NABC Chapter 26: Three Years of Forgetting the Dao
Chapter 26: Three Years of Forgetting the Dao
Is what we see before us reality, or is an ancient myth being reenacted today?
Day and night were reversed, the dragon's roar shook the heavens, and the wind and rain obeyed its commands. Such a world-shaking commotion could not be concealed at all.
That night, countless people on both sides of the Three Gorges were awakened from their sleep. They rushed to their windows or stepped out of their homes, and in astonishment and bewilderment, they witnessed a scene that existed only in ancient legends.
Fire, dragons, and swords, along with a figure resembling a sword immortal.
Beneath the bright moon, the bronze dragon flapped its wings, composed of countless metal components, and soared into the sky. Flames were its most loyal servants, and with each furious roar, they erupted into a raging inferno that swept across the heavens.
The once majestic white and blue dragons, entwined with the "sun," were instantly severed and torn apart by the sweeping flames! Their shattered bodies transformed into countless streams of wind and water vapor that drifted across the sky.
However, the dragon's roar rose again. The shattered wind and water did not disappear, but were rapidly reassembled under the guidance of some profound law, transforming once more into a complete dragon form, charging towards the bronze dragon with indomitable fury!
The bronze dragon opened its massive maw, which seemed capable of swallowing mountains, and extended its claws, sharp enough to crush peaks. In the most primal and ferocious way, it once again bit and tore apart the two feng shui dragons that were rushing towards it!
This time, the shattered dragon body turned into specks of light and finally slowly dissipated into the air. The two golden summoning runes also dimmed and disappeared.
The bronze dragon stood proudly beneath the full moon, letting out a roar that proclaimed victory. Then it suddenly turned around and swooped down to attack the tiny but unyielding sword-wielding figure below!
boom--!
A deafening roar, so deep it made your heart stop, resounded. The dragon's bite was abruptly stopped mid-air!
Only then did many people manage to make out that there was indeed a person standing in mid-air in front of that enormous creature! He was dressed in an ancient-style robe, with a blue and white striped long-sleeved shirt over it, and the blazing golden light emanating from the long sword in his hand was firmly pressed against the dragon's jaws, which were covered with sharp teeth.
The next instant, a golden light shot out from his sleeve, streaking across the sky like a meteor, not attacking the dragon, but falling towards the distant riverbank.
Lucky witnesses who were nearby saw that the golden light was actually a golden talisman, no bigger than the palm of their hand, yet incredibly intricate. The closer it got to the ground, the larger it grew inexplicably, until it crashed down onto an empty street, already as large as a house!
The street surface cracked, and runes were deeply embedded. Then, within a radius of hundreds of feet, all steel structures—streetlights, railings, vehicle wreckage—were as if drawn by an invisible force, frantically converging, melting, and reforming towards the runes!
The Three Truths - Heavenly Divine Weapon Talisman!
hold head high--!
Accompanied by an even more resounding and passionate dragon roar, an Eastern dragon, hundreds of feet long, jet black, and gleaming with a cold, hard metallic luster, soared into the sky from the pile of steel! Every movement it made carried the clanging sound of metal rubbing together, majestic and violent.
The steel dragon circled briefly in the air before locking onto its target. Its body suddenly accelerated, and a powerful "dragon tail swipe" struck the bronze dragon, which was about to pounce again, squarely!
"boom--!!!"
This collision was far heavier and more solid than any before. The bronze dragon roared with pain and rage, its massive body losing its balance from the blow, tumbling from the sky and crashing heavily onto the river, creating towering waves.
It quickly adjusted its posture, raised its head again, opened its huge mouth, and shot out a burst of blazing white dragon flame that was condensed to the extreme, chasing after the steel dragon that was nimbly swimming in the air!
The steel dragon moved nimbly, swooping in a rapid spiral to narrowly evade the attack. The bronze dragon had already taken to the air again, spewing forth dragonfire that tore through the night sky. The two dragons, one bronze and one iron, one Western in form and one Eastern in spirit, engaged in a breathtaking chase and evasion in the sky.
