Chapter 367

Chapter 367: Facing the Past’s End

The planet had been torn apart. The sky burned. Continental shelves collapsed into the molten core. Mad stars hung above the shattered world like they’d been turned upside down.

The dying behemoth drifted across the exhausted edge of the atmosphere, passing over the crack that ran through the entire planet. And on the behemoth’s back, Yu Sheng—mere pedestrian—finally descended and landed.

The creature’s back was vast and boundless, like a giant island floating in space. Some unknown force gathered the last structure of an atmosphere around it, shielding this “land” from the apocalyptic scenery outside.

And on that land—like a doomsday ark—there was a lush peach grove.

At the grove’s edge were clear springs and ponds, bamboo houses and little bridges, unmistakably man-made. But the bamboo houses had long been abandoned, and the spring ponds were nearly dried up.

When Yu Sheng rode in on the silver-white demon fox, the only living person there was Zheng Zhi.

He was completely unhurt, sitting in a daze beneath a peach tree in the center of the grove. On the stone table in front of him lay an unfinished game of chess.

“Big nephew!!”

From far away, Irene shouted at the top of her lungs from Yu Sheng’s shoulder.

Zheng Zhi jolted, snapped out of his trance, and turned around. His eyes widened as he finally saw Yu Sheng and the others approaching on Foxy’s back, with Immortal Qian Ji and Xuan Che gliding in behind them.

Relief flooded his face. “Brother Yu! You finally came! I thought I was really dead this time!”

Yu Sheng swung down and strode straight to him. Luna and Princess Rapunzel jumped off next. Mermaid followed last, delivered to the ground by Rapunzel’s hair like a tossed bundle.

“Ah—Rapunzel and Mermaid. You two are alright too,” Zheng Zhi said when he saw them, a wash of relief softening his expression. “Thank god. I thought you fell straight outside. If you fell out there, you’d be dead for sure… I dragged you into this…”

“To us, you’re the one who fell outside,” Rapunzel shot back. She looked him up and down once. “Not bad. Your life really is weirdly tough.”

Zheng Zhi scratched his head, still looking like he didn’t fully understand what was happening. Then he looked at Yu Sheng. “Brother Yu, is this the otherworld you were exploring before?”

“In theory, yes,” Yu Sheng said, glancing into the distance where the slanted horizon slowly rose at the edge of the beast’s back. The torn surface of the planet was shifting under the pressure of magma. Rock vapor and fragments scattered into space like ash. “But what we saw last time wasn’t anywhere near this… exciting.”

He pulled his gaze back to Zheng Zhi. “So you’ve been here the whole time? You fell in from the real world and landed right in this grove?”

“Yeah.” Zheng Zhi nodded quickly. “I landed right here. And when I first landed, there was an old gentleman here too…”

Yu Sheng barely reacted to the first part. The second part hit him like a hammer. “What? A person? You met someone here?!”

“Yeah,” Zheng Zhi said fast, startled by Yu Sheng’s tone. “He looked like an immortal. He said this peach grove was his, and that this was his Qian Kun Beast. I didn’t really understand. Then he dragged me into playing chess, but I told him I couldn’t. He looked… disappointed.”

He lifted a hand and pointed toward the stone table beneath the peach tree.

The unfinished chess game still sat there, pieces frozen mid-struggle.

Inside an otherworld, there was a person?

“I’ve never seen this kind of thing,” Rapunzel muttered, stunned. “There’s actually a person inside an otherworld. Even Red Hood probably hasn’t seen that…”

Then she turned sharply on Zheng Zhi. “Where did he go? That old gentleman who pulled you into chess—where did he go?”

“He disappeared just now,” Zheng Zhi answered obediently. “He said the time had come, and that the Emperor Lord was calling him, or something. I wanted to ask who he really was, and how to leave, but I didn’t even get a chance to speak.”

Yu Sheng and Irene stared at each other.

Beside them, Immortal Qian Ji let out a sound of deep regret. “Ah… we were delayed. Delayed! If we had arrived earlier, we might have had a chance to meet an ancestor…”

Xuan Che blurted instinctively, “You think this is…?”

Immortal Qian Ji didn’t answer. He raised a hand and pointed toward a corner of the slanted sky above the peach grove.

Xuan Che followed the gesture, went blank for a few seconds, and then his eyes widened.

“Recognize it?” Immortal Qian Ji asked quietly.

Xuan Che’s expression shifted through several changes. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

The spirit-link mirror floating beside Immortal Qian Ji rose, reflecting that corner of the horizon.

