The Final Battle

Shi Yan and Xi Yun had often used the World Authority to help the villagers over the years, and in the past two decades, the people of Bauhinia Village had grown increasingly comfortable in their lives, which only raised the couple's prestige in the village higher and higher.

Because of this, their wedding was a lively affair. The villagers were extremely enthusiastic, and many even took the initiative to help arrange all sorts of wedding chores.

Things like the wedding robes and dowry garments were eagerly taken on by the village's seasoned embroiderers. While these embroiderers might not have been as skilled as the most professional ones from the outside world, Shi Yan and Xi Yun were both happy to let the villagers help.

Of course, even though the villagers insisted on refusing payment, Shi Yan didn't short them a single coin afterward.

"Time for the bowing ceremony, time for the bowing ceremony!"

The villager in charge of the rites beamed with smiles.

Shi Yan and Xi Yun, dressed in wedding attire according to Bauhinia Village customs, each holding one end of the red silk cord, slowly walked over.

"First bow to Heaven and Earth!"

The two bowed several times toward the full moon together.

"Second bow to the parents."

The seats in the hall were empty, with only a portrait of Shi Yan's mother from this life placed there.

So the two simply bowed several times toward Shi Yan's mother's portrait.

"Husband and wife bow to each other."

The two didn't cause any comical head-bumping mishaps and followed the procedures properly through all the rituals.

"Alright, let the feast begin!"

Bauhinia Village weddings didn't have many strict rules. Even the bride chatted and laughed with the other women, clinking glasses and drinking.

The children ran wild and played noisily throughout the banquet.

Of course, the wedding guests didn't press the bride to drink heavily, but they showed no such restraint with Shi Yan.

From the elders to his peers, and even some grown juniors, a large crowd lined up to toast Shi Yan.

Fortunately, by the time Shi Yan had solved the Rhino Emperor Game to this extent, his body was no longer something alcohol could affect.

To Shi Yan, aside from its taste, alcohol was no different from water.

So in the end, Shi Yan single-handedly took down a large group of people trying to get him drunk, leaving the women and children watching with wide eyes.

Xi Yun, taking advantage of the moment when no one was looking, secretly scraped her cheek with her index finger at Shi Yan, hinting that he was bullying people.

Shi Yan simply pretended not to see it and continued his rampage at the drinking table.

The wedding feast lasted late into the night. Many people were dead drunk. Shi Yan used his authority to teleport the tipsy villagers back to their homes. Just as he was about to tidy up the venue, a few aunties shoved the young couple and chased them off to the bridal chamber.

According to the aunties: "An hour of spring night is worth a thousand gold. Leave the cleaning to us. You two go handle the important business."

The aunties' words made Xi Yun blush, while Shi Yan just chuckled, didn't refuse their kindness, and went back to their wedding room with Xi Yun.

A sleepless night.

The next day, it wasn't until noon that Shi Yan and Xi Yun finally dragged themselves out of bed.

Newlyweds, the two weren't in a hurry to do anything else.

Having spent so many years together in this small mountain village, now that he had fully revealed his secrets to his wife, Shi Yan planned to travel the world with Xi Yun, treating it as a honeymoon trip.

Xi Yun happily agreed.

As a native of Bauhinia Village, Xi Yun had no strong attachment to the outside world, but she did have some curiosity.

Now, being able to visit famous mountains and great rivers with her beloved, Xi Yun was naturally very willing.

So, after a brief preparation and farewell to the villagers, the couple left Bauhinia Village together to go on their honeymoon.

They climbed Heaven-Reaching Mountain to see all the lesser peaks at a glance, boated on Red Moon Lake to admire the clear moon, and occasionally acted as chivalrous heroes, reporting various local malpractices they discovered to the Celestial Master Palace.

With Shi Yan, the Celestial Master Palace Lord, stepping in, the problems were quickly resolved, and a string of corrupt officials was rooted out along the way.

Occasionally, the couple would return to Bauhinia Village for a short stay.

This leisurely, almost ordinary life brought a subtle change to Shi Yan's state of mind, though even he himself didn't notice it.

Of course, while on their honeymoon, Shi Yan also took over the task of setting up formations across the land, while his Past Self took his place to begin comprehending the Rhino Emperor Game.

A hundred years of life passed quickly, and Shi Yan soon reached the age of eighty-five in this lifetime.

Xi Yun was three years older than Shi Yan, now eighty-eight.

Once she passed eighty-five, Xi Yun's appearance began to age. In just three years, she went from a thirty-year-old beauty to a white-haired old woman.

Although Shi Yan hadn't yet reached old age in this life, he willingly accompanied his wife in growing gray.

The two no longer traveled the world but returned to Bauhinia Village, planning to spend their final years together in their hometown.

Two years later, Xi Yun turned ninety.

That day, the villagers of Bauhinia Village received tragic news—Granny Xi Yun had passed away peacefully of old age.

By now, Shi Yan and his wife were the village's revered ancestors. At Xi Yun's funeral, every younger generation came to mourn and pay their respects.

