Liang Chen ran deeper into the Thunder Saint's Final Breath, acting as a lightning rod that attracted the ever stronger lightning that would otherwise hit Yan Ling and the two smaller ones. The azure lightning slowly grew darker and darker as he got closer to the massive tree, faint wisps of crimson light starting to emerge within the bolts. By the time Liang Chen had reached the very edge of the azure lightning dominion, the azure lightning had become stronger than the crimson lightning that he was used to.
It was here that he decided to stop, it was already getting rather painful to resist the lightning here, heading any deeper would be dangerous even for him who had a strong lightning resistance. But that was a plus for him in the current situation, it meant that Qian Liao couldn't chase after them unless he was willing to suffer an injury for each second he decided to remain.
Liang Chen raised his leg and stomped the ground with all his might, even using the second part of his Dragon Lord's Three Steps to ensure that the ground caved in and formed a cave large enough for them to rest in. He placed Yan Ling and the two others on the ground inside the cave and quickly closed up the ceiling using the shattered chunks of earth and making sure that they stayed up by using some wind.
He then quickly returned to Yan Ling and Yumao, who were both lying on the ground rather weakly, kneeling at their side and supporting Yan Ling's upper body, inspecting the hole in her stomach. His mouth twisted slightly as he looked at the wound, quickly opening one of the bottles he had given Yan Ling and smearing some of its contents, a light blue paste, on the edges of the wound. While he was focusing on doing his best to take care of her wound, the voice of Yan Ling drifted into his ears.
"Hehe...Did I ever tell you that you look rather charming when you're wearing that serious and angry look? Knowing that you're angry for me only makes it better."
Liang Chen's eyebrow twitched for a second as he almost shattered the bottle in his grasp. He slowly let out a deep breath and eased his grip on the bottle, stretching out his other arm and giving Yan Ling's forehead a quick flick.
"If you have the energy to crack jokes then you should use your law of water and your body cultivation to focus on healing these wounds."
Yan Ling let out a light, if somewhat weak, giggle in response to his words, the Qi within her body starting to move towards her wounds. Liang Chen made sure that her wounds were slowly starting to heal before turning his gaze onto Yumao, giving his head a few pats.
"You can just start eating the body we just got, it should greatly accelerate your healing. Really, you two are such idiots. You could have just woken me up and we could have fled, I could have just finished my breakthrough in some different place."
Liang Chen didn't even dare to think about what might have happened if his breakthrough had been a bit slower, what scene he might have arrived to if he had been just a bit slower. Just thinking about it made his heart clench and his breathing go shallow. Yan Ling stretched out her right arm, placing it on Yumao's head and giving it a few rubs, directing a question at Liang Chen while not even looking at him.
"Would you have woken me up if I were the one who was breaking through?"
Liang Chen's hand stopped when he heard Yan Ling's question, Yumao taking this chance to bring out a part of Zizi's corpse. He had several tendrils of his own shadow carve up the corpse of Qian Liao's mutated pet, quickly cutting it in half and only taking the bottom half for himself, pushing the top half toward Liang Chen. Liang Chen looked at the part of the corpse for a short moment before his gaze drifted towards Yan Ling and Lan Yun, who was currently sitting next to Yan Ling and tightly holding onto her in worry, a sigh escaping his lips. Yan Ling's hand moved from Yumao's head and onto Liang Chen's cheek, softly cupping it.
"See? Little Freak, you are not our shadow nor our burden, but we don't want to be yours either. We think just like you do, we will do everything we can to make you get stronger, do everything we can to protect you. So there are times where we will get hurt for you, just like you keep getting hurt for us, that's just how life is. So, dumbo, stop looking at us like that and smile, you look much better with a smile. And don't you dare waste this chance that we gave you, I'm fully expecting you to wipe the floor with that ass Qian Liao, you'd best make it a grand spectacle."