Finally, amidst a series of roars and howls, they ceased their probing and, like two ancient meteors, clashed violently with a resolute determination to destroy each other! Claws tore, teeth snapped, and tails lashed at each other, unleashing the most primal and brutal aerial melee! Each collision erupted with deafening clangs of metal and shockwaves, showering sparks and metal fragments like rain.
Below them, an even fiercer battle had already escalated to a fever pitch.
First, a tiny spark splashed up somewhere on the river's surface, and then—
"Clang—!!!"
A deafening collision, far sharper and more concentrated than the aerial dragon battle, exploded in the middle of the river!
Two tiny figures, yet containing terrifying energy, are colliding, separating, and colliding again on the river surface at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye!
One man wields a sword, its golden light dazzling; the other wields a knife, his body wreathed in flames.
Each clash between them created a fierce wind that tore the river apart, forming a vacuum that could not be repaired for a long time; the dissipated energy erupted between the two, sometimes bursting with golden light, sometimes churning in a sea of fire.
In an instant, the two soared into the sky, the battlefield shifting from the river surface to mid-air; the next moment, they plummeted back into the water, fiercely battling in the deep current; in a flash, they burst forth again, returning to the sky… Ascending to the sky and diving into the water, all in the blink of an eye. The sonic booms continued incessantly, the air was constantly torn apart, and the river water was repeatedly blasted apart.
until--
"Bang!!!"
A figure was crashed down like a meteorite, hitting the riverbank and the road, sending dust and debris flying into the sky.
As the smoke and dust slowly dissipated, the still-shaken civilians and special personnel who had rushed over could barely make out—it was the one wielding the sword!
He knelt on one knee in the shattered pit, using his longsword for support to barely steady himself. His face was still indistinct, but his blue and white robe had many charred and torn sleeves, clearly indicating that he had been at a disadvantage in the fierce battle just now.
Almost simultaneously, a suffocating pressure descended from the sky once more.
The swordsman hovered high in the air, the tip of his menacing longsword pointing straight up to the heavens. Countless fire elements were converging and compressing above him at an unprecedented scale and speed!
The temperature in the entire city began to soar at an alarming rate, the asphalt roads softened, and steam surged from the river, as if the whole world would be set ablaze in the next second.
Things had escalated far beyond anyone's expectations. The attack this resurrected king was preparing was no less powerful than the legendary, devastating ultimate incantation, "Candle Dragon." And this place was the Three Gorges!
No one dared to gamble; the Three Gorges Dam and millions of lives on this land faced the consequences of a single "candle dragon" attack.
"Nuwa! Why aren't you making a move?!" The clan elder's urgent, almost frantic voice came through the girl's encrypted earpiece, accompanied by shouts of fear and anger from other elders in the background. "That's power enough to wipe an entire city off the map! We absolutely cannot let this attack fall! Immediately order Bai Shanglu to release 'Nine Infants'! That's an order!"
"Wait..." The girl with a human body and a snake tail, Nuwa, stared intently at the sword-wielding figure kneeling on one knee on the riverbank, seemingly at her last gasp. Her golden vertical pupils were filled with hesitation and a hint of incredulous inquiry.
"What are you waiting for?! Bloodshed is just around the corner!" The elder's roar almost shattered eardrums.
In the sky, the condensed "sun" began to undergo a strange change—it stopped expanding and instead began to shrink rapidly inward! Its volume, which had been overwhelming, quickly shrank to the size of a house or a car... Its color also changed from a fiery reddish-gold to a dark red, and finally transformed into a chilling pure black that devoured all light!
When it was compressed to the size of a basketball, the restrained yet profound sense of destruction sent chills down the spines of all who witnessed it. It was an unstable, black asteroid of doom, its mass and energy both reaching a critical point!
