by Feng Yue
The Originator looked at him closely and waited for his choice. “You can change her whole destiny, fix all her pain, give her a new life as you please. She can be free of all bondage, even if the one who binds her is you. Do you still not understand, Ye Qingxuan? Only you can let her obtain salvation.”
Ye Qingxuan was stunned.
He looked back at the countless Bai Xis. They were all watching him.
Gentle, cold, cruel, lonely, jealous, compassionate, peaceful, happy, gloomy, gentle…
Each one was completely different, but at the same time, each one was Bai Xi.
There were thousands of Bai Xis, and he had to choose one to take with him.
What the h*ll was this?
The generosity and charity of the Originator?
He could choose one at random.
Find the Bai Xi that he loved the most from thousands of futures, from thousands of hers, or choose the Bai Xi that loved him the most…
What did he want?
One-third gentle and lovely, one-third childish, plus a little spontaneous and naughty?
Or strong and self-reliant, not needing him to worry about her and protect her. One who could fight side by side with him and face the world’s storms.
Or one that was free from the world, holy and pure, a beautiful flower of a goddess.
Any of them, Ye Qingxuan, any of them.
He could create the perfect form that he created in his mind. There were countless choices here. He could choose the one that he liked most at will, and she would love him as he loved her.
In his trance, he remembered that girl from the past seemed to be blowing in his ear, urging him to make a choice.
Which one do you like, cousin?
Of course, I…
Ye Qingxuan was shocked.
His reverie came to an abrupt end.
He bowed his head dumbly and looked at his hand and saw a faint flash of light at his fingertips. It was so weak that it was hard to see, but it followed the debris that had left with him from the labyrinth.
It was the last remaining trace of Chaoyue.
“You idiot!” He slapped himself hard. “I’m such an idiot!”
At that moment, Ye Qingxuan’s consciousness was opened up in a flash of electricity, ushering in his long lost realization and comprehension.
This was a late discovery.
But when Ye Qingxuan discovered it, it was already meaningless…
He suddenly turned and looked at the shadow beside him, as if he understood that it knew what it was asking.
“They’re one, right? Bai Xi and Chaoyue were originally one body! Bai Xi is Chaoyue’s opposite, but Chaoyue is also a part of Bai Xi!” He seemed to be trying to confirm the truth. “In the beginning, she was only one, but she was divided into two, right?” He stroked his hair regretfully.
“I should have understood this earlier, but I ignored it because of the huge difference between them. I’m an idiot. How can they be two? How can they be sisters? Even though their height and figures are different, could this not be a difference that was deliberately cultivated? Otherwise, how could they have kept in such close contact? Both Bai Xi and Chaoyue are her!”
In the silence, the projection of the Originator did not answer. It just smiled at him without speaking.
But Ye Qingxuan had found his final answer.
He looked back at the countless silent, waiting eyes, and could not help but smile bitterly.
He finally sort of understood what Mr. Hu had said to him.
“‘Accept another side of her.’ This makes sense, but Mr. Hu, you didn’t say the other side of her was so big and so frightening…”
Ye Qingxuan finally realized that he had never really understood Bai Xi.
“So, what right do I have to choose?” he whispered. He raised his finger and there was a faint flash of light. “So let her choose herself!” Ye Qingxuan gave his final answer to the projection of the Ultimate. “Listen well, this is my request. Let her choose what kind of self she wants to become!”
It was fine if she chose to be Bai Xi, or if she chose to be Chaoyue.
She could be the Empress above all, the Duchess of Cloud Tower, the executioner of the Silence Governance, or the bird in the cage that had abandoned herself because of Ye Qingxuan. Even the jealous madwoman…
She could be anything.
Let her choose freely!
793 Salvation
As Ye Qingxuan made his choice, at his fingertips, the speck of residual light slowly floated upwards, towards the tens of millions of Bai Xi’s.
In the futures born of countless choices, countless Bai Xi’s superimposed in one place looked up at the specks of light that lit up in the fragments of fate that seemed like illusions.
The countless pieces gathered towards the center.
In the end, all the futures had disappeared.
As they superposed in the residual light, a vague outline slowly emerged.
In the end, a side profile Ye Qingxuan was familiar with was revealed.
“It’s been a long time,” Ye Qingxuan chuckled softly, “Bai Xi.”
But Bai Xi didn’t look at him, as if she was in a fit of temper. She looked away in another direction and remained stubbornly silent. Her silence persisted even though Ye Qingxuan had walked over to her.
He lifted a hand.
Her shoulders trembled and she closed her eyes.
But the hand did not hit her with anger.
It simply touched on her head gently, then violently messed up her silver hair, feeling the familiar touch, until her hair resembled a chicken’s nest.
“What’s this?” Ye Qingxuan bent down and looked at her eyes. “The test before the final challenge? A painstakingly planned prank? Or are you upset because I have taken so long to come and save you?”
Bai Xi was silent.
