One thousand and one overbearing tentacles collapsed into ruin. One thousand and one nightmares melted away like snow before one thousand and one hopes and longings. Atop the paper airplane's wings, points of radiant light from the last words flickered softly, as if harmonizing in a quiet elegy that brought peace to wandering souls as they sang their farewell. The demon's true form and the despair of Hell crumbled instantly before hope.
This reminded Bai Zhou of a fairy tale book from Wancheng titled *One Thousand and One Nights*, which contained one thousand and one tales. He wondered whether Tinghai had that same book. Its name originated from its very first story.
That story told of a vicious, jealous dragon in ancient Wancheng that took a young maiden as its bride each day, only to execute her the following morning. To save the innocent women, a woman of the Black Robes volunteered to marry the dragon. She captivated the beast with her storytelling, timing each tale so that morning arrived right at the most thrilling climax. Unable to bear killing her before hearing the rest, the dragon spared her life and ordered her to continue the following night.
Night after night, the Black Robe woman's tales went on for one thousand and one nights, until the dragon was finally moved to redeem itself, never again wreaking havoc or doing evil.
Many of the Wancheng stories Bai Zhou had heard in his childhood drew heavily from those *One Thousand and One Nights*.
And now, one thousand and one nightmares dissolved into clouds of fluttering luminescence. The monster from Hell roared toward the sky, just like the wicked dragon redeemed across one thousand and one nights into one thousand and one warm fairy tales.
"Bai Zhou!"
One after another, the jellyfish's tentacles disintegrated. The demon woman's roaring voice rang with confusion and bewilderment, and Chi's agonizing thrashing looked as though its entire frame were engulfed in unquenchable, terrifying flames.
"What on earth did you do to me?!"
The demon woman could not see the last words Bai Zhou had unleashed. Chi saw only a colossal paper airplane ablaze with holy light hurtling forward. Then, as if ensnared by an inextinguishable sacred fire, tentacle after tentacle perished amidst agonizing wails. In mere moments, Chi had already died several hundred times, hurtling rapidly toward the one-thousand-and-first death.
What was this thing?
The Holy Lance of Longinus? The crucifix stained with Christ's sacred blood? Saint George's dragon-slaying blade? The relics of the Buddha? Or the Celestial Master's Seal of Yangping enshrined upon the holy mountain?
The demon recalled the ancient black boxes handed down across generations specifically to slay fiends.
Yet it was none of those.
This thing blazing with furious, sacred fire was a fucking paper airplane!
Even the demon could not keep from cursing in its heart.
A paper airplane! A plane folded out of paper! And a gigantic one at that!
Did a thing like this not feel utterly absurd in a mythological battle of this scale?
The demon could not fathom why this paper airplane possessed such absolute suppression over its physical resentment, as if tailored with precisely one thousand and one counters for each of its one thousand and one lives.
Bai Zhou remained silent. He had no way of explaining the matter of last words to a demon.
Yet ignoring an enemy's demand outright seemed a bit too pretentious. Being an unfailingly polite young man, Bai Zhou gave careful thought to his wording before offering a tactful reply to the demon woman:
"Can't be bothered to tell you... You aren't worthy of hearing it."
It was super effective.
"Aaaargh!" The demon howled to the heavens.
A hysteria bordering on madness rattled the other half of the world under Chi's dominion.
Deep within the inverted mountains suspended in the sky came a low, mournful rumble. Beneath the demon's command, they erupted in sequence, blasting scorching flames across the firmament like a fiend from Hell unfurling its wings.
For an exalted demon, being despised by a mere mortal stung far worse than being killed.
Worse still, he was not just boasting. Bai Zhou was truly qualified to look down upon the demon—because he had slain a demon once before, and he was on the verge of claiming his second kill.
*Rumble, rumble, rumble...*
The demon danced, burning all of Chi's remaining authority, rendering its form ever more frail and translucent.
Chi had not lost its mind; Chi simply knew death was imminent and wished to drag everyone down into mutual destruction.