Liang Chen's lips involuntarily curled up slightly when Yan Ling finished her sentence, resulting in her sticking her fingers into the corners of his mouth to force it to stay in its smiling position. Liang Chen let out a light chuckle and placed his hand over Yan Ling's, holding it close to his face while talking.
"Heh, when have I ever not wiped the floor with someone who hurt you? Oh, Huang Dong doesn't count, we'll wipe the floor with him when we return."
Liang Chen's face wore a light smile as he spoke, but his eyes were smoldering with wrath. Liang Chen hadn't forgotten about Huang Dong, he was the one who had forced them into such dire straits back during the Constellation King's Competition. Had it not been for him, the two of them might never have ended up entering the spatial rift that brought them here. Yan Ling saw the wrath in his eyes, but she didn't care about it. Wrath was a part of Liang Chen, it would always be, it had always been one of the main factors that drove him forward, it was already something necessary to him. She slipped her hand out of Liang Chen's grasp, poking his forehead.
"Don't you 'we' me, I promised that cunt that I would utterly smash him at some point so you best leave him to me, otherwise I'll nag at you so much that your ears are gonna fall off. Now you better go and do a bit more cultivating with those treats you just got, not like there's anything you can do to help Lil' Yuma or my healing."
Liang Chen wanted to retort, but he knew that she wasn't wrong. He wasn't suited for healing, he was someone who was only suited for destroying and killing. Some might find something like that to be a bit sad, but Liang Chen had come to accept it. Just like Yan Ling had once told him, he wasn't alone, there were others around him who would help him do the things he himself could not do.
Liang Chen sat down on the ground a mere step away from Yan Ling, taking Qian Liao's arm out from his interspatial ring and placing it in front of him. He then took the top half of Zizi's body and placed it around him, it was time to eat up the bloodline, as well as the law of death, within the corpse and the arm, fusing it with his soul to further increase his strength. And once that was done he would go and do what he was best at, he would go out to kill.
--
Yan Ying expected to be taken to the Nightshield sect after the black-robed man found him and told him that Qing Lan Yong wished to meet him, but to his surprise, he discovered that the black-robed man actually led him in the opposite direction of any nation controlled by the Nightshield sect. The man brought him back to the edge of the continent, physically carrying him so that they wouldn't spend too long traveling.
The man then removed a small boat from his interspatial ring and the two left the continent, rowing until they reached the midway point between the Fallen Cloud continent and the Soaring Cloud continent. There was no land for thousands of kilometers around them, there was only sea and clouds for as far as the eye could see. The black-robed man stopped rowing and stood up, pointing at the water beneath the boat.
"Hold your breath, I'll try to be as fast as possible."
The man barely gave Yan Ying any time to react before his shadow rose up and coiled around his waist, forcing him to follow after the man as he jumped into the water. Yan Ying opened his eyes once they entered the water and saw that they were heading for one of the hundreds of small stone and sand mounds that littered the area. But something strange happened the moment they touched the mound, they went straight through it and suddenly arrived on dry land, appearing in a cave lit up by tens of small crystals that emitted a soft yellow light.
The man didn't say anything as he picked up Yan Ying and carried him to the left wall of the cave, placing his hand on it and tracing the wall as he walked along it. He stopped after a few seconds when his finger came in contact with a mostly rounded stone that cast a tiny shadow to the side. The man took two steps to the right and then stepped directly into the very tip of the tiny shadow, the two once again simply stepping directly through the wall, this time appearing on a meadow that seemed to be a few kilometers in each direction, the heel-height grass swaying in a soft breeze.
There were a few small houses, as well as two large farms spread around the meadow, it looked like one could live here and be perfectly self-sufficient. Yan Ying knew that the two places they had moved through were likely arrays, but seeing as he didn't feel any of the usual nausea, he guessed that they weren't spatial arrays but rather illusion arrays or something similar. But what he didn't know was whether or not the arrays had been placed there on purpose or if they had been created coincidentally by nature. The man carried Yan Ying over to the closest two-story house, placing him down and then kneeling in front of the door.
