Above Yueyang’s head, a column of Nirvana Flames erupted — hundreds of meters tall.

The Fire Phoenix that incinerated all things.

Circling the pillar in flight.

Rising to its absolute apex, then reversing and plunging back down.

The surging tide of destructive resentment was extinguished by more than half in an instant.

Pandora, who had lost her reason and reverted to the absolute divine authority of her true nature, sensed someone attempting to resist her and erupted with even greater fury.

Divine radiance blazed from her eyes. God-force that could annihilate heaven and earth swept toward Yueyang. Against it, the hundreds-of-meters-tall Nirvana Flame column was like a needle in a torrent — utterly negligible in comparison.

Yueyang was blasted back thousands of meters. His form held.

The concentrated flame pillar formed by the Nirvana Flames did not diminish before the god-force either. Nirvana Flames were eternal — even a god could not extinguish them.

“You as well? You dare oppose me?” Pandora swept before him, her voice cracking like divine thunder. The limitless destructive calamity force of her true nature and ten thousand years of accumulated resentment merged together into an irresistible torrent aimed directly at Yueyang.

“Stillness!”

Yueyang’s Creation Domain expanded rapidly outward. Beneath his feet, the Eternal Wheel took shape.

The calamity force and resentment power that could have obliterated everything in Desire Valley slowed dramatically in their forward momentum.

Like a flood meeting an iron dam — held back by force, stopped short. The peak of the flood hadn’t truly been reached yet, and even greater destructive force was still gathering behind it. But the initial surge had been arrested. The further it pushed, the slower it moved, until it came to a halt less than a meter from his face.

Yueyang knew he had no grounds for optimism. This state couldn’t be held for long. Beyond the pressure of the divine consciousness on his soul, the god-force was accumulating at tremendous speed outside. The moment the Eternal Wheel failed, what followed would be annihilation.

He held on through ten agonizing minutes.

Then the Eternal Wheel beneath his feet dissolved.

The calamity force and ten thousand years of resentment came crashing forward. Yueyang’s hands shaped themselves into the gesture for condensing the Wheel of Apocalypse —

And then he stopped.

If he released the Wheel of Apocalypse, he could absolutely rend through the calamity force and strike Pandora.

But that wouldn’t save himself.

Perhaps what I need is a Nirvana.

Die then. Let it be.

Wasn’t death said to be the beginning of a new life? If he couldn’t even comprehend the barrier of death, what right did he have to talk about reaching higher levels of the Innate Body-Piercing Invisible Sword Qi? What right to glimpse the divine realm? Gods were imperishable existences — only weak mortals feared death. If he wanted to reach that state, he had to walk out of the human realm and into the divine one. It was perhaps a bit early — but wasn’t this also an opportunity along the path of cultivation?

Succeed, or die trying.

Whether he transcended himself, whether he leapt beyond his current realm into the divine — it all hinged on this moment.

Yueyang slowly closed his eyes. In this moment, he chose to trust his own awakening.

And to trust the unique constitution the Phoenix Sisters had given him.

The Phoenix could achieve Nirvana and be reborn.

Could he — this fortunate soul watched over by the Phoenix Sisters — also achieve Nirvana and be reborn?

Release the mind. Abandon the body. Cast aside every stray thought. Break free from the constraints of the human realm, transcend himself, rise toward the divine realm he had once glimpsed from a distance.

Just as Yueyang prepared himself to receive death — and to use it as a ladder to transcend his present boundaries — all at once, every scrap of force vanished. The calamity god-force, and the terrifying ten-thousand-year resentment energy with it, were simply gone.

He opened his eyes.

Pandora had come back to herself.

She was looking at him through a cascade of tears.

“Wuu — I almost killed you! Why did this happen? Was the murderer in my own death prophecy me all along?” Pandora let out a full-throated sob. “I couldn’t bear to let you go, and that was what would have killed you. The first thing I’ve ever wanted to keep — and I would have destroyed it with my own hands. Now I finally understand, I finally understand why they all called me the Calamity Goddess. I really am a disaster.”

