Chapter 35: Avenging Earth
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RUMBLE!
The skies reverberated, and the heavens trembled. The people all around Eclipse panicked as they saw countless cracks above the blue sky open up. Explosions of darkness and light erupted endlessly. Many people believed the end of the world was coming soon. The Players were unaware of what was happening as much as the planet's inhabitants.
Some more religious people believed that the Goddess of Light and the God of Darkness were finally fighting after eons of trying to coexist within the same world. Others, however, had different ideas. Players believed it could be a new Event happening, but nobody knew how to even enter the Realm of the Gods anyway.
The clouds darkened as red and purple lightning started falling endlessly. People across the world quickly hid inside their houses. Many hoped for the end to be fast and painless, or for whatever disaster was about to strike them down to end as quickly as possible.
However, the truth was much simpler than that. Above the Heavenly Realm of the Goddess, there was only a single woman causing all of that commotion. Someone who reached the pinnacle of an even more ancient, powerful, and terrifying world than perhaps all the worlds of the Tower combined and multiplied by a thousand.
And now, she wasn't the one struggling; she wasn't the one fearing for her life. This time, it was the goddess herself who was crying and desperately fighting to remain alive. Her domain shaped itself around her will as countless beams clashed against Bing Xue.
Her body, made of Black Clouds, absorbed the light easily. The Goddess had imagined for a split second that perhaps Bing Xue would be weak against her light in her dark state.
But that was farther from the truth; in fact, she seemed to be able to seamlessly absorb her light and destroy it without effort.
It was as if her entire body had become a void by itself, absorbing and deleting any light that was absorbed by the darkness.
"Why…?! Why won't you die?! Just what kind of monstrosity are you? Is a mortal capable of taking attacks from a Goddess?! T-This makes no sense! Did you… Did you kill my brother in such a similar way?!" The Goddess kept crying. However, Bing Xue saw through her lies and those annoying crocodile tears.
"You should stop pretending that you're worried and sad about your "brother" already." Bing Xue spoke with a stern tone of voice, her rainbow-colored eyes seeing through all the lies and emotions of her target. "You are not different than him in some respects, but much more wicked in others. You were planning to betray him eventually, weren't you? Although the two of you are guilty of killing many innocent people from both my world and many others you and the other Gods have invaded, you were still even greedier, planning to kill your brother and absorb his powers."
"H-How did you…?!" She muttered, quickly stepping back, her white heels making a loud sound across her golden palace. "W-Well, it's not like it matters! Why should you care so much about that?! And why do you even care about some measly mortals? You're even stronger than us Gods, why do you empathize with mere ants? They're nothing but resources!" The Goddess roared.
"Resources. Is that so?" I sighed. "Such a mentality is very similar to Murim too. Mortals were seen as resources by the demonic cults to extract and use. They sacrificed their souls, blood, flesh, bones, emotions, dreams, and everything else they could squeeze from them to ascend to immortality. Countless rituals and abilities relied on sacrifices to quickly empower their users. I suppose being a God is not so different, isn't it? You extract large quantities of power not only from Faith but also by inflicting fear and by extracting their souls."
"That is how every God works; that is our nature! The Tower welcomes the champions of many universes. We are Apex Worlds! Worlds that triumphed above others. And we, their gods, compete to ascend the tower just as much as you mortals climb it to save your world." The goddess explained. She prepared a thousand swords made of light, charging them with her Faith. "It is only the natural thing to do, you foolish woman! It is what we were born to do; this is the harsh reality of our world, of all worlds! We must compete, we must kill, and we must destroy! The worlds must eat one another! The Tower demands it! It is how it IS!"
"No." Bing Xue said as she saw millions of swords reach her body and pierce it. "If that is the case, then I reject the rulers of your world and of all worlds!"
As she spoke with a firm voice full of might and elegance, Bing Xue's body expanded into an endless sea of black clouds, absorbing all swords made of light and then injecting them with Umbral Essence and Photon Essence.
"And unfortunately for you and every other God here." She said this as she smiled defiantly. "I have the power to back my words."
The Goddess of Brilliance felt a sudden sense of crisis. The sword she fired against Bing Xue all came back to her, not only piercing her body countless times but also tearing through the fabric of her Divine Realm with each strike, and then detonating to create even more destruction.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"No…! UGH…! What…?! This isn't…! Possible! Who are you to dare say such a thing?! What makes you think that even with this power, you'll be able to go against all the rules and all the regulations that have always existed?! To go against the Tower is like going against all of reality! You're just mad!" She screamed, suddenly growing larger and larger. All her angelic spirits started fusing with her body. "YOU'RE INSANE!"
Bing Xue raised her head as she looked up into the skies. The Goddess of Light had become a monstrous titan made of thousands of angelic spirits, with tens of thousands of arms and legs and long wings made up of their bodies. Golden eyes covered her amorphous shape.
"Insane?" She asked, her body suddenly changing once more. "If it's crazy to try to protect the poor souls that cannot protect themselves, then yes, call me insane. If it's stupid to desire a world of peace and balance, then be my guest; call me foolish. If it's ignorant to want to see the smiles of the children as they can finally grow up and enjoy a world without bloodshed and fear, then call me ignorant! You are free to call me anything you want! However, you won't stop me from doing the right thing! Because I, Bing Xue, am the Protector of Murim, Mother of all Children, Bringer of Justice, the Holy Mother of Righteousness, and the Creator of the Heavenly Court!"
Although it seemed ridiculous, with each word she spoke, the heavens reverberated more. The Goddess couldn't understand what was happening anymore as countless cracks kept spreading over her Divine Realm.