Three hundred and twenty-seven inverted volcanoes roared like savage beasts, tearing open their bellies at the exact same instant! Blazing magma erupted from the heavens, surging forth like the breach of the celestial Weak Water River, or as if the sky had slit three hundred and twenty-seven weeping, bleeding eyes, dumping billions of tons of scalding torrents down upon this tiny stretch of highway.
A deluge of fire swept across the heavens like a scarlet tempest. Countless arrows of divine retribution wove an impenetrable, world-scorching net that plunged down to swallow Bai Zhou and his companions! A scene of utter apocalypse.
"W-what do we do?" Fang Xiaoxia's lips trembled upon the quaking ground. She was no longer the sovereign queen with a blood moon suspended in her eyes; for any ordinary mortal, merely remaining upright before such apocalyptic devastation was a monumental feat.
The Gem Witch was equally helpless. This was not the eruption of a single volcano or two, but hundreds of inverted volcanoes in the sky detonating simultaneously. Even the legendary cataclysm that extinguished the dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period could hardly have matched this.
The damaged wand in her grip and the Gem Tricks she prided herself on were nothing more than fireflies before the blazing sun—far too trivial to even mention.
She could only pin her hopeful gaze onto the figure of Bai Zhou standing aloft in the sky.
Small as his silhouette appeared within this scene of ruin.
Fortunately, Bai Zhou never disappointed.
The blood moon rose from the depths of his eyes.
"Null! Null! Null!"
Bai Zhou issued three decrees in succession. His voice reverberated like a divine mandate, inverting heaven and earth, diverting the torrent of fire.
A miracle unfolded. As the first decree fell, the passage of time seemed to blur and decelerate, and the blazing net of magma and fire froze dead in midair.
With the second decree, the frozen magma began to flow backward, winding along its trajectory back into the craters.
With the third decree, the jagged fractures torn into the mountains began healing, sealing, and restoring themselves at a speed visible to the naked eye, even as the falling fire poured back inside. Stones sealed the mountain peaks shut; three hundred and twenty-seven active volcanoes turned dormant, then solidified back into solid mountains.
All of this shared an uncanny likeness with the command Fang Xiaoxia had issued to Bai Zhou—"Hey, come back"—yet the toll exacted was worlds apart. The blood moon in Bai Zhou's eyes depleted rapidly, shrinking from a half-moon into a faint, slender crescent that dimmed into obscurity.
Even for a demon, this move was a desperate last resort. Clashing over the authority to destroy or undo the destruction of a world inflicted severe damage upon the world itself, and both bearers of that authority suffered harm in turn.
The ethereal jellyfish turned ever more translucent, while the blood moon in Bai Zhou's eyes grew equally dim.
This meant the source of authority hidden inside Bai Zhou—that half of the demon whose consciousness was still ignorant and embryonic—had fallen into unprecedented weakness.
Yet this, too, had been Bai Zhou's goal.
*All of this...* Gazing upon the serene, quiet world, Bai Zhou kept his expression neutral, but astonishment roiled within his heart. The sheer power to bend the world to one's will with a single thought... Though Bai Zhou knew authority was not absolute power, that it would mean nothing the moment he stepped outside this realm, he could still taste its intoxicating allure.
He was merely a youth who had hacked his way out of Wancheng's back alleys with a blade. Just days ago, he had been squatting atop an outdoor air conditioning unit, pondering where he would spend the night. And now, he held the power of life and death over half a world, his every word law, his decrees moving the heavens.
It was mesmerizing.
And far too easy to corrupt a soul.
This sensation was more addictive than any mountain of gold, any beauty, or any indulgence of the flesh. Omnipotence drew people in; no one who tasted it would ever willingly return to being a mortal. Just as in myth, casting gods down into the mortal realm was the cruellest punishment gods could ever devise for their kin.
Fortunately, Bai Zhou's head remained clear.
He raised his chin and looked toward the demon. "It's useless."
He watched the ethereal jellyfish that the School Demon had become. It was now less than a fifth of its original size and shrinking rapidly.
"We both possess the world's authority. Whatever you do, I can undo, and vice versa," Bai Zhou said calmly.
In the end, victory came down to their own intrinsic selves.
