Chapter 945: Huh?! Where Are My Potato Chips!? (Grand Finale Part 1)

"It is over..." Beyond the golden bridge high in the heavens, the yin and yang of the world returned to chaos. Vaguely, an ancient yet familiar starry sky and land seemed to appear, pressing down like an endless, colossal mountain!

Amidst the chaos, a voice suddenly roared, "Fallen... even Master has fallen!"

"The Demon Lord... the Demon Lord has also been suppressed!"

"Run! Run quickly!"

Not to mention the few remaining Immortal Lords, even the Holy Reverends like Holy Reverend Xuanzhong were scared out of their wits at this moment.

Immediately following... that supreme Divine Court of the Heavens, situated above the gods and beyond the endless void, collapsed downward.

Ten thousand immortals stood solemnly, transforming into an unprecedented, earth-shattering grand array!

Like a millstone of heaven and earth, these bodies, immortal through a myriad of tribulations, were completely obliterated within the array.

What they faced at this moment was the most terrifying slaughter tribulation in history!

"Boom boom boom—!"

Countless bodies of gods and demons burst into pieces, subsequently swallowed by the red light within the array, falling completely silent!

The golden bridge spanning across the sky suddenly turned into golden dust and scattered, a golden torrent sweeping and dissolving across the entire heavens!

The residual spiritual energy of those once-supreme beings turned into a golden spiritual rain, falling upon the earth.

The wind carried this spiritual rain across the entire world; the Deserted Sea Realm, a land previously devoid of spiritual energy, gradually regained its vitality, and Half-City... along with the entire vast and desolate maritime region, saw its ocean storms gradually pacified.

Looking outward from the most desolate part of the Immortal-Abrupt Continent in the Deserted Sea Realm, toward the Heavenly Abyss Sea—the path leading to Lingzhou where the Yuanyang City shop was located—the golden spiritual rain fell upon the Heavenly Abyss Sea, and the celestial anomalies caused by endless spatial rifts since ancient times were slowly smoothed over by an unimaginably immense vitality.

It was currently summertime, and in the wild lands of the remote Western Region, the mountain peaks covered in tens of thousands of years of ice and snow began to melt, with fresh green shoots sprouting at a speed visible to the naked eye. This place, which was not located at the north or south poles yet seemed abandoned by the sun, also rejuvenated with a touching vitality at this moment!

Upon the land of the Elven Forest, the omnipresent cracks gradually healed; the incredibly abundant golden spiritual energy, after injecting into the lands lacking in spiritual aura, acted like a divine panacea of heaven and earth, continuously repairing the endless wounds this world had suffered since ancient times.

Hidden within the surrounding fragment-like minor worlds, countless creatures on the brink of extinction also walked out from the desolate Gobi desert and dried-up forests.

Withered trees began to sprout, and a refreshing tinge of green began to appear across the deserts.

This fragile world seemed to gradually solidify, and countless fragment-like minor worlds began to gather toward the center; perhaps in time... they would be able to restore themselves to their original form.

Thereafter, the former rulers were long gone, and the three realms outside of the human realm also underwent an extremely prolonged period of chaos before order was reborn.

Since then, only the Celestial Clan dwelling in the sky and the Nether Clan dwelling in the deep sea remained.

And humanity never gave up their outward exploration; they explored the "Heaven Beyond Heavens" from the legends of the gods, and they seemed to have progressively achieved some small measures of progress.

Perhaps... beyond this world, there lies an even vaster starry sky!

...A brand-new era had arrived!

At this time, within the Divine Court of the Heavens, a milky-white orb of light rose slowly like a newborn sun. The power of laws that had been carved up by those gods converged at this moment from all directions of heaven and earth into this void of ruins.

With a soft sound, as if having experienced countless ages, a new spiritual sentience was gradually born...

...

One year later.

A new session of the World Esports Tournament was held inside the shop once again.

Xiao Yulv and Mu Donglai were seen sitting at the commentators' desk.

Below the stage was a massive sea of people filling the spectator seats.

By this time, today's matches had drawn to a close, and the commentators had shifted into a casual chatting state.

Mu Donglai said, "Presumably, everyone has already heard that aside from today's matches, we have another piece of blockbuster good news to announce."

"That is, our perennial backseat gamer, Young Master Xiao Yulv, will be completely unbanned after commentating today's matches!"

"Hahahahaha... Hehehehehe...!" beside him, Xiao Yulv burst into a fit of laughter.

The bullet comments instantly flooded the screen:

"Congratulations to the perennial backseat gamer for finally getting to play the shop's games!"

"66666!"

"Are you planning to start a livestream?"

"Uh..." Obviously, Mu Donglai saw this comment. "Actually, I wanted to ask as well, what is the game Young Master Xiao wants to play most at the very first moment after being unbanned?"

"Resident Evil, Diablo II, and The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1, of course!" Xiao Yulv said while gesturing.

"With so many games in the shop now, why choose these three old games?" Mu Donglai asked. "Is there a reason? Or perhaps because of... some kind of nostalgia involved?"

"Perhaps with various new games emerging endlessly now, many new viewers might not quite understand." Xiao Yulv seemed to address the audience, and also seemed to explain to Mu Donglai beside him, "Back then, all anyone could do for fun was go to gambling dens, listen to tunes, or listen to storytelling... the high-end option was hunting monster beasts. When Legend of Sword and Fairy and Diablo came out back then... oh my god!"