But Ye Qingxuan did not give up, and he kept asking, “You have been watching me all the time, right? Bai Xi, you were watching me make a fool of myself…”
“Weren’t you happy?” Bai Xi lifted her eyes, seemingly out of spite, and glared at him. “Even though you won’t admit it verbally, you enjoyed it incredibly, right? You could have picked the well-behaved one or the obedient one at will. See, I have given you a chance, you are the one who failed to seize it.”
“And then?” Ye Qingxuan asked her. “Taking a part of you with me, I leave this place and abandon most of you in the projection of the Originator?”
Bai Xi bit her lip stubbornly and turned her head away. “Well, no matter which one you choose, at least I won’t have to deal with you turning up your nose at me in the future.”
Ye Qingxuan shook his head and forcibly turned her around, forcing her to look at him.
“Remember what I have initially said to you?” He looked at the young girl who was no longer as childish as she was in the past, at the unfamiliar traces on her facial features and told her, “Please ask me for help, Bai Xi.
“Then I will come and save you.” Ye Qingxuan repeated what he had once said in the past as if he was declaring the truth, and told her resolutely, “I will save you, no matter which one, even if I am dead.”
“Will you save me even if I am not as good as you have imagined?” Bai Xi looked at his expression, and her eyes became a little red. “I am full of jealousy, I am narrow-minded, I am frighteningly possessive, I am bad with words, and I like power so much. Will you still save such a troublesome woman like me?”
“I will.” Ye Qingxuan nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“Even though I am disobedient, love getting into trouble, and will continue bothering you all my life?” Bai Xi asked.
“Yes!” Ye Qingxuan nodded, smiling. “If you get into trouble, I will help you to settle it. If you do something wrong, I will correct you. If you are disobedient, I… I will get used to it one day, right?”
In the brief silence, time seemed to be paused.
Bai Xi looked at him, stunned.
“Then, for the of my life, please take good care of me.” She hugged Ye Qingxuan, wiped her tears and mucus on his clothes. She clutched him so forcefully, her snivels and sorrowful whimpers dissipating as they hugged.
After such a long time, she once again requested help from the same person.
Please help me.
I don’t want to be alone here.
“As I promised, I am here to save you, Bai Xi.” Ye Qingxuan reached out, held her hand, and smiled. “Let’s go back home.”
…
In the distance, the projection the Originator quietly gazed at their figures, watching them embrace each other. Then, she turned and left, dissipating in the endless mysteries, the lights, and the shadows.
But at the very moment of dissipating, she looked back from afar, engulfed in the light.
The face that gradually became vague had a satisfied smile on it.
From then on, she felt no more reluctance at leaving and her attachment to the world.
The last obsession that Yunlou Qingxue’s deceased soul had held on to since 19 years ago dissipated.
It was the secret that no one would ever know.
…
As the projection dissipated quietly, the noise of a tsunami was heard through the layers of light. Something was coming from the outside, flowing in the aether. Hundreds of millions of signals echoed each other, forming the huge outline of an individual.
It was like a waterfall that flowed in the opposite direction of the current.
He came from outside the Originator.
He tore all the light apart.
A huge tenacity that surpassed that of human beings by tens of thousands of times emerged from the projection of the Originator.
Like mud splashing through countless streams of light, the giant climbed out of the cracks of the light, opened His three eyes, and blocked Ye Qingxuan’s way.
It was Tung Wang Kung.
He finally controlled the central core completely. He came late, but not too late.
Everything had not been settled completely.
He looked at Ye Qingxuan.
Ye Qingxuan also looked at Him.
In the silent confrontation, Ye Qingxuan messed Bai Xi’s hair up and ask her to stand behind him.
So the human and the non-human confronted each other.
Fortunately, as Tung Wang Kung arrived, the projection of the Originator was no longer closed off to the outside world. Ye Qingxuan could finally sense the music theory from the outside world after such a long time, and the gushing aether was back within his control. When he reached out and clutched the air, he could feel the tangible touch coming from the hilt.
The return of power was so reassuring.
“Ye Qingxuan, if you have even the slightest responsibility towards mankind in your heart, you should not stop me.” In front of him, the behemoth produced a cold and rigid sound. even after being given human wisdom and mind, it still maintained its original stiffness and coldness.
Or rather, it did so deliberately.
The tone was so familiar.
It sounded so incredibly righteous.
Ye Qingxuan was amused. “Then what should I do? Lend you my head?” He bent his fingers and tapped the air in front of him. So, as the sonorous whine of a sword sounded, the blade of the New Testament sword emerged from the emptiness. “I believe that you already have a good understanding of my stubbornness and selfishness.
“In such a situation, surely, you weren’t still intending to ask me to die in order to save humanity?”
“Leave her here.” Tung Wang Kung gazed coldly at Bai Xi behind Ye Qingxuan. “She is the pillar supporting the Originator, and she can’t be allowed to leave this place. If you are willing to cooperate, after I am done with her, I can still return her to you.”
Ye Qingxuan was stunned.
The feeling… was such a new one.