Yet an unborn demon lacking a true physical body possessed no "self." The sole and mightiest weapon it could deploy had instead exposed Chi's fatal weakness to Bai Zhou.
Bai Zhou's past experiences had granted him an odd assortment of methods, but at its core, the students who created the demon were the very ones who slew it.
Destiny seemed to be a circle, winding around only to return to its origin.
This brought to mind the prophecy the crystal ball had once delivered:
*Heart of the mountains! Daughter of the inverted sky!*
*The demon that hastily severed its umbilical cord draws near, draws near!*
*Prayers to the divine go unanswered, for the answer hangs not in the heavens!*
*The sun strangles the demon with an umbilical cord; the home of the mountain dweller lies encircled by peaks!*
"The umbilical cord... strangles the demon?"
Realization dawned upon Bai Zhou.
"...So that's how it is."
Bai Zhou had originally assumed the umbilical cord mentioned in the prophecy referred to the blood vessels—like the Legacy of Bloodthirst—that Major Luo used to link the fleshy edifice to the School Demon, pumping nutrients between them.
He was wrong.
That cord had nothing to do with Major Luo. One end was tethered to the unborn demon, while the other had always been held in the hands of the students themselves. It was their daily endurance and anxiety, the pain they dared not voice to their parents, the tears they hid from view—all of that had served as the nutrients that birthed this demon called "School."
The demon was their suffering, their resentment, those endless exam papers they could never finish, the test rankings they could never catch up to, the expectations of others they could never satisfy.
The students themselves had bred the demon called School.
Yet it was also the students who, using crumpled homework paper, had folded that paper airplane yearning for the blue sky and the future.
Suffering and yearning did not contradict one another; they could always exist side by side.
In the end, they folded their goodwill along with unspoken gratitude into those crumpled sheets of paper.
And they placed the other end of the umbilical cord tethered to the demon into Bai Zhou's hands.
Perhaps, without realizing it, Bai Zhou the guidance counselor had become someone's little sun.
The sun in the prophecy was Bai Zhou himself—or perhaps it referred to this colossal paper airplane radiating white light.
The sun would strangle the demon with the umbilical cord, and the demon would be buried, encircled by three hundred and twenty-seven mountains.
This scene before him matched the prophecy to the letter.
"Time to end this," Bai Zhou murmured.
*Buzz!*
Upon the crumpled paper airplane, crease after crease smoothed out quietly in the wind. The points of light along the wingtips dragged long, gentle trails across the sky, mirrored in the eyes of everyone on the ground.
Crippled, struggling, and contorted, the ethereal jellyfish's venomous, frenzied eyes froze for the first time in a blank daze, as if recognizing something.
The flickering dawn light of the last words fell into view. Chi saw those motes of brilliance.
Those silhouettes curled up in their desks, heads bowed, too timid to raise their hands to answer a question.
Those teenagers who carefully folded disappointing exam papers and stuffed them into the deepest recesses of their backpacks.
And those girls who stayed alone in the classroom after evening self-study, staring out the window into the distance for a very long time.
Chi recognized them, of course.
They were not any single person; they were many, many people. Or perhaps they were not people at all, but the sorrows of youth.
Chi was their child.
One thousand and one tentacles shattered, and one thousand and one lives perished. The silhouette of the demon woman surfaced as the paper airplane crashed gently into her chest—
A faint, delicate snap rang out, like an umbilical cord being tenderly snipped.
At that moment, the demon felt as though it had returned to the embrace of the womb.
A sense of relief that should never have belonged to a demon welled up within its heart. She vaguely heard a voice... a long-overdue *it's all right*.
They said, *I forgive myself.*
It turned out they had never blamed anyone. They simply could not make peace with their past selves, leaving so many unable to ever walk out of that school, and thus the School Demon had been born.
"..."
Then, the demon woman lowered her head.
Chi watched pure white dawn light spread from its chest to encompass its entire body, crumbling into countless, minuscule motes of dust. These specks of light did not scatter into the open air; instead, they flowed entirely toward the wings of the paper airplane. The plane, which had not paused for a second even after piercing the demon, spread its broad wings, bearing the wings full of light, bearing those liberated thoughts, and bearing everything of this crumbling demon—
It flew steadily and resolutely toward the distant sky.
