The next moment, Wen Jiu suddenly gripped the magic tool tightly, his brush moving like a flying dragon, rewriting the nearly completed formation in reverse. Cold sweat faintly appeared on his forehead.
Two figures charged down one after the other. Yin Wangzhi and Zhan Xiaotian arrived faster than they had anticipated.
"How could this happen...?"
Yin Wangzhi immediately saw the abnormality of the Three Realms Cliff. "Master!"
"Stop shouting, he can’t come out. There’s a magic tool inside... and Master’s lifespan, luck, and life and death are intertwined, sharing life and death with it." Wen Jiu's face was ashen, his eyes cold as ice. "If you move carelessly, you’ll harm Master."
"But this place is about to change weather!" Zhan Xiaotian’s voice trembled in fear. "What exactly is Master doing?!"
Wen Jiu silently rewrote the formation. "If the Three Realms Cliff completely collapses, the place won’t disappear directly, but Master could be taken to an unknown place... regardless of life or death, he may never return. Shut up and don’t cause trouble. I can still try to use the formation to keep Master here."
Yin Wangzhi had no interest in asking for help from the heavens. After confirming the situation, he drew his sword and rushed toward the dark clouds above, determined to defy the heavens.
If the Heavenly Dao wants to destroy the Three Realms Cliff, it must first use a thunder calamity to split time and space. So, he would first destroy these calamity clouds and divert the thunder.
Zhan Xiaotian arrived at the bottom of the deep pit, in front of Yu Sheng’s barrier, and knelt down with a thud.
"Master! It’s our fault, we have been rebellious! We should not have fought, should not have forced you... Please... please stop, Master! Come back, don’t risk your life anymore!" He gripped his sword and shouted loudly toward the figure inside,
"I... am willing to give up. As long as you, you stop risking your life, I will leave the human realm and never return! Wherever you go, I will go. Or if you don’t want to see me, I will never appear in front of you again... Master, please, stop!"
If Yu Sheng’s action of using the magic tool to try to split himself into three people, as the ‘Chosen One’, required the right time, place, and harmony between people.
Then the three protagonists were now working from the sky, earth, and people’s aspects, respectively, to stop his actions.
They couldn’t see the scene inside the barrier, didn’t know what their shocked Master was trying to do, and couldn’t even figure out where the golden light was coming from.
But they were the strongest of the Three Realms, and as protagonists connected to the fate of the Three Realms, they could intuitively sense any changes in the Three Realms. And every anomaly was directly or indirectly caused by Yu Sheng, which they could easily perceive.
What Zhan Xiaotian saw was that Master had returned to him the "flower" that determined his life and death, then came here alone. It was their reckless actions that forced Master into this risky move, causing the feng shui and the energy of the Three Realms Cliff to change suddenly.
At first glance, he saw the jade stone on the whisk. He understood the habits of cultivators from the human realm and knew that only cultivators who had resigned themselves to death would use such jade stones to replace themselves and supply spiritual energy to maintain the operation of the magic tool or other things.
To save Master, he was willing to leave the Immortal Alliance, abandon the human realm, and make concessions. In that moment, he had a reckless heart, just like when leading the Immortal Alliance in battle, willing to sacrifice himself for everyone’s victory, not caring if he "died" a few more times. He could always come back to life.
But Master could not die. Master had already returned the immortality to him.
What Yin Wangzhi saw was that the Heavenly Dao suddenly acted, wanting to destroy the Three Realms Cliff today, turning it into a pile of fragments where space and time were completely distorted. He didn’t understand what Master did to cause such a change, but that didn’t stop him from pointing his long sword at the sky.
Would he be struck by the thunder calamity first, or would the calamity clouds be shattered by him first?
He had always been so straightforward, just like when he was moved—he would act directly, and simply want to possess someone, never letting go. To him, all of this was only natural.
So, defying the heavens was also a natural thing to do.
Wen Jiu didn’t believe in the heavens, nor did he believe in himself. His formation was almost complete. Using the formation to protect this small area, ensuring that when the thunder calamity struck, the place where Master was wouldn’t turn into an abyss—that was the most he could do.
What did Master want to do? His heavenly eye couldn’t see through it, nor could he think it through clearly. All he knew was that at that moment, a powerful force almost beyond the Heavenly Dao had stirred up the anger of heaven and earth.
He would rather believe in Master, trust Master’s decisions, believe that everything had its purpose and value, and trust that Master had reasons for doing so.
Whether defying the heavens or saving the world, Wen Jiu wanted to stay by Master’s side and lend a hand. As long as Master didn’t leave forever... nothing else mattered.
Of course... it would be best if it succeeded.
If they failed, then it would be even better.
With the final stroke, Wen Jiu formed hand seals and stood at the formation’s center, using his body as the medium to activate the formation.
If it had been at the very beginning, he would have definitely given his all just to bring Master one moment of satisfaction. As long as it was something Master wanted to do, he would help Master achieve it.
Now, he only hoped that Master would stay.
Whether as a living person, a soul, or a spirit, as long as Master stayed, that was enough.
