Chapter 286 - This Glorious Era Was Never What We Hoped For

A sky full of stars lit up the entire night.

Two young men, full of potential, sat atop the thick branches of a particularly lush tree beneath the starry sky.

“Fu Tian, what’s your dream?”

“My dream, huh? I want to break free from the curse of our kind’s reproductive fate. To become truly powerful, and then find a woman I love and live out a peaceful life with her. What about you, Jue Tian?”

The young man named Jue Tian gave a shy smile as he looked up at the sea of stars above them.

“I hope that one day I can help our people break free from this cruel destiny… So they can truly have the right to choose how they live.”

Fu Tian burst out laughing.

“You can't even change your own fate, and you want to help others?”

Jue Tian smiled awkwardly but didn’t answer.

The night was quiet, and their laughter rang out clear under the starry sky.

Jue Tian quietly pulled a letter from his pocket.

“What’s that? A love letter from some girl?” Fu Tian teased.

“It’s from my mother,” Jue Tian said, lifting his head. His eyes were deep, filled with clarity.

“My mother was pregnant when my father died. And the moment I was born, she died too. Fu Tian, do you know what that is? That’s the curse of our Celestial Clan. That’s the fate we can’t escape. My parents never even saw me. All they could do was leave behind this letter. I never knew what a father’s love or a mother’s warmth felt like… But the words in that letter made me feel it. I know they loved me deeply, truly. But they couldn’t do anything about it. All because of this damn fate.”

Jue Tian turned his head. His youthful face was already streaked with tears.

“You…” Fu Tian hesitated. He wanted to offer comfort but didn’t know what to say.

“I want to build a golden age,” Jue Tian said, standing up. “To give our people more choices, so that even love, even family, won’t be a luxury anymore.”

His gaze was burning. His voice was firm and unwavering, unquestionable.

“Did you ever see your mother?” Fu Tian asked quietly after a long pause.

“Does a painting count?”

…

On the day the Heaven's Will was to be claimed, a torrential storm drowned the world.

The path to becoming an Emperor was within reach. Fu Tian and Jue Tian stood side by side.

“Heaven-Breaker, kill the others. Let’s fight fair,” Jue Tian said as he stepped forward, exposing his back, completely trusting.

He was covered in blood, but he laughed with bold, carefree joy.

That shy boy beneath the stars had grown into a man.

“No. You go. The Celestial Race needs you,” Fu Tian said with a smile, pushing Jue Tian toward the fate he deserved, while he stayed behind to fight off the others.

Was it selfish? Perhaps.

But maybe it wasn’t.

Fu Tian only wanted to change his own fate.

Jue Tian, though, wanted to change the fate of an entire world.

In both ambition and responsibility, Fu Tian had never matched Jue Tian.

…

In that moment, when he pushed Jue Tian toward Heaven’s Will, Fu Tian felt as if his entire being radiated with divine light.

He realized: he had been great, if only for a moment.

He had once defeated famous geniuses.

He had earned the praise of powerful figures.

He had once been ecstatic after breaking through a cultivation bottleneck.

And he had, on a spring afternoon, fallen awkwardly in love with a girl for the first time.

But nothing in his life had ever made him feel greater,

Than the moment he gave Jue Tian the chance to become the Grand Emperor.

…

Now, as his God Flame slowly dimmed, the screams of dying disciples faded from his ears.

Fu Tian smiled.

“Jue Tian, we really did build a golden age… But human nature is terrifying. They wiped out the Celestial Race. They forgot their original vows. And now, we too have been destroyed because of the Celestial Race. This world… it wasn’t the one you or I dreamed of.”

…

Xu Zimo stood silently over Heaven-Breaker’s body.

Then he turned to Dark River and said: “Bury him with respect. It’s what he deserves.”

Dark River nodded and raised his hand. The ground split open, forming a hundred-meter-deep pit.

He gently placed Heaven-Breaker’s body inside.

Xu Zimo then walked over to the corpse of Absolute Dao Ancestor.

He picked up the long sword in his hand.

“The Heaven-Slaying Sword. A Grand Emperor True Treasure left behind by Grand Emperor Zhu Tian.”

Without staying long, Xu Zimo, accompanied by Dark River, made his way to the Heaven-Severing Sacred Ground’s treasury.

By now, the lineage had become a complete ruin. Saying it was littered with corpses was no exaggeration.

Blood mist rained from the sky. The ground flowed with rivers of blood. The stench of blood choked the air.

The lineage's treasure vault was located inside a grand, standalone palace.

Half the structure had collapsed. Some desperate disciples were even trying to loot it.

“Human nature…” Xu Zimo said with a small laugh.

Dark River’s True Fate emerged. A blood-colored river swept through, annihilating all the looters, leaving not even bones behind.

Xu Zimo took out a spatial ring and swept all the visible treasures into it.

He moved to the center of the hall and closed his eyes, sensing.

Inside the palace, he discovered a hidden teleportation array.

He and Dark River stepped into it.

The array activated. The scene around them changed, and they appeared in a secluded small world.

A lineage like Heaven-Severing Sacred Ground, with thousands of years of history, clearly wouldn’t store all its secrets in just one hall.

In this miniature world, Dark River was stunned.

It contained lavish palaces that stretched endlessly.

Names were carved above them: Treasure Pavilion, Divine Weapon Hall, Heavenly Pill Workshop, Tome Vault…

Inside those buildings were the accumulated wealth of countless generations of the Heaven-Severing Sacred Ground.

Just the various Meridian Arts alone filled Xu Zimo’s entire spatial ring.

Xu Zimo didn’t hesitate, he manifested his God World True Fate and transferred all of it into his personal realm.

Weapons, divine pills, cultivation manuals, ancient artifacts, many rare and never-before-seen items.

Only when he had completely emptied the realm did he leave this Particle World.

…

Back in the real world, the Heaven-Severing Sacred Ground had reached its end.

Xu Zimo stood amidst what looked like a scene from hell.

He had the five Immortals conceal themselves, and Paimon gradually dispersed the thick black mist cloaking the battlefield.

As the mist lifted, tens of thousands of eyes from across the Holyflower Region turned to look.

Everyone wanted to know the final result.

Those nearby who had come to spectate, even the almighty cultivators watching through magical mirrors all wore expressions of shock and gravity.

Some were even stunned speechless.

To call this place hell would be an understatement.

Mountains of corpses were piled high.

“The Heaven-Severing Sacred Ground… is finished.”

That was the thought flashing through everyone’s minds.

They looked up at the youth standing in the sky,

Swallowed hard, their hearts trembling.

Fear. Awe. Reverence. Worship. Perhaps all of those feelings, and more.

But before anyone could fully process what had just happened, a voice suddenly boomed across the heavens:

“Tell the people of the Heaven Ascension Holy Mountain, I’ll be arriving in three days.”