Chapter 769 - When Myth Walks Among Us, the Wheel Turns Again; A Lone Boat Sets Sail for the Vast Sea - Part 3

At that very moment, deep within the heart of the rift, a goddess draped in flowing azure robes, radiant beyond mortal comprehension descended.

Each step she took bloomed into a lotus in the void, blossoming and vanishing in an instant.

She arrived at the center of the abyss.

There, two fish circled endlessly through the darkness.

One was black, shadowy and elusive, embodying the ultimate Yin.

The other was white, dense with radiance, pulsing with pure Yang.

And between them floated a single fruit.

This was no ordinary fruit. It was a

Dao Fruit

, the crystallization of all the cosmic laws of an entire era. A seed of truth born of the universe itself.

The goddess reached into her robes and pulled out three things: a fruit, a flower, and a single blade of grass. Then she extended her hand toward the Dao Fruit, ready to pluck it.

However, it was not for herself.

She wasn’t seeking enlightenment or power. She wanted to use this Dao Fruit as a key, to unlock that last, fleeting chance of survival.

The moment her fingers touched it, the black and white fish began to slow.

She held the Dao Fruit gently in her palms, channeling her divine power into it. After a long moment, her voice rang out, solemn and commanding, yet filled with hope:

“Go.”

The Dao Fruit shot forth like a comet.

The goddess followed, silent and swift.

The fruit had a will of its own. Born from the cosmos, it carried within it a deep yearning to preserve what remained. Under the goddess’s guidance, it would seek out that hidden glimmer of salvation.

Within the currents of the river of reincarnation, a soul was drifting, drawn slowly toward the platform of rebirth, carried by murky, sluggish waves.

Above the Underworld, the heavy gray sky suddenly split open. The Dao Fruit streaked down like a meteor, glowing brilliantly as it came to hover above the Yellow Springs.

The Underworld was long deserted. Not even Yama remained. The ghost messengers had vanished too.

Spiritual energy had dried up across the world. The end of the age of spiritual energy had brought even death to a standstill.

The goddess arrived in that desolate place, her azure robes fluttering as she fixed her gaze on the soul now shrouded in the light of the Dao Fruit.

It was the soul of a man.

She had never seen him before.

And yet...something about him felt familiar.

She cast the divine calculation, and what she found was strange. Between them lay the threads of cause and effect, both connected and not.

She combed through her memories. The ancient wars, the great slaughters, the Mythic Era, the Age of Gods. Through it all, she had never once encountered this man. So where had he come from? What was their bond?

And just then, the Dao Fruit fell.

It merged directly into the man’s soul.

The goddess gasped, but almost immediately, a surge of hope rose in her heart.

If the Dao Fruit had chosen him, then this man was no ordinary soul.

But who

was

he? Where had he come from?

The goddess in azure gazed at him for a long moment. Then on a sudden impulse, she drew the Human Seed Fruit from her robes. It was a fruit she had only just plucked moments ago, and now she tossed it toward him.

The man’s soul began to rise, floating up from the river of reincarnation.

A long silence passed before the man, still within the Underworld, slowly opened his eyes.

Within those eyes swirled the endless passage of time, stars dying and being born, the ebb and flow of galaxies, fragments of memory stirring to life. The countless lifetimes he had lived across the wheel of rebirth returned to him in a flood, until at last, his mind landed on a singular image. It was of a sage untangling the chaotic threads of karma and fate.

He looked directly at the goddess in azure and smiled.

“It’s been a while, Yan Yu.”

And with that one sentence, fate shifted.

For now that karma had been reversed, the past was no longer the past. It had changed.

In that first world, before cause had become effect, he had been nothing more than a mortal drifting through life on Earth. So when he broke the time loop using his powers, he returned to the beginning.

But once the cycle was reversed, the two worlds, the original and the rewritten, became like mirrors reflecting one another. Twisted, distorted...but the two were unmistakably connected.

Even when karma had been set right, the echoes of past cause and effect did not vanish. That was why the name

Yuan

had been found on unearthed relics and recorded in images of celestial horrors, subtle remnants of influence, drifting forward through time.

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The man, of course, was Li Yuan.

And when the name Yan Yu left his lips, something within the azure robed goddess snapped awake. As if waking from a great dream, memories surged through her mind.

She looked down at the flower and grass in her hand, the Solar Yang Blossom and Lunar Yin Grass. Then she silently passed them to him.

Li Yuan accepted them without hesitation and ate them in one bite.

