Immortal Paladin

Chapter 462 449 Miracle-born Wish

449 Miracle-born Wish

[POV: Yuan Shun]

This had to be a dream.

Yuan Shun stood frozen as Master David waved at her from across a long banquet table, smiling as if nothing in the world had ever gone wrong. "Hey, what took you so long?" he said casually.

The sight made her heart jolt. Everyone was there. Lady Wen Yuhan sat near the head of the table, serene and warm. Her twin brother, Yuan Shen, laughed with Brother Shouquan, while Little Dragon Zhou Yong argued loudly over food. The scene was too complete, too gentle, like a painting scrubbed clean of blood and sorrow.

"What's the meaning of this?" Yuan Shun demanded, her voice sharp with disbelief.

"Oh? Our little girl looks confused," Wen Yuhan said lightly, reaching out as if to pat her head.

Yuan Shun swatted the hand away, heat rising to her face. "I am neither little nor your little girl." She turned sharply toward David, her eyes blazing. "Master, what is the meaning of this? Didn't you promise we would destroy this world? This unfair prison of fate, this reality that deceives us? Master, please, this isn't you."

David blinked, genuinely puzzled. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"What are you talking about?" she pressed.

Instead of answering directly, David hoisted an entire roasted pig onto the table with absurd ease, speaking as if the matter were trivial. "The world already ended."

Her thoughts stalled. If the world had ended, then what was this place?

As though reading her mind, David continued, his tone almost cheerful. "This is the end. Our happy ending. The place that remains after everything ended, our world remade. A paradise that's only our own. This is home, and this is the end of the world."

Her chest cracked open with pain. "No," she whispered, then louder, "No, I refuse to believe this. This isn't the end you promised."

What she wanted, more than salvation or destruction, was acknowledgment. She knew, deep down, that this was not it.

She blinked, and everything vanished.

Her consciousness lurched, rewinding as though given a second chance. The memory of the banquet faded, dulled, then disappeared entirely.

This time, there was a wedding.

Yuan Shun stood dressed in ceremonial robes, her hands trembling. David faced her, calm and radiant. Wen Yuhan officiated, her voice echoing softly as she declared, "You may kiss the bride."

David lifted Yuan Shun's veil, his eyes filled with love and adoration. Her heart ached at the sight. She loved her master, and she had entertained thoughts that should never have existed. Yet even as warmth spread through her chest, a quiet certainty told her this, too, could be a lie.

The world rewound again.

Only then did Yuan Shun realize it was not her mind that rewound, but the world itself. A miniature reality folded and reset around her. For a fleeting instant, her Heavenly Domain Eye pierced the illusion, revealing the true nature of this so-called future. The image of the wedding slipped away, forgotten as if forcibly erased.

The cycle repeated countless times. Different scenes, different conclusions, all subtly rearranged. She no longer knew what was wrong or where the beginning even was. She only knew that something vast and unknowable observed these outcomes, and that eventually, every variation collapsed into a single conclusion that qualified as the '❒❒❒' and had been found acceptable.

At the end of it all, Yuan Shun knelt in silence.

Her master's corpse lay before her, lifeless and cold. Tears streamed down her face as she stared at him, her thoughts finally slowing enough to settle. She asked herself, carefully and sincerely, what love truly was. Love between siblings, between lovers, between parent and child, between disciple and master, between believer and faith. She realized, with quiet despair, that she did not know the answer.

Did her master know?

She leaned forward and embraced him, pressing her forehead against his chest, feeling the ache resonate from somewhere far deeper than her heart. "I just don't want to be alone," she whispered. "Please, come back to me, master… We are not done, yet…"

Then she committed a grave sin.

She bit into his flesh.

It was not madness that guided her, but a twisted imitation of understanding. Just as her master's Divine Possession had once allowed him to feel more, to contain the people around him within himself, she did the same in her own broken way. She chewed, swallowed, and felt warmth spread through her body.

And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Yuan Shun no longer felt alone.

…

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[POV: David]

Where had it all gone wrong?

David could no longer tell. He felt as though he were looking through his own eyes and yet standing apart from himself, a strange dissonance where the world existed at a distance. Even with the Ophanim's perception unfurled, certainty eluded him. The loss of the Source echoed within his being like a missing limb, an absence that distorted everything that followed.

Voices crashed into one another across the desert.

"Master!"

"Surround her!"

"Yuan Shun, surrender!"

"The Heavenly Temple has fallen!"

