Liang Chen couldn't help but stand there somewhat dumbly as he looked at Yan Ling's smile, she was the last person he had expected to see upon finishing his cultivation. But while his mind was a bit slow to react, his body was far from it. His knees bent slightly, his figure blurring for a fraction of a second before he arrived directly in front of Yan Ling. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her into a powerful embrace as he buried his face in her hair.
"I've missed you."
It was a very simple and unadorned statement, one that was perfectly suitable to Liang Chen and his style. But it was this simple statement that caused Yan Ling's expression to shift into infinitely gentle one, filled with warmth and comfort. She leaned her head against his rugged chest and greedily took in his warmth and scent, wrapping her arms around his waist in silence.
She knew him better than anyone, a fact that was painfully true after he had lost everyone else close to him. So she knew that he was harsher on himself than anyone else, more unforgiving towards himself than his enemies. She had been whisked away and gotten to study under a supremely powerful existence, but he continued to fight on his own, carving a path forward with one bloody step after another. The pain and suffering he had to experience to reach his current level after they split up was not something she dared to even guess at.
The two maintained their silent embrace for several minutes, making sure to properly get their fill of the other now that they had the chance. But they couldn't spend all their time embracing like this, Yan Ling pulling back until Liang Chen's hands were on her shoulders rather than around them.
"How long has it been, 9 or so months? Back then you called it rather tasteless, but you seem to have come around to it, eh, Mister Wrathful Scourge Lord? Really pissed me off when you ran and got that rank before me, but seeing how much trouble you've attracted in the process it seems like I can safely assume that you're still a magnet for trouble."
Yan Ling kept her arms around Liang Chen's waist as she spoke, pinching his lower back when she mentioned him getting his rank on the Multiverse Bloodwind List. But that pinching didn't bother Liang Chen in the slightest, his hands moving up until they cradled Yan Ling's face. He then leaned in without a word and gave her a kiss, allowing it to linger for a few moments before he pulled back from her lips, leaning his forehead against hers.
"How are you here, did your training go well, are you back now, where is Lan Yun?"
Liang Chen had a multitude of questions, spilling forth the ones that popped to the forefront of his mind. Yan Ling looked at Liang Chen with slightly upturned eyes, silently relishing in the unstable emotions that he only ever showed to her. But she still responded to his questions, using her pupils to gesture at their surroundings.
"I'm back for now, I'm glad that you at least had the courage to admit that you missed me. It was Senior Nine Star that sent me here, he said you'd probably need someone to keep an eye on you while you cultivated. As for how he knew where you were, he said finding you was easy as you had just torn open a hole in one of his universes. My training is going well, Senior Nine Star helped me harmonize all my bloodlines and I've successfully entered the early stage of the Primordial Immortal realm in both soul and Qi cultivation about two months ago. Lan Yun is currently with my brother, but I can bring her over at a moment's notice thanks to a treasure Senior Nine Star gave us."
Yan Ling gave a very short explanation of what sort of training she had undergone, and while Liang Chen had expected her cultivation to increase, he hadn't expected her to reach the Primordial Immortal realm in both Qi and soul cultivation. There was also the matter of stabilizing her bloodlines, which came from the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, and the illustrious Star God, none of which were simple bloodlines.
To harmonize those, Liang Chen had no clue how the Nine Star Demon God even went about it. Yan Ling grinned proudly in the face of Liang Chen's confusion, but her expression dimmed slightly as she used her hands to knead Liang Chen's back. The dimmed expression only lasted for a split second before it returned to normal, Yan Ling showing her usual bubbling and somewhat cheeky smile while making a request that Liang Chen hadn't expected.
"Little Freak, let's spar! It's been too long, I need to see what you can do and if you're still worthy of being the one to wear the pants in this relationship!"
--
While Liang Chen and Yan Ling were enjoying their reunion, the Nine Star Demon God was sitting on a wooden chair inside a pitch-black space, small silver dots scattered throughout the surrounding like stars. He was leaning back in a casual manner his right elbow resting on empty space while he rested his head on his fist. The silence reigning over the darkness was broken by a casual and carefree voice, a circular table with a hollowed-out centre appearing in front of the Nine Star Demon God, Yao Jun.
"Oh? Quite rare for you to be the first one to arrive, Zoo. Did something good happen to put you in a nice mood?"
The person who arrived and brought out the table was someone that Liang Chen would actually recognize, it was the ocean blue-haired and green-eyed Chang Yun. He casually took a seat at the table, a wooden chair appearing underneath him. Yao Jun ignored the nickname Chang Yun used for him, shrugging his shoulders in a nonchalant manner.
"No, I just need to request something from Brother Hao so I figured that I might as well come a bit early to get it out of the way."
One of Chang Yun's eyebrows rose in surprise after he heard Yao Jun's statement, but another playful voice sounded out before he got to say anything.
"Heh, The great Demon God making a request? Is the sky about to fall down on our head? You've reared more flying pigs for this joke, right?"
The source of the voice was another youth that stepped into the pitch-black area, a crimson-eyed and icy blue-haired youth this time. Another wooden chair appeared at the table, the youth leisurely sitting down and resting his hands behind his head while placing his feet on the table. Yao Jun glanced at the newcomer, his expression shifting into a very faint smirk as he retaliated.
