Myth Beyond Heaven

Facing Yin’s mockery, Nian Shi’s face twisted in rage, but he had no retort. Yin’s words were the absolute, humiliating truth.

Tantai Lanling, hovering nearby, felt the blood drain from her face. She looked from her enraged, injured master to the calmly powerful Yun Lintian, and then to the mocking, dying Yin.

The balance of power had catastrophically shifted. The fanatical faith she had in Nian Shi wavered, replaced by the cold chill of impending doom. She knew, in her heart, that Nian Shi could not win this.

Yun Lintian ignored the exchange. His gaze, filled with that unnerving calm, swept across the battlefield—the void littered with the ghosts of unmade galaxies, the fading auras of countless lost lives. The images of his wives, his friends, his people flashed in his mind, but they did not break his composure. They fueled it.

He then extended his hand, palm open, towards the distant void where the God Slaying Sword had been spinning away after Nian Shi was blasted back.

CLANG!

As if answering the call of its true master, the obsidian blade hummed. It wasn’t the dissonant, terrifying hum it had under Nian Shi’s control. This was a clear, resonant note, like a loyal hound greeting its returning owner. It shot through the void and slapped neatly into Yun Lintian’s waiting hand.

The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, the sword transformed. The chaotic grey energy that had sheathed it vanished, replaced by a pure, calm, yet incredibly sharp light. It was a light that held the certainty of both life and death, a tool of balance, not of domination.

The aura it released was purer, more focused, and infinitely more deadly than the brutal force Nian Shi had wielded.

Yun Lintian’s eyes finally landed on Nian Shi. There was no hatred, no rage visible in their depths. Only a profound, chilling finality.

“It is time,” Yun Lintian said, his voice calm, yet every syllable carried a weight that seemed to press down on the cosmos. “Time to end this grudge.”

Though his expression was neutral, everyone present—Nian Shi, Yin, Tantai Lanling—could feel it. A deep, cold, bottomless fury emanated from him, not as a chaotic storm, but as the absolute zero of resolve. This was the fury of a man who had lost everything and was now here to collect the debt.

Nian Shi forced a cold, desperate laugh. “End it? You may have mastered the power, boy, but that doesn’t mean you can defeat me! I am the God of Time! My reach is infinite!”

As he shouted, he unleashed his ultimate technique, his final card. The space around him rippled, then split.

From countless tears in reality, versions of Nian Shi poured out. They came from a million different timelines, a billion possible pasts and futures.

In an instant, the entire vista of space was filled with them, a sea of silver-eyed gods, each holding a shimmering Blade of Eternity. The collective aura was overwhelming, a tide of endings that could drown any single existence.

“Kill him!” the real Nian Shi roared from the center of his army. “Erase him from every timeline!”

With a silent, unified cry, the billions of Nian Shis charged. It was a sight to shatter the mind, an army of gods descending upon a single man.

Yun Lintian did not move. He did not change his stance. He simply watched the tidal wave of endings rushing towards him.

Then, as the first wave was about to reach him, he moved the God Slaying Sword.

It was not a grand, sweeping motion. It was a simple, almost casual, vertical swing. A downward cut.

Swiss—

There was no roaring energy beam, no cataclysmic explosion. From the tip of his sword, a golden sheen spread outwards. It was thin, like a sheet of light, and it moved with a serene, unstoppable slowness.

But its effect was absolute.

The moment the golden sheen touched the charging Nian Shis, they simply… ceased. They didn’t explode, didn’t scream, didn’t fade. They were annihilated so completely and silently it was as if they were drawings on a chalkboard being wiped away.

Millions, then hundreds of millions, vanished in the blink of an eye. The wave of golden light continued its inexorable expansion, erasing the infinite army with a quiet, effortless finality.

It was swift. It was clean. It was silent.

The golden sheen faded, having wiped out nearly half of the temporal army in a single, simple stroke.

The charge halted. The remaining Nian Shis stared in stunned silence. The real Nian Shi’s jaw hung open, his silver eyes wide with disbelief. Even Yin, who had seen everything, stopped laughing, his expression one of genuine, profound shock.

This… this was different. Nian Shi’s use of the power had been brutal, forceful, like using a sledgehammer to crush a universe.

Yun Lintian’s was… surgical. It was the difference between erasing a mistake by tearing out the page and carefully correcting the error with a single, precise stroke of a pen.

The latter was far, far more terrifying. It spoke of a control and understanding that Nian Shi had never possessed, even at his peak.

The true master had returned, and his first display of power was a lesson in absolute supremacy.

The silence that followed the golden sheen’s passing was heavier than any black hole. The remaining billions of Nian Shi copies stood frozen, their collective arrogance shattered by the effortless annihilation of half their number. The infinite tide had been stopped by a single, calm stroke. ʀᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛʀs ᴀᴛ novel⁂fire.net

Yun Lintian slowly retracted the God Slaying Sword, holding it loosely at his side. He then turned his head, his unnervingly calm gaze settling directly on the real Nian Shi, who was still staring in stunned disbelief from the center of his diminished army.

“What else do you have?” Yun Lintian asked.

His voice was flat, devoid of mockery or anger. It was a simple, genuine question. But in that context, after the display of absolute power, it was the most profound insult imaginable. It was the question a master would ask a student who had just exhausted his entire repertoire of feeble tricks.

The question acted like a spark on a powder keg. Nian Shi’s stunned expression twisted into a mask of pure, incandescent rage. The humiliation burned hotter than any injury.

“YOU DARE LOOK DOWN ON ME?!” he roared, the sound tearing through the void, causing the remaining copies to flinch. “I AM NIAN SHI! I HAVE EXISTED SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT AN UPSTART MORTAL!”