thorns

Consciousness, like sinking into a lightless and soundless ocean, drifts in absolute nothingness. There is no time, no space, only a cold, dead silence.

I don’t know how long it took, maybe a moment, maybe eternity.

A slight sting, like a spark burning in the darkness, suddenly awakened the silent perception.

pain.

His soul felt as if it had been torn apart and then forcibly glued together, every inch of it filled with the weakness and dull pain of overdrawn energy. His body felt heavy, as if filled with lead and mercury; even lifting a finger became incredibly difficult.

Yinglong opened his eyes with difficulty and extremely slowly.

My vision was blurry at first, then gradually came into focus.

She was still within the ancient beast's skull, surrounded by the maze she had cast before igniting her essence and forcibly freezing time and space. But now, the maze's light had dimmed to its absolute limit, like a candle in the wind, with specks of light constantly escaping and disappearing at the edges. The dark gray fog from the outside world was slowly seeping in through the increasingly thin barrier.

The freeze of time and space was lifted.

The price was enormous. She could feel her essence nearly depleted, her soul riddled with tiny cracks. Without long years of nurturing, recovery would be impossible. At this moment, she was so weak that even an ordinary Golden Immortal could easily defeat her.

But... she's still alive.

The barrier was not breached during the freeze period.

This means that she has bought time.

What about the core?!

This thought was like a cold shower, instantly sobering her up. She suddenly lowered her head and looked at her cuffs.

The space in her sleeve was still stable, but the core that was a fusion of dragon soul, divine blood and annihilation was in a completely different state than before she fell into a coma!

It no longer flickered violently, nor did it emit violent and chaotic thoughts.

It hovered there quietly, its entire body emitting a… unprecedented, deep, uniform dark blue. No longer a mad blend of dark blue and pitch black, but a calm, dark blue that seemed a perfect fusion of the two colors.

The black lines inside still exist, but they no longer twist and attack like poisonous snakes. Instead, they are like some kind of ancient and mysterious totem, slowly flowing and floating in the dark blue origin in a strange and rhythmic way.

A faint, yet remarkably steady pulsation emanated from within the core, a pulsation that felt icy yet strangely imbued with a new, resilient vitality.

What shocked Yinglong even more was the thoughts she felt from this core.

No longer is it an ignorant dependence, no longer is it a wailing of fear, and no longer is it a crazy desire for destruction.

It was a kind of... silence.

A kind of silence with a hint of coldness and alienation that settles down after experiencing extreme chaos, pain and struggle.

It didn't convey any specific thoughts, nor did it respond to her probes. It just existed quietly, like an independent individual with its eyes closed, concentrating and digesting something.

Did it succeed?

In the last moment when space and time were frozen, the idea of ​​"keeping your heart, understanding it, controlling it, and living on" that she had imprinted on her, did it... do it?

Did it truly gain a preliminary understanding of the Law of Nirvana, achieving a dangerous balance with it? Perhaps it had even begun to... gain some degree of control?

Yinglong stared at the dark blue core in a daze, his heart filled with indescribable complex emotions.

There is the joy of surviving a disaster, the relief of seeing the results after paying a huge price, but more importantly, there is a deep fear of facing the unknown and... a subtle throbbing.

The person she "rescued" seemed to no longer be just a fragile being who needed her protection.

Rather, it is a fusion of Ao Guang's dragon soul essence, her war god's blood, and the law of annihilation... a brand new, infinite possibilities, and also infinite dangers... a prototype of life.

What will it become in the future?

Is it a blessing or a curse?

She doesn't know.

"Crack..."

A slight cracking sound brought her back to reality.

Above his head, the last area of ​​the maze completely dissipated like broken glass.

The dark gray fog was no longer obstructed and slowly flowed into the skull space, enveloping her and the dark blue core with an aura of decadence and death.

The external threat has not been eliminated. The prince's pursuers are likely still nearby.

And she is almost at the end of her life.

Yinglong took a deep breath of icy netherworld energy, forcibly suppressing the weakness in her body and the stabbing pain in her soul. She struggled to her feet and carefully put away the dormant dark blue core.

We must leave here immediately.

She glanced at the equally dimmed Fenji Sword in her hand, and felt the remaining divine power in her body.

The road ahead is still full of thorns.

But this time, she wasn't alone.

There was a silent, unknown companion in her sleeve.

She stepped out of the ancient beast's skull, and her figure merged into the endless gray fog, moving forward with difficulty towards the deeper part of the underworld and the more unpredictable future.

Behind him, the huge skull of the ancient beast, after losing all the power to sustain it, slowly sank into the depths of the gray fog, like a tombstone of a forgotten era.

A journey that started with protection but quietly slid towards an unknown fate has just entered an even more unpredictable chapter.