bingyao’s last will.

They streamed downward like a silent, silver rain. But they did not aim for Nian Shi. They flowed around him, ignoring him completely, and converged upon the still-meditating form of Yun Lintian.

In an instant, they wove themselves into a new barrier around him.

This was a barrier of pure, condensed moonlight, thinner, almost ephemeral, but radiating an aura of absolute, final protection.

It was Yue Bingyao’s last gift, her very essence transformed into one final, unwavering defense…