Flying until the dark receded.
Flying until the dawn broke bright.
"Ah..."
The demon exhaled slowly, its crumbling visage serene.
"I lost to you again, Bai Zhou."
"Doesn't count."
Bai Zhou shook his head without hesitation.
"This time, you didn't lose to me."
Bai Zhou spoke earnestly: "You lost to them."
*Them?*
The demon woman froze.
As dazzling motes of light drained from her body into the paper airplane, Chi quickly realized what Bai Zhou meant and let out a soft laugh.
"I have no idea how you did it..."
"But you truly are an extraordinary man."
She tilted her head slightly, even that final remnant of her head on the verge of dissolving into dust to follow the plane.
"What an unforgettable battle."
"Even if I return to Hell for ten thousand years, I will never forget what happened today... and I will certainly never forget your name!"
"Young slayer of demons and saints—Bai Zhou!"
The next instant, the words still echoing in the air.
The demon shattered completely in the sky.
The two-hundred-meter ethereal jellyfish, along with Chi's one thousand and one lives, vanished without a trace.
Slain by Bai Zhou.
On September 9, 2030, Bai Zhou slew a demon here.
The plane flew into the distance and disappeared. The sea of light flickered across the sky, as if waving farewell to Bai Zhou.
A smile tugged at the corner of Bai Zhou's mouth, and he waved back to them.
Yet a moment later, the smile on his lips stiffened.
*Oh no!*
*My plane!*
*My massive paper airplane was abducted by the students!*
Just as Bai Zhou was nursing his heartache, he spotted faint flashes of fragmented red light near the horizon.
First one or two points, then hundreds, then thousands, weaving into a dense sheet across the sky.
*Whoosh—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!*
One after another, they surged from far to near, pouncing toward Bai Zhou!
"This is...?"
Bai Zhou paused.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish!*
Innumeral shards flashing with scarlet light—strokes of horizontal lines, vertical slashes, hooks, and dots—surged one after another into Bai Zhou's body.
*Last words!* Bai Zhou's expression remained calm, but his heart skipped a beat.
Hundreds and thousands of last word fragments had been stored inside Bai Zhou's Slumbering Totoro Backpack, and now, Bai Zhou had finally fulfilled them.
They were presenting Bai Zhou with a reward.
What would it be?
Bai Zhou was immensely curious.
With so many last words completed at the exact same moment, what kind of gift would they bestow upon him?
Would they fuse into a grand prize, or remain separate...?
*Crash...*
Invisible ripples stirred within the Fate Principle space. Towering waves churned upon the Sea of Ignorance, its black foam weighing tens of thousands of jin.
Following the other three mysterious glyphs, stroke by stroke, a new symbol slowly etched itself onto the surface of the Sea of Ignorance.
The ancient, mysterious glyph mark landed within Bai Zhou's vision, and an intuitive flash of insight allowed him to naturally comprehend it, as if he had been born fluent in this tongue—a language endowed with miraculous power.
Bai Zhou opened his eyes in the sky.
Parting his lips, he murmured a single syllable in an obscure, archaic cadence.
The pronunciation seemed born of heaven itself, carrying the exalted majesty of commanding the world.
*Buzz...* An imperceptible tremor rippled through the Sea of Ignorance, vibrating outward in all directions.
Bai Zhou's figure turned translucent where he stood, vanishing from the sky for an instant.
Half a second later, he reappeared in the same spot.
"No way..."
Bai Zhou inhaled deeply, his heart pounding hard.
Though he had entertained suspicions, it was still an astonishing delight to see that the last words' reward was an ancient glyph branded onto his Sea of Ignorance!
According to Bai Zhou's current understanding of last words, he had only ever received these mysterious glyphs as gifts when completing the last words of unfathomably powerful ancients in Zhuluoji.
The effect of each glyph was intimately tied to the abilities and life experiences of the one who left the last words.
These symbols became instinctual talents for Bai Zhou, as natural as walking, eating, or drinking were to an ordinary human.
