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Above, a vermilion sky. Below, earth stained crimson. To the sides, mountains dyed scarlet.

The brutality of this battle is beyond the power of language to describe.

The bestial Ju's body lies scattered to the four winds. This Feranmut who fought to stop the fighting, ultimately became a sacrifice to it.

The bestial Hou lies prone, the great forest upon Its back withered away. Its final act of resistance is birthed from Its body: a band of light shaped like a chain of butterflies flies off into the distance after piercing the stunned Sui, before fading from all of recorded history.

As for the one who started it all, the 'victor' of this desperate, bloody struggle, It too falls to the ground, Its body covered in gashes and lacerations.

Lin Qingyan and Zuo Le charge to the forefront, leaving Yun Qingping in the rear, alone.

He records everything that happens here in minute detail. Despite the fact that, once this is all over, both the paper and their memories shall be as blank as the writings in Jianzi Shrine, he records.

This is his duty.

As for what comes next, it is as the annals of history have always said: Yan ennobles the gods, the bestial Sui falls into slumber, Baizao is constructed, and an age of peace and prosperity begins.

Not long after, the True Lung leaves his encampment, accompanied by the Imperial Guard, walking towards Sui's head. Yun Qingping arrives at the front, and finds Lin Qingyan and Zuo Le.

Through this scroll, they view the memories in the depths of Sui's consciousness. Perhaps the entire meaning of the ceremony had changed the moment they stepped into Its tomb.

But even now, humanity is unsure how that scroll could alter their current predicament.

The True Lung stands before Sui, his eyes trained upon the colossus.

Where he stands, he needs not look up towards It as a god, nor does he need to look down upon It as the quelled loser of the war. He chooses equality as he faces his 'ally'.

After some thinking, the True Lung opens his mouth to proclaim the end of the gods, and then—

The scroll is rolled up, and placed back into its box.

The Candleholders and the Tianshis who took part in the ceremony hand the scroll over to the Sui Regulator, while the Tianshis in charge of the Tomb of Sui send their data back to Baizao.

The awakening of Sui is still unavoidable, but Its ability to transcend cause and effect seems to have changed a little.

The alterations to history humanity made as they stepped into Sui's memories have branded themselves deep into Its mind, thanks to the creation of the Sui proxy.

Perhaps now, Yan has a new way to settle the question of the bestial Sui.

Within the treasure room of the Garden of Grotesqueries, Yi slowly unfurls a scroll.

In both size and shape, it is a perfect copy of the one in the custody of the Sui Regulator.

But as it unfurls, the space that should be blank is instead a recreation of the end of the great wild hunt.

The Feranmut who once forded the land with ease retains Its lofty stature in drawn form, but lacks Its former unapproachable grandiosity. Under the encirclement of humanity, It could not escape Its fated extermination.

Then comes the transformation of Hou into butterflies and the fall of Sui. All as according to history, but then—

At the point where the gods should have been ennobled, the True Lung instead promised to grant Sui the guise of man.

Yan once feared the gods, feared the reality-warping power They wielded.

And so, by the will of the emperor, they slaughtered Them, drove Them away, and barred Them from these lands.

But now, by bestowing unto the past millennia worth of knowledge and emotion through the power of the scroll, Great Yan has a new choice.

From fear came the desire for eradication, but if man were proven to have long been the master of nature, then could there not be pardons and tolerance instead?

Yi continues to unfurl the scroll.

Where there should have been a drawing of Sui, there is now only a single, smudged drop of ink.

But this drop is on the scroll in reality, unlike the many illusions before it.

No matter if it represents Sui's memories, doubts, or Its incomplete humanity, there is one thing Yi is sure of—

With this dot, this one dot, words can be written, books can be scribed, fields of study can be established, and men can be made.

Thus, Yi ponders for a moment, before taking the scroll to Jianzi Shrine.

Before the door of the memorial hall, he wets his finger with cloud and rain, and dabs at the spot of ink on the scroll. He tentatively presses his finger against a plaque.

And so, for the first time in a hundred and twenty years, words are written upon this hall.