Chapter 762 – Today, I Patch the Heavens - Part 2

Another half-year passed.

This time, Li Yuan returned to the nine-way fork accompanied by both Yan Yu’s soul fragment and Sheng'er.

Again, he summoned nine mutated demonic beasts to test the paths.

This time, the

correct

door had shifted from the center to another corridor.

The three of them entered the new path.

Sure enough, as they reached the sealed door at the end, Li Yuan’s combat power started plummeting. If he dared to pass through that final gate, he was certain his stats would fall to something like 0~1.

That was the rule of the Deathless Tomb.

No matter how powerful you were, once you entered, your strength would be stripped to its barest essence...0~1, a cruel leveling field.

At this point, there was no need for more discussion.

Sheng'er gazed at the towering silhouette beyond the gate. Light traced its edges, outlining a form that pulsed with divine stillness. Her long hair shimmered, transforming into an azure bird, which then darted into the portal.

Li Yuan and Yan Yu waited quietly.

Moments later, Sheng'er let out a startled cry.

“Papa, Mama, there’s a tree inside! And on the tree...there’s a black and white Yin-Yang fish spinning around it. Just like the one in the Deathless Tomb! But it’s not as cold...not as dark. There’s light here.”

Li Yuan got straight to the point. “Do you see any fruit?”

“I’m looking,” she muttered, clearly distracted. “Give me a second...”

A long pause.

“No fruit,” she finally called back.

Then, her voice rose in surprise, “Wait, this black-and-white fish...it’s

different

from the one in the Deathless Tomb! There’s an empty space in the middle, like something’s missing!”

That triggered something in Yan Yu’s memory. A flash of insight.

“The fruit of transcendence...it’s born on the other shore. The Yin-Yang Divine Tree... Between the black and white fish, there should be a space. That’s where the Dao Fruit is supposed to grow.”

She raised her voice. “Sheng'er, look closely. If the black and white fish ever open up, the fruit will be there. It

has

to be.”

Sheng'er nodded obediently and sent more green birds to explore.

Li Yuan, seeing that the birds hadn’t been harmed after so long, said, “We might as well go in and take a look.”

Moments later, the three of them stepped through the gate.

Sunlight and moonlight poured into the space simultaneously, bright and soft, day and night interwoven. Half the sky gleamed like noon, the other half glowed with cool lunar light. Strangely, green grass blanketed the ground beneath their feet.

Soft and lush, the meadow rippled gently in the breeze like an emerald carpet. The atmosphere was tranquil, serene, soothing to both body and spirit.

Gone was the suffocating gravity of the ancient halls. This place seemed untouched by corruption, free of lurking threats.

Li Yuan glanced at his stats again.

Just as expected, they now read 0~1.

Between the Sun and Moon hung a Yin-Yang of black and white fish, gently circling one another atop a strange, ancient tree. At the very center, where the fish should have met, there was a hollow, a space shaped exactly like a fruit. But the fruit was gone.

Suddenly, a young girl’s voice rose beside Li Yuan.

“It’s been eaten.”

Sheng'er turned and saw a dazed little girl.

“Ah Ting,” she called softly. Then she spotted the boy nearby. “And Xiao Xu.”

The three of them weren’t surprised by the children’s presence. After all, Ah Ting and Xiao Xu had been kept aboard the voidship. Once the trio entered this strange world, Li Yuan had simply brought the children down with them.

“It got eaten,” Xiao Xu said again, clearly disappointed.

Yan Yu’s soul-clone couldn’t help but ask, “Who ate it?”

Ah Ting glanced around, then abruptly looked up at Li Yuan, a strange expression crossing her face.

Xiao Xu seemed to sense something as well. He turned toward Li Yuan too, blinking slowly as he stared at him for a long moment. Then, like Ah Ting, his gaze turned oddly curious, almost accusatory.

Ah Ting said it directly, “You did.”

Li Yuan blinked. “This is my

first

time here. How could I have eaten it?”

“I used to wonder how you managed to break free of this universe. Even reaching second rank Human Soul, that sort of feat should’ve been impossible. Escaping the Three Realms is no small thing. But now I get it. You ate the Dao Fruit. Its power took root in your body, and

that’s

why your second rank is so much stronger than anyone else’s,” Ah Ting replied. “And because of that, you’re bound to this world in a way no one else is.”

“...” Li Yuan was stunned.

All this time, he’d thought the thing anchoring him to this world was Yan Yu, that it was because of her that his voidship never left the Ancestral Land.

“No. That’s impossible. This is

definitely

the first time I’ve been here. I’ve never seen any Dao Fruit, let alone eaten one.”

But Ah Ting and Xiao Xu had already lost interest. Their expressions turned a little sulky, like kids who’d fished all day and come up empty.

