ember

The red light did not rush straight into the sky, but after leaving the East China Sea, it suddenly turned, tore through the void, and drilled into a chaotic gap where the laws were disordered and the light and shadow were distorted.

This wasn't any known immortal realm or netherworld, but rather a place where fragments of time and space, left over from the shattering of the primordial world and yet to be fully absorbed, intertwined. Any ordinary immortal or god who set foot here would be instantly torn apart by the chaotic forces of time and space, or even permanently exiled.

Yinglong, however, was like a fish in water, occasionally tapping the tip of her Fenji sword, precisely avoiding invisible spacetime traps and turbulent laws. Her familiarity with this place stemmed from an encounter countless years ago while hunting an ancient ferocious beast.

I don’t know how long I traveled, but the road ahead suddenly became clear.

Instead of birdsong and flowers, there was a vast, devastated land suspended in the void. Above it, the mountains were withered, the rivers dried up, and only a few twisted, strange plants, independent of spiritual energy, swayed in the wind. The sky was a perpetually dim yellow, devoid of sun, moon, or stars, save for the occasional streak of strangely colored auroras.

The spiritual energy here is thin, almost non-existent, but the aura of various ancient and mixed laws is pervasive, like a natural shielding field.

Yinglong landed on a towering, withered mountain shaped like a dragon's head. On the mountaintop stood the remains of a half-collapsed palace, its style so primitive and barbaric that it was impossible to tell from which era it belonged.

She waved her sleeves and set up several restrictions. The red divine light blended with the dead silence of the barren mountain, completely covering up the last trace of energy that might leak out.

After doing all this, she slowly spread out her left hand.

Divine power flowed, and the faint blue dragon soul fragment that was almost extinguished at any time, as well as a few grains of Nirvana Mysterious Armor powder surrounding it, emerged from the universe in her sleeve and hovered above her palm.

Leaving the utterly dead silence of the East China Sea, in this chaotic, chaotic cavernous world, this fragment seemed even more unstable. Its frequency of flickering was chaotic, and the black laws of annihilation entwined within it twisted restlessly like tiny venomous snakes, emitting a heart-pounding aura of destruction.

It is too weak, so weak that it cannot even carry a complete thought. It is just a ball of original energy that condenses extreme pain, unwillingness and obsession.

Yinglong stared at it with a complicated look in his eyes.

It was this thing that turned the Dragon King of the East Sea, who once ruled the four seas and worked with her to control floods, into the crazy and desperate look in front of the Yaochi Lake, and eventually led to self-destruction.

It was also this thing that was now existing in her palm in an extremely fragile yet stubborn posture.

What should she do with it?

Complete purification? Burn it completely with the Burning Silence Divine Fire, so that Ao Guang will truly disappear from the world without leaving a trace? This seems to be the most in line with the laws of the Heavenly Court and the most "clean" method.

but……

His fingertips seemed to recall the feeling of the sword piercing through his armor and sinking into his heart, and the bloody whisper about the thousand-year dream when he leaned close to his ear.

"...Suicide for love...isn't just...an ancient rumor..."

She clenched her palms suddenly, and the blue fragment flickered violently under the pressure of her divine power, as if emitting a silent wail.

No.

We can't just let him disappear like this.

At least, not until she figured everything out.

She needed to know what had happened at the bottom of the East China Sea over the past millennium? Why had he become so obsessed? Was the promise of "betrothal to the whole world" truly more important to him than his own life, or even the survival of the entire dragon race?

Also... when he finally detonated the Mysterious Armor of Annihilation, was he really seeking death, or... did he have other motives?

Is this fragment of the residual soul an accidental remnant or part of his plan?

Countless questions swirled in her mind.

She tried to separate an extremely fine strand of consciousness, like the softest silk thread, and carefully probed towards the blue fragment.

"boom--!!!"

At the moment when the divine consciousness touched it!

It was not the expected memory scene, but a huge, chaotic torrent of thoughts full of despair and madness, like a bursting sea of ​​blood, which followed the wisp of divine consciousness and rushed into her sea of ​​consciousness!

That was Ao Guang’s perspective…a thousand years.

It's not the flowing years, but countless superimposed, distorted moments—

It was the roar of the Dragon Palace barrier being completely closed, and the light was swallowed up inch by inch by the deep sea, until only eternal, maddening darkness and silence remained.

It is sitting on the throne day after day, listening to one's own heartbeat becoming the only sound in this dead world, counting the hours, waiting for a vague return.

It was a wedding dream that had been constructed and shattered countless times, a sunny bay, coral reefs and fish, she was wearing a red dress and smiling at him... Then the picture shattered, leaving only the cold black jade throne and endless darkness.

It was the self-destructive pleasure and pain brought about by the wailing of spiritual veins and the shaking of the four seas when one broke the glazed pillars with one's own hands in the Cave of Treasures.

It is the determination to burn everything and destroy as he holds the Ni Lin Ji, covers himself with the Silent Armor, and steps step by step onto the blood-stained cloud steps.

It was in front of Yaochi, looking at her in her wedding dress, with the swords pointing at each other, that bone-chilling coldness and... the crazy relief that finally detonated everything!

A thousand years of loneliness.

Ten thousand years of waiting.

A dowry that overturns the world.

The madness of the blood-stained Yao Chi.

All these compressed and distorted emotions and memories, like billions of red-hot steel needles, pierced into Yinglong's soul!

"ah--!"

Even with her determination as a god of war, under the impact of this torrent of extremely pure negative thoughts, she couldn't help but let out a short cry of pain. Her body swayed, her face turned pale in an instant, and fine beads of cold sweat oozed from her forehead.

The outstretched spiritual consciousness was instantly shattered.

The dark blue fragment in the palm of the hand, after bursting out with this torrent of thoughts, glowed even dimmer, as if it had exhausted its last bit of strength. The flickering became extremely slow, and the entangled black energy of desolation also weakened a lot.

Yinglong gasped for breath and managed to stand firmly by holding onto a cold piece of ruins beside him.

She finally... experienced it firsthand.

That's more than just a thousand years of waiting.

It's the eternal torture of being exiled from time. It's the despair that sinks deep into the bones after hope repeatedly ignites and extinguishes. It's the monster born from compressing all emotions and obsessions to the extreme.

What she thought was "old friendship" was the only light for him to survive.

What she thought was a "farewell" was a cruel punishment for breaking his oath to him.

That's why he would use the most tragic way possible, destroying himself physically and spiritually on her wedding day as the final... "gift."

Yinglong slowly raised her head and looked at the fragment in her palm that seemed to have fallen silent. Her eyes were filled with unprecedented shock and... a trace of pain that she herself was unwilling to admit.

She always thought that she had a mission and had no choice.

But she never imagined that at the bottom of the deep sea, someone had endured a thousand years of purgatory alone because of her unfinished words.

And now, the embers of purgatory are in her palm.

It was faint, yet so heavy that she could hardly breathe.

What should she do...?