Inner City, Wang Family Estate.
Inside the central, largest black fortress, within the highest circular hall.
Han Xiaoyue gracefully walked in, her gaze falling upon the Wang Family Ancestor, who was levitating cross-legged in cultivation.
"Little Wang, I need you to collect images of the most beautiful won in the area. Have portraits made using the artifact and sent to my residence. Thank you."
"...Ah, Senior, the most beautiful? What standard should I use? Everyone has their own subjective criteria, and their perception of beauty differs." The Wang Family Ancestor, in the middle of his cultivation, felt his heart skip a beat at the request. He quickly landed, stood firm, and looked at Han Xiaoyue tentatively.
"I’ve forgotten what I used to look like, but my future self must be the absolute best. As for the standard..." Han Xiaoyue touched the skeletal half of her face. She recalled the types of won who surrounded Lin Hui. "Perfectly proportioned, leaning toward the purer, more innocent type."
"I... Give this junior three days. It will be done!" the Wang Family Ancestor said hurriedly.
"Good." Han Xiaoyue nodded and turned to leave the hall.
A mont later, she pinched an object in her hand, and her figure disintegrated like a feather, scattering away.
Only after she had completely vanished did the Wang Family Ancestor wipe the sweat from his brow and let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness. She rarely makes requests, and this one is relatively simple."
"Grandfather, is Sister Yue trying to restore her original body?" The tall figure of Wang Yuetting erged from a side door.
"Mm, it seems so. Your features are also perfectly proportioned. Don’t be in a hurry to leave. I need an artifact-drawn portrait of you to send over," the Wang Family Ancestor glanced at his granddaughter and instructed.
"But if she rashly undoes her seal, won’t there be trouble? Like that last ti..." Wang Yuetting said with a frown.
"It won’t. Even among her kind, Senior Han is in the top tier of power. Besides, whatever she decides to do, no one else has the right to interfere," the Wang Family Ancestor shook his head.
’...Sigh...’ Wang Yuetting suddenly felt it would have been better not to co ho at all. It was more freeing to be outside. Back here, she had to constantly walk on eggshells around people.
"By the way, where is Yueheng?" her grandfather asked again. "Didn’t we spare him specifically to attend to Senior Han Xiaoyue? Where has he run off to now?"
"...He... was rather badly injured last ti. He hasn’t recovered and is resting," Wang Yuetting said helplessly.
"He can recover from his injuries anyti; it’s not like he’s dying. Get him up. He needs to focus on attending to Senior Yue and find out what’s going on," her grandfather ordered.
"Alright..." Wang Yuetting nodded helplessly, knowing it was a command, not a request.
After all, not just anyone could placate a terrifying monster like Han Xiaoyue. According to the records, dozens of attendants tasked with the sa job before Wang Yueheng had all been devoured by Han when she was displeased... leaving not even a complete corpse behind.
From this perspective, Wang Yueheng was indeed very talented.
"However, Senior Han Xiaoyue recently visited Qingfeng Temple and t with that Lin Hui. She made this request right after coming back. Could it be that she’s actually taken a liking to him?" Wang Yuetting speculated.
"Really?!" The Wang Family Ancestor’s face filled with astonishnt. ’A terrifying monster like that can actually like soone?’
"It’s just a guess," Wang Yuetting said.
"Lin Hui... I really can’t imagine what kind of person could attract Senior Han’s attention..." the Wang Family Ancestor said, though his words lacked sincerity.
To be fancied by such a monster... perhaps this Lin Hui would spend the rest of his life in apprehension and terror. After all, when living with her, it would be all too easy to accidentally displease Senior Han and end up being eaten...
*
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*
「Fog Area, Jade Sea.」
The vast, jade-like surface of the sea rose and fell with the waves.
Sunlight shone down, piercing the fog and landing on the sea, reflecting countless fragnts of green phosphorescence.
On a cliff of the Bone-Eroding Plain bordering the Jade Sea.