“Go look around,” Ah Ting said lazily. “If the Dao Fruit has appeared and been eaten, then the other things should be nearby too. The Human Seed Fruit, Solar Yang Blossom, and Lunar Yin Grass should all be close.”

“Not fun anymore,” Xiao Xu mumbled.

A gust of wind swept through, and just like that, the odd pair of children vanished.

For Li Yuan, Yan Yu, and Sheng'er, the only thing left behind was a strange influx of information in their minds. They didn’t know where it came from, nor did they feel the need to question it.

They began searching the area.

Again and again, they combed through the field, but found nothing.

The Human Seed Fruit, Solar Yang Flower, and Lunar Yin Grass were all gone, as if they had never existed.

“Let’s go back.” At last, Yan Yu’s soul fragment let out a quiet sigh. But then she turned to Li Yuan, eyes suddenly shining with amusement. “So...when exactly

did

you eat that Dao Fruit?”

“...” Li Yuan fell silent, unable to answer the question himself.

Empty-handed, the three of them returned to the voidship.

But the question gnawed at Li Yuan’s mind. Why had everything vanished? Why were the Dao Fruit, Human Seed Fruit, Solar Yang Blossom, and Lunar Yin Grass

all

missing?

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Time passed, day by day.

Back in the Peach Blossom Sanctuary, Li Yuan resumed his quiet life. Every now and then, he wandered the mortal world, helping those in need, performing small acts of kindness, not as some grand sage, but just as an ordinary cultivator with a little strength to spare.

And so, the legend of the Sage began to fade.

In the Underworld, the Primordial Earth Mother gazed into the Mirror of Reincarnation. And for the first time, the chaotic veil of fate parted. The vision she saw was of the cycle of reincarnation, and its once-shrouded destiny had become crystal clear.

The Mirror’s revelation was

great fortune

.

This meant that the realm of reincarnation would merge with the Underworld, forming a brand new cycle of samsara.

The stars scattered across the Heavens had long since become a graveyard. The only spark of life that remained still flickered within the Ancestral Land

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙.

In the blink of an eye, 2,000 years passed.

The realm of reincarnation descended in full and merged seamlessly with the Underworld.

For a time, the Underworld became a sealed black egg. No way in, no way out.

Yet through it all, Li Yuan remained still. Not just because Yan Yu insisted he hold back, but because Yan Yu’s soul fragment had basically taken up permanent residence in the Peach Blossom Sanctuary, freeloading without a care in the world.

That same year, a strange phenomenon swept across the mortal world. No woman could conceive.

And just as strangely, a year later, the anomaly vanished without explanation.

It was the exact moment the

new

Underworld was born.

Li Yuan visited the new realm.

It had become a vast dominion of eighteen halls, eighteen levels deep.

The fire that once incinerated all had now become the inferno of the lowest level of the Underworld, where it served a new purpose, and that was punishing irredeemable souls. After ages of torment, these vile spirits would be erased from the timeline itself, then reforged anew, purified.

This lowest level had a name now, Avici

Yan Yu had tried to recreate the Six Paths of Reincarnation, but she failed.

What emerged instead were two monsters.

The first was the final evolution of the contaminated lifeform from Li Yuan’s gourd, a dragon. This dragon had the power to bend time. It could trap enemies inside the cycles of seasons or within the confines of day and night. Its eyes open, day. Eyes shut, night. A single breath brought spring and summer; a single inhale summoned autumn and winter.

The second...was Ping'an.

Or rather, what he had become, the Evil God Li Ping'an.

His core consciousness had finally awakened, but he could only stay lucid for one hour each day.

Li Yuan cleansed the three ancient halls of all danger.

With that, his shortage of forging materials was finally over.

Now that he had abundance, even lifespan-enhancing resources didn’t matter so much.

It took him two full millennia, but with the vast structures of the three great halls as anchors, he forged an entire world.

However, because the halls were originally part of this world, Li Yuan couldn’t take the finished realm and store it aboard his voidship.

Instead, Sheng'er led her azure birds and the villagers from the Peach Blossom Sanctuary to settle inside this newly forged land.

Li Yuan raised the Hall of Solar Yang high into the sky, closer to the Heavens, and Sheng'er, ever playful, cheekily dubbed the place Heaven’s Court.

For a time, spiritual energy flooded the Heavenly Court. The external world’s spiritual energy naturally flowed into this elevated realm first, and only after being filtered did a thinner stream reach the mortal world below.

Later, after discussion with Yan Yu, Li Yuan began relocating powerful cultivators from the mortal world into the Heavenly Court.

For one, only this realm now had the resources and density of spiritual energy suitable for real cultivation.

