Chapter 402: The Country Once Called Izumo (4k)

Thoughts were unraveled and consciousness expanded endlessly, arriving at a completely new place.

On the dilapidated and completely plundered wasteland, there are traces of being crushed by some invisible giant. The earth is in ruins, and the only way to express the silent wailing is through the cracks on the surface.

A voice came from beside Yao Luo, it was a cold male voice.

"■■■■, do you remember..."

"Izumo, why do you want to forge swords?"

His voice revealed a hint of fatigue, but the will contained in it was enough to melt the hardest steel.

After hearing the voice, Yao Luo's perspective moved downward. On her slender wrist was rough skin that had been tempered with time, and what she was holding was just an ordinary, common sharp blade.

The girl's burning eyes are reflected on the cold mirror, which shows her heart that is firmer than cast iron and is also a microcosm of that era.

"This is...her 'first knife'."

Yao Luo muttered to himself that he already had the answer to who the owner of this body was.

Behind him, there are thousands of strong men who, like him, have been trained and tempered by the years. They came to this former home, raised the blades in their hands, and are about to...

Swing the sword at the "Eight Million Gods".

It was a brutal war, with bright red blood rain pouring down from the sky like the sky crying.

Even the girl herself almost died in the war.

There were a total of 11,700 soldiers on the battlefield, and 11,700 "swords", all broken!

What he got in return was just the corpse of the evil god "Tsumukari God" and the first "Goshi Zhaodao".

The blood of more than 10,000 soldiers, and much, much more who had paid, have all become one with the swords. The lost land needs to be cultivated with blood and tears.

After obtaining the first "sword", the country called Izumo seemed to have been accelerated. The activities of hunting gods became faster and faster, and the lives lost became more and more.

But people don't care because this is the only way and the only way out.

As each "World-Protecting Sword" was forged, everything seemed to become better.

They took back the land, the sky, their beautiful home, and everything they had lost, even if the price of all this was the breaking of one "knife" (people) after another.

The girl's perspective also shifted rapidly. She changed the knives in her hands one after another, until a purple blade forged by thunder became her long-used sword.

Its name is "Ming".

She wielded thunder and lightning on the battlefield, and together with her comrades, she slew the evil gods. She was admired by thousands of people and became an unparalleled hero.

Those were the happiest years of the girl's life. Even though she later grew two devil-like horns on her body and was despised by the world, she still believed that no matter what the cost.

Izumo will definitely win.

"This is...her 'second knife'."

Yao Luo stood inside the girl's body and shared with her the joys, sorrows, anger and happiness that she had experienced. He understood that the girl had once been so hopeful and so eager for victory.

This is indeed the case. As the battle continued to expand, Izumo almost achieved a complete victory. Twelve evil gods were beheaded from the sky, and in return, they received twelve "Goshi Zhaodao".

At this moment, Izumo had broken 733 swords.

...............

The battle has come to an end. The 12 warriors who have shared life and death and worked together stand on the originally barren land and draw their swords to the sky. This time, they want to achieve complete victory and completely destroy Takama-ga-hara, the land where the "Eight Million Gods" exist.

Each of them is the most outstanding gifted person of the era, and is the epitome of the best that has been condensed over countless years, technology, and times.

No one thinks they will lose, because if they fail, they will lose everything. They have always used swords to chop up the territory and built walls with flesh and blood. The will passed down from generation to generation and the martial arts honed with great difficulty will all bloom at this moment!

Before the final battle began, a swordsman holding a "frost" blade found the girl, shared her joy, and drank cherry blossom wine together.

They made a promise to come here again to enjoy the cherry blossoms after the war was won.

If anyone dies in the war, bring her sword back here and bury him under the cherry tree.

Because, when everything is at peace, perhaps the world will no longer need "knives", nor will it need people like them who wield knives.

With a smile on her face, Yao Luo could feel that it was probably the happiest moment in the girl's life.

Unfortunately, the girl never had the chance to fulfill this promise.

They killed their way up to the sky, making the sky weep blood and the evil spirits howl. They killed all the way and cleared the world.

In this way, they held their hopes for tomorrow and won victory after victory, until...

