Separated from the rest of the fourth level by a celestial array that coiled around him, the Demon God was chained to his palace, the celestial seals weaving a barrier so profound that even the god's loyal subjects, lurking beyond the fourth level, could not pierce through it. Yet Kaolin felt no shock at such a sight, only surprise and awe, for to bind a being of such might was a feat beyond mortal comprehension.
The God of Space had not only fused her divine core into the Jade of Tear, but also made sure no entity could breach the array, or rather, no entity without a pure core – someone like him. And that was exactly what he did now, breaking through the very seal meant to shatter under his command.
In the end, he had walked down the very path the Gods and Goddesses paved for him despite his numerous attempts not to become a mere pawn within their cruel schemes. In the end… it was never his choice. It was theirs, masked as his own will.
A smirk crept on his lips as these thoughts settled and deepened, and the more he let those harrowing thoughts take over, the more he clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists, so much so that even the Demon God sensed the storm raging within him and those conflicting feelings of carving a path of his own over that of following a predestined one.
"A man burdened by the past and the betrayal of his sworn brother… " the Demon God said, as if to gauge his reaction. "Yet still, you defy the fate that has brought you here… to me."
"You know me?"
"How could I not know the one born with a pure core, destined to master the Soul-Crushing Way to claim my life?"
Kaolin said nothing at first; he couldn't. Instead, his expression remained unreadable, but deep within, something stirred, and the colour on his face drained. A faint tremor began in his fingertips, the same tremor that had haunted him back in Koryuthan, and again in the ruins of Nivarra. And with it came the hunger.
"But you're not here to defeat me, are you?" The Demon God's eyes shifted to the Jade of Tear attached to his body and the chains that bound him to his cage. "Nor are you here to retrieve the Jade of Tear and forge a Divine Bone to ascend to godhood as that wretched goddess intended when she fused her divine core into this cursed thing…"
But those venomous words twisted and slithered through his mind, growing harder to grasp with each passing breath, let alone respond to, as the hunger grew deeper within. He hid his fists behind his back, suppressing both the tremor and the savage hunger getting over his head, threatening to consume him.
"Go ahead, set me free. Come on! What are you waiting for!? Set me free and I shall grant you—"
Kaolin's breath grew shallow as the tremor in his fingers intensified and his spiritual core, controlled by the Forbidden Arts, drummed wildly beneath his skin. Heat surged, coiling around his stiff veins and blurring the boundary between reality and hallucination. He doubled over from the exhaustion, the voices inside his head screaming on repeat, growing louder with each laboured breath: Eat him! Eat him! Eat him!
Clutching the sides of his head, Kaolin screamed from the pain surging from within, tearing through his body and soul, as the whispers only grew more overpowering and echoed without respite. And as he did so, it didn't go unnoticed by the ancient god, and for the briefest second, the Demon God's crimson eyes widened with dread, as he now felt it too, that insatiable hunger growing and the dark forces at play, and the following word slipped out from his lips before he could hinder them.
"This is…"
Kaolin snapped up as soon as he heard this, his face a distorted grimace, his jaws clenched, and his muscles sore from trying to suppress the hunger. He forced himself to straighten, regaining control of his body once more, and fighting back the hunger with sheer will, and at that moment, as his eyes locked onto the Demon God's, he saw something that wasn't there earlier: fear.
"Since you know what this is – what I am – why don't you succumb to the Forbidden Arts and…"—Kaolin lifted his hand, summoning his qi, and the energy of the Forbidden Arts pulsed beneath his skin, casting the entire palace in an eerie amber glow—"… just become a part of me?"
But before he could act on his impulses and devour the Demon God, the air around them thickened with demonic energy, and he whipped around only to witness a horde of Demons and Devils gathered in one place, ready to strike the moment he attempted to do something irreversible.
Kaolin turned to face the ancient god, smirking. "You think you can stop me? Even if you summoned the entire Demon Realm here, it'll only delay your end, not stop it."
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. Look, seems like we have a guest."
Kaolin's eyes narrowed as he snapped and followed the Demon God's line of sight back to Demons and Devils now parting like a sea split in half. One step at a time, they shuffled aside as though moved by a single, unseen command, and in the widening opening left behind at the centre, a figure emerged – one he knew all too well, one who shouldn't be here.
"Xiyan?"
In that fleeting moment of confusion passing through his eyes, the Demon God's gaze flicked to the side and passed a command in silence, and Baihu Mo moved without wasting a single second, charging at him from the shadows with the roar of his animal kindred.
