Chapter 5.2 (2/2)
“Ah? Marriage? No no……how old am I, I’m only seventeen!” With a blush on his face, Qi Ling shakes his hands in rejection.
“Heh heh, our little princess is sixteen this year, which means our princess and you match perfectly. And it doesn’t mean that you will be the chosen one, many young and accomplished aristocrats have came to ask for her hand in marriage, this little brother, just treat it as a being a guest.”
“I still can’t, tomorrow I have to……” Qi Ling pauses as he speaks until here, thinking that he can’t tell him he’s going to the Grave of the Souls tomorrow as that means he’s announcing his status as a disciple, he continues, “Tomorrow I have to bring my mother to the doctors, I’m taking my leave first.” After saying that, Qi Ling leans down to rub at Cang Xue Zhi Ya’s furry neck, preparing to leave.
And at this moment, Qi Ling feels his entire back freeze with a gush of cold wind, a large wave of soul powers moving towards him, Cang Xue Zhi Yabeats its wings as it soars to the sky, the heavy turbulence hitting the rocks and sand of the surroundings. Qi Ling finally focuses his vision after Cang Xue Zhi Ya turned back quickly in the air, he sees a dozen bright shadows cras.h.i.+ng towards him, causing Qi Ling to close his eyes in fear. And at this moment,Cang Xue Zhi Ya lets out a thunderous roar before enlarging to thrice its original size, its large physique as if a legendary beast from myths, and in this tidal wave like gush of soul powers, the bright moving object scatters before landing against the outer walls of the buildings along the sides of the streets, falling to the ground, it can be seen that those beings are now countless hawks covered with snow white feathers.
Yet Qi Ling barely manages to get a grip on himself before a white cloud-like figure attacks him at lightning speed, countless sharp knives of ice attacking him like meteorites. Qi Ling subconsciously trembles, the lord’s seal on his tailbone suddenly boiling, his eyes narrow as the objects approaching him explode into powder from the soul powers emitting from his body, with a pleasant tinkering sound, the cloud-like figure suddenly appears before him.Cang Xue Zhi Ya raises its large claw, daggers growing in place of its claws, and slashes towards the shadow, the white figure flips back in the air quickly and draws a large curve in the air before landing with a boom on the street surface.
Qi Ling is dumbfounded with fear. He pats Cang Xue Zhi Ya’s head quickly before steering them towards the building behind them, if Yin Chen knew that he got into so much trouble, he’d be held prisoner with no food for three days. Cang Xue Zhi Ya’s silhouette disappears in a flash in the shy, everyone surprised and dumbfounded by the scene.
The middle-aged man from before rushes forward to the white figure on the ground that is standing on the ground with a deadly look on her face. She waves her hand, the dozen of large snow hawks that had been blasted away by Qi Ling just now came flying back towards her, settling down behind her.
The middle-aged man bows. Politely, he says: “Welcome, princess Youhua.”
Tianshu Youhua looks in the direction Qi Ling has disappeared to, her gaze as cold as a lake that has been frozen three feet deep, her clear voice spits coldly: “Who is the person that had escaped just now? Search through the entire city of Rennes to find him. He dares to block my way, does he not want to live anymore?!”
[West of Aslan Empire – Abyss Corridor]
The silence of the heavens and earth is a silence that only occurs after chaos.
The violent stench of blood cannot be waved off throughout the entire vast valley. The blood plasma that has splattered around, coats the trees, thistles and thorns, rocks, painting them a horrifying red. As if a month’s worth of scarlet has poured from the sky, everything is dampened in red.
Countless emanc.i.p.ated skulls of different monsters resemble large aerolites, scattered across the entire valley.
Shen Yin falls weakly in a pile of corpses, her chest rising and falling fiercely, after the tragic battles from before, she is only left with a tired and weak body. Beside her, her hill-like Dreamweaver has collapsed. She turns and crawls over with her battered body and caresses the only leg remaining of the five Dreamweaver once had, the sharp needling punctures her hand, yet she feels no pain, she caresses its stone-like coa.r.s.e yet hard sh.e.l.l with a tender heart as if caressing an infant’s smooth skin. She lifts her head, looking at the quivering emerald eyes and the b.l.o.o.d.y opening of its mouth; her tears fall. She uses the last bit of her soul powers to transform Dreamweaver into mist and absorbs it back into her body.
