Chapter 112: Darkness Falls.

"Thump-thump-thump—"
"Thump-thump-thump—"
"Thump-thump-thump—"
"..."

The moment he merged with his dark persona, Ye Yan felt the entire world fall into a profound silence.
There was only the echo of a heartbeat.
Heavy, oppressive, and deafening.

The world around him shifted once more, and Ye Yan was dragged onto a vast ocean churning with thunder and lightning. The sea was deep and murky; the sky was pitch-black and chilling. The turbulent lightning, like a prelude to a storm, crashed into the sea, whipping up monstrous waves. Standing upon this boundless dark ocean, Ye Yan felt incredibly small.

His gaze pierced through the dancing bolts of lightning, landing at the center of the dark sea. Something there was pulling at him, drawing him in, making him subconsciously yearn to approach it. As his vision traversed the surface to the very heart of the expanse, Ye Yan saw a massive, cold, and noble throne forged from obsidian, glowing with a faint, eerie light.

That was the source of the pull.

For some reason, a thought suddenly surfaced in Ye Yan’s mind: if he could ascend this throne, he would successfully transcend to become a Sovereign.

Simply standing upon this dark sea made his brain feel as though it were about to burst. Loneliness, fear, confusion—it was as if every negative emotion in the human world had been heaped upon him at once, making him feel an intense dread toward this dark, infinite sea, a burden he found difficult to accept.

Ye Yan attempted to step toward the center, but a surging wave quickly struck, pushing him back to his original position. Undeterred, he pressed on. However, the negative emotions in his mind were like a chorus of demonic whispers, constantly circling him, urging him to abandon this path of no return. For a fleeting moment, Ye Yan felt the urge to give up on his ascension and simply surrender to despair.

But he quickly suppressed the thought.

Ye Yan knew clearly that without the power of a Sovereign, he would have no chance of breaking through this dream world on his own. If he wanted to leave, he had to persist, no matter what. Though he was pushed back by massive waves after only a few steps, Ye Yan gritted his teeth and held firm, refusing to entertain the idea of giving up.

He still had too many things left undone. He could not fall here.

As the deluge of emotions assaulted him, a faint red light began to envelop Ye Yan’s body. The glow was dim, yet it grew steadily, as if something were about to burst forth from within him. As the red light intensified, the distracting thoughts and demonic whispers in his mind became increasingly clear. The negative emotions, which had initially felt like small tides, evolved into massive waves, crashing down upon him with overwhelming force and shaking his spirit to its core.

Ye Yan gritted his teeth, bracing himself against the tumultuous surges.

One step, two steps—stumbling forward. Through this arduous process, he had covered more than half the distance to the throne. But as he pushed further, the waves grew more violent; each crash felt exponentially stronger, pushing him to his limits.

The force of the waves. The demonic whispers of negative emotion. Ye Yan’s consciousness began to blur. Just as his will was about to crumble, as he teetered on the edge of falling into the dark sea, a spark of fluorescence suddenly appeared upon the violent surface.

At first, the light was faint, like a tiny meteor streaking from the edge of the sky. It darted toward him, landing beneath his feet to form a solid stone pillar that lifted him above the waves. As his body cleared the water, his fading consciousness instantly sharpened.

He shook his head, looking in astonishment at the stone pillar protruding from beneath him. Amidst the faint glow emitted by the pillar, he heard a voice—short, light, and simple:
"You must wake up quickly!"

Along with the voice, Li Ziyuan appeared in the vision, clad in a pale white dress. The young girl stood with her hands clasped, eyes closed in prayer, bowing her head as she prayed earnestly for him.

As her prayer concluded, dozens, perhaps nearly a hundred, pinpoints of light fell from the far reaches of the dark sky, landing before Ye Yan and transforming into stone pillars of varying sizes. Through those lights, Ye Yan heard different voices and saw different scenes.

...

In the deep mountains and old forests, beneath a great tree, Xia He stood covered in blood, looking disheveled. Beside her, Shen Chong, Dou Mei, and others, despite their utter exhaustion, were whispering prayers.

...

In Tianjin, at the entrance of a logistics warehouse, Xu Si squatted before a threshold with a half-burned cigarette dangling from his lips. Cigarette butts were scattered at his feet as he gazed toward the direction of Mount Longhu.

...

In Southern Xinjiang, at a certain courtyard, Liao Zhong looked despondent as he scrolled through the news.

...

In Tianjin, at the mouth of an old alleyway, an elderly man surnamed Li sat alone under a canopy, fiddling with a chessboard, his eyes filled with loneliness.

...

There were many such voices and scenes—Wang Ye, Tao Tao, Tang Wenlong, and countless others, passersby whom Ye Yan might have met but never remembered.

They all formed the stone pillars. They had all been a part of Ye Yan’s life.

In his ears, the voices coming from the pillars grew more intense, and Ye Yan’s once-chaotic mind began to clear. Gazing at the stone pillars standing upon the sea, stretching all the way to the throne, his eyes grew increasingly resolute.

"So, there are still so many people waiting for me," he whispered, looking at the throne.

With this thought, his teetering body straightened. He braced his back, gathered his courage anew, and pressed forward toward the throne. He could not lose. He had to leave this world.

Once his mind was made up, his pace became steady. With these stone pillars, much of the trouble was removed; he quickened his pace, darting and leaping, constantly advancing toward the throne. Although the waves remained tumultuous, the absence of the crushing negative emotions made the obstacles far less daunting. At the very least, he navigated the remaining half of the path with far less difficulty than he had faced at the start.

The closer he got to the throne, the smaller the resistance became, until he moved with a sense of ease.

At the end of the pillars, Ye Yan leaped onto the central platform.

The obsidian throne was within reach.

Observing it closely, the cold, serene throne appeared like a flawless crystal of this world—mysterious, powerful, and like a rare treasure condensed from the night itself.

After a brief inspection, Ye Yan took a deep breath, turned, and sat gently upon the throne. The moment he sat down, the dark sea fell instantly silent.

The thunder ceased.

A beam of red light shot upward from Ye Yan’s body, tearing a rift open in the fabric of this world.

...

Outside Mount Longhu.
Daytime.
The sky was clear for thousands of miles.

Suddenly, a beam of red light shot into the sky from outside the side room. A second later, the world plunged into darkness.

The sky... had gone dark.