After a thousand years of cultivation, he returns at the pinnacle!

The Apostle Realm, beneath the eternal dark golden sky.

The silence of the twelve apostles on the circular throne had lasted for an entire human day.

From the moment Morghana's soul core completely dissipated at the edge of the void, from the moment the Twelfth Apostle's Temple collapsed in the live broadcast, not a single apostle spoke again in this eternal void. Dark golden light flowed slowly within the throne's base, several times slower than usual, as if even the space itself was processing this fact.

Astra is dead.

Now, Morgana is dead too.

The thirteenth apostle, the twelfth apostle.

Two temples of apostles, two guardian apostles. Both were killed one after the other by the same human, in the same overwhelming manner, under the watchful eyes of billions of people.

At the end of the circular arrangement, on the arc between the Ninth and Eleventh Apostles, the position of the Twelfth Throne was now empty. The dark golden light on the base had completely extinguished, and the outline of the throne was beginning to crumble from the edges, dark golden fragments silently peeling away and drifting into the depths of the void. The Eleventh Throne also began to dim—this chain reaction of decay had begun after Astra's death. The two slowly collapsing thrones, like two unhealable wounds, lay across the eternal sky of the Apostle Realm.

The Fourth Apostle, Mephistopheles, was the first to break the silence. Her short, silver-grey hair was even shorter than at the last meeting, as if she had somehow shaved it off. Her deep purple pupils reflected the two crumbling thrones, and her usual languid smile was gone.

"Soul screams, the cries of all souls, soul swapping." Her voice was low, as if she were talking to herself. "She used every means at her disposal. In the end, she was still pierced through by a single sword."

She paused for a moment.

"Even soul swapping couldn't completely evade it. His sword intent had already exceeded the escape speed of spatial swapping. Morgana swapped her soul core in that instant, but the sword intent still caught up with her."

Baal's dark eyes surged violently. His thick arms were crossed over his chest, and his short, fiery hair burned silently on his head, but the burning rhythm was more intense than usual.

"One sword." His voice was deep and rough. "At least Astra allowed him to unleash his sword domain. Morgana, from beginning to end, didn't even have the ability to make him take it seriously."

"Thran. What did you reflect after Morgana's death?"

Thran kept his eyes closed. His long, silvery-white hair cascaded over the shoulders of his pure white robe, swaying gently in the air. His posture remained as serene as a Buddha statue that had been in meditation for a thousand years. But since the start of the meeting, his eyelashes had trembled slightly several times—a sign that had never appeared before for someone known as the "Mirror of Nothingness."

"I reflected the sword strike that shattered Morgana's soul core," Thran spoke, his voice soft, as soft as the wind blowing across a dry riverbed. "That sword strike did not contain killing intent."

All the apostles raised their eyes at the same time.

"Not murderous intent?"

"No." Thran's eyelashes fluttered again. "That sword strike carried gratitude. He was grateful to Morgana for allowing him to see his old friend again, grateful to her for letting him utter the farewell he had held back for a thousand years. But gratitude does not mean refraining from killing."

In the void, there was a deathly silence.

"He used Morghana's soul-piercing screams as a mirror," Thran's voice was almost ethereal. "She spent three hundred years devouring countless souls. She thought she could shatter his resolve, but in the end, she only shattered herself."

He opened his eyes. That pure, absolute, boundless nothingness slowly swept over every apostle present.

"I have reflected all his battles. From the Thirteenth Apostle Hall to the Twelfth Apostle Hall, from the first floor to the hundredth floor. His true essence comes from a Heavenly Dao that does not belong to this world, and his Dao heart was honed in that world through a thousand years of killing. Guilt, obsession, regret, pain—all these things that should have become his best weapons have instead become his strongest armor."

Silence. The dark golden light on the twelve thrones froze at the same moment, as if even the void itself trembled at this conclusion.

Baal's dark eyes swirled with unprecedentedly complex emotions. He lowered his thick arms, covered in dark red skin from beneath the molten iron, from his chest, and slowly clenched his right fist, the skin on his knuckles cracking with fine, dark red lines under his grip. "So we just sit here and wait for him to come knocking on our door, one Apostle's Temple after another?"

Kahn spoke up: "No."

His amber pupils slowly turned to the other end of the circular arrangement.

That place is the Third Throne.

From the start of the meeting until now, the Third Apostle has not uttered a single word. He sits there, even more silent than Thranduil. If Thranduil is a meditating Buddha statue, then he is like a stone monument that has stood on the edge of the abyss since time immemorial—without warmth, without breath, without presence, yet giving the impression that he is always watching over everything.

He looked to be under thirty. His skin was a dark bluish-green, like bronze weathered by countless years of wind and frost. His features were deep and stern, with high brow bones, a sharply defined nose, and extremely thin lips pressed together into a barely curved line.

His title is "The Void Watcher". His law is "Absolute Stillness"—in an instant, he can bring anything in motion—whether matter, energy, or the laws themselves—to a complete standstill, including time.

Thran turned his head, closed his eyes, and faced the direction of the Third Apostle.

"You haven't shown him his fighting. From beginning to end, you haven't asked about any details about him."

The third apostle did not answer.

But the corner of his mouth twitched.

The arc was extremely faint, so faint that it was almost invisible. A very thin, dark blue crack stretched from the edge of the lips to the jawline. There was no blood in the crack, only a constantly dissipating dark blue mist.

A deep, guttural sound, like the grinding of rocks deep within the earth's crust, emanated from his throat: "He is a Celestial Emperor. He comes from a power system completely different from ours. In a one-on-one fight, my chances of winning against him are less than ten percent. But if my law is absolute stillness—I can freeze his sword domain for a mere 0.1 seconds the moment it unfolds. That 0.1 seconds is enough for all of you to attack simultaneously."

Kahn stared at him, deep in thought.

He raised his right hand, his five fingers spread, and his amber pupils reflected the faces of every apostle present.

"We are the Apostles. Three hundred years ago, when black ice flowers fell from the sky and our Apostle Temple was embedded in this void, the humans on this planet didn't even have the right to look up to us. Now, a human has been killing our kind one by one. Astra is dead. Morgana is dead. Who will be next?"

His expression even carried a hint of amusement.