"Bai Shanglu! Draw your sword! Release 'Nine Infants' immediately! I command you in the name of the Zhou family head!" The elder's voice rang in the ears of Nuwa and the sword-wielding man beside her, carrying an unyielding resolve that brooked no disobedience.
Bai Shanglu—the man leaning on the heavy sword "Dragon-Slaying Platform"—turned his head to look at the girl beside him. Nuwa bit her lower lip tightly, staring in the direction of the swordsman, and hesitated to nod.
Bai Shanglu's knuckles turned white from gripping the sword, but the hilt was ultimately not pulled from its sheath.
But I'm not a member of the Zhou family...
He mentally scoffed, then chose to remain silent, sharing with the girl the almost tangible despair and fury coming from the other end of the earpiece.
"Damn it! You've got everyone killed! Fools! You're the sinners of all time!"
"Bastard!"
Norton's voice, like ice that has stood for millennia, resounded in the hearts of everyone who possessed dragon blood or keen senses.
"Death is the price you pay for stealing the throne!"
His gaze was fixed on the swordsman on the riverbank.
"Let this city of ants... be buried with you!"
The moment he finished speaking, the black "sun" that had been suspended above his head and condensed to its fullest extent lost its last restraint and slowly... yet unstoppably... fell towards the city area below, where lights were dim and people were gathered.
Throughout the city, millions of ordinary people, even those who didn't understand, felt a profound, primal fear at that moment. Their hearts clenched as if by an invisible hand, their blood turned to ice, as if they were witnessing the impending apocalypse. Many collapsed to the ground, many wept in each other's arms, and many more simply stared blankly at the approaching black dot of light, their minds a complete void.
Is it over?
In that instant when absolute despair was about to engulf everything—
A calm, clear whisper, seemingly resonating deep within the soul, swept away all the fear in my heart.
On the riverbank, the swordsman who had been kneeling on one knee had somehow stood up again.
He held a long sword behind his back with his left hand, the tip pointing straight to the sky; his right hand, fingers together like a sword, stood upright in front of him. His posture was as upright as a pine tree, and his tattered robes fluttered in the air distorted by the high temperature.
Dozens, dozens... more and more golden talisman phantoms emerged from the void around him, swirling and radiating a gentle yet firm light, like stars surrounding him.
Immediately afterwards, a strange sense of "illusion" began to permeate the space around him. It was not that he himself became transparent, but rather that the space, light, and even "existence" itself around him began to become unreal, as if they were about to merge into another dimension.
This "illusory" boundary spread rapidly, like ripples spreading from a pebble thrown into a still lake. Silently, yet swiftly, it swept across the river, across the mudflats, across the panicked crowds, across the falling black "sun," and extended towards a more distant and expansive world...
"Forgotten Dao... three thousand years..."
The devastating black sun finally crashed down.
Countless eyes, filled with terror, despair, or numbness, witnessed the condensed darkness unleash an all-consuming light and heat the instant it touched the ground. The imagined nuclear explosion became reality—no, perhaps something even purer, closer to the very concept of "destruction." Blinding white light engulfed vision, and a violent shockwave, carrying flames that incinerated everything, swept outwards in a spherical pattern from the point of impact!
People witnessed the glass curtain walls of skyscrapers melting and vaporizing in the high temperatures, saw the sturdy reinforced concrete structures collapse and shatter like sandcastles, and saw streets, vehicles, trees... everything within sight vanish in the destructive torrent. The shockwave even penetrated the buildings, directly "passing" past their bodies.
Wait... just passing by?
The expected excruciating pain of being instantly vaporized and losing consciousness did not occur.
"I...I'm not dead?"
Someone trembled and uttered a dreamlike sound, looking down in disbelief at their outstretched hands—completely unharmed. More and more people awoke from their daze, frantically checking themselves and touching the walls and railings around them.
