Chapter 261: Gentle Restoration, Void Seeping Out

Just as Yao was about to be utterly swallowed by that star‑river giant hand, which treated her as war spoils and a snack, at that moment.

Just as her last consciousness—the speck of Dream Light that had condensed all love and unwillingness—was about to be captured by that gluttonous giant mouth, at that instant.

A sudden upheaval!

A surge of power.

A force that cannot be defined by any known Dao.

And then, without any sign, it seeped silently out of the deepest void.

It lacks the unruly and violent nature of Sun Wukong's Equal Heaven Path.

It lacks the coldness and rigidity of Hongjun's Heavenly Dao Order.

It also lacks the absolute Deathly Silence.

It doesn't even qualify as "power" at all.

It is more like a spring breeze drifting over the eternally frozen wasteland.

Like a light rain falling onto a dried‑cracked riverbed.

Like an embrace.

An embrace, gentle, that comes from the world's most primordial origin.

This gentleness is silent and unseen.

Yet it is boundlessly vast.

That giant hand, coalesced from countless star rivers, exuding supreme pressure,

Even Hongjun's law enforcers, who would freeze upon seeing it, at the instant it touched this gentleness,

halted.

It wasn't blocked by a stronger force.

Nor was it repelled by any law.

It simply, abruptly, froze there.

It's as if a ferocious tiger lunging at a sheep suddenly crashed into a lump of cotton.

No, it's even stranger than that.

It seems to have reached into emptiness.

That gentle force does not engage it on any level.

It simply exists.

You are strong, do as you will.

You are reckless, be as you please.

I am merely here.

The master of the giant hand, that perpetually lazy and playful mysterious being who treats all things as pieces and toys,

for the first time let out a light "Eh?" tinged with wonder and puzzlement.

His hand, his Dao, his will, for the first time, grasped at nothing.

And after this gentle force softly "pushed away" that giant hand, it did not cease.

It moves like water, permeating everything, slowly flowing toward the already shattered battlefield.

It passed over the continent erased by the law enforcer's Silent Extinction divine light.

Within the void, new matter began to quietly coalesce.

It is not a reversal of time.

It is not a regeneration of law.

It is a more primordial creation, from "nothing" to "something".

It is rebirth!

It flowed through that inferno scorched by the poisonous fire of the Eight‑headed serpent demon.

On the charred glassy earth, the first green sprout stubbornly burst from a crack, then grew wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye!

The withered are reviving.

The dead are returning!

The whole world seemed to be gently cradled by an invisible pair of massive hands.

All wounds are being gently healed in a manner beyond any being's comprehension.

The shattered laws are not being forcefully stitched together.

They are like melted ice rejoining the river, under a higher‑level guidance,

spontaneously reconsolidating, becoming tougher and more harmonious than before.

Within the temple, those Living Beings sunk in deepest despair were horrified to find that

the wounds inflicted by law enforcers and madmen on their bodies were healing at a visible speed.

That soul‑deep fear also melted like ice under this gentle force.

In its place is an absolute peace and serenity, as if returning to the warm womb of life's very beginning.

They slowly lifted their heads, tears still staining their faces, but their eyes no longer held fear.

Only the purest, cleanest bewilderment and curiosity remained, like that of a newborn infant.

And the ultimate destination of this force.

is Yao.

It is that final Dream Light that is about to completely dissipate.

The gentle force, like the finest spiderweb, gathers the memory Debris that are about to drift into the myriad heavens and realms.

Divine Soul light points, one by one, carefully, are recollected and gathered.

It does not forcefully press them together.

Instead, like the most patient craftsman, with the gentlest motions, it places each piece of Debris back to the place where it originally belongs.

Yao's Divine Soul is being repaired.

Her Illusory Dream Path is being reshaped.

Even more dazzling and more solid than before!

Because this gentle force itself carries the attributes of Creation and New Life, it resonates at the most primordial level with Yao's Illusory Dream!

Outside.

That brilliant Star River giant hand, after a brief stalemate, slowly withdrew.

That lazy voice sounded again, but this time, in its tone,

was filled with unprecedented gravity, and a hint… of offended, icy anger.

"Who is it?"

"Who! Dares to touch the toy I have set my eyes on!"

His voice, in the Star Sea, raised towering waves, shaking countless worlds into a humming.

