“What's going on?”

     The Beauty Feasts in the back couldn't see the changes happening in front of them and craned their necks, looking around anxiously.

     Although the tall wall built by Chu Wanning was sturdy, it was just a mound of earth before the vast ocean of the nine provinces. Seeing Jiu’ge’s barrier begin to break and water flowing from between the vines, the Beauty Feasts were all confused and shouted, “What happened? Why won't you let us in?”

     Someone else glanced back and instantly paled. “The Path of Martyrdom has collapsed!”

     “What?!”

     Consequently, the Beauty Feast clan was trapped on all sides, with the demon gate in front of them closing, the demonic bridge behind them collapsing, and an endless abyss under their feet. Where could they escape to?

     In an instant, there was chaos. Shi Mei shouted sternly, “Come to the front! Don't panic!”

     “Hua-zongshi…”

     The voice amplification technique carried his voice to the end: “I told you. I will take you home.”

     This was something he had been seeking for the entirety of his two lifetimes, and it was also his mother’s long-cherished wish before she died. At this point, he would never give in.

     “But zongshi, how can we fight against the demon envoy?”

     Shi Mei turned his eyes to the side, and his light brown pupils reflected the scene of doomsday.

     “We certainly couldn’t before. But what about now?”

     After he said this, the panicked Beauty Feasts suddenly remembered that because of the breath that poured out from the opening of the demon realm, they had more or less recovered some of the demon clan's spiritual power.

     Shi Mei said, “All of you retreat behind me and gather together to slow the destruction of the Path of Martyrdom.”

     “What about you, zongshi?”

     Shi Mei raised his eyes to the skeleton wielding an axe and shield in front of him and said, “I’ll defeat him.”

     With that, the demonic skeleton roared and lunged forward.

     “Zongshi, be careful!”

     Shi Mei didn’t think much about it. He had never before received such a violent flow of spiritual energy, and the demonic aura rushed through his body, moving him forward.

     In fact, the Butterfly-Boned clan should have been such a powerful clan, but because of one person's betrayal, they had suffered this unjust fate for thousands of years…

     With hatred in his eyes, his palm ignited with a blazing flame, and he hurled it towards the skeleton without saying a word.

     The skeleton dodged, and the ball of flame crashed into the demon gate, leaving a charred black mark.

     “The traitor dares to act rashly!”

     Shi Mei said angrily, “Is it my fault what blood I carry in my body? That because of the blood of Gouchen’s maternal clan, I was exiled to the mortal world and met difficulty in forming a spiritual core? Because of the blood of the descendants of the gods, I was denied and could not return home—what did I do? What did the Butterfly-Boned clan do? What makes it treason?”

     The skeleton simply repeated solemnly and stubbornly, “The traitor dares to act rashly…”

     It was like a Buddhist mantra spoken by a monk.

     Like a golden body only made of yellow clay.

     It was something so ethereal, yet so natural and logical.

     In the sky, Chu Wanning was trying his best to resist the surging torrent. In the distance, the people of the cultivation world had mostly retreated to the meeting point of the two mortal worlds, where they had built the Xuanwu formation.

     In front of him, Shi Mei was fighting a battle of life and death with the demon skeleton.

     Everyone had their own goals and their own choices. They may have once been at odds with each other because of their conflicting interests, but now they no longer had the strength to fight with each other to the death.

     When judgment of destiny finally descended, people’s faces were all so similar—

     I may be humble, but I will not surrender.

     “Zongshi! The Path of Martyrdom is nearly collapsed to its end!”

     “We can’t hold on any longer…”

     Some of the younger Beauty Feasts couldn’t contain their despair and wept with their faces covered for their impending death.

     They were crying, their wails pouring into the strong winds and squeezing into Shi Mei’s ears.

     It seemed as if it were that year when his thin body slammed fiercely against the cold stone door of Tianyin Pavilion.

     The door opened, and he saw his father, with blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and his mother, whose flesh and bones had been torn apart. He heard his mother screaming, her bloody body scraping against the ground as she shouted at him heartbreakingly:

     “Run!—Run!”

     Run; get out of here.

     Run to a place that may have a spot for us in the future.

     Together with all the disgraced clansmen. That was his mother’s lifelong wish, which she longed to realize, even at the cost of her soul, body, and life.

     Run.

     “So, ultimately, how have I let the demons down?”

     This was his last question, and he had no intention of waiting for an answer.

     Shi Mei leapt up and dodged the heavy attack of the demonic skeleton’s axe. Then, as light as a paper kite, he sank to his knees and knelt on the skeleton's shoulders, clamping down on the skull that turned left and right.

     The path beneath his feet shook more and more violently. The bridge made of Zhenlong chess pieces was rapidly collapsing, and the corpses were falling into the endless abyss one after another; even the echoes of the landing pieces couldn’t be heard.

