Black Magic Rose Chapter 32
byExtra Chapter: Echoes Across Ten Thousand Worlds
The Void is not emptiness. It is the ultimate state that transcends the concepts of “existence” and “non-existence” themselves, the beginning and end of all laws, an absolute realm where even the concept of “being” has been erased. Everything from the old world, along with all traces of its existence, had been annihilated in that final Annihilation, returning to this indescribable “Void.”
However, in this absolute void, where even “time” and “consciousness” should cease to exist, a faint, paradoxical “ripple” was stirring.
It was Shu Yijin’s “will.”
Not his form or soul as the Evil God; those had long since dissipated in the Annihilation of rules. What remained was something more fundamental—an obsession, a final echo concerning “existence” itself, accidentally condensed by the extreme destruction, mixed with his twisted yet undying “memory” of that specific soul.
This wisp of echo, like a quantum fluctuation spontaneously generated in an absolute vacuum, was minuscule, yet genuinely “present.” It drifted aimlessly in the Void, without direction or sense of time, only eternal solitude. After an unknown duration—perhaps an instant, perhaps billions of years—this wisp of echo touched a certain “boundary.”
It was not a physical boundary, but the boundary of “possibility.” It was a tiny Space Rift leading to other “worlds,” torn open by the extreme energy when the old world was Annihilated. These worlds might be parallel timelines to the old world, or new universes re-evolved from the residual fragments left after the old world’s destruction.
Shu Yijin’s echo was instinctively drawn to the faint scent of “existence” emanating from these rifts. Like a moth to a flame, it plunged into one.
…
The first world was a fantasy continent of swords and magic.
Shu Yijin’s echo attached itself to an Elf Prophet whose life was nearing its end. When he awoke beneath an Eternal Tree, occupying this ancient body, he retained less than one-ten-thousandth of his original power, and his memories were fragmented, leaving only a bone-deep solitude and a blurry figure with red eyes. Relying on residual instinct, he became the continent’s most mysterious and feared soothsayer. He predicted the fall of dynasties, the awakening of demon dragons, and the collapse of stars, but never hope. The beings of the continent called him the “Prophet of Doom,” avoiding him like the plague.
He traveled the continent, searching for traces of that blurry figure. In the royal garden of a human kingdom, he saw a young prince practicing swordsmanship. The boy had golden hair and blue eyes, sunny and cheerful, completely different from the cold severity in his memory. But the moment the boy turned, the sunlight grazed his slightly furrowed brow, and that fleeting glimpse of determination and aloofness made the Elf Prophet’s (Shu Yijin’s) decaying heart tremble.
He observed the boy in secret for a long time, watching him grow, watching him shoulder the kingdom’s responsibilities, and watching him ultimately mature into a beloved Knight King, symbolizing “light” and “order.” He was good, righteous, and kind, protecting his people—the complete opposite of “him.”
Shu Yijin’s echo quietly left the elf’s body on the night of the Knight King’s coronation, amidst the cheers of the masses. This soul might hold a sliver of his shadow, but it was too bright, too complete. It was not the fragment he was looking for. All he left behind was an incomprehensible murmur from the Elf Prophet: “The light… it is too blinding.”
…
The second world was a post-apocalyptic wasteland with highly advanced technology but depleted resources.
This time, Shu Yijin’s echo chose the body of a wanderer who had mutated in the radiation and possessed weak psychic abilities. This world was filled with violence, deception, and the law of survival, bearing some resemblance to the madness of the apocalypse in the world he had destroyed. Relying on residual cunning and weak manipulation of energy, he established a considerable faction in the ruins, becoming a powerful, cold-blooded warlord carving out his own territory.
He heard that in the distant “Pure Land”—a legendary, unpolluted underground city—a genius scientist was trying to save this world on the brink of destruction. Driven by an unknown impulse, Shu Yijin endured hardships and found the underground city. He met the scientist, who wore a white coat and glasses, his expression focused and gentle, carefully cultivating a green plant that was nearly extinct in the wasteland.
The scientist felt his gaze, looked up, and, through the protective glass, gave him a tired but sincere smile—a smile so clean it was jarringly out of place in this polluted world. Shu Yijin looked at those eyes, full of rationality and hope, without a trace of gloom or obsession. He was looking for an accomplice in destruction, not a saint of salvation.
He turned and left without alarming anyone. Before leaving, he destroyed a nearby raider stronghold that was attempting to attack the underground city. Was it… payment for his intrusion? He didn’t know why he did it. Perhaps he just didn’t like the idea of that fragile green plant being destroyed.
…
The third world was a seemingly ordinary modern city with no supernatural powers.
Shu Yijin’s echo was exceptionally weak this time, only able to vaguely influence the dreams of a frustrated young painter. The painter constantly dreamed of a pair of eyes, crimson eyes staring at him in the darkness, filled with sorrow and resolve. He painted this dream. The artwork was gloomy and magnificent, yet full of a strange emotional tension, unexpectedly achieving success, earning him the title of “Soul Painter.”
