“Heh heh…”

A soft laugh suddenly rang out in the great hall. A disheveled young man in golden robes leaned against a divine pillar as he sat down, his expression full of mockery.

Gui Yansheng had somehow followed them here.

He had been backed by the Ten Thousand Ghost Ashura. Though the Demon Lord’s remnant soul had helped smooth over the injuries on his body, he had ultimately lost all his Heavenly Demon power. His current soul was incomplete, no different from an ordinary person with no strength to even truss a chicken.

Gui Yansheng looked toward Zanxing, his voice dripping with sarcasm: “So you and I are the same after all—in the end, we still can’t escape the manipulation of heavenly will. It seems that the Heavenly Demon bloodline and the half-demon bloodline make no difference at this moment. In ‘its’ eyes, you and I are nothing.”

They were nothing.

That Xiaoyuan Pearl that the world fought endlessly over, seemingly containing the supreme power of the three realms, was merely a glittering trap the Heavenly Way had given to ants.

Shaoyang Zhenren said, “The divination revealed that Duzhou’s destruction is inevitable. Only if someone from beyond this world appears might there be a sliver of hope in this desperate situation.”

Someone from beyond this world…

Zanxing’s heart stirred. So that was it.

She was someone from beyond this world. In a certain sense, she was demon clan, but also not demon clan. The demon clan wouldn’t save all living beings, but the human clan would.

She was a chess piece, but a chess piece from outside the game.

From the beginning, she had entered a book destined for tragedy. She would become one of these hundreds of millions of living beings, collapsing together with Duzhou. Or she would abandon everything beneath her feet and walk alone to the Nine Heaven Summit.

Should she be the perfect protagonist, or an insignificant supporting character?

At the space in the center of the vast sky, countless spiritual energies flew toward it. The Yuanli of everyone in the hall was leaving their bodies uncontrollably. Before long, they would all become ordinary people, just as flowing water cannot stop itself from converging toward the sea.

The Chess Game of the Imperial Platform wanted to use Duzhou’s hundreds of millions of living beings to fill the incomplete, chaotic game. Every moment of delay meant countless deaths.

The Heavenly Way was forcing her to make a choice.

The giant pillars supporting the great hall were already covered with fine cracks, as if they could no longer bear the heavy firmament above and would collapse in the next moment, overturning heaven and earth.

Should she watch Duzhou collapse with her own eyes?

Zanxing sighed softly and extended her hand toward the void. From her palm, azure and black intertwined essence emerged. The suction force bursting from the vortex was immediately blocked considerably, and the loss of Yuanli slowed.

Compared to being an emotionless, desireless, perfectly meritorious immortal, she seemed to prefer being an ordinary person with joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, who could feel cold and warmth.

After all, that was the real Yang Zanxing.

Gu Baiying stared fixedly at her, trying to shatter the light barrier and rush in, roaring: “Yang Zanxing, don’t be impulsive.”

“That’s right!” Tian Fangfang spoke urgently, “Let’s think of another way. There’s bound to be another solution. Why should someone die for no reason? The sect master’s divination might not be correct either. Those immortals are so unreliable—they might be deliberately misleading us!”

“Exactly,” Mu Cengxiao also spoke. “We haven’t reached a dead end yet.”

Meng Ying: “Junior Sister, come out first.”

“Yang Zanxing!” There was suppressed sobbing in Mendong’s voice. “Stop scaring people and stop this now!”

Zanxing’s gaze swept over each of them in turn.

When she first arrived in Duzhou, she always felt that everything was very unreal.

She was fearless and faced everyone with a smile, always feeling that everything before her was merely a strange and brilliant dream.

Until later, she met many people, experienced many things, and advanced hand in hand with her companions. Through laughter, anger, and scolding, she had long since entered the play.

When she was in the Extreme Ice Abyss, all the flower marks in her palm disappeared. She thought she had broken free from predetermined fate, but it was only temporary freedom. Through various twists and turns, the Xiaoyuan Pearl would still return to her hands, and she still couldn’t change her ending.

But precisely because of this, Duzhou had a glimmer of hope.

The Heavenly Way could not force all ants to submit.

Xiao Shuang said, “Young Palace Master!”

Bujiang looked at her, gripping her Diamond Bracelet as she lunged toward her side, but was bounced back by the light barrier. She shouted unwillingly: “Zanxing! Don’t listen to that old thing’s nonsense!”

Zanxing sighed and looked at her somewhat helplessly: “It’s already too late, Mother.”

Everything around them suddenly quieted down.

“This starlight power is identical to the aura of the Xiaoyuan Pearl within my body,” Zanxing said softly. “Before ascending the Sky Ladder, I could no longer control it.”