"Young Master, I have brought over Yan Ying."
The door to the house was pushed open shortly after the black-robed man spoke up, the black-haired and emerald-eyed Qing Lan Ying appearing in the doorway. He and Yan Ying exchanged looks, both immediately recognizing that they had been hit by the same array. Qing Lan Yong wore a friendly, if somewhat bitter, smile as he spoke up.
"Seems like things really did go as expected, I'm sorry about your sect. I know that you won't just trust me out of nowhere so I've prepared a blank Soul Oath, you can just state your terms and I'll Shadow Five draw it up before we sign it."
The kneeling black-robed man swiped his interspatial ring, a blank scroll appearing in his grasp and unfurling on the doorstep. It was indeed just as Qing Lan Yong had said, there was really no way for Yan Ying to suddenly trust him unconditionally, so he glanced at the scroll for a short moment before stating his demands.
"You or any of your men are not allowed to hurt me in any way, you cannot prevent me from leaving if I wish, you are not allowed to take any of the items I carry on me or own, and you are not to lie to me in any way."
The black-robed man, Shadow Five, glanced at Qing Lan Yong for a quick moment, only starting to write on the scroll when he saw Qing Lan Yong nod his head. The scroll was filled before long, both Qing Lan Yong and Yan Ying signing it using a bit of their blood. Once they signed it, Yan Ying let out a stealthy sigh and then asked the questions he had been wondering for a while already.
"Why did you send someone to pick me up, and why can some of your men still use their Qi?"
Qing Lan Yong didn't immediately respond, nodding his head at Shadow Five, who quickly sank into the shadow and vanished. Qing Lan Yong then stepped aside, gesturing towards the inside of the house as he spoke.
"Come, join me. I sent people to save you because while it was impossible for me to save your entire sect, I should be able to save at least you. As for why I want to save you, I have a debt to Liang Chen that I need to repay, saving you is part of that repaying. As for that second question, no one knows that Shadow Five is one of my men, everyone else believes that he is a subordinate of Senior Brother Zhengya, who has already joined up with the people that set up the array around this entire planet. I already earlier refused to join up with those people, so I was forced to flee as quickly as I could, heading to this safe haven that only I should know about. I have a few more like him spread throughout the Nightshield sect and the other sects, they keep me informed about the current state of the planet."
The most important thing about a spy network was that no one really knew just who was part of it, Qing Lan Yong was keenly aware of this fact and had made sure that not even his own wives knew who all his spies were. The two men stepped into the house, walking through a short hallway before entering a pleasant living room that was filled with the scent of tea.
Sitting on a few couches surrounding an oval table were Qin Lan Yong's three wives and four concubines, as well as his nine children. But Yan Ying's gaze was immediately drawn to another person sitting somewhat awkwardly by the table, a young girl with chestnut brown hair and blue eyes whose entire right arm had been amputated at the shoulder. Seeing her, Yan Ying couldn't help but take a step forward as his eyes opened wide.
"Qing... no, Tian Chun?! Why are you here?"
Yan Ying knew this girl well, he had been looking for her ever since Liang Chen and Yan Ling had been forced to leave the Constellation King's competition. She was the one that Liang Chen considered to be his elder sister, Tian Chun. Tian Chun didn't know who Yan Ying was so she could only smile somewhat awkwardly at him, Qing Lan Yong answering for her.
"She is the elder sister of Liang Chen, there is no way I could leave her alone while she was in a pinch. I saved her when she was being chased by the Qing clan and the Tian clan, sadly I arrived a bit too late to save her right arm. And don't worry, I haven't done anything to alter her mind or the like, she hates me just as much as you'd expect."
