“So in other words, we’ve been expelled,” Zhang Shan asked with a smile.

“No… it’s not ‘expulsion,'” Chu Tianqiu answered. “‘Heavenly Gate’ is gone. There’s no need for you all to stake your lives for these three ethereal words, so flee while you still can.”

“So you’re no longer our leader?” Little Glasses also asked from the side.

“I don’t have to respectfully call you ‘brother’ anymore, do I?” Jin Yuanxun said.

“You all…”

“We can do whatever we want, right?” Li Xiangling asked with a smile.

Hearing everyone’s questions, Chu Tianqiu felt his nose tingle involuntarily, and an extremely complex feeling lingered in his heart.

“So from now on, you can’t give us orders anymore,” Zhang Shan said. “I want to die here myself. No problem with that, right?”

“That’s right,” Jin Yuanxun nodded. “I suddenly feel like fighting today. This venue is just right. Die if I die, so what?”

“Tianqiu…” Wen Qiaoyun also said from the side. “Do you truly believe that these people staked their lives merely because of the three words ‘Heavenly Gate’?”

“I…”

After hearing this, the many members of “Heavenly Gate” merely maintained their composure, as if Chu Tianqiu hadn’t said anything at all.

Many people had been with “Heavenly Gate” since its founding. Perhaps they and Chu Tianqiu had gaps in their memories, but their current feelings had no such gaps.

When they saw “Heavenly Gate” disbanded yet these people still chose to die here, Chu Tianqiu finally understood what the feeling lingering in his heart was.

It was a heavy sense of solitude that had persisted for a long time and was only now finally beginning to dissolve.

It was a solitude of walking against the flow in a crowd; a solitude of looking down at the ground during gatherings; a solitude of wanting to speak but always worrying that no one would understand.

He felt an urge to cry, yet he knew he wasn’t sad and theoretically shouldn’t shed tears.

But when he touched his own cheeks, tears had already fallen long ago.

Perhaps the emotions that cause tears aren’t only sadness, but also smiling like he was now.

Once upon a time, he had rushed into “Heavenly Gate” carrying an ethereal wish.

Originally intending to save all the lost travelers of the “Land of Finality,” at the final moment he was instead saved by “Heavenly Gate.”

Yes, the meaning of its existence had always pointed toward heaven.

“I understand…” Chu Tianqiu said. “I finally understand… What we need to look at next isn’t ‘Heaven’s Will,’ but ‘My Will.’ After all, this character ‘Heaven’… was added by my later self.”

He slowly extended his right hand, four bloody eyeballs held between his five fingers.

“Tianqiu… you…” Wen Qiaoyun sensed something amiss and reached out to stop Chu Tianqiu. “You already look like you’ve had an ‘excessive Echo’…”

“Merely a hundred people,” Chu Tianqiu said with a tearful smile. “I take back my words. ‘Taking on a hundred alone’ can truly be done—it just depends on what price you’re willing to pay.”

He slowly pushed Wen Qiaoyun aside and tossed all four eyeballs into his mouth and crushed them.

The next second, his hair stood slightly on end, his pupils became blood-red at this moment, and a strange magnetic field began to ripple outward around him.

“I’m someone who’s prepared to peer into the ‘Divine Dream Realm.’ I’m someone prepared to strike cracks in the Heavenly Dragon’s dreams…” Chu Tianqiu said in a hoarse voice. “How could I possibly… lose here to mere ‘Heaven’s Will.'”

The Earth-Mouse in the distance couldn’t help but furrow his brow upon seeing this scene. The aura emanating from this person was truly too strange.

He seemed like Qinglong, yet not entirely so.

Chu Tianqiu pointed at a withered tree with an outstretched hand. The next second, that withered tree began to transform into countless fragments. Immediately after, a fierce wind rolled up, and countless fragments swept over the dozen or so people before him like locusts.

Under the immense “forceful wind” and “displacement,” those fragments began to penetrate the skin of numerous “Participants,” instantly leaving everyone bloody and mangled.

Chu Tianqiu walked forward, waving both hands in the fierce wind like a conductor performing in the open air during a storm. The fragments filling the sky began to rotate at high speed around him.

Many “Participants” finally realized at this moment that Chu Tianqiu, who had never made a move until now, was perhaps the most powerful “Echo” user in this team. But Chu Tianqiu’s appearance remained very strange—he looked like he was completely on the edge of madness. As long as everyone could withstand this wave of attacks, the other party might automatically retreat in defeat.

Thinking of this, many “Participants” began to lift the corpses from the ground and hold them in front of themselves, using them to absorb the violent sharp fragments filling the sky.

Chu Tianqiu had prepared for this early on. When the corpses were filled with fragments, he raised his right hand and clenched it fiercely. A continuous series of micro-explosions began to spread across the corpses. Blood and shredded flesh gradually burst forth in muffled sounds, once again injuring a large swath of “Participants.”

He himself also slowly bent over at this moment, gasping for breath in great gulps.

This “combination Echo” caused excruciating pain between his brows, as if even his soul was about to be drawn away.

“No good, I’m still afraid…” Chu Tianqiu murmured. “How can someone like me walk into his dream…”

He reached up to support his forehead, feeling as if his brain had activated some protective mechanism, using pain to remind him that what he was doing now was extremely dangerous.

“You must liberate yourself…” Chu Tianqiu seemed to be talking to his own brain. “Only fear causes pain… but there’s nothing to fear here…”

Seeing that a gap had appeared in Chu Tianqiu’s attacks, many “Participants” immediately charged forward, preparing to surround him completely. The “Heavenly Gate” members around him also hurried forward, using their own bodies to block attacks for Chu Tianqiu.

In the chaos, a “Participant” holding a sharpened iron pipe rushed forward and thrust it straight toward Chu Tianqiu’s heart.

“Why do you obstruct our escape!!” That person’s eyes had turned red with killing intent, venting all his hatred onto Chu Tianqiu.

At the critical moment, Wen Qiaoyun leaped forward and threw herself directly onto the other party, tackling him to the ground.

Chu Tianqiu’s eyes suddenly widened, feeling that all his headache was being suppressed by something at this moment.

“Damn it!” Zhang Shan shook off several people in front of him and hurried to Wen Qiaoyun’s side, forcibly separating her from the entangled Participant.

The next second, he saw that Wen Qiaoyun’s entire abdomen had been slashed open with a large gash. That sharpened iron pipe was stabbed diagonally inside, outputting blood like a water pipe.

“Qiaoyun…” Chu Tianqiu raised his head, his eyes already blood-red to the extreme.

He didn’t have time for any extra movements. He simply turned his hand and grasped, and another eyeball appeared in his hand.

“You won’t die… Qiaoyun… I still have one ‘Endless Life’… I’ll right now…”

“No…” Wen Qiaoyun reached out her hand toward Chu Tianqiu and said weakly, “Tianqiu… you can’t… I was supposed to die…”

“What nonsense are you saying…” Chu Tianqiu said with wide eyes.

“Don’t throw away all your rationality… don’t swallow that thing…” Wen Qiaoyun said with a bitter smile.

Chu Tianqiu held that eyeball in his hand. He knew that what he needed to save wasn’t just Wen Qiaoyun, but also that bottomless solitude.