Feiyan moved with the speed of a comet, her silver-edged robe a blur against the chaotic sky. She drew no blade, her shattered sword abandoned in Ruhai's shed. Instead, she forced every scrap of remaining internal qi into pure intention. Her flesh flared white as marrow. The air around her fractured, and a sound like breaking glass echoed from her chest. Her spiritual core, the very wellspring of her Sword Saint power, bloomed like a dying star, then imploded, sending a shockwave of pure, focused energy directly into the primordial beast. The creature paused. Its multi-jointed limbs, thrashing tentacles, and maw filled with needles froze mid-lunge. A guttural groan, not of rage, but of profound confusion, tore from its shifting form. The black ichor oozing from its skin momentarily receded. For a fleeting second, a flicker of bewildered humanity, a faint echo of Chu Da's simple loyalty, returned to its eyes. “Boss… the sky…” The words were mangled, a cacophony of deep growls and alien clicks, but the meaning was clear. The beast, reeling from Feiyan’s sacrifice, understood. It looked up at the rent in reality, the gnashing mouths of cosmic entities already pushing through. Then, with a roar that tore at the fabric of space, it lunged not at Ruhai, but at the gaping maw above. Massive, sludge-slicked limbs shot upwards, grappling with the edges of the cosmic rift. The beast, once Chu Da, became an anchor, its bulk holding the tearing void apart. Feiyan collapsed, a thin, ethereal glow fading from her skin, her eyes fluttering shut. Ruhai knelt beside Zong Wuhen, ignoring the eldritch clamor and Feiyan’s still form. The Enforcer's remaining half shuddered, a pathetic tremor. Zong Wuhen's gaze was fixed on the struggling horror-vessel that was Chu Da, then flickered to Ruhai, a raw, naked terror finally replacing his arrogance. “You… you knew, didn’t you? That the vessel would break. That it would unleash them all.” His voice was a rasping whisper, thick with blood and despair. Ruhai’s cheerful mask slipped, just a fraction. His eyes, usually crinkled with mirth, were cold, flat pools. He reached out, not to console, but to command. “The firmament barrier was your domain, Zong Wuhen. It ran through you. You are its foundation stone.” He pressed his fingers against the Enforcer's sternum, where an amber sheen still flickered beneath tattered silk. Zong Wuhen flinched, a whimper escaping his lips. “What are you doing?!” “Your core is the only thing left strong enough to mend this tear,” Ruhai stated, his voice devoid of emotion. “My master foresaw this. He built his final design not for destruction, but for a last, desperate act of creation.” Ruhai's fingers probed, cold and precise. Zong Wuhen’s eyes bulged, a silent scream caught in his throat as a searing pain erupted from within him. An amber aura flared beneath Ruhai’s fingers, heat fighting against his grip. With a brutal wrench, Ruhai tore it free. The amber fire collapsed inward, hardening into a dense bead that thrummed against his palm. Zong Wuhen slumped, his irises going flat and dark as the last trace of spiritual qi drained out. He was a shell, a powerless mortal. Ruhai didn't spare him a second glance. He pulled a gnarled peach pit from his pouch, the dried relic his master claimed held the seed of renewal. It looked utterly unremarkable, barely larger than his thumb. He pressed Zong Wuhen’s still-vibrating core into the pit. The dried husk drank the amber sphere on contact, warm bark thumping against Ruhai's fingertips like blood. Tiny cracks spread across its surface, and a single, vibrant green shoot, impossibly thick and strong, began to emerge. It grew rapidly, twisting, thickening, developing branches and roots even as Ruhai watched. Ruhai whipped his arm forward in a low arc. The seedling streaked toward the rent in the vault that Chu Da held open with splintering claws. The peach seed, now a small, green sapling, screamed through the air, gathering momentum, shedding fragments of bark and leaves that shimmered like emerald dust. As it plunged into the rift, the sapling erupted. It did not creep; it ruptured outward. Roots as thick as rivers snaked out, anchoring themselves to the fractured edges of reality. A colossal trunk, wider than the tallest mountain, erupted from the void, reaching for the stars. Branches unfurled like verdant wings, each leaf the size of a human dwelling, each bloom a galaxy of soft, pale light. It was the World Tree, Chenmu’s final, impossible design, grown from the ruins of the orthodox sects and a farmer's cold vengeance. The timber expanded, drinking the wild miasma spilling from the breach. The formless horrors, mid-shriek, were caught by pale creepers, dissolving into sap that fed the ascending branches. The wound in the sky drew shut, bound tight by thick cedar-hard bark and a green canopy. Chu Da, the primordial beast, released his strained grip. His monstrous form shimmered, shrinking, dissolving, returning to the sludge from whence it came, a final, silent farewell to his boss. Then, he was gone, absorbed by the healing world. Ruhai walked over to Feiyan, whose breath was shallow, her face pale. He knelt, taking her hand. “You lost your core for us,” he murmured, his voice soft, a rare moment of his true self breaking through. Her eyes fluttered open, finding his. A faint, tired smile touched her lips. “Worth it,” she whispered, her hand weakly squeezing his. Days turned into weeks. The Terraced Fields were changed. The World Tree, now firmly rooted in the celestial sphere, filtered the realm’s energies, making the air vibrant, pure. Zong Wuhen, stripped of his powers, his mind numb with the shock of his new, mundane existence, was put to work. He toiled in the dirt, his hands calloused and blistered, endlessly tilling the fields he once deemed beneath him. He spoke no more of the Dao or the void beyond, only of manure cycles and irrigation trenches. His sentence was field labor, a monument to Ruhai’s precise retribution. Feiyan recovered slowly. Her Sword Saint days were over, but her spirit remained. She no longer sought honor or the validation of a corrupt system. Instead, she found purpose at Ruhai’s side, her laughter, once rare, now a frequent, melodious sound amidst the rustling leaves of the new World Tree. She worked the terrace soil alongside him, planting squash and sweet greens under the sun. One quiet dawn, Ruhai stood before his master’s grave, a simple stone marker beneath the shade of a newly planted peach sapling, a direct descendant of the one that saved the world. Morning broke pale amber across the furrows. He was alone. The cheeky grin was gone, his face serene, unburdened by the usual performance. A single, real tear traced a path down his cheek, catching the first rays of the sun. He wiped it away with the back of a calloused hand, then straightened, a familiar, faint smirk returning. “Rest well, old man. Tomorrow’s harvest is going to be spectacular.”

The Last Spring Planting