Chapter 763 – The Sea of False Peaks and Twisted Paths, Cause from Effect, Truth Unseen - Part 1

“Farewell to the Sage!”

“Farewell, Master!”

Above the sky, the highest beings of the Heavenly Court watched as the most brilliant moment in the history of this era unfolded before them.

Yin and Yang energy flowed like rivers drawn into a vortex, spiraling toward the unknown.

They knew the Heavens had shattered, but no one could say exactly where the break had occurred, or how to mend it.

But the Sage who had enlightened this world could.

In the Violet Heaven Palace, beneath the ringing of sacred bells, a young man once sat cross-legged at the peak of existence, teaching the Dao again and again to a gathering of children. Across lifetimes, he taught. In every era, he taught.

Many of the Gods and Immortals present had deep ties to Li Yuan. Some had been his disciples for multiple lifetimes, some for hundreds.

And now, all those ties seemed to lead to this one final moment.

The Heavens would fall.

The world would empty.

This was not a trial meant to temper Heaven and Earth. This was annihilation, and no one could escape it.

Some whispered that perhaps the Sage might survive. But the Sage himself was already walking, hands clasped behind his back, toward the broken Heavens.

In the void, ripples began to appear, unseen but unmistakable. They were countless small worlds.

One...two...a hundred...a thousand...three thousand...ten thousand...thirty thousand.

All these worlds unfolded from Li Yuan’s palm.

And then, with a single grasp, he clenched them into a fist. The worlds pressed against one another, collided, compressed. From the outside, it looked like a solid stone formed from the compression of all existence.

But it was no stone. It was something harder than the very cycle of life and death, something forged from the marrow of reality itself.

A five-colored brilliance burst forth in the void.

Time began to slow, and slow, and slow...

To most, Li Yuan seemed to freeze. Only the most supreme beings could perceive his continued movement, as he slowly, slowly raised that fist of worlds above his head.

And then, at the moment his hand reached the highest point, he stopped. Still as a statue. A silhouette, frozen for eternity, arm raised toward the broken Heavens, offering the weight of 30,000 worlds.

That image seared itself into the eyes of every God and Immortal.

He walked into death to mend the Heavens.

And in doing so, he shook the hearts of all who watched.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Time passed.

Li Yuan’s form never changed.

But the leak of spiritual energy began to slow, slow enough to resemble the days of hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The leak did not stop, but it did slow.

In the jade phoenix carriage, the Divine Mother of the West shed quiet tears.

At the head of a long chariot pulled by golden dragons, the Jade Emperor gazed into the distance, long and silent.

On the chaos-ridden planet at the edge of the universe, the Evil God Li Ping’an sat in solemn silence.

In the mortal world, a man locked in battle with a three-headed bronze giant paused mid-fight. Gripping his giant axe and riding a compass-like treasure vehicle, he suddenly looked skyward. He seemed to feel something.

He tilted his head back, let out a long howl, and stared up into the stars.

Beyond the 33 heavens, unlike what mortals imagined, this place was full of the scent of hearth and home. In a little kitchen, a young woman stirred a pot of porridge and forced a smile, her eyes constantly drifting toward the door.

Outside, the garden path had been swept again and again. She and every woman here was waiting for him to return.

But would he?

“He has already stepped outside the timeline of this starry sky.”

“The final image he left behind will remain frozen for eternity. Unless this starry sky is destroyed, every Immortal and God will still see that figure, etched in the void.”

“That was his final form within this cosmos.”

“And that form...will forever inspire those who come after.”

“Where is he now?”

“No one knows.”

“But...the Primordial Earth Mother still waits for him in the stars.”

The Heavens remained broken. Yet time had been pulled back, restored to how it was 300,000 years ago.

The Sage might not have fully mended the Heavens, but he had extended the life of this world.

From that day on, countless others would attempt to take up the task of patching the Heavens.

One by one, they left behind their final images at the edge of time, like a wall of sages standing tall, frozen in eternity.

Yan Yu’s soul fragment quietly watched as each of these worthy beings stepped forward, one after another, to try their hand at saving the Heavens.

She was still waiting.

Maybe she was the only one who could still feel that connection.

The bond between her and Li Yuan...had never broken.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Hundreds of thousands of years later.