After the painter became famous, he met the young heir of an Ancient Existence family at a high-society dinner. The heir was composed and aloof, with a detachment and weariness in his brow that belied his age, clearly overwhelmed by family affairs. The moment the painter saw him, he felt struck by lightning—though the color of those eyes was deep black, the look in them, the undercurrent hidden beneath the calm, was strikingly similar to the eyes in his dream!
The painter mustered his courage and approached him, incoherently describing his dream. The heir initially found it absurd, but listening to the painter describe the emotions in the dream eyes, his cold heart surprisingly rippled with an inexplicable feeling. They became friends—one trying to capture the void of dreams with a brush, the other struggling under the pressure of reality. The painter could sense that deep within the heir’s soul, a huge, unknown secret and pain were locked away, subtly resonating with the sorrow in his dream.
Shu Yijin’s echo stirred restlessly in the painter’s consciousness. It felt close this time, very close! The heir’s soul must contain a fragment of “him”! It even tried to influence the painter, urging him to delve deeper, to tear away that layer of cold pretense.
However, on a rainy night, when the painter couldn’t help but try to confess, wanting to project the emotions from his dream onto reality, the heir calmly rejected him. “What you see is a phantom of your imagination, not me,” the heir said, his eyes tired and honest. “I have responsibilities I must bear and cannot reciprocate your… feelings. Don’t live in your own dream.”
The painter froze, the dream shattered. Shu Yijin’s echo also fell silent. It realized that even if a fragment existed, it had long been covered and changed by the rules of this world and by everything this soul had experienced in this life. It couldn’t be forcibly awakened; that would only lead to complete collapse. This was not the “complete” him it desired.
The echo left again, carrying a deeper weariness. Afterward, the painter’s style gradually brightened, and he eventually emerged from the nightmare, finding his own ordinary happiness.
…
Ten thousand worlds, endless echoes.
This obsession of Shu Yijin’s, like a ghost in the cosmos, traveled through one world after another, some similar, some vastly different. He saw Wen Jingheng reincarnated as an iron-blooded general, as a reclusive scholar, as a street vagrant… Each time, he could find him through that subtle connection. Each time, he would pause, observe, and feel.
Sometimes, the soul fragment would evoke a familiar tremor, such as the flash of obsession in the eyes of a killer burdened by deep hatred in one world; other times, it was completely unfamiliar, such as an ordinary farmer content with pastoral life on a peaceful agricultural planet.
He learned not to interfere. Because every time he tried to approach or “awaken” forcibly, the result was disappointment, or even accelerated the dissipation of the already fragile fragment. He understood that the Wen Jingheng of the old world was completely gone. What remained was merely the dust of his soul, scattered across endless time and space, carrying a few essential imprints. They had fallen into different soils and bloomed into vastly different flowers.
His search was destined to be futile from the start. But he couldn’t stop. This seemed to be the only meaning left to his paradoxical existence. The extreme of destruction was the Void, and in the long time after this Void, searching for the echoes left by the person who walked toward Annihilation with him became his new, eternal… punishment? Or salvation?
He no longer hoped to “retrieve” him; it was more like… a form of companionship, a witnessing. Witnessing that soul fragment, in different worlds, experiencing different lives in different ways. Perhaps this was another form of “eternity.” Except, in this eternity, he was the only one, traveling alone with all the memories.
Until one day, his echo drifted into a small world with an extremely low energy level, yet one that inexplicably made him feel comfortable and peaceful. Technology here was just beginning to emerge, and people lived simple lives. On the edge of a small city, there was a quiet flower garden.
In the garden, a black-haired, black-eyed young man was kneeling among the flowers, carefully pruning the branches of a deep purple rose. His movements were focused and gentle, his eyes clear, carrying a satisfied tranquility. The color of the rose was so deep it was almost black ink, yet in the sunlight, the edges of the petals shimmered with a subtle, dark red glow.
Shu Yijin’s echo felt no powerful energy fluctuations in this young man, nor any familiar coldness or obsession belonging to Wen Jingheng. But strangely, when his “gaze” fell upon that deep purple rose, an unprecedented, calm sense of belonging enveloped his consciousness, which had been drifting for an unknown number of ages.
The young man seemed to sense something. He looked up, glancing around, but saw no one. Yet, his gaze passed exactly through the invisible space where Shu Yijin’s echo resided. Then, he smiled at the empty space in front of him.
That smile was gentle, firm, carrying the composure of someone who had weathered a thousand storms and an… indescribable familiarity.
This time, Shu Yijin’s echo did not leave. It hovered quietly in the air, feeling the tranquility of the flower garden, the ordinary yet real vitality emanating from the young man, and the silent companionship of that deep purple rose.
Perhaps, it didn’t matter if he couldn’t find the complete fragment.
Perhaps, just watching him, on a sunny afternoon, peacefully tending a rose that so closely resembled the imprint of the past, was enough.
Perhaps, the end of eternity was not absolute nothingness, but a silent, prolonged companionship in some inconspicuous corner of ten thousand worlds.
The young man’s figure appeared slightly hazy in the sunlight. He continued to tend to his rose, humming a tuneless melody.
Shu Yijin’s last remaining echo, amidst this ordinary song, gradually ceased its aimless wandering. Like a weary bird finding its nest, it sank into a long-lost, warm void.