Shi Yan, silent and numb, presided over his wife's funeral.

The funeral ended, and the villagers dispersed.

Shi Yan stood alone and silent before Xi Yun's grave.

If someone were to dig open the tomb, they would discover that Xi Yun in the coffin actually still had several years of life left, but she was in a state of suspended animation, her vital activities nearly halted, and her lifespan would not be consumed.

In the Primal Universe, lives that had exhausted their lifespan could not be revived by reversing time and space.

Although this world was Shi Yan's dream, even if he could one day turn illusion into reality, he could not guarantee whether he could bring back a life whose years had run out.

Though cultivation could grant boundless power, reviving a being whose lifespan had ended and extending the life of someone nearing their end required power on entirely different levels.

Shi Yan did not want to take risks with his wife.

"Xi Yun, wait for me."

Through the soil and coffin, Shi Yan saw his wife's peaceful sleeping face, as if he wanted to carve this scene deep into his memory.

The next day, the people of Bauhinia Village discovered that Shi Yan had also vanished.

No trace could be found anywhere, so the villagers erected a cenotaph for Shi Yan beside Xi Yun's grave.

Meanwhile, after reinforcing the formations around Bauhinia Village, Shi Yan silently made his way to the northernmost part of the continent, a bitter cold land even farther north than the Yan Kingdom.

This was the array eye he had chosen. By activating the formation here, even if something went wrong, it would affect ordinary mortals as little as possible.

Having traveled the world with Xi Yun for over thirty years, combined with more than twenty years of earlier preparations by his Past Self, the formations Shi Yan had planned were now fully laid. If not for accompanying his wife, he could have begun activating the formation to suppress his Future Self years ago.

Now, with his wife sealed in suspended death by his own hand, Shi Yan had few lingering attachments left in this world. It was time to settle the final battle with his Future Self.

"Then let's begin."

Around Shi Yan, the eight basic elements—metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, light, and thunder—began to revolve.

In an instant, a riot of colors spread across the surrounding kilometer, gradually coalescing into a vortex.

Dazzling beams of light began to race across the snow along mysterious formation lines. With every inch they spread, a formation somewhere in the world was linked and activated.

But compared to the grand, earth-shaking formations his Future Self had set up back then, the formations Shi Yan had placed across the lands activated silently, almost unnoticed by anyone.

Only the few Grand Celestial Masters of the Celestial Master Palace faintly sensed an anomaly in the world's origin.

But Shi Yan had already informed them in advance, giving the reason as cleaning up the root of the Monster Catastrophe from back then.

Among the new generation of Grand Celestial Masters, many were children who had survived the Monster Catastrophe, and they held Shi Yan in the highest reverence.

Though they were shocked that the source of the Monster Catastrophe still existed, they did not doubt Shi Yan's words.

Sensing the disturbance in the world's origin, these Grand Celestial Masters understood: Shi Yan had begun his final battle with the source of the monsters.

"Palace Master, you must win."

The Grand Celestial Masters prayed silently in their hearts.

These new-generation Grand Celestial Masters had endured hardship since childhood and had received Shi Yan's guidance, making them far superior to the older generation. Most could solve over 2,000 Rhino Emperor Game puzzles, but Shi Yan's board had already reached 7,011 solved puzzles.

The gap was too vast. In this battle, they could not help him.

Just as the Grand Celestial Masters of the Celestial Master Palace were praying, under Shi Yan's urging, the formations across heaven and earth were finally fully linked.

Around Shi Yan now stood eight towering pillars of light, rotating along the formation lines on the ground, with Shi Yan at the very core of the array.

The power of the origin surged endlessly through the great formation. For a moment, Shi Yan felt as if the entire "weight" of the world had pressed down upon him.

Even Shi Yan found this pressure suffocating. His aged face flushed red. If not for the great formation connecting to the world to share the burden, and the foundation of World Authority from solving 7,011 Rhino Emperor Game puzzles, Shi Yan would likely have been crushed to dust by the immense origin in an instant.

"So this is the origin of this world?"

Gradually growing accustomed to the heavy pressure of the world's origin, Shi Yan finally managed to spare some attention to observe it.

For a moment, Shi Yan felt as if he had become the world itself. Under his gaze, he saw the entire world, just like observing his own Miniature Universe.

But compared to the origin of his own Miniature Universe, the origin of this world carried a sense of illusion.

Though illusory, its mysteries were on par with a real world's origin, like an object in a mirror reflecting reality.

As for its style, it was completely different from Shi Yan's Miniature Universe. Of course, in terms of refinement, this world's origin could not match Shi Yan's "Origin of One," which was the form of the Primal Universe Origin.

Yet this contrast between illusion and reality still greatly inspired Shi Yan.

"Illusory world origin..."

Shi Yan recalled the Void True Demon God of the Primal Universe, who had achieved True God through illusion. Perhaps that one's Miniature Universe would one day develop in the direction of an illusory universe.

But before Shi Yan could observe further, deep within the world's origin, a massive source of foreign energy suddenly began to tremble.