Gou is a dark elf in Warhammer

The moment his gaze shifted, the distant image of the sky being torn apart became an anchor, and Darkus unconsciously looked over it.

The pulse of that... no, that bridge, or rather, that pipe, was even more frenzied than before, almost to the point of bursting forth from the visual and piercing the soul. The eight-colored magical winds, like giant pythons forcibly twisted together, tore at each other, annihilated, and were reborn in their death throes, tearing open the sky with unhealed wounds flowing with heterochromatic light.

The air was completely compressed in that direction, and the clouds rolled into grayish-white swirls like parchment that had been roughly torn apart, rising and falling with the vibrations of the rainbow.

It extended from the raging core of the great vortex, greedily and precisely piercing the direction of Lorthorn. The tube walls made of rainbow light were constantly distorted and refracted in the vision, and the whole sky became a funhouse mirror, reflecting a world that was running a high fever and was being brutally resuscitated. Even the light seemed to be grabbed by some huge force and forcibly twisted into a deformed arc.

The metaphor he had recently found for it—the dialysis tube connecting the sick body to the kidneys—was no longer a cold medical analogy, but a resounding, concrete truth in his consciousness.

The world is indeed lying on the operating table.

And it is being treated roughly, hastily, and almost violently.

He felt his forehead burning and throbbing; was he about to develop a third eye? The throbbing heat felt like invisible fingers tapping behind his brow, making his eyelids twitch slightly.

Unfortunately, it wasn't true; it was all his imagination.

Unlike humans, elves do not mutate, a fact he was well aware of rationally, but the illusion he had for a moment was still as strong as an electric current running down his spine.

But he 'saw' it!
Not with the sharp eyes of an elf, but with some other pair of eyes… transcending this body, originating from a distant soul's imprint. Those eyes had gazed upon the pine trees under the moon, the mountain streams, and had seen in the silence the profound truth of the unity of mountains and rivers with the Dharma body. Those memories flashed like ancient slides, causing his heart to pound in his chest.

At this moment, these inner divine eyes are forcibly taking in the apocalyptic scene before them. It is not a gentle observation, but rather like being forced to open one's eyelids and be compelled to look directly at the true structure of the world's interior.

What he "saw" first was the stripping away.

The Rainbow Bridge's violent exterior—the torn sky, the evaporating clouds, the destructive energy turbulence—was like a rough, terrifying skin being quietly peeled away. As that skin was removed, he even felt the roar in his ears subside, as if the noise was being filtered out by some invisible mesh.

What is revealed is its cold, precise, and grand operating logic.

The violent entanglement of the eight-colored demonic winds was not meaningless chaos, but a dynamic and cruel balance achieved under extreme pressure. Each type of energy was being constrained, transformed, and transmitted by another, like gears meshing inside a giant machine, propelling it forward with inevitable sparks and friction.

This is not excretion, it is absorption; not destruction, it is metabolism.

The world is not decaying; it is being forced to undergo an extreme transformation.

Is the Great Vortex the eye of this world?

The feeling couldn't be stronger.

It was not a living being, yet it possessed a systematic awareness that transcended that of living beings. It saw Lorthorn's energy festering sore and extended this rainbow-colored hand. That hand was neither a rescue nor a punishment, but a calm, almost ruthless, inevitable action, like a reflex arc that instinctively maintains the balance of a living organism—emotionless, yet absolutely brooking no disobedience.

As for Lorthorn, the burning towers, the souls of those who fought to the death, the dissipated magic—all the elements that constitute this complex landscape of the battlefield—now, under the gaze of this divine eye, have shed the emotional colors of race, hatred, glory, and tragedy, and have been reduced to the purest energy parameters: too high, overloaded, dangerous, and pending processing.

Just as a doctor sees a body, regardless of its beauty, ugliness, wealth, or social status, it is merely a collection of tissues, organs, and biochemical indicators.

This perspective is chillingly cold, yet so real it cuts right through appearances.

Immediately afterwards, the boundary between the mountains and rivers and the Sky Eye began to blur.

The one performing dialysis, the one being dialyzed, and the core of purification all exist within a larger, closed, self-sustaining system. This system is the most fundamental form that the world itself manifests for its survival.

Dharmakaya!

The word popped into his mind.

