As Gu Han’s words drew to a close, each sentence was a declaration, his beard and hair standing on end, his very essence surging with overwhelming power. His longsword, fluid as water, lifted slowly, held horizontally across his chest, and he spoke no more. Yet, a spirit of fierce loyalty erupted, piercing the heavens!

In the distance, Mei Xueyan’s eyes swam with unshed tears, her heart a tempest of emotion. Qiao Ying felt her very soul shudder uncontrollably, tears long since blurring her vision, her delicate frame trembling violently. Vaguely, she sensed something vital, something profoundly connected to her, slowly slipping away from her; a surge of grief overwhelmed her, threatening to tear her apart…

Suddenly, Gu Han let loose a long, piercing cry, a sound like metal striking stone across the void, eternal and ceaseless.

Before the echo of his cry had fully faded, Gu Han’s trembling longsword unleashed a mournful shriek, akin to a dragon’s roar and a tiger’s challenge. A light of sword energy, vaster than the cosmos itself, ascended. Gu Han, brandishing his blade, plunged headlong into the ranks of the alien race!

He struck first, not waiting for the enemy to advance! A life spent fighting for three thousand years, one sword once held back a million soldiers! A presence that scorned eternity, one sword severing past and present! The final glory of the Sacred Land—Gu Han! There is only Gu Han!

Sword light lashed out; blood poured like waterfalls, heads tumbled, forming rivers that seemed to flow unbroken from eighty-six hundred and thirty-three years ago straight to this very moment!

At this instant, Gu Han’s combat prowess had miraculously snapped back to its peak state. His composure was coldly, terrifyingly detached as he carved a path through the alien army as if they were ghosts. The blood spray hanging in the air and the unending screams seemed to be the simultaneous, tragic final requiem for the three Great Sacred Lands across all ages! Attack only, with absolutely no defense!

Meanwhile, on the alien side, excluding Chuang Shangbei Island, three of the other six Saint Monarch-level masters had converged here at some unknown point. Cooperating with all their available strength, they launched a siege against Gu Han!

Gu Han showed no fear, no hesitation. Restored to his peak state, man and sword alone, amidst the encirclement of over a thousand foes, he moved with perfect freedom, utterly unfazed! Countless sharp blades scored across his body; some shattered instantly under the force of his aura, often taking their wielders with them, killed by the sheer power of his Xuan Qi. Others, wielding deeper cultivation, managed to keep their swords intact long enough to pierce his flesh, only to have the blades immediately splinter under the impact of his dense Xuan Qi. Even the attacks from extremely powerful masters that managed to carve deep bloody gashes into him were instantly met with ferocious counter-strikes…

Though submerged multiple times within the crushing tide of the enemy army, Gu Han appeared completely oblivious. His gaze remained sharp and calm. After carving a path through the melee, he would invariably pivot and return to the front lines, guarding that crucial passage. It was as if he were still defending the ten-thousand-year honor of the Sacred Land! And then he would charge out again. A slaughter. Then return, then charge out again! This cycle repeated endlessly!

At this moment, Gu Han was like a killing machine that knew no fatigue, capable of deploying his absolute maximum combat strength with precise accuracy at any second, delivering the most devastating blows to the enemy! Back and forth he surged, repeating this pattern over twenty times within half an hour! Each time, the result was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood; countless lives of the alien race fell beneath Gu Han’s feet!

Gu Han laughed wildly. In his entire life, having lived two lifetimes, he had never felt so unrestrained. At this final moment of his existence, he intended to indulge himself completely! His pupils were wide, reflecting only the sheer ecstasy of slaughter! Those distant memories, those from his former life, those from this one, those belonging to Wu Shan Yun, those belonging to Gu Han…

Amidst this ceaseless killing, the world lost all color, all sound. Only fragments of Gu Han’s two lives played out in his mind, persistent and silent… every single fragment. So sharp, so clear! In his past life, dominating the world, joining the Sacred Land from above the Supreme level. Seeing the glory of millennia of resistance against the alien race within the Hidden Immortal Palace—the names of those predecessors, those brilliant years… How proud he had been then, proud because he belonged to the Sacred Land… Who debates the merits of ten thousand years? Can the spirit of the ancients be matched again!

Is glory past? Is honor gone? The two phrases swelled in Gu Han’s heart, bringing a pain like a knife twisting in his gut. He couldn't help but roar aloud: “Is glory past? Is honor gone? Is it gone? Gone?!” “Can a mistake erase all past sacrifices? All past merits? Can it? Can it?! Merit cannot mask error, but can error truly obliterate merit?! Can it? Can it?!”

He roared to the heavens, as if blaming the silent firmament! “Is the Sacred Land a disgrace? Is it?! Ten thousand years of effort! Ten thousand years of sacrifice! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!” Gu Han howled to the sky, a wild, maddened cry. His hair flew, and tears mingled with blood as they splashed outward!

Innumerable bodies of the alien race exploded around him, yet he continued to scream in his frenzy: “Mistakes! Mistakes! We will pay for them with all our lives! Can we? Can we!?” With a sudden, massive pivot, a fierce gust of energy swept across dozens of paces, centered on Gu Han’s body, sending the alien foes flying outward in a radial pattern, utterly routed! “Even if mistaken, we have nothing to fear from the common people of this world!” Gu Han shouted forth: “Even if mistaken, we have nothing to fear from this continent! Nothing to fear! Nothing!”

