Compared to the taciturn Ming Kai, Tail was much harder to impersonate.
That was why Xiao Suo waited until the battle was at its fiercest, when Li Ban and the others were too overwhelmed to notice anything amiss, before choosing to possess her.
Though the possessed Tail retained a fraction of her consciousness, Xiao Suo controlled her body to execute many of the critical actions.
This was precisely how she became the only Spirit Practitioner to survive.
In the end, when Li Ban's group had to leave someone behind, Xiao Suo feared Tail would be the one abandoned because she was a Spirit Practitioner. Thus, at the final moment, he prepared to transfer his possession to the weakened Zhu Yao.
Because he was preparing to transfer, his control over Tail slipped, allowing her to shout those crucial words at the last possible second: "I am Tail."
But Tail had already confessed to Li Ban the night before the operation that she was actually Cat Girl.
Having already admitted that "Tail" was nothing more than a fake name and a false identity, why would she emphasize it at such a critical moment?
There was only one possibility.
This was why Li Ban was able to strike with everything he had right as Xiao Suo attempted the transfer. He blasted Xiao Suo out, leaving him unable to return to Cat Girl's body, nor able to invade anyone else's.
However—
The possessed and discarded Cat Girl would never live to see the freedom she so desperately sought.
Li Ban's eyes reddened. He tried to step forward to use a healing spell.
But Cat Girl raised a hand, stopping him from coming any closer.
As she lifted it, her ring and pinky fingers, already fractured to their absolute limits, crumbled away.
"Don't come closer," she said, her voice slightly slurred.
The cracks had already spread into her mouth.
"He might have left a piece of his soul hidden inside me. None of you come near me."
Cat Girl looked at Li Ban and murmured, "I'm staying behind. Leave, now."
She had given up.
She stared at him, her gaze desperately tracing his features, suppressing all the heavy emotions swelling in her chest.
She couldn't say a single word. Saying anything would only become a burden to Li Ban.
"Hurry and go," she urged softly.
Li Ban slowly clenched his jaw.
"Go!"
The word hissed through his teeth.
Cat Girl smiled. Her jaw shattered, disintegrating into chunks of flesh that drifted into the air.
The next second, the consciousness of Li Ban, Zhu Yao, Qiao Guan, and Zhan Yan plunged into darkness.
When they opened their eyes again, they found themselves suspended in a dazzling Star River.
Zhu Yao woke first. She immediately turned to Li Ban, stepping forward to gently take his arm.
Even though Cat Girl's bond with Li Ban was deeper, the two women had been companions for half a year. Zhu Yao was deeply saddened that Cat Girl had fallen at the very last moment.
However, Zhu Yao had lost far too many comrades. Her ability to cope with this kind of grief was clearly stronger than Li Ban's.
Even so, she had no idea how to comfort him. She could only gently show that she was still standing by his side.
Li Ban returned to his senses and squeezed her hand.
Beyond his profound regret over failing to bring Cat Girl with them, he harbored a searing hatred for Xiao Suo.
This bastard who could never be completely killed was no longer just his enemy.
Gripping the Wizard Embryo Fragment through his waist pocket, Li Ban swore a silent oath.
"I will make Xiao Suo completely vanish from this world!"
The two priests, Qiao Guan and Zhan Yan, flew over.
They shared the regret of leaving so many companions behind, but they weren't truly safe yet.
"This should be the Shattered Realm, but we aren't safe until we return to the Wizard World," Qiao Guan said. "Priest Ban, is the Great Wizard who rescued us still around?"
Of course he was—inside the mirror in Li Ban's Cubic Space.
But the mirror was merely a medium for transmitting messages.
Furthermore, Shaman Ming was sealed. Pulling them out through a weak point in the Recycling Station's barrier was already a miracle; he wouldn't necessarily intervene again.
Li Ban took a deep breath. "From here on, we'll have to rely on our own strength to get back."
Qiao Guan nodded, not showing any disappointment. He pulled out a Realm-Breaking Stone that had been gathering dust in his Cubic Space.
"Fortunately, I still have a few Realm-Breaking Stones on me." He held the stone aloft.
The ancient-looking stone instantly cast a soft, glowing white light.
"It still works, fantastic!" Zhan Yan laughed beside him. "And from the looks of it, we aren't too far from the Shattered Eye."
Being close to the Shattered Eye meant they were in the heart of the Shattered Realm, an area rarely frequented by black-robed priests. They were relatively safe here.
"Let's hurry back."
The thought of finally returning to the Wizard World lifted the heavy gloom weighing on the group.
Li Ban, meanwhile, continued plotting exactly how to kill Xiao Suo once and for all.
As they flew, they discussed how to explain their existence once they returned.
"No one on the outside knows about the Recycling Station," Zhan Yan said, his laughter fading as he began to fret. "How are we supposed to explain our existence?"
Zhu Yao pondered for a moment. "If we can't tell the outside world about the Recycling Station, then we'll just abandon our previous social ties."
After all, strictly speaking, the outside world was no longer the world they had belonged to.