In the context of its homeland, it is perfect, compassionate, immortal, and all-encompassing.

But here, in this dark universe struggling to survive, its manifestation is so painful and violent that it must prove its existence through this self-tearing and self-purification.

Mountains, rivers, and all things are contained within it, being observed, processed, and maintained.

Destruction and maintenance become two sides of the same coin in this moment.

Just like the cells in the body constantly die and are reborn, maintaining life as a whole.

Dakos felt an unprecedented clarity and heaviness.

What was clear was that he had never understood the workings of this world so thoroughly before—a dark, dynamic balance that came at the cost of suffering. That clarity was like a cold blade slicing along the edge of his consciousness, making his spirit sharper than ever before in the brief sting of pain.

What's heavy is that this understanding brings no joy of relief, only the immense pressure of bearing the truth, the weight of an out-of-control temple pressing down on his shoulders, causing his back to tense up slightly without him realizing it.

What he witnessed was not a disaster.

It was the way the world was alive, its struggling pulse, the roar of its immune system, its manifestation in the face of cruel reality. Waves of that living vibration pressed in from the direction of the Rainbow Bridge, and even the air seemed to breathe, expand, and contract along with it, carrying the pungent smell of scorched clouds and refined magic.

His lips moved slightly, and the poem from his distant hometown was no longer just words in his memory, but the only annotation that naturally emerged and solidified from the depths of the scene before him. It shed the tranquility of the countryside and was stained with the weight of the iron and blood of this universe, turning from his dry throat into a murmur that was almost a sigh.

"The Eye of Heaven and Earth..."

His words drifted through the air thick with the suffocating scent of energy. He hadn't finished speaking, but everywhere his gaze fell—the twisted rainbow bridge, the boiling inland sea, the scarred sky—were the cruelest footnotes to that unspoken sentence. Every shimmering crack was like an extension of a poem, every pulse of rainbow light a reminder that this world was not a tranquil painting, but a colossal body being torn apart and stitched back together.

The entire world exists within that violent and painful Dharmakaya that sustains its existence. And he, along with all the struggling beings, are part of this Dharmakaya, either being purified or participating in the purification process.

"what?"

A hoarse, low voice sounded from the side, dry and strained from just leaving the deep observation area. The voice was like gravel and iron filings rubbing against the throat, carrying a unique texture of weariness, coldness, and impatience.

Malekith opened his eyes, those eyes that held the fires of a thousand years of war and the chill of midnight, now showing a rare emptiness born of weariness, but it was instantly replaced by his usual sharpness and scrutiny. He caught Dakous's almost sighing murmur, but could not comprehend the monstrous waves those few syllables stirred within the other's soul.

Darkus did not answer immediately. He didn't even turn his head, but shook his head very slightly, a movement so light it was as if it were just an illusion of the wind. His gaze remained firmly held by the bizarre scene of destruction and continuity dancing together in the distance, as if held back by some irresistible force, unable to return to reality.

Silence filled the space between the two, with only the ceaseless sound of the wind and the muffled roar of the energy turbulence from the distant rainbow-colored pipes, as if the very bones of the world were being crushed, as background noise.

Malekith's gaze shifted from Dakous's profile and returned to the distance. His brow furrowed, not with confusion, but with an instinctive solemnity... towards something far too grand, something beyond the confines of individual will and millennia of experience.

That expression made him look less like a king and more like an elderly priest who still had to keep fighting, gazing into the abyss of the world.

Time flowed in silence, fragmented by the unstable pulsation of the rainbow light.

Darkus's gaze pierced through the raging, dazzling energy cloak, through the torn sky, and even through the vortex itself. He saw so deeply and so far that he himself could not accurately describe the trajectory of his consciousness in that instant. His soul was gently lifted by an invisible hand, elevating him above the mortal realm, overlooking a naked, vast world mechanism that made no attempt to conceal its cruel nature.

He slowly, almost in a ritualistic tone, uttered the second half of the sentence, delivering the final verdict on the previous murmur and on everything before him.

"Within the Dharmakaya of the World..."

The sound wasn't loud, yet it strangely pierced through the wind and the hiss of energy, reaching Malekith's ears clearly. The sound carried a resonance beyond the ordinary, causing the air to tremble slightly, as if the world itself was responding.