“It’s not that serious.” Yueyang smiled, and his smile was as bright as sunlight. “I’m not dead yet, am I?”

“If I’d been even a second slower regaining my senses, you would have been.”

“But you did regain them. And — perhaps I might have used it to transcend myself. Who knows?” Yueyang felt a small pang of regret — but more than that, relief. Facing death in that moment, he had been completely calm. But looking back on it now, he couldn’t honestly say there wasn’t the faintest tremor of retrospective fear. That calamity force hadn’t been a joke. Apart from the Sword Spirit’s sword techniques, it was greater than anything Yueyang had ever witnessed in his entire life. Having experienced the calamity god-force firsthand, he finally grasped the true scale of the gap between human and divine.

“I almost killed you, and you’re consoling me!” Pandora’s crying intensified.

“Did you want me to cry alongside you? Not going to happen.”

“You always do this. The kinder you are to me, the more I want to keep you here, and the less likely you are to survive. Now — what are we going to do?” Pandora’s tears gave way to laughter even as she cried, her emotions so overwhelmed she couldn’t settle into either one.

“Let me think,” Yueyang said.

“There’s no time left — only half a day remains. My death prophecy is still in effect. You’re still going to die!” Pandora’s voice rose in agitation.

“Would you please say it once and leave it at that? Repeating it does nothing.” Yueyang calmly smiled. “Try to be more positive. Think of it this way — there’s still half a day. It’s not one minute. Plenty of time to think of something. And even if there were only one minute left, there’d still be one minute of life, wouldn’t there?”

“I can’t be optimistic about this!” Pandora was trying hard to be composed and failing completely, ultimately breaking into wet, reluctant laughter.

“You look terrible when you cry,” Yueyang said, pulling out a cloth and gently pressing it against her face to wipe her tears.

“Think faster!” Pandora was deeply moved but channeled it into irritation anyway, venting it at him instead. This inexplicable impulse made her confused about herself. What was happening to her?

“Working on it.”

Yueyang thought. Pandora waited as though each second were a year, almost jumping several times to push him, but each time stopped herself for fear of interrupting his thinking, and suffered her anxiety in silence.

At last, Yueyang spoke — cautiously, probing: “Do you have any memories of before? Of when you still had a body? Doesn’t have to be much. Even fragments.”

Pandora shook her head. “No. When I lose control, I might recover something — but ordinarily I have nothing. No memory of anything that came before.”

Yueyang had half expected that answer.

Only in rage did Pandora recover the memories of her former self as the Calamity Goddess. In her ordinary state, she was simply a scatterbrained girl with those memories sealed away.

When he fell silent, a flicker of shadow crossed Pandora’s eyes.

She was distressed.

She couldn’t help him — not even a little.

All she could do was watch him walk toward death, and the most terrible thing of all was that in the end, it would be her own hands doing it. Ten thousand years of sleeping — and at last, a strange young man had arrived. For the first time, someone had made her heart stir and feel alive. For the first time, someone had given her genuine, unburdened happiness. For the first time, someone had made her feel sadness. For the first time, someone had made her feel reluctance. For the first time, someone had left her both laughing and wanting to cry. For the first time, someone had made her feel both hatred and regret.

Could this be… is this what love is?

Is this the feeling he described — that murky, impossible-to-put-into-words certainty felt clearly in the heart?

What do I do? What could possibly be done to keep him alive? According to the death prophecy, he had half a day left — that was certain and accurate. He was the most formidable being in all of Desire Valley. No one except herself could kill him.

Given that, Pandora made a quiet, private decision.

She stopped crying. Her smile bloomed instead — the kind that made everything around it seem less vivid by comparison.

“You’re right. Half a day is still half a day. We should treasure it. Tell me what couples do together. You said knocking me over is off the table now that I have no body — that’s a bit of a shame, but it’s all right. Perhaps we can do something else.”