In Bai Zhou's view, these mysterious glyphs were akin to dragon tongue magic in adventure tales: to a dragon, it was simply their native racial language, yet when spoken, it wielded unfathomable wonders, turning into the peerless, unlearnable dragon tongue magic in the eyes of adventurers.
It looked like a single word, but within it condensed an impossible miracle!
Thus, Bai Zhou had deduced that only someone sufficiently powerful with an epic life story could leave behind such an incredible glyph through their last words.
Yet in the mortal realm... because most of the last words Bai Zhou encountered came from individuals of relatively low strength, he usually received items.
For example, the Alpen-despicable lollipop, the Slumbering Totoro Backpack, the 59-Point Paper Airplane...
There was nothing wrong with those items; in fact, at certain moments, they proved incomparably useful, such as today.
Even so, Bai Zhou had a hunch that these mysterious glyphs were the finest rewards the last words could ever grant him. Every single glyph could grow alongside his own progression, and his current mastery over them was minimal at best.
They might even be directly connected to the truth behind why he could see the last words of others... Who could say?!
Now, a brand-new mysterious glyph shone brilliantly upon the Sea of Ignorance within him, standing shoulder to shoulder with the other three ancient glyphs. With a single glance, Bai Zhou understood the meaning of this intricate, archaic, and enigmatic character.
—【Peace】.
When he first beheld this glyph, Bai Zhou faintly heard the students' voices offering thanks in his ears.
They said their hearts were finally at peace, thanks to their teacher.
*May teacher, wherever you go, always possess an equally tranquil resting place.*
This was 【Peace】.
Through his brief experiment moments ago, Bai Zhou determined that this glyph allowed him to conceal himself perfectly for a fleeting instant.
During this window, not only could he move freely, but he was also entirely immune to external harm, as if stepping into another world entirely. Or rather, a safehouse.
Though this "safehouse" had a threshold, based on Bai Zhou's estimation using his own strength, it could withstand at least one full-force strike from a Level 6 Titled Heavenly Mandate user!
A Level 6 Titled expert.
Bai Zhou himself was merely a Level 5 user.
As for the duration...
Presently, it was half a second.
Yet half a second was enough for Bai Zhou to accomplish a great deal!
To Bai Zhou, this ability gifted by the students bore a certain thematic resonance with that unfathomable, ghostly principal.
Moreover, as Bai Zhou advanced through his pathway in the future, this ability could grow even further!
"Unbelievable..." Every time Bai Zhou acquired a mysterious glyph etched onto his Sea of Ignorance, he found himself marveling like this. "Is it because the last words and wishes of so many people gathered together, coupled with the purification of the demon?"
The students were indeed ordinary mortals, yet it was precisely these ordinary mortals who had propped up the demon's existence.
And after the demon was purified, the power of those last words had received an epic enhancement.
In the end, the students departed aboard Bai Zhou's plane, yet united their efforts to build Bai Zhou a permanent safehouse.
Or perhaps, a tiny school meant solely for Bai Zhou himself?
"Remarkable students."
This reminded Bai Zhou of what the demon had said earlier: that reality was no fairy tale, that Fang Xiaoxia was no girl who lived, and that no one understood the magic of love...
Though he did not fully understand what the demon woman had been rambling about, Bai Zhou wanted to say:
You were wrong. Love truly is the greatest miracle.
"The demon has returned to Hell forever. Having died before it could reincarnate, it had no time to leave behind a cocoon; the mortal realm will bear no further traces of the School Demon's malice." A trench coat rustled in the wind, the aroma of coffee beans arriving before the young woman's murmur.
Crow arrived beside Bai Zhou. Watching the pure white points of light drifting across the horizon, her gentle voice scattered into the wind like a bard's ballad: "The cunning plot has been dismantled, the world is about to return to its proper track, and all of this is thanks to you.
"The ascended Adventurer has once again defeated a demon. This scene is destined to be etched into the annals of history, just like last time... A truly magnificent feat." Crow turned her head to look at Bai Zhou hovering in the sky. "So, the demon is truly dead?"
"Yes." Bai Zhou nodded.
"In that case..." Crow paused in thought, then asked, "What was that thing earlier?"
