Gao Jiaren stared, dumbfounded, at the dinosaur man's corpse still standing on the mountain peak.
The powerful Demon King he had fought with all his might, hoping only for mutual destruction, had just been casually slain by the white-robed man before him.
He swallowed hard and turned his stiff neck.
"Are—are you the Creator?"
Unsurprised by the guess, Li Ban shook his head gently. "Not yet."
Li Ban sat back down.
The white snow gently supported his body like a soft sponge.
The flakes showed no signs of melting, nor did they soak his robes.
It was as if the entire world were carefully holding him up.
Gao Jiaren suddenly dropped to his knees with a thud.
"Great god, I beg you, please save this world."
"I am not the Creator, nor am I a god. Begging me is useless." Li Ban offered no false hope. "This world is collapsing. No matter how many Demon Kings you kill, you cannot stop its destruction, because the true patient is the world itself."
Gao Jiaren slumped down weakly.
His grip loosened, and the twin blades fell into the snow.
"But you look so calm."
"I am not of this world. I am merely a passerby, here to admire its final scenery."
And to pick up a Wizard Embryo Fragment while he was at it.
The despairing Gao Jiaren suddenly straightened his upper body and shuffled forward two steps on his knees.
The melting snow soaked the man's leather robes and pant legs.
"What must I pay to beg for a chance at survival?"
Li Ban looked at him without speaking.
Gao Jiaren was gambling.
He reasoned that since this god-like figure before him had intervened to save him, he must want something in return.
He wouldn't save him only to let him die.
The man did not feel like a Demon King who took pleasure in toying with others. Perhaps he could beg for an opportunity.
He shuffled two steps further and bowed his head, kissing the snow in front of Li Ban.
Prostrating on the ground, he said, "I am not doing this for myself. I have a three-year-old child who has not yet properly seen this world. If you can only save one life, I am willing to give everything to beg you to take him to a world that still has a future."
"Are you sure? Letting a three-year-old child go alone to another world—he will very likely die in misery and despair. Just because a world has a future does not mean a life will have one."
Gao Jiaren closed his eyes in agony.
How could he not know this?
All he was begging for was that tiny sliver of possibility.
Just as Gao Jiaren was about to plead further, Li Ban suddenly stood up.
He looked toward the sky.
In a place others could not see, the barrier enveloping the minor world was dissolving.
The world was dying much faster than Li Ban had expected.
"There are three days left." Li Ban kept his head raised. "Give me the eye on your forehead, and I will send you down the mountain. Perhaps you will still be able to see your family one last time."
Gao Jiaren shuddered. He wanted to say something more, but he heard Li Ban state firmly, "The price you pay cannot buy anything else."
Gao Jiaren fell silent for a moment. Finally, he raised his hand and resolutely plunged his fingers into the eye on his forehead, ruthlessly gouging out the deep blue eyeball.
No expression of pain showed on his face, but after gouging out the eyeball, he seemed to age twenty years.
Li Ban accepted the bloody eyeball, glanced at it, and raised his hand once more.
Gao Jiaren's figure vanished, appearing at the monster-free foot of the mountain.
He remained in a daze for a moment before immediately scrambling up and sprinting into the distance.
Three days.
He still had a chance to see his family one last time.
Li Ban observed the eyeball in his hand.
It felt like jade to the touch. It did not contain much energy, but its internal structure was incredibly complex; it was no ordinary organ.
Gao Jiaren was likely the strongest man in this world, so the eye on his forehead was naturally extraordinary.
Even such an exquisite and wondrous natural product could never become an element in a minor world like this.
But Li Ban was confident that after bringing it back to the Wizard World and subjecting it to some modifications, there was a high probability of turning it into a new element.
His figure vanished from the mountain peak, reappearing at the outer layer of the minor world.
The barrier of this minor world had almost entirely disappeared, leaving the entire world exposed like an infant amidst a dangerously shattered mirror.
But without the obstruction, Li Ban could more clearly observe its state and the location of the wizard embryo.
In the next instant, his figure vanished again, appearing at the bottom of an unnoticed, endlessly wondrous deep sea.
A massive spatial rift had appeared here as well, though a layer of membrane covered it, preventing the seawater from rushing in.
Li Ban took two glances at the entrance of the rift before directly flashing inside.
On the other side of the spatial rift was a gorgeous space filled with auroras.
Right in the center of the space was a bizarre sphere, slowly rotating on its axis.
It looked somewhat like the virus models Li Ban had seen in his previous life.
Except the sphere before him had a diameter of a full hundred meters.
At this moment, the sphere's surface was covered in cracks. Beneath those cracks, light occasionally flashed, alternating with profound darkness.
This was the minor world's wizard embryo.
Without a Great Wizard to control it, a wizard embryo could only grow naturally.
Even if it clearly knew it was stepping toward destruction, it had no way to save itself.
It violently expanded and then contracted, repeating the same action over and over.
The only thing it could do was continuously release and absorb energy under the established rules.
Releasing energy would cause the bioenergy of the creatures outside to become unbalanced and mutate, while absorbing energy would directly lead to their deaths.
This was also why, when a minor world neared destruction, its surface ecology would be the first to be ruined.
That was merely a surface tremor triggered by the wizard embryo's desperate struggle to breathe.
Unfortunately, this slight tremor was enough to take the lives of ordinary creatures.
Li Ban raised his hand, and a Single-Handled Bronze Mirror appeared in his palm.
Inside the bronze mirror, a stone throne floated in isolation amidst a dim starry sky.
A moment later, Shaman Ming's figure appeared on the stone throne.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Is there any way to delay the wizard embryo's destruction?"
Shaman Ming lowered his head and chuckled softly. "Become a Great Wizard."
Li Ban raised his hand, and a cluster of starlight spun gently within his palm.
But Shaman Ming said, "Even if you possess the Star River, it remains the same. Currently, you can only crudely utilize its energy; you cannot utilize its rules."
'Is that so?'
Seeing Li Ban's posture, indicating he truly intended to act, Shaman Ming spoke again. "There are so many minor worlds; you cannot save them all. Life and matter are inherently in a constant cycle anyway."
But Li Ban said, "You misunderstand. I am not trying to save this world; I just want to conduct an experiment."
Having said that, the cluster of starlight flew from his hand and slowly sank into the massive sphere before him.
Compared to the sphere, the starlight Li Ban released was as small as a sesame seed.
Yet, right after this cluster of starlight merged into the sphere's interior, the cracked sphere gradually stabilized.
Though the cracks on its surface did not disappear, it was no longer violently expanding and contracting.
Li Ban retracted his hand.
He knew he did not yet have the ability to save a world.
But a drowning person only had a higher chance of saving themselves if they calmed down first.