Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I finally understood why Gong Hegui had brought a Marriage Contract of all things.

It wasn’t to cause a scene, it wasn’t to challenge the Sect Gate, and it wasn’t a whim.

It was because he had long ago scoured the ancient scrolls of Zhen’e Palace and found the only way to snatch a sliver of life from this dead end.

The ancient array demanded “using the false to match the true, using the true to meet death.” If I were to enter a fake pact with him under duress, the array would use our spiritual auras to drain both our lives to mend Jing Qingyao and the Cracked Abyss.

But if we formed a truly equal Dao Companion Pact, the primary and secondary roles would shift, and the array might no longer be able to trap us.

This was also why he had asked me from the very beginning if I was willing to tear up the Marriage Contract.

It wasn’t for the sake of pride; it was to let me choose for myself.

Thunder rolled over the sacrificial altar. As I was held down near the Formation Eye, I suddenly didn’t want to accept my fate anymore.

In this life, too many people had already chosen for me.

They chose my birth, they chose my path, and they chose the way I would die.

This time, I wanted to choose for myself.

I raised my hand to wipe the blood from my lips and said to Gong Hegui, “Is the Marriage Contract still there?”

He froze, the coldness and repression in his eyes shattering instantly. “It is.”

I reached out toward him. “Give it to me.”

The Sect Leader barked, “Chu Liuying!”

I didn’t look at anyone else, only at Gong Hegui.

“Didn’t you say that when I no longer wanted to run away, you would tell me why you came to save me?”

Though bound by Spirit-Binding Chains, Gong Hegui walked toward me step by step, letting the chains bite into his flesh. He placed the scroll of the Marriage Contract into my palm, his voice trembling low.

“Because I like you.”

“It didn’t start at the Cold Soul Platform, and it wasn’t because you saved me. Since that red thread in the snow many years ago, I never once thought about taking it off.”

My eyes suddenly grew hot.

I bit my fingertip and pressed my blood onto the Marriage Contract. “Then let’s not be fake dao companions.”

“Gong Hegui, I am willing.”

A golden light ignited on the Marriage Contract between our palms, and the Spirit-Binding Chains shattered inch by inch. Our originally broken halves of a Golden Core resonated at that moment, like two torn flames finally finding each other again.

Above the firmament, the first bolt of heavenly lightning crashed down.

Once the true Dao Companion Pact took shape, my spiritual aura and Gong Hegui’s no longer dragged each other down. Instead, like two halves of a destiny missing for years, they finally locked together seamlessly.

My Pure Spirit Fire could suppress the Calamity Miasma in his blood, and his sword intent could steady my nearly shattered dantian.

The Sect Leader’s expression changed for the first time.

Jing Qingyao, however, suddenly laughed. He reached up and tore open his robes; black cracks crawled across his chest, as if something was slowly waking up inside his body.

“So that’s how it is,” he said. “No wonder you all wanted me to live.”

That wisp of Demonic Nightmare Breath, nurtured for eighteen years, finally spiraled completely out of control. Jing Qingyao blasted the Sect Leader away with a palm strike and snatched the spiritual core of the sacrificial array. The roof of the hall collapsed with a roar as the aura of the Cracked Abyss soared into the sky, shaking the entire Qingxu Sect.

The elders of the immortal sects scattered in flight. Those who had just been talking about the common people of the world looked to their own safety first.

I almost wanted to laugh.

Gong Hegui cleaved through the surging demonic tide with a single sword strike and whispered to me, “The jade slip.”

I immediately threw the secret records I had taken from the grotto-heaven into the air, activating them with the spiritual power from the Dao Companion Pact. The truth within the jade slip transformed into a massive screen of light, reflecting across the entire main peak.

The Qingxu Sect’s schemes over the years, the sacrificial array of the Cracked Abyss, and Jing Qingyao’s origins were all laid bare for the various sects to see.

The crowd erupted in an uproar.

But Jing Qingyao no longer cared. Shrouded in the demonic nightmare, he lunged at me. “Give me the Golden Core!”

I raised my hand to draw out the Pure Spirit Fire, and Gong Hegui’s sword fell at the same time. As the sword and fire converged, I suddenly understood why the sect had been so desperate to bind us together.

Because a lone Pure Spirit Pill Heart could only nurture a soul, and a lone Calamity Bone could only suppress and kill; but when our hearts truly connected, this power was no longer an offering, but a key that could turn back and seal the abyss.

Gong Hegui and I formed hand seals simultaneously, forcibly driving the wisp of Demonic Nightmare Breath inside Jing Qingyao back into the Cracked Abyss.

At the final moment, Master stepped in front of Jing Qingyao.

He looked at me, his lips covered in blood, looking as if he had finally woken up, yet also as if he were in even greater pain.

“Liuying…” he murmured, sounding as if he wanted to say he was sorry.

But I didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Gong Hegui and I joined forces to call down the heavenly lightning. When the lightning fell into the Cracked Abyss, the entire main peak shook three times before finally falling silent.

Jing Qingyao, the Sect Leader, and the old sacrificial array were all buried together within that abyss.

Standing amidst the ruins, I felt, for the first time, that I had truly survived.