693 I Have a Rough Plan (2/2)
Therefore, they did not need someone like Charles to stir things up. Everyone understood that under the current situation the fight for the Wheel of Balance could only end in a stalemate. But when their goal changed from the whole artifact to just a part of it, the whole situation would be completely different.
Either way, they'd first break it apart then talk about it!
First come, first serve!
But before they could, the King of Red stood in their way. The Sacred City had long regarded the Wheel of Balance as something they had in the bag. The King of Red had maintained this stalemate in order to give the King of Black a chance to cast stronger power through the wind tunnel.
Of the Three Kings, the King of Red had been controlled by 17 popes throughout history. His so-called body was just a tool used by the Popes in Nibelungen, he was not really there. Therefore, he was able to perform the near-miraculous feats of human transmission and resurrection.
But the King of Black couldn't. He could set out a restricted area from the wind tunnel, but he was still thousands of miles away in an unreachable place.
And the King of Yellow had left after his initial intervention, having made up his mind not to worry about the disputes on the ground. If he was still there, even at the other side of the world he could still intervene in the situation through the Holy Cauldron's systems.
There was no need to fight. As long as it was guided by its own power, the Wheel of Balance would choose on its own.
They would not fight this battle.
In an instant, the battle in the sky had already reached its climax. A great amount of music theory was born and died in the core. Elements collided with each other, were born, and died. The projections of the Sacred City and the Great Wall collided, hitting hard and throttling each other. And Charles had gone back into the twisted phase labyrinth after speaking, slipping away from the battle between the two sides and its aftermath.
In a flash, the two projections had interlocked thousands of times, and many towers in the projection of the Sacred City had been destroyed. And far away in the real Sacred City, the corresponding steel towers emitted the sharp sound of scraping metal as they collapsed.
The Great Wall was equally damaged, and several of the beacon fires had been extinguished in the great storm.
In that instant of collision, Paganini blocked all the attacks directed at Charles, resulting in half his body being broken and horrifying to look at.
After this, the King of Red and Yuan Changqing with Charles close behind had already touched the edge of the Wheel of Balance.
There was no need for them to look at each other.
A cold light flashed in Yuan Changqing's eyes.
That iron light was fleeting, but it seemed to pierce through all the long nights throughout the ages, annihilating stars and the sun, destroying everything as easily as crushing dry reeds and smashing rotting wood, illuminating a future in which only he existed.
The true essence of the Yuan family's swordsmanship was revealed.
The Chun Jun Sword slashed down!
Bang!
A sharp sound burst forth from the depths of the realm of aether, then swept out over everything, setting off the roar of the world collapsing.
In the twinkling of an eye, the sky went pure white. One moment the ocean boiled and the next it froze. The air became bits of iron sand that rubbed against each other, agitating everything and opening cracks everywhere.
Frenzied power flowed out of the cracks in the Wheel of Balance. that moment a terrible chain reaction arose from the sea of aether.
The whole world could hear the fierce voice that seemed to crack the heavens and the earth.
Everything seemed to have gone out of control in an instant.
The whole world was in turmoil.
In a flash, the Wheel of Balance fell apart, splitting into three pieces in the three-way battle. A great rush of music theory gathered towards the fragments, shaping them into new forms. They clearly looked the same, but each of the three gave everyone a very different feeling.
It was not only the form of the Wheel that had been split but also its power.
The King of Red looked downcast. The fragment in his hands still held the same form as the Wheel of Balance. Numerous elements converged and reformed it.
Its power, inherited from the ”separation” power of the original Wheel of Balance, could cut off the ability of all musicians to sense the realm of aether.
The fragment in Yuan Changqing's hands did not seem to be magical, but wherever it went everything became calm, everything seemed to have returned to the right path. The realm of aether and the Physical World were once again stabilized.
The power that he had received was ”maintaining.” It maintained the balance between the two worlds and was most suitable to be a part of the Great Wall of Aurora.
The fragment that Charles had was faint, like a phantom. But wherever he went became like a huge hole, with bizarre illusions constantly flashing out from within the void.
This was the last part of the Wheel of Balance: ”overlapping.”
In this way, the Wheel of Balance was completely split. The artifact that all the different parties had set their hopes upon was born, split apart in the battle, and turned into three mystical objects no longer the same as before.
It was simply a great big joke.
The battle had finally ended.
The aftermath was still there.
When the Wheel of Balance had broken, massive amounts of elements had burst out of it, turning into shockwaves that flew between heaven and earth.
A cry rose up from the Ultimate as if mourning the death of its child.
Wait… the Ultimate?
Paganini was stunned, and a puzzling thought appeared in his mind: why is the Ultimate still there?
The fate of the Ultimate was to give birth to a catastrophe, so with the birth of the Wheel of Balance the Ultimate should have already fallen apart and hidden away again. Why was it still there?
And it could still stay whole amid the earth-shattering three-sided battle?
”This isn't right!” He looked down at the Ultimate. But then his expression changed.
He felt it.
Something giant was emerging from the realm of aether!
The behemoth that had been missing for a long time as it floated in the depths of the realm of aether was sinking towards the Physical World through the gap that had been opened up by the birth of the Wheel of Balance!
Through the complex turbulence, Paganini could only a faintly see an ethereal phantom.
It was like a dream.
A dream coming towards the Physical World… No, descending upon the Ultimate!
At this moment, the residual power that still lingered between heaven and earth seemed to hear a new call. It turned into a torrent and rushed towards the Ultimate.
Was anybody still there?
Paganini was stunned when he finally realized.
Ye Qingxuan!
[1]: This is a line from the Daoist sage Zhuangzi's story ”The Dextrous Butcher.”