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By the time Qing Lan Yong had reached her, Tian Chun's entire right arm had already been crushed beyond recognition, it was better to amputate it before it turned gangrenous and infected. Yan Ying knew that Qing Lan Yong couldn't lie to him right now, he was not in a state where he would dare break the Soul Oath, so he was more than likely telling the truth about it. He took a deep breath, sorting out his thoughts before asking another question.
"What's the state of the various clans and this planet right now?"
It would be best to know more about the situation before he decided on what to do next, so he decided to take advantage of the fact that Qing Lan Yong had seemingly spread his information network rather far. Qing Lan Yong sucked his teeth for a bit before responding, clearly somewhat hesitant to answer.
"The Storm Wolf sect has been destroyed, the Nightshield sect has joined up with the Dawn's Blade Alliance, as has the Moon Dragon sect. The Ghost Soul sect has refused to join up so they are currently being hunted down, and the Fiendgod sect has... also been destroyed."
Yan Ying's entire body froze when he heard the answer, his fingers twitching slightly. He turned his head with stiff motions and grabbed onto Qing Lan Yong's shoulders, all his calmness completely gone.
"Xun Yahui... what about Xun Yahui? How is she?"
Xun Yahui, one of the senior disciples of the Fiendgod sect and one of the few people that could rob Yan Ying of all his calmness. Qing Lan Yong was on the verge of not answering, but he could recognize himself in Yan Ying's desperate expression so he couldn't stop himself from answering.
"... Last I heard was that she had been spotted hiding in the Blazing Clouds nation, but she should be found sooner rather than later."
The information was already a day old, but there was no point in telling Yan Ying that and robbing him of the hope he had just received. Yan Ying let go of Qing Lan Yong's shoulders, his expression turning resolute as he took a step back. Qing Lan Yong quickly spoke up, guessing at what Yan Ying was planning.
"I know what you're thinking, but there's no point in heading out to save here, there is nothing you can do in your state."
Yan Ying was only a little stronger than a normal mortal now that his Qi was sealed, there would be nothing he could do against the people chasing Xun Yahui, or him for that matter. Yan Ying ignored Qing Lan Yong, walking over to Tian Chun and removing two bottles from the inside of his robe.
"Tian Chun, I need you to do something for me. There will come a day when Liang Chen returns here, and in case I'm not here then, I need you to hand these bottles to him, they must reach his hands!"
The bottles would be safer here with Tian Chun than they would be with him once he headed out. The bottles were also still technically owned by him, so thanks to the Soul Oath they had signed, Qing Lan Yong could not take them. Tian Chun looked at the two bottles and then strongly nodded her head, her eyes resolute, so Yan Ying could let out a sigh of relief.
He handed her the bottle made from green crystal that was meant for Yan Ling, but he opened the blue bottle and poured two drops of its content into a separate bottle before handing her the blue bottle. Seeing the drops that fell out of the blue bottle, and recognizing what it was, Qing Lan Yong's expression immediately paled.
"Dirge?!...That... where did you get that?!"
He was very familiar with what the Dirge of the Worldeater was, he guessed that he might know more about it than most others on this planet. And that was why he became filled with fear the moment he saw that Yan Ying was carrying some on his person. Yan Ying knew very well why Qing Lan Yong was so afraid, giving a quick reply as he stored the bottle containing the two drops into his robe.
"My father gave it to me, he told me that I had to give it to Liang Chen."
Tian Chun's ears perked up when she heard them talking about Liang Chen. She had been stuck here for a while now, surrounded by people she didn't know and didn't trust, so how could she not latch onto something she knew once it was mentioned?
"To Little Chen? What is this thing?"
Tian Chun moved the bottle slightly in front of her face as she spoke, the material it was made of too dark for her to see its contents. Qing Lan Yong once again sucked his teeth for a short moment, eventually speaking up and telling her what he knew about it.