"This is the end!"

His disciples shouted in rage and desperation, but none of them moved. David's voice had carried quintessence without effort, a calm utterance that weighed heavier than chains. "Back off," he said, and the command had frozen them where they stood. "Yuan Shun, let's talk about this.

It happened too quickly.

Yuan Shun crossed the distance in an instant, her movement defying reason. David felt a sharp, hollow pain as his left arm was torn away at the shoulder. There was no regeneration this time. No familiar surge of restoration followed. The wound remained raw and final, a silence where healing should have been.

David watched.

His heart felt impossibly heavy as Yuan Shun collapsed onto the sand, clutching the arm she had ripped from him. She hunched over it like a starving beast, biting into the flesh with trembling urgency. Blood soaked into the desert beneath her knees as she devoured it, her shoulders shaking.

Why did it hurt to see her like this?

The question lingered unspoken, gnawing at him. He should have ended this long ago. He knew that. He had known it for a very long time. Why had he not done so? Why had he hesitated?

Was this Da Wei's influence, still clinging to him like a ghost?

Alice's voice slipped into his mind, quiet and merciless. "You know this is all you, right?"

"Shut up," David answered, his tone flat.

Yuan Shun continued until only bone remained. Even then, she did not stop. She forced the stripped bones between her teeth, chewing them down with a wet, grinding crunch that made several disciples flinch in horror. She swallowed, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and slowly rose to her feet.

Her eyes locked onto David.

Sand clung to her clothes, blood smeared her lips, and yet her expression was serene, almost hopeful. She tilted her head slightly, as if asking for permission rather than forgiveness.

"Master," Yuan Shun said softly, her voice trembling with longing, "let's be together forever."

"Please, not this…"

…

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[POV: Lu Gao]

Lu Gao had always believed his life belonged to his master.

Gratitude filled him so deeply that it bordered on reverence. David had saved him from a fate worse than death, dragged him back from the clutches of a hellborn demon, and offered him not just power, but direction. A path illuminated when Lu Gao had already resigned himself to darkness. That was why his loyalty was absolute, carved into bone and soul alike.

And that was why he could not endure what he saw now.

Those eyes.

David's gaze no longer carried mischief, nor the teasing confidence that once accompanied his laughter. There were no pranks, no crooked smiles, no spark of playful defiance against a cruel world. What stared back at them now was something hollowed out by sorrow, weighed down by a choice too heavy to bear. Lu Gao felt his chest tighten painfully.

What happened, Master?

Laugh again. Joke with us. Scold us for worrying too much. Or at least stand tall and resolute, the way a paladin should, unwavering in conviction even at the edge of despair. Anything was better than this quiet grief that threatened to swallow him whole.

Lu Gao did not think. He acted.

As Yuan Shun moved again, her presence tearing through the air with terrifying force, Lu Gao stepped forward and shoved David aside with all the strength he had left. The impact was instantaneous.

Pain did not arrive gradually.

The left half of Lu Gao's body was simply gone.

There was no dramatic arc to the injury, no lingering moment of realization. His torso had been cleaved so cleanly that the world seemed to tilt, his vision skewing as he looked down and saw what should never have been visible. Organs exposed to open air. Blood pouring freely into the sand. The sensation was distant, unreal, as if it were happening to someone else.

What kind of unreasonable power was this?

His legs gave way, and as he fell, time stretched thin. Memories surged forward in a chaotic rush. His childhood. His suffering. The day he met David. The first time he laughed again without forcing it. The pride he felt standing behind his master, sword raised, believing without question that they would win.

Then the world fractured.

Lu Gao's consciousness slipped into a space beyond pain, beyond fear. Before him floated something vast and incomprehensible, radiant and broken all at once.

The Source.

And behind it, lurking within its shadow, something older and colder watched him. The Origin.

A voice echoed, not aloud, but directly within his existence.

[Question: What is your wish?]

Lu Gao did not hesitate.

His fading thoughts were not of himself, nor of survival. They were fixed on a single image. A lonely man standing in the desert, burdened by impossible choices, still trying to carry everyone alone.

Master, please.

Let him smile again.

…

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[POV: Ren Jingyi]

Ren Jingyi had always loved her master.

It was not a complicated thing to her. He was funny. He fed her well. He taught her strange but exciting things that made the world feel bigger instead of smaller. And more importantly, she felt it in her bones that they were destined. Even if her memories were faint and scattered, she still remembered how it began.