“Yan Yu,” he said calmly, “watch over me. I need to recover my strength as soon as possible.”

“I will,” Yan Yu replied softly. Then, after a pause, she added, “The Great Shattering has already occurred. The universe is decaying... Its end is near. But the future still lies in your hands.”

“I won’t let it slip through my fingers,” Li Yuan said.

The two exchanged a knowing smile.

Li Yuan sat cross-legged, slipping into meditation. Yan Yu took her place nearby, keeping silent watch.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Time flowed on.

A total of 30,000 years later.

Earth’s colossal starship had finally been fitted with a technology never before seen, one that would allow it to transcend the universe itself.

And that technology was known only to the captain.

Inside Earth, life went on as usual. The cities buzzed with people, busy as always. By now, humanity was long accustomed to the ever-shifting sky above their heads, no longer tied to a single sun or moon.

In fact, the very idea of the sun rising during the day and the moon appearing at night was now considered a relic of ancient myth.

These days, the hottest topic of conversation was where Earth had traveled before, and where it would go next.

Someone had even compiled a

Earth Star System Navigation Atlas

, a widely circulated book mapping the ship’s past trajectories and key historical events, used both for education and cultural preservation.

But today was different.

Today, the entire population was tense with anticipation.

For today, Earth would attempt to

transcend

the universe.

No one really knew what this technology was, or how it worked.

But they trusted the captain.

The one who could do anything.

On a high mountain on Earth, nestled within a remote village, known as the most advanced village on the planet thanks to its cutting-edge systems, final preparations were underway.

To match its significance, the small mountain village had been given a name straight out of legend,

Beyond the 33 Heavens.

And from this

Beyond the 33 Heavens

, Li Yuan bid a simple farewell to his loved ones before heading to the highest point of the village, toward the command deck of the great voidship.

Those he said goodbye to included Xie Yu, Xie Wei, Xue Ning, Snow, Yao Jue, Cui Huayin, Jing Shuixiang, Bai Xinxuan, Li Youning, Lady Yu, Luo Lietong, Sheng’er, Ping’an, Naran, Ji Hu, Li Zhen, Tang Nian, Li Dao, Li Chan...

And then there were the villagers, Tang Qiu, the four maids Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju, the Four Poisons Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Delight, and many, many others, all of them people who had once shared a bond with Li Yuan.

Some were kin from his lives across countless cycles of reincarnation.

To pull souls from the long river of time and karma was no small feat. But for Li Yuan, a Seeker of the Dao, and for Yan Yu, the embodiment of the Heavenly Dao, it was well within reach.

By the time Li Yuan arrived at the command deck, only Yan Yu was by his side.

Together, they gazed out and sensed the entirety of Earth’s form.

From the outside, it still looked like Earth.

But in truth, the planet had been loaded into an immense vessel, a voidship that existed in the voidveil, the metaphysical beyond. It no longer bore any tether to its original home.

With a single thought, Li Yuan could now transcend the Three Realms, step beyond the Five Elements.

He glanced sideways at the woman beside him and said, “As the Heavenly Dao of this cosmos, take one last look at the stars.”

Yan Yu inhaled deeply, letting her divine sense flow through the decaying, dying universe.

Then she said, “Let’s go.”

“Alright.”

At that moment, a broadcast echoed across every continent and city on Earth, repeating a single message.

Earth is about to depart from this universe. Please look up at the sky and remember our home...forever.

The whole world fell silent.

Everyone gazed upward.

Li Yuan silently counted to ten...and released the ship.

The voidship set off, gliding gently forward. And in that instant, it passed beyond the known universe and entered the voidveil.

The voidveil was an endless river, propelled by time itself. The voidship rocked softly on the current, but its journey was smooth.

Li Yuan murmured, “So much in life goes against our wishes... Perhaps tomorrow I’ll cast off my hair and drift on a little boat.”

Then he turned to his wife and grinned. “Fits the mood, don’t you think?”

And with that, he laughed heartily, lounging in his captain’s chair, eyes locked on the vast, boundless expanse ahead.

In the distance, bright, resplendent specks of light sparkled.

“That’s the Greater Myriad Worlds.”

Ah Ting had appeared beside them, no one knew when.

“Then that’s where we’re headed.” Li Yuan smiled. And with a bold, spirited voice, he recited, “There will come a time when I ride the wind and break the waves, Raising high the sails and crossing the great, blue sea.”

—The End—