“They were all ‘broken’!”

The sound stopped abruptly, and a hollow wind swept across the sky of the entire planet.

People were wrong, wrong from the beginning.

The enemy they are about to face is not the evil god, but someone who has become the evil god...

"Own".

This answer is simply an insult and defilement to all the sacrificed people and the blood and sweat of the soldiers!
At this moment, Izumo gave his all to forge twelve Zhao swords, but they were destroyed in an instant.

The cold male voice sounded in Yao Luo's ears again. His voice narrated the cruel facts and a question that had no answer.

The sword was broken, the man was killed, and turned into a nameless evil ghost. The girl who fell on the battlefield fell into despair again.

But in the end, she stood up.

Twelve swords were broken in Izumo Province, and finally the "Fushi Zhaodao" was forged, with the second name.

The first one is "beginning".

One of them is "end".

Holding the "third knife", the girl with two horns on her head, almost turned into a demon, swung the knife towards her past in her hometown where she once had nothing, gained everything, and was destroyed again.

She wanted an answer, she had to have an answer.

Otherwise, everything that has supported her to this point will become meaningless.

Friends, family, love, everything in this world must be cut off!

The swung blade cut through the sky, destroyed his hometown, killed his best friend who had become an evil spirit, and killed another man who, like him, bore everything, the man holding the blade of "The End".

Kill with your own hands!

There are only the last two people left between the two planets orbiting each other. They fight each other and compete for their fate, like two stars orbiting the dark sun. They entangle and collide, using all their strength to swing their knives mercilessly at their old friends.

Because, the person who stays until the end can define everything.

"Do you still remember, Izumo, why did you forge a sword?"

The white-haired ghost, the voice that had been lingering in my ears, asked the question again.

However, when the blades of "Beginning" and "End" collided with each other and finally turned into powder, the girl looked up at the sky, and finally, everything had an answer.

"For a "lie"..."

All sounds, all lights, lose their color in front of "that" thing.

It was a dark sun, and the shadow it cast alone swallowed up everything in existence. Izumo, the home they had walked on all their lives, this land with no end in sight, was so insignificant in front of the true "nothingness" that it was speechless.

With the emergence of the final winner, the girl's "perspective" was finally elevated to the scale of the universe.

The struggle between the two planets, Izumo and Takamagahara, was meaningless from the beginning.

Because, no matter how hard they struggled, no matter how many knives were born, that short, sharp sheet could not cut down something like that from the sky.

The knife broke.

The blade of "Hajime" was shattered at the moment the white-haired ghost died. This time, what was shattered was the blade in the girl's heart.

Gravity begins to take away everything around the girl. The planet is torn apart, time and space are distorted, and all evidence of existence will disappear.

Perhaps, in another ten thousand years, under the influence of gravity, two celestial bodies orbiting the dark sun will appear again, and then everything will be reversed with the passage of time.

The closer one will become the new "Takama-ga-hara", and the farther one will be the next "Izumo".

Just like what the white-haired ghost once said:

“The former Takama-ga-hara may have been as beautiful as Izumo.”

"We have already stepped into His shadow, for a non-existent destination, for the forging of the last "knife" (man)..."

Silence, the eternal cycle, all that this world can leave for the girl is the ruins of imminent reincarnation. If nothing changes, this story will continue for thousands or tens of thousands of years, until the shadow of "nothingness" covers the entire universe.

Words have lost their meaning, memories are worthless, only blood-colored tears are streaming down the face of the girl, the being not called "Yellow Spring".

Huang Quan raised his sword-holding hand. There was nothing there, yet it felt more "full" than ever before.

The fateful force of "nothingness" will drown everything. These two planets are about to lose their color, shape, and proof of their existence, just like the countless forgotten stars in the Milky Way.

And now, the last thing that needs to be cut off has clearly appeared in front of Huang Quan.

"The last knife"——"Nothing", this knife also carries all the blood, picked up by Huang Quan,
The evil ghost's horns faded, and its black hair turned snow-white. Between the two endless stars, Huang Quan slashed at "Izumo", "Takama-ga-hara", and herself with the last sword.