But Kaolin parried the attack in the nick of time, just as a familiar voice rose from the army of demons, though the white tiger devil managed to graze his already wounded arm, drawing fresh blood. It was Wei Lan.
"Watch your back!"
The devil, however, twisted mid-air to strike again.
Kaolin summoned his sword, meeting the blow with a clash so fierce it sent a shockwave rippling through the fourth layer, making even the gates where the Demon God was chained groan in response.
But even this time, the white tiger devil did not give up; instead, he bared his teeth and snarled on top of his lungs with the growl of a cut-throat beast, his snow-white hair whipping around him as he once again blasted through the shadows.
Kaolin vanished from sight before the devil could reach him, reappearing above his opponent like a hawk, and his sword arced down in a streak of lightning. Baihu Mo countered it, but the impact sent both of them soaring back and spiralling several feet in the air, away from the palace grounds, while Wei Lan fought the lower-rank Demons and Devils below them.
The devil pressed on in his relentless sequence of rapid attacks, coming at him from all directions using The Phantom Mirror technique, the one the Bai Lang Clan used two hundred years ago back in Yueluo Gu, only much more powerful and lethal.
In fact, the devil moved so fast that Kaolin had a hard time locating its true self and breaking the illusion. But it wasn't the force of this formidable technique that took over his mind, as he was driven further and further away from the Demon Palace; it was the devil's persistent attempt to keep him occupied.
Then, just as Kaolin managed to strike the devil, the real one, he noticed something he should've noticed much earlier, and his grip on his sword relaxed. Baihu Mo, despite just having gotten severely injured, grinned as if he'd just won.
Acutely aware that something was off, Kaolin's gaze shot towards the crumbling palace, but before he could get a clear view of it, the white tiger devil appeared once more with a surge of demonic energy aimed straight at him.
They clashed again, but this time, Kaolin had had enough. With a wave of spiritual qi, he blasted Baihu Mo back so hard that the devil crashed into a row of broken pillars, and the illusion faded. Without wasting more time than he already had, Kaolin then soared back towards the palace grounds faster than the eye could follow. And that was when he finally understood the meaning behind the devil's wolfish grin.
Beyond the bloody battleground below, standing at the very threshold of the gates, just inches from the Demon God, was Xiyan. Her arms were outstretched, her fingers mere inches from the glowing artefact embedded in the lock of chains. The sight unfolding before him was so startling that it took him a second or two to grasp the gravity of it and snap back to reality, but by then, it was all too late.
"Xiyan!"
But she did not hear him, or perhaps, she could not. Her gaze was glassy and distant, as though her spirit was locked in a deadly trance beyond reach. Still, he pushed forwards. Faster. But it wasn't enough. The moment her fingertips touched the Jade of Tear, a tremor rumbled through Wujing Yuan, and the blackened stone ground split – even the sky four levels above them cracked in response.
The chains around the Demon God shattered, and in a burst of crimson vapour, the Demon God disappeared, dissolving into mist. But he hadn't fled on his own; with him, he'd taken Xiyan as well as the Jade of Tear.
Kaolin tore through the air, his qi burning behind him like an ablaze trail as he surged up, up through the collapsing ruins of the abyss as the Demon Palace too soared up from the darkness and escaped its prison, as did the Demons and Devils all around him.
But when he reached the surface, breathing heavily, blood streaming from his arm where Baihu Mo had managed to strike him, there was no one there. Just ruin, and rising from it, the army of Demons – thousands of them.
Kaolin stood amidst the ashes, his mind spinning like a top. His sword trembled in his grip, the blood in his arm now trickling down from the blade to the ground. But he didn't notice any of that – neither the pain nor the blood, not until a hand seized his arm just as he was about to soar into the raging welkin overcast with storm clouds and hunt down the Demon God.
Wei Lan, "You're hurt…"
Kaolin turned, dazed, barely hearing him. The pain hit a moment later, and he winced, staggering slightly. Wei Lan ripped a strip from his torn robes and reached for the pulsing wound, but Kaolin shoved him aside.
"I… have to go. I—"
"No, you don't," Wei Lan snapped, and this time his grip was firmer. "So, stop moving and let me help!"
Behind them, the Taohua and Guo Lan emerged from the abyss. Taohua leaned heavily on Guo Lan, barely able to stand, and both looked at the pair of friends with confusion and dread etched on their faces, who were locked in their own world, oblivious to the crumpling abyss threatening to swallow them into its depths with each passing second.
