Returned

A year can be very short.

So quickly that Yun Jingheng, sitting on the rock on the east side of the lake, felt that she had only brought Seven Percent Sugar out of the laboratory yesterday, and today she was already able to carry a teapot and jog in the corridor of the Star Pavilion.

A year can be very long.

The maple forest Shrek City has grown back to waist-high saplings; tender green grass sprouts on the scorched earth plowed by nuclear bombs; and the students who endured Sun Moon in the underground shelter are now moving up to the next grade in the newly built school buildings.

But for Yun Jingheng, there were only two things that happened that year.

First, the Abyss is receding.

The second thing is that he himself is waiting.

The Extreme North.

The Evil Corpse stood at the edge of a rift in the icy plain, with a bottomless, dark purple Abyss below. Heat waves surged up from the ground, carrying with them the stench of sulfur and humus.

Its robes had been eroded by the Abyssal Energy, leaving only half of them, revealing the dark red Battle Armor underneath, which was covered with cracks, but each crack contained a deeper and brighter Yin Force.

It has forgotten how long it has been on this front.

From the night it left, it led the Blood God Legion all the way north, forcibly pushing the vanguard of the Abyss Plane back from the heart of the continent to the Far North Ice Plains.

Tang Wulin's Sea God Godhood erupted with unprecedented brilliance before the Abyss rift, and Gu Yuena, in the form of the Silver Dragon King, communicated with the earth's veins, severing the energy channels of the Abyss Plane one by one.

The Titled Douluo of the Blood God Legion formed a battle formation, sacrificing their lives to seal the rift.

But the Abyss Plane is too big, too big.

The Evil Corpse knew very well that this was not a war that could be won by a few dozen Titled Douluo; it was a war of attrition, a contest of who would bleed out their last drop of blood first.

It looked down at its own palm.

There was a crack in his palm that ran from the base of his thumb to his wrist, and a dark purple light emanated from the crack. It was left three months ago by a Quasi-God- level being from the Abyss Plane.

If it were in its original form, this wound would require at least six months to heal, but the Evil Corpse had no habit of healing. It condensed the Yin Force into a thread, threaded it through the crack, stitched it up with seven stitches, and continued to wield its sword the next day.

The Evil Corpse feels no pain.

Or rather, it may feel pain, but it doesn't care; even if it dies, it can still be reborn.

The Holy Spirit Cult battlefield.

Ye Xinglan's sword is even faster than it was a year ago.

She led Xie Xie, Yuanen Yehui, and Xu Xiaoyan, starting from the Shrek City, and along the old trade route on the western side of the continent, they wiped out the remaining forces of the Holy Spirit Cult.

The Holy Spirit Cult lost most of its high-level combatants in the Shrek attack, but its branch altars, strongholds, and secret laboratories scattered throughout the world are as numerous as cockroaches.

Ye Xinglan's tactic was simple: find, remove, next.

Xie Xie's dragon dagger had drunk too much blood; there wasn't a single clean spot on its blade from end to end.

Yuanen Yehui's Titan Giant Ape Martial Soul unleashed terrifying destructive power during the attack, while Xu Xiaoyan's Star Wheel Chain were responsible for blocking the enemy's retreat.

The four became increasingly coordinated, and often they didn't even need to say a word; a single glance was enough to complete a tactical encirclement.

But Ye Xinglan's expression remained rather unwell.

Every month, she would receive a message from Seven Percent Sugar. Sometimes it was a briefing, sometimes a picture, and sometimes just a line of text. "Master went to the east of the lake today and stayed for four hours without eating."

Ye Xinglan looked at the line of text, put the communicator into her pocket, and then continued leading the team to the next outpost.

She knew what Yun Jingheng was doing.

After that man lifted Shrek from the rubble, he changed completely.

He no longer shouldered everything himself as before, but instead delegated tasks, battlefields, and everything else that could be delegated.