"Back then, who had ever seen killing a monster burst into a whole floor of items, with the possibility of high-tier gear dropping?! Back then, who knew you could fly just by stepping on a sword?! Back then, just watching from behind gave me goosebumps all over," Xiao Yulv said.

Games seemed to be getting better and better now, yet it also seemed... hard to ever find that feeling of the past again. The kind of feeling where one could excitedly chat all night about equipment attributes and skill builds in Diablo II; the kind where one could discuss the plot of The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1 with friends to such an excited point that they couldn't bear to leave for dinner...

"Back then, watching from behind really made my heart itch..." Xiao Yulv said, "but I just couldn't play."

"Does this count as... filling the regrets in your heart?" Mu Donglai asked.

"A bit of both, I suppose."

"Well then, let's wish our Young Master Xiao an early start to his gaming!" Mu Donglai said, "That's all for today's livestream, thank you everyone for watching!"

"This young master is going to play games now too!" Xiao Yulv made a waving gesture. "So, see you all in the livestream room!"

Just as he reached the shop entrance: "Ouch—!"

A little loli fell from the sky, wearing a magnificent palace dress of snow-white silk, carrying a Pikachu backpack on her back. Stamping her little boots repeatedly, she wondered curiously, "Why did the boss lay out such a soft ground outside the shop today? Is it to celebrate the start of my summer vacation?!"

"Yikes! No time to think, better rush into the shop, or else that strange giant light orb will catch up!" With that, she slipped into the shop like a flash of smoke.

"Who the hell was that!" Xiao Yulv was just about to push himself up from the ground.

"Aaaah—!" following a miserable shriek, a human-sized, milky-white orb of light descended from the sky and flew into the shop.

"Pfft—!"

"Rib fractures... Quick! Send him to the Royal Infirmary, he must be given the highest standard of treatment! No letting him out for a month!" Another voice faintly drifted from outside the shop.

"Ah— let me in! This young master can still play! Ah—!"

...

At this time, inside the Jiuhua City shop.

Jiang Xiaoyue happily put down her backpack, "Boss! Open a station for me!"

"Xiaoyue?! What on earth did you bring back?!" Owner Fang poked his head out from a certain seat with a face full of utter confusion. How did a giant light orb end up in the shop?!

Is this even a way to come surf the internet?!

"How should I know?!" Jiang Xiaoyue pouted angrily, "This giant light orb has been following me since morning, and I don't even know where it popped out from. It even claims to be my younger sister! How come my father never told me that I have an extra sister?! It must be an impostor!"

With a face that said "Am I really that easy to fool?", Jiang Xiaoyue took a massive bag of potato chips out of her small backpack—it turned out to be a spatial storage bag after all!

Tearing it open: "Nom, nom! This seaweed flavor is delicious too!"

"Xiaoyue!" Owner Fang snatched the bag of chips and said earnestly, "I've told you before that this is high-calorie food. Look at you, you've gotten chubby! Your face is completely round now. This boss will keep this bag of potato chips safe for you first!"

"Furthermore, your academy is always giving vacations, which isn't good." Owner Fang pulled a thick stack of materials out from his storage spiritual treasure: Three Years of College Entrance Exams, Five Years of Mock Tests.

"For this summer vacation, I'll give you some remedial tutoring first. You should know, a childhood without remedial classes is incomplete."

"Eh!?" Jiang Xiaoyue stared in utter bewilderment at the towering stack of documents Boss Fang had placed on the table, which loomed even taller than her diminutive frame.

Meanwhile, Boss Fang himself was lost in a mild daze: "Come to think of it... that Lord of the Divine Court of All Heavens hailed from beyond the skies, yet he surprisingly wasn't the world's will..."

"Then where is the will of this world...? Why have I never sensed it at all?"

Just as Boss Fang was deeply lost in thought, a pristine, snow-white little hand stealthily extended from the glowing orb beside him, quietly snatching a handful of potato chips.

"How truly strange..." Boss Fang muttered, gazing up at the ceiling as he pondered further.

Another handful of potato chips vanished.

"Oh well, if I can't figure it out, I won't bother thinking about it."

Yet another handful of potato chips was pilfered.

Boss Fang snapped back to reality: "Nori-flavored chips, my favorite too. Time to dig in!"

He plunged his hand into the snack bag, only to freeze instantly.

"Eh?! Where are my chips!?"

Holding up an entirely empty bag, he looked around in disbelief, his wide-open eyes blinking rapidly in sheer confusion.

.

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The main storyline has reached its conclusion, and the book is just about ready to wrap up completely, likely by the very next chapter.

Following the finale, there will be a few casual, epilogue-style daily life chapters. After all, *JX3* is quite a leisure-focused game, so it is best suited for a relaxed setting, along with the ending of *Dark Souls 3* and so forth.

Additionally, some readers have mentioned that the ending feels a bit rushed. Emmmm, it is not actually rushed; rather, many elements of the great war were already detailed in previous sections. Repeating them would only feel redundant, ultimately cluttering the narrative and overshadowing the specific parts I wished to emphasize, which would ruin the overall aesthetic.

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