It was just very similar, and there was no space for them to simply insert themselves.
Qiao Guan remained optimistic. "It's fine. If we can't mention the Recycling Station, we'll just say we're from a parallel world. The universe is massive; anything is possible.
Who knows? Maybe I can even become friends with the other version of me."
"What?" Zhan Yan curled his lip. "Wouldn't it be incredibly weird to face an exact copy of yourself?"
"Not at all." Qiao Guan's voice lowered slightly. "I still want to go see Priest Dong Yi."
To both of them, Priest Dong Yi had been like a father and a mentor.
Before the operation, he had endlessly drilled into them the need to keep fighting, to never squander the path carved out by the sacrifices of others. Without those final warnings, neither of them might have resolved to follow Li Ban out so decisively.
So, even knowing that the Priest Dong Yi on the outside was not the same man from the Recycling Station, Qiao Guan still longed to return to the Mist Realm, back to his side.
"Fine, I'll go with you. This time, we'll make sure to protect the old man!" Hearing this, Zhan Yan instantly overcame his psychological barrier of not wanting to face his other self, changing his mind and deciding to return.
"Though..." Qiao Guan began to worry about another issue. "Us escaping the Recycling Station won't cause our outside counterparts to be deleted, will it?"
They had been so focused on escaping that they hadn't considered this. Now that they were out, they realized there were many things to worry about.
Li Ban, who had been silent for a long time, finally spoke up. "No. Deletion is just a rule of the Recycling Station. Now that you're out, you are independent entities."
He raised his hand and pinched the pad of his finger hard.
A drop of bright red blood welled up from the small wound.
It had only halfway surfaced before the wound healed itself.
But that tiny drop of blood had already caught the eyes of all three companions.
Zhan Yan immediately sliced his own palm open, watching with raw joy as blood flowed out.
Zhu Yao clenched her fists, feeling the sharp sting of her fingernails piercing her palms.
Qiao Guan conjured a small flicker of flame.
The Recycling Station had no sense of pain, no blood, and no fire.
At this moment, they realized more clearly than ever:
They had truly escaped the Recycling Station.
The rules the world had forced upon them had finally returned to normal.
Completely abandoning any semblance of priestly dignity, Zhan Yan grinned foolishly as blood pooled in his palm. A few drops rolled from the edge of his hand and flew into the air.
In the air, they turned into—black powder that scattered away.
Zhan Yan froze. He looked down again and watched as the blood pooling in his palm also gradually transformed into black powder.
He stopped.
Flying beside Zhan Yan, Qiao Guan immediately noticed his companion's anomaly. He looked over, terror washing over his face. "Zhan Yan, you—"
"..."
He reached out to see what was wrong with Zhan Yan, but halfway through his sentence, he saw black powder drifting from his own fingertips.
"This is—"
He looked toward Zhu Yao and Li Ban flying ahead. Unsurprisingly, faint wisps of black powder were scattering from their bodies as well.
Zhu Yao had stopped as well. She looked down, seeing flecks of ash appearing on her pristine white priest robes.
It looked like soot falling from a great fire.
Or the dying ashes of burnt-out fireworks.
Her chest heaved sharply twice, and then she turned to look at Li Ban.
Li Ban had ash on him too.
Zhu Yao quickly stepped forward and grabbed Li Ban's hand to inspect it closely.
The moment she held Li Ban's hands, Zhu Yao realized that the tips of her own fingers were already gone.
After discovering that their bodies were turning into black powder and scattering, the rate of disintegration began to accelerate.
She saw that the fingertips of Li Ban's left hand were also disintegrating, but his right hand was perfectly fine.
"It's the—Rye Cake!" Zhu Yao's lips trembled, shedding more ash with the movement.
By now, Zhu Yao, Qiao Guan, and Zhan Yan were practically engulfed in swirling ash.
Only Li Ban had just a faint layer of ash drifting around his body.
"It's the Rye Cake." Understanding dawned on Qiao Guan as well.
He lowered his head and smiled helplessly. "It seems we still haven't truly escaped the Recycling Station."
They had been in the Recycling Station for far, far too long.
And the Recycling Station only had one kind of food: the Rye Cake.
Over all these years, their bodies had long been overwritten by the elements contained within the Rye Cake.
How could the sole food of the Recycling Station be anything ordinary?
It was also one of the Recycling Station's rules.
The foundational building blocks of life in the Recycling Station instantly crumbled to ash upon leaving it.
And those whose essence had merged entirely with those building blocks were naturally doomed to face the exact same fate.
Watching his calves and forearms dissolve, Qiao Guan helplessly lowered his arms. He didn't even have the energy left to be sorrowful or despairing.
He turned to look at Zhan Yan.
Who could have imagined that the future they had been so eagerly discussing just moments ago had already reached its end?
"Do you regret leaving?"
Because his body was rapidly disintegrating, Zhan Yan, who now only had half a torso left, laughed out loud. "Haha, no—"
The two men exchanged a smile, and Qiao Guan said, "Me neither—"
Swirling ash surrounded both Zhu Yao and Li Ban.
