Chapter 611 - 382: Cripple You

The suffocating, narrow corridors of the seventh floor felt like the entrails of a dying beast.

Qian Yunxi flew away, breathing heavily as she moved through the maze, breathing heavily.

Her remaining white gold wings beat with ragged, uneven spasms, kicking up plumes of foul dust from the cracked obsidian flagstones.

Every breath she pulled into her burning chest tasted of copper, sulfur, and ancient bile.

The blackened, cursed scar carving across the left side of her face throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse that sent blinding needles of pain shooting directly into her soul sea.

Dark crimson still trickled from the jagged seam, running down her jawline and dripping off her chin, splattering against the tattered remnants of her white battle tunic.

Yet she refused to slow down. She ignored the tearing agony in her cracked ribs and the hollow, parched emptiness in her spiritual dantian.

The notification from her sub-system burned brightly within her consciousness like an unquenchable star.

The main system had already connected itself to her sub-system, and Shen Haoran is definitely here and taking the trials to reach her.

She has to descend the tower and meet up with him.

At this moment, she did not care about the grand imperial inheritance waiting at the apex of the tower; she did not care about the crown of that Divine Emperor or the dead glory of an extinct epoch.

All that mattered was navigating backward through this nightmarish, shifting labyrinth, finding the descending stairwell, and stepping back into the shadow of his presence where nothing in heaven or earth could ever touch her again.

HUUUUUUM—CRACK!

The damp air behind her suddenly ionized, screeching with the shrill whistle of displaced reality!

Just then, a beam of light moved through the maze!

It did not travel in a straight, predictable line; it refracted off the polished dark walls with horrifying precision, zigzagging through three blind corners at the speed faster than light!

And before Qian Yunxi could even react, the light reached her and exploded on her right wing!

BOOOOOOOOM!

"AHHHHHHH!"

A sound like tearing silk and snapping bone echoed through the corridor as the destructive light detonated against the root of her upper right wing!

Golden feathers, charred black and burning with sickly grey smoke, scattered across the corridor like dying embers!

The holy limb was shredded down to its flesh and bone, the concussive kinetic force violently wrenching her entire spine to the side!

Her flight disrupted, gravity seized her battered frame like an iron hand as she crashed hard against the unforgiving stone floor, her shoulder taking the brunt of the impact!

She tumbled across twenty yards of jagged rock, her limbs scraping against the rough slate, leaving a smeared trail of crimson across the floorboards.

She collided violently against the base of an ancient pillar, the wind knocked completely from her lungs in a breathless, choked gasp!

Her vision blurred into a dizzying vortex of black and scarlet.

Every muscle in her body screamed for her to close her eyes, to surrender to the cold numbness creeping up her limbs, to simply lay there and sleep.

But she bit down hard on her lower lip until the metallic warmth of fresh blood flooded her mouth, shocking her groggy consciousness back into razor-sharp focus!

Her trembling, blood-slicked fingers dug into the cracks between the floorstones, clawing for balance.

Her knees shook violently, her breath coming in ragged, shallow wheezes, but she forced her spine straight against the cold masonry of the pillar.

She would not die groveling in the dirt, and she would not let that wretched worm see her crawl.

With her right wing crippled and dragging limply behind her like a broken fan, she abandoned flight, breaking into a frantic, limping sprint down the shadowed corridor!

Her boots hammered against the wet stone, her hand bracing against the wall as she threw herself around another sharp bend in the maze, desperate to find the passage that led to the lower tiers!

But then...

SHING.

The space ten paces ahead of her rippled like oil poured over water.

The displacement was instantaneous, devoid of sound, accompanied only by the faint, digital shudder of a high-tier movement skill being engaged.

Then, from that ripple of space, Qing Yan appeared.

Qian Yunxi’s boots skidded across the slick flagstones, coming to an abrupt, breathless halt.

Her right eye burned with pure, unyielding fury, while her scarred left cheek twitched with dull, throbbing pain.

"You bastard...." Qian Yunxi clenched her fist.

She really regretted getting involved with this guy. If she knew he’d be this ungrateful, she shouldn’t have saved him from that cult in the Ancient Heaven Star.

"Bastard? Maybe." Qing Yan’s face was contorted into an ugly, twitching mask of cold fury and lingering, humiliated agony.

His thighs were still trembling slightly from the brutal blow she had delivered to his groin, his posture slightly hunched, but the dark, unstable aura of his Spirit Ascension cultivation surged around his frame like a suffocating shroud of black mist.

In his right hand, the curved, grey-steeled scimitar hummed with an ominous thirst as if it wanted to drink souls, and was dripping drops of corrosive venom that hissed as they struck the stone.

"Why are you running, Yunxi? Look at you. Dragging your broken wings through the maze, bleeding like a slaughtered lamb, running toward the exit like a frightened animal. For what?"

He took a slow, heavy step forward, his bloodshot eyes locking onto the jagged, blackened scar carving across her porcelain face with twisted, possessive intensity.

"Do you really want to be ruined by that Shen Haoran than be with me?" Qing Yan snarled, his lips curling back over red-stained teeth. "You know what he is! The moment he sees that hideous, rotting gash on your face, the disgust in his eyes will turn your blood to ice! He will look at you with revulsion, cast you aside into the gutter, and leave you to rot in obscurity while he takes other unblemished maidens to his bed! Why run to a man who will discard you like trash, when I am standing right here, willing to embrace your ruin and cherish every drop of your blood?!"

Qian Yunxi did not answer.

She did not waste a single breath on his pathetic, diseased delusions. Words were meaningless against a madman whose soul had been warped by jealousy and rotten ambition.