Although soul beasts can regenerate and recover in the lord’s seal as long as it doesn’t die, but for a while at least, Dreamweaver will no longer be able to go into battle mode.
Shen Yin looks around at the carca.s.ses, as if the ma.s.sacre that happened just a while ago had been a nightmare, if she hadn’t had the Mirror of Dead Souls in her hand, any of those soul beasts that seemed as if they rose from the depths of h.e.l.l could have killed her. It’s only because Nether had constantly channeled his soul powers into her that the mirror could reflect so many powerful souls to counter these soul beasts.
She had watched as the beasts battled their own reflections, she projected them continuously, yet she had to deploy Dreamweaver to protect Nether who had been regenerating and pa.s.sing on his soul powers in the lake.
It feels as if she took a walk around the boundaries of h.e.l.l and came back.
Shen Yin collapses to the ground and turns her head, staring at the golden lake at the very end of her vision. A while later, her ear that was against the ground hears a ma.s.sive ringing from the depths of the ground, the vibrations growing gradually from weak to strong. Ripples appear on the surface of the golden lake, cutting through the silence, in the next moment, the surface of the lake towers, an extreme explosive splash is seen before golden droplets started raining from the sky, and among these golden droplets is Nether who has revived from the depths of the lake.
He crosses the surface of the lake with his body uncovered. His entire physique is enveloped by a bright golden gleam, his smooth skin glowing as if gold-plated, endless cycles of unyielding energy radiates from his lean torso, broad shoulders and chest and from his legs and muscular arms, as if his life hasn’t been hanging by a thread before, a faint yet cynical smile can be seen on his face, below his thick and sharp blows are his long and shadowy emerald irises, undeniable power engulfs his entire being, that is the symbol of s.e.xual desire, of life, of evil and of ma.s.sacres.
He walks slowly towards Shen Yin, layers of silk-like black mist start wrapping around his body before gradually morning into his representative black robe of dead and ma.s.sacres, once again, and his body is bonded in his robes that seem to be made from the black ink from h.e.l.l.
He moves before Shen Yin, crouches down before taking off his hood, his prominent features appearing through the golden mist, resembling a flaw free G.o.d from the heavens. He reaches out his hand and tells Shen Yin: “Now, return it to me, my Mirror of Dead Souls.”
Shen Yin squeezes the emerald in her hand and remains silent; not handing it over to Nether, n.o.body knows what she is thinking.
Yet in the next moment, she sees Nether’s eye narrowing, and then a striking sound pierces her eardrums, she then sees, as if time has been slowed down, countless droplets of blood scattering across the sky. And that emerald stone, and her right hand that had been holding onto the stone.
“Wh……what……” Shen Yin looks down and sees blood gus.h.i.+ng from the clean circular wound on her amputated wrist; her hand has been chopped off cleanly by Nether’s soul powers in an instant.
Nether catches the jewel and then using his sharp fingernails, he slashes open his throat and places the jewel into his flesh, his movement as graceful as one pinning on a collar flower. Then, Nether grabs Shen Yin by her hair, heaving her up, he tosses her into the golden lake.
At the same time the water seeps into her throat, a gush of soul powers as endless as an ocean rushes into her body. She closes her eyes, while tears streaming down her face; she clenches her teeth and regrows her hand.
Crackle——
The white bones of the fingers grow first from the amputated wrist, then appear the blood vessels and muscles interweaving over the bones, sharp and terrible pain scratches through her mind. Yet, Shen Yin’s face remains expressionless as if she feels no pain. Her tears mix with the gold of the lake, emitting a glimmer of light.
She crawls up the bank of the lake, dripping wet with lake water, lifting her head, she looks at Nether who is shrouded in his mist-like black robes. She then looks down at her hands pus.h.i.+ng herself up from the ground, her freshly revived right-hand looks smooth and pale, not a single flaw can be seen.
