810 - Paradise on Earth (2/2)
There was a moment of trance.
It was as if nothing had happened.
Ye Qingxuan opened his eyes and felt the sunset of Avalon on his body. As the voices in the market called out, he saw the young man beside him droop his head.
He looked dejected.
“What’s wrong, brother?”
“Nothing, I’m alright.” He flashed his familiar smile and patted his chest as if glory was streaming out of it.
Ye Qingxuan couldn’t help but sight. “When you’re alright you say, ‘you care about me so much brother, I’m so moved’ or some rubbish like that. What you’re saying now proves you’re not alright.”
“Well…didn’t our teacher say that I will be the elder brother? As the elder brother I have to take care of all of you. All I can do each day is crack jokes, I can’t do anything else. It’s because I’m just a loser, you know.”
Upon saying this the handsome young man couldn’t help but scratch his head.
He hid his sad expression and smiled at him.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m actually great. I just don’t know where the problem is coming from. I just keep rolling along till I get used to it. I’ve passed my days a bit decadently. I owe some debts, I often go and get drunk…but there are always ways to solve these things. In the past, I’d often make myself sad, get drunk, and have some very strange nightmares. I wouldn’t know where I was when I woke up. Every time I opened my eyes I doubted that staying here meant anything. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And this place is great.”
He suddenly reached out and put his arm around the young man’s neck and whispered, as if he was making a vow, “Teacher is here, and you, and Bai Xi. I’m no longer alone. I want to protect them, so this city can become very beautiful.”
At that time they were on the way home.
The blond teenager swayed and softly sang a vague song under the sunset.
The sunlight fell on their backs, stretching out the shadow of the two of them walking with arms around each other’s shoulders and illuminating the outlines of the two teenagers.
The pale yellow light fell upon the waves, as brilliant as gold.
–
In that moment, Ye Qingxuan sensed he was no longer alone.
For some reason there were tears on his face, and he couldn’t stop them.
He closed his eyes and let the light engulf anything.
And so it did.
–
–
The sky was the first thing to burst.
Countless cracks spread out from the gentle night, stretching out like iron drills that shook the sky, making everything collapse. Through the cracks the original darkness of the cold universe was revealed. The stars shone dimly and seemed to cry out.
With a roar like the heavens and earth were closing together, a white squall ran across the earth, violently destroying all creations, spreading them into destruction, and continuing forward.
The earth was ruptured by earthquakes and boiling blood spewed forth, splashing out flames and destruction.
It seemed like in that moment everything was coming to an end.
Even the musicians who were able to withstand all disasters in the past had become exceedingly fragile, and were even more miserable than ordinary folk.
Faced with the double assault of the physical world and the realm of aether, the heart rhythms of musicians were thrown into disorder and they could not resist the torment that came after. They could only vomit blood at the devastation of the aether.
The boiling tides broke free from the shackles of gravity and flowed up into the sky. Layers of waves interlaced and whales sang their final song in the violent tide. Their song was immediately submerged in the shrieking storm.
When the Holy Cauldron and paradise collided, the whole world seemed to be immersed in its final days.
The end was like a tide, and everything drowned in it.
Asgard, Burgundy, Anglo, and even Cloud Tower on the sea were all struggling in the tsunami that seemed to stretch from the heavens to the earth.
In the far east, the Empire of Aurora experienced unprecedented earthquakes and natural disasters.
A stream of fire descended from the sky.
A rain of blood poured down.
In the capital, the sound of numerous ruptures and collapses rang out without end as the towering palace walls were destroyed by hurricanes.
In the broken hall that was about to be overturned, countless ministers kowtowed in prayer as the Empress sat on the throne.
She let the broken stones fall beside her and the dust cover her once shining white hair.
She clenched her fist and stared quietly towards paradise.
She stubbornly waited for the final outcome.
“Charles…”
At that moment, even in the distant World of Dark, destruction displayed its violent power. The first thing to bear the brunt was the once grotesque and gaudy realm of aether.
The disasters were like boiling blisters as they emerged one after another.
Countless giant mysteries were completely torn in two at the first moment of impact. They were swallowed by the storm, integrated into it, and merged together.
In the midst of the increasingly violent assault, not even a single one of the remaining Scepters survived.
Only musicians who had prepared several times in advance could hide in narrow secret places, frantically repairing all cracks and fissures, consuming the treasures they had accumulated over the years like running water in exchange for a moment of respite.
In the end they could only desperately transform them into small boats that were caught between life and death in the depths of the storm.
And those strange and mysterious wonders of the past were now like bubbles that melted in the violent turbulence, returning to the aether.
In but a moment one-tenth of the world was destroyed.
And then another tenth was destroyed.
The destruction continued cruelly. It trampled all meaning into nothingness step by step, taking away all traces of life and civilization.
All that was left was devastation.
After who knows how long, the Holy Cauldron destroyed the raging torrent, and the collision between paradise and earth came to an abrupt end.