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..."Aaaaah—!!!" Qian Renxue let out a heart-rending scream; the searing pain and utter humiliation nearly shattered her mind. She thrashed like one possessed, struggling to tear free of the Sacred Sword, yet the blade that pinned her to the earth felt fused with the very ground and would not budge.
But at that instant, a sudden change erupted!
The Angelic Sacred Sword impaled within her seemed to sense its host's dying despair and towering hatred; the ominous black-grey sheen on its surface flared violently, and a deeper, wilder power of dark corruption gushed out like a geyser.
"Boom—!"
A pitch-black shock-wave exploded outward with Qian Renxue at its center. Under the onslaught of this fallen force born from her own Bloodline and Soul, the very sword that bound her was forced a hair's-breadth loose.
She seized that fleeting moment. Ignoring the agony of her tearing flesh, she wrenched herself forward.
"Thud—!" The sickening sound of tearing flesh grated on the ears.
She tore herself free of the blade that skewered her, leaving a ghastly wound through her body. Staggering back several steps, she dropped to one knee, gasping raggedly, blood dyeing the earth beneath her scarlet.
She lifted her head; madness and the desire for ruin now utterly eclipsed every trace of reason in her eyes as she stared at Xuan Ming.
When she howled again and, driven by insane will, hurled her broken body at him, Xuan Ming simply raised his right hand, clenched it into a fist, and swung.
He used no Spirit Ability, not even the Blood Spear—only the purest, most primal Physical Body strength.
The punch looked ordinary, yet it held titanic force enough to shatter mountains and split seas.
"Bang—!"
A dull impact rang out.
Qian Renxue flew back faster than she had come, like a stone hurled by a catapult, tracing a wretched arc through the air before crashing to the ground far away amid a cloud of dust.
A contest of raw strength?
As one who had inherited the True Dragon King's Bloodline, Xuan Ming's Physical Body had long since surpassed mortal limits.
Even if a genuine First-Rank Chief God descended, bare flesh alone could never match him.
The only way Qian Renxue could pose a real threat was to draw upon the pure holy Seraphim force to summon supreme Sun-True-Fire to burn him.
But in her current state—utterly fallen, her very holy Origin defiled and cast away?
She could not summon even a spark of Sun-True-Fire; she could barely muster the most basic holy power.
Deprived of elemental advantage, she had no qualification whatsoever to clash with him in straightforward might.
As the dust settled, Qian Renxue lay in the deep pit, twitching, seemingly without strength even to stand.
Yet her crimson eyes remained fixed on Xuan Ming, filled with unwillingness, hatred, and a despair—born in the depths of her Soul—that she herself hardly recognized.
Xuan Ming stood at the pit's edge, looking down at the blood-soaked Qian Renxue whose gaze still burned with madness and hatred, and his mood grew complicated.
He had hoped her hatred of him would become the force to break the shackles of her Godly Trial.
But the hatred had blazed too fiercely, incinerating her reason and plunging her into the abyss of darkness.
He had... underestimated how heavily he weighed in her heart, for good or ill.
With a soft sigh, he reined in his sharp aura, withdrew the Blood Spear, and walked slowly down into the pit.
With each step, an invisible, all-embracing Colorless Domain quietly unfurled, enfolding both him and Qian Renxue.
Within the Domain, gentle, life-giving light of renewal welled up like warm spring water, flowing over her broken body to mend her ghastly wounds and soothe her near-shattered Soul.
At the same time, Xuan Ming raised his right hand; strands of pure, gentle Power Of Faith began to gather and refine above his palm.
Drawn from countless citizens of the Spirit Empire, those mixed yet sincerely wishful forces were purified and transformed under his subtle control into a spiritual power able to calm the heart and guide consciousness.
Finally the power condensed into a soft white orb, radiant as a small sun—a warm star to guide the lost.
He walked to her side and crouched down.
Qian Renxue still glared, growling like a beast, but under the renewing light she could no longer attack.
Xuan Ming reached out, gently lifted her from the cold ground, and leaned her against the pit wall. Gazing into eyes clouded by filth and madness, he felt a tumult of emotions and for a moment did not know what to say.
Finally, he pressed the "star" condensed from the Power Of Faith, gently and slowly, toward Qian Renxue's brow.
