Yun Lintian’s grip on the Heaven Sunderer tightened. "The Temporal Hourglass. Nian Shi’s trap. It was all your plan."
"Of course." Mo Ling spread his arms, his torn robes fluttering. "Did you truly believe a relic that powerful would be given freely? It was bait—to lead you exactly where we wanted."
He laughed, the sound hollow. "And you took it so eagerly."
Mo Ling’s smile vanished, replaced by icy disdain. "The Creator was a fool. She made Primordial Gods to serve her ’balance,’ but we were never meant to be servants." His gloved hands clenched. "I refused to bow. So I remade myself—across timelines, across deaths. And now..."
His gaze locked onto Yun Lintian. "You stand as the final obstacle to true freedom."
Yun Lintian didn’t move. "Freedom to destroy?"
"Freedom to rule!" Mo Ling’s voice cracked like thunder. "No more cycles. No more suffering under false balance. Only one truth—my truth."
The Heaven Sunderer hummed in Yun Lintian’s grasp, its power resonating with his fury. But beneath the rage, something colder settled in his chest.
This wasn’t just an enemy.
This was a god who had manipulated his journey.
Mo Ling saw the shift in his eyes and smirked. "What will you do, Yun Lintian? Kill me? Then you’ll never know how deep our plans go."
Yun Lintian’s blade didn’t waver. "Talk. Now."
Mo Ling chuckled—then exploded into a swarm of shadowy ravens, his voice echoing from all directions.
"Find me in the realm where time dies... if you dare."
Yun Lintian’s mismatched eyes flashed coldly. "Did I let you go?"
His aura erupted, sealing the entire space in an instant. The shadowy ravens that were Mo Ling’s escape form slammed against an invisible barrier, their forms dissipating into smoke before coalescing back into the God of Death’s human shape.
Mo Ling staggered, his smirk faltering.
Yun Lintian took a step forward, the Heaven Sunderer humming with restrained power. "You don’t get to run."
Mo Ling’s expression twisted. Then—he laughed. A dark, grating sound that made the very air decay around him.
"Hahaha!... Very well. Since you’re so eager..." His body began dissolving into swirling black mist. "Let me show you the true power of Death!"
Mo Ling’s form vanished—replaced by something far more terrifying.
A towering figure of pure death energy materialized, its skeletal hands clutching a scythe that blotted out the sky. Every movement killed the space around it, leaving behind voids where reality itself ceased to exist.
Long Qingxuan and the others recoiled, their bodies instinctively reacting to the primal threat.
Yun Lintian stood firm.
Mo Ling struck first. His scythe arced downward, not through space, but through the concept of "existence." Where it passed, the world unraveled—mountains turned to dust, the sky fractured like glass.
Yun Lintian raised the Heaven Sunderer.
The collision birthed a shockwave that flattened the wasteland for miles. The ground beneath them vaporized, revealing the starry void beneath creation itself.
Yun Lintian didn’t retreat. Instead, he advanced—each step defying the deathly aura trying to erase him.
"You call this power?" His voice cut through the chaos. "This is just destruction. Nothing more."
The Heaven Sunderer flashed golden.
The greatsword immediately met Mo Ling’s death scythe in a blinding explosion of golden and black energy. The shockwave annihilated what remained of the wasteland, leaving only a swirling void beneath their feet.
Mo Ling’s skeletal form blurred, reappearing behind Yun Lintian with a slash aimed at his soul. Yun Lintian twisted mid-air, his blade intercepting with impossible precision.
"Surprised?" Mo Ling’s hollow laugh echoed through the void. "That I can match you even when you’ve taken half a step into the Creator’s realm?"
Yun Lintian didn’t answer. He countered with a horizontal slash that split dimensions.
Mo Ling parried, but the force sent him skidding back. His deathly aura flared, mending the cracks in his skeletal form instantly.
Back and forth they fought—neither gaining clear advantage.
When Yun Lintian unleashed the Tree of Life’s radiance, Mo Ling countered with entropy’s decay.
When Mo Ling unraveled causality with death’s touch, Yun Lintian rewrote fate with Creation’s breath.
Mountains of void energy formed and collapsed between them like waves in a storm.
"You see now?" Mo Ling taunted between exchanges. "We are equals! The Creator made us to complement each other—Life and Death, two sides of the same coin!"
Yun Lintian’s eyes narrowed. His next strike carried the weight of collapsing stars.
Mo Ling blocked, but his skeletal arms cracked under the force. "Hah! Is that all?"
Suddenly, Yun Lintian’s movements became sharper. His attacks carried a new rhythm—each strike building upon the last like Chapters in a story.
Mo Ling’s mocking grin faltered as he found himself being pushed back.
"What’s wrong?" Yun Lintian asked calmly. "Can’t keep up?"
The Heaven Sunderer flashed, its edge now singing with a harmony of Creation and Destruction that hadn’t been there before.
Mo Ling barely dodged a slash that would have severed his connection to the death realm. "You...!"
Yun Lintian’s mismatched eyes gleamed. "I wasn’t fighting at full strength even now."
The truth struck Mo Ling like a physical blow. Yun Lintian had been testing him, studying his patterns, holding back just enough to—
The Heaven Sunderer found its mark, cleaving through Mo Ling’s deathly form. Golden light erupted from the wound, sealing the fractures in reality around them.
Mo Ling staggered back, his skeletal mask splitting down the middle. "Impossible...!"
Yun Lintian raised his blade for the final strike. "Your mistake was thinking Death could ever equal Creation."
Mo Ling’s skeletal form trembled as cracks spread through his body, golden light seeping through the fractures like molten metal through shattered stone. His hollow eyes burned with fury and disbelief.
"You...!" His voice was a guttural rasp, the weight of Yun Lintian’s power pressing down on him like the collapse of a universe.
Yun Lintian did not respond. His mismatched eyes—one gold, one dark—remained fixed on Mo Ling, devoid of mercy.
The Heaven Sunderer Greatsword hummed in his grasp, its blade resonating with the combined might of Creation and Destruction.
Mo Ling’s lips twisted into a smile of madness. "You think this is over?"
With a roar, he unleashed everything.
A storm of death energy erupted from his body, black lightning tearing through the void.
His skeletal armor shattered completely, revealing his true form—a being of pure annihilation, his flesh and bones reforged into something beyond godhood.
His aura surged, reaching heights that made even the fabric of reality scream in protest.
"I AM DEATH INCARNATE!"