Saving little Shengsheng from Fan Chen shouldn’t have needed Qing Feng Yuelian; she simply moved first, like a gust cutting through reeds.
When Fan Chen bared that eerie dagger, Yuelian’s heart frayed like ice under spring thaw; she lacked Qingyu Mengyin’s steadiness to parley with that thing.
“Mmm…”
“The little one’s off—like a sparrow shivering—Dreamsound, you okay?” Yuelian cradled Tangxue, worry rolling in like cold rain.
“Aunt, watch her for me,” Dreamsound’s voice was soft as dusk. “I’ll handle this; I won’t let him walk from this fire.”
“Mm…”
Fan Chen’s reason burned away like dry leaves; a crimson fruit bloomed in his palm, and he swallowed it like a drop of blood.
He’d meant to keep it as a trophy, a red ember on a shelf; he never thought he’d need its flame.
He torched every function of his body, wreathed in a scarlet blaze; he drank the city’s last energy like a drained river into his broken frame.
He meant to take them all down, a candle willing itself to explode in a storm.
“Go to hell, you demon!” Fan Chen howled, a jackal crying into the night.
His final strike wasn’t a thunder dragon, nor a sky-splitting bolt; it drifted toward Dreamsound as a burning fire-beast.
Its eyes held greed and pride, a furnace that eats the world, as if nothing under heaven could touch it.
Even Qing Feng Yuelian felt a chill at her neck, a hint of frost from that beast.
An ordinary man without godly magic had birthed a threat to two true gods; that fruit wasn’t meant for hands like his.
But Qingyu Mengyin never gave him a second glance, like moonlight ignoring a torch.
Even this beast.
The fire-beast saw her and opened a mouth like a cave, wide enough to swallow Dreamsound in one gulp.
Dreamsound only looked, her gaze cool as lake glass; her hands cradled a tri-colored blossom, a lotus with yellow outer petals.
Yellow light flashed, a halo forming like dawn; the beast’s jaws touched it, shuddered, screamed like steam, then vanished into air.
The Three-Life Flower.
A weapon of causality, a shield first and blade second; its strength rises with how much karma owes its bearer.
When Fan Chen saw the Three-Life Flower stop his last, he crumbled like clay in rain.
“Impossible, it’s impossible! Why—why can your Three-Life Flower block my attack? It shouldn’t, it can’t! How could a demon like you be recognized?”
He clawed his scalp like a mad dog, then dropped, powerless, onto the ground.
If the Three-Life Flower stood for her, the world’s ledger wrote in her favor; the plane’s master owed her, and its law bent like wind to her grip.
Compared to misfortune, the “demon” in his mouth wasn’t lesser; she was a storm born of deeper night.
Now if she said her kin were slaughtered, graves dug up, spirit tablets burned like paper in enemy hands, most would believe.
That truth broke Fan Chen; he became lord for vengeance, a torch fed by pitch, and he’d do anything for the flame.
Yet in the pageant of suffering, he lost; his ash weighed lighter than hers.
Dreamsound had cleaner ways to kill him, sharper than winter steel; but he showed what she should never see, a knife of memory.
She wouldn’t just kill him; she’d make living taste like ashes.
“What’s wrong? The Three-Life Flower stops your steps like mud? You know what it does, right?”
“Get up. Aren’t I the storm that ruined your home? Weren’t you going to kill me to honor your dead?”
“My sad story isn’t your grudge, right? Right?”
Yes. She’s the enemy who ruined my home. She must die, like a wolf’s oath in snow.
Rage flared in Fan Chen’s dead eyes like coals; he stood, roaring, an animal ready to bleed the world.
He even tried to self-detonate, a failing star straining to burst.
Sadly, his remaining mana wasn’t enough; the spark couldn’t find tinder.
At last, the city lord burned his life to cinders; even his soul went up like moth-wing in flame.
Born for hate, he died inside hate, a circle closing like winter night.
Yuelian watched, her voice calm as drizzle. “So this is your research, little Dreamsound?”
“Mm… I need the trident to barely pull it off; it’s not even a tenth of back then.”
To infect emotion and steer battle through feelings—she drew that from a red-gold flame, an ember that whispered.
She’d thought much these days; the past was foggier than she’d believed, a maze of mist.
“Aunt, give me Shengsheng; it’s dawn for her to wake.”
“Mm… I still want to hold her a while,” Yuelian stepped forward, arms a harbor reluctant to let go.
“I almost forgot—there’s a bug watching,” Dreamsound’s disgust was frost; she stared at a shadow like at a fly on meat.
A blood-light flashed in; a scarlet claw raked her back, leaving bone-deep grooves like gouged ice.
Blue-gold blood washed her white dress like twilight waves; her hair flowed uncut, a river of silk.
“I thought a true god would be mighty,” Edgar laughed, hot as iron. “One swipe landed easily; gods aren’t much before my Blood Rage, Fifth Boil.”
“You want to kill me? You don’t qualify.” He licked the blue-gold blood, tongue a serpent. “Good taste, packed with vast magic.”
“You’re pretty; shame. Hit by my boiling blood claw, your blood will soon—”
“Already healed.” Dreamsound stood, stretching like a cat; she touched her back, and water wove her a clean dress.
“What!? How’s that possible!!”
“You’re noisy.” Her glare was winter; spears of water formed midair like rain-hardened ice.
Before Edgar could blink, several lances pinned him like shadows; they pierced without wounds, a pain that left no mark.
“AAAHHHHH—” He screamed, face twisted, a soul torn like paper; his mind staggered on shattered glass.
Before the thirteenth spear took his heart, he turned to blood mist and fled like dusk wind.
“Pity… missed by a hair, and he slipped the net,” Dreamsound said, regret like a sigh on a lake.
The biggest illusion in life is, I can do it.
Against foes with high recovery, Dreamsound has far too many storms to send.