A simple arcade stall.

A flimsy paper scoop.

Hands that lifted her up without hesitation, declaring, half-joking and half-serious, that she was his now.

Some would call her a pet. Ren Jingyi knew many people thought that way. Master always disagreed, waving it off with mock offense, insisting she was something else entirely. At first, she did not understand why the distinction mattered. Pets were cherished, after all. Pets were fed, protected, and doted upon.

Only later did she understand the difference.

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A pet could not truly love its master back.

Affection that flowed only one way was not love. It was indulgence, or habit, or a child projecting feelings onto a favorite toy. Love required response. It required choice. It required sacrifice. That was why Ren Jingyi was not just a pet.

She was a disciple.

And disciples loved their masters back.

That understanding was what made her decision effortless when she saw Senior Brother fall. There was no hesitation, no fear strong enough to outweigh the certainty in her heart. If he could give everything, then so could she. Love that refused to be returned was not love at all, and Ren Jingyi refused to let hers be one-sided.

Her body ignited.

Fury and devotion burned together, so intense that her own scales peeled away under the strain. The sky spun as she was hurled upward, her form suspended in midair, battered by a power she barely comprehended. She tried to resist it, to claw her way back down, but the force seized her and cast her aside like something insignificant.

The battlefield vanished.

Time slowed.

Her life unfolded before her in fragments. Laughter shared over simple meals. Training sessions that felt more like games. The warmth of belonging, of being chosen and choosing in return. There was no regret in any of it.

Then the world went still.

Ren Jingyi found herself standing in a place that felt neither real nor unreal, vast and empty, yet watching her with quiet attention. A presence loomed beyond sight, ancient and impartial.

A voice echoed without sound.

[Question: What is your wish?]

Ren Jingyi did not think of power. She did not think of survival.

She thought of her master's smile, the one that used to come so easily.

And she knew her answer.

…

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[POV: Hei Mao]

Hei Mao had once been nothing more than a resentful spirit, a ghost clinging to the world through hatred and unfinished regret. That was what he believed himself to be, and for a long time, it was enough. Then he met his master, and everything changed.

He idolized him, not despite his flaws, but because of them. His master was not distant or perfect, not an unreachable ideal carved in stone. He stumbled, joked at the wrong times, threw himself into danger with reckless abandon, and yet stood back up every time. To Hei Mao, that was what greatness looked like. Not divinity, but conviction. A will that refused to bow.

Now that will was breaking before his eyes.

His master stood crippled on the battlefield, one leg shattered beyond repair, both arms torn away. He still stood upright, still refused to kneel, but the cost was written plainly across his ruined body. Around them, players were being erased one after another, crushed, torn apart, annihilated so completely that even their screams failed to linger. The battlefield was collapsing into slaughter.

Hei Mao activated his Abyss Sight, pushing it to its limits, layering it with his Immortal Art, forcing his perception beyond what his soul should have endured. It did not help. No matter how deeply he looked, he could not understand what he was seeing.

Where was Yuan Shun getting this strength?

It was not cultivation alone. It was not fate, nor technique, nor borrowed authority. It was something twisted, something that should not have existed in this form. Even knowing that did nothing to stop it.

Hei Mao felt his fighting spirit surge instead of falter.

He stepped forward, planting himself between Yuan Shun and his master, his voice tearing from his chest as he shouted, "Take master away, Brother Yuen! I'll hold her back!"

Yuen Fu did not hesitate. Lightning cracked through the air as he seized their master and vanished in a single motion, faster than thought, faster than sound. Hei Mao watched them disappear, relief and dread colliding inside him.

If it were master in his place, what would he do?

The answer was immediate. He would fight to his last breath. He would wield his conviction without shame, without retreat, without regret.

Hei Mao laughed as he charged forward, the sound sharp and bitter even to his own ears. It was absurd. He knew it was absurd. Against her, this was nothing more than a gesture.

He fought with everything he had.

He lasted no more than three moves.

The power that struck him apart was clean, absolute, and merciless. His techniques shattered before they fully formed. His defenses might as well not have existed. It was not even funny, and yet laughter bubbled up from him anyway, echoing hollowly as his form began to unravel.

Through the haze, a memory surfaced, unbidden and cruel.

"Hei Mao, just stay strong. I'll come back. It will work somehow. So, please, stay strong."

Those words cut deeper than any blade.