Nether’s voice sounds from atop her head. His voice is hoa.r.s.e yet appealing, “You should know that, if you seek revenge, it’s long before your time.”
Shen Yin keeps her head down, as she remains silent.
Nether turns to leave, his figure gradually disappearing in the thick fog.
“You should hurry up and follow me, if not, when the other monsters come, you can only die here.”
Shen Yin stands, wiping the traces of the mixture of lake water and tears and follows him.
“Also, we have other more important things to do. The person who shattered an arm of mine, I am going to get something back from him – aside from an arm, every other part of his body must shatter into dust.”
[West of Aslan Empire – Port city of Rennes]
Qi Ling makes multiple turns between the crevices of the buildings; only letting out a sigh of relief when he makes sure no one has followed him. He has already drew Cang Xue Zhi Ya back, if not he won’t be able to hide no matter what with an eye-catching white lion like that. Only after many other turns does Qi Ling finally feel at ease.
The crowd around him is still enjoying the celebrations of the festival.
Qi Ling looks up and realizes that somehow he has reached the seventeen statues he had seen during the day.
Qi Ling moves over in curiosity and stops before the chess piece that leads to the Grave of the Souls. He stares at the eye-less witch’s statue for a long time.
As he stares intently at the statue, noise and excitement sounds from the mouth of the tunnel, a large number of happy citizens has rushed in, from their words, it seems as if the wors.h.i.+p ceremony is starting soon at the central plaza.
And so, most people choose to go to the central plaza through this short cut.
Qi Ling moves aside to let the people pa.s.s, the crowd dances and cheers as they move by. Qi Ling is influenced by their happiness as well, the incident from before has been pushed from his mind completely.
Just as he is about to move towards the central plaza with the rest of the people, someone from the crowd pushed him with force and he topples backwards, just as his hand touches the chess piece, a violent vibration can be felt in the air, his vision disappears, as if someone has reached out a hand and twisted it around his stomach before dragging him into he darkness, it is as if his whole person has been tossed into a bottomless abyss, with a flash before his eyes, Qi Lin’s vision darkens.
Yin Chen who has been lying on the bed suddenly feels a sharp pain at his lord’s seal that is located on his tailbone, and then a moment later, the feeling disappears.
His heart sinks, “Unless he entered the Grave of the Souls himself?”
He flips and rises from the bed, in a flash; his lean body has exited through the window and rose high in the dark night sky.
—–He hasn’t told him what soul weapon to take from the Grave of the Souls yet.
—–He also hasn’t warned him of which is the exit after getting his soul weapon. There are two chess pieces at the exit, but only one leads outside to the Abyss Corridor. The other chess piece leads to death.
—–The most important thing is that, at the bottom of the Grave of the Souls, the most evil and vicious soul beast of the Aslan territory is imprisoned there, if he nears it even a little bit……
These are all things he has yet to tell Qi Ling. A terrible pain spreads through Yin Chen’s heart, that familiar sense of fear fills his chest once again.
“I don’t want to……lose again……”
A suddenly ear-piercing humming rings across the sky of the entire Rennes.
Everyone covers their ears in agony as they lift their heads towards the sky, what they see is a bright shadow flying towards the seventeen statues like a meteorite, they do not know that it is Yin Chen, they can only see the sharp and piercing light emitting from his silver robes in the distant sky.
And in the alarm-like sound, Tianshu Youhua suddenly launches into the sky from the Tianshu family palace and rushes towards the seventeen statues.
The people of Rennes have similar expressions of terror on their faces, withstanding the pain generated from the large amount of soul powers in the air. The reckless turbulence and explosive sounds fill the sky of Rennes.
At this moment, aside from Yin Chen and Tianshu Youhua, in the distant night sky on the horizon, there is another silver silhouette flying towards the seventeen statues at high speed, as if an aerolite falling form the sky, descending towards Rennes.
No one knows who the shadow is.
Yet, as if written down by fate, more and more people, as if led by the hands of destiny, they start to gather in this mystical area surrounded by water.
*Lit. ‘Battle G.o.d s.h.i.+eld’ and ‘Dragon Abyss s.h.i.+eld’
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