Seeing Chu Yuan take his own life, the Black Dragon Emperor looked on in utter shock.
“My vassal, why must you be so resolute? Dealing with these ants does not require your sacrifice…”
Before she could finish, countless streams of blood-red light surged into the Black Dragon Emperor. Her body, which had blotted out the sun, began to glow with a crimson light, shrinking and condensing into a sphere of light high in the sky.
Within the sphere, a dragon-human hybrid seemed to be gestating.
With a sweep of a dragon tail, the sphere burst open, and a graceful, three-meter-tall shadow made its grand entrance. The dragon pressure was immense, forcing the many righteous cultivators below to cough up blood and collapse to their knees. Even Li Shixue felt her breath hitch, as if the entire sky were collapsing upon her.
Struggling to support her body, she lifted her gaze. High above, the dragon empress with flowing dark hair looked down upon all living things with disdain. When her gaze landed on Li Shixue, who was holding Chu Yuan, the dragon woman bared her fangs.
“He is my vassal! Do not touch him with your filthy hands!!!”
As she spoke, the blood-red light in her vertical pupils surged.
Roar!
With a swing of her tail, a Demonic Flame entwined with bloody energy lashed out, hurtling toward the snow-haired figure in the distance.
Li Shixue’s expression shifted drastically. She raised her sword, which erupted with azure light. With a single strike, she unleashed Freezing for a Thousand Miles!
However, the extreme sword intent that was capable of freezing entire rivers only caused the Demonic Flame to pause for a moment before the ice shattered completely. The violent force traveled through the sword, and Li Shixue let out a muffled groan.
In the next moment, she was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily into a pile of ruins as dust and debris filled the air.
“Fairy Li!”
“Form the array! Quickly, form the array to resist!”
The Righteous Path Alliance fell into chaos. Several elders hurriedly tried to organize a defense. However, the Black Dragon Emperor, having absorbed the power of the sacrifice, possessed a terrifying might. A single sweep of Dragon Breath shattered the arrays and killed those within. There was no stopping her.
Amidst the army, Chu Yunlan cried out in grief and indignation, “Fellow brothers, hold on! Fairy Li will surely slay the demon!”
Despite his words, he led the elites under his command to slowly retreat to the edge of the battlefield, using the cultivators of the Righteous Path Alliance as a shield. He appeared to be a bystander waiting for the two sides to exhaust each other.
To Chu Yunlan, “preserving strength and waiting for the right moment to deliver the final blow to the Dragon Emperor” was the best strategy. His goal was not just to suppress the Demon Path Alliance; he wanted to use this achievement to marry the Empress and secure his position as the Holy Lord.
Although he had already ascended to the throne, his status as a “fake young master” meant his position was not entirely legitimate. Within the Sacred Domain, the Supreme Guardian’s faction—loyalists to Chu Yuan’s bloodline—targeted him at every turn. To shut the mouth of that Thousand-Year Demon Fox, Chu Yunlan desperately needed external power to stabilize his reign.
In the Realm of True Emotions, the only power that could rival his Taixu Sacred Domain was Ji Xuanyuan’s Xuanyuan Immortal Dynasty. Before the battle, he had made a wager with the Empress. If Chu Yunlan could personally execute the Black Dragon Emperor, the Empress would agree to marry into his sect. If he failed, he would have to hand over 50% of his Sacred Domain’s resources.
Recollecting the Empress’s world-toppling beauty and her graceful silhouette—a single glance had been enough to make the experienced Chu Yunlan salivate. For the sake of power and beauty, he was willing to let the Sword Immortal in the distance suffer a bit.
“Cough, cough!”
Li Shixue stood up from the ruins, her white robes stained with dust and her lips tinged with blood. She looked up at the sky again. Chu Yuan had been reclaimed by the Black Dragon Emperor. Feeling Li Shixue’s gaze, the Black Dragon Emperor pulled Chu Yuan into her ample embrace as if declaring ownership.
The dragon tail swung again, sending another burst of Demonic Flame toward the snowy figure on the ground. Its speed and power were far greater than before. Li Shixue raised her sword to block, her heart turning cold.
The gap was too large. The power of the Black Dragon Emperor exceeded all expectations… ‘Will I really fall here today?’
