# 266
Chapter 266: Farewell, Seraph
The ashen-white earth stretched on without end, pitted with shattered craters. A pitch-black firmament arched overhead, and beyond it countless stars glittered in the boundless deep.
Lin Qiye stood in the bottom of an immense meteor crater, gazing upward. On the far horizon a blue planet slowly turned.
Nearly its entire surface was shrouded in gray fog; only Great Xia and the Arctic Circle remained untouched.
“This is…the Moon?” Lin Qiye murmured at the sight.
He lowered his gaze to the statue-like figure before him.
A body over ten meters tall, radiant with golden light; six great wings, white as snow, edged by the rising sun.
Exactly what he had seen ten years ago.
Had he come to the Moon…or merely returned in memory to witness this scene again?
The latter, he decided—looking down, he found no body. Only consciousness.
Suddenly the sculptural Seraph opened its eyes.
Furnace-bright, they eclipsed the sun; boundless divine might poured forth.
Instinctively Lin Qiye shut his eyes—he had no wish to go blind a second time.
“You have come.” An ancient, majestic voice echoed in his mind.
The Seraph spoke without moving its lips.
“Memory…or reality?” Lin Qiye answered inwardly.
“The consciousness hidden deepest within you—yet also reality,” the Seraph said. “Open your eyes. Ten years ago I burned them while pouring the Mortal Divine Realm and my power into you. That will not happen again.”
Lin Qiye obeyed. The radiance stung, but sight remained.
“My consciousness?” he asked, puzzled.
“Only when you fully inherit my God’s Ruins does this awareness awaken to answer your questions.”
“What happened?” Lin Qiye frowned. “Why did Cangnan vanish when I left?”
“Because it never should have existed.” The Seraph’s voice was calm. “Ten years ago the entire city was erased by Shiva’s Wrath. Only you, saved by a girl, survived.”
“Erased?” Lin Qiye froze. “Then the Cangnan City now…”
“It endures because of you—because of your Mortal Divine Realm,” the Seraph explained. “That realm is miracle wrought upon the mortal world: the dead returned, existence rebooted. All extreme impossibility is miracle. It began with me, exists because of you.”
“So you created everything…why?”
“I am merely a watcher; Earth’s affairs are not mine to meddle in.” A faint halo flickered in the Seraph’s eyes. “I acted for a bargain.”
“A bargain?”
“A century ago, when the fog first rose and I arrived upon this moon, one came to me—Lingbao Tianzun of Great Xia.”
The Seraph continued, “He bargained: ninety years hence, when Cangnan is erased, I would choose the sole survivor as my agent without condition, pour my power into him, and let the city persist ten more years.”
Lin Qiye’s mind reeled.
Lingbao Tianzun—one of Great Xia’s supreme trinity. So the gods of Great Xia were real… and had foreseen Cangnan’s doom, and his own survival, a hundred years ahead?
“I merely keep my word,” the Seraph said. “Now you are my agent, the Mortal Divine Realm complete, Cangnan sustained a decade. My task is done.”
“What did Lingbao Tianzun offer in return?”
The Seraph gave no answer; Lin Qiye knew better than to press.
Then he jerked his head up. “You said… the dead can return?”
“Shiva’s Wrath erases concept,” the Seraph replied. “When Cangnan was written, every life within was slain.”
The words struck like lightning. Ten years ago—Auntie and A Jin…
Lin Qiye opened his mouth, but the Seraph’s form began to fade, the world twisting. The lingering consciousness was dispersing.
“A remnant of my power remains in you; before it vanishes you may do what you will…”
Lin Qiye’s consciousness plunged; an instant later he was back in his body. No time had passed—it had felt like a dream.
He stared at the empty ground where the city had been, face bloodless. “No… impossible…”
Golden light erupted—Seraph’s remaining power—and he tore space, returning to the city.
He stood on a vacant lot, stunned.
This should be old low houses, a stairwell plastered with small ads, above it his home… with Auntie and A Jin inside.
He turned stiffly. The entire old quarter was gone—brick, tile, blade of grass—nothing remained.
His home… was gone.