Han Xiaoyue’s figure silently appeared and stood still.
This was a quiet place she liked to visit whenever she felt unsettled. Whenever she was troubled, she would co here to relax and take in the beautiful scenery of the Jade Sea.
Although there was fog over the sea, it was much thinner than the fog on land.
HISS.
Suddenly, the silver-edged white gauze on her body dissolved without a sound, revealing the flawless, milky-white skin beneath.
The next second, the skin all over her body rapidly swelled and expanded.
Not only that, but her entire being rapidly deford, like a cluster of grapes made of flesh, quickly sprouting new nodules.
Her skin began to change color, from white to gray, and then to pitch black.
Her body also swelled from its human form, growing to a height of dozens of ters and transforming into a massive, irregular black mass of flesh.
The mass of flesh pressed down on the cliff below, causing it to creak and crack as chunks of rock fell into the Jade Sea.
Right at its center, a fair, delicate, and beautiful face was embedded like a mask. It was Han Xiaoyue.
However, this face did not have the skeletal other half, and a crown of black bone had naturally ford on her head.
SPLASH.
The giant mass of flesh transford again, becoming a black whale that plunged off the cliff and crashed into the Jade Sea.
A massive wave was thrown up and pushed aside.
Han Xiaoyue joyfully swung her tail, swimming rapidly through the seawater. Any sea creatures ahead that couldn’t evade her in ti were instantly bitten and devoured by black, serrated maws that suddenly sprouted from her body’s surface.
With each creature she consud, Han Xiaoyue’s body continued to grow larger and harder...
*
*
*
「Purple Crystal Ruins.」
Lin Hui stood quietly outside the black wooden cave entrance.
Before receiving the resources from his trade with the Good Heart Sect, he had taken so free ti to co and check on the Purple Crystal Ruins.
He placed a hand on the surface of the cave door, about to enter.
Suddenly, a red light flashed in his eyes.
The Purgatory Fla within his body stirred at that mont.
Ever since his trip to the Bone-Eroding Plain to clear out Purgatory-Transford creatures, he had gradually learned to distinguish what each kind of stir ant.
’This feeling now... is there a powerful Purgatory-Transford creature nearby?’ Lin Hui placed his right hand on the Ruyi Sword Handle. He tapped the wooden door lightly with the fingertips of his left hand.
The door opened inward silently.
It was obvious the door wasn’t designed to open inward, but with absolute strength, anything was possible.
Inside the dark ruins, the walls were covered in glowing red patterns that resembled blood vessels.
The ground was dotted with lava pools of various sizes, all emitting wisps of black smoke. The crimson lava bubbled, churned, and boiled.
A wave of intense heat blasted outward the mont the door opened.
Between the lava pools, hunched, humanoid, one-eyed monsters made of purplish-red crystal all turned to look toward the entrance.
"..." Lin Hui hadn’t expected this at all.
’So much for the Purple Crystal Ruins.’
’These Purple Crystal Elents... they’ve clearly undergone Purgatory Transformation... and it looks severe.’
He slowly walked into the cave.
He tried to find any trace of Purple Crystal Ore.
But the rough, raw Purple Crystal Ore that could once be faintly seen on the ground and walls was now completely gone.
All that remained was the boiling crimson lava and the viscous Purgatory Aura in the air.
’Was it the lingering aura of my Inner Strength that unintentionally contaminated this place?’ Lin Hui frowned.
’But that doesn’t feel right. The traces I left in other places were similar to this, so why haven’t they changed so drastically?’
’I’d already done my best to contain my Purgatory Aura... ’
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
Just then, from the depths of the cave, a purplish-red, one-eyed elental that resembled a Tyrannosaurus rex charged out of the darkness, letting out a ferocious roar at Lin Hui.
ROAR!!
The massive monster, over ten ters tall, had only made it halfway when it slamd into the ceiling of the entrance, sending shattered rock showering down like rain.