At that critical moment—
Vroom!
The Warm Sun Jade Pendant hanging at her waist suddenly erupted with a gentle glow. In the blink of an eye, the jade pendant expanded into a protective barrier, enveloping her.
Bang!
The Demonic Flame slammed into the barrier. The shield shook violently, but it managed to withstand the lethal blow.
Li Shixue was stunned. She remembered this jade pendant. Not long after she had become a disciple, her junior brother had given it to her, saying it could nourish her meridians, but she had coldly rejected it. ‘When did this jade find its way back onto me?’
Before she could find an answer, the Black Hairpin holding her hair together also began to glow with starlight. A cool, gentle stream of spiritual energy flooded into her nearly depleted meridians, even clearing her chaotic mind.
Li Shixue was shocked. ‘This hairpin… is the one sent anonymously to the storehouse???’
This familiar fluctuation of spiritual energy… ‘Wait! Could it be???’
Countless ignored images hidden deep in her memory suddenly burst forth like a flood breaking through a dam. When her cultivation hit a bottleneck, it would sometimes mysteriously clear up, as if someone had cleared the obstacles in advance. When she was injured during sword practice, the correct medicine would always appear on her windowsill at the right time.
It wasn’t a coincidence. It was never a coincidence.
It was him. It had always been her junior brother.
‘Why… why am I only realizing this now???’
Pfft!
Just as Li Shixue’s mind was reeling, the Black Dragon Emperor in the sky suddenly let out a pained groan. She looked distressed, sensing something rampaging wildly inside her body.
“What is happening?! My power… Chu Yuan! What did you do to me???”
The Black Dragon Emperor was shocked and enraged, her dragon roar echoing through the heavens.
Hearing this, Li Shixue looked at Chu Yuan in the sky with disbelief. ‘Could it be that Junior Brother’s sacrifice earlier… was to plant the seeds of a backlash inside the Dragon Emperor?!’
Her junior brother had used himself and many demonic cultivators as a sacrifice, entering the fray with his own life… all to slay the demon?
Crack! Crack!
Li Shixue murmured to herself as the cracks on her Ruthless Path heart widened abruptly. She couldn’t believe someone could go to such lengths for her.
Looking down at the trembling snowy figure, the Black Dragon Emperor gazed at the young man in her arms with a look of resentment. “You blockhead, even now, are you still siding with that ugly block of wood? In what way am I inferior to her???”
Chu Yuan’s face was pale, his voice as thin as a thread, yet he smiled. “Your Majesty, you are mistaken! This subordinate’s heart has always belonged to the righteous path. How could it be compared to mere romantic feelings?”
Saying this, he raised his head and channeled the last of his Noble Spirit, roaring at the top of his lungs, “Senior Sister! The sword!!!”
The roar echoed between heaven and earth.
The silent understanding built over years of companionship allowed Li Shixue to immediately guess her junior brother’s intent. This was an opportunity he had bought with his life; she could not let it go to waste.
Despite the immense heartache, she resolutely channeled her entire cultivation and gripped her longsword before hurling it like a spear.
Thump!
The longsword was like a white shooting star, instantly piercing through both the Black Dragon Emperor and Chu Yuan as they embraced high in the air. It even tore a hole through the dark clouds hanging over the world.
“Ugh… ah!”
The Black Dragon Emperor’s golden vertical pupils rapidly dimmed. Her gaze toward the snowy figure was complex beyond measure. She mocked herself, saying, “What ‘heart belonging to the righteous path’… In the very end… you still chose her…”
Chu Yuan gave a bitter smile and sighed. “Your Majesty, if there is a next life, I will surely return to fulfill my loyalty…”
The Black Dragon Emperor only spat out one word. “Begone!”
After speaking, she held Chu Yuan even tighter. Even as her dragon body plummeted to the ground, shattering and dissipating like glass, she still ensured that Chu Yuan’s remains were protected and unharmed.
“We won!!!”
The Righteous Path Alliance let out a deafening cheer.
In the distance, Li Shixue was deaf to it all. She stumbled, running step by step toward where her junior brother lay. The moment she saw Chu Yuan’s broken body, she fell to her knees as if her own heart had been pierced. —