The orb of light merged soundlessly into her forehead, striving to disperse the darkness and Chaos entrenched deep within her mental World.
Xuan Ming knew all too well how perilous it was to lose oneself within a Godly Trial.
Back then, Tang Chen—so stunningly gifted—hadn't he still been lost in the Asura God's trial, ending in such miserable ruin?
A Godly Trial's cruelty surpasses imagination; once failed, the price is total annihilation of body and Soul.
Qian Renxue already stood at the cliff's edge. His original plan had to change—he couldn't watch her march toward destruction.
Yet just as Xuan Ming focused every shred of mental force to guide Qian Renxue's chaotic consciousness, another upheaval erupted!
Perhaps sensing the "purification" of foreign power, the deep-seated fallen force within Qian Renxue lashed out in its fiercest resistance! Black light blazed in her eyes; the Angelic Sacred Sword knocked aside earlier answered the summons, letting out a mournful hum as it shot forward in a streak of black light at impossible speed!
Pfft—!
The sound of a Sharp Weapon piercing flesh rang out, unmistakable.
The Angelic Sacred Sword, wrapped in the thickest aura of dark corruption, drove clean through Xuan Ming's chest with ruthless precision, half its blade jutting from his back!
Crimson blood gushed out, spattering the ground.
Xuan Ming's body trembled slightly, his brows knitting. He had been on guard, yet at this crucial instant—while pouring all effort into guiding Qian Renxue's mind—he simply couldn't spare power to stop the blade.
To rouse a lost Soul is a thousand, no, ten thousand times harder than to lure it into depravity.
He lowered his gaze to the holy sword impaling him, then looked at Qian Renxue, now mere inches away.
At that moment, Qian Renxue's scarlet eyes—beside their mad hatred—actually shed two lines of blood-red tears!
Within those tears of blood were boundless agony, grievance, and a heart-rending despair even she herself could not comprehend.
She had lost her reason, yet not everything.
She still remembered him, remembered that searing hatred, and remembered… other, deeper, more tangled things.
Seeing those bloody tears, the turmoil in Xuan Ming's heart peaked.
He hesitated no longer; the sigil of the ice and fire divine crown on his forehead flared alight! At the crown's center, the core formed of countless tiny evil eyes gleamed with a bizarre, unfathomable light, as though piercing every illusion to reach the very Origin of the Soul.
Xuan Ming rested his own brow gently against Qian Renxue's.
In an instant, their Divine Sense linked through that most intimate touch.
A mental force as cold and pure as ten-thousand-year mystic ice flowed like a quiet stream, mild yet unyielding, into Qian Renxue's turbid, chaotic mental World.
Wherever it passed, the frenzied whispers froze, the twisted illusions scattered, and the dense darkness melted away like snow.
Qian Renxue's body shook violently; the scarlet frenzy in her eyes ebbed like a tide, replaced by bewilderment, pain, and… a clarity slowly returning.
The fallen power was forcibly suppressed; reason once again took the lead.
When she finally saw what lay before her, she was dumbstruck.
She saw Xuan Ming's face so close to her own, saw the ineffable complexity in his ice-blue eyes.
Then her gaze dropped to her own hand gripping the Angelic Sacred Sword—now run clean through Xuan Ming's chest!
Upon the blade lingered her own dark fallen aura, and… Xuan Ming's warm blood.
!!!
Boundless terror seized Qian Renxue's heart—stronger by ten millionfold than any prior defeat or humiliation! Her hand jerked, nearly releasing the hilt.
Once hatred faded and reason returned, she felt—truly and despairingly—that she could not lose this man under any circumstance.
Even if she hated him to the bone, even if she had fantasized countless times about tearing him to pieces, when it truly seemed to happen, the fear rooted in her Soul and that heart-rending anguish told her she simply… couldn't go through with it.
Trembling, Qian Renxue stared at the holy sword impaling Xuan Ming's chest, then at his face so close to hers. In those ice-blue eyes she saw no pain or rage, only an indescribable weariness and resignation.
"No… no…" she babbled, tears mingling with blood streaming down. "Why… why did you come…?"
She would rather have sunk to her death in mad hatred than face this moment of sober clarity—having gravely wounded him with her own hand.
This sober agony was far more desperate to her than any madness.