Chapter 345 — Heaven Collapses, Earth Splits

I truly wish to let you see the history recorded in Little Jade Capital, to let you witness the cruelty of history, to shatter your persistence, your obsessions, your faith — to watch you lying on the ground weeping, helpless; to watch you, all hope extinguished, without a spark of life left in you! " He exhaled a turbid breath and said mildly, "I have no need to do so. For I need only show you these stone statues, and you will be broken.

" He walked out of the Hall of Annals and looked toward a distant immortal mountain. Shen Mu and Li Zheng also left the Hall of Annals. Shen Mu stood behind him; Li Zheng floated at his side. On the distant immortal mountain the clouds curled in wisps, and immortal light washed about like rainbow ribbons, encircling towering, majestic stone statues one after another. These statues possessed a grandeur of ten thousand aspects; who could tell what craftsman of godlike skill had carved them? Sage Qingyou descended this immortal mountain and walked along the rope bridge toward that place.

They came to the immortal mountain where the statues stood. Shen Mu's eye twitched suddenly: he saw a stone statue dressed as a woodcutter, a stone axe in its hand.

The statue was very tall, like a giant.

The woodcutter was carved with such exquisite fidelity, so lifelike, that it did not look like the work of a chisel — rather, it looked as though a man had been turned to stone.

"This is the sage revered by the Heavenly Sage Cult. The woodcutter who preached beneath the tree and expounded the scriptures upon the rock. " Sage Qingyou gazed up at the woodcutter's statue and said, "After he had passed on the scriptures and the way, all his hopes turned to ash.

He came to Little Jade Capital and chose, like the immortals who founded it, to become this fossil.

Look — where is his gaze directed? " Shen Mu's heart quivered.

His voice hoarse, he said, "The Desolate Ruins.

" "He is looking at the Desolate Ruins. That was once his homeland — only by then it had already become a barren waste.

He could change nothing; he could do nothing.

" Qingyou's words cut into Shen Mu's heart like knives; his plain speech seemed to have become the most terrifying divine art, bent on destroying his will. "Every generation of your Heavenly Sage Cult's masters was a figure of dazzling brilliance — but which of them surpassed the woodcutter in achievement? He is your sage — and yet what of it?

Did he not end with a heart as dead as stone, turned into a stone carving on Little Jade Capital?

" He came to the second statue. This one had the look of a scholar, his gaze full of compassion for heaven and pity for man, a scroll held in his hands.

Though the scroll was open, his gaze was not upon it. He too was looking at the Desolate Ruins. "This is one of the immortals who founded Little Jade Capital, one of the historians in charge of the Hall of Annals in the age when the wastelands were opened. " Sage Qingyou walked on and came to the third statue. "This one was also a historian of the Hall of Annals.

And him — and her! " He passed statue after statue, then came to a tall one.

This statue had an air of uncommon martial majesty, both hands resting on a sword, the blade thrust into the ground; yet his gaze was fixed far away — still in the direction of the Desolate Ruins.

"The old kingdom, the old homeland, has become ruins.

Even a valiant, surging heart cannot escape the sinking of its grand ambition. " Sage Qingyou raised his head, an expression of reverence on his face.

"That figure who, in ancient times, when the Kaihuang Era was destroyed, strove with all his might to save the world and struggled for the survival of the human race — even he could not escape despair. His body turned to stone. Old Human Emperor, the remains of the successive Human Emperors in your Human Emperor Hall — one is missing, is it not?

He is here. " Sage Qingyou's face was bleak with sorrow.

"He is here. . . " Li Zheng's heart thundered.

He raised his head and gazed at this towering, extraordinary statue.

The founder of the Human Emperor Hall, the first Human Emperor, who had saved countless sects great and small, who had left seeds for the civilization of later ages, the man revered by every race and every sect as the Emperor of the Human Race, the legendary figure who founded the holy land and the lineage of the Human Emperor Hall — in the end, his heart had died.

He had turned to stone on Little Jade Capital! A roar resounded in Li Zheng's heart — the feeling of every conviction collapsing. It was as though he had returned to the day his hands and feet were severed. Every conviction, every belief, collapsed in an instant, and he became once more that helpless old man whose limbs had been cut away — wanting to struggle, yet having no hands to grasp anything; wanting to stand, yet having no legs, able only to lie upon the ground!

That was then.

Only after Shen Mu came to Hidden Remnant Village had he gradually emerged from that helplessness and despair.

And now the deity within his heart had crumbled with a crash, making him relive that helplessness and despair once more! His old eyes blurred. He reached out to grasp something, but caught nothing; his body fell to the ground, and though he wished to rise, he could not. Shen Mu gathered up this white-haired, helpless old man in his arms.

"Shen'er.

.

. " The former Human Emperor wept, and pleaded, "Let us go back to Hidden Remnant Village.

Let us go back, and never come out again. .

.

Give me the Human Emperor Seal, give it to me!

I cannot let you walk my old road. I will carry it into my grave! You cannot bear it—"