Chapter 97

Chapter 97

In that moment, I could clearly feel the bloodthirsty killing intent radiating from Liu Junyan.

His grip was brutally tight. The girl’s breathing faltered, yet she still smiled and said, “Ah Yan, have you really forgotten? I’m Ah Li.

“I was born on Cangwu Mountain. I am the Saintess of the Phoenix Clan. Once I completed my nirvana, I would have become the Holy Sovereign of the Phoenix Clan. The last time we parted on Cangwu Mountain was just before I was about to undergo nirvana.”

As she spoke, tears welled in her eyes, and the feather mark between her brows grew even more vividly red. “Unfortunately, my nirvana failed. I struggled in the Inferno of Karmic Fire for a hundred years before I was finally reborn. My spirit bones were damaged, and I need to accumulate a great deal of Merit before they can slowly recover. That is why I appeared here today.”

In just a few short sentences, she had revealed her identity, recalled their past, and explained why she had come here today.

She never once mentioned how wronged she felt, yet every word seemed written in blood.

If Liu Junyan still had even the slightest affection for her, wouldn’t his heart have ached beyond measure in this moment?

But Liu Junyan only tightened his grip. Through clenched teeth, he forced out two words. “You’re lying!”

The girl’s face turned from red to purple. She could barely breathe.

Her hands clutched Liu Junyan’s arm as she struggled desperately.

The sight was truly strange.

The girl had cultivation and the ability to protect herself, yet she showed no intention of fighting back. She merely struggled, her reddened eyes fixed on Liu Junyan.

Liu Junyan could have chosen a more direct way to kill her, but it was as if he were trying to verify something. He simply kept choking her.

At first, I couldn’t understand it. For one fleeting instant, I even wondered whether there really had been some entanglement between Liu Junyan and this girl in the past, and whether he couldn’t bring himself to strike the killing blow.

But very quickly, I realized something was wrong.

As time passed, the feather mark between the girl’s brows grew darker and darker, from bright red to deep purple, until it turned pitch-black…

The instant the feather mark turned black, the villagers over by Qilin Temple suddenly erupted in cries of alarm. Immediately after, I saw a surge of black energy pour out of Qilin Temple. Wherever it passed, villagers collapsed one after another.

That black energy rushed straight toward the girl. Behind her, it gradually condensed, finally transforming into the dark shadow of a massive bird with a wingspan of two or three meters.

The moment I saw that shadow, I immediately thought of the day I came to retrieve Fengwu. I had seen him in Qilin Temple then too, but only for a split second. I hadn’t been sure, so I hadn’t said anything.

I never expected that the next time I saw him, it would be because Liu Junyan had forced him out.

Everything Liu Junyan had done just now was to force out the person behind the girl.

He had succeeded!

The instant the shadow appeared, it flapped its wings, whipping up wind and sand that howled toward Liu Junyan.

As Liu Junyan struck the girl with one palm, he met the shadow with the other.

In that same instant, I summoned Fengwu, drew the bowstring to its fullest, and with a whoosh, a ball of fiery red flame shot straight toward the dark shadow.

The shadow was wholly focused on fighting Liu Junyan and failed to notice in time. By the time he saw the flame, it was already too late.

The fire plunged into the shadow’s body in an instant.

Within that pitch-black form, crimson light rapidly burst forth, licking across every inch of him like tongues of wildfire.

Joy surged through me. I hadn’t expected it to go so smoothly, and I opened my mouth to call out to Liu Junyan.

But just then, two bursts of a man’s laughter suddenly rang out from within the shadow. Immediately after, with a boom, that dark figure exploded right before our eyes!

The deafening blast stunned everyone.

The shadow burst apart, shattering into countless pieces.

But those fragments did not fall. Instead, they transformed into a great flock of black crows with red eyes, black feathers, and three legs, all cawing harshly.

The crows flapped their wings and, moving with practiced precision, gathered to either side, revealing the ball of flame in the middle. Then it shot straight toward my face with a sharp hiss.

That ball of flame was clearly the very one I had fired.
It had only made one circuit through the shadow’s body, yet it seemed to burn even hotter, its power even greater than before.

I immediately drew my bow and shot another ball of flame straight at it.

“Xiao Jiu, put the bow away!”

Liu Junyan’s voice rang out sharply. Without thinking, I obeyed and put Fengwu away.

And in that very instant, the new ball of flame I had shot was swallowed by the original one.

The two flames merged into one, and in the blink of an eye, it was already right in front of me.

If I hadn’t put Fengwu away just now, that huge mass of fire would have struck Fengwu and set it ablaze.

Before I could react, Liu Junyan’s arm was already around my waist. He turned sideways, his robe hem billowing as a powerful surge of True Qi burst forth and slammed into the flames.

The fire was shattered. Liu Junyan had already brought me safely to the ground.

I watched that mass of flame explode into sparks across the sky, then quickly go out and vanish from the world. My heart was still pounding with fear.

Why?

That flame had clearly been shot by me, so why had it ended up being used by the enemy instead?

Just what was the other party?

“Xiao Jiu, protect yourself.”

The two flocks of black crows came diving toward us in a dark, crushing mass. Their pairs of blood-red eyes were like those of beasts hunting in the night-greedy and terrifying.

Liu Junyan let go of me and instantly transformed into a White Snake… uh, no, a White Dragon?

That didn’t seem right either.

This was the first time I had seen Liu Junyan’s complete true form. Last time, at the Zhu Pan River, I had only seen one White Tail.

His body was long and thick, snow-white from head to tail, and the Scale all over him shimmered with rippling silver light.

There were horns on his head too, but they were just two bare, straight horns, with no branches.

A Dragon’s horns were branched.

The more branches, the higher the rank.

So Liu Junyan’s true form right now should be somewhere between a flood serpent and a Dragon, right?

With one sweep of his White Tail through the air, a whole swath of black crows died instantly. With a whoosh, they turned into clumps of black mist and disappeared.

“Ah Yan really is amazing.” At some point, the girl had appeared in front of me. She sighed in admiration. “A man this wonderful can only be matched by someone of my distinguished status. Xiao Jiu, what do you think you are, daring to fight me for him?”

I snapped my head around to look at her.

She was in a sorry state. There were bruises on her neck from being strangled, blood at the corner of her mouth, and her complexion still hadn’t recovered.

But none of that could hide her arrogant, overbearing air.

The instant our eyes met, I saw a red gleam flash through her gaze. Then I felt a force seize every nerve in my body, leaving me unable to think at all.

I watched helplessly as she took out a Dagger, yet I couldn’t move an inch.

What was going on now?

My cultivation was still too shallow. I could handle small scuffles, but the moment I ran into someone this powerful, I couldn’t last more than a few moves.

Just when I thought her Dagger was about to stab down at me, she suddenly cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground.

That Dagger had vanished to who knew where.

She sat sprawled on the ground, her eyes red-rimmed, gently wiping at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, though she could never quite touch that trace of blood.

At the same time, the restraint on my body disappeared.

“Ah Li!”

While I was still completely bewildered, Fox Lord’s anxious voice came from not far behind me.

The next moment, Fox Lord rushed over and bent down to pick up the girl on the ground. “Ah Li, how are you? How did you get so badly hurt?”

But the girl shoved him away and cried out through her tears, “Don’t call me Ah Li! I’m not Ah Li!”

“I crawled out of the Sin Sea Abyss, and all I did was damage my spiritual root, yet now none of you recognize me!”

“From now on, I won’t be Ah Li. I will only be Feng Lishu!”