Chapter 123
"Sixty minutes," whispered the Cancer plague Consciousness within Ling Xu's heart, its voice no longer gentle like a mother, no longer calm like a grandmother, but firm, like a general issuing orders to his troops before the bloodiest battle in history.
"You must endure for sixty minutes, Ling Xu. Not even one second less. Because if you fall before they finish, if you die before they rise, then everything will be meaningless. All your sacrifices, all your deaths, all my resurrections—everything will become dust scattered by the wind, meaningless, useless, remembered by no one."
And Ling Xu—whose body was now only a shadow of what it once had been, whose power was now merely the remnants of what he once possessed, whose life now hung by a thin thread that could snap at any second from being stretched too far—smiled.
Not a calm and peaceful smile like a Buddha who had attained enlightenment, not a cold and resolute smile like when he gave The Silent One an ultimatum, but a weary smile, a smile on the verge of surrender, a smile on the verge of despair, yet beneath that exhaustion, beneath that near surrender, beneath that near despair, there was something time, ink, and death could not destroy—there was love, love for Huan Zheng who had become his home, love for the Singer who had become his sister, love for the life that had given him the chance to die eleven times and rise eleven times, and that love, though unseen, unheard, immeasurable, was the very thing that kept him standing, kept him enduring, kept him fighting, even as every fiber of his muscles screamed for him to stop.
"I will endure," whispered Ling Xu, his voice no longer gentle, no longer firm, no longer clear, but absolute, unquestionable, like something that could not be overturned by anything.
"I will endure for sixty minutes. I will protect them. I will ensure that they rise. Because if they rise, if they attain Complexity Dao, then we can defeat Silence. We can end all of this. We can… go home."
And The Silent One—who from afar saw Huan Zheng and The Singer sitting in meditation, who saw Ling Xu, whose cultivation realm had already fallen to the Leg of Humanity, still standing upright before him with a body full of cracks yet eyes still burning—felt something strange within his chest.
Not fear, because the God of the Vast Cosmos did not know fear, not anger, because The Silent One had never learned what anger felt like, but irritation, irritation born from the realization that his enemy, who should already have been destroyed, who should already have vanished, who should no longer exist within this script, was still standing, still enduring, still blocking his path.
"You think you can protect them for sixty minutes?" The Silent One said, his voice no longer calm, no longer flat, no longer empty, but fierce, like a cornered beast beginning to lose its patience.
"You think you, with that weak and fragile Leg of Humanity realm, can withstand my attacks for sixty minutes? You are more insane than I thought, Ling Xu."
And The Silent One raised both hands, and from the tips of his pale and flexible fingers, ink began to emerge.
Not ink that formed paragraphs, not ink that formed chapters, not ink that formed arcs, but ink that formed a storm, a storm composed of thousands of paragraphs, millions of chapters, billions of arcs, a storm that, should it strike its target, would destroy not only body, foundation, and memory, but also soul, essence, existence itself.
And Ling Xu—whose body was cracked apart, whose realm had fallen to the Legs of Humanity, whose strength was nothing more than remnants—did not retreat.
He merely stood before Huan Zheng and The Singer as they meditated, stretching both arms to his sides like a cross, like a bird about to fly yet choosing not to because there was something that needed protection, like a tree whose roots were firmly embedded in the earth even while storms assaulted it from every direction.
"Go ahead," whispered Ling Xu, his voice no longer absolute and unquestionable, but calm, incredibly calm, like someone who no longer had anything left to fear because he had already lost everything except one thing—purpose.
"Try to destroy me, Silence. Try to rewrite my history. Try to scramble my memories. Try to erase me from this script. But as long as I remain standing, as long as my heart still beats, as long as breath still enters and leaves my lungs, you will never touch them. That is my promise. That is my oath. That is my nature as the vessel of the Cancer plague."
And the storm of ink descended upon Ling Xu.
Not descending like waves crashing against cliffs, not descending like hurricanes tearing through houses with fragile walls, but descending like the apocalypse, like the end of everything, like the word "finished" written upon the final page of a book that did not want to end but was forced to because its author had run out of words. Ling Xu felt his body—which was already cracked apart, already standing at the brink of destruction—begin to melt.
Not melting like wax touched by flame, not melting like ice cream left beneath the scorching sun, but melting like words written upon wet paper, like sentences erased by an eraser pressed too hard, like a story forgotten by its own author because they preferred writing another story they found more interesting.
But he did not fall.
He did not faint.
He did not die.
He merely stood—stood with trembling legs, with arms stretched to his sides like a cross, with eyes shut because the pain was too unbearable to keep them open, with lips praying—not praying to gods and goddesses long since dead because he knew they would not listen, but praying to Huan Zheng, praying that the lazy man would finish quickly, that he would rise quickly, that he would come save him just as Ling Xu had once saved Huan Zheng countless times before.
"Thirty minutes," whispered the Cancer plague Consciousness within Ling Xu's heart, its voice no longer firm like a general's, but weak, exhausted, like someone who had struggled for far too long and was beginning to run out of hope.
"You have endured for thirty minutes, Ling Xu. Halfway there. Half remains. Endure. Endure. Endure."
And Ling Xu—who no longer possessed the strength to nod, who no longer possessed the strength to whisper, who no longer possessed the strength for anything except standing—continued to stand.
Like a tree whose roots remained buried deep in the earth even though its trunk had already snapped. Like a mountain that remained steadfast even after its body had been eroded by wind and rain for thousands of years. Like something that could not be destroyed not because it was strong, but because it refused to be destroyed.
And when the forty-fifth minute arrived—when Ling Xu could almost no longer distinguish between his true self and the self rewritten by The Silent One, between real memories and false ones, between reality and a nightmare that never truly ended—something happened behind him.
Not something loud and thunderous like an explosion, not something bright and blinding like the sun, but something soft, something delicate, something barely noticeable, like a feather falling from the wing of a bird that had flown too high.
To be continued….