That was the real reason for Yang Kai’s final thanks.
"This was probably the ending she wanted for herself."
Mu had guarded the Human Race and the myriad heavens for countless ages. Even in death, she had left behind numerous contingencies.
Though the world was broken and ruined, though humanity was as insignificant as ants, this was still what Mu wished to protect. Given any possible opportunity, Yang Kai was willing to follow her dying wish.
Of course, if Yang Kai had not demonstrated sufficient strength, Mo would not have hesitated to kill him. Once Mo’s power ruled the myriad heavens, he could simply assign a vast domain for the Human Race to propagate and survive. This way, the Human Race would not go extinct, and Mo could consider his debt to Mu settled.
Ultimately, Mo’s own consciousness was not inherently evil. In the late antiquity period, he had also guarded the Human Race, taking the rectification of humanity as his personal responsibility. Without his joint efforts with the Ten Martial Ancestors, the humans of that era could never have defeated the ancient great demons.
It was only that this consciousness could not control the increasingly potent power he wielded. He ultimately lost his way, especially after Mu perished, when no one remained who could restrain him.
This final outcome was something he had actively sought himself.
Everyone fell silent for a moment, their emotions mixed.
Though Mo’s end was pitiable, the Human Race’s suffering over the past million years was his doing. Without him, after defeating those ancient great demons, the world would already belong to humanity. There would have been no endless war lasting countless ages.
The Mo calamity had inflicted unimaginable losses upon the Human Race. Over these million years, countless elite humans had marched to their deaths on the battlefield, one after another.
For humanity, whether Mo was pitiable or not, he was ultimately their greatest enemy.
The victor is king, the loser a bandit!
*Crack...*
A faint sound seemed to emerge from somewhere. Everyone turned to look, and immediately gasped in alarm.
"Big Brother!" Yang Xue cried out instantly, her gaze filled with terror as she stared at Yang Kai’s face.
The expressions of the others also grew solemn. A crack had actually appeared on Yang Kai’s face. It was not a normal wound; no blood flowed from it.
After the first crack appeared, a second immediately followed, then a third...
Not only was it on Yang Kai’s face, but his hands showed the same pattern.
The current Yang Kai looked like a porcelain vessel on the verge of shattering. From within those cracks, a power of the Great Dao emanated that made hearts tremble.
Yang Kai lowered his head to look at his hands and murmured, "Faster than I expected!"
He seemed to have long anticipated his current situation.
"What’s wrong?" Su Yan asked from behind him, her delicate body trembling uncontrollably.
After so many years of effort, Mo had finally been defeated, and the Mo calamity resolved. The future belonged to the era of human rule over the myriad heavens. It was foreseeable that everything would only improve from now on.
Yet, as the greatest contributor to this final battle, he was now enveloped in some inexplicable crisis from head to toe, leaving everyone no choice but to feel tense.
What made people even more uneasy was that this kind of injury was something none of them had ever seen before.
Yang Kai gently patted the back of Su Yan’s hand and reassured her, "I won’t die, but my time is running out."
"What exactly is happening?" Xiao Xiao asked with a grave expression.
"How should I put this..." Everyone around was worried to death, yet Yang Kai, the person involved, remained calm. "The Silhouette Technique is a secret art Mu created based on the Spacetime River. I inherited her mantle and walked the same path, so naturally I can also unleash this technique."
"However, Mu’s Spacetime River was incomplete, so the Silhouette Technique she performed was also imperfect. She could only summon silhouettes from past spacetime segments. If a silhouette dissipated, the memories of that spacetime segment would be lost. As for me, I perfected this technique and summoned silhouettes from *future* spacetime segments. Every single one of those silhouettes represents a version of myself from a future millennial spacetime segment. Now that those silhouettes have all dissipated, I must pay a certain price."
The more powerful the secret art, the harder it was to execute. The Silhouette Technique was undoubtedly the most powerful secret art that had ever appeared in this world. Especially since Yang Kai had surpassed his master and used this technique to defeat Mo, the price he had to pay would naturally not be small.
"If the silhouettes from past spacetime segments dissipated, the memories of the corresponding segments were lost. Then what is the price for the silhouettes from future spacetime segments dissipating?" Mi Jinglun asked gravely.
"In those future spacetime segments, I do not exist."
"Do not exist? What do you mean?"
"Though I don’t know how to explain it properly, that is simply the literal meaning."
Mi Jinglun was silent for a moment, digesting this baffling news. "You summoned eight silhouettes, which means eight thousand years?"
"Yes!"
"What happens after eight thousand years?"
Yang Kai shook his head. "I don’t know."
This was, after all, his first time wielding the Silhouette Technique. So, although he knew that for the next eight thousand years, he would not exist—erased by the power of spacetime—what would happen after those eight millennia, he could not say for certain.
"How can this be?" Yang Xue’s eyes were reddening.
"It’s not a big problem. After eight thousand years, I should be able to return," Yang Kai reassured her.
But his uncertain tone was audible to everyone.
A weight lifted from his back—it was Su Yan suddenly flickering away.
Soon she returned, but this time she had brought Yu Rumeng and the others over with her.