Chapter 485: Be Erased

The anomaly was irreparably corrupted by its own stubbornness.

"Then you shall both be erased," the elder decreed, his voice devoid of all emotion, raising his hand to signal the execution.

"Good luck with that," Ji’an sneered, bending her knees. "I’m in the weeds, and I’m ready to cook."

The blinding fury of Lin Ji’an’s Heart Fire was a supernova, a defiant, blazing sun ignited in the sterile darkness of the Stargazing Tower.

Her heavy cast-iron spatula was raised, her boots were planted against the cosmic glass, and her soul was committed to tearing the architects of the universe limb from celestial limb.

She did not care about the odds.

She did not care about the dozen High-Tier Seers surrounding her, nor the three ancient, monolithic entities of the High Council.

She was going to carve her way through the Heavens, shatter that Star-Iron cage, and drag her feral, homicidal Ice Demon back to the kitchen where he belonged.

But as the muscles in her thighs coiled, preparing to launch her forward into the cosmic abyss, a sound shattered the tension in the chamber.

It was not the booming voice of a god. It was not the grinding of the astrolabe rings.

It was a low, ragged, wet groan.

Ji’an’s forward momentum violently aborted. Her boots skidded against the glass, her silver-flecked eyes snapping upward toward the suspended cage.

Inside the suppression matrix, bound by glowing blue chains of celestial script that pierced his collarbones, wrists, and ankles, Xie Wangchen was waking up.

He had been drifting through the void of his own consciousness, his immortal vessel systematically drained by the Star-Iron. But even in the dark, through the crushing gravity of the High Council’s suppression field, his soul had heard her.

He had heard her roar.

He had heard her claim him.

"He is MY prep cook! He is MY Ice Demon!"

Those words had echoed through the absolute zero of his dying core like a clarion call, dragging his spirit back from the brink of oblivion.

He had heard the elder’s insidious offer. He had heard the horrific, universe-breaking revelation of his own origin.

The Prosecutor of the Heavens.

A deity of the Highest Realm.

A god born to rule, reduced to a rabid dog by a mother’s blood magic.

And he had heard Ji’an, his beautiful, fierce, unyielding Ji’an, refuse to let him go. He knew exactly what she was capable of.

He knew she would never surrender something she had claimed as her own. She would fight the World Will, fight the High Council, throw her fragile, mortal body against the grinding gears of destiny until there was nothing left of her but dust and blood.

She would die here.

Today. For him.

A terrifying clarity washed over Wangchen’s fractured, yandere mind.

For seventeen lifetimes, he had watched her die.

He had arrived too late. He had bled in the snow, he had frozen battlefields, and screamed at the heavens as her body went cold in his arms.

’Not this time,’ the Ice Demon thought, his ruby eyes slowly fluttering open, staring down through the glowing bars of the cage, at the silver-haired chef who was prepared to wage war on the cosmos for his sake.

If it was his heart that needed to be sacrificed to appease the Heavens... he would tear it out himself.

If his presence in her life meant she was doomed to this endless cycle of agonizing tragedy, then he would become the villain required to set her free.

Let her leave, go back to the mortal plane. Let her cook, laugh, and live a normal, mundane, beautiful life, devoid of the suffocating, freezing shadow of the Eternal Cloud Peak.

Even if it was the last thing he could ever do for her, at least she would live.

Wangchen did not comprehend that for Ji’an, a life without him, a life purchased with his lobotomy and eternal enslavement to the High Council, would be a psychological torment worse than any physical death.

He only understood the immediate necessity of her survival.

The Ice Demon lifted his head.

"Do not... touch her."

His voice was a ragged, blood-choked rasp, devoid of its usual melodic, velvety purr. But the authority in those four words caused the ambient starlight in the chamber to flicker.

"Wangchen!" Ji’an screamed, her voice cracking with relief, taking a step toward the cage. "Don’t move! I’m coming! I’m going to break the matrix!"

"Stay back."

Wangchen did not look at her. He couldn’t.

If he looked into her silver-flecked eyes, if he saw the fierce, unyielding devotion burning there, his resolve would shatter.

He would tear the cage apart with his bare teeth and kill everyone in the room just to touch her cheek.

He forced his gaze to remain locked on the Head of the Tower.

Inside the cage, Wangchen began to move.

The glowing blue celestial chains holding him suspended tautened, sizzling as they burned directly into his flesh. The agony was unimaginable, equivalent to pouring molten lead directly into his meridians.

But the Ice Demon did not scream. He did not falter.

With a slow display of willpower, Wangchen dragged his broken body upward. He pulled against the chains piercing his collarbones, his pristine white robes soaking through with fresh, bright crimson blood.

His muscles trembled, his bones creaked, but he forced himself to stand upright within the confines of the matrix.

He was bruised. He was bleeding.

He was drained of his absolute zero aura.

But as he stood there, looking down at the High Council, the feral, rabid, obsessive yandere boy completely vanished.

In his place stood the Prosecutor of the Heavenly Immortals.

His face hardened into a mask of pure, terrifying apathy. His ruby eyes, usually burning with manic fire, froze over, becoming two flat, dead, impenetrable voids of crimson ice.

"You seek the Prosecutor," Wangchen stated, his voice flattening into a cold, mechanical cadence that sent a violent shiver down Jiu Zui’s spine. "You seek the return of the Highest Realm’s authority."

The Head of the Tower looked up at the cage, his black, void-like eyes narrowing slightly. "We do. And we require the anomaly’s consent to sever the tether."

"She is but a mortal," Wangchen dismissed, his voice dripping with an alien, detached superiority that made Ji’an’s breath catch in her throat. "Her consent is irrelevant. I will give you what you desire. I will return to the Highest Realm and assume the throne. I will go wherever your ledgers require me to be."

He let the promise hang in the air.

"In return," Wangchen commanded, his dead eyes shifting to the two flanking Seers. "You will release the Vanguard Leader, grant her amnesty, erase her from your karmic sins, and let her live. If a single hair on her head is harmed... I will ascend to the Highest Realm and immediately execute every single member of this Council for treason against the Prosecutor."

The High Council fell silent.

The authority of the cosmic judge resonated in his words.

They had sought to break him, to force his return, and he was offering it to them on a silver platter.

"WANGCHEN, NO!" Ji’an roared, her voice tearing through the chamber, her body vibrating with panic. "I DIDN’T AGREE TO THIS! I TOLD YOU, YOU ARE MINE! YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE DEALS WITH THEM! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

She lunged forward, raising her glowing spatula, preparing to shatter the glass floor and propel herself toward the cage.

But Wangchen knew she wouldn’t stop; she would fight until her lungs gave out.

He had to break her spirit completely.

’Forgive me, my Ji’an,’ his soul wept in agony, even as his face remained a flawless mask of indifference.

Wangchen closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. He reached deep into the suppressed core of his immortal vessel, scraping together the last dregs of his aura.

He didn’t aim at the Seers.

He aimed at the woman he loved more than the universe itself.

He flicked his wrist against the celestial chains, and a single shard of black ice materialised in the air.

It was not a massive scythe. It was small, elegant, and brutally sharp.

It looked exactly like the simple, unadorned ice-shard hairpin she so often used to tie up her silver hair when she was sweating over a hot stove.