And second, the mortal world had seen enough bloodshed. Every war between the strong inevitably spilled over into the lives of ordinary people. With the Heavenly Court now established, the powerful could fight to their heart’s content

up there

.

Though the Heavenly Court brimmed with energy, resources remained scarce. Competition was fierce. The strong fought, clawed, and killed for every inch of advantage.

Yet no matter how chaotic things got...there was always a rumor, a certain legend...

It was that in the Heavenly Court, there existed a mysterious woman, Divine Mother of the West.

They said she dwelled in the Jade Pool, a paradise hidden within the realm.

And in that paradise stood a single tree, bearing peaches that, once eaten, could extend your life by a thousand years.

Legend had it that within the Heavenly Court, there existed a mysterious sage. And without the Sage’s decree, no one was permitted to descend to the mortal world.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Time flowed on.

Eventually, the elusive Divine Mother of the West revealed herself to the world. She brought order to the Heavenly Court, establishing laws and a system of governance.

By then, the passage between Heaven and Earth was no longer a secret. The entrance, however, lay just beside the Divine Mother’s domain, her Jade Pool.

If one wished to descend to the mortal world, her approval was required. To do so without it was to violate the Heavenly Mandate, punishable by death.

The Divine Mother cultivated quietly beside the Jade Pool, but in truth, she also served as the gatekeeper to the mortal world.

And so, the Heavenly Court was formally severed from the world of man.

The tide of war, once ravaging the mortal world, now surged upward into the heavens.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Centuries passed, years stacked upon years, and 3,000 passed in the blink of an eye.

Above the Heavenly Court rose a new realm, the Violet Heaven.

There, an ancient patriarch opened an altar and began preaching the Dao.

Many Gods and Immortals gained enlightenment, and their powers soared.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Then came another blink, and 30,000 years passed.

Within the dao palace of Violet Heaven, a sermon was held once every 1,000 years.

And with each sermon came an escalation of the heavenly bloodshed. The killing became more frenzied, more merciless. Geniuses, war gods, and celestial prodigies fell like rain.

At the heart of the Violet Heaven Palace sat Li Yuan.

He watched the endless cycles of slaughter and rebirth in the Heavenly Court.

Each life lost was a sacrifice to patch the Heavens, a soul that used its body to uphold the Dao, restoring, in some small way, the vitality of this fragile, dying universe.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Another 30,000 years later...

A new figure rose to power in the Heavenly Court, the Jade Emperor.

Rumors swirled that his mortal surname was

Ji

, but no one could say for sure.

𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

What everyone

did

know was that he had weathered countless apocalyptic calamities to reach the throne where he now sat.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

The days crawled on like ants beneath a grindstone. Time flew like shuttle thread.

300,000 years passed.

And then, on one particular day, Li Yuan stood at the edge of the Heavens, gazing toward a tiny crimson speck that shimmered in the vast void where the fabric of space met the Ancestral Land.

That

tiny red speck

had grown massively.

Even with all the efforts of the world, even as wave after wave of heavenly wars rose and fell, that spot continued to swell. It grew larger, brighter, and more ominous.

Yan Yu’s soul fragment stood beside him, silently observing the same phenomenon.

They weren’t alone. Other Gods, those who had forged small worlds of their own and reached the peak of second rank, had gathered there too.

Most of them couldn’t see the red spot. But they could

feel

it, the rush of Yin and Yang energy, draining away like water through a cracked dam, never to return.

“This isn’t a problem

within

the world,” Li Yuan said, his voice low. “It’s

outside

of it.”

Then he fell silent for a long time, eyes drifting over the Heavenly Court and the mortal world below. After a moment, he turned to Yan Yu and spoke softly.

“Yan Yu, there’s a secret I’ve kept for long enough. I’m not from this world. In my world, we have a saying.

As long as sages do not perish, great thieves will not stop.

But here...it’s different.

As long as sages do not perish, great calamities will not stop.

”

He looked into the growing void.

“But what can we do? Even after giving it everything we had, this world still seems destined for destruction.

Heaven gave birth to all things, to nourish humanity. And humanity, in turn, must offer itself to mend the heavens.

“Every God and Immortal who’s still here, haven’t they all sacrificed some part of themselves to keep the Heavens from shattering? And now, none of you can even see where the wound is.

“So, only I can go. Only I can reach it. Heaven nourishes all. But it nourishes me as well...”

And with that, Li Yuan rose, hands clasped behind his back. Under the watchful gaze of the highest Gods and Immortals, he flew toward the great red rupture in the void.

His voice echoed softly through the air.

“Today, I patch the Heavens.”

Author’s Note

This isn’t the end. There’s a twist coming. It won’t end in tragedy.