He stared at Yuan Shun, at the thing she had become, wearing the body of someone he had once called family. Resentment consumed him, pure and burning, eclipsing even fear. In the end, it was not pain that defined his final moment, but hatred and loyalty intertwined beyond separation.

His incorporeal form shattered.

As it broke apart, his life replayed itself in fragments. A family long gone. A descent into bitterness and death. Wandering as a ghost, clinging to resentment. Then, at last, meeting his master, and finding something worth believing in again.

When the last fragment dispersed, Hei Mao found himself standing in a strange place, neither dark nor bright, neither cold nor warm. It felt vast, silent, and impossibly old.

A presence regarded him without eyes.

A voice echoed, calm and inevitable.

[Question: What is your wish?]

…

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[POV: Yuen Fu]

Yuen Fu had once been nothing more than a soldier, a blade among countless others, trained to obey and survive. Then he became a follower, and in doing so, found something he had never known he lacked. To him, his master was not merely a leader, but an anchor. As long as there was breath in his master's lungs, the battle was not yet lost. As long as his master stood, hope endured.

That belief carried him as he fled.

Lightning wrapped around his body as he dragged his master away from the battlefield, every step fueled by desperation and loyalty. The world blurred beneath his feet, sand and shattered stone dissolving into streaks of color. He ran with everything he had, pushing his cultivation, his technique, and his body far beyond their limits.

It was not enough.

A pressure unlike anything he had known swept through him, and in an instant, his legs were gone. Not shattered, not crushed, but erased, torn into nothingness by that strange, incomprehensible power. Momentum carried him forward, and he crashed into the ground, rolling across the sand as blood sprayed behind him.

He looked up.

Yuan Shun was approaching, her speed increasing with every step, her presence distorting the air itself. Players hurled themselves at her in waves, screaming as they cast spells and unleashed skills, detonations blooming across her path. Their courage was undeniable. Their efforts were meaningless. She passed through them as if they were mist, bodies breaking, techniques collapsing, lives ending in flashes of light and silence.

Then his master did something unthinkable.

David tore himself from Yuen Fu's grasp and staggered forward, broken body moving on sheer will alone. He threw himself at Yuan Shun, arms spread, voice raw as he begged, "Please, Yuan Shun, it's me, David!"

Yuen Fu's heart seized.

He knew something was wrong. The wounds she inflicted did not heal. No light returned to flesh. No miracle followed. This was not damage that could be undone. This was loss made permanent.

He could not allow it.

His legs were gone, but his will was not. He clawed at the ground, dragging himself forward through blood and sand, every movement a scream of agony he refused to voice. When Yuan Shun raised her hand, he placed himself between her and his master without hesitation.

Her hand pierced through his chest.

The pain was absolute, but clarity followed. He turned his head, meeting his master's eyes one last time, and forced the words out through blood-filled lungs.

"Please… get yourself together, master."

With the last of his strength, Yuen Fu swung his sword, pouring everything he had into the strike. It was a final, defiant gesture, an attempt to take her with him even as death closed in. The blade never reached its mark. Yuan Shun tore him apart, his body breaking under her grasp as if it had never been tempered by battle at all.

As darkness swallowed him, his life flashed before his eyes.

He remembered False Earth. The drills. The orders. The quiet acceptance of death that every soldier carried. He had always thought he would die on some forgotten field, one name among many. If this was the end, then so be it. A soldier's death, fighting for something he believed in.

Strangely, he did not vanish.

He found himself conscious in a way he had never experienced before, his body gone, yet his awareness sharp and intact. The battlefield was no longer there. Neither was pain.

Only a vast, unfamiliar space remained.

A presence regarded him.

A question followed, echoing through his being.

[Question: What is your wish?]

…

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[POV: Ding Cai]

Ding Cai knew she was powerless to stop it.

Even with her gifts, even with the knowledge she carried that surpassed most cultivators of her generation, she could not change what was unfolding before her eyes. She stood there, watching everything collapse, her hands clenched so tightly that her nails cut into her palms.

Ren Zhe grabbed at her sleeve, his voice cracking. "There has to be something we can do. We can't let Master die. He hasn't healed the world yet. My parents—"

He stopped mid-sentence. His hand trembled in hers, subtle but unmistakable. Since Yuan Shun had appeared, Ren Zhe had not stopped shaking. Ding Cai recognized it immediately. It was not fear alone, but instinct. Something buried deep within him, something monstrous and ancient that came from the circumstances of his birth, was screaming at him that this was wrong, that something before them was not meant to exist.