"What thing?"
"That paper airplane." A strange gleam flickered in both of Crow's eyes. "I'm very curious!"
Bai Zhou answered honestly, "It's called the 【59-Point Paper Airplane】."
"The 【59-Point Paper Airplane】?" Crow repeated the name, puzzled.
"Yes," Bai Zhou nodded. "That's what it's called."
"Using a 【59-Point Paper Airplane】 to shatter the School Demon... that sounds very much like a modern fairy tale. It should be passed down for a thousand years as a bedtime story for children."
Crow rolled the name over in her mind, her curiosity satisfied as she mused, "I must say, that really is a wonderful name."
"However..." Bai Zhou narrowed his eyes slightly. "Teacher Crow, there's one thing you got wrong."
"What?" Crow turned to look, just in time to see the blood moon rising in Bai Zhou's eyes.
"The incident isn't entirely over." Bai Zhou pointed to his eye. "There's still one more problem to solve."
In Bai Zhou's perception, this world was rapidly collapsing, and the surging power within him was draining away at an equal pace.
Bai Zhou closed his eyes. Much like communicating with his inner spirituality, he attempted to speak with the blood moon inside him.
Then, he saw a boundless wilderness. Fang Xiaoxia's loneliness washed over Bai Zhou's heart, and a single stalk of green foxtail grass swayed at the center of the plain. A silhouette hid behind the foxtail grass. Unlike the vengeful Li Manman, the demonic power belonging to Fang Xiaoxia appeared exceptionally quiet.
"So you're here," Bai Zhou spoke to her, though he never took a step closer.
"The other half of the demon has gone back forever; you can never become whole again."
Bai Zhou spoke earnestly: "Now, should I ask you to leave, or will you depart on your own?"
As the words fell, Bai Zhou gently channeled the glyphs of 【Soothe】 and 【Moon】 within him as a warning.
If necessary, he would actively recall and stimulate that half-glyph.
He already had enough ticking time bombs inside his body; Bai Zhou had no intention of keeping a demon around.
After a moment of silence, a scarlet crescent slowly surfaced from behind the foxtail grass. Its moonlight flickered, radiating an emotion steeped in sorrow.
The sadness of being homeless, yet mingled with an inexplicable yearning.
Bai Zhou understood. He turned around to look behind him. The silhouette of that paper airplane had vanished past the horizon, yet remained faintly discernible, as if waiting for something.
"They're waiting for you," Bai Zhou probed gently. "It's obvious they have no intention of turning you away."
When this condensation of resentment and pain faced purification by hope, was it agony, or desire?
Bai Zhou did not know how Li Manman felt, but this blood moon that had coexisted peacefully with Fang Xiaoxia for years, heavily influenced by her and possessing low intelligence...
It seemed somewhat special.
*Buzz...*
Within the blood moon, the silhouette of a young girl stood up.
She wore the old uniform of Yuanmeng Middle School, its hems somewhat frayed, her hair hanging quietly beside her shoulders. Her face was indistinct, yet it stirred an odd sense of familiarity—
Like the face in the corner of every graduation photo with its head lowered, afraid to look straight into the camera, or the silent silhouette in the classroom hunched over a desk, too timid to meet the teacher's gaze. In the end, she shifted into Fang Xiaoxia's likeness, though looking somewhat more mature and striking.
She had no name, or perhaps she bore far too many names.
She was every forgotten student.
She was every unanswered expectation.
Unlike the portion that symbolized resentment and agony, this other half of the School Demon's essence represented sensitivity and inferiority.
She was the root of why Fang Xiaoxia had become who she was.
Head bowed, she stood before Bai Zhou in silence.
Bai Zhou did not rush her, watching her quietly.
Eventually she spoke, her voice exceedingly soft, carrying a sliver of hope:
"...Is it really all right?"
Bai Zhou stepped aside, clearing a path for the girl, and gave a solemn nod: "It's all right."
And so, the blood moon rose into the sky.
Like a child finally forgiven throwing herself into her parents' embrace, it flew straight out of Bai Zhou's body, dashing eagerly toward the distance. Swelling against the wind, a round blood moon hung in the sky, only to shift rapidly as if pursuing something, sweeping past the inverted mountains suspended above and flying deep into the surrounding peaks.
