Chapter 1964
Tianming was still far too young, at the end of the day. While causing the deaths of tens of millions was something he could handle, seeing the destruction of an entire nova source world was still something that shook him. He had witnessed it from start to finish, yet he wasn't one of the specters.
From their point of view, all they saw was a burning mass above them, getting larger and larger as it got closer, bearing terrifying solar lances that thrust through the land they stood on, as well as the seas, even directly piercing through the fusion formation into the core. The surface of the world completely cracked apart, resulting in unprecedented superquakes that caused the deaths of countless specters, regardless of age or gender. Most of them didn't even perceive any pain as they left the world of the living in an instant.
The world was instantly engulfed in a storm of fire that burned up plains, cracked mountain ranges, dried up lakes and rivers, and melted snow. Ash formed and rose into the air as terrifying shockwaves spread far and wide. The specters, solarians or newborns alike, were wiped out by the aftershocks.
While humans and specters were intelligent enough to be able to use fusion formations to bind their nova sources, even sovereigns were helpless before a nova source explosion. The forces of the universe simply couldn't be defied, merely sealed off in fusion formations like devils. The irony was that no life could exist without those devilishly destructive forces. Even if anyone had survived the first wave of damage, the endlessly cold nova source would continue pouring out of the perforations on the star's surface. It was even more threatening than magma from volcanoes!
Without the protection of the astralguard and fusion formations, the surviving specters of Skywolf Frost were exposed to the rapidly fluctuating temperatures, thanks to the proximity of both worlds. Above them was endless flame, while frost poured out from the core of their star. Everything they had constructed on the surface, whether it be grade-nine defensive formations, divine ore mines, grand buildings, divine artifacts, or even simple blades of grass or the myriad creatures and insects that lived on the surface, were all annihilated. The endless storm of death engulfed Skywolf Frost in mere moments, spreading to the other side in almost no time.
"They're all dead."
Those words were the cold hard truth. The destiny of ruin that’d been the sun's had been handed back to Skywolf Frost. It had happened too quickly, and the ones that survived the first wave were completely frozen. Hundreds of millions still thought they were dreaming and would wake up soon, Tianming included.
He didn't hate Skywolf Frost in particular. The explosion caused by the nova source that resulted in a mass extinction only cemented in him how cruel the universe could be. Though it was often said that life was insignificant in the eyes of the vast universe, this really hammered it home. Like the dead of Skywolf Frost, he felt the terror of universal forces.
The survivors panted with blank eyes, as if their souls had left their bodies. Their world seemed to have just died. There was a long period of deathly silence, but the smoke eventually settled, revealing a world of death to those that were still watching. It only took moments, not hundreds of thousands of years, for the familiar landscape that they had known for millions of years to be completely transformed into a wasteland devoid of life. Many within the sun itself were flung into the air by the sheer force and fell to their deaths. Yet that wasn't the end of it for the survivors. The nova source of Skywolf Frost was even more destructive when it wasn’t regulated.
The collision and its resulting perforation was only the beginning of the affair. After reaping countless lives on the surface of Skywolf Frost, the Flameyellow Divine Pillars turned into straws. Their crimson and gold color changed to a frosty gray as they began siphoning nova source into the sun. Those on the surface of the sun saw the pillars change color and felt the temperature around them fall. Many lakes of magma froze solid, yet it wasn't as a result of an invasion from Skywolf Frost.
Tens of 'straws' kept siphoning away the nova source, and it was a process that didn't take tens of thousands of years, nor did it require any divine astralships for logistics. The pillars themselves served as pipelines that directly funneled the energy into the core of the sun. It was a simple, yet brutish solution. Skywolf Frost was growing even more quiet by the moment while the sun swelled in volume at a rate the eye could see.
The swelling correlated to the increase in size of the fusion formation. A heliacal-class world's fusion formation usually wouldn't be able to endure an expansion of this scale, so the fact that the sun's could was definitely due to the Flameyellow Guard Formation. Even then, an expansion like this would cause cracks on the surface above to be filled up with new land, as well as falling sea levels. The surface of the fusion formation might even be accessible through the new crevices that formed.
As Tianming wasn't on the sun, he didn't see those changes, but he knew well the consequences of forcefully expanding the fusion formation. Fortunately, the process wasn't a violent one, and given how most people on the sun were sky saints and above, few actually suffered from the changes.
He noted that the sun was about double its former size. The change was staggering enough from far away, so the ones who were on its surface doubtless found it even more mysterious to see the ground crack and oceans recede further away. It was surely the most mystical day anyone alive had experienced. Their reactions were mostly disbelief.
While defeating the Sanctvoid Army and driving off Skywolf Frost was worth celebrating, nobody would cheer for the extinction of most life across an entire world. Nobody thought themselves to be saints, but they were still scared of the repercussions of such an occurrence. Most had expected the sun to suffer a similar fate, yet everything had changed.
Tianming had brought an entire army with him as he departed, but those seniors merely watched the sight unfold, dumbfounded. Skywolf Frost had been turned into a dead star in mere moments, its core emptied, only an empty husk of a fusion formation was left behind. Yet no corpses could be seen on the star's pale surface. It was as if all life had vanished in the cosmic aether in the mere span of moments, not the picture of mass death many imagined.
While that was probably a consolation for many, the ones with powerful souls could see billions of souls rising from the dead star, all of them crying out in terror. Perhaps it could even be felt all the way from Violetglory.
Amidst all that, the only one who could still laugh was the sun emperor. Everyone in the Ninedragon Imperial Tomb knew that this was his doing. Nobody loved the sun more than him, and now his beloved sun had transformed. It was no longer gold and red, or pure. Instead, it was a mixture of red and white as frost and fire coexisted. Some portions of the flaming cloud layer flowed with waves of frost. It was both familiar yet foreign. From now on, the sun would no longer just be a burning ball of passion, but also savage cold.
Such changes were also visible from its surface. The Azurecloud Continent, for instance, had grown even hotter, with stronger flaming rain forming. But beside it, a wave of frost had formed, neatly separating the two regions. This day was among the most eventful ones in the history of the sun since it had stopped being the Flameyellow Imperial Star.
The Ninedragon Imperial Tomb was silent for a long time before Tianming breathed out a sigh. "Yin Chen, are Lingfeng and Qingyu alright?"
"They are... fine as... they went... into the... Xenoworld Gate." Without it, perhaps not even they would be able to escape in time.
Tianming changed their course to head back to the new sun. Skywolf Blaze still brightly burned in the distance. How would the specters there be feeling right now? Would they be fearful, or furious? Tianming believed that this alone wouldn't startle them; after all, the mutual enmity between the people of the two worlds had existed for more than thirty million years. It wouldn't be extinguished this easily.
"Where are you going?" Long Wanying asked, seeing Tianming pilot the ship toward the north pole.
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"We're going to the sun emperor."