     Shi Mei looked up and saw that his clansmen were already huddled together, these people forcing the demonic aura they had just obtained out of their bodies, trying their best to slow down the destruction of this road home.

     They were pureblooded Beauty Feasts, birds returning to their nest together—but what about him?

     There was a sound of bats flapping their wings in the abyss.

     Shi Mei's palm glowed with an eerie cold light, and a thorn suddenly emerged, tempered with the sharp aura of the demon clan. He raised it high and aimed it at the center of the demon's skull—

     It suddenly stabbed down!!

     — 

     What exactly was a bat?

     Was it a bird soaring in the sky? Or a beast huddling in the darkness?

     Perhaps neither side would recognize him. His blood was dirty, and no matter where he went, he would be nothing more than a traitor.

     There were a few moments of deathly silence. The demon skeleton fell to the ground with a bang! In an instant, it turned into thousands of gray and black specks and disappeared without a trace. But at this time, the danger of the closing demon gate had reached a grave point. Shi Mei jumped up from the ground and swept up to a higher spot, temporarily supporting the closing embossed stone doors with his flesh and blood.

     He turned his head and shouted at the bewildered Beauty Feasts, who were still in tears, “What are you still standing there for? ...Run!!”

     Run…

     “Run!” Hua Gui's dying scream tore through the clouds of time. Even after twenty years, it still ripped his heart to shreds. “A-Nan, run!!!”

     When he closed his eyes, he could clearly see her arms being torn open, the tendons in her legs and feet being broken, as she writhed in a pool of blood, fighting to her death. She lunged forward and grabbed her husband's legs and feet, just to give her child a chance to live.

     “Run!!! Run quickly!! Don’t look back! Don’t come back!!! AH—!!!!!!”

     The man stomped down and crushed her face.

     At the last moment, she said with all her might, “Run…”

     Crack.

     Her throat was broken…

      Shi Mei gritted his teeth and exerted the demonic aura of his entire body. His bones creaked, yet he still struggled desperately between the two doors of the demon realm, preventing them from closing.

     He looked down, sweat seeping from his forehead and blood flowing from his bitten lips. He was trembling all over, his muscles and bones about to be crushed—although the closing of the demon gate had slowed, its force hadn’t lessened in the slightest, driving immense pressure upon this body of flesh and blood with such majesty and indifference.

     One inch, two inches… one foot, two feet…

     His veins bulged and cheeks turned red.

     But he still looked down at the tide of panicked people below and said hoarsely, “Run…”

     Quickly, quickly.

     I said I would bring us home, even if my hands are covered in blood, and I find myself utterly isolated, cursed by everyone for dishonoring my master and annihilating ancestors. I have done so many evil things; for this sole cause, I have done everything.

     But I am not a traitor.

     It seemed as if his bones were about to be dislocated and crushed to pieces, but they still supported the massive gate—truly laughable, like an ant holding up the sky or a mayfly trying to shake a tree.

     At this moment, a loud boom could be heard from not far away!

     Shi Mei barely lifted his sweaty face and looked out from between his wet eyelashes. He saw Chu Wanning being struck by the sky-devouring waves. The wall forged by Tianwen and Jiu’ge had already broken. After his Shizun fell from the sky, the wall he was painstakingly struggling to maintain and support collapsed in an instant.

     He watched Chu Wanning get thrown into the water by a huge wave with his own eyes.

     “Shizun…”

     The wall crumbled, and the flood was no longer blocked. It rushed to the intersecting point of the two mortal worlds with overwhelming force, flattening the mountains and buildings and filling the ravines and valleys. In an instant, everything was submerged in the wind and waves.

     The world was no longer the same as it was yesterday.

     The vast ocean had already covered the land.

     At this moment, the pressure of the demon gate was multiplied several times. Shi Mei felt his bones breaking and his spiritual power being overdrawn and suddenly choked on a mouthful of blood.

     He lowered his eyes and looked down. There were still a dozen or so people who hadn’t made it over in time.

     He didn't know where he got the strength, but he let out a furious shout, his eyes bloodshot and the meridians in his neck bulging as he used his hands and knees to stop the doors that were about to close with all his strength.

     “Hua-zongshi!!”

     The Beauty Feasts who had crossed the border didn’t go far. They all gathered below, watching him, but Shi Mei could no longer see their faces clearly anymore. He was dizzy, and everything before him was hazy.

     The last eight… five… three…

     His face twisted with pain blossomed with a vengeful smile of joy and satisfaction as blood trickled from his mouth, his teeth bright red.

     What destiny of the heavens and earth? What mortals, demons, gods, and ghosts? What could stop him from returning and rendering all his previous efforts futile—

     They weren’t… weren’t any match for…

     His heart as hard as iron.

     This person with unshakable stubbornness.

