Chapter 689: Finale (4)

"I have now seen all the myriad Pathways."

As Yan Jing's soft voice faded, Firmament's eyes instantly widened.

He subconsciously took a half step back.

Yan Jing had already raised his hand.

Countless paths of light bloomed behind him. Strand by strand, they wove together like silk threads, intertwining, fusing, and transforming.

A casual glance would make one think those paths of light had simply blended into a brilliant aurora.

But fine beads of sweat broke out on Firmament's forehead.

He could see every single path of light clearly. Every path behind Yan Jing at this moment was completely identical to the methods he had just demonstrated.

In other words, Yan Jing had learned all the Pathways he had just executed.

And it only took an instant.

He had only needed a single glance.

Just moments ago, Firmament had been boasting about his own talent for learning.

But witnessing this now, his heart trembled.

Precisely because he had walked this path himself, he knew just how difficult it truly was.

Seeing the myriad paths of light converging toward him, he no longer dared to hold back. The candle flame within his lantern surged wildly.

An equal number of flickering, multicolored flames surged toward Yan Jing.

"Boom!"

The paths of light and the flames collided in the sky, blooming completely into a grand display of fireworks.

The paths of light overflowed in all directions, coating everything they touched with a brilliant, luminous film. The once mottled and shattered sky now seemed to reenact the mythical mending of the heavens, as the dazzling light patched over its countless holes.

The gods held their breath. Watching Yan Jing replicate Firmament's techniques had already shaken their minds to the point of speechlessness.

And now, watching this peerless battle between the two, they could hardly breathe.

Who would win?

The gods vaguely felt that Firmament's methods were still a notch superior. The flames illuminated the heavens, seemingly suppressing those thread-like paths of light entirely.

But they no longer dared to jump to conclusions.

The repeated, illogical turns of events had taught them that conventional reasoning was completely useless when applied to Yan Jing.

Whenever they thought they had seen through him, this black-haired, black-eyed man would always pull out unimaginable methods to overturn everything.

"Swish, swish, swish—"

Clusters of apocalyptic sparks bloomed with dazzling brilliance in the air before abruptly plummeting.

The entire sky blossomed with the brilliance of a golden age.

Standing amidst it all, Yan Jing and Firmament both felt all surrounding sounds fading away with the light and wind. Only their opponent remained in their eyes.

Firmament still held the upper hand.

But compared to Yan Jing, the unease in his eyes was far greater.

Yan Jing only had to think about how to win, whereas he had to figure out how to win fast enough.

Unable to fully conceal the panic rising in his eyes, he used a furious roar as his final cover:

"Do you still not understand?! You cannot defeat me!"

"Stop now! I'm willing to preserve half of your consciousness. I won't let your soul scatter!"

But Yan Jing didn't speak. His strikes only grew more decisive. The terrifying paths of light enraged Firmament, who sent several streaks of candle flame burning toward Yan Jing, scorching his skin until cracks appeared.

"Why don't you understand? So what if you learned all the Pathways? I've been studying them for a thousand years, and my foundation is a whole tier higher than yours. You cannot win!"

"...You're afraid." A faint smile tugged at the corners of Yan Jing's mouth.

"Why?"

"..."

Firmament's expression turned exceedingly grim.

He never expected that, even at this point, Yan Jing would still be probing him.

Naturally, there was no way he would tell him about the people from the Clan. After his expression shifted several times, he finally spoke in a cold voice:

"Do I have reason to fear you?"

"I simply don't want you to die like this, leaving me with nothing."

"To tell you the truth, my arrival in this realm was merely an accident."

"But this realm is truly not as simple as I imagined. Even though it's a remote corner with barely a few experts in the Desolate Origin Realm, it has preserved almost all of the Great Dao fire seeds."

"I have now collected all the Great Dao fire seeds. As long as you are willing to leave with me, not only will I preserve half of your divine sense, but we can both use all these Great Dao fire seeds as a catalyst. When we step into the Star Sea Realm, we can condense a Myriad Dao Sea within our bodies—the only one of its kind across the myriad realms."

"But if you refuse, you will get nothing."

Faced with Firmament's coercion and bribery, Yan Jing acted as if he hadn't heard a word. Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"But I really do smell the heavy scent of fear."

"What exactly are you afraid of?"

"Afraid of losing to me? Or something else?"

"...You're courting death." Firmament's face turned icy. With a cold snort, he struck out with all his might!

He realized that unless he forced Yan Jing into a desperate corner, he would never see the rest of his methods.

Countless fine beads of blood seeped from Firmament's skin and drifted into the Silver Lantern in his hand.

The myriad Dao fires in the air simultaneously grew fierce.

It was as if an invisible hand had tossed a bundle of firewood into them.

Yan Jing was instantly suppressed once again. The boundary between the paths of light and the fire seeds, which had originally been closer to Yan Jing than the center point between them, was pushed right up to his body in a mere split second.

Porcelain-like cracks appeared one after another across Yan Jing's already aging skin. All his hair turned to ash under the scorching firelight. Even his dim eyes seemed to ignite as the flames closed in, looking like two balls of fire growing on his face.

Yet he widened his eyes with all his might, as if trying to see those flames even more clearly.

"I see it... I see it."

Yan Jing muttered softly.

This was Firmament attacking with his full strength. It contained not only the Pathways of those gods but also Firmament's own Pathway, and even his control methods as the master of this realm.

He finally saw the clearest veins within those flames. He saw exactly how Firmament used the weird energy circuit to control all the Pathways single-handedly.

At this moment, those abilities turned into clearly visible paths of light, branding themselves deeply into Yan Jing's mind.

Having seen them, he had learned them.

As for mastering them, that was simply a matter of time.

And since he had learned everything...

...his opponent no longer held any value.

Yan Jing raised his hand.

It was the slightest possible motion, yet Firmament and the surrounding gods all simultaneously sensed a change.

The sky was still the same sky, the wind was still the same flowing wind, and the light and fire were still the same light and fire.

It seemed as though nothing had changed, yet simultaneously, it felt as though everything had.

None of them could articulate what exactly had shifted, but every entity present could clearly perceive that everything was different now.

"I..."

Yan Jing opened his mouth, and Firmament's expression drastically changed!

He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue. Blood sprayed out, landing on the flame in his hand.

The candle flame within the lantern surged immensely, forming a silver-white barrier of fire to protect his body.

He had already guessed what Yan Jing was going to say next.

Once Yan Jing declared he would create a world without him, he would be crushed by a force extremely similar to the world's origin.

It was a power he couldn't quickly replicate, because this was a Divine Throne Yan Jing had created himself—one that had never existed before.

It was also the only method Yan Jing possessed that could actually hurt him.

He had already suffered a loss to it previously when his origin battled Yan Jing.

At the same time, within the silver-white barrier, weird energy surged in his palm as he prepared himself.

As soon as he withstood this strike from Yan Jing, he would launch a full-force counterattack.

"I create..."

Sure enough, just as he expected, Yan Jing spoke the same words as before.

But a second later, he jerked his head up, his face filled with disbelief.

He stared at Yan Jing opposite him.

"I create a world with only you and me."

Yan Jing spoke softly, uttering words entirely different from before.

Light bloomed from between his brows, unfurling a domain!

Enveloping the two of them entirely within it.