Her silence was louder than thunder, colder than the deepest winter, and heavy with the irredeemable contempt she held for him.

CLANG!

A crisp, incandescent chime rang out as her holy sword materialized in her right hand!

The golden blade, though chipped along the fuller from the grueling battles against the previous six guardians, flared with a fierce, defiant solar fire!

She lowered her center of gravity, her left foot sliding back half a pace, holding the broad hilt with both hands.

Her crippled right wing hung dead, but her remaining left wing flared wide, shedding brilliant white gold sparks that pushed back the foul, oily miasma radiating from his weapon.

Her gaze was locked onto his throat—unflinching, unbending, and ready to carve his heart out or perish on the stone.

Qing Yan stared at her unyielding posture, the furious silence in her eyes confirming that no matter what he said, no matter how many times he tried to tear down the pedestal of Shen Haoran, she would never look upon him with anything other than revulsion.

Qing Yan sighed.

The sound was heavy, disappointed, and cold as a tomb slab falling into place.

Finally, the last faint trace of human emotion drained from his gaze, replaced by an abyss of pure, psychotic darkness.

The dark entity lurking within his sea of consciousness whispered with feral, razor-sharp glee, locking onto her trembling limbs like a vulture spotting fresh meat.

"You forced my hand, Yunxi," Qing Yan hissed, his vocal cords vibrating with two distinct, layered frequencies. "You left me no choice. You refuse to see reason, so I will strip away your ability to run."

The grey blade in his hand ignited with a terrifying black miasma that seem to bend and distort space.

"I will keep you here with me, even if it meant crippling you!"

He bared his teeth in a grotesque, rabid snarl, the air around his boots detonating as he prepared to lung forward.

"I’ll sever your tendons! I’ll break both your knees and tear the remaining wings from your back! When you can no longer walk, when you can no longer fly, you will have no choice but to lie in my arms and let me feed you, let me hold you, and let me love you for the rest of eternity!"

*

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On the other side.

Far beneath the seventh floor, at the grand, blood-soaked graveyard of the first trial.

The heavy, metallic smell of fresh slaughter drifted upon the draft, mingling with the ancient reek of the primeval boneyard.

Shen Haoran stood there, completely emotionless, rubbing his wrist.

Around his tall, immaculate figure, the ground was a sea of dissolving ash and fractured bone.

Hundreds of winged abominations—the very same rotting celestial warriors that had forced Qian Yunxi to wage a desperate, life or death battle of purification across hours of agonizing slaughter—lay pulverized into smoking dust.

Their shattered halberds were ground into iron powder; their maggot-ridden, decayed wings were severed and charred by spatial severance, their greenish ghost-fires extinguished like cheap lanterns pinched between two fingers.

Ling Luochen was standing behind him, eyes wide in shock.

Her slender hands trembled as she pressed them against her chest, her breath catching in her throat.

She had followed Haoran through the ancient gateway, bracing herself for an apocalyptic, grueling expedition through an ancient forbidden realm.

She had expected grand arrays, cautious scouting, and tactical formations.

But the moment she and Haoran had taken a single step at the ground of the graveyard, the earth had heaved, and an ocean of winged corpses had erupted from the burial sludge like a tidal wave of rotting meat, shrieking their deafening curses, lunging forward with thousands of rusted blades meant to drown intruders in blood!

Yet Haoran just casually slapped them away like swatting a fly!

He had not drawn Azathoth, he had not unleashed his Genesis Protocol, nor had he called upon Supreme Trinity slumbering within his soul.

He had simply walked forward in unhurried, measured strides, his hands casually tucked behind his back.

Whenever a horde of fifty colossal ghouls descended upon his blind spot, he merely lifted a single, pale hand and flicked his wrist.

A casual backhand.

A flick of his fingers.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The spatial laws around his palms had simply detonated, manifesting invisible, mountain-cracking palms of pure conceptual force that flattened the charging armies into pulp!

Bones snapped like dry twigs, rotting skulls exploded into grey mist, and ancient armor was crushed into paper-thin sheets of scrap before the monsters could even graze the hem of his black-and-gold dragon robes!

What had been a sacred, terrifying trial of ancestral survival for common candidates was, to this golden-haired monster, nothing more than brushing aside annoying cobwebs in a dusty cellar!

Haoran turned towards her, his unblinking golden eyes were cold, calm, and utterly indifferent to the sea of dissolving ash around his boots.

There was no sweat on his brow, no elevation in his breathing, and no flicker of pride in his expression.

"Let’s go. We have no time to waste here."

His boots stepped smoothly across the cracked marble, moving straight toward the colossal, ascending archway that led to the upper tiers of the tower.

He was here to take back someone, not to participate in trials.

An ancient emperor’s test? The sacred trial belonging to an ancient forgotten Empire? The inheritance of a long-dead supreme?

To him, they were meaningless garbage.

He had not crossed regional borders, torn through forbidden wastelands, and breached dimensional seals to play games by someone else’s rules.

Qian Yunxi was his subordinate, a member of his inner circle, and someone who belonged under his banner.

If an ancient tomb dared to lock its gates and hold her hostage, he would simply smash through every obstacles, tear down every pillar, and drag her out by force.

He will not waste time on these things.

Ling Luochen blinked, the brilliant golden light reflecting off his broad back pulling her mind out of its stupor as she quickly snapped out of her daze and followed him.

"Young Master, wait for me!" she called out, quickly hitching her travel pack and jogging across the pulverized bone to fall into step behind his right shoulder.

Her eyes darted to the hovering blue system pane, watching the pulsing amber marker where Qian Yunxi is, her heart surging with an unshakeable, thrilling confidence as she walked in the wake of an unstoppable god.