Wenren Li had told him that whenever he missed him, all Chen Yixin needed to do was shake the bell and activate the mark Wenren Li had left behind, and Wenren Li would come. Chen Yixin had missed him, so he did exactly that—and as a bonus, he had even summoned a rare form of nourishment for Wenren Li.
At those words, Wenren Li shifted slightly. One hand wrapped around Chen Yixin’s waist and carried him upward. At the same time, the thunderclouds overhead pressed down, and a bolt of black punishment lightning descended. The terrifying pressure made every cultivator and living creature in Yong’an City feel as though they were being cut apart alive.
An Cheng believed that with Wenren Li present, Chen Yixin would be safe, but the instant the lightning descended, his heart still leaped into his throat. His back bent slightly beneath the pressure; even he was struggling to withstand it.
The only two people whose expressions remained unchanged beneath the descending punishment were Chen Yixin and Wenren Li.
Chen Yixin leaned close and kissed Wenren Li’s cheek. His spiritual wings beat once, carrying him free of Wenren Li’s embrace. He closed his eyes and instantly returned to his phoenix true body, continuing the final steps of the Soul-Gathering Dance.
Wenren Li, meanwhile, received every divine punishment descending to stop Chen Yixin. He did almost nothing himself. A sapling about half a man’s height flew from between his brows and entered the thunderclouds. After that, the terrifying pressure ceased entirely.
At the same time, the weight crushing the divine souls of every living creature disappeared, as though the agony from moments before had merely been an illusion.
A mass of black, restless spiritual power danced in Wenren Li’s palm. He studied it calmly. No matter how violently the punishment struggled, it could not cause the slightest disturbance in his hand.
Chen Yixin’s phoenix true body vanished abruptly, then reappeared beneath the thunderclouds. He transformed into human form once more, while the spiritual wings spread behind him dissolved into a rain of spiritual light. Fully formed soul forms descended within that spiritual rain.
The soul forms sank back into the corpses below. Visible to the naked eye, the death aura around those bodies began to disappear, while their fatal injuries slowly healed beneath the spiritual rain. They could not be called fully recovered, but their lives had truly been wrested back from death by Chen Yixin.
“Qiu Yi, An Cheng, I’ll leave the rest to you.”
As Chen Yixin spoke, his body swayed. Every trace of divine power within him had been exhausted. Before he could even react, Wenren Li appeared beside him, gathered him into his arms, and disappeared from the square.
What Chen Yixin had accomplished that night was enough to stun every general and soldier in and around Yong’an City.
If Chen Yixin could bring the dead back to life, then even if they died in battle, they might still return. Such a heaven-defying thing was almost impossible to comprehend. Even the people directly benefiting from it found it difficult to believe, because it completely overturned everything they had once understood about life and death.
“Our Demon Consort is the divine scion—a true member of the divine race…”
After thinking it over again and again, they could only attribute Chen Yixin’s miraculous ability to his extraordinary origins.
And that was merely their reaction in the first few days. Once the soldiers had fully absorbed what this meant, it would become an unimaginably terrifying source of military strength. If death was no longer necessarily the end, then the instinctive fear of dying in battle would disappear with it.
A terrifying Undying Army had begun taking shape that night. It would become a nightmare for Taixuan—and, in the future, a nightmare for the Upper Realm and the Otherworld Demons as well.
“The punishment… the punishment just… disappeared?”
The Soul Transformation experts who could truly sense how terrifying that punishment had been were equally shaken. Chen Yixin’s miraculous power might perhaps be explained by his origins, but Wenren Li had appeared and simply made the terrifying lightning punishment vanish.
Chen Yixin was extraordinary, yet Wenren Li, who had been born in Taixuan, was hardly any less so.
Ze Fang withdrew his distant gaze and looked at Han Zichuan beside him, whose face was filled with obvious confusion. A rope-shaped treasure flew from Ze Fang’s hand and bound Han Zichuan.
Whether Han Zichuan was truly a spy of the immortal path was not something Han Zichuan himself got to decide. Ze Fang would determine that after questioning him.
Once bound, Han Zichuan finally recovered somewhat from his daze. He glanced at the rope wrapped around him. Before Ze Fang could step closer, Han Zichuan disappeared directly from within it. A treasure capable of restraining a Soul Transformation expert still could not hold him.
A trace of hesitation appeared on Ze Fang’s face, but he did not pursue him. He had the distinct feeling he would not be able to catch Han Zichuan anyway. There was little point wasting effort on something impossible. Still, he would have to report the incident to Chen Yixin afterward.