Malekith abruptly turned his head, his gaze like a quenched blade piercing Dakous. He understood the words, but could not immediately grasp the immense weight they carried in this specific context—a weight that could overturn any ordinary person's worldview.

He could sense a certain transcendence, even... divinity, contained in those words. But it was not the kind of divinity that Asuyan or Kane possessed; rather, it was something colder, more vast, and closer to the rules themselves.
The texture sent a slight shiver down his spine—not from fear, but from an ancient instinct, a perception of a higher level of existence.

He had a misconception that Darkus seemed stronger, and that in that brief moment, he had achieved some kind of transcendence?
This strength doesn't come from equipment, physical strength, or even the power of the soul, but rather from a certain spirit? A certain perspective?
In that instant, Malekith had a thought that was completely out of character and logic: Dakota seemed to have been "touched" by the world itself.

Darkus finally turned his head, slowly rotating his neck as if a thousand-pound burden had been lifted, to meet Malekith's probing gaze. In his eyes, there was no ecstatic joy after enlightenment, no detachment after seeing through things, no transcendent expression that a true enlightened being should have; only a bottomless weariness. Beneath that weariness, however, lay a layer of clarity as hard, calm, and unshakable as black basalt.

He had no explanation.

Some understandings simply cannot be conveyed through language, nor can they be conveyed through dialogue. They are not knowledge that can be exchanged, but rather a kind of illusion and touch that can only be experienced, fallen into, and climbed alone.

It can only be seen by the other party themselves, or they may never see it at all.

He raised his hand, his movements slow and firm, pointing to the rainbow-colored tube that stretched across the sky, pulsating like the veins of the world.

It's as if it's saying, "Look, this is our world."

It is there, struggling, in pain, striving to live in a way that we cannot understand, yet must all bear together. And we, whether we like it or not, are part of this living, are the tiny specks of dust in this Dharma body, shining or dim, or insignificant.

Malekith followed his finger and stared at the Purification Bridge, which was raging almost out of control yet still maintaining order, remaining silent for a long time. This time, beneath the sharpness accumulated over millennia in his eyes, a very subtle fluctuation also flashed—not fear, nor awe, but a reassessment of a power far beyond his control.

The wind is still blowing.

The Rainbow Bridge continues to pulsate amidst its tearing and maintenance.

The world's surgeries continue.

Malekith whirled around, his movement as swift as a whip lashing through the air. His gaze was fixed on Darkus, his sharpness making the surrounding air seem thicker and heavier.

“In the Dharmakaya of the world…” he repeated in a low voice, each syllable like chewing on a piece of hard metal, heavy and oppressive, “Have you comprehended it?”

His voice held no curiosity, no admiration, not even surprise, only an almost sharp assessment. He sensed something, a knowledge beyond what he had accumulated throughout his long life—knowledge of power, intrigue, and even the secrets of the dark gods.

It has the flavor of a more fundamental, more unquestionable rule.

Dakos met his gaze, his face remaining expressionless. The clarity beneath his weariness seemed to have solidified into a thin layer of ice, isolating him from all emotional penetration, making him appear as if he had been sculpted from the fragments left behind after a storm.

"Comprehension?"

He slowly shook his head, the movement subtle yet carrying a resolute denial from the root, a barely perceptible, almost bitter smile curving his lips.

"No, it's not about understanding, it's about seeing."

He raised his hand, this time not pointing to the Rainbow Bridge, but rather drawing an invisible arc in front of him, in the air. That arc seemed to outline the entire inland sea, the entire sky, and even the entire world that was painfully healing itself.

"To comprehend means to understand, digest, and even possess."

His voice was steady, yet it carried a peculiar echo, as if it came from a very distant place, passing through the sound of the wind and the tides.

"It is the land where you and I stand, the air we breathe, the magic flowing through the veins of the earth. It is the flames of Lorthorn, the roar of the whirlpool, the blood in our veins, and the spasm of energy in the rainbow bridge."

"It encompasses everything, digests everything, and maintains a fragile and violent balance that we call existence."

“I just…stop trying to see with my eyes.”

He spoke softly, as if stating a long-overdue fact.

Are you afraid when facing a demon?

"Never!"

"Because of what?"

Malekith fell silent. Dakous's words were like a key without a handle, strangely shaped and impossible to grasp, yet seemingly able to fit into the lock he had known for millennia, only he didn't know it yet, or was unwilling to turn it.