If they failed, that would be better. If Master failed, losing everything, his body and mind shattered and collapsed completely, that would be fine... it would certainly be fine... he would become the one Master needed the most, the one Master could never do without.
His Master... stood too high, too far away, as though he had never known failure.
So, he would forever, forever be unable to obtain Master.
The thunder rumbled like a dragon’s roar. Yin Wangzhi’s body repeatedly endured the thunder calamity. His soul shattered and then reformed. The thunder calamities that struck heaven and earth were not like the ones cultivators faced. These were true blades, capable of changing time and space. They struck Yin Wangzhi’s body over and over again.
At worst, his soul would scatter—better than watching Master disappear before his eyes.
If he could die, he hoped to die for the right cause, to die before Master.
Zhan Xiaotian refused to leave. "Master, no one is worth you doing this for... even if the entire Three Realms combined, they wouldn’t be worth your life. We... they... are not worth it."
By the end, he could no longer maintain a clear mind. "If it’s because of us, that you’ve suffered even a bit of harm, please stop. We don’t want it anymore... If it’s to save the Three Realms, or because of the ‘Chosen One’ title, risking everything, and causing you to never return, then your disciples will have the entire Three Realms bury themselves with you."
The words had reached this point, and he didn’t want to speak ill of things, but the current situation showed that the possibility of saving Master was slim to none.
Why should his Master sacrifice himself for the Dao? Everything should be the other way around!
Inside the formation, the system couldn't help but call out, notifying Yu Sheng that the corruption levels of the three protagonists had all hit their peak. If not corrected soon, the Three Realms would face their end within three days.
Yu Sheng: ...Sorry, I’m currently busy with splitting. I don’t have time to console anyone.
He jokingly responded: "Three disciples, at least they're the protagonists. They’re all grown-ups now, they should learn to comfort themselves."
The system had no words to say. Yu Sheng then asked it, what the consequences would be if the mission failed completely and even backfired.
System: Are you asking about your own consequences, or theirs?
System: If this messes up, the world will have to fend for itself. The task can be restarted, but the timeline can't be redone.
System: However, for some reason, the success probability here still isn't low. It’s different from the current situation, so there might still be hope and a solution you haven't discovered.
Yu Sheng fell silent.
The umbrella-shaped magical artifact was still spinning. With his eyes closed, he didn’t really understand his situation, nor did he know when the splitting would be complete, but once this process started, it wasn’t something that could be easily stopped.
But when he learned about the situation with the three disciples outside... it would be a lie to say he wasn’t heartbroken.
Yu Sheng: I didn’t know... they would suddenly go to such extremes.
He didn’t know that when the magical artifact was activated, it would affect heaven and earth, startling the Heavenly Dao.
He didn’t know that not explaining things clearly beforehand would lead the disciples to misunderstand that he was risking his life for something.
But now, he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t use his spiritual energy freely.
Yu Sheng: Forget it, I’d rather not know what the consequences are right now. Knowing wouldn’t help.
The thunder finally struck.
Nine bolts fell onto Yin Wangzhi’s body. He finally couldn’t hold on anymore. The yin energy couldn’t condense, and he fell from the cliff.
Another nine bolts struck Wen Jiu’s formation. After the ninth bolt, he also couldn’t hold on, failing to maintain his human form, transforming into a white glowing beast form, crouching on the formation’s center.
The last nine bolts were aimed at Yu Sheng’s formation. Zhan Xiaotian swung his sword to block them, but in the end, he collapsed, covered in blood. His sword spirit also lay still on the battlefield.
The whip of dust shattered, and the golden light exploded, swallowing the terrifying thunder all at once.
It was in that instant that Yu Sheng felt the world spinning, his body wracked with pain, and before long, he lost consciousness.
—
When he woke up again, he found himself in a different place, and everything had become unfamiliar.
Had he... succeeded?
Or failed?
Yu Sheng tried to contact the system, but there was no response at all.
He then tried to contact "himself," to confirm whether the splitting had been successful or not. After a long while, he received some feedback.
The feeling was very strange, difficult to describe, a bit awkward. It was as if another person still resided within his soul, someone he could communicate with at any time, but if they didn’t communicate, they wouldn’t be aware of each other’s presence. It was like suddenly going from being an only child to having identical triplets with a telepathic connection.
It took him about the time of an incense stick burning to figure out the situation.
Success—he had indeed succeeded.
However, the three of him had been struck by the thunder and ended up in different places, separated by a great distance.
One of him was in the human world, one in the ghost world, and the last one in the spirit world. None of them had found the system.
But the side effects, as the system had warned, came swiftly and unexpectedly.
The one in the human world happened to be the one who had retained his physical body, but he had become deaf.
The one in the ghost world was a wandering soul, but unfortunately, he had become mute.
The one in the spirit world was a humanoid spirit, but was born blind.
What’s worse...
The situation in the Three Realms now seemed different from what Yu Sheng had expected.
There was no chaos, no panic, no cultivators who had been frightened by the thunder tribulation at the Three Realms Cliff.
Everything was unusually peaceful and stable.