Nian Shi withdrew his finger, examining the result.
"Interesting… Truly interesting." he murmured.
No anger. No irritation. Just quiet observation.
He turned his gaze to Yun Qianxue and the others.
"You must understand," he said, his voice calm, "this changes nothing. Even if I cannot break this barrier immediately, it will fall. Everything does, given enough time."
His silver eyes gleamed with the certainty of eons.
"And time... is all I have."
The survivors didn't respond.
Their silence was answer enough.
Nian Shi's smile deepened as he raised his right hand.
The space above his palm twisted violently, temporal energy condensing into visible golden threads that wove together with terrifying precision.
A blinding flash erupted, forcing even Yun Qianxue to raise her arm against the glare.
When the light faded, a sword hovered in his grasp.
It was neither long nor short, its blade shimmering like liquid time itself—shifting between silver, gold, and an impossible void-black. Runes older than creation pulsed along its length, each symbol representing a different era in the cosmos. The hilt was forged from crystallized time, its guard shaped like an hourglass with sands that flowed upward.
"This," Nian Shi said, his voice carrying the weight of epochs, "is the Blade of Eternity."
He tilted the sword slightly, and the very air around it distorted. Where the edge passed, brief visions flickered—scenes of civilizations rising and falling, stars being born and dying, all compressed into mere instants.
"You should consider yourselves fortunate," he continued, casually testing the blade's balance. "This is only the second time I've drawn it."
His silver eyes swept over the silent group.
"Don't you want to know who I used it on the first time?"
No one answered. The pocket dimension was utterly still, the only sound being the faint hum of Yun Ling's barrier.
Nian Shi clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. "How boring. Not even curious?" He sighed dramatically. "Very well. I'll tell you anyway."
The Blade of Eternity gleamed as he raised it before him, its edge splitting the light into fractured timelines.
"The first being this blade tasted was... the Creator."
A collective gasp tore through the survivors.
Lin Xinyao's silver eyes widened. Han Bingling's frost aura flickered violently. Even Yun Qianxue's iron composure cracked for a split second.
Nian Shi watched their reactions with quiet amusement.
"Yes," he confirmed, his voice smooth as flowing time. "That Creator. The one who birthed the thirteen Primordial Gods. The one whose 'mysterious disappearance' has puzzled the cosmos for eons." A cold smile touched his lips. "Now you know the truth."
The implications crashed over them like a tidal wave. The Creator hadn't faded from distributing her power—she'd been murdered. By Nian Shi. With that very blade.
"You're lying," Hei Yue spat, her abyssal eyes burning. "The Creator was omnipotent. No one could—"
"Omnipotent?" Nian Shi interrupted, chuckling. "Is that what the legends say?" He shook his head. "Let me educate you."
With a casual flick of his wrist, the Blade of Eternity traced a lazy arc through the air, leaving behind a shimmering afterimage of unraveling time.
"The Creator divided her essence into fourteen parts. Thirteen became the Primordial Gods." His smile turned icy. "The fourteenth? The World Tree."
He took a step forward, the sword humming with restrained power.
"Then she made her first mistake—she shackled us." His voice dropped, carrying an edge that made the very fabric of the pocket dimension tremble. "Rules. Restrictions. Chains disguised as 'divine mandates'." The Blade's glow intensified, the runes flaring crimson. "She dared to leash Time itself."
For the first time, genuine emotion flickered across Nian Shi's face—not anger, but the cold, implacable disdain of an eternal being forced to kneel.
"So I showed her the flaw in her design." He raised the Blade of Eternity, its tip pointing toward the barrier. "Even omnipotence has an expiration date."
The survivors stood frozen, processing the blasphemous truth. The Creator hadn't just disappeared—she'd been assassinated by her own creation.
Nian Shi studied their horrified expressions with quiet satisfaction. Then, without warning, he struck.
The Blade of Eternity came down in a deceptively simple slash.
No flashy technique. No grand proclamation. Just a perfect, inevitable cut—the same cut that had once slain divinity itself.
The sound was unlike anything they'd ever heard—not the shattering of glass or the snapping of bones, but the noise of time fracturing. The barrier's white light darkened where the blade touched, aging millennia in an instant. The corrosion spread rapidly, entire epochs of decay compressed into seconds.
Yun Qianxue's sword hand trembled. This was different from his earlier probing attacks—this was Nian Shi truly exerting himself.
The barrier held. Barely.
Nian Shi's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Still standing?" His lips curved. "Impressive. But let's see how it handles this."
He reversed his grip on the Blade of Eternity and stabbed forward.
Where the point touched the barrier, reality itself began unraveling—not just decaying, but being erased from chronological existence. The white light flickered desperately, patches of it vanishing as if they'd never been.
Lin Xinyao instinctively reached for her sword, but Yun Qianxue stopped her with a sharp glance. There was nothing they could do. This was beyond their power to influence.
Nian Shi watched the barrier's death throes with clinical interest. "Remarkable devotion, to resist even this." His silver eyes flicked to them. "But tell me—what will you do when it falls?"
Their drawn weapons and blazing auras spoke volumes.
Nian Shi chuckled. "I look forward to finding out."
And with that, he twisted the Blade of Eternity—
A sound like the universe screaming tore through the pocket dimension as the barrier finally fractured. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, golden decay seeping through like poison.
It wouldn't last much longer.
Nian Shi withdrew his blade, examining it thoughtfully. "Perhaps I'll use this to greet Yun Lintian when he returns." His smile turned chilling. "For old time's sake."
The survivors braced themselves as the barrier's light flickered weakly.
The Blade of Eternity pulsed in Nian Shi's grasp as he prepared to deliver the final strike. The fractured barrier flickered weakly, its white light dimming like a dying star. Just as he raised the sword—
"It seems your plan isn't going well."
A clear, youthful voice cut through the tension.
Nian Shi's blade froze mid-swing. His silver eyes flicked toward the source of the voice, his expression registering genuine surprise for the first time in eons…