"Philosophy?" He scoffed.

"philosophy!"

Malekith was about to speak.

Om-!
A sharp, trembling sound, distinct from the deep roar of the vortex, tore through the air. Above the palace, a rift with edges flowing with a captivating peach-purple and flesh-pink light suddenly opened, as the Slaanesh portal was forcibly tearing reality apart.

But it was extremely unstable; it throbbed and convulsed violently, not growing on its own, but as if it were being gripped, squeezed, and dragged by an invisible, gigantic hand that covered the entire sky. The shape of the portal shifted wildly between round and narrow, as if it were wrestling with some kind of immense force that enveloped the heavens and the earth in a terrifying, invisible struggle.

The sweet purple light tried to spread, but was always forcibly pulled back by a powerful force just before it was about to spread, and the position of the portal also drifted and flickered strangely within a range of several thousand meters.

It was as if the world itself was rejecting its entry.

Boom——!
A second explosion joined the tug-of-war in space. The Khorne portal, crimson like congealed blood and with its edges burning with an inextinguishable rage, exploded on the other side in an even more violent manner, as if a battle axe had cleaved the barrier of the world.

However, it was equally unstable. Both portals exhibited a strange state of interference.

Their positions flickered and jumped erratically in the sky, one second in the east, the next being dragged to the north by an invisible force. The maniacal laughter emanating from the Slaanesh portal became intermittent and distorted; the war cries gushing from the Khorne portal were mixed with forcibly suppressed, even more furious roars.

This is not an internal conflict between evil gods.

This is the most direct spatial struggle unfolding in the real dimension between the power of the evil god and the purifying will of the vortex. The vortex is transforming into an invisible spatial anchoring force field, frantically interfering with and repelling the two pollution source entrances that are trying to open near its purification operation site.

Darkus gazed silently at the two struggling, chaotic scars in the sky, his eyes reflecting the trajectories of their being pulled and deformed by an invisible force. He felt not a simple threat, but a deeper confirmation—the world was actively immunizing itself against foreign pathogens.

This is part of the surgery, only more intense and dangerous.

The wind is still blowing.

The Rainbow Bridge still roars in the distance.

However, the balance of power seemed to tilt slightly at some point, perhaps because the evil gods invested more power, or perhaps because they found a barely perceptible gap in the fluctuation.

The two constantly jumping and flashing portals suddenly increased their flashing frequency, but their displacement range decreased sharply... Their trajectories began to converge and focus strangely towards the airspace where Darkus and Malekith were located!
The final, violent spatial tremor.

Buzz! boom!
It was as if they had been forcibly nailed to the same sky by two ruthless hands from different directions.

The purplish-red vortex of desire and the crimson-yellow fissure of fury ceased their flickering and drifting. They were no longer distant, no longer fleeting, but rather steadily, side by side, suspended in the void less than a hundred meters directly above the heads of Darkus and Malekith.

Like two malevolent eyes of a god that have finally locked onto their target, they opened simultaneously, casting a suffocating gaze intertwined with decadent pleasure and a pure will to kill.

All spatial interference and signs of struggle suddenly vanished. Only two unsettlingly stable portals, radiating overwhelming malice and destructive power, remained.

"Looks like we've saved ourselves the trouble of traveling?" Malekith said, drawing his Sunfire Sword. "Looks like your philosophical time is over."

“It’s still going on!” Darkius chuckled first, then said decisively. He then pointed to the portal from which the Slaanesh was about to emerge.

"Heaven and earth are born together with me!" He looked at Malekith, his eyes showing no farewell, only a kind of almost fanatical clarity.

He moved as soon as he finished speaking.

Standing atop the trident, he leaped into the air without warning. In the instant he turned, the trident appeared in his hand. With a fluid, horizontal swing, his body transformed into a deep blue trail wreathed in arcs of electricity and moisture, shooting straight toward the Slaanesh portal that reeked of a sweet, foul stench.

"Heaven and earth and I... were born together?" Malekith chewed, and almost at the same instant that Darkus moved, he also moved.

His movement was entirely different; it wasn't a sprint, but a flow of shadows. The shadows enveloped his body like living things, making his steps flicker between reality and the cracks, leaving a faint afterimage with each step, yet his speed was unbelievably fast.