"Shut up!"
ROAR!!!
As an even greater Purgatory Aura exploded outward, countless wisps of dark red Purgatory Fla appeared behind Lin Hui, coalescing into the phantom of a humanoid monster clad in nacing, spiked lava armor.
The phantom unleashed its own roar, its aura many tis more violent than the one-eyed elental’s. The overwhelming pressure instantly suffocated the creature, forcing it to retreat again and again.
Lin Hui had been trying to recall the possible trigger for everything that had happened here.
Having been suddenly interrupted, a naless rage welled up inside him. The red light in his eyes flared as he looked up at the one-eyed elental.
His hand subconsciously gripped the Ruyi Sword Handle, but he forced it to stop.
’I can’t kill again... If I keep devouring, I won’t be able to maintain my normal human form...’
Reason forcibly suppressed his violent impulse to kill.
Looking at the one-eyed elental, whose aura was faintly approaching the level of a High Priest, the red light in Lin Hui’s eyes subsided. In its place, the Nine Eyes on his shoulder began to glow with a verdant, green light.
Before he could even activate the Nine Eyes, he suddenly saw a flash of fear in the one-eyed elental’s eye.
The next instant, the massive one-eyed elental actually turned and fled, escaping into the depths of the cave.
"..." Lin Hui was silent for a mont, then slowly drew his sword. His figure flickered as he charged deep into the cave.
It didn’t take long for him to reach the spacious stone hall where he had once killed the expert from the Qinghe Sect.
The shattered fragnts of the Divine Statue were still there, but they were now surrounded by a large lake of lava. Aside from the area with the statue fragnts in the center, there was no other place to stand.
Lin Hui’s gaze swept around. He didn’t see the one-eyed elental, but in the center of the Divine Statue’s ruins, he discovered a floating, dark-red ball of light.
The ball of light twisted and writhed, seemingly trying to change its shape, to stretch out and form sothing resembling a door.
Looking at the ball of light, Lin Hui felt an inexplicable, strong sense of affinity well up within him.
’That is the path to your holand, a node that can return you to the Mother’s embrace... Protect it, coalesce it, open it... You will receive the mark of the Lord of Purgatory... Forge your own immortality!’
An inexplicable ssage suddenly flowed into Lin Hui’s mind, repeating itself over and over.
His brows furrowed tightly.
Knowing it was the Purgatory Aura playing tricks, he imdiately sent his Inner Strength surging across his body’s surface. At the sa ti, he channeled the air currents of his Typhoon Swordsmanship, condensing and strengthening the special effect, Wind of Surrounding.
The ssage quickly faded, clearly disrupted.
’Open the Gate of Purgatory? Am I insane? Do I want to destroy the world?’ Lin Hui’s figure flashed, crossing the lava lake in an instant to appear before the ball of light.
"Co... coalesce it... open it..." Now that he was closer, the ssage erged again, this ti faintly turning into a whisper in his ear.
"You’re too noisy."
He raised his Ruyi Sword, its tip pointed at the ball of light.
"Sealed Spirit!"
CH-CH-CH-CH!!
In an instant, nine beams of green light shot out, transforming into nine translucent phantoms of Fog Area monsters.
The nine phantoms flew around the ball of light, transforming in the blink of an eye into nine erald green ribbons that wrapped around the light, enveloping it layer by layer.
Soon, after a piercing shriek, the unford Gate of Purgatory was completely pulled by the Nine Eyes into its second crystal.
Everything fell silent.
’It really was conscious... This must be an unford Gate of Purgatory, right? According to the Blood Seal’s description, Sealed Spirit can only be used on conscious entities. So, that voice just now must have been this Gate of Purgatory playing tricks.’
The fact that a door that hadn’t even fully ford could gain consciousness made Lin Hui even more certain that he must never rashly open a Gate of Purgatory—unless, one day, he truly wanted to destroy the world.
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