"Boom!"
The thunderous roar shook the entire Luofu.
A powerful shockwave erupted from the epicenter of the explosion, making it impossible for anyone on the battlefield to stand steadily.
After a long while,
the smoke gradually dissipated,
leaving only a pile of flesh and blood debris where Shuhu had once been.
Dan Feng's mind went blank, as if the voice of the Dragon-Heart had never existed.
The only thing he could remember now was the final cry of that Foxian girl to him.
Like a walking corpse, Dan Feng staggered forward.
This was a living hell, devoid of any signs of life.
He refused to believe what had happened.
"Baiheng has always been lucky—she must be fine! She has to be fine!"
He frantically searched, digging through the earth,
only to find a lock of hair and a few drops of blood in the end.
Then, Jingliu arrived at the scene. Seeing the blood-stained hair in Dan Feng's hands, she recognized it instantly.
"I'm sorry..."
Dan Feng knew Jingliu and Baiheng had always been the closest.
At this moment, it felt as if a hand were gripping his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter.
Yet his Dragon-Heart kept telling him that all of this was inevitable!
Meanwhile,
Yingxing dragged his injured body onto the battlefield.
Being mortal, he had only survived the blast's aftermath because a fallen automaton had shielded him from most of the damage, allowing him to stumble his way to Dan Feng and Jingliu.
Yingxing scanned the surroundings. "Where's Baiheng?"
Dan Feng didn't answer directly, silently shaking his head instead.
Yingxing looked at the jade flask he had never gotten to give her and fell into silence as well.
But, Jingliu remained as calm as ever. She raised her sword high.
"To die in battle is the highest honor for any Cloud Knight. She slew the Emanator of the Abundance!
To shield the Xianzhou, glory to the Cloud Knights!!"
Suddenly, the surviving Cloud Knight soldiers, ignoring their pain, rose to their feet one after another.
Even if they had only one arm or leg left, they would still force themselves upright.
At this moment, all the Cloud Knights raised their arms and shouted in unison,
"To shield the Xianzhou, glory to the Cloud Knights!!"
"To shield the Xianzhou, glory to the Cloud Knights!!"
"To shield the Xianzhou, glory to the Cloud Knights!!"
"..."
This scene struck Yingxing to the core. He stared at Jingliu in disbelief.
"Have you gone mad? Why shout such meaningless slogans?"
Jingliu's tone, however, was unexpectedly calm.
"You will never understand how far the Xianzhou is willing to go to sever the cycle of life and death!
You don't know the suffering the Xianzhou endures because of immortality!
If we can slay an Emanator, we can slay the Abundance itself!"
Yingxing collapsed to the ground with a thud, staring silently at the remnants of Shuhu's flesh around him.
Meanwhile, the voice of the Dragon-Heart whispered in Dan Feng's ear,
"Exactly! War comes with a price, but life will always renew itself!
We are the victors!"
Dan Feng let out a bitter laugh. "There are no victors in war..."
——
The scene faded to black, and the words "Not long after" appeared.
The camera shifted to a room, though the view was blocked by screens,
allowing only the voices to be heard without revealing the speakers' appearances.
"In the chaos of Shuhu's invasion, a large number of Vidyadhara combatants suffered fatal injuries,
with most unable to return to the Primordial Sea in time to undergo molting rebirth.
The Cloud Knights suffered even more devastating losses—only one in ten survived, and half of the Luofu's domains were destroyed."
"Oh? Is that all? Any other news?"
"This is the latest experimental progress report."
"What experiment?!"
"Injecting the blood and marrow of the Vidyadhara into several test species."
"Just report directly."
"Yes, my lord!
We conducted experiments on fish, canine subspecies, Qiongshi birds, and Huangshi creatures.
Among them, the canine subspecies exhibited berserk mutations, while the others showed varying degrees of physical transformation.
...
Finally, we injected the blood-marrow into a corpse. The body grew excessive hair, and the skin began to molt,
but the subject did not return to life as we had assumed. Instead, it seemed as though the flesh remained unaware the brain had died, continuing to proliferate uncontrollably."
"Even on inanimate matter, the Vidyadhara's blood is this potent... Perhaps all the answers lie within the Dragon-Hered Art.
A pity the specifics of the Dragon-Hered Art are known only to the Dragon Sovereign!"
The voice paused briefly,
"It's time to inform our Dragon Sovereign of this news, to pull him out of the shadow of Shuhu's invasion."
"Understood!"
——
After the chaos of Shuhu's invasion,
Jing Yuan, Jingliu, Dan Feng, and Yingxing appeared together for the first time.
None of them spoke. They were missing the one who had always been bright and unfiltered, the one who could talk about anything.
Without her, it seemed they didn't even know how to start a conversation.
"I'm sorry, everyone. I wasn't by your side at the time." Jing Yuan broke the silence.
Jingliu: "Even if you had been, there was nothing you could've done. After all, we were facing Shuhu. How is General Tengxiao?"
"...He suffered severe injuries in his battle with Shuhu... The final assessment will be made by the healers of the Alchemy Commission."
Yingxing interrupted the conversation between master and disciple. "I... keep asking myself, even if I ask a thousand times, I still can't find the answer,
...
Why? Why is it that only abominations can return again and again, while someone like her has to be buried, turned to ashes, forgotten... Why?!"
At this moment, the four of them fell into silence once more. No one wanted to answer this question.
Before long,
Jingliu left for the Alchemy Commission, while Jing Yuan was summoned by the Marshal, bringing their gathering to an inconclusive end.
Yingxing returned to the Artisanship Commission in a daze.
He picked up his tools and began crafting a mechanical device.
He didn't know why he was making something so dangerous,
but he couldn't let himself stop.
The moment he paused, Baiheng's face would flood his mind.
However, the arrival of one person changed everything.
Yingxing watched as Dan Feng barged through the door, but his hammer never stopped. "What business does the Dragon Sovereign have with me?"
"I have a way to bring Baiheng back!"
With a clang, Yingxing's tool fell to the ground. He stared wide-eyed at Dan Feng.
"Don't think you can joke like this just because you're the Dragon Sovereign. You know tampering with life is a grave taboo on the Xianzhou!!!"
"I know! But we have to do something. Jing Yuan and Jingliu are long-life species—they see dying in battle as the highest honor. But you'll understand, right?!"
Driven by the Dragon-Heart, Dan Feng grew increasingly detached. He knew that if he could forget the Foxian girl who had saved his life, who had pulled him back from the brink of dragon-madness,
if he could just stand by and do nothing,
then he would no longer be Dan Feng.
After "accidentally" learning from the Vidyadhara elders about the method to transform other species into Vidyadhara,
he agreed without hesitation!
He knew he had to do something—something that valued life—to prove that he was still Dan Feng.