He was trying to understand, to understand through the act of fighting.

I was not nurtured by heaven and earth, nor do I control heaven and earth.

Dakota's words carry a more thorough, arrogant, and humble meaning—that they emerge simultaneously, without distinction of priority or importance, and are of the same origin and nature.

Like right now.

Malekith turned to the side, his Yangyan Sword slashing upwards. At that moment, he could feel the earth trembling, the direction of the gale above his head, and the air tremors caused by the energy pulsation of the Rainbow Bridge in the distance.

All of this is not due to the environment.

Dakous is saying: It's all mine.

The battlefield is an extension of his limbs, the howling wind is his breath, the trembling of the earth is his pulse, and even the malice emanating from the two evil god portals is a lesion or delusion that is flaring up in this world and in me as a whole and needs to be eradicated.

"absurd!"

Malekith scoffed inwardly, but his wrist subconsciously adjusted the angle of his grip on the sword.

But... what if we accept this absurdity for the time being?

He suddenly understood the meaning of Dakota's words; their true purpose was not a declaration, but a shift in perspective.

Transform yourself from a warrior standing between heaven and earth into one where heaven and earth themselves are eliminating those who are different. When you see yourself as part of this battlefield, or even part of heaven and earth, the enemy's attack is no longer a threat aimed at you, but a disturbance to the entire system of heaven and earth.

And thus, retaliation becomes an inevitable part of the system's self-regulation.

"what!"

A short, cold, almost self-mocking laugh escaped his lips.

It turned out to be the case.

Malekith looked up at the Slaanesh portal into which Darkus was about to be swallowed, and then glanced at the increasingly violent Khorne fissure before him, which was trying to open completely.

"So!"

He placed the Sunfire Sword in front of him, not to cast some known magic or swordsmanship, but to try, just for a moment, to put himself into this absurd perspective.

They regarded the land below as their own body, the howling wind as their own breath, and the magical winds flowing between heaven and earth, disturbed by the Great Whirlpool Rainbow Bridge and the Great Demon Portal, as... their own blood and nerve signals.

“If heaven and earth were born together with me,” he whispered, his voice drowned out by the increasingly mournful wind, “then cleaning the house… would be no different from sweeping the hall!”

As soon as he finished speaking, his figure transformed into a sharp mark that burned with both light and darkness, piercing straight towards the core of the Khorne portal—no longer to kill an enemy, but to close the wound that should not exist on the shell of this world.

A pure, cold, and vast silver light, as if it had fallen from the ancient starry sky, burst forth from Darkus's hand, like an invisible giant beam, forcefully opening up an absolute void in this space.

The silver light receded, revealing its true form: the divine sword Viszar appeared in Darkus's hand.

"Heaven and earth were born together with me."

He spoke, his voice calm yet overwhelming all the chaotic clamor, stating a state that was becoming a reality. He felt it—not with his skin, not with magic, but with some more fundamental sense.

There is no distinction between inside and outside, or between self and others.

He and this world, on the level of existence, occur simultaneously, sharing the same origin and coexisting.

"All things are one with me!"

As the second half of the sentence was uttered, the divine sword Vessar was raised.

This lift was not the starting gesture for an attack, but rather a confirmation.

Slaanesh is an evil god of extreme individualism, separation of senses, and self-indulgence. He promises believers to become unique and eternally shining individuals, achieving transcendence through the ultimate experience of the senses. He emphasizes my uniqueness and immortality.

In Dakota's understanding, coexistence means there is no order of precedence, no hierarchy.

Heaven and earth, the universe and I emerged at the same time, and are of the same origin and structure.

The unique fallen divinity originates from the same source as a stone, a wisp of wind, or a ray of light in the world, and has no inherent difference. So-called eternal joy is but a fleeting ripple in the vast sequence of time.

Slaanesh creates extreme sensory differences, identity barriers, and absolute separation of self and other; his power stems from differentiation and obsession with specific things.

Darkus, however, faces a cancerous illusion within the whole that attempts to detach itself and proclaim its superiority over the whole. As the ultimate product of separatism, Slaanesh's very existence becomes a crack to be healed in the face of the declaration of oneness.

At the level of Tao, we return to oneness, with no enemy or ally, only a self-regulation of the cosmic rhythm.