As for Chen Yixin, Wenren Li carried him directly back to the residence prepared for him in Yong’an City. Wenren Li’s expression remained unreadably calm, leaving Chen Yixin completely unable to tell what he was thinking.
“A-Li still hasn’t answered me.” Chen Yixin had said he missed Wenren Li. Shouldn’t Wenren Li say the same thing back? Chen Yixin lifted one finger and poked Wenren Li lightly in the cheek. “Hm?”
Wenren Li glanced at him but still did not answer. He carried Chen Yixin all the way to the bed before pausing and sitting down with him. Then, in the next instant, Chen Yixin found himself turned around.
Chen Yixin’s eyes widened, and he immediately covered his backside with both hands. He could not understand why Wenren Li suddenly looked as though he intended to punish him again.
“A-Li, what are you doing? I didn’t even cause any trouble…”
Before he could finish, Wenren Li pulled his hands aside. Chen Yixin’s divine power was almost completely depleted, leaving him very little strength to resist. His face flushed as he huffed indignantly, but in the end he resigned himself to his fate and closed his eyes.
Yet Wenren Li still could not bring himself to strike him. He slowly turned Chen Yixin back around, placed two fingers beneath his chin, and asked in a voice that was cold and exceedingly stern, “Do you know what you did wrong?”
Chen Yixin cautiously cracked open one eye. Once he realized Wenren Li did not actually have the heart to hit him, he slowly opened the other one too and gently wrapped both arms around Wenren Li’s waist. “A-Li, I know I was wrong.”
Chen Yixin admitted fault with extraordinary speed, but this time Wenren Li was not so easily fooled. He stroked Chen Yixin’s cheek and immediately asked, “What did you do wrong?”
Chen Yixin blinked. He clearly had no idea whatsoever, but he had always been good with words. He turned his head, kissed Wenren Li’s palm, and looked sideways at him. “Whatever A-Li says I did wrong, that’s what I did wrong.”
Visible helplessness appeared on Wenren Li’s face. He pulled Chen Yixin closer, his voice softening even though his expression remained serious. “If you want to practice the Soul-Gathering Art, I won’t stop you. But what you did today—gathering hundreds, nearly a thousand souls at once—must never happen again. If your divine power is insufficient, the technique will begin drawing on your soul essence instead.”
Soul essence was nothing like lifespan. Lifespan might still be restored through certain methods, but soul essence was the very essence of Chen Yixin’s soul power. Even Wenren Li possessed few ways to replenish it. That was precisely why he had nearly resorted to giving Chen Yixin another lesson in the same manner as before.
This had only been the beginning, so the amount consumed might have been small. But if Chen Yixin continued behaving recklessly over a long period of time, even small losses would accumulate. Wenren Li was perfectly willing to indulge Chen Yixin in many things, but when it came to Chen Yixin deliberately harming himself, there was absolutely no room for indulgence.
“A-Rong, I don’t need to tell you what happens if your soul essence is damaged, do I?”
After listening to him, the obedient expression Chen Yixin had deliberately put on gradually faded. He slowly sat upright and leaned against Wenren Li’s shoulder. “I know. I promise I’ll control it properly from now on. I’m going to stay with A-Li for a very, very long time.”
By saying that, Chen Yixin made it clear that he had no intention of giving up the Soul-Gathering Art. The souls he ultimately wanted to recover were not merely those of fallen Demon Guards. What he truly wanted were the souls of Qingruo, Lin Yu, and the others.
It would be incredibly difficult. Judging by the situation now, there was almost no hope at all. But Chen Yixin had no intention of giving up. Any technique cultivated to its utmost could possess unimaginable power. The Soul-Gathering Dance itself had an extremely simple origin; even priests and elders among ancient clans had once known how to perform it.
But Chen Yixin was an Ice Phoenix, born with an innate ability to condense souls and gather scattered spirits. Combined with the Soul-Gathering Dance, its effect became something entirely different. Perhaps, somewhere in the unseen order of things, he truly was meant to call back the lives of those gods who had died unjustly when they should never have died at all.
Wenren Li did not doubt Chen Yixin’s determination to recover Qingruo, Lin Yu, and the others. Nor would he stop Chen Yixin from pursuing that goal. But the first condition was that Chen Yixin protect himself. Those people deserved to return, but not at the cost of Chen Yixin’s life.
They remained leaning against one another for the entire night. When Chen Yixin finally opened the door the next morning, Wenren Li had already left. After asking Ze Fang about the condition of the resurrected soldiers, Chen Yixin returned to his room and resumed cultivating so he could replenish the divine power he still had not completely recovered since the night before.
