Chapter 167

167

Ten years slipped by.

For both of them, staying apart was the best choice.

Much happened in that decade.

The Luo River Botanical Garden spiraled completely out of control; the director of the First Research Institute was consumed by the very pollutant he cultivated, halting the god-making project; the Butcher’s territory expanded to swallow the entire provincial capital… Humanity’s domain shrank again and again.

Even the headquarters of the Pollution Disease Prevention Center relocated from City A to the less afflicted City D.

To call the struggle of these years ‘brutal’ was no exaggeration. Tang Xian’an collected the effects of many fallen comrades. At first, a small box sufficed. Then he needed a small room. Eventually, it took an entire chamber.

Civilization regressed. Technology stalled. In the end, even bathing meant heating water over a fire, because electricity was reserved for the Institutes.

Soaking in cold water, Tang Xian’an would look up at the starry sky and sometimes wonder if the future he’d once seen had just been a dream.

At nineteen, he’d sailed the seas, borrowing Lu Yan’s computer to understand the world. Now, the oceans were forbidden zones, all water turned the black of spilled ink.

A quiet dread settled in him: the future he witnessed would never come.

He opened his phone. No signal, but Lu Yan’s contact still sat in the social app.

The device had broken once on a mission. Tang Xian’an had burned with fever for two days after. Institute personnel worked around the clock to recover the data, backing up everything inside.

The chat logs weren’t what mattered. It was the person who’d once answered.

That night, Tang Xian’an dreamed again.

Not a natural dream. This was the work of Talent #99—Dreamwalk.

In the dream, he saw Lu Yan—a giant of pure shadow, sitting alone on a throne.

Lu Yan’s voice hadn’t changed. “Long time no see.”

For a moment, Tang Xian’an almost wept.

Lu Yan tilted his head. “I don’t blame you, you know. For killing Lu Cheng.”

“I’m sorry.” Tang Xian’an’s hand moved instinctively toward the knife at his hip.

“Why apologize?”

“He was your father.”

On the throne, Lu Yan offered a faint smile. He didn’t answer.

Looking closer, Tang Xian’an realized Lu Yan wasn’t so much sitting as he was bound. Deep crimson tendrils bit into the surface of his form, some coiling around his ankles, trapping him there.

“You know the Deep Sea Society is a church for making a god,” Lu Yan said. “It took me a long time to understand one thing. I am the vessel.”

“Lu Cheng and Jiang Yue told me that if I collected all the pieces of the god’s body, I could become the true god and end this disaster. Those pieces are called Kingfish.”

“I realized early that my own corruption level doesn’t depend on using my talents, but on my degree of fusion with these… things.”

“After fusing with all the Kingfish,” Lu Yan paused, “my corruption will definitely break one hundred. By the Institute’s standards, that means falling. Becoming a pollutant.”

He thought for a moment. “I don’t know what will happen then. I’ve already found the final piece…”

“If I succeed, all the better. If I fail,” Lu Yan’s voice was steady, “remember to kill me.”

Tang Xian’an’s expression tightened. “How will I know it’s success?”

Lu Yan’s finger tapped lightly on the arm of the throne. “If I succeed, I’ll come back to find you.”

There was so much Tang Xian’an wanted to say. But given what stood between them, the words felt too presumptuous, too ill-timed.

The shadowy giant began to dissolve like flowing sand. A sudden, desperate panic seized Tang Xian’an.

“Lu Yan, where are you going? Take me with—”

But the black grains vanished with impossible speed, like dying embers. They didn’t even wait for him to finish.

Tang Xian’an looked down at the empty space. “…Please.”

He woke from the dream in the deepest hour of the night.

And so, Tang Xian’an began to wait.

He did not wait for Lu Yan.

He waited for a crimson moon to rise in the east.

Gazing at that bloody orb, he lifted a hand and touched the tears streaking his face.

Lu Yan was gone.

The moon in the sky turned red and never paled again. Pollution intensified. The already precarious fabric of human society tore apart completely.

He waited another ten years. Finally, he understood. Lu Yan would never return.

Accepting that fact brought a strange, hollow calm. His own corruption level was dangerously high now, like an old phone on its last legs—shocking him one day, screen dying the next. A constant malfunction.

So, Tang Xian’an knew it was time to leave. To follow his friends and find a quiet place to wait for the end.

Yellow Dust had slain countless enemies. Now, the blade finally turned on its master.

His death was a peaceful one, in a desolate zone of endless sand. The night winds would shift the dunes and bury his remains.

The only surprise was his failure.

Tang Xian’an did not succeed in killing himself.

He fell.

A dragon of utter blackness.

The black dragon thrashed in the sand like a great lizard, howls of agony carrying far across the wastes.

A week later, it beat powerful wings and left that desert behind.

It hunted by instinct, sometimes forgetting who it was. It used the blade to carve a name into its own scales—Lu Yan. But its regeneration was too potent. Within hours, the flesh would heal, and the dragon would take up Yellow Dust to carve the name again.

It would find him. Tell him the words left unspoken.

The black dragon found a former Apocalypse Knight of the Crescent Divine Kingdom. Like him, it had fallen.

From the dying knight’s lips, it finally heard news of ‘Lu Yan.’

Or rather, news of Lu Yan’s body.

“The final hurdle of apotheosis… the Divine Seat was consumed…” The knight choked on blood, words fragmenting. “Though the Pontiff never said it plainly… we all knew. The Luminous Moon Seat was the god we worshipped… After gathering the body, He should have returned to the world… But the Seat failed…”

“I’ve told you all I know. The new god is in the deep sea.”

In a flash of clarity, the dragon remembered. Lu Yan had said: if I fail, remember to kill me.

It flew to the coast and shifted back into human form.

Staring at the dense, overlapping scars of ‘Lu Yan’ covering his skin, a profound confusion washed over him.

Who was Lu Yan? And who was he?

This must be someone terribly important. Yet repeating the name only summoned a grief too vast for words.

With the resolve of one walking to his death, he plunged into the sea.

Today, he would face an enemy. The enemy who had killed his beloved.

…

…

Tang Xian’an woke with a start, the nightmare’s grip loosening.

He’d rarely dreamed as a child. But ever since waking within the black dragon’s body, these memories visited him in sleep.

Though they were his own experiences, they felt like watching someone else’s film—seen through a hazy veil, both foreign and familiar.

The black dragon’s story was sealed in the ocean depths, known to no one but him.

Tang Xian’an shifted closer to Lu Yan, carefully looping his tail around the man to draw him into an embrace.

“Tang… Xian’an…”

A soft murmur escaped Lu Yan’s lips, but he didn’t wake.

The sound melted something tight in Tang Xian’an’s chest.

He bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss to the space between Lu Yan’s brows.

He liked the story they had now.

It was their best ending.

(Side Story 2 - End)