The Destruction Wheel, the Eternal Wheel.

Both sank back into Yue Yang’s body, to rise with him and be born again with him.

The Sky-Reaching War Beast turned into a small swimming dragon and wound itself around Yue Yang’s arm, wagging its head as it went, drawing without pause on the Chaos Source pouring out of him to fill itself, rising and growing all the while. The sisters Yao and Yu returned to human form and each wrapped herself around one of his legs, body and mind and will and spirit resonating with his. The newly reborn Creation Domain, and the “world” that belongs to Yue Yang’s Sacred Codex alone, were merging with the blazing Milky Way, the comets, and brightest of all, the Twelve Zodiac constellations. The destroying light filled the whole space of the domain, and the black stone flew into the mysterious devouring source inside Yue Yang and joined with it.

Xiao Wenli came flying out and put her arms around his waist.

She lifted her face.

Divine light came into her eyes, and she turned them toward the sky at the same moment he did, the two of them in perfect accord.

The thousand-meter golden serpent-demon divine image stood at the top of the heavens — and beside the Fate Giant, faintly visible and about to descend, it was small enough not to reach the giant’s knee.

It was not only Yue Yang himself and the Creation Domain. The whole Grimoire World was turning over from top to bottom. Inside it now, there was nothing that was not being born anew, nothing that was not evolving…

Everyone was inside that strange and mysterious change, Xue Wuxia included, deep asleep as she was.

Even outside — Duoduo, Jiangying, Hong, A-Man, Yika and Weilai, and Princess Qianqian and Fengxian the Beauty, who were not life-guardian war beasts but lovers and wives — all of them felt it, and all of them resonated and rose, each to her own degree.

Far away on the first floor of the Sky Tower, in the Yue family castle on the Longteng Continent, Gray Wolf — who had been dozing lazily and had no interest whatever in moving — suddenly sprang to his feet and let out a roar toward the sky, one that shook the mountains and the rivers, as though answering Yue Yang in the Trial Grounds of the Heavenly Realm. In the Mirage of the Tianra Imperial Palace, Fourth Mother felt something strike her heart. She caught up little Shuang’er and hurried outside, lifted her face to the sky, and the look on it was astonishment…

The Night Empress, standing above the five hundred thousandth step of the Sky Stairway, and the Supreme, who had already broken through her own limits and set foot above the millionth step.

Both of them resonated too.

And besides them, elsewhere, someone else answered from a great distance.

But that answer was past all fathoming, and nobody at all could know where it came from or whose it was.

The Sacred Grimoire had risen into the air of its own accord. The Fate Giant was about to come down over Yue Yang’s head. The divine power, the divine sense and the first condensing of a divine rank — everything newly born from breaking past the divine tier — were on the point of fusing into one and giving birth to a new god.

Then a sword came from the east.

Fast beyond speed, and so subtle it went past all subtlety, it cut open the divine rank that was about to condense and separated it from Yue Yang, severing all of it — everything the divine realm had formed and everything it had brought forth. Every power beyond the human, every supreme divine ability, was guided by the force of that sword into the Sacred Grimoire. And the parts that had not yet broken through to the divine realm — Yue Yang himself, who had not had time to take on a divine body or finish condensing a divine rank — stayed inside the Grimoire World, perfect and unharmed… No one has ever comprehended twice at the divine tier. No one has ever taken everything of his that fell short of the divine tier and, after breaking through, been able to go back and cultivate it a second time.

Nobody but the Yue Yang of this moment has ever had that chance.

That one sublime stroke.

You could say it was more flawless than the finest flash of divine inspiration the world has ever known, more marvelous and profound, more perfectly at ease.

You could spend every word in the world and still not describe that miraculous sword coming down out of the sky.

Set that revelatory divine light, like dawn breaking, against that sword.

It looked dull.

And yet Yue Yang had lost consciousness in the rising of his divine sense, and every one of the women had the same emptiness in her mind, and not one of them knew such a sword had ever been there…

When Yue Yang woke, he found to his astonishment that he was lying in a space both familiar and strange.