Li Ban looked like he was walking through a faint mist, while Zhu Yao seemed entirely engulfed in smoke and fire.
Completely ignoring his own dissolving body, Li Ban pulled Zhu Yao tightly against him by her soft waist, desperately channeling the starlight to enshroud them both.
But as he grabbed her hand, it crumbled to ash.
As he held her waist, it also drifted away like curling smoke.
By this point, Li Ban's left arm had vanished entirely, but his torso and remaining limbs showed no signs of turning to ash.
"It's fine. I don't regret coming out either," Zhu Yao said, halting Li Ban's desperate attempts. "You were in the Recycling Station for less than half a year. You'll be fine."
Li Ban froze, shifting to use his right hand to gently stroke Zhu Yao's cheek.
Now, only her head remained, resting in Li Ban's embrace.
The dazzling Star River had the power to paralyze 8th Tier monsters, yet it was completely powerless to stop Zhu Yao from fading away.
Zhu Yao closed her eyes and weakly nuzzled against his palm.
"So, your hand is this warm."
She suddenly understood exactly how Cat Girl had felt when she chose to stay behind.
Say nothing, do nothing.
"Li Ban, I'm content."
His palm gently closed as the final wisps of smoke and dust slipped through his fingers.
A solitary teardrop fell through the lingering ash, tumbling into the universe.
An unknown amount of time passed before Li Ban, who had been standing in silence, finally raised his head.
He gazed out at the brilliant starry universe around him. For the first time, he felt that this universe teeming with vitality was impossibly terrifying.
Raising his hand, he grasped a Single-Handled Bronze Mirror.
"Shaman Ming, did you and the Director both know this would happen?"
The mirror's surface shimmered. Deep within the dim, reflected galaxy, a stone throne materialized.
Seated upon the throne was a figure in a cloak.
He slowly raised his head, revealing a face identical to Shi Ming's.
"I knew," Shaman Ming replied. "The Director should have deduced it."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You never could have made it out relying on your strength alone. Besides, they didn't regret it, did they?"
Li Ban looked down at his empty left sleeve.
"No wonder you told me before I entered the Recycling Station that no one but me could ever leave that place. Everyone else... they were all just stepping stones for my escape."
"Compared to lingering pointlessly in the Recycling Station just waiting to be mass-deleted, isn't a death like this far more meaningful?"
After a moment of quiet, Li Ban gave a slow nod.
"It is."
Because Shaman Ming was currently sealed, and perhaps due to the influence of the Star River, his demeanor toward Li Ban had been exceedingly mild. It almost made Li Ban forget one crucial fact: the man was a Great Wizard!
Just as a priest wouldn't care about the survival of a small world, a Great Wizard wouldn't care about the lives of a few priests.
"You've helped me time and time again. Is your purpose also to stop the endless cycle of progress reboots?"
"Yes. This limitless rebooting is an incorrect rule, one that we must strive to correct."
"I understand. What a Great Wizard cares about... is the rules."
Looking at Li Ban's emotionless face, Shaman Ming knew the young man was actually drowning in tremendous grief.
He understood, and he felt no need to urge him along.
It was fine. Time would heal everything.
Once Li Ban advanced, he would eventually understand what was truly worth his effort.
All the joys, sorrows, furies, and grief along this path of advancement were nothing more than a part of perfecting oneself.
Li Ban raised his head again. He withdrew the starlight, replacing it with rolling mist.
Gripping the Realm-Breaking Stone that Priest Qiao Guan had left behind, he commanded the mist to carry him toward the exit of the Shattered Realm.
His speed increased, faster and faster.
"I will put an end to all of this."
He let out a soft chuckle devoid of any joy.
"After all, I'm a transmigrator."
Unreturning Place.
The Shattered Eye suddenly pulsed with violent ripples.
Someone was about to come out from inside.
Stationed on guard above the Shattered Eye, Priest Li He opened his eyes.
"An unfamiliar Realm-Breaking Stone fluctuation."
—
He raised his hand, signaling two Star Glow Priests to stand guard outside the Shattered Eye.
The deep purple, almost black spatial rift began to shudder violently as fractured lightning exploded from within.
A hand grasping a glowing white Realm-Breaking Stone reached out from inside.
Staring at the patterns on the Realm-Breaking Stone, one of the priests furrowed his brow. "From the Mist Realm faction?"
"There are no recent records of any Mist Realm priests entering the Shattered Realm."
"Stay alert."
Because long-missing priests had occasionally found their way back to the Unreturning Place in the past, they wouldn't easily strike to stop the crossing.
Following that heavily scarred arm, an unfamiliar, handsome young man stepped through the Shattered Eye. His expression was freezing cold, his gaze resolute.
He was missing his left arm, yet the mutilation did absolutely nothing to diminish his imposing aura.
He turned his head to look at a 6th Tier Star Glow Priest who was slowly approaching him.
"Priest Chu Qi."
Called by name, Chu Qi paused in surprise.
He had truly never seen this man before.
Could it be that his appearance had changed?
"I am Li Ban."