Sigh… if I’d known, we shouldn’t have just sat there all night. I should’ve had A-Li dual cultivate with me until morning. Then I wouldn’t have to sit here tediously recovering my divine power… Given the atmosphere the night before, however, even if the thought had crossed his mind, Chen Yixin had not dared make the request.
For now, he could only complain to himself and continue meditating.
After Lingshan City fell, the Southern Territory’s demon army did not slow its advance. The Ten Demon Generals entered battle one after another. Some won, some lost, but Chen Yixin’s side possessed unfair advantages in the form of Chen Yixin himself and Qiu Yi.
Qiu Yi could not bring the dead back to life the way Chen Yixin could, but the spiritual medicines he refined could practically be called divine medicines. As long as even the faintest trace of life remained, there was still a chance of saving the injured.
Afterward, Chen Yixin established a separate personal guard unit. Anyone admitted into it would receive the blessing of his divine power, allowing them the possibility of returning from death and perhaps even receiving personal guidance from Chen Yixin himself.
The Demon Army already trusted Chen Yixin almost absolutely. Now the soldiers fought even harder to catch his eye, each hoping to earn a place in the newly established personal guard. The unit had not yet received a formal name, but the epithet “Undying” was already beginning to spread.
Because the unit’s size was fixed, even when casualties occurred, the number of souls Chen Yixin needed to gather would never exceed his limits. Terrifying punishment lightning still descended every time he performed the Soul-Gathering Dance, and whenever it did, Wenren Li appeared to ensure Chen Yixin remained unharmed.
At the same time, Ze Fang and the others began to notice that every few days, when Wenren Li appeared again, the aura around him had grown even more terrifying. At times they even felt that Wenren Li himself was more frightening than the punishment lightning. Chen Yixin sensed the same thing, but he knew it was because Wenren Li was arriving directly in the middle of absorbing the Severed Wood Remnant and had no time to restrain his aura first.
That night, Wenren Li arrived carrying the same terrifying pressure. With a single beckoning motion, the punishment lightning flowed directly from his palm into his body. Before long, he had absorbed it completely.
Once Chen Yixin returned the gathered soul forms to the soldiers’ bodies, he walked toward Wenren Li.
He gently took Wenren Li’s hand and led him toward the command tent where he was staying, occasionally sneaking glances at him along the way.
“I’ve listened to A-Li properly. I haven’t done anything reckless these past few days.” At a turn where no one else could see them, Chen Yixin quickly leaned over and pecked Wenren Li on the cheek.
Wenren Li, who was concentrating on restraining his aura, paused and stopped dividing his attention.
His aura naturally terrified everyone else, but Chen Yixin was different. Even when Chen Yixin himself found the pressure difficult to endure, his desire to be close to Wenren Li still outweighed everything else.
Of course, reaching this point had not been easy either. Chen Yixin had needed several attempts to adapt. Only tonight had his courage finally grown enough. He continued pulling Wenren Li toward the tent, and a barrier rose behind them the moment they entered.
“A-Li, would you be willing to help me recover my divine power?” Chen Yixin asked softly, wearing a rather serious expression.
Wenren Li did not think much of it and nodded. But the moment he lifted a hand, Chen Yixin stopped him.
“A-Li’s divine power doesn’t feel comfortable when I use it like that. There’s… another method. Don’t tell me you don’t know.”
Chen Yixin puffed out his cheeks slightly. His eyes, tinged with unmistakable seduction, stared directly at Wenren Li. He had no intention of concealing what he meant. Wenren Li might not have understood before, but surely he understood now.
“I know. I was only worried the aura around me would make A-Rong uncomfortable.” Otherwise, how could Wenren Li possibly not want to be closer to Chen Yixin? The aura around him came not only from the divine power contained within the Severed Wood Remnant, but also from the punishment lightning he had just absorbed.
It was called the Divine-Fall Punishment. Ordinary Divine Lords would naturally hate such an aura, and Chen Yixin was unlikely to be an exception.
“Then A-Li should work even harder to make me feel good, and I should work harder to get used to it. What, if it takes you ten thousand years to absorb everything and me ten thousand years to adapt, are we supposed to spend ten thousand years unable to touch each other?”
Absolutely not.
As a phoenix divine bird, Chen Yixin had never avoided his own desire. And he certainly would not allow Wenren Li to avoid it either. Faced with such an open and passionate phoenix, even a tree as cold and restrained as Wenren Li could only be set aflame.
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