This fundamentally strips Slaanesh of the false sense of superiority that he bestows upon his creations, which is the ultimate mockery of Slaanesh and a dissolution of the meaning of his existence.

The colossal, eerie, and maddeningly alluring Slaanesh finally solidified completely. It was like a living statue forged from countless moments of extreme pleasure and pain, every inch of its skin singing, every gaze promising a fallen paradise.

It saw Darkus, saw the sword, and let out a shriek that combined the yearning and sighs of billions of living beings, a shriek powerful enough to shatter the mind of a demigod.

Dakos moved.

His actions were neither a confrontation nor an instinctive counterattack maneuvering between killing and survival, but rather something pre-planned—a preparation.

It's like smoothing out a file that's been blown haphazardly by the wind, or gently guiding a stray wisp of consciousness back to its rightful place.

The trajectory drawn by the divine sword Vesza was simple, clear, and devoid of any unnecessary embellishments.

The silver gleam left by the sword in the air was neither howling nor violently tearing through the air, but rather like a quiet line lit up in the void.

That wasn't a sword move, but rather the outlining of a boundary, the execution of a distinction, as if heaven and earth themselves, through his hand, had completed a necessary, long-delayed judgment.

His slashing trajectories were not martial arts techniques, but rather the laws of nature itself, like a tsunami sweeping away sandcastles, a gale breaking withered branches, or the snow line retreating on its own in spring.

It has nothing to do with good or evil, nothing to do with will, but is simply the natural dissolution of disharmony by the larger whole.

Slaanesh's resistance appears pitiful and insignificant against this grand backdrop of oneness. Each of its roars, each swing of its arms, each wave of desire attempting to spread is like a grain of sand trying to fight against an entire ocean wave, yet vainly trying to claim independence.

He did not want to destroy Sharah, but rather to separate it from the harmonious whole of cognition that it is one with me.

Put it back in its rightful place; it's not an enemy, but a flawed footnote; it's not meant to be killed, but erased.

There was no earth-shattering collision.

When Vessar's silver radiance touched Sharathi's shield, the shield, like a phantom cast into still water, began to silently dissolve and dissipate. It wasn't shattered, but rather its very existence—its unique separation and the targeted allure—was fundamentally negated, and it was no longer recognized by the world.

Sharashi's power base became like a tree without roots, suspended in mid-air, without anything to cling to. It let out a shrill scream, a sound so sharp it almost tore itself apart. It couldn't understand why its power was dissipating, why the other's presence was becoming as unshakeable and unassailable as heaven and earth themselves.

"what do you?!"

Shalahi's shriek finally carried a hint of instinctive fear of the meaning of existence being dissolved.

It wasn't fear of death, but fear of not being recognized.

For the first time, Darkus truly "looked" at this demon. In his eyes, there was no hatred, no contempt, and not even a trace of admiration, only a bottomless indifference that belonged to the entire world.

That calmness was not like that of a person, but like a natural scene—like morning mist, like the tide, like the sound of a whirlpool.

"I am all things, and all things are me. And you are merely a dream of separation that has not yet awakened."

The sword light slashed down.

It's not about killing, but about awakening.

Or rather, it is to gently but resolutely smooth out this overly realistic, overly stubborn, and overly obsessed dream against the boundless backdrop of the unity of all things.

Where the silver light passed, the peach-purple vortex of desire began to fade and become transparent.

Those churning, sticky, and consuming colors were like an oil painting soaked by a heavy rain. The intense brushstrokes loosened, disintegrated layer by layer, lost their cohesion, and finally flowed into a clear void that could almost reflect the entire battlefield.

The Slaanesh portal, along with the great demon it teemed with, did not explode, nor did it waile. It simply vanished silently, without emotion or trace, as if it had never existed, as if it should never have existed in the first place, merely a fleeting figment of some erroneous thought.

From an outsider's perspective, all of this seems even more absurd.

A portal appeared, and Darkus and Malekith slashed through it. Malekith swept with a horizontal slash, and Darkus cleaved with a vertical slash. The Great Demon disappeared along with the portal.

Along with it disappeared the portals and demons scattered throughout Lorthion.

The strange illusion in the sky was also receding, flowing away like the receding tide towards the great vortex, leaving behind a sky that had been polished anew. (End of Chapter)