They told the others the next day.
Dai Mubai whistled. "Took you long enough."
Ning Fengzhi immediately started planning the wedding. "We'll need three venues. One for Spirit Hall, one for Heaven Dou, one for Star Luo. And the Monarch Sect will host the—"
"No venues," Xiao Zhan said. "No wedding."
Qian Renxue raised an eyebrow. "No?"
"We don't need a ceremony to tell the world what it already knows." He looked at his eight Throne Marks, his twenty Vassals, his Consort. "We rule it. That's the ceremony."
But he did give her something. In private, later.
A room in the Tian Mountains. No guards. No maps. Just a window, a bed, and a sky full of stars.
He wasn't a king there. He was twenty-four, with black long hair and red eyes and a girl who was like a born angel on earth.
For the first time since he left the village, Xiao Zhan went to sleep without planning a war.
The Hegemon System is quiet. The continent is his. The story isn't over — gods still exist, and they don't like mortals who take their jobs — but for now, the king without a crown has a queen without a throne.