"I am the Heavenly Martial Empress of Murim." She spoke. "The first… And only one."
As she said such words with elegance and strength, her body transformed. There weren't just Black Heavens anymore; a second Heaven surged from within her. One of eternal, pure whiteness, the brightest of lights!
"{Immemorial Nine Heaven Embodiment}: {Radiant Crowned White Heaven's Physique} {Physique Combination}"
FLAAASH!
Both the Radiance of the White Heaven and the umbral darkness of the Black Heaven combined as one as the Goddess furiously attacked Bing Xue, unable to understand what was happening anymore. Her dozens of gigantic arms and holy weapons clashed against her, explosions reverberated across the heavens, and the cracks of her own divine realm only spread further.
"DIEEEE!"
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
A barrage of hundreds of blows that could definitely kill even Level 10.000 Players that only a Goddess like her could unleash, with all her enormous amount of accumulated Faith and Divine Power, impacted Bing Xue's entire body.
However, she seemed completely unfazed by the destructive blows, which could perhaps destroy the entire surface of the Radiant Continent.
"Enough with your childish tantrums!"
Bing Xue emerged amidst the smoke, her entire body having changed once more. Pure white light and pitch-black darkness merged beautifully through her body. White and black converged together, swirling within her chest, resembling the signs of Yin and Yang endlessly rotating against one another.
Her eyes resembled stars, and her hair grew to an immense size, looking like a sea of white and dark light that spread further and further. Bing Xue was using her own hair as a weapon! The goddess quickly noticed as millions of hair threads stopped all her arms at once.
"Feel honored, as you've been given the enormous privilege of seeing one of my stronger forms." Bing Xue smiled. "The {Yin and Yang Rotating Heavenly Physique}! With this, I gather both the Essence of the Light Spectrum and the Dark Spectrum within my body. Harnessing Destruction…!"
She appeared right in front of the goddess' monstrous face, punching her with all her strength at once. An explosion of light and darkness erupted, spreading countless cracks through her titanic, aberrant body.
BAAAMMM!!
"Uuuaagghh!"
The Goddess collapsed over the palace, which was quickly destroyed and crushed to smithereens. Her entire body gained cracks, which she quickly tried to heal, but to no avail.
"And also, the power of Creation."
Bing Xue continued talking; her words were absolute. The Goddess' countless eyes widened in utter shock as she saw the woman in front of her summon over ten million black and white spears, swords, and axes.
"Whatever you can do, I can do it better."
"Y-You're using my technique?!"
The Goddess quickly stood back up, her gigantic body overcharging with all her Divinity and her Faith at once. Overflowing with so much power and light that the Heavens completely broke. Countless cracks are spreading everywhere faster and faster than ever before!
"RAAAH!"
Her gigantic body reached Bing Xue, only for the surge of enormous pressure to suddenly stop her. Bing Xue's very presence was enough to push the Goddess away, creating an invisible wall between the two of them.
"You should quickly learn your place." She said this as her projectiles descended, piercing the body of the Goddess and shattering her divine soul with each strike. "As an insect, you should simply go back to crawling over the ground!"
"Gryyyaaaggh!"
The Goddess screamed in utter agony. Her entire body had never experienced such pain before, and her scream of both disbelief and agony echoed across the entire world of Eclipse and even reached a few worlds above Eclipse too.
"N-No…! I can't lose here… After everything I've built…!" The Goddess kept groaning; her body, even as it was being damaged, started rising. "RAAAH!"
Her forms changed once more as she abused the powers of her Divine Realm to recover, shapeshifting into an even more monstrous form, a griffin, resembling a chimeric creature between a bird and a lion. She opened her titanic beak, attempting to devour Bing Xue with a single bite.
CRUNCH!
For a second, her eyes widened when she realized she managed to devour Bing Xue with a single bite, just as she intended!
"I-I did it?!"
However, that thought of happiness and victory lasted less than a second before she felt excruciating pain inside her mouth and then all the way down her esophagus.
SLAAASH!
A slashing wave of darkness and light cut through her whole body, as the Goddess of light was still trying to process what was happening before her entire Divine Body was split into two halves.
Bing Xue appeared in between the two dividing halves and dropped over the nearby floating islands, blood and innards splattering everywhere.
A golden and black-colored sword was being held by her right hand as she looked down at the goddess with not a hint of pity.
"It hurts, isn't it? To lose so pathetically, to be crushed like a bug…" She spoke, looking down at her. "This is how the people you killed and made suffer felt too. When they died, the monsters you sent massacred and devoured them alive. They cried because their families didn't make it. And when they saw entire cities being ravaged and destroyed by calamities, you sent."
"A-Ah… Wait…! P-Please…!" Barely alive, the Goddess began to beg for mercy. "P-Please… I'll do anything for you…! A-Anything! Please don't kill… me…! I don't want to die!" Tears flowed from her eyes.
"Hahh…" Bing Xue sighed. "No matter how sincere those tears could be, this is your punishment, and I won't back down now or never. When I decide I will do something, I make sure I get it done, no matter what." She pointed her free hand at her. "{Yin and Yang Primordial Arts}: {Harmony Between Light and Darkness}"
FLAAASH!
Golden light and black shadows merged together into a small sphere of swirling colors, which slowly descended towards the Goddess.
Every second that the sphere took to reach down, the Goddess felt more and more fear.
She finally understood at the end of her life.
The mistakes she had committed.
And the sins she had committed.
The pain, the agony, and the fear she inflicted upon millions, if not billions, of people.
"I'm… sorry…"
BOOOMMM!!!
That she was sorry didn't mean a thing to Bing Xue.
She simply did what had to be done.
Avenging her world as its new guardian.
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