Whether it was the heaven and earth and rivers and hills as far as he could see, or the palaces and towers behind him, all of it differed greatly from the Grimoire World he knew. It was broader than the old one, and bigger. The sky went up higher than anyone could reckon, and the land had towering mountains and forests over all of it, green everywhere. The old small lake had widened into a “sea” with no far shore. There was no wind and no waves, only the faintest ripples, and Yue Yang scooped up a mouthful to taste and found it clean and sweet. Without those things he really would have taken it for a sea rather than a lake.

The old Cloud Summit Fortress was gone.

The white cloud floatstone he had taken from the Prison Emperor’s Divine Hall was gone too, and in its place was a lighter, more delicate wind and cloud and mist.

There were mountains in the sky.

They were like the immortal mountains and treasure realms of legend, with spirit springs and waterfalls hanging down them, and strange flowers and rare plants that even Yue Yang, their master, could not name, and spirit birds and treasure beasts — in the sky, in the woods and grass, by the lakes and clear pools, in the shrubs and flowering thickets — all playing with one another.

The wooden houses Princess Qianqian and the others had built had put out green leaves and creepers and become one with the forest.

And the crystal palace that Yue Yang and Sick Beauty had put so much thought into, the towers and the flying pavilions, had shifted into a new architecture, with more of the old style to it. A great many places and ornaments that could not have been made out before were now perfect, without a flaw anywhere. Yue Yang looked at this entirely new Grimoire World with something close to disbelief.

I did this?

Why does that feel a little less than certain? Did I really do this?

“It made a bit of a commotion, but I think this time’s change is a good deal better than last time’s.” Sick Beauty and Yue Yu came drifting in along a rainbow like immortals descending, both of them fairly composed — none of Yue Yang’s complete lack of dignity, being startled by his own creation.

“Wait — don’t run away!” As for Bao’er, who was heedless as ever and had gone chasing after the unnamed spirit beasts to play the moment she woke, the less said the better.

“This is the home I have been dreaming of. I’m so happy!” Bi Lv and Hailan were whispering together.

“It’s beyond imagining.” Commander Lieyan shook her head and sighed.

“Mm! Mm!” Liuye said nothing out loud, but my master is the most incredible person in the world was written all over her small face, in pure worship.

“What just happened?” And then there were the muddled ones, like Xiayi, who woke to find that the whole of heaven and earth had changed and very nearly thought she had been kidnapped. Only the fact that Yue Yang was not far off put her mind at rest. The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady came over with the panda girl Niuniu, but Niuniu got caught halfway by a beautiful butterfly. Her small feet kept walking while her small head stayed turned back, reluctant to let it go, and only when the big butterfly flew off into the flowers and could not be seen anymore did she start moving properly again, thudding across the ground toward Yue Yang at a run, to report her enormous discovery. “I just found a butterfly! Its wings go flash, flash, so pretty — even prettier than that kite butterfly last time!”

The little thing shared her happiness and her discovery with Yue Yang, holding nothing back.

The transmigrator swept her up and rewarded the little sweetheart with a lollipop. “Next time you find a good treasure, be sure to tell me about it!” Niuniu’s small head nodded hard and she planted a kiss on Yue Yang’s cheek, then hid the lollipop behind her back in case her mother told her off.

She waited until the Drunken Cat Imperial Lady was deep in conversation with Yue Yu and had no attention to spare for her.

Then she ducked behind Yue Yang.

With half her small face out around the edge of him she watched her mother, licking at the lollipop in her hand, unable to wait a moment longer. The whole picture was adorable past bearing.

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know what happened either.” Yue Yang could not make head or tail of it himself. All he remembered was going back over the fight with the mysterious man, reflecting on his own performance, and then thinking of the guidance the three little lolis had given him in the endless world inside the silver grimoire… and then a roar inside his skull, and nothing after that.

“It should be a kind of breakthrough.” The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady said it with confidence.

“It doesn’t seem like the realm went up, though.” Yue Yang had already been at the quasi-divine tier. If he broke through from there, surely he should have risen to the divine realm? Where was the shadow of the divine tier now?