It was as if he had heard a lame joke that wasn’t funny at all.
In his life, he had experienced many grand events, schemed against Hyakume, hit Arthur with a surprise blow, and stole the jobs of the Sacred City, but how should he put it?
It was his first time having a catastrophe try to steal his girl!
“Hey, listen, Tung Wang Kung…” He combed his fingers through his hair, as if the situation was somewhat hurting his brain, and phrased his words. “Should I say, is it really that your puberty stage started late? Although I can understand the hunger and thirst you feel after being single for a few centuries, and the curiosity you harbor towards the female body, erm, sure enough, even an AI should be given physical education. It can also be considered as a flaw in the former human education system?”
As he said so, Ye Qingxuan sighed. “However, as a senior human, I have a heartfelt suggestion.”
He looked at Tung Wang Kung and took on the tone Ye Xuan had adopted back then whenever he gave out prescriptions to his patients prescription. “If you really need to vent your inner perversion…
“It would be better for you to go back to the engine and f*ck a dog!” At the moment, his gentle and peaceful tone, which sounded disgusting, came to an abrupt stop. Instead, the fierce light erupting from the New Testament sword replaced it.
It rose into the sky.
As summoned by the blade, the ideal country far away in the future—the Land of Dreams—descended.
After breaking through the blockade of the Dragon Bloodline, using the illusory boundary as a transit linkway, the Net of Aether who was actually tens of thousands of miles away was projected here. The huge crystal broke through the layers of streams of light, as if it was rising from the sea.
Endless stars spewed out of it.
That moment, it was as if the Milky Way rushed down. Tens of thousands of musical movements of destruction gathered into a ray, forming a fiery stream of light that made the whole world appear dim in comparison. It swept towards the catastrophe in front, violently colliding with the projection of the Kingdom in Heaven.
In the projection of the Originator, which was so narrow compared to the terrifyingly large scale of the collision, terrifying forces that the physical world could not withstand were flowing in various directions.
After the earth-shattering collision, the core of the Net of Aether still hung high, but the projection of the crystal polyhedron became fleeting. Waves of heat radiated from it as a result of overloading. The overloaded stream of light almost melted all the instruments of harmonious melody and network channels transmitting power along the way. Even though numerous workers were repairing it urgently, it would be difficult to connect it once more in a short time.
Meanwhile, in the brilliant and majestic Kingdom in Heaven, a tragic scar appeared as well.
At the moment, the two major catastrophes, namely the Net of Aetheric and the Kingdom in Heaven that was attained after reversing the Great Wall, collided in the most direct way possible where neither retreated in the slightest bit.
Above the high walls, a tragic scar had emerged.
Soon, it rapidly closed.
After the reversal of the Great Wall, a stream of aether that could be considered endless was controlled, driven, and used by the central core. With such an insane premise, even serious damage of such a degree became a small wound that could be healed in just a moment.
“Still so… stubborn.” Tung Wang Kung gazed at him, his tone almost like a sigh. “You all are always so, so disappointing!”
At the moment, the Kingdom in Heaven shone bright! In the endless strong light, the brilliant Aurora seemed to press down towards Ye Qingxuan.
The 16 counties turned into 16 streams of light, rising high from the sea of light. They propped up the virtual image of the Aurora landscape, then, an unprecedented, frenzied pressure pressed downwards.
In the
rumble, hundreds of domains set up with Holy were shattered.
Ye Qingxuan’s face was pale.
Gravity.
It was just pure gravity.
No unpredictable godly power nor movements were involved, Tung Wang Kung simply exerted the force, yet it already seemed as if he lifted up all of Aurora and threw onto Ye Qingxuan’s head.
“Have you understood,” Tung Wang Kung demanded indifferently, “how heavy the burden of responsibility to society is?”
Boom! The Net of Aether could not be sustained anymore, and the connection was cut off. The crystal polyhedron projected in the sky abruptly collapsed and dissipated, and it was blocked out from the Aurora.
Ye Qingxuan gritted his teeth, and fiery thunder leaped out from the New Testament sword in his hand. In a flash, in the array of the World Tree, it turned into a lance of crystal condensed from thunder.
It was the artifact that the Asgardians had used up all their resources to create artifacts for the future god Odin—Gungnir!
Destruction condensed to form the blade of the lance, and as Ye Qingxuan struck, it pierced into the sky!
The Armageddon was coming!
Despite lacking the support of a massive amount ether, only by relying on the activation of Ye Qingxuan alone, an infinite power erupted from it.
The 16 streams of light propping up the Aurora shook violently. A stream of light snapped with a rumble and collapsed. A detectable part of the terrifying power immediately dissipated, but what happened next made Ye Qingxuan’s expression suddenly change.
In the projection of the Aurora, the part supported by the stream of light shattered with a rumble. Despite being blocked by the high-level dimensions, in the deepest part of the realm of aether, Ye Qingxuan, who manifested in the form of a holy spirit, could still sense the tragic screams coming from the physical world.
It was the eruption of earth-shattering disasters.