*Boom!*
A glorious white light erupted on the far horizon.
Bai Zhou knew that the airplane had gained another passenger.
In a daze, Bai Zhou heard a whisper remarkably similar to Fang Xiaoxia's voice, only more mature:
"Thank you, Bai Zhou."
The voice murmured in Bai Zhou's ear, carrying a faint tickle, like an older girl acting coy.
"...Tsk," Bai Zhou could not help but marvel. "If only all demons were like this one, instead of that lunatic woman with over a thousand lives..."
Yet if that were truly the case, the stories passed down through the mortal world would probably no longer tell of people being deceived by cunning demons or trembling at their names. People would probably scramble to write tales of romance between humans and demons; even if swindled out of their life savings, they would probably insist: *Why didn't she trick anyone else, only me? She must have feelings for me!*
As he grumbled inwardly, the shadow of the blood moon vanished completely from Bai Zhou's eyes, and the world's authority peeled away from his senses like an ebbing tide.
Bai Zhou felt with absolute clarity that he was tumbling from an exalted throne, falling back into a battered, exhausted mortal.
*Whoosh...*
The wind howling in his ears grew louder. Bai Zhou plummeted straight from the sky.
At first, Bai Zhou felt the relief and ease of having finally completed the mission, but he quickly realized—
From this height, in his current state, he would likely be smashed to pieces!
"Dammit, dammit, dammit... Help, help, help!"
The air pressure warped Bai Zhou's face, his shouts echoing across the sky. To an outside ear, his strange howling sounded almost like a victory cheer. His tattered trench coat could no longer deploy its gliding wings, and Bai Zhou figured the savior who had just achieved the feat of slaying a demon and a saint could not possibly die from a simple fall, so he racked his brains for a solution.
The Celestial Pivot spun quietly within him; Bai Zhou wondered if he should consult a miraculous ritual.
Right then.
*Whoosh!*
A familiar, reassuring sound of a grappling hook zipped past his ear as a broom-shaped claw whistled by.
With a rustle of fabric, formal dress fluttering and gems flashing at her waist beneath a half-broken mask, the Gem Witch flew across the sky and caught Bai Zhou in a single sweep.
Except the posture of the catch was somewhat peculiar: one arm carefully cradled his neck, while the other scooped beneath his knees.
—A bridal carry.
The roaring wind whipped at the hems of their clothes. The Gem Witch leaned down and whispered into Bai Zhou's ear, her voice tinged with playful teasing:
"Lord Savior looked so handsome in the sky for so long. Why are you making your triumphant return in such a posture?"
"..." Lying against the Gem Witch's chest, Bai Zhou was silent for a long while before finally squeezing out a sentence: "You're bumping my head."
The Gem Witch's face went dark.
*Thud!*
The Gem Witch touched down lightly, then thrust the Bai Zhou in her bridal carry toward Fang Xiaoxia. "Let us warmly welcome our Lord Savior's dazzling debut!"
"Bai Zhou!" Fang Xiaoxia rushed over immediately, thinking Bai Zhou had suffered injuries that left him paralyzed.
Bai Zhou hastily scrambled down from the Gem Witch, signaling that aside from exhaustion, he was completely fine.
As he spoke, he blinked.
A lingering fragrance of green apple drifted beneath his nose, overriding the burnt aroma of coffee beans he had grown accustomed to.
Green apple and a witch? It sounded like quite a fitting match.
"...Hm?" As he pondered, Bai Zhou caught sight of the reflection in the sky from the corner of his eye, and his expression shifted slightly.
"Look! The sky!" the Gem Witch gasped as well.
The countdown in the sky was leaping rapidly from 【01:48:36】.
What had been nearly two hours of countdown was now accelerating madly.
【01:03:47】
【00:58:21】
【00:22:04】
【00:11:18】
—Finally, the numbers froze!
【Time remaining until the end of the examination...】
【00:01:00—】
The final one-minute countdown had begun.
