The blood cocoon hung suspended in the sky. Beneath the canopy blanketing the ghost city, not a single ray of sunlight remained. Screams of agony rose and fell across the dense rows of streets—some from the living, some from the dead.
The living wailed at the dead departing once more.
The dead shrieked at the pain that suddenly descended upon them.
They had begun to pay the price of resurrection.
Black vapors were drawn from their bodies, forming slender threads that drifted toward the blood cocoon in the sky.
Viewed from afar, layer upon layer of countless black threads connecting to the cocoon turned the firmament murky and dim.
“What are you worried about?”
Watching the bizarre spectacle beneath the firmament, Tianye’s golden eyes gleamed brightly. She seemed to be muttering to herself, yet also conversing with someone:
“Staying behind to win this war was Xu Yuan’s own choice. Taking responsibility for one’s own decisions is something even a three-year-old child understands. Surely a Saintess like you wouldn’t fail to grasp that?”
“You ask why I won’t help him?”
Tianye seemed to hear something amusing, and the corners of her lips curved upward.
“Haven’t I done enough for him along the way? I already feel as though I’ve meddled a bit too much in the progression of this calamity. No matter what you say, I won’t interfere in this fusion again.
“Besides, I don’t think you have any right to criticize me, do you? My motives might not have been pure, but if I hadn’t given him the bargaining chip to devour Mu Nuo, Xu Yuan would already be a dead man.
“As for you, Tianyan, aside from playing dead in this body, what have you done in this battle that’s worth praising?
“A little girl is just a little girl. You know nothing at all.”
“Heh~ Getting worked up after just a couple of words?
“Don’t call me an old hag. In terms of mental age, you’re actually a bit older than me.”
Tianye fixed her golden eyes on the changes in the blood cocoon, smiling in a faint, wistful tone:
“Twenty thousand years is too long. Long enough that so many memories have been ground away to dust. So compared to the reality I lived through twenty thousand years ago, the world within the illusion actually feels more like my entire life.
“…Can’t win on the facts, so you start talking about feelings?
“I truly don’t like speaking of love so openly, but it doesn’t hurt to tell you: my feelings for that guy run far deeper than yours ever could, little girl.
“You should know that in that false illusion, he was my entire world. And what about you?”
“…”
After a brief silence, Tianyan seemed to say something.
Tianye raised her brows at the response and said matter-of-factly:
“Is there any conflict between loving him and killing him? If he truly is the calamity, I won’t hesitate for a moment to kill him—and then I’ll take my own life after he’s dead.”
At that,
Tianye gazed at the blood cocoon, a chill drifting through her golden eyes:
“I am different from you. I was born in the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion’s golden age. I know how heavy a burden those three words carry, unlike a Saintess like you, who lived through severed eras and knows only love.
“Furthermore, Tianyan, you are the Saintess of the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion, not some concubine or wife of Xu Changtian. I truly hope you can understand this.”
By the end, a trace of disgust crept into Tianye’s voice, but then she sighed, adding with a hint of mockery:
“Forget it. Pretend I never said that last part. Overcoming the calamity this time is your duty as ‘Tianyan.’ Sacrificing yourself to face the tribulation isn’t a bad approach either, is it?”
“…” Tianyan had no response.
Nourished by the black vapor, the blood cocoon hanging in the air swelled continuously, yet no one broke out from within.
Time ticked by. Outside the city, the battle between the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion Master and the Great Yan Sword Saint raged on as fiercely as ever.
Tianye was very pleased with the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion Master who had been bestowed the name Tianyuan.
Except for “Tianyan,” every Pavilion Master of the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion might not have been the absolute strongest under the heavens, but they were certainly among the strongest.
Tianyuan’s strength was worthy of the title of Pavilion Master.
The wait was long, and the desert’s setting sun arrived right on time.
Inside the silent city, a change flickered across the expression of Tianye, who had stood motionless all day—a subtle shift instantly caught by Tianyan inside her.
Tianyan asked immediately, her tone tense:
[…What happened?]
Tianye knitted her delicate brows, hesitation flickering in her golden eyes as she stared at the blood cocoon:
“The Lock of Shared Life I placed on him has been broken.”
[What?]
Tianyan was momentarily stunned. [You planted a Lock of Shared Life in Xu Yuan?]
Tianye gave a soft chuckle, her radiant smile unchanged.
“When I said earlier that I’d die alongside him, did you think I was joking? When I kill him, I’ll die as well. But what a pity—it seems that fellow broke it himself. I’ll just have to look for another chance later.”
[Does that mean Xu Yuan won?]
“…”
Tianye did not reply. Channeling her connection with the ghost willow yin origin, she carefully sensed the changes within the blood cocoon. But several breaths later, that connection abruptly snapped as well.
It had not been devoured or refined; it had simply dissipated from the world.
This sudden turn of events made Tianye hesitate.
She did not know whether Xu Yuan had done this deliberately to shake off her control, or whether he had been driven to the end of his rope by Mu Nuo and made a desperate gamble.
However, soon enough,
Tianye shifted her attention to the White Emperor, who was seated cross-legged beside the blood cocoon.
Ever since the cocoon formed, the White Emperor had sat cross-legged in the adjacent void, resting with his eyes closed until now.
He had not joined the battle outside the city.
Nor had he seized the opportunity to destroy the Zhenxi prefectural yamen in one stroke.
And at this moment,
the Lord of Guyuan slowly opened his draconic eyes.
Tianye’s insight was no weaker than the White Emperor’s, but she was constrained by Tianyan’s body. Having lost the ghost willow yin origin as a medium, her perception of the inside of the cocoon was far inferior to his.
Yet for the White Emperor to act like this,
it was very likely that the devouring within the cocoon was reaching its conclusion.
*Thump, thump.*
Tianye felt her heart skip a beat. Subconsciously, she began quietly channeling a secret art, and the Dao charm of Aeon arts diffused around her. But the moment she realized what she was doing, she immediately halted the technique.
She suspected
this was Tianyan causing trouble inside her.
The woman had been incessantly pestering her with questions, causing Tianye—who had already resolved to remain an idle onlooker—to subconsciously want to snatch him from the White Emperor’s grasp.
Amidst the solemn silence blanketing the city,
a slender figure clad in military armor quietly rose into the air from the yamen below the blood cocoon.
Li Junwu had taken to the sky.
Halberd in hand, she positioned herself between the White Emperor and the blood cocoon.
Beneath the setting sun over the desert, her figure looked somewhat frail.
Tianye watched the slender silhouette, her beautiful eyes narrowing slightly.
She could tell the woman was prepared to die.
She also noticed
that within the ranks of the military array in the yamen,
countless Jinqi Pills—used to strengthen the soldiers' resonance techniques—lay scattered about.
*Skrrrk—*
A tooth-grinding scraping sound echoed from deep within the blood cocoon.
And then,
it split open like fluttering feathers.
Amidst the sky of swirling black silk,
a young man clad in fine robes appeared in everyone’s sight.
Their eyes met for an instant.
Looking at that familiar face, Li Junwu breathed a gentle sigh of relief. A smile played on her red lips as she scoffed:
“I knew a scourge lives for a thousand years. But you…”
“Junwu, get down.”
Looking at the back of the figure standing in front of him, Xu Yuan’s pitch-black eyes revealed no emotion, yet his voice carried a complex weight:
“My wager with it isn't over yet.”
Chapter 688