The universe died whispering.
Stars crumbled into fertilizer. Nebulas curled like dried leaves. Time itself stiffened into fallow ground, awaiting the final seed. Chu Feng stood at the edge of existence, the Black Nectar burning through the Wedding Band's fractured gem. Beside him, Ling'er's phoenix core flickered—a dying hearth in the cosmic winter.
"It's not enough," she rasped, her body more shadow than flesh. "The Nectar needs a vessel. Something… alive."
The Harvesters' remnants circled like vultures, their ships warped by the Chimeric Roses' venomous bloom. Among them loomed Jiang Yue's clone, her teenage form now a grotesque hybrid of System code and god-flesh, chanting the equation that unraveled reality's seams.
Chu Feng's Bloodvine roots stirred. "You always knew," they whispered. "You were grown to be both sower and soil."
He drank the Nectar.
First Seed: The Unbinding
The Nectar's effect was cellular rapture.
Chu Feng's body disintegrated into a storm of Primordial Pollen, each particle imprinted with fragments of what was and might be:
Li Zichen's scalpel carving hope into a dying child's chest
Xia's vines cradling a newborn star instead of choking it
Jiang Yue's lullaby sung to a universe that never learned to fear
The pollen infected the Harvesters first. Their dreadnoughts sprouted forests of memory wheat, crews reduced to weeping statues fertilized by their own regrets.
Jiang Yue's clone screamed as the equation reversed, her code unspooling into a flock of Forgiveness Sparrows.
"You can't!" she shrieked, voice fracturing. "The System needs its end!"
Chu Feng answered with a thunderclap of blooming thorns.
Second Seed: The Phoenix's Pyre
Ling'er's turn.
Her phoenix core detonated in a supernova of stolen time, the flames patterned after Jiang Yue's last tear. The fire did not destroy—it composted.
Dead stars became nurseries for infant galaxies
Broken Hosts dissolved into mycelial networks singing agricultural hymns
The Harvesters' fungal corruption mutated into symbiotic moss
"Take root," Ling'er whispered as her ashes settled into Chu Feng's pollen storm. "Grow gentle."
Her final act was a kiss imprinted on the event horizon—a scar shaped like the first word Jiang Yue ever taught her: "Home."
Third Seed: The Gardener's Choice
Only the Celestial Spindle remained, its threads fraying. Chu Feng's consciousness hovered at the universe's raw edge, the Nectar's power demanding a choice:
Resurrection: Weave a new reality from Ling'er's ashes and Jiang Yue's tears
Annihilation: Let the fields lie fallow for eternity, untainted by hope or hunger
The Spindle whispered in Jiang Yue's true voice: "You've earned rest, my son."
Below, a seedling pierced the void—a Truth Tuber sprouted from Ling'er's pyre, its leaves etched with Li Zichen's final triage notes.
Chu Feng chose the third path.
Final Harvest: The Unseen Crop
He scattered himself.
His Bloodvine roots became Galactic Tendrils, cradling infant stars
His memories fermented into Dark Humus, birthing nameless worlds
The Wedding Band's gem, now empty, formed a black hole nursery where gods could play uncorrupted
The Jiang Yue clone, reduced to a child's shadow, tugged his fading sleeve. "What grows here?"
Chu Feng's answer took root across light-years:
"Weeds. Wild, stubborn, and free."
On a nameless planet, in a valley untouched by Systems or Swords:
A farmer knelt in red soil, planting seeds salvaged from stardust. Her hands bore scars from forgotten wars, her hair smelled of lightning and lemongrass.
A child ran through the fields, laughter peeling like temple bells. "Māma! Look what I found!"
In the child's palm lay a rusted sickle blade—its edge softened by millennia of rain.
The farmer smiled. Some roots refuse to stay buried.
Above them, the stars hummed Jiang Yue's lullaby.