She tightened her grip on his hand.

"Everything's going to be fine," she said.

Ren Zhe stared at her as if she had betrayed him. "How can you say that?"

Ding Cai forced a grin onto her face, even as her chest ached. "Just trust your senior sister. That Yuan Shun… her power is abnormal. She's drawing strength from somewhere else. If we cut it off, then we can still do something."

His trembling slowed. Resolve replaced panic in his eyes. "Tell me what to do."

Ding Cai closed her eyes for a brief moment, sorting through everything she knew. Of all the disciples, her understanding of souls was the deepest. She had felt it when the others fell. She had felt where they went. The dead did not vanish. They were pulled somewhere, guided by a current she could almost perceive.

Yuan Shun was different.

She existed in a similar state, yet not quite the same. She moved back and forth across that boundary again and again, as if something unseen was reaching into her and refilling her endlessly. A greater power. One that did not belong to this world.

"It's Origin Qi," said a calm voice.

Ding Cai's eyes snapped open.

A figure stood beside her, clad in yellow robes, an imperial crown resting upon his head. His presence was overwhelming, yet oddly distant, as if he did not fully exist there.

Her breath caught. "Who are you? Wait… you're the Yellow Emperor, aren't you?"

Ren Zhe turned, confusion written across his face. "What? Who are you talking to?"

The Yellow Emperor did not look at him. "Only you can see me," he said to Ding Cai. "I appeared to give you a hint. There is no beating the enemy before you with brute force. Not this time. Talk. That is all."

Before she could respond, he vanished.

Her thoughts scattered.

She barely had time to process his words before danger surged toward her. Yuan Shun moved without warning, as if Ding Cai's realization alone had marked her as a threat. The air screamed. Ding Cai felt her body lift from the ground as an overwhelming force crashed into her.

Up close, Yuan Shun looked the same as she always had. The same face. The same features. Only the blood told a different story. Blood soaked her body from countless wounds that should have killed her, and her eyes burned with a manic light that no longer recognized friend or disciple.

Ding Cai felt herself breaking.

As her consciousness slipped, memories surfaced unbidden. A time when she did not possess a soul in any conventional sense. The Heavenly Temple Academy. Lessons. Curiosity. The slow realization of what she was, and what she could become.

Then came silence.

She knew she had died. Yet death did not claim her completely. Something tugged at her, drawing her away from the battlefield, pulling her toward a place she could not see.

A presence awaited her.

A question formed, clear and unavoidable.

[Question: What is your wish?]

…

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[POV: Ren Zhe]

Ren Zhe heard Ding Cai's voice through panicked Qi Speech, her words fractured and bleeding into the air.

"Talk. You must talk to her—!"

It had been meant for their master, but her desperation scattered the message in every direction. Even so, Ren Zhe understood. He understood far too well.

His body trembled. The fear was not emotional, not something he could reason away. It lived in his flesh, buried deep in his marrow, an instinct older than thought that screamed at him to flee. This was not an enemy he was meant to face. This was something fundamentally above him.

Even so, he stepped forward.

His teeth clenched as he forced Divine Transformation upon himself once more. He had already lost control of it earlier. The strain had nearly torn him apart then, and this time it was worse. Pain ripped through him as bones shifted and muscles tore themselves into something new. His body grew taller, broader, more monstrous. Four arms burst forth, star qi howling through them as the asura within him fully awakened.

He roared, half in defiance and half in agony.

Ren Zhe seized Yuan Shun by the leg and hurled her away with everything he had. The impact sent her flying, but the victory lasted less than a heartbeat. The arm he used went numb instantly. He looked down just in time to see it vanish, erased as if it had never existed.

He gritted his teeth and stomped forward regardless.

Star qi condensed around him as he forged weapons on the fly, spears forming one after another and launching toward her in an endless barrage. They struck, shattered, and disappeared without leaving a mark. Useless. All of it was useless.

The battlefield had gone quiet. The players were few now, their numbers reduced to scattered survivors who still fought out of stubbornness rather than hope. Ren Zhe refused to let them fall without meaning.

He raised his voice, letting it carry across the ruined sands. "Proud warriors of the Holy Ascension Empire! Fight with me!"

Star qi surged again. This time, he shaped it into three weapons at once, a sword, a spear, and an axe, each clutched in one of his remaining hands. With a single bound, he crossed the distance between himself and Yuan Shun.

He never even reached her.

She walked through him.

Not past him. Through him.