“Perhaps it was some very particular kind of breakthrough, one that has nothing to do with strength — but with enormous changes in your state of mind, your will, your understanding and your domain. How else could the Grimoire World change this much?” Yue Yu didn’t know either. She had no way of knowing that a sword had cut away everything of the divine realm at the moment of Yue Yang’s breakthrough, and given him back the chance to cultivate his way to godhood.

“All right, all right. None of us knows what happened, so there’s no point wearing ourselves out guessing. It’s a good thing, and that’s enough.” Sick Beauty quieted everyone down. Settle your own affairs first, then start living in the new world.

Once they had all gone off about their own business, Yue Yang hurried to look in on the one he cared most about, the snow girl.

One look, and the color went out of his face.

The reason was this.

Xue Wuxia was gone.

Sick Beauty and the others came at the news and were beyond astonished, and not one of them knew what to say that could comfort Yue Yang now.

It was Bao’er, of all people, who said out of nowhere, “I think I saw Sister Wuxia a moment ago. How could she disappear that fast? Oh — I understand. She must have woken up and gone to wash and do her hair.”

Afraid Yue Yang would lose his head and start pressing Bao’er with questions and frighten the little gold spirit, Yue Yu quickly put herself in front of her.

“If she woke, why didn’t she see us?” Instead of losing his head, Yue Yang went calm, and thought as hard as he could.

“Perhaps she went back to her own Grimoire World,” Yue Yu suggested.

“Right.” The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady suddenly frowned. “But she may also have been expelled from the Trial Grounds, the way Ming Yueguang was. Otherwise, even if she had gone back to her own Grimoire World, she would have said something to us. She could not simply vanish for no reason.”

Sick Beauty, afraid Yue Yang would worry, corrected her at once. “Ming Yueguang was expelled from the Trial Grounds because she rose to the divine tier — and she did say goodbye before she left. It isn’t as though she couldn’t spare the few seconds it takes.”

“Wuxia must have reached the divine tier too.” The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady was still holding to her reasoning.

“Even if she has, she’d have said something to us. And Mountain Beyond the Mountain is completely different from the Human Valley. The Human Valley can’t have challengers at the divine tier in it. Here in Mountain Beyond the Mountain — never mind the mysterious man — God-Slayer and the other eight Divine Sovereigns were all at the divine tier. Granted they became gods with Taiyan and Bingli assisting them, so strictly speaking they don’t count as true gods, but they were at the divine tier all the same. Why weren’t they expelled from Mountain Beyond the Mountain? And more than that, this is my Grimoire World. The laws of the Trial Grounds shouldn’t be able to reach inside it.” Yue Yang waved a hand to say the reasoning was wrong. There had to be some other cause.

“Maybe…” Liuye glanced timidly at Yue Yang and stopped before she started.

“Say whatever you’ve thought of. You may be the one who’s right.” Yue Yang encouraged the girl to speak her mind. Her instincts were sometimes very accurate.

“Teacher’s wife Wuxia — maybe, maybe she’s like Duoduo and Jiangying. Maybe she went in with Bingyin to cultivate… I, I, I don’t know if that’s it either. I’m only guessing.” Liuye finished and stuck her small tongue out, a little frightened, worried she had put it badly and upset Yue Yang.

“That has to be it!” The moment she said it, it went straight to everyone’s heart, and they agreed as one.

“Ah — if that’s really it, then I can stop worrying.” Yue Yang patted his own chest. That snow girl vanishing on him had very nearly frightened him to death. When she got back he was going to smack her backside good and hard.

With the knot in him untied, Yue Yang went back over everything that had happened.

A great deal of the memory was blurred.

Or perhaps it had been cut away by a sword, because he could not recall the smallest part of it… In the end, after racking his brains for a long while, Yue Yang caught hold of a very little. He seemed to remember seeing the Phoenix Sisters come down while he was rising. And perhaps the Sword Spirit Imperial Lady had appeared as well. He even seemed to have seen her swing a sword at him, one that was peerless and sublime.

Whether any of it was real or imagined, his head was too dim and too vague to say, and Yue Yang did not dare be certain.

(End of Chapter 1210)