Chapter 659
The Fading of Dawn
Ultimately, however, the era of the Red Heart Society has passed.
The path of the true god of rules has lost its fertile ground for revival in the foreseeable future due to the Red Heart Society's forced suicidal concealment and continuous knowledge cleansing.
[Given this, conducting a large-scale, bloody purge within the spirit realm that would damage its own vitality and stability seems unnecessary and inconsistent with the spirit realm's consistent principles of efficiency and order.]
The focus of the crackdown has been on monitoring and prevention, rather than proactive extermination.
It was against this complex backdrop of a slight easing of external pressure that those seeds, which had long since scattered throughout the spirit world like drops of water merging into the ocean, began their long and secret mission.
[In the year 7652 of the Extraordinary Calendar, most of the original infiltrators had already completed their cautious lives as outsiders.]
They remembered the tearful instructions of their forefathers and the burning passion within them, and did not attempt any form of resistance or gathering in the short term.
On the contrary, they regarded survival and continuation themselves as their primary task and their greatest form of resistance.
They have completely integrated into the ecosystem of the spirit world, living under various legitimate and inconspicuous identities.
[He might be a low-profile elder of a spirit world organization, a traveling merchant, or a researcher engrossed in ancient texts.]
They meticulously modified and disguised their sincere ideals, history, and unwavering faith in the true God's path of rules.
[After removing all keywords that might directly trigger alarm, the text is transformed into ancient family precepts passed down orally, ancestral wishes, or a secret pursuit of some lost truth.]
Then, they passed down this heavily encrypted seed of fire, along with their own subtly optimized bloodline—one adapted to the spirit world environment yet retaining its potential.
Offspring are born and raised in the spirit world, receive education there, and abide by its rules.
From appearance to behavior, they are no different from ordinary spirits.
Only in the deepest recesses of the soul, in the whispers of our fathers in the still of the night, lies a vague memory of unwavering loyalty, and a faint yet undeniable hope for different paths.
These scattered inheritors of bloodlines and ideals have given their secret legacy a new name—Dawn.
This name carries both immense and incredibly bright expectations.
They knew all too well that the present, and even the foreseeable future, remained a suffocating, long night, a dark apocalypse for their cherished dreams.
But they firmly believe that the night will eventually end.
Even in this tightly monitored, seemingly flawless space-time, if the ray of pure-hearted light cannot pierce through the clouds, it doesn't matter.
They will stand firm like a rock, passing the torch from generation to generation, waiting for the changing global landscape, waiting for the resurgence of conflict within the three realms, and waiting for a certain opportune moment to arrive.
They believe that one day, a dawn of pure hearts will surely arrive, its light dispelling all gloom and illuminating a brand new path.
This belief, bordering on religious devotion, sustained them through absolute solitude and the erosion of time.
At the point where their secret thoughts converged, a shared voice echoed.
The great founder of the Red Heart Society, the supreme being who guided them through their desperate situation and left behind a path to reversal even in his fall, must still be watching over them from somewhere, watching over their unwavering commitment to passing on the torch from the ashes.
They, these newcomers renamed Dawn, hidden deep within the enemy's flesh and blood, must not, and will never, let this hope that transcends life and death be dashed. And waiting in the darkness is itself a silent attack.
The predecessors of the Red Heart Society, who lurked in the spirit world, left behind a set of words for their descendants to uphold.
To die a heroic death is perhaps brave enough.
But to live on with the hopes of comrades and brothers-in-arms, to live with unwavering loyalty and ideals, and to pass on those ideals—that is the greatest monument of value!
As long as you're alive!
The flame of loyalty still burns!
[In the year 7952 of the Extraordinary Era, a continuous and desperate wail echoed from the spine of hell.]
This vast world, already the weakest and most precarious in the entire universe, is undergoing a complete collapse that is spreading from its core.
This was not an ordinary fall of stars or collapse of mountains and rivers, but rather the very rules of the world crumbling inch by inch, the very backbone supporting its existence turning into countless swirling dust particles and shadows.
Deep, visible cracks spread across the surface of the world like a spiderweb, extending ever deeper into the void.
Each collapse was accompanied by a soul-chilling roar, from which a dark aura, far thicker and more decadent than ever before, gushed forth from the cracks and wounds.
That aura seemed to carry the dying gasps of the entire world, a mixture of despair, decay, and impending doom, like an ominous black tide slowly spreading towards the edge of the void.
This is precisely the final struggle of the Great World before its complete annihilation; a clear sign that its internal structure can no longer be maintained, and it is about to completely disintegrate into countless fragments and even return to chaos.
This apocalyptic scene was clearly recorded within the inheritance crystal by a secretive observer from the Dawn Organization, who had infiltrated a spiritual cult, through layers of disguise and barriers.
His fingers trembled slightly with shock, but he still swiftly and precisely encoded the information and uploaded it to that ancient and fragile secret communication link.
The Dawn of Light is no longer the glorious force it once was. Its members are few and far between, its bloodline is thin, and those who can reach the ninth level are extremely rare.
As for those who touched the divine fire and achieved demigod status, these have become almost mythical tales passed down through oral tradition.
This means that the lifespan of the vast majority of Dawn members is cruelly limited to a mere two to three hundred years.
[Through the oral accounts of their fathers and grandfathers, and on scrolls whose writings have become blurred with age, they vaguely learned a fact.]
The collapse and decay of this vast world before them, the aura of destruction that envelops the universe, originates from the very source of their faith and vows to protect.
[A final war launched by the long-vanished founder of the Red Heart Society, a war beyond the imagination of all future generations.]
That was a tremendous force that burned away rules and shook wills; it was a desperate charge against the entire established order.
But time is always the most ruthless etcher.
[As time eroded, the spark of pure heart reached the Spirit Realm, but under the influence of the Spirit Realm's native soil, it gradually lost its brilliance.] (End of Chapter)