"Brother Yang, you talk a lot of game for someone who had to come to me for lightning-element blood. Are you saying that your memories so bad you've already forgotten that? Are you getting old maybe?"
The youth that was referred to as Brother Yang stiffened for a split second after Yao Jun retaliated. But he quickly clicked his tongue again, his gaze roaming down Yao Jun's body.
"Tch, of course, you'd bring that up. You know, I've heard that being excessively boring can lead to impotence down below, you sure that the missus is satisfied?"
The entire area suddenly seemed to solidify, a low and droning creaking sound coming from all around the three youths. But the creaking sound was overshadowed by a large cracking sound, a rift appearing in the dark space as another you stepped in and interrupted Yao Jun and the other youth.
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"Quit it, we're not here to play around. Yao Jun, what did you want to request from me?"
The youth that arrived and sat down at the table was another one that Liang Chen would recognize, he had pitch-black hair and eyes as white as snow, he was the spitting image of the Ning Hao that Liang Chen had seen once before in a recording. Yao Jun turned away from the other youth as if nothing had happened, his gaze landing on Ning Hao as he stated his request.
"I want to borrow the infant multiverse you've picked up, the one located right across the Sphere. There's a girl I want to send there, the elements of the multiverse suit her excellently."
Ning Hao rolled his eyes as if he was going through his memories, nodding his head after a short while and giving Yao Jun a stern reminder.
"Alright, but you have to stay away from the Hearth Howl universe that's located within it, I promised the voidling that I'd protect some of the people there so I don't want you messing about there."
Everyone around the table knew who the voidling was, he was even connected to the reason they were all meeting today. Yao Jun nodded his head in agreement, mentally noting the name for later as another voice rang out through the darkness.
"So we're among the last huh? Guess that only leaves the delivery boy."
It wasn't just one youth that arrived this time but two, one that Liang Chen would recognize and one that he would not. The first youth was the one he had seen alongside Ning Hao in the recording, the silver-haired and black-eyed Yin Long. As for the other youth, he had a golden right eye and a pitch-black left eye, his hair a strange mixture of the two colours that made it seem as if they danced around on his head. The two youths sat down at the table while looking slightly dishevelled, the crimson-eyed youth smirking at the both of them.
"Oh, he'll hit you if he hears that you called him that. And of course you're among the last, just look at you. Let me guess, you were beating each other up again? Maybe getting a bit friskier than just beatings? Maybe doing something the misuses wouldn't appreciate?"
The youth was wiggling his eyebrows while smirking, the youth with differently coloured eyes returning a faint smile while gesturing towards the crimson-eyed youth's nose by tapping his own.
"It's called sparring, and it's good practice. You should join us again one of these days, you could stand to have your nose smashed a few times."
The crimson-eyed youth didn't seem to want to be outdone, his smirk growing into a somewhat arrogant grin as he started to crack his fingers one by one.
"I'll take you up on that offer, but are you sure you can handle getting beaten that summarily?"
The three youths either grinned or smirked at each other, looking as if they were about to start their sparring right there and then. But once again, another voice interrupted them, another youth entering the area.
"Alright, pipe down, he won't last long so we don't have the most time."
The youth that arrived this time had long white hair tied into a neat ponytail and pitch-black eyes, a few strands of hair hanging down over them to form a slight contrast. He was dragging another person by holding them by the neck, but the person looked a bit strange. His skin was an ashen grey colour and his black veins were faintly visible through his skin, wriggling like worms.
If Liang Chen were here, while he wouldn't recognize this person, he would recognize that he looked extremely similar to the humanoid beings he had seen as he passed through the void. The white-haired youth threw the ashen man into the hollowed-out centre of the table, marks that resembled tiny maws and eyes starting to spread out from the man's neck. As for the man, he swept his blue eyes across the people seated at the table around him, cackling in a strange manner.
"Asmodai, Hades, Jormungandr, Lucifer, Azatoth, Nergal, Erebus, gehehehe, you've all actually gathered just to interrogate a tiny me. What good fun!"
The Void Born had clearly given up on surviving, he knew that his escape had failed the moment the dreaded Jormungandr appeared in front of him and clutched his throat. As such, he could only take joy in whatever he could, such as forcing out all these big players. His cackling was brought to an abrupt halt when Yin Long flicked his finger, the Void Born's ears suddenly falling down from his head.
"Yeah yeah, just spare us the cackling and tell us what we want to know, you already know that you don't have a choice."
There was a very simple piece of information they wanted from this Void Born, they wanted to know why so few Void Born escaped out of the gate to the void that Liang Chen had opened. The number of escaping Void borns would normally number in the tens to hundreds of thousands for a gate that stayed open so long, but this time a mere 85 had escaped.
The veins on the Void Born's head started to wriggle and bulge fiercely after Yin Long severed his ears, an immense amount of pain clearly washing over his body. But the Void Born started cackling again while writhing in pain, turning nearly maniacal as the markings on his neck started to take over his entire body.
"Gah...Gahaha. Do you think you've got a good handle on this Sphere, do you think you're safe here? A true ruler has been born to us, one that will eat up even that uncaring newborn ruler, and then he'll come for you, we'll all come for you. There are kings and races even in your Sphere that are displeased with you, they've already started to show their support. Even the two other Sphere's are starting to shift with the tide, soon there will be no place left for you that's safe! Gahahahahahah"