Yan Yu’s soul fragment still stood in the void, eyes gazing far into the cosmic horizon.

And then, suddenly, a figure emerged in the distance.

Hair white as snow, a weary figure crossed into the universe. But as soon as he entered, that white hair turned black again, while the universe itself began to age.

The man remained young, but the mountains and rivers withered in his wake.

It was Li Yuan.

Yan Yu’s soul fragment smiled. Like a girl seeing her beloved return, she ran through the stars and threw herself into his arms. And only then did she realize how frail he’d become, how close to death he now was.

“Yan Yu...”

That voice. A familiar call, echoing after hundreds of millennia apart.

He had returned from mending the Heavens, scarred by trials no one could imagine. He was drained, broken, and near death. Perhaps the only thing that had kept him going...was the thought of home.

Yan Yu didn’t answer.

Instead, her body suddenly surged with a limitless power, wrapping around him like a silken cocoon spun in haste by a giant silkworm.

In her gentle embrace, Li Yuan felt an overwhelming power engulf him. A force so strong it seemed to reassemble him, piece by piece, like shards of a puzzle finding their places again.

He was at the very peak of Heaven Soul second rank, stepping even beyond it and only a breath away from first rank.

But Yan Yu...she had reached even further. She was near the apex of both Earth Soul and Heaven Soul second rank, almost stepping into the realm of true unity.

He had consumed the Dao Fruit and Human Seed Fruit, but he’d never eaten the Solar Yang Blossom or Lunar Yin Grass.

Now, in this moment of reunion, he could feel it, this perfect, harmonious power surrounding him. And suddenly he understood.

She was the one who had taken them.

She was the one who had walked through endless fusions, from her first merging with Feng’er, to the fusion with the peddler in the ancient ghost street, from absorbing countless wandering ghosts along the way, to the merging of the Exotic Beast Park, Happyland Zoo, and the Grand Union of Yin and Yang, becoming a forbidden existence who devoured the Northern Dipper to build the Underworld.

And she had not stopped there.

She went on to merge with the Four Symbols.

She went on...to merge with the entire realm of reincarnation.

At this moment, it seemed she was preparing for her final fusion.

And the one she intended to fuse with...was him.

Li Yuan froze for just a breath, but then opened his heart, his soul, everything.

If he were to become one with Yan Yu...even if she were the one to absorb him...then so be it. He had no regrets.

Suddenly, he recalled something the Four Symbols had shouted at him long ago.

Back then, the Four Symbols had roared, “She devours me today. She’ll devour

you

tomorrow!”

Li Yuan gave a faint smile and whispered gently, “Yan Yu, take it slow. There’s no rush. I won’t move.”

He felt her soft breath at his ear, her presence close enough to melt into. His head lolled weakly onto her shoulder. In the vast, boundless starlight ahead, he gazed into the quiet glimmers in the dark.

“I’ve been a sage for so many years...and I still don’t really understand it. A heart like mine, just an ordinary person’s, wasn’t meant to sit out in the cold void above the Heavens. If it weren’t for you, Yan Yu...I’d have died long ago, lived barely a few decades, never seen any of this wonder.

“I’ve seen enough now. Really. So whatever you want to do, just do it. Thank you. Really...thank you for letting me witness so much beauty.”

He paused for a moment.

“That breach in the Heavens, there’s nothing to see, really. Just an endless web of holes, with a terrifying gravity pulling everything in. But maybe, just maybe, if you’re strong enough, if you throw enough worlds into it, you can plug the gap.”

And then, with the care of a teacher passing down his final lesson, he began to describe everything he saw inside the

little red dot...

every detail, every insight. All of this was just in case Yan Yu tried to mend the heavens again one day.

But as he spoke, his strength began to fade.

He felt an overwhelming, almost painful comfort, like a weary traveler soaking in the waters of an oasis after walking the desert for too long. He felt so comfortable it made him sleepy.

“Yan Yu...good night,” Li Yuan said softly.

There was no reply.

Li Yuan closed his eyes.

He felt himself dissolving and melting away.

In the starry sky, a dreamlike cosmic egg hovered like a giant, glowing embryo.

Inside it, Li Yuan and Yan Yu were undergoing the final, irreversible fusion.