At the edge of sight, a torn chunk of crust was slowly rising into space. A blazing curtain of magma hung between that fragment and the planet’s main body. And on the scorched, twisted fragment, you could faintly make out the outline of its original structure—

Endless mountain ranges piled one after another. A thousand peaks, once thick and vast. Old buildings reduced to char and ash.

Most people wouldn’t recognize anything in that blackened ruin. But for Xuan Che—and for Immortal Yuan Ling watching through the mirror—no matter how distorted it was, they could identify it at a glance.

It was Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, torn from the planet’s surface.

The sheer weight of that realization hammered the grove into silence.

Yu Sheng was about to press Zheng Zhi for details when a strange roar and an unsettling quake cut through everything.

The behemoth beneath their feet let out a different kind of dying moan, and the entire “land” lurched hard—tilting sideways.

Yu Sheng jerked his head up. Beyond the grove, the already slanted horizon was shaking violently, tipping even farther. At the same time, the whole world seemed to rise—while the sea of lava and falling crust fragments bore down on them with crushing pressure.

Then, far off, something hit.

A massive boom rolled across space. A collapsing mountain slammed into the behemoth’s body. Countless fragments sprayed from its side. Scorching flame surged into view like blood from a wound.

Mermaid clapped both hands over her ears, face twisting as if the sound was splitting her skull. “It’s about to die!”

She didn’t need to say it. Yu Sheng could feel it.

The behemoth was dying fast. It was sinking toward the planet’s broken surface, and as it died, the artificial gravity and atmosphere around it began to collapse.

Yu Sheng opened a door beside him without hesitation. “Everyone, withdraw!”

No one wasted time. Special Operations Bureau training and Fairy Tale discipline snapped into place.

Zheng Zhi, Rapunzel, and Mermaid rushed through the door leading back to the Parted Clouds Palace grand hall, followed immediately by Xuan Che.

Immortal Qian Ji hesitated at the threshold and looked back once. Blackened fragments of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain spun and broke apart in the dark of space. The red-tinged starfield reflected in the lens assemblies of his eye sockets, as if he were recording every detail.

Only after a moment did he step through into Parted Clouds Palace.

A sea of fire rose at the peach grove’s edge. With the death of the Qian Kun Beast, the protective power shrouding this “ark” was fading. Scorching fragments from the planet ignited the grove. Twisted flames surged up like a wall, swallowing the spring ponds, bamboo houses, and little bridges at the grove’s outer ring.

“You three should go too,” Yu Sheng said, seeing Foxy had already returned to human form. He nodded at Irene, Foxy, and Luna. “Go.”

Irene froze, then snapped into motion. “Again?!”

“Yeah.” Yu Sheng didn’t bother hiding it. “I’m going to watch a little longer. This otherworld is special. Next time we enter, who knows what scene it’ll show us. We might not get a second chance to collect intel on this moment. You three go first. If Xuan Che asks, tell them I’m busy and I’ll come back on my own.”

“…Alright, fine. I’m used to you dying outside all day,” Irene sighed. She climbed into Foxy’s arms like it was routine, then turned her head to wave at Yu Sheng. “We’ll head back first. After you finish dying, hurry over.”

Foxy stared at Yu Sheng as if she wanted to argue. After holding it in, she clenched her fist. “Benefactor, keep it up.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

The fox and the doll were getting more and more outrageous about his casual life-and-death issues.

Compared to that, Luna’s reaction was solemn to the point of emptiness. She didn’t say anything at all.

Yu Sheng waved them off. Then he closed the door.

He turned back toward the land tilting beneath him and took a quiet breath.

It was the last smooth breath he would take here.

A gale rose, almost lifting him—then the last layer of artificial atmosphere around the Qian Kun Beast dispersed.

The flames in the peach grove sputtered out. The tiny artificial ecosystem stalled and died.

The behemoth beneath Yu Sheng’s feet finally went still, turning into lifeless rock like the fragments drifting around it. It continued rolling slowly through space. Occasionally, faint vibrations trembled through its body—some leftover reflection of what it had once been.

Gravity failed. Yu Sheng felt himself growing lighter.

He lifted his head.

The broken planet hung above him, its core split open by apocalyptic force. Firelight filled his vision. In that moment, it felt as if even the most basic laws had snapped. Magma circling the exposed core took on a strange blooming shape in space, and everything began accelerating away from the planet.

Yu Sheng narrowed his eyes.

A blazing droplet of molten rock skimmed past the behemoth and slammed straight into what was left of the peach grove.

Yu Sheng got roasted crisp while he stared into the dying core.