"Stop acting like a child and just listen for once!" Wei Lan said, cutting Kaolin off before he could defend himself. "Can't you see you're bleeding?"
"Bleeding!?" Kaolin repeated, in utter disbelief, suppressing a smirk forming on his lips. "He took the Jade of Tear! If I don't go now, Xiyan—"
"Xiyan?" Wei Lan repeated before voicing out what he figured out back when he saw those demons letting her pass in front of the Demon Palace, like she was one of them. It all made sense now. "You knew all along, didn't you? That Xiyan was from the Dragon Clan…"
Kaolin averted his gaze and refused to respond. He wasn't in the mood for more arguments, not now at least. He figured Wei Lan would find out the truth sooner or later, but this was neither the place nor the time. Every second they wasted, doing nothing, only pushed Xiyan deeper into danger.
Then Taohua's voice cut through the prolonged silence, the tone of his voice giving away his surprise at hearing those words.
"The Dragon… Clan?" His eyes then sought Kaolin's, pleading for confirmation. "Master Kaolin, is Xiyan really—?"
Before he could finish, however, Guo Lan interrupted. "So what if she is!?" he retorted. "Xiyan is our friend! So, who cares what she is or isn't! What matters is that we know her and that—"
"Then tell me, Guo Lan, why did the Demon God bring her with him when he could kill her!?"
Kaolin turned to him, and for the first time, truly glared. There was no calm in his stare, no restraint – only rage. But that didn't stop Wei Lan from meeting his glare and pressing on.
"Are you even sure she is who you think she is? That she didn't come with us just to break the Demon God free from his prison? I think not." Without breaking eye contact, he then addressed Kaolin directly. "And you know why exactly he took her, don't you, Kaolin?"
Kaolin's lips curled into a smirk. Then, without warning, he began to laugh, the kind of laughter that chilled the rest of them to the core and caused them to recoil in fear. Then Kaolin moved. No, he—he lunged! And his hand shot out, seizing Wei Lan by the throat, lifting him off the ground.
The others cried out, rushing to intervene, but Kaolin brushed them aside with a flick of his free hand, and a barrier appeared around them. Wei Lan didn't resist, not even for a fleeting second. Instead, his eyes locked onto Kaolin's delirious ones, showing him that he neither feared him nor would take back his words – even as the air in his lungs dwindled the tighter Kaolin held him in a chokehold. That was when Kaolin finally released his grip, and the barrier faded away as if it were never there.
Wei Lan crumbled to the shuddering ground, coughing and gasping for air, yet unable to take his eyes off Kaolin, who had his back turned to him. He was seeing red, but not because of the pain Kaolin inflicted on him, but because he had tried to hurt him over someone from the Dragon Clan, someone he barely knew, while Wei Lan had stood by him through both thick and thin.
And, somehow, his piercing gaze drifted downwards that instant. What compelled him to do that, he did not know – perhaps an innate instinct that something other than Xiyan and the artefact troubled his friend. That was when he noticed it, the tremor in Kaolin's hands, and his anger gave way to something akin to concern, his features softening at once.
"What's,"—Wei Lan rose to his feet even before the words slipped from his lips— "wrong with your hands?"
Kaolin, refusing to meet his eyes, clenched his hands into fists in an attempt to stop the trembling. But this time, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't suppress it – neither the shaking nor the hunger gnawing at his very soul, a hunger he had fought to control for far too long.
Ignoring the ache in his throat, Wei Lan gripped Kaolin's wrist to take a closer look at whatever troubled his friend. But Kaolin shoved him aside, refusing to acknowledge the tremor, which had now caught everyone's attention.
Not one to give up so easily, Wei Lan reached forwards again, this time with more force, and before any of them understood what was happening, Kaolin collapsed into his arms, burning with fever and blood spilling from his lips. Startled, he touched Kaolin's forehead, and then he felt it – the qi of someone out of balance and filled with dark energy.
Taohua, "What's… wrong with him?"
Wei Lan's gaze flickered, unable to focus, his grip around Kaolin tightening as he tried to wrap his head around the situation they were in, before he at last replied. "I… I don't know…"
Guo Lan peeked over his shoulder as the abyss collapsed inwards and threatened to drag them with it to the crumbling depths if they did not move any time soon, shouting on top of his lungs to snap Wei Lan back to reality.
"We have to leave—now! Wei Lan!"
Although it took a fraction of a second longer, the urgency of those words finally reached Wei Lan, and he quickly pulled Kaolin closer and took to the skies, fleeing the ruins of Wujing Yuan with Commander Taohua and Guo Lan following close behind.