His lower body was crushed as if reality itself had folded inward. Pain arrived all at once, white and absolute. His intestines spilled out onto the ground, warmth vanishing as sensation fled. In that moment, clarity struck him with cruel precision.

So this was the cause of fear. Not strength, not skill, but a fundamental difference in existence. He was alive. She was something else.

As his vision dimmed, memories surfaced. His mother's gentle voice. His father's laughter. The stories they told of Da Wei, spoken with warmth and admiration, as if his master were a hero pulled from legend rather than a man who walked among them.

Ren Zhe felt a hollow ache in his chest.

How badly he wanted to see them smile again. How badly he wanted to see his master smile again.

"Why?" he thought, bitterness and grief tangling together. "Why have you forsaken us, oh heaven?"

A familiar presence stirred beside him. His twin soul, faint but clear, cried out in regret. "Brother, I'm sorry I couldn't have done more."

Despite everything, Ren Zhe laughed weakly. "Hah. What are you talking about? We did great. You did great. It's me who sucks."

The battlefield faded.

Ren Zhe felt himself pulled away, his broken body left behind as his awareness drifted into a strange, formless space. There was no pain here, only silence and an overwhelming sense of being observed.

A presence addressed him, neither kind nor cruel, merely absolute.

[Question: What is your wish?]

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[POV: Gu Jie]

Gu Jie stood within the silent expanse where death no longer felt like an ending.

The question echoed again, patient and eternal.

[Question: What is your wish?]

She ignored it.

She had been here for some time after dying. Time behaved strangely in this place, stretching and folding without rhythm. Above everything hovered the Source, vast and luminous, turning slowly like a patient star. Gu Jie recognized it immediately. This was her master's secret, the foundation of his strength, and also his home. Earth.

Beyond the Source, half-hidden and half-forgotten by reality itself, lay something else. The Origin.

Just thinking about it stirred a yearning so deep it bordered on instinct. She wanted to return to it, even though she did not truly understand what it was. She only knew that it was dangerous, ancient, and immense. Through her Immortal Art, she had once glimpsed it, only for an instant. Now that she was here, standing closer to truth than she had ever been in life, she felt the difference in scale with brutal clarity.

She was small. Insignificant.

The question returned, unchanged.

[Question: What is your wish?]

Gu Jie ignored it again. She steadied herself and waited, clinging to her sanity as presences began to appear around her, one after another. Familiar souls. Familiar bonds. Her fellow disciples.

That meant they had all perished.

She perceived them clearly with her special eyes, each soul glowing with its own hue and weight of destiny. Yet none of them could perceive her. She remained an observer, unseen and unheard, just as she intended.

The question echoed once more, unwavering.

[Question: What is your wish?]

This time, answers came. Not from her, but from them.

"To repay the favor and support that my master showed me," Lu Gao said, his voice firm and unyielding.

"To be together. I do not want my master to be alone," Ren Jingyi said softly, her affection pure and unhidden.

"To protect my family forevermore," Hei Mao declared, his resentment tempered into resolve.

"To possess the power to defy fate for my master," Yuen Fu said, his words carrying the weight of a soldier's oath.

"To become a pillar that would raise the people around me, and for master to no longer suffer sadness," Ding Cai said, her wish steady and selfless.

"To be by my parents' side, so they can continue telling me stories about master," Ren Zhe said, his longing simple and painfully sincere.

Gu Jie listened to every word.

Then she acted.

With calm precision, she imbued destiny into each of their wishes, not twisting them, not overwriting them, but reinforcing what already existed. She strengthened the paths they had chosen, ensuring their desires would not be scattered or erased by the vast machinery of existence.

Only after that did she turn inward.

At last, she answered the question herself.

"A happy ending at the '❒❒❒' of everything," Gu Jie said, her voice sincere and unguarded.

The response was immediate.

Destiny surged. Reality trembled. A miracle was born, not forged through domination or sacrifice, but through convergence. It was a wish unlike any that had come before, one that did not seek control, revenge, or escape. It sought resolution.

The wave of it spread outward, touching the Source, brushing the shadow of the Origin, and moving beyond them both. It would drive the '❒❒❒❒❒' forward, reshaping paths that had once seemed fixed.

What form it would take, Gu Jie could not tell. No one could. She only knew that it would change not just their world, but all of existence tied to it.

She looked toward the distant light, where her master still struggled.

"Master," Gu Jie said quietly, her voice carrying no regret. "I leave the rest to you."