Silent Crown

“Do you see it, little Yezi?” Charles looked down upon the growing paradise. “Soon, everything will be finished. Humanity will be freed from the ravages of the world and welcome eternal peace.”

“And eternal death.” Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes to shut out the final, unrealistic reverie. “I won’t let you succeed, Charles, you should know…”

“Yes, that’s who you are, isn’t it?” Charles smiled. There was a bit of joy and liveliness in that smile. “Your compassion for this world is far greater than mine. No matter how cold it was towards you, no matter how much it saddened you or hurt you, you never gave up hope on it. So, come on. No matter what you do, I won’t blame you.”

Charles waved his hand, generously unlocking the shackles of paradise and making Ye Qingxuan reflect the glow of the Net of Aether.

“Maybe I should isolate you in paradise. But if you find it useful, you’re welcome to use the Holy Cauldron or the Net of Aether or the power of one of the Three Kings. I will fight fairly.”

Charles pulled out the weapon that contained the power of God.

There was no darkness on the blade, and there had never been any pain or madness in it.

It was the salvation of all the world.

A sword of light so pure that humans could hardly imagine it.

Now, the god clenched the sword and announced to Ye Qingxuan, “If you want to stop me, Little Yezi, you are my enemy.”

“Then let me be your enemy.” Ye Qingxuan nodded in the long silence. He stepped in front of the god, and his eyes were as firm as iron.

At that moment the King of Black’s throne, the King of Red’s crown, and the King of Yellow’s scepter appeared above him. Primary, secondary and tertiary administrative privileges were activated, awakening the control core far away in the east and fully activating the Holy Cauldron.

Thousands of times more computing power ran through the torrent of aether. All the power forged by humanity was in Ye Qingxuan’s hands. It turned into a blade that he aimed at the god before him.

“I will stop you, Charles. I will let this world continue to sink into pain. If you have become a god, then let me be the one to kill a god! If your paradise on earth gets in my way, I will completely destroy it.”

After so long, the once close brothers now stood before each other with swords drawn.

This was the final fight.

“Very well.” In the endless light, Charles finally revealed the face of God. The last trace of human weakness had left his eyes. He stepped on an invisible ladder up into the sky.

Majestic carols sounded around the world!

This was the melody of redemption.

The chapter that would save everything.

A song of suffering written for a god!

And at the same time, it was endless power.

It shook the heavens and the earth. It made the nations tremble, the oceans freeze, and even the air was shattered. Just by being in motion it brought disaster and calamity to the world.

Now, the power to judge everything was in his hands.

“And so, with this announcement…” his indifferent voice rang throughout the world, echoing in the ears of all living things. “…paradise begins. The day of renewal has come! I will purify all original sin, destroy all evil, and redeem all the peoples! The path of pain ends here! By my will, eternal silence will descend, and everything will be at peace. This is an eternal paradise…”

“…a paradise on earth!”

In that moment, the god in the sky lifted his sword and let it fall towards the last rebel in the world.

This was a cleansing and a punishment that truly came from God.

It would wipe away the last obstacle and restraint.

It declared the arrival of salvation.

“Paradise?” Ye Qingxuan bowed his head under God’s punishment, and could not help but feel sad. “Charles, what humans wanted…was never paradise.”

Eternal peace, a paradise without worries, a world without pain…

These things never meant anything to humanity.

Because they were never what people wanted.

Humans only lived once.

They lived decades of mediocrity, then after too many difficulties and hardships to count were gone in a moment, having to bid farewell to the cruel world.

They were like drifting phantoms.

No one knew where they came from, and they went nowhere.

They were only a flash of sparks stored in a fragile brain.

Because of this they longed for heaven, longed for redemption, and longed to attach meaning to themselves.

They longed for a soul.

They sought for a flash of great beauty in the mirror of pain thousands of times.

Only in this way could they experience the true feeling of existence.

Only in this way could they prove they were alive.

It was like life had come from the flames.

Life sprung from pain.

It lived in this cold world. It was brought together by hardship, separated by sorrow, and moved forward from the pain towards the future.

Even if the light of dawn was faint.

Even if all that was left was hope.

That was the value of existence.

That was the driving force of human life.

If they lost pain, then everything that was left, even so-called “happiness”, would be meaningless.

From the start, the paradise on earth that would save everyone was nothing more than a dream.

So, Charles…

“I’m sorry.” Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes, opened the box and pressed the button that ended everything.

–

There was a moment of trance.

It was as if nothing had happened.

Ye Qingxuan opened his eyes and felt the sunset of Avalon on his body. As the voices in the market called out, he saw the young man beside him droop his head.

He looked dejected.

“What’s wrong, brother?”