"That is something known as the Dirge of the Worldeater, probably one of the vilest items in existence. It is known to be a poison that will eat away at any energy that it comes into contact with, devouring it to continuously grow. If given enough energy and time, a single drop can kill an entire planet, and then spread to other planets. But while most consider it to be a simple poison, I once had the luck to read the journal of a cultivator who wrote that he came from a major universe, so I know what that thing really is, it's blood. It's the blood of some strange beast that was supposedly born from the void itself."
Said journal was one of the reasons Qing Lan Yong had been able to reach his current position, he had found it while out traveling and it ended up containing a lot of tips about cultivation while also talking about the experiences of the cultivator. This was the first time Yan Ying heard anything about the Dirge of the Worldeater actually being blood, but he quickly shook his head, not caring too much about it.
"It doesn't matter what it is, all that matters is that it reaches Little Chen's hands. Others might consider it vile and evil, but I'm certain he will consider it nothing more than useful."
Even if it was blood, he was certain that Liang Chen could still use it to cultivate his law of poison so it would still end up being very useful to him. He cast one last look at Tian Chun, who tightly hugged the bottles and nodded her head, and then headed for the exit of the house, he had things he wanted to protect. Qing Lan Yong followed him to the exit, trying one last time to persuade him.
"Even with that thing in your hand, I don't think you should leave. Think about the Storm Wolf sect, what future will it have without you?"
From what Qing Lan Yong had gathered, most of the Storm Wolf sect disciples and elders were already dead, they would need a good leader to take charge in the future should they survive this ordeal. Yan Ying turned his head slightly, the corners of his lips starting to curl up somewhat.
"The sect will be fine even without me. As long as they come back, the sect will flourish more than it ever has before. Just you watch, they'll spread the name of the Storm Wolf further than ever before."
Qin Lan Yong raised an eyebrow in slight surprise, he didn't think that Yan Ying was one to exaggerate his words, so he clearly believed what he was saying.
"You have quite a lot of trust in your little sister, huh?"
Qing Lan Yong didn't have a lot of information about Yan Ling, she had always been overshadowed by her little brother while he was alive, and after his death, she hadn't really left the sect much so there wasn't a lot of information about her. Yan Ying gave a light shake of his head and let out a soft chuckle.
"If it was just my little sister, I'm not so sure if I would have that much trust. But it is in the nature of souls to burn more brightly together than alone, as long as she is with him, there is nothing that is impossible for them."
Qing Lan Yong once again raised an eyebrow in surprise, this time for a different reason. He knew that Liang Chen hadn't been in the Storm Wolf sect for very long, and there were rarely any witnesses around when he ended up using his strength, so Qing Lan Yong didn't quite know why Yan Ying was so confident in him.
"So it's Liang Chen that you've put your faith in, would you mind telling me why?"
Yan Ying rolled his eyes slightly and sucked on his teeth, somewhat unsure how he should put it into words. He eventually settled on a vague answer that somewhat conveyed his emotions.
"There's something in his eyes and demeanor that instills trust, you'll understand if you ever meet him."
Yan Ying had felt this ever since he first saw Liang Chen in action inside the Mystic's Hidden Realm, that this was a person you could put your trust in. Qing Lan Yong nodded his head at the vague reply, he had no other choice but to accept it.
"Trust, huh? I don't think something like that will ever be possible between the two of us, honestly."
Qing Lan Yong was well aware of the fact that Liang Chen likely saw him as the person who had taken everything from him, he would be filled with nothing but burning hatred towards him. Trust between the two of them would likely never exist. Yan Ying looked at Qing Lan Yong, hesitating for a short moment before giving him a warning as he turned around to leave the house.
"... Let me tell you this before I leave, as thanks for telling me about Xun Yahui. Whatever opinion you have about Little Chen, discard it. That boy... No, that man, is as unstoppable as the end of life and the passing of time, he is a force of nature, one that you've created. When he returns and sees what is going on, I can assure you that the clouds will drip with blood, so unless you want your blood to be part of the rain, you should do your best to take care of Tian Chun, and pray that she vouches for you."