Yet that gentle force remained unmoved.

It simply, quietly, does what it ought to do.

It's like a massive elephant that can never comprehend why a small grass beside its foot, under its trampling, can repeatedly straighten its stalk.

Because the grass's roots are anchored in the whole earth!

At the other end of the Star Sea, Sun Wukong's eyes, almost about to burst into fire, stared fixedly at that battlefield.

The moment he saw Yao engulfed by the torrent of energy, his entire consciousness went Blank for an instant.

It was a kind of cold anger, more thorough than when he discovered his Master had deceived him, more thorough than when his Dao Heart was shattered by Silence!

He almost, disregarding everything, would hurl the entire Primordial Source of Equal Heaven Chaos Realm!

But immediately after, he felt.

He felt that gentle, yet bone-deep familiar force.

That is not the Master's force.

The Master's "Void" is to discern, to sever, to transcend.

But this force…

is Creation.

is Protection.

is… Life!

Sun Wukong suddenly recalled something.

He recalled the stone tablet that the Master left at the waste case processing site.

He recalled the Master's Creation that failed billions of times.

He recalled those aborted world prototypes, at the final moment, erupting with a yearning for "Existence"!

He understood!

Damn!

I, old Sun, understand!

This is not the power of any one person!

It is the Master, that old man, in the billions of failed, billions of unwilling, billions of "No Regret" Creations,

that gave birth to… all the will of "Failure", converging into the most primordial protection of "Life" and "Existence"!

This is… the hymn of the defeated!

It is the most gentle yet most steadfast roar emitted by all "Variables" not recognized by "Order"!

Meanwhile, in the Purple Sky Palace.

Hóngjūn Dàozǔ looked at the repaired world, his face showing a disdain even greater than that upon seeing Sun Wukong.

"Again this kind of… Niánhuhu, utterly illogical, uncontrollable force!"

The Order he pursues is precision, controllability, everything within grasp.

But the force before him is barbaric growth, an unreasonable vitality,

is the "Weed" in his Heavenly Dao Order that he most wishes to eradicate, yet can never eliminate!

On the other side.

That lonely, pale "Silence", also sensed this force.

His hollow eyes, for the first time, showed intense fluctuations.

His "End", is to return everything to Deathly Silence.

But this force, from Deathly Silence, creates New Life!

This is, utterly opposite to his Dao, the absolute antithesis!

But for some reason, as he watches the one whose form is slowly reshaped by the gentle force,

even more beautiful than before Yao, the End blade in his heart did not generate any impulse to cut her down.

Instead, there was a hint, even he could not comprehend… envy?

Finally.

Surrounded by that gentle force, Yao slowly opened her eyes.

Her gaze was as clear as newborn.

She lowered her head to look at her own hand, then at this world restored to pristine clarity, her eyes filled with bewilderment.

"I..."

She didn't die?

Not only did she not die, her Illusory Dream Dao seemed to have undergone a baptism,

becoming more round and lucid, feeling a blood‑line connection with the whole Heaven and Earth.

She could feel that every Living Being in this world felt gratitude and reliance toward her.

She could also feel that gentle power, still not fully dissipated.

Who……saved her?

Could it be Wukong?

She instinctively looked toward Sun Wukong's direction.

But she saw that the monkey was gazing in another direction with a complex, shocking gaze she had never seen before.

Yao followed his gaze.

Everyone's gaze—Sun Wukong, Hongjun, Deathly Silence, and even that mysterious being that had just retracted its hand—

The gazes of all Supreme Existences converged on one spot.

That black rift, smashed open by Sun Wukong's Golden Cudgel in spacetime, leading to the "Discarded Case Processing Site"!

That gentle, vast, world‑creating power.

Its source lies within that rift!

It is continuously seeping out from that Deathly Silence star region defined as a "garbage dump"!

Just as all beings held their breath and stared fixedly at that rift,

A voice.

A voice utterly unlike any before, emerging lazily from the depths of the rift.

That voice sounded somewhat aged, somewhat weary, and carried a hint of the strong irritation of being just woken from a beautiful dream.

"So noisy…"

"You little brats, fighting at the doorstep of my trash heap, and you've trampled the flowers and grasses I painstakingly grew."

"Speak, how should we compensate for this…?"