     The last one…

     “Run…”

     Shi Mei laughed deeply. It shouldn’t be said that mayflies could not shake trees; as long as one had a firm heart, even ants could break a dam.

     Didn’t he accomplish everything in the end?

     Bang! A loud sound was heard.

     The demon realm gate slammed shut, and instantly, red and black intertwined before his eyes. The red was blood, and the black was the sky. The last sound the bat in the gap heard in the mortal world was a crisp “crack.”

     It was an eerie sound that made one’s hair stand on end and their blood run cold.

     Was it the sound of the shattering skull?

     Was it the echo of his mother’s neck being trampled and broken when he was still a young child…?

     “Hua-zongshi! Zongshi!” The Butterfly-Boned clan’s cries were blocked in another world with the demon gate slamming closed.

     The gate to the demon realm was dripping with blood, and Hua Binan's broken limbs fell from the crack... But immediately afterwards, a huge wave hit, and the Path of Martyrdom, built by billions of skeletons, was washed away without a trace.

     When the wave passed, the demon gate disappeared.

     Only Sisheng Peak remained, sinking into the vast waves of the sea. Heaven-Piercing Tower collapsed, the Red Lotus Pavilion was destroyed, and the bricks and tiles of Loyalty Hall scattered and were engulfed in an instant.

     Chu Wanning choked on the water and coughed several times. He repeatedly tried to summon Huaisha and fly out with the sword, but failed because his spiritual power was already exhausted.

     Another sky-devouring wave came, and the strong water pressure hit Chu Wanning's chest, carrying a piece of broken driftwood. He suddenly sank into the depths of the sea, wincing in pain, unable to breathe... and unable to grasp any life-saving straw…

     His white robe unfurled, and his black hair scattered. He kept sinking and sinking into the water, the halo of light before his eyes slowly disappearing. He couldn’t breathe and gradually felt like his soul was leaving his body.

     Xue Meng and the others… should have already retreated to the Xuanwu formation.

     What would happen next? Would they make mistakes in the future?

     And Mo Ran…

     Mo Ran…

     His eyes opened slowly, and the sky was distant in the cold water as a few tiny bubbles floated from his lips. He hollowly leaned upward in a daze; he was probably dying of suffocation and hallucinating.

     He saw an inky figure diving towards him like a mermaid. When it got closer, he could see familiar eyebrows, pupils that were so black that they looked purple, and even the tiny, fragmented scars on his face.

     Those were the marks left after he failed to split the corpse.

     Chu Wanning suddenly closed his eyes. Probably because he had been too cruel, in the end, even the hallucinations before death tormented him.

     He said hoarsely, “I’m sorry…”

     His lips opened and closed, but only small bubbles came out.

     Suddenly, a hand grabbed him tightly, and before he could react, he fell into a firm and broad embrace. That chest was extremely cold, without a single trace of warmth, but even the sea water seemed to be evaporated by the strong and wild ambience of this man.

     “Chu Wanning.”

     He faintly heard someone calling him.

     “Wanning!”

     In his scattered consciousness, someone kissed his lips. The slightly cool lips opened and closed, letting in a wisp of spiritual power.

     “Bu’gui, come!”

     In a fraction of a second, a dark bluish-green light rushed through the sea water, and the man grabbed hold of it. The sword carried them to the surface of the water at the speed of light. In just a blink of an eye, they broke through the water with a “splash.” Chu Wanning was soaked all over. He was naturally averse to the cold and shivered slightly in the cold water, his lips blue and white, almost bloodless, as he gasped for breath.

     It took a few moments for him to catch his breath and realize what had just happened.

     He suddenly raised his head and met a pair of deep, moist eyes. They were no longer confused and lost, but rather clear and bright.

     Mo Ran was also panting lightly, his lips sensually parted slightly, a little wet. His black clothes were also soaked, sticking closely to his muscular chest. He only stared down at Chu Wanning without saying a word.

     Who was this?

     Was it a puppet or a living person?

     Was it Taxian-Jun, or was it Mo-zongshi?

     Chu Wanning felt a lump in his throat, and he couldn’t make any sound for a white. His adam’s apple moved up and down, but just as he was about to speak, a drop of salty sea water slid down his forehead and flowed into his eyes.

     He closed his eyes suddenly, the corners of which turned red.

     The moment he closed his eyes, the man hugged him in the water and pressed his slightly cool lips against his forehead.

     “This Venerable One is late.”

     “...”

     “Hua Binan’s shackles have been removed, so no one can control This Venerable One anymore.” He kissed his forehead and eyelashes, still a little out of breath from swimming so fast to save his life just now.

     Taxian-Jun looked at Chu Wanning’s slowly opening eyes and raised his hand to caress Chu Wanning’s hair for a moment before looking up at this world covered by a raging flood.

     After a while, he said, his voice slow and deep:

     “Come. And go back to your world together.”