“Nothing, I’m alright.” He flashed his familiar smile and patted his chest as if glory was streaming out of it.

Ye Qingxuan couldn’t help but sight. “When you’re alright you say, ‘you care about me so much brother, I’m so moved’ or some rubbish like that. What you’re saying now proves you’re not alright.”

“Well…didn’t our teacher say that I will be the elder brother? As the elder brother I have to take care of all of you. All I can do each day is crack jokes, I can’t do anything else. It’s because I’m just a loser, you know.”

Upon saying this the handsome young man couldn’t help but scratch his head.

He hid his sad expression and smiled at him.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m actually great. I just don’t know where the problem is coming from. I just keep rolling along till I get used to it. I’ve passed my days a bit decadently. I owe some debts, I often go and get drunk…but there are always ways to solve these things. In the past, I’d often make myself sad, get drunk, and have some very strange nightmares. I wouldn’t know where I was when I woke up. Every time I opened my eyes I doubted that staying here meant anything. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And this place is great.”

He suddenly reached out and put his arm around the young man’s neck and whispered, as if he was making a vow, “Teacher is here, and you, and Bai Xi. I’m no longer alone. I want to protect them, so this city can become very beautiful.”

At that time they were on the way home.

The blond teenager swayed and softly sang a vague song under the sunset.

The sunlight fell on their backs, stretching out the shadow of the two of them walking with arms around each other’s shoulders and illuminating the outlines of the two teenagers.

The pale yellow light fell upon the waves, as brilliant as gold.

–

In that moment, Ye Qingxuan sensed he was no longer alone.

For some reason there were tears on his face, and he couldn’t stop them.

He closed his eyes and let the light engulf anything.

And so it did.

–

–

The sky was the first thing to burst.

Countless cracks spread out from the gentle night, stretching out like iron drills that shook the sky, making everything collapse. Through the cracks the original darkness of the cold universe was revealed. The stars shone dimly and seemed to cry out.

With a roar like the heavens and earth were closing together, a white squall ran across the earth, violently destroying all creations, spreading them into destruction, and continuing forward.

The earth was ruptured by earthquakes and boiling blood spewed forth, splashing out flames and destruction.

It seemed like in that moment everything was coming to an end.

Even the musicians who were able to withstand all disasters in the past had become exceedingly fragile, and were even more miserable than ordinary folk.

Faced with the double assault of the physical world and the realm of aether, the heart rhythms of musicians were thrown into disorder and they could not resist the torment that came after. They could only vomit blood at the devastation of the aether.

The boiling tides broke free from the shackles of gravity and flowed up into the sky. Layers of waves interlaced and whales sang their final song in the violent tide. Their song was immediately submerged in the shrieking storm.

When the Holy Cauldron and paradise collided, the whole world seemed to be immersed in its final days.

The end was like a tide, and everything drowned in it.

Asgard, Burgundy, Anglo, and even Cloud Tower on the sea were all struggling in the tsunami that seemed to stretch from the heavens to the earth.

In the far east, the Empire of Aurora experienced unprecedented earthquakes and natural disasters.

A stream of fire descended from the sky.

A rain of blood poured down.

In the capital, the sound of numerous ruptures and collapses rang out without end as the towering palace walls were destroyed by hurricanes.

In the broken hall that was about to be overturned, countless ministers kowtowed in prayer as the Empress sat on the throne.

She let the broken stones fall beside her and the dust cover her once shining white hair.

She clenched her fist and stared quietly towards paradise.

She stubbornly waited for the final outcome.

“Charles…”

At that moment, even in the distant World of Dark, destruction displayed its violent power. The first thing to bear the brunt was the once grotesque and gaudy realm of aether.

The disasters were like boiling blisters as they emerged one after another.

Countless giant mysteries were completely torn in two at the first moment of impact. They were swallowed by the storm, integrated into it, and merged together.

In the midst of the increasingly violent assault, not even a single one of the remaining Scepters survived.

Only musicians who had prepared several times in advance could hide in narrow secret places, frantically repairing all cracks and fissures, consuming the treasures they had accumulated over the years like running water in exchange for a moment of respite.

In the end they could only desperately transform them into small boats that were caught between life and death in the depths of the storm.

And those strange and mysterious wonders of the past were now like bubbles that melted in the violent turbulence, returning to the aether.

In but a moment one-tenth of the world was destroyed.

And then another tenth was destroyed.

The destruction continued cruelly. It trampled all meaning into nothingness step by step, taking away all traces of life and civilization.

All that was left was devastation.

After who knows how long, the Holy Cauldron destroyed the raging torrent, and the collision between paradise and earth came to an abrupt end.