“Xiao Ji, are you really okay with this?”
The sound of water from the bathroom mixed with Xue Ji’s heavy breathing, painting a rather suggestive picture.
“And here you are, acting all innocent at a time like this? If my lack of resistance means you can’t bring yourself to do it, then maybe we should switch places.”
Two hours later.
“Xiao Ji, you can… you can stop now.” Ling Xiaoxiao’s voice was trembling and delicate, far from her usual ethereal tone.
“You’re right, the building is about to collapse.”
The defensive array Xue Ji had left behind was the only thing holding up this ordinary residential building, allowing it to withstand the devastation that the magical flora had wrought across the entire city.
“Then let’s go to your place.”
Arcane light flickered, teleporting them both to Ling Xiaoxiao’s mountain villa.
“Continue?” Xue Ji pushed Ling Xiaoxiao onto the bed, her gaze hazy.
Seeing her like this, Ling Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but feel a flutter of nervousness.
‘There’s no turning back now.’
Even so, with the mood set, there was no way they could just stop.
“Then bring it on!” Ling Xiaoxiao, as if having made up her mind, actively met her advance.
Another hour passed.
“Xiaoxiao, are you okay? You were screaming pretty loudly just now.”
“I’m fine.”
Another three hours passed.
“Continue.”
“Huh?!”
The full moon hung high in the sky.
“Ling Xiaoxiao, I love you.”
“Yes, I… love you too.”
Ling Xiaoxiao was starting to feel overwhelmed, while Xue Ji, having just experienced this for the first time, seemed completely tireless.
They fought from sunset until the moon was bright, and from deep into the night until the early morning.
It wasn’t until noon the next day, when sunlight spilled over them, that Xue Ji finally woke up.
Looking at the thoroughly wrecked room, Xue Ji recalled the madness of the previous night. The images made her blush and her heart race; she couldn’t believe her own behavior.
‘Xiao Ji, you were… amazing last night…’ The young woman in the ru skirt’s shy voice came through from within Xue Ji’s consciousness.
Xue Ji found it utterly ridiculous. How could this millennia-old fossil act like it was her first time seeing something like this?
‘Wasn’t your era even more wild? Or are all you cultivators really that conservative?’
‘Yes, we were,’ the young woman in the ru skirt replied quickly, but her lack of conviction revealed the truth.
Xue Ji ignored the other’s muttering. After a thousand years, who was she trying to fool with this act?
The expected exhaustion didn’t come; instead, she felt refreshed and clear-headed. Xue Ji looked at Ling Xiaoxiao, who was still fast asleep beside her, and gently stroked her cheek.
Xue Ji felt the situation had taken a strange turn. She didn’t dislike Ling Xiaoxiao; she remembered very clearly the time Ling Xiaoxiao had pretended to have amnesia, asking Xue Ji to take her in.
But everything that happened afterward, starting from when Ling Xiaoxiao lost control, showed an increasingly obvious tendency towards self-destruction.
It was as if reality itself was constantly tempting Ling Xiaoxiao to destroy herself. In her fight against Cain, she had chosen mutual destruction as her first option more than once.
And yesterday, Xue Ji could clearly sense Ling Xiaoxiao’s soul gradually fading away amidst an internal conflict. If she hadn’t returned, she dared not imagine the outcome.
‘Something’s wrong.’
From the moment she met Ling Xiaoxiao, Xue Ji had felt an invisible force influencing how events unfolded. The feelings between her and Ling Xiaoxiao were always steered towards a painful conclusion.
Looking back, her initial dependence on Xue Ji now seemed more like an instinctive warning, even a cry for help.
The instinct for survival allows beings to perceive danger and react subconsciously. This ability was very evident in Shaya, Ling Xiaoxiao, and even the demon god Fenrir, sometimes evolving into a powerful capability to sense threats from beyond the world.
When Fenrir met the party of heroes, it actively sought death, even having Xue Ji forge its body into a weapon. Even after its consciousness remained, it refused to communicate with Xue Ji.
This doubt had always troubled Xue Ji, and now it prompted her to start making connections.
Ling Xiaoxiao must have sensed something too, and the threat was an indescribable, immense terror.
Xue Ji suddenly recalled the final line in the superpowered awakening prompt.
“Awakening will make the awakener more aggressive.”
When Xue Ji awakened her ability, the madness she displayed had absolutely nothing to do with Lilith. That surge of emotion had emerged naturally along with the awakening. If not for Lilith’s presence, she might not have maintained her own consciousness. The instructors responsible for the awakening had actually been just a hair’s breadth from death.
When testing Xue Ji’s ability, Instructor Chen Shijie’s feeling of danger was real! His ability was highly sensitive to danger and hostility; his strong reaction was no accident. At that moment, Xue Ji truly might have killed him.
Looking at it now, this anomaly was probably the work of that “thing.”
Thinking about this sent a chill down Xue Ji’s spine. Even trapped in the crevice space, that entity had begun influencing the world from a very early stage.
In the images recorded on the first boundary stele, the leader served by those hordes of great demons, the terrifying existence that forced the world’s consciousness to abandon hope, was still watching them.
Its influence, in terms of both scope and duration, far exceeded Xue Ji’s imagination.
A feeling of powerlessness seeped from the depths of her heart, causing Xue Ji to tremble uncontrollably.
“Xiao Ji, what’s wrong?” Ling Xiaoxiao moved closer, pulling Xue Ji into her embrace.
“You can feel that thing’s gaze too, can’t you?”
Xue Ji pressed herself tightly against Ling Xiaoxiao. The skin-to-skin contact, the warmth of her body, all made her feel safe.
“Yes.” Ling Xiaoxiao’s response was very calm. “But you shouldn’t know about this.”
“Stop with the nonsense. When did it start?”
“From the time my master was still alive, from when the Rocs in my memory were annihilated.”
“You’re such an idiot. Why didn’t you tell me? If you had told me, wouldn’t it have been better to let me help you bear it?”
Feeling the sincerity radiating from the other’s embrace, the feeling she had always longed for, Ling Xiaoxiao smiled with immense satisfaction.
“Even without telling you, you were helping me bear it, even seeing through its tricks, weren’t you? My Sage.”
“It’s not the same! Don’t change the subject!” Xue Ji buried her face deeper into her arms. “You were thinking of carrying it alone, even deliberately blocking my involvement. You didn’t want me to notice It at all!”
“Xiao Ji, you are different from me, and even from my master. You are special. Your fate cannot be observed, and you can even influence the destinies of others.”
“You are the true variable. Once I realized that, I didn’t want you to get close to me.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid It would see you, and you’d get dragged into a conflict at this level.”
Seeing Xue Ji was about to say more, Ling Xiaoxiao silenced her with a kiss.
This kiss was incredibly gentle, cautious, as if she were caressing something precious.
“Xiao Ji, if you can’t see It, It will have a harder time influencing you. That way, life has more time to play the long game against It.”
“What good ever comes from continuous compromise? In the end, you just lose the will to fight.” Xue Ji cupped Ling Xiaoxiao’s face in her hands. “You are important too, aren’t you?”
“You were the one who created the superpowered forces, you were the one who guarded this world for a millennium, you were the one who slew Cain. You are indispensable, to everyone.”
“And to you?”
“Didn’t I make it clear enough to you last night?”
Xue Ji raised her right hand, wiggling her fingers as if getting ready to “teach” Ling Xiaoxiao a lesson.
Recalling the madness of the previous night and her still-aching throat, Ling Xiaoxiao swallowed hard.
“Understood. Mercy, please.”