Baiheng once had a dream.
In it, a colossal tree without end hung down from the heavens, its branches like spears that pierced the starry void. In her ears rang a thunderous chant—
"May the Cloud Knights triumph forever, shielding the Xianzhou!"
Yet the sound grew more and more distant, as if something had swallowed it whole.
The Artisanship Commission's golden automatons clashed with winged abominations in midair. Borisin wolf cavalry charged again and again through seas of fire, burning as they rode.
Then she saw it—
A black sun.
It rose from the horizon, and the towering golden world-tree was reduced to ash in an instant.
And at the very end of the dream—
A crimson longsword pierced straight through her chest.
"—!"
Baiheng jolted awake, cold sweat beading on her brow.
"Again… that dream. But why…" Some details felt different this time, yet when she tried to grasp them, the specifics slipped away.
Even after morning training, the unease wouldn't lift, so she decided to head to Changle Heaven to clear her mind.
And that was where she saw him.
A red-haired little boy stood alone at the mouth of an alley. His clothes were scorched in places; dust clung to his face along with some kind of liquid. His brown-black eyes were blank with confusion.
Something in Baiheng's chest tightened.
"Hey, little one," she asked softly. "Are you lost?"
The boy looked up. His voice was barely a whisper.
"Big sister… I can't find my home…"
"Another war orphan…" she murmured.
Baiheng crouched and gently lifted him into her arms.
"Come on. Come home with me first."
The Abundance host surged against the Xianzhou in force. Baiheng was leading a star-skiff squadron, weaving and fighting to keep the enemy pinned.
Communications had been disrupted by Huayin rites; only after the battle ended did she learn the truth—
Hulei had led the Borisin in a surprise raid on the Luofu.
When she raced back to her courtyard, desperate enough to tear the sky—
All she found was rubble.
"Xiao Huo…?! Xiao Huo—!"
She tore through broken stone after broken stone, but the red-haired boy was nowhere.
Not until she spotted a half-collapsed desk and, beneath it, a note soaked red with dried blood—
"Xiao Huo, big sister is going on a trip. Remember to eat on time. —Baiheng"
It was the note she'd left before departing.
And now the blood on it had long since dried.
Baiheng's fingers trembled.
Dead? Taken? Or…
She couldn't finish the thought.
Her fox ears flattened tight against her head. Every hair on her tail bristled, standing on end.
"Shuhu…!"
Her nails cut into her palm—yet she felt no pain at all.
I will kill it.
No matter the cost.
Years ago, when she first met Yingxing aboard the Zhuming Xianzhou, Baiheng had received a piece of black jade.
Night-black, with what looked like a galaxy turning within.
"This thing is dangerous," Zhuming's general Huaiyan had warned her. "If you don't actively awaken it, it's only a pretty stone. But if even a thread of its power leaks out…"
Huaiyan hadn't continued, but Baiheng knew the rest.
"Even if it can truly kill the 'undying'… the user will be swallowed by Nihility as well…"
She'd carried it ever since—and never once considered using it.
Until today.
From the star-skiff, Baiheng looked down at the Luofu below, now fully turned into a battlefield, and slowly rubbed the black jade between her fingers.
"It will end…"
The jade in her hand radiated a bone-deep chill.
Yet Baiheng's body temperature only climbed higher.
"Baiheng! The eastern front needs reinforcements!" Jing Yuan's voice came through the communicator jade.
She steadied herself, putting on her familiar expression—calm, bright, reliable.
"Roger!"
Jing Yuan's formation blade carved abomination after abomination apart. Even as he tried to keep Baiheng away from the Scalegorge Waterscape front, a foreboding dread kept rising in his gut.
While Huo Linfei confronted Shuhu head-on—
The Divination Commission's calculations precisely pinned down every hidden shred of Shuhu's flesh. Jing Yuan, Baiheng, and Teng Xiao were doing everything they could to purge every possible method of Shuhu's revival.
"Two hundred and forty-seventh location—cleared." The Divine General crushed the final writhing mass into nothing.
"The western front is clean," Jing Yuan sheathed his blade and sent a message to Baiheng. "How's your side?"
Baiheng had already landed and was wiping blood from her star-skiff. She smiled.
"Of course it's handled~"
But her eyes kept sliding, again and again, toward the Scalegorge.
Soon…
As if to confirm her thought—
BOOM—!!!
A shockwave rolled out from the Scalegorge. A pillar of light erupted into the sky, and the entire Luofu shuddered. In the clouds, the phantom outline of a massive tree appeared—its canopy like an umbrella that blotted out the heavens.
"So it still succeeded…" Jing Yuan's expression flickered, then forced itself back to calm.
Baiheng's fox ears snapped upright. Her tail went rigid. Her body backed away—until her hand touched the star-skiff again.
"Baiheng?!" Jing Yuan shouted, seeing a white meteor streaking toward the Scalegorge.
Sorry, Jing Yuan.
This time… I won't be late.
The golden world-tree covered the sky. The Ambrosial Arbor's roots fused completely with Shuhu, and its will flooded across the Xianzhou like a tide.
"I am Shuhu… I am ten thousand ages…"
Huo Linfei's falling body was seized with ease. He struggled to break free, but the branches wrapped around him tightened and tightened. His face turned purple-red; his bones began to creak with the sound of imminent collapse.
"Life is… so fragile…" Shuhu's voice was no longer panicked. In an instant, the positions of hunter and prey reversed. "Anomaly… your struggle is futile…"
The trunk constricted. Razor wood-spines punched clean through Huo Linfei's abdomen. Shuhu tried to draw out that terrifying power Huo Linfei had used earlier—
And sensed nothing.
"That power… where did it come from…"
In the split second Shuhu's attention drifted—
Dan Feng hit the battlefield like lightning, dragon-shaped water-blades severing the branches binding Huo Linfei.
Almost at the same time, a razor-bright sword-light cleaved through the golden sky—
"Sever!"
The Luofu's Sword Champion swept her blade across, cutting down the regenerating branches completely!
"Cough… thanks… you two…" Huo Linfei dropped hard to the ground. His flushed face eased, but coagulated blood seemed to clog his throat, making speech difficult.
"You're Huo Linfei, aren't you…" Dan Feng asked.
"Cough!" Huo Linfei choked on the question.
"You don't need to answer while injured," Dan Feng said, supporting him upright. Cloudhymn Arts flowed through Huo Linfei's body, repairing damaged organs and fractured bones. "If you don't deny it, I'll take it as yes."
"I saw your sword hilt," Dan Feng continued, not stopping the treatment. "That was the short sword Yingxing gave you, wasn't it?"
Jingliu stood in front of them, guarding. She heard the question but couldn't spare the attention.
Without the Blood-Smeared Prison Realm's debuffs, her condition was even better than in their first clash with Shuhu—
But Shuhu's offense now was fiercer, faster, more relentless than ever.
"You came this time… on Jing Yuan's orders?" Dan Feng asked.
Huo Linfei nodded.
"As expected," Dan Feng said quietly. "No wonder Jing Yuan told Jingliu and me to intercept Shuhu here… Do you have a plan?"
"Of course." Huo Linfei had recovered more than half his function already. He looked toward Shuhu in the distance, and inside him, Ability Energy began to stir upward again.
"Shuhu's fusion with the Arbor gives it greater power—"
"But by the same logic, the Arbor becomes its only weakness…"
Join here to read ahead.
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