"Upon hearing what I say next, please reveal nothing in your expressions—that is, if the two of you still want your offspring to live."
"This is not a threat, nor is it a cooperation. It is a notice."
"The Saints who have come from the Great Yan sects are even stronger than I anticipated. Even if both our sides join forces, we are no match for them. Therefore, I need to borrow Mu Nuo's power."
"There is no need for shock. Your child does possess such power—a might capable of rivaling the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion Master or the Lord of Guyuan."
"Thus, as your reward for going to besiege the Qin family's Saint, if I fail to stall the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion Master on my own, I will grant you a chance—a chance to awaken Mu Nuo at the cost of Madame Wan's life."
That had been Xu Changtian's voice transmission from moments earlier, and the reason the husband and wife had abandoned their standoff and chosen to besiege Qin Ke.
And for that reason, Wan was indeed prepared to die.
The human named Xu Changtian had not broken his word; just as promised in his transmission, he returned her child to her.
Cradling the child's familiar body, Wan's half-ethereal form began to dissipate rapidly. The drainage of yin origin made her already pale face appear translucent, yet her gaze was calm, completely lacking the frenzy common to ordinary yin ghosts on the verge of fading away.
Ever since her earliest memories, she had been an anomaly among yin ghosts.
Compared to other yin ghosts, Wan was clever. Though clever only by comparison, it was more than enough among kin that knew only senseless madness and destruction.
Relying on this cleverness, she, originally weak, had learned how to scavenge the scraps scattered from battles between powerful kin, how to lure weaker kin to devour them, and how to contest the corpses and living beings that periodically appeared in the holy mist.
And it was also by this cleverness that, as she continuously devoured and grew stronger, she discovered that beyond the holy mist where her clan dwelt, a kind of living being called the human race was rearing them like livestock.
These living beings would periodically cast in sufficient provisions for them to grow, and then, at regular intervals, slaughter the supreme powerhouses of their race.
That was the first time she had felt fear—an emotion that should never have belonged to a yin ghost.
She feared the humans beyond the mist, and she feared that one day she would meet the same end as those supreme powerhouses. So from then on, using her cleverness, she learned to conceal herself.
To continue existing, she also began observing the humans who ventured into the holy mist, learning everything about them—from posture and carriage to dress and speech.
Alas, as a yin ghost, she could not comprehend the rich tapestry of human emotions.
Then, at some point, Wan noticed that frail humans would periodically enter the holy mist to hunt lower-tier members of her kind.
They referred to this practice as a trial.
Seemingly competing over who could kill the most.
Her understanding of humans deepened.
They were a terrifying race.
This perception persisted until one day Wan suddenly realized that the supreme powerhouses once regularly slaughtered by the humans were no match for her at all.
So she cautiously sought a way to save herself and venture outside. To that end, she developed soul power capable of influencing the human mind.
She accumulated strength bit by bit, until one day she realized that countless powerhouses had entered the holy mist—yet the vast majority of these humans were already under her control.
A great battle erupted.
After the passage of vast ages, the humans who had once seemed so aloof and unassailable turned out to be utterly fragile.
Except for that one human woman.
Fortunately, in the end, she had devoured her nonetheless.
And then,
she discovered that her form was uncontrollably transforming into that woman's likeness, and her thought patterns were shifting toward those of a human.
The woman must have done something before dying, but Wan found nothing wrong with it.
In any case, she had been happy that day.
Perhaps because she had escaped being reared by humans, or perhaps because she finally had a name of her own.
Wan.
The revolving lantern of memories flashed swiftly before her eyes. Wan held the child tightly to her chest; though met with only a cold touch, it held back her fear of fading away.
Within the Dao domain, seemingly endless flames continued to burn, yet their scorching heat was gradually walled off by a dense layer of saint origin.
Sensing this, Wan instinctively looked toward the man beside her—the husband of this peculiar yin ghost's lifetime.
In truth, she did not even know why she had chosen him as her husband, but from the moment she first laid eyes on him, she had simply wanted to be near him.
A strange emotion.
And even now, at this very moment, this emotion that had no place in a yin ghost had not faded.
Yet facing Wan's gaze, the grotesque insectoid lowered his eyes involuntarily. The enclosing saint origin allowed him to clearly feel everything happening within.
He could feel her weakness, feel her existence steadily dispersing from the world.
Wan could read the thoughts in her husband's heart. Biting her lip, she instinctively moved to embrace him, but her soul body, no longer able to solidify, passed right through his flesh.
"..."
This unexpected occurrence made Wan's clear, beautiful eyes widen slightly. She froze for an instant, then lowered her gaze as well, her crisp, melodious voice tinged with helplessness:
"Humans truly are the most terrifying living beings. So this isn't your fault."
"..."
The insectoid clenched his fists tight, yet that fury felt so utterly powerless amid the blazing flames of the surrounding Dao domain.
Wan watched him, her gaze gentle.
With trembling breath, he raised his eyes.
Their gazes met in the air.
Her slender, gentle eyes curved softly.
The churning flames all around—
just like the youth and the woman when they first met beneath the setting sun of the Great Desert.
Then,
she cast her eyes down, looking at the child in her arms with gentleness like water. Her red lips moved, but no sound came out.
Seeing the words she tried to voice, Mu Xingyi's insectoid body trembled faintly.
"Nuonuo... I entrust to you."
A cold voice belonging to a brocade-robed human unfeelingly mimicked Wan's lip movements with a sneer.
Looking at the female yin ghost Saint who was already nearly transparent within the sphere of saint origin, Xu Yuan smiled without a shred of pity:
"She truly trusts you, doesn't she? Though for now, rather than entrusting the child to a useless father like you, she'd be better off entrusting it to an uncle like me. Wouldn't you say so, Xingyi?"
"..."
Countless compound eyes turned simultaneously to glare at Xu Yuan, the densely packed orbs bloodshot to the brim.
If glares could kill, Xu Yuan would have been torn into ten thousand pieces by now. Unfortunately, Mu Xingyi possessed no such technique.
His figure flickering bizarrely, Xu Yuan stepped forward at an unhurried pace, entering the sphere of saint origin gathered by the insectoid without the slightest hindrance, arriving before the mother and child in their final farewell.
Gazing at the child whose fluttering eyelashes suggested he might open his eyes at any moment, and at the mother whose body was on the verge of total collapse, Xu Yuan reached out a hand and grinned:
"Since you're going to die anyway, don't even think about leaving behind any soul origin to watch it grow up."
With those words,
his fingers closed slightly.
Under Mu Xingyi's ferocious glare,
Wan's soul body shattered into specks of starlight!
Having done this,
Xu Yuan dangled the waking child in one hand and held the Dragon Transformation Essence in the other. He glanced back, meeting Mu Xingyi's gaze:
"Still, this young master really must thank you, Xingyi. Without your participation, this battle would likely have been a certain defeat."
As he spoke,
the Dragon Transformation Essence was activated, and simultaneously, a dragon's roar rang out from within Mu Nuo!
Xu Yuan looked up toward the sky beyond the blazing Dao domain, hurled Mu Nuo's body in an instant, and projected his voice outward:
"White Emperor, this young master does not know what your purpose here is, but right now, your clan's dead dragon's residual thought resides within this little brat, and he remains unaffected by it!
"So if this brat falls into the hands of any Great Yan faction, Guyuan will hold no secrets from Great Yan!
"So now...
"You can come down and risk your life against him!"
Chapter 672