“Who said a couple can do that the moment they start dating? A girl has to respect herself!” Yueyang lectured Pandora sternly. “At the very beginning of a relationship, you hold hands at most.”

“But I don’t have hands anymore,” Pandora said with a sigh.

“…” Yueyang had genuinely forgotten about that.

“Tell me more things couples do!” Pandora set aside the gloom and brightened up, her beautiful eyes full of longing.

“They’re all fairly mundane. I don’t really know all that much myself, to be honest. Generally, couples go somewhere together — a park, or somewhere quiet with few people. They might go to a nice restaurant for a meal, or a coffee shop to drink something that smells like coffee but tastes slightly burnt. After a few dates they go somewhere further out — picnics, outdoor barbecues, maybe see a film. Anyone who meets up, immediately goes singing, then dancing, then out to eat, then back to a room — that’s not really love. That’s just two people resolving a biological need. A girl has to respect herself. Giving in to every desire leads nowhere good — a fresh flower becomes a wilted flower becomes a rotted flower. Look at the people in Desire Valley — every single one of them gave in to desire.” Yueyang paused and gave a modest wave of his hand. “You and I are not a couple, by the way. We might be described as people who can have a decent conversation. That’s all. Naturally, that doesn’t count. Clearly this is me giving you a free lesson.”

“What do you usually do with the women you actually like?” Pandora was curious.

Yueyang nearly said something highly inappropriate, and coughed to cover it. “There’s all sorts of things. Study rune formations together, cultivate together, grow plants together, read together, run experiments, go swimming — many things.”

“Let’s do all of those!” Pandora’s eyes lit up with eagerness.

“We are not a couple,” Yueyang declined.

“That doesn’t matter. We might not be now, but maybe someday. Let’s do them first — there’s no time left to wait.”

“Leave me some time to write a few letters of farewell. If I die and end up like you, then at that point, do whatever you like.” Yueyang couldn’t be bothered indulging in whatever direction her mood was heading. Whether he managed to transcend himself through death or was reborn through Nirvana — either way, writing a few letters to Wuxia and his tiger girl to reassure them was necessary. What Yueyang feared most wasn’t death itself — it was being sealed in Desire Valley like Pandora, unable to leave.

He called out Xiao Nu, the half-elf who lived in the Grimoire World taking care of his daily needs, and gave her a brief account of the situation.

Without giving her time to dissolve into helpless tears, he pressed the Three Realms Compass into her hands. “Go find Wuxia. Have her consult with Night Empress and Supreme and the others about a solution. Stop crying — I’m not going to die. I’ll probably just be sealed here for a while. Once I figure out how Pandora died, untie her resentment, and separate the resentment energy from the Law energy, I might be able to leave. Are you refusing to follow my instructions now? You must complete this task. Do you understand? This mission is critical for me.”

Xiao Nu absolutely refused. She collapsed against Yueyang’s chest, weeping with her entire being.

“Let Xiao Nu die in your place! Master absolutely cannot stay here. Xiao Nu will never leave Master’s side. If Master dies, Xiao Nu will remain here too — forever, by your side!”

Even as Yueyang fixed her with his most stern glare, Xiao Nu met his eyes without flinching. Tears poured down her face in a torrent. She — usually so obedient, so gentle — clenched her small fists and refused to budge, displaying a stubbornness no one had ever seen from her before.

“I already told you — nothing is going to happen to me. I’m just asking you to carry a message!”

“Xiao Nu is not leaving.”

“Of all the— how many times do I have to say it…”

“Xiao Nu is not leaving. Not leaving. Not leaving. Wuuu — please don’t make Xiao Nu go. Master will be fine, Xiao Nu won’t leave, we’ll always be together!”

Pandora watched with wide eyes.

After a long silence, she murmured softly to herself:

“Is this… is this what love is?”