When the Divine Tree rose from the ground, its dense canopy shooting straight toward the clouds, she felt the Xiaoyuan Pearl within her body resonating. She felt herself being controlled by the Xiaoyuan Pearl. She hesitated at the base of the Divine Tree, not knowing whether to walk toward that unknown yet destined tragic ending.

The Demon Lord stood before her, asking meaningfully: “Do you know what the most important qualification for being the leader of Heishi City is?”

Courage, boldness, composure, decisiveness, strength?

None of those—the most important qualification was sacrifice.

Sacrificing oneself could save all people.

There would never be a demon clan member in this world who wanted to save all living beings.

“I’ll be the first,” she said.

In an instant, a fierce storm arose from the vast starry sky. That black vortex with torrential floods continuously flowing out suddenly enlarged, and a layer of enormous azure flames rose from Zanxing’s body.

The Demon Lord’s bloodline instantly erupted. The azure crabapple flower on her forehead bloomed more brilliantly and gorgeously than ever before, as if all the beautiful scenery of a lifetime was concentrated in this moment.

“Yang Zanxing!” Gu Baiying suddenly rushed forward with his spear raised. The Embroidered Bone Spear was brutally stabbed toward the flames beside Zanxing, but though the flames seemed gentle, they instantly annihilated the spear point.

He suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood. The silver spear paused, and the massive weapon spirit soared into the sky, charging fiercely once again toward the azure flames.

The azure flames suddenly surged, completely enveloping the silver spear.

The young man simply threw away the silver spear in his hands. He stared at the person surrounded by flames, trying to reach out and pull that person back, roaring: “Yang Zanxing, how dare you!”

Zanxing looked at him with a smile.

His snow-white robes were scorched by the flames, his eyes brighter than the blazing fire. He gritted his teeth: “I don’t agree. You can’t make this decision alone!”

“Gu Baiying, do you remember the question I asked you?”

“What?”

“If I took seven male consorts, would you never have anything to do with me again?”

Gu Baiying’s eyes reddened. His hands were burned by the fierce flames, yet he still stubbornly refused to give up. He said, “What are you trying to say?”

“Just consider that I took seven male consorts, and from now on, never have anything to do with me again.” She smiled as she spoke these teasing words. “You’re so good anyway, and there’s no shortage of people who like you. If you focus on the great Way in the future, you’ll surely achieve great success. If you want everyday life with firewood, rice, oil, and salt, you’ll also find a kindred companion and have children.”

“Yang Zanxing, don’t even think about it!” he said hatefully. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll always wait for you. Don’t ever think you can never have anything to do with me again!”

“Gu Baiying.” Zanxing looked at him gently. “I once said that in human interactions, there’s only meeting and parting. There’s more parting than meeting—life is always like this.”

“Every day of traveling this path with you has made me very happy.”

“Now, it’s time to part.”

Ten thousand rays of starlight descended, shattering her figure inch by inch. The woman’s long hair traced a light mark across the night sky.

A silver giant beast roared once and suddenly soared into the clouds, carrying that bright star toward the vortex in the endless void.

“Yang Zanxing!” The young man’s eyes split with fury.

Behind her, it seemed many people were calling her name, but Zanxing didn’t look back.

Thinking about it now, the “Heavenly Way” had given her many hints in secret.

The merfolk of Li’er Kingdom told her that the beginning and end of fate were predetermined and difficult to force. The dragonfly girl of Wufan City taught her to understand that beauty was brief and would eventually scatter. The craftsman in the treasure ground told her again and again that all trades in the world were unfair. The monk in the Five-Wheel Pagoda imprisoned himself in the dark nightmare realm for the sake of all people.

Again and again, they kept warning her about the inviolability of heavenly fate. But Zanxing just wouldn’t believe it.

She wanted to give her all against fate, wanted to change her destiny. She thought that by cultivating the “Peerless Heart Sutra” and retrieving the Xiaoyuan Pearl, she was looking forward to the story’s climax, never expecting that, without realizing it, she had already reached the ending.

It was both the climax and the ending.

As a child, she had read a line in a book: “In a play, there are countless names, but ultimately they are all supporting guests. Originally, it was set up for just one person.”

“Nine Heaven Summit” was originally a story created for Mu Cengxiao. The Mu Cengxiao in the story reached the Nine Heaven Summit, with everything beneath his feet becoming the past, ready to be cast aside at any time.

For Mu Cengxiao, it was a comedy. For the countless supporting characters in this story, it was an unmitigated tragedy.

Zanxing was a worldly person. She didn’t like tragedies.

She liked happy endings.

In the night sky, the vortex grew larger and larger. Zanxing felt every inch of her body being crushed and then reassembled. Those brilliant rays of light surrounded her as she became a flickering starlight, flying toward that vast, magnificent broken game stretching between heaven and earth.

She could not change the Heavenly Way. She remained a chess piece.

But this chess piece had changed the story’s ending.