The Evil Corpse went north, she came to the west, Tang Wulin and Gu Yuena guarded the center line, and the Good Corpse stayed at Shrek Academy to guard and rebuild.

He himself sat on that rock on the east side of the lake, meditating, regulating his breath, and practicing his spiritual cultivation every day.

Shrek Lake East

During this year, Yun Jingheng's cultivation level broke through to level ninety-seven.

This speed would be terrifying for anyone else, but for him, it seemed perfectly normal.

The progress bar for the Lunar Yin God Trial jumps up a small increment every time the Abyss is defeated or every Holy Spirit Cult stronghold is destroyed.

He sat cross-legged on the east side of the lake, seemingly doing nothing, but in reality, his Divine Power was like an invisible net, covering the entire continent.

He is monitoring the Abyss.

It is also monitoring the Qiangu Dongfeng.

Seven Percent Sugar appears at the East Lake every afternoon at four o'clock sharp, carrying a food box.

Sometimes the food box contained porridge, sometimes noodles, and sometimes just a few snacks.

She stood three steps behind Yun Jingheng, silent, waiting for him to open his eyes.

Yun Jingheng opened his eyes, took the food box, ate a couple of bites, and then closed his eyes again.

Seven Percent Sugar didn't leave; it just stood there, occasionally glancing down at its own hands.

She is still getting used to this body, and the way she does this is by constantly looking, constantly touching, and constantly confirming that she really has the sense of touch.

Sometimes she would put her fingers into the lake water to feel the changes in water temperature.

Sometimes she would squat down and touch the texture of the stone.

Sometimes she would look up at the moon and whisper, "The moonlight is different tonight than last time."

The Half-Sweet Coffee says that Seven Percent Sugar is like a toddler just learning to walk.

The Little Gummy Bear didn't speak; it simply stood at the entrance of the Star Pavilion, its dark gray body quietly glowing with a dark blue core under the moonlight.

In the twelfth month, Yun Jingheng sat on a rock on the east side of the lake, the moonlight falling on the lake surface and shattering into thousands of silver scales.

His eyes were open.

For the first time in a year, he looked at the moon with his eyes open while meditating.

"Half-Sweet Coffee."

"Yes, Master."

What's the date today?

"October 17th, Full Moon."

Yun Jingheng took a deep breath.

He closed his eyes, and his Divine Power spread out like a tide, covering the entire Shrek City, the plains in the center of the continent, the ice fields in the Far North, and the deserts in the west.

Then he found it.

That fluctuation.

The fluctuations came from outside Douluo Planet, fluctuations from a place where no life should exist.

A Soul Power characteristic, with fluctuations exactly the same as his own Soul Power characteristic.

It is rapidly approaching the Earth's surface.

Yun Jingheng opened his eyes.

His lips curved into a smile, the first smile he'd shown in a year.

"They've arrived."

Seven Percent Sugar tilted her head. "What's here?"

Yun Jingheng stood up from the rock, stretched his shoulders and neck from sitting for a year, and his joints made a series of fine cracking sounds.

He turned to look in the direction of the Star Pavilion, to the Sea God Pavilion lit up on the opposite shore of the Sea God Lake, to the newly built school buildings and training grounds in the distance, and to the people who were breathing quietly under the moonlight, alive and well, whom he had fought so hard to save.

Then he looked north.

"The Self has returned."

The moonlight suddenly brightened for a moment at that instant.

On the horizon, a silver-blue light was rapidly approaching, its speed so great that it seemed to draw a new crescent moon across the night sky.

The Good Corpse raised its head from the shore of the Sea God Lake; it had sensed it.

The Evil Corpse raised its head at the edge of the rift in the Far North Ice Plains; it too had sensed it.

Yun Jingheng stood on a rock on the east side of the lake, bathed in moonlight.

He whispered something so softly that only Seven Percent Sugar could hear it.

It's been a year.

"It's time to close the net."