Before their eyes, the cataclysmic scene was still "occurring." White light, flames, shockwaves, collapsing buildings... everything unfolded like an apocalyptic movie. But strangely, it seemed as if they were separated by an absolutely transparent glass. Destruction raged in another dimension, while in this "space" they inhabited, everything remained normal. Skyscrapers still stood, even though they were turning to dust "over there," streets still stretched out, and the people around them still stood, not even the hem of their clothes fluttering in the destructive winds.
It wasn't until the all-encompassing light of destruction began to wane and slowly dissipated on the "other side," revealing the devastated landscape that should have been reduced to ashes, that everyone vaguely realized—that the destructive energy did not seem to have truly touched the "reality" they were in.
They remained standing in the same spot, on the city streets, on the deck of the Moniach, in their respective observation positions. Unharmed, as if the earth-shattering explosion they had just witnessed was merely a collective hallucination.
But the lingering, abnormally hot temperature in the air, the burning sensation on the skin, and the figure of Norton, still suspended high in the sky, wielding a long sword, his golden eyes burning with cold fury... all of this screamed: It's not an illusion!
A force beyond comprehension, beyond common sense and existing knowledge, has interfered with reality, or rather, distorted the "connection" between reality and destruction.
"Such methods..." Caesar Gattuso felt the strange "detachment" and "dislocation" brought about by the invisible force that had just swept through his body. It wasn't a physical impact, but more like a slight "shaking" on an existential level. "Is it... some kind of unknown, all-encompassing... super power of words?"
He couldn't find a more accurate word. The message from the Kamaitachi was chaotic, as if two overlapping worlds were speaking at the same time.
Lu Mingfei's mouth dropped open, his brain completely shut down, and he didn't even have the energy to complain. He felt like he was in the most outrageous VR game, and the administrator had just used an incomprehensible cheat.
Chu Zihang's golden eyes burned intensely, attempting to analyze the lingering, abnormal "fluctuations" permeating the entire space, but all he received in return was an unfathomable mist. The nature of that power was completely different from any other incantation he knew.
Chen Motong leaned back on the deck, forgetting the pain in her wrist, her gaze fixed on the figure on the riverbank who had risen again, surrounded by golden runes. She then abruptly looked up at the unscathed city skyline, her red lips parting slightly, but no sound came out. Reason told her it was impossible, but the truth was right before her eyes.
Susie supported her, her face equally shocked. As a sniper with an extremely keen sense of her environment, she could clearly feel the distinct yet eerily intertwined state between "here" and "there".
Professor Mans gripped the ship's railing, his fingers turning white from the force. As a seasoned expert in the Execution Department, he had witnessed all sorts of bizarre incantations and alchemical miracles, but this world-changing, reality-shattering scene before him completely overturned his understanding. This went beyond the realm of "power," and was closer to... "authority."
Atop a distant skyscraper, the goddess Nuwa, with her human body and serpent tail, held a pair of golden, vertical pupils inherited from ancient bloodlines, filled with indescribable shock and profound confusion. None of the hazy fragments of ancient memories within her bloodline corresponded to the scene before her. This was no authority known to the dragon race.
Bai Shanglu, standing beside her, trembled slightly with his hand gripping the sword hilt. It wasn't fear, but rather the instinctive cognitive shock of facing a completely incomprehensible phenomenon. The "Dragon-Slaying Platform" remained silent, but from deep within the sword sheath, a faint, almost resonant hum seemed to emanate.
On the other end of the secret communication channel, deep within the Zhou family compound, the elders who had witnessed countless storms and wielded immense power within the clan fell into a deathly silence. Then came suppressed gasps of horror and incredulous whispers. Even their ancient scrolls and forbidden knowledge contained no record of such an inconceivable "miracle."
Kassel College, Principal's Office.
Angers, the ever-composed and elegant avenger, had his usual gentle smile vanish without a trace. His silver-grey eyes were fixed on the screen, and his brows were furrowed.
The Night Watchman even knocked over the bottle beside him, oblivious to the amber liquid soaking the carpet. His obese body leaned forward, almost touching the screen, unconsciously muttering ancient dragon script words that only he could understand, each syllable conveying the bewilderment and horror of his worldview being shattered.
