The sun no longer rose, and the world plunged into enduring darkness.
The hero returned to his hometown battered and exhausted.
For the past three days, he had neither closed his eyes nor stopped walking.
He only wanted to take one last look at his family before the world was completely destroyed.
Perhaps that White Robe had been right. Surviving alone was no blessing.
The sky and earth were pitch-black, making it impossible to see.
A faint light still clung to Gao Jiaren.
That light could no longer form radiant wings, but it still managed to flutter around him like fireflies.
These scattered specks of light illuminated his path home.
The heroes who had journeyed with him had all died along the way; he alone had persevered to the end.
If not for Li Ban, he likely wouldn't have been able to kill the demon king even by self-destructing.
And yet, killing the demon king wouldn't necessarily save the world.
Now, he no longer cared to think about any of that.
As it turned out, killing a demon king or two couldn't stop the destruction of the world.
Since only a sliver of time remained, he hoped to embrace his family and fall into eternal slumber.
Perhaps then, the pain of death would become bearable.
The light emanating from him soon alerted the panicked, restless villagers.
Someone lit their last candle, eyes full of hope, only to see the exhausted, haggard hero.
No one cheered, and no one welcomed him. From his demeanor alone, they could tell his crusade against the demon king had failed.
No one grew angry and no one blamed him, either, because the prolonged darkness had already forced them to accept the grim reality.
They were powerless; all they could do was quietly accept their fate.
Those who wanted to surrender to madness before death wouldn't have stayed in this little village until now.
The ones who remained simply wanted to spend their final moments in peace.
Thanks to them, the hero made his way home undisturbed.
The front door opened, and a little boy carrying a lantern stumbled out.
Right before the boy could fall, the hero caught him.
He picked up his child and walked toward the doorway.
His wife, leaning against the doorframe, calmly watched her husband return.
"I'm back," the man said to the woman.
"Mm."
"Dad, are you leaving again?" the little boy asked, leaning into his embrace.
"I'm not leaving."
"Mom said we're out of wheat."
"Dad will go cut some in the fields tomorrow."
"Dad, Mom and I are both hungry."
"—Drink some water first, and then go to sleep, okay? When day breaks tomorrow, Dad will conjure up some food for you."
"Alright then. At dawn, I want to eat eggs."
The hungry child quickly fell asleep.
The man and woman lay back on the bed, embracing their child.
His wife asked softly, "Day isn't going to break, is it?"
"It's enough that you came back."
Suddenly, the last stub of candle in the room reached the end of its life.
Without that final light source, the room plunged into pitch darkness.
Only his sense of touch told Gao Jiaren that his family was still by his side.
His wife shrank into his embrace, seemingly a bit afraid.
The man held his wife tight. "Are you afraid of the dark? I can conjure some light."
But his wife merely nuzzled against his shoulder and shook her head.
"You must be very tired."
Feeling her trembling body, Gao Jiaren knew she was still terrified.
Though he truly didn't have much strength left, he wanted to ease her fear in their final moments.
"Look, I can conjure up a sun for you," Gao Jiaren said in a joking tone.
He raised a hand and focused, trying to gather a final speck of light at his fingertips.
Just then, however, a faint red glow pierced through the curtainless window lattice, washing over their faces.
They both froze. Turning their heads in unison, they looked toward the end of the mountain range.
There, a red sun was slowly rising.
The sudden brightness stung the hero's eyes to tears. He quickly covered his wife's and child's eyes, but he couldn't bear to close his own.
"The sun—has risen."
"You did it." Shaman Ming's tone was filled with marvel. "Sometimes I wonder if you're a powerful Wizard Lord, lying dormant in this unremarkable shell."
"I only slightly delayed its death. To a Priest, that little bit of time is still a fleeting thing."
—
After a moment, Li Ban added in a low voice.
"I'm no powerful Wizard Lord. I am just this unremarkable shell."
With that, he left this small world.
After staying at the boundary for several months, Li Ban didn't find any other small worlds on the verge of destruction.
Either those small worlds could hold out for decades or centuries more, or they had already been destroyed, their wizard embryos shattered and lost to the void.
Searching for Wizard Embryo Fragments was no easy task.
Many Priests spent decades, or even centuries, stuck on this step.
Yet amid this aimless search, Li Ban's journey to temper his heart also yielded results.
Aside from the small world where Gao Jiaren lived, he had also witnessed the myriad facets of life in other dying worlds.
He saw both ugliness and beauty.
What shook Li Ban the most, however, was the stubborn resilience and strength in the face of the apocalypse.
He once again solidified his resolve to follow through with that matter.
Afterward, Li Ban returned to the Wizard World.
Upon emerging from the Shattered Eye, Li Ban underwent his customary inspection by Priest Li He.
Everything went smoothly, and he returned once more to his small courtyard.
When he returned to the courtyard, Cat Girl was sitting cross-legged on the roof, absorbing spiritual rhinoceros.
Sensing his presence, Cat Girl looked up and saw Li Ban descending from the sky.
This time she didn't foolishly raise her hands to try and catch him; Li Ban landed directly in front of Little Cat and gently embraced her.
"Sorry, I didn't find a Wizard Embryo Fragment suitable for you on this trip."
"Why are you apologizing? It's enough that you came back." Cat Girl narrowed her eyes fiercely, rubbing Li Ban's cheeks with both hands.
Li Ban let her squish his face, waiting until she had her fill of fun before she let go.
"Tell me about the things you encountered on your trip."
Li Ban selected the events of two worlds to recount to Little Cat.
When he mentioned the small world of Gao Jiaren, Cat Girl let out a "Wow."
"You really are still such a good person."
"I gouged out the guy's eye, and I'm still a good person?"
"Uh," Little Cat paused, scratching her tail. "Anyway, I think anyone who's better than me is a good person. Quick, let me see that eye. Can you really turn it into an element?"
"I have a bunch of experienced Priests by my side, so I'm fairly confident about this," Li Ban said, taking out Gao Jiaren's blue eye.
Even after so much time, the eyeball showed no signs of rotting; it looked just like a piece of jade.
"Amazing." Cat Girl reached out a finger to poke it. "I've never seen anyone else's element capable of seeing through a Priest's Invisibility."
"Yeah, I didn't expect that small world to actually produce something so incredible." Li Ban slowly frowned. "It's so incredible, in fact, that it doesn't even seem like a product of that world."
He first used the spirit eye art to observe the blue eyeball, but found nothing unusual.
Next, Li Ban used the spirit attachment art, pouring his spiritual rhinoceros into the eyeball while continuing to observe its condition with the spirit eye art.
Once the spiritual rhinoceros had fortified the eyeball, Li Ban finally spotted the anomaly.
His expression grew a bit strange. He suddenly plunged two fingers into the eyeball, then slowly drew them back out.
Pinched between his index and middle fingers was a fragment the size of a grain of rice.
"Is this—a Wizard Embryo Fragment?"