Chapter 74
“Shen Zhiyou.” Yu Tai softly spoke his name.
Shen Zhiyou’s gaze swept over her. “As expected, he is gone.”
Yu Tai narrowed her eyes. “Was this your doing?”
Not knowing what she meant, Shen Zhiyou tilted his head. “Was what my doing?”
Yu Tai turned her wrist, and a long, pitch-black saber instantly appeared in her hand.
While she was evading pursuit, a sweet-looking young woman who claimed to come from a family of weapon smiths had personally handed it to her.
The young woman had said it was a gift from that person.
As Yu Tai launched an attack at him, Shen Zhiyou raised one hand.
Instinctively sensing danger, Xia Mo instantly moved in front of Yu Tai.
Sure enough, in the next moment, lines of seemingly living runes floated out of Shen Zhiyou’s robes and attacked at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
Xia Mo took the blow head-on, but its overwhelming force sent him flying.
Several more runes came down on him like a cage, forcibly beating him back into his original form.
The suppressed panda cried out in pain, then roared at Yu Tai, “Yu Tai! Run!”
The gap between their cultivation levels was far too great.
Who knew what had happened to this human? He had grown even stronger than he was three years ago.
He was simply-a monster!
“Xia Mo!”
Shen Zhiyou seemed to have no intention of dealing with Yu Tai first. Instead, he attacked Xia Mo.
He was clearly about to strike again.
Yu Tai’s eyes sharpened. She abandoned her attack on Shen Zhiyou and turned to slash at the runes restraining Xia Mo.
That previous exchange had made the disparity between her and Shen Zhiyou perfectly clear.
A Body Integration cultivator was far beyond the ability of a demonic cultivator like her, who had been stuck at Spirit Transformation for so long, to defeat.
As if they cost nothing, she flung out the magical treasures and artifacts her Demon Lord father had left inside her spatial pouch. Yet the infuriating runes sliced them all to pieces as easily as chopping cabbage.
Yu Tai placed herself in front of Xia Mo and took the heaven-destroying, earth-shattering blow head-on.
A commotion sounded nearby. Some demonic cultivators seemed to have noticed the disturbance and were fleeing in every direction.
So what if a human cultivator had entered the Demon Realm? Faced with absolute power, no one wanted to wade into these troubled waters.
Yu Tai gritted her teeth so hard they nearly cracked. Fractures slowly spread across the pitch-black blade.
Xia Mo struggled desperately and shouted, “Run, Yu Tai! Forget about me! Run!”
“Yu Tai!”
“Shut up!” Yu Tai bellowed. Furiously circulating the qilin inner core inside her, she used the saber to sever the deadly runes.
Shen Zhiyou looked somewhat surprised. “If you weren’t a demonic cultivator, I might have accepted you as my disciple.”
Blood-red wounds spread across Yu Tai’s skin. Expressionlessly, she spat out a mouthful of blood. “No need. The thought disgusts me.”
Shen Zhiyou’s gaze turned as cold as frost. “You’re already at death’s door.”
Yu Tai wiped the blood from the corner of her lips. Propping up her battered body, she once again forced the shattered qilin inner core within her to circulate and raised her saber.
“Come on.”
Tears slid from the corners of Xia Mo’s eyes. “Yu Tai… Please, just go.”
You’re not supposed to be like this.
Ever since we met, you have always put your own interests first.
Forget about me-
Just run!
Had Yu Tai heard his thoughts, she would surely have flicked him on the forehead and told him that he still understood far too little about her.
When she was young, she had protected her birth mother only to be betrayed.
That truly was an indelible shadow in her heart.
But if she had to do it all over again, she would still force herself upright and spread her arms wide.
Just as she did now.
Fear of repeating the past couldn’t change anything.
Only by following her heart and doing what she truly wished could she remain worthy of her own humanity.
Covered in blood, Yu Tai collapsed to the ground. Her vision had already grown too blurred to make out much of anything.
The qilin inner core inside her had completely shattered along with her Nascent Soul.
The damage was almost certainly irreversible.
Hearing footsteps approach and Xia Mo’s anguished cries behind her, Yu Tai moved her fingers and struggled to rise.
Shen Zhiyou looked down at the dying young woman as she continued to struggle, hatred burning in her gaze.
“You truly are stubborn.”
“If you wish to blame something, blame the fact that you are a demonic cultivator.”
Standing on the soil of the Demon Realm, this representative of the orthodox path delivered his final judgment upon Yu Tai.
But Yu Tai no longer had the strength or clarity to accept her fate.
Before the rune struck her, her vision went black and she lost consciousness completely.
…
The man on the throne propped up his head. Though his posture appeared languid, anyone could see the impatience in his expression.
“My lord, please give this subordinate a little more time. I’ll have it repaired very soon,” said an eagle-faced monster with a human body, timidly cradling a pearl in its hands.
At first glance, the pearl looked no different from an ordinary glass marble. Upon closer inspection, however, it seemed to contain all the countless phenomena of existence.
It was profoundly wondrous.
The black-robed young man who had been watching coldly from the side suddenly said, “My lord, time does not pass at the same rate in reality as it does inside.”
“Three days in reality may already have become several years in there.”
Shu Li didn’t reply. Of course he knew.
If he hadn’t understood that, he wouldn’t be this anxious.
Several years was more than enough time for that person to forget him.
She had promised to consider it, yet because of his mistake, so much time had been wasted. If that person had forgotten him…
Then he truly would…
Feel like destroying everything.
His eyes half-lowered, Shu Li bent his fingers and tapped the armrest of his throne without rhythm.
The eagle-faced monster broke into a cold sweat at the sound and immediately sped up its work.
This was all its fault. Why had it given the man a toy when it had nothing better to do?
Now look what had happened. Its master had become addicted to the game and even developed feelings for someone in a false world.
The pearl abruptly emitted a blinding light. The monster’s heart nearly stopped, and it hastily cried, “My lord! My lord! It’s fixed. You can-”
There was no need for it to finish. The instant the pearl began to glow, the man who had been sitting lazily upon the throne vanished.
The eagle-faced monster sighed in relief and handed the pearl to the black-robed young man who had been waiting nearby. “Lord Jiang Li, thank you for watching over it.”
…
The corpse that had lain inside the spatial pouch without opening its eyes for three years suddenly moved.
Almost the instant the spatial pouch sensed that something living had appeared inside it, it automatically expelled the person.
The final rune was about to strike the clearly unconscious young woman when Shen Zhiyou’s vision suddenly blurred.
A pale hand seized the rune and crushed it to powder before his eyes.
The man who had appeared out of nowhere stood beside Yu Tai. He lowered his head and gazed at the young woman lying there, covered in wounds, battered and nearly devoid of life.
In that instant, Shen Zhiyou retreated rapidly as if confronted by a mortal enemy.
It felt as though some terrifying monster was about to awaken before him.