Shock.
An overwhelming shock spread like a virus through the hearts of all those who witnessed this scene, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, or where they were located.
Reality is written, then erased. Destruction comes, yet is kept at bay.
And the source of all this points to the swordsman on the riverbank, whose figure seems somewhat blurry amidst the golden runes...
But only Zhou Yi knew that he would not be able to replicate such a miracle a second time in a short period of time.
However... the objective has been achieved; the opponent's probing of their strengths and weaknesses has been completed.
He slowly raised his head and looked through the lingering golden rune phantoms around him at Norton, who was still hanging high in the air.
In his hand, the Myriad Laws Sword began to hum, its tip rising and pointing towards the fiery bronze king in the sky. The clear, resonant sword cry drowned out the river wind and the crackling of the remaining flames, clearly spreading in all directions.
Under the gaze of countless people, some shocked, some fearful, some bewildered, he spoke. His voice was not loud, but it carried a metallic quality, clearly imprinted in the consciousness of every listener:
"I'll kill you in one minute."
There was no roar, no shout; the calm declaration was more insulting than any provocation. It was the most direct contempt for a monarch's authority, the most certain prophecy of the outcome of a life-or-death battle, carrying an unquestionable coldness.
Norton's maniacal laughter suddenly exploded, like thousands of bronze bells shattering at once, making the air tremble.
"Hahaha...hahahaha!!!"
He seemed to hear the most absurd joke in history. The rage in his golden eyes subsided, transforming into a dangerous calm, like the stillness before a lava eruption. The laughter was filled with pure savagery and disdain, as if mocking the foolish attempt of ants to measure the divine.
"Arrogant thief! You think you can judge the fall of a king by glimpsing a mere scratch?!" Norton's voice boomed like rolling lava. "One minute? I grant you eternal slumber!"
However, before he could finish speaking—
A strange change occurred on the riverbank below!
Centered on the location established by the Book of Changes, the earth, rivers, and even the air within a radius of several miles simultaneously lit up with a dense, crisscrossing, dazzling golden light! That was not the light of the talismans from before, but lines composed of pure sword energy and ancient array patterns. They emerged from the void, surged from the earth's veins, and rose from the bottom of the water, instantly weaving together into a huge three-dimensional network covering the heavens and the earth!
Countless sword-shaped phantoms solidified at the nodes of this golden network, each radiating a chilling light and an intent to sever everything. They were not physical entities, yet they were more dangerous than any physical entity; they were the embodiment of rules and killing intent.
The "metal" and "sharp" energy between heaven and earth was frantically extracted and poured in, and the entire area was transformed into the domain of the sword. The flow of wind was cut off, the gentle waves of water were frozen, and even the light seemed to be cut into pieces by the invisible sword intent.
A chilling sword intent that could freeze one's soul soared into the sky, tearing through the clouds and clashing fiercely with Norton's dragon might!
Zhou Yi stood at the core of this vast sword formation, his robes fluttering without wind. The light of the Myriad Laws Sword in his hand resonated with the entire formation. He slowly uttered words, each syllable eliciting a response from countless sword chants throughout the heavens and earth:
"Scattered King's Sword Formation"
The last three words, like a declaration of war thrown down, like the key to activate the ultimate weapon, resounded throughout heaven and earth with a resolute and murderous aura:
"Activate!! Formation!!!"
boom--!!!
Golden light burst forth, and sword energy soared into the sky.
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.
I've exceeded the word limit again. I was originally planning to post the second half of the chapter tomorrow, but I thought I'd post it today instead. It'll be more enjoyable to read this way.
Regarding the listing, it will be listed no later than January 1st. Those who haven't invested yet can invest and get some coins for free.
A bounty will be offered after the book is published; 100 monthly votes will result in an extra 10,000 words.
Brothers, please support me then.
Finally, I'd like to ask for some monthly votes.