Chapter 86: Yizhou’s Illusion (Part 14)

Chapter 86: Chapter 86: Yizhou’s Illusion (Part 14)

Outside Yizhou’s Heart Trial, in the real world, the sky had already darkened. Strong winds swept through the city, causing the temperature to drop rapidly as though a storm was about to descend.

The Qingmei demon, who had been meditating, finally sensed that something was wrong. She opened her eyes and looked toward the sky.

Above the city, golden and purple lightning was beginning to gather within the dark clouds. The lightning twisted and crackled, its terrifying power continuing to build as though it could descend at any moment.

Seeing this, the Qingmei demon was immediately alarmed. As a Nascent Soul cultivator, she naturally knew what the gathering of heavenly lightning meant.

A lightning tribulation.

Someone was actually breaking through here?

Judging from the intensity of the lightning, the person was clearly about to advance to the Nascent Soul stage. This was extremely bad news.

Once the tribulation descended, its power would inevitably affect her formation. If the formation was destroyed now, all the work she had put into preparing it for a decade would be wasted. She had not even finished absorbing the energy she had gathered from everyone in the city.

She could not allow that to happen.

The Qingmei demon’s eyes narrowed.

No matter who was undergoing the breakthrough, she had to find them and kill them before the lightning tribulation descended.

—

Everything happened too quickly for Yizhou to fully process.

Only moments ago, he had been standing before the elders, listening as they declared that he was not guilty of colluding with the demons. Although he had been expelled from the Wenjian Sect, he did not feel particularly upset about it. After everything that had happened, he had already been planning to leave the sect anyway.

But then Madam Jiang suddenly intervened.

Before Yizhou could understand what she was doing, the formation beneath his feet lit up as an immense pressure immediately descended upon him.

Yizhou’s expression changed as he tried to move, but his body would not respond. The formation’s light was bright and almost sacred in appearance, yet beneath that brilliance, he could clearly sense an intense and malicious force.

It was as though the formation itself was filled with killing intent.

Yizhou’s instincts began to warn him of danger.

This time, he truly felt that he might die.

In truth, Yizhou had never been afraid of death.

From the time he was young, he had already understood that walking the path of cultivation meant eventually facing life-or-death situations. His mother had taught him that the purpose of his strength was to protect others, and he had always taken those words to heart.

Because of that, Yizhou had long since accepted that his own life might one day end while protecting someone else.

When he was younger, he had even imagined what his final moment might look like. Perhaps he would die shielding his fellow disciples from some great danger, or sacrifice himself to save countless innocent people. Back then It was not a frightening thought to him.

If his death could save others, then he had always believed it would be worth it.

That had been the kind of person Yizhou was.

However, as the terrifying formation gathered power beneath his feet, he suddenly realized that he was actually reluctant.

Yizhou felt reluctant. It was not because he was about to die, nor because he would not be able to die in the way he had once imagined for himself. It was because he knew that if he died right now, someone would be very sad.

For the first time, Yizhou’s mind gave birth to thoughts that he had never allowed himself to have before.

If only he had not meddled when the demons attacked. If only he had not been so selflessly righteous from the beginning. If only he had been a little more selfish and thought about himself first, then perhaps none of this would have happened.

It suddenly seemed so simple.

What did the lives of other people have to do with him?

Yes, he was born talented, and because of that, people had placed him on a high pedestal. They said that he should walk the path of righteousness, that he had to use his strength to protect others, and that the common people should always come before himself.

But wasn’t he also a person?

He could get hurt. He could feel pain. He could become sad.

He was not some perfect being like the people in the Wenjian Sect had painted him to be. He was just a person who happened to possess greater talent than others. He also had things he wanted, people he cared about, and a life he wanted to live.

For the first time, Yizhou wondered if he had been too foolish all this time.

If he had been a little more bad, perhaps he would not have suffered so much.

Perhaps he would not have ended up here.

But there was no time left for regret.

The formation had already reached its limit, and the killing intent surrounding him continued to grow stronger. Yizhou knew that he was about to die.

Yizhou did not even dare to look back.

He could not bring himself to see those sad, peach blossom eyes again. He was afraid that if he looked at that person one more time, he would no longer be able to accept what was about to happen and really become a fierce ghost.

So he closed his eyes and waited for the punishment to descend upon him.

However, in the next instant, he suddenly felt his entire body being pushed away.

Yizhou was caught completely off guard. He barely managed to open his eyes, only to see the extremely worried figure of that person before him. Soft white hair fluttered wildly in the wind, while those familiar amber eyes were fixed anxiously on him. His mouth was moving, as though they were desperately saying something, but Yizhou could not hear a single word.

"Wait..."

Panic surged through Yizhou’s chest.

He immediately tried to reach out, but another force struck him before he could do anything. His body was pushed farther and farther away, until he was completely thrown out of the formation.

And then—

The formation activated.

An unbearably harsh light erupted from the ground, instantly swallowing the figure Yizhou had just seen.

Yizhou’s pupils contracted.

His blood ran cold.

He stared at the blinding light, unable to look away. For several seconds, his mind seemed to stop functioning altogether. The only thing he could think about was that worried expression he had seen before being pushed away.

"No..."

The word escaped his lips.

Something inside Yizhou finally snapped.

Why?

Why had everything turned into this?

Just when he had finally found someone who was genuinely kind to him...

Was it really supposed to be like this? Was he destined to be alone forever?

Yizhou’s eyes gradually turned cold.

"No."

Demonic energy suddenly surged from his body, erupting with far greater force than before.

He would not let it end like this.

Yizhou did not notice what was happening above him. Cracks suddenly began appearing across the sky, spreading like fractures across a shattered mirror. The ground trembled beneath his feet, while the voices of the people around him became increasingly chaotic and distorted as the illusion began to destabilize.

Yet Yizhou continued releasing more and more demonic energy. The overwhelming force spread through the surroundings, growing stronger with every passing moment.

If the world was determined to take everything from him, then he would take everything from the world in return.

Just as that thought formed in his mind, a faint whisper suddenly reached his ears.

"Senior Brother..."

Yizhou froze.

The voice came again, distant and weak, but unmistakably familiar.

"Wake up."