*Rumble...*
Instantly, the earth shook and the mountains trembled. The sky began to cave in inch by inch; the pocket realm was on the verge of destruction.
"The final minute."
Bai Zhou and the others exchanged glances. "Looks like we need to find a way out."
*Ding—dong.*
Suddenly, a chime resonated across the sky.
Followed by static and a screeching hum, a broadcast slowly echoed from every corner of the world. To any student, the sound was far from unfamiliar; in fact, it was ingrained in their bones:
"Attention all examinees, attention all examinees..."
The familiar broadcast voice rang crisp and clear in everyone's ears.
"The entrance examination is about to conclude."
"Examinees, please stop writing."
The voice on the broadcast was calm and clear, just like the closing moments of every exam, where people felt nervous yet instinctively let out a long breath of relief.
"Please check that your name and exam registration number on the answer sheet are filled out correctly..."
Amidst the echoing broadcast, the world trembled violently, and a fissure slowly opened not far down the highway.
The outside wind blew in, accompanied by a damp wave of mist. Bai Zhou saw that familiar rainy night outside, saw the scattered neon lights, saw half the city slumbering under the dark sky...
And saw the massive neon sign flashing with the words: *Tinghai Welcomes You*.
"Time to go." Bai Zhou drew a deep breath, casting a final glance at the debris-strewn highway beneath his feet and the crimson sky encircled by inverted mountains.
*Rumble, rumble, rumble...*
Through the world fissure, the roar of helicopter rotors filtered in from outside. Armed helicopters and special tactical vehicles sealed the sky and the ground, locking down the outside world into an impenetrable perimeter. Various spotlights illuminated the nearby night as bright as day.
"These people are always late," the Gem Witch curled her lip.
"—Like they're here just to mop up the floor."
Silhouettes of extraordinary individuals and special units flickered beyond the fissure, their varied gazes scrutinizing the three of them with wariness and suspicion.
Further in the distance, the first pale light of morning peeked over the horizon.
Dawn was breaking.
"Let's go, you two. Don't just stand there."
The Gem Witch rolled her wrists and took the lead, stepping toward the fissure in the world.
Lifting her high heels, she turned back to look at Bai Zhou beside her and murmured faintly:
"It's time."
"Time to tell this world how the wanted fugitive they've been hunting for so long ended up saving this city."
"Isn't that how drama goes?"
Looking at the slightly startled Bai Zhou, the witch arched a brow. "When the climax of the story draws to a close, the protagonist takes the stage for his closing speech."
"Go on, say a proper hello to this world, our Lord Savior."
Just then, the countdown in the sky reached 【00:00:10】.
The final ten seconds.
*Ding-dong—* The broadcast continued.
Pacing their steps to the loud chime of the broadcast, the three moved toward the world fissure, toward the outside world—or rather, returning to Tinghai.
"The examination has ended."
"Examinees, please stop writing."
The world collapsed in pieces, an apocalypse obliterating everything behind Bai Zhou, yet the broadcast proceeded methodically.
"...There are no scores for this examination."
"To reiterate, there are no scores for this examination. All examinees are asked to grade their own papers."
"Next, examinees please leave the school and proceed to the examination halls of your respective lives."
Without looking back, Bai Zhou took a deep breath.
"Then let's go."
Side by side with the young women beside him, the youth faced the wary gazes of countless extraordinary figures, faced the comprehensive blockade of official organizations, and lifted his feet toward the new world, stepping out of the fissure.
Behind him lay the thunderous destruction of the school realm.
And the countdown in the sky finally struck 【00:00:00】.
Deep within the fissure behind them, the broadcast sounded one last time, growing fainter alongside Bai Zhou's departing footsteps:
"Examinees, please take your personal belongings."
"Please follow the guidance of the invigilators and leave the examination hall in an orderly manner."
"Do not crowd, do not run."
"Do not look back."
Right at that moment, a shrill whistle swept across the distant sky.
That colossal paper airplane, carrying yearning and hope, bearing a magnificent aura of pure white dawn light—
Roared across the shattered sky, vanishing from sight in an instant, flying toward some distant, unknown horizon.
Flying toward tomorrow.
Chapter 223