After fighting fiercely for a long time, the bodies of the alien race had formed a small mountain, a mountain that was visibly growing! Gu Han’s majestic, blood-soaked figure stood atop this veritable mountain of bones… His eyes, treating them as corpses, fixed upon the remaining less than six or seven hundred alien experts before him! Buried beneath his hand were already over a thousand alien Saint Emperor experts!

Though the tally was glorious, Gu Han’s current condition was far from optimistic; while not utterly spent, he was near the edge of complete exhaustion. His entire left arm was severed at the shoulder, and in his lower abdomen, a broken sword glinted—the handiwork of six alien Saint Monarchs. As for those Monarchs who achieved this feat, Gu Han had certainly not shown mercy; at the moment of impact, Gu Han, even while impaled, unleashed his sharpest counter-attack, annihilating them utterly, their very souls destroyed, never to reincarnate!

The reinforcements from the Heavenly Punishment side had arrived nearby. How could they bear to watch Gu Han fight alone? Several times they tried to rush in to assist, but Gu Han vehemently shouted them down! If he had allowed the Heavenly Punishment soldiers to join the fray, Gu Han could have retreated intact; severe injuries, even a lost arm, would have meant little. If he could just hold out for one month, until the effect of the Heaven Reversal Pill wore off, no injury would matter. With his power restored to the peak, achieving higher accomplishments in the future would have been no distant dream! Even without the Heavenly Punishment soldiers, given Gu Han’s abilities, if he had decided to leave, no one on that battlefield could have stopped him!

But none of this occupied Gu Han’s thoughts anymore… “This is the battle of the Sacred Land! Until the people of the Sacred Land are completely wiped out, no one is permitted to interfere! I am still here, I am still fighting! The Sacred Land is not yet dead, the Sacred Land has not yet fallen—we are still battling!” Gu Han’s expression was fiercely resolute: “If one person steps forward, I will turn my sword upon myself!”

Gu Han’s combat was no longer for himself, nor just to kill enemies; it was purely for—the glory of the Sacred Land! He knew that once he, the last remaining bastion, fell, the Sacred Land would truly become merely history, a relic of the past. Therefore, Gu Han struggled with every fiber of his being, extracting every last drop of his life essence, fighting to buy the Sacred Land even a fraction more time to exist. Even the span of a single breath. It was still the Sacred Land fighting! Still fighting! This was why he refused help from anyone! Help in any form! The final battle of the Sacred Land—this fight belonged only to the Sacred Land!

Gu Han’s body began to sway, and his vision was growing blurry. Human strength has its limits. To withstand thousands of peak masters alone, to last this long, was a miracle worthy of an immortal legend! Gu Han knew he had reached his limit! He might not even survive the next offensive…

Before him, there were fewer than four hundred remaining! However, those who had survived this far were undoubtedly masters of considerable strength. These alien experts stared at him with ferocious, wolf-like gazes, hoping he would simply collapse. Even knowing this man was utterly exhausted, running on fumes, no one dared to test Gu Han’s edge.

The final moment had arrived. “This old man can still kill!” Gu Han roared, charging forward once more in his accustomed, headlong assault! The remaining three hundred-plus alien experts, all at their peak, instantly perceived that Gu Han had truly reached the point of utter depletion; he was, after all, a man, not a god! Over fifteen hundred alien Saint Emperor experts had already met their end by his hand!

With a unified cry, the remaining alien masters swarmed him! Blades and swords flashed! The supreme glory of slaying the Sacred Land’s foremost powerhouse—who wouldn’t desire it? The two participating alien Saint Monarchs charged to the very front. In a flash, the two sides violently collided! The entirety of time and space seemed to freeze instantaneously at this moment!

The shining longswords of the two alien Saint Monarchs pierced Gu Han’s body without resistance, straight into his chest. Countless knives and swords struck him simultaneously. Gu Han neither dodged nor flinched, his expression remaining detached, save for his two hands which shot out like lightning, gripping the chests of the two Saint Monarchs. He shouted with all his remaining strength: “Jun Mo Xie! Do not forget my charge!” This voice was shrill to the absolute extreme, as if it could bore directly into the soul of every person present, echoing across the battlefield for a long time!

With a deafening explosion! Gu Han, the Sacred Land’s foremost expert of the Xuan Xuan Continent, suddenly self-detonated! An unprecedentedly violent explosion, like an atomic bomb detonating. The immense shockwave instantly shattered half of the two mountains that Jun Mo Xie had just raised! Of the remaining three hundred-plus alien experts, over two hundred perished in the blast. Even those few who managed to survive were tossed about like ragdolls by the powerful impact, rolling helplessly far away. The two alien Saint Monarchs, pinned by Gu Han’s grasp and unable to escape, were ultimately buried with him!

The entire battlefield fell suddenly silent. Every gaze turned toward that spot. Every mind felt solemn and hushed, filled with supreme reverence! Jun Mo Xie’s heart ached, and the tears he had held back finally streamed down his face. (Is glory past? Is honor gone? Is it gone? Gone?!)