The blade light cut through the sky and slashed towards the shadow of "nothingness". She did it. The red blade light instantly turned the two planets into star fragments and the smallest dust, as if they had never existed.

The tragic eternal rondance, the fate of the two stars revolving around the dark sun, at this moment...

Cut off by Huang Quan!
Even the deepest black cannot swallow this ray of sword light. The sword light from the past flows at this moment, turning everything called "Izumo" into a vivid painting and illuminating the entire galaxy.

"Izumo" no longer exists, but the proof that it once existed has been preserved, just like the color on the sword light of Yomiuri.

Now, there is one more person witnessing everything.

The life of the girl named "Huang Quan", all her emotions, all her long-cherished wishes, all her memories, are engraved in Yao Luo's mind extremely clearly, as if Yao Luo had experienced them personally.

Such a "memory" is something that even a rememberer like the Black Swan cannot bear.

Because, although "memory" seems illusory, it actually has the concept of "weight".

Imagine if the memory of an immortal species that lived for a thousand years was instilled into the mind of a ten-year-old child, would the inner spirit of this boy be the memory of the ten-year-old or the long thousand years? The answer is self-evident.

"how?"

An indifferent voice emerged from behind Yao Luo, it was the underworld in reality.

Yao Luo turned around, his eyes becoming complicated and changeable.

Because from this moment on, Huang Quan no longer has any secrets in his eyes.

"How much... have you seen?"

Being stared at by Yao Luo with complicated eyes, even Huang Quan would feel a little embarrassed, even if she would not show it.

She used all her strength in that strike, and she wasn't sure how much Yao Luo could "see".

"All."

Yao Luo took a deep breath and answered truthfully.

“All of them…?”

Huang Quan's eyes became a little confused, because as time passed, the travelers on the path of "nothingness" would undergo various changes.

For some people, their bodies disintegrate, and their existence itself becomes distorted and empty; for some people, their memories are confused, and they often cannot distinguish between themselves and others, and they flow in a river of chaos; for some people...

In short, if Huang Quan does not hold the scabbard now, everything around her will be like the morning dew to her, and will be forgotten as the sun rises.

Only the brightest red color in her life will never fade away.

"Will you continue walking?"

Yao Luo stretched out his hand, and a red umbrella was salvaged from the river of memory and handed to Huang Quan.

Huang Quan took it silently. The umbrella looked exactly the same as she remembered.

The two of them walked in this way, in a river of memories, and the scene around them was still the illuminated blood-red Milky Way.

Huang Quan's life, maintained by Yao Luo's power, appeared beside the two of them, within their reach.

The color in Huang Quan's eyes became a little gentler. She looked at the extremely clear picture around her and responded.

"Yes, before this "color" called self disappears..."

"I will reach the end of the void (IX)."

The two of them walked and walked like this. Unfortunately, a person's memory, no matter how detailed it is, is still insignificant in front of the scale of the Milky Way. Even if that moment of light can illuminate the deepest darkness.

"Take this."

Huang Quan looked up. After all, Yao Luo was nearly two meters tall, so she needed to look up.

It was a shining crystal. In its center, wrapped in multiple rectangular colored glazes, was an extremely concentrated cone of light that radiated terrifying power.

Huang Quan looked at it for a moment. The things in here were the memories of her life. She didn’t expect that Yao Luo could really turn all the memories into material existence.

“Life is like a white snowfield. No matter how far you step, you will leave traces.”

“Traces themselves have no meaning and will soon be blown away by the wind and snow, but there are always some memories that can condense into eternal ice.”

“People need something to deal with the ‘snow’, or if you want to call it ‘nothingness’.”

“This is my answer.”

"No matter how many times you forget, I will gather this "memory" for you again. Something that has been lost once should not be lost again."

"No matter what happens, I will carry this memory, and all my other memories, with me until the end of my life."

“It’s like nothing has ever been forgotten.”

Huang Quan took the cone of light and placed it in his closest arms, alongside the sword.

She knew that the man in front of her would struggle to the end even if faced with endless wind and snow, and he would even emit heat to try to illuminate the entire "night".

At this point, no further words are needed.

"Then... let me accompany you for a while."

(End of this chapter)