"Don't touch me."
Bai Qianshuang didn't turn around. She only raised her left hand and pressed it firmly against the gray-white tendrils spreading relentlessly over her shoulder.
The contamination crawled deeper along her meridians toward her origin. Every inch it spread felt like countless eyes opening inside her very bones.
Luo Xi stopped half a step away; her fingertips had already condensed into an icy blue chill, yet she hesitated to reach out.
She knew why Bai Qianshuang wouldn't let her touch her.
If her power made contact with the contamination, that thing would likely follow the cold energy and burrow into her body in reverse. Then it wouldn't be a rescue—it would be both of them falling together.
Bai Qianshuang glanced down at her right arm.
The gray-white tendrils had already crawled past her shoulder. Several tiny eyeballs pushed out from the edges of the wound, staring at her without blinking.
The next moment, without the slightest hesitation, she grabbed her sword hilt with her left hand and swung it back in one clean motion.
The sword flashed like snow.
Her right arm was severed clean at the shoulder!
Blood splattered across the ground, only to be frozen into thin frost by her sword intent. The fallen arm was already devoured by the gray-white contamination, writhing as fine tentacles sprouted from it.
Luo Xi's pupils contracted sharply. "Qianshuang!"
Bai Qianshuang's face turned pale for an instant. The Emperor Seal on her forehead blazed with intense light, forcibly cutting off the last trace of gray-white corruption that tried to burrow into her origin.
The severed arm twitched on the ground. Its fingers crawled like spiders, and an eye split open in the palm, still lunging toward Bai Qianshuang.
Luo Xi raised her hand and clenched it. Icy blue cold descended, sealing the severed arm inside a block of crystal ice. Then she shattered it with a single explosive motion.
Shards of ice scattered everywhere.
The gray-white eyeball inside was still turning, but the Emperor Seal's cold glare soon ground it down until no movement remained.
Luo Xi swiftly produced a jade bottle and tipped out a pill that shimmered with a pale golden aura, pressing it to Bai Qianshuang's lips.
"Take it."
Bai Qianshuang didn't pretend to be strong. She swallowed the pill.
It dissolved the moment it touched her tongue, and a gentle medicinal warmth spread quickly through her limbs and bones. The flesh at the severed shoulder began to slowly writhe: first stopping the bleeding, then sprouting new bone buds.
But the recovery was slow.
Outer god injuries didn't damage ordinary flesh—they struck at the origin and the residual marks of the Emperor Seal. Even the best pills could only stabilize her condition.
Luo Xi stared at her face. "Are you alright, Qianshuang?"
Bai Qianshuang gripped her sword again with her left hand, her breathing slightly ragged, but she shook her head.
"I'm fine. The origin is just damaged. My arm can be restored with the pill."
But Luo Xi knew the words "origin damaged" were far more serious than a broken arm.
In a normal cultivation system, it was almost like someone had slashed the very foundation of her realm.
The figure inside the door watched them quietly.
It had no face, but beneath its film of light, layer after layer of agonized faces surfaced, then slowly condensed into the outline from Ye Chuan's memory.
"Damn it... it's still using Chuanchuan's face," Luo Xi said coldly.
The figure tilted its head.
The face beneath the light membrane rippled like water. Its corners slowly pulled upward, imitating a faint smile.
"The... door... open..."
It raised its hand.
In the next instant, both Bai Qianshuang and Luo Xi felt a bone-piercing cold.
They dodged almost simultaneously.
The spot where they had been standing split open without a sound!
"Its attacks don't rely on distance!" Luo Xi said. "It's like—if it can see us, it can reach us."
Bai Qianshuang nodded, holding her sword left-handed. "Then don't let it see us."
As she spoke, she slashed violently.
The snow-white sword light didn't strike the figure directly. Instead, it exploded midair into countless scattered sword-snowflakes, instantly blinding all sight before the twenty-second-level door.
Luo Xi followed immediately.
Her icy blue Emperor Seal expanded, merging cold energy with the sword-snow, turning the entire space into a reverse-blizzard.
Every flake of snow was a sword intent.
The figure stood at the heart of the blizzard. The face beneath its membrane shifted constantly, as if searching for their positions.
Bai Qianshuang's figure suddenly appeared behind it.
She held her sword in her left hand, the blade skimming across the ground before rising in an upward arc that traced a nearly transparent line of snow.
The strike was impossibly fast. She compressed all her sword intent into a single thread aimed directly at the figure's neck.
At the same moment, Luo Xi struck.
Dozens of crystal ice chains shot out from the void, engraved with Emperor Seal patterns, forcibly sealing off the space around the figure.
The sword line fell. Space itself was severed!
The figure's neck was finally sliced open. A thin crack gaped.
From within the gray-white membrane poured countless overlapping screams, as if ten thousand mouths were wailing at once.
But the next second, the crack sealed itself shut.
The figure raised its hand and pressed it gently toward Bai Qianshuang.
She retreated at once, yet blood still burst across her chest. She was flung backward, slamming into the tower wall, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
The cold light in Luo Xi's eyes sharpened.
She clasped her hands in a seal. The Emperor Seal on her forehead burned like a frozen blue sun, dropping the temperature on this floor to its extreme.
"Seal."
One word fell.
The ground, the tower walls, and the void itself all froze instantly.
Layer upon layer of ice stacked into a giant coffin, sealing both the figure and the entrance to the twenty-second level inside.
Luo Xi's face turned pale rapidly.
This move drained her immensely. But the figure merely stood at the center of the ice coffin, slowly looking up.
It was useless.
Bai Qianshuang forced herself to stand. She slashed through the gray-white threads spreading around her, her face even paler than before.
"We can't drag this out."
Luo Xi's breathing quickened. "Its power seems limitless. No matter how much we shatter, it replenishes from the tower itself."
Bai Qianshuang looked at the tower walls.
Most of the ancient runes had already been swallowed by gray-white light. Every time they struck, the runes glowed a little brighter.
"The tower itself is the anchor," Bai Qianshuang said quietly. "The longer we fight, the faster it locks onto reality."
"They're finding this place."
Luo Xi fell silent for a moment.
She understood the meaning perfectly well.
But neither of them suggested retreating.
Because both knew: when Ye Chuan wasn't here, this place could only be held by them.
The figure inside the door stepped forward again.
It finally emerged halfway from the darkness of the twenty-second level.
Bai Qianshuang and Luo Xi attacked together.
Sword light and ice interwove within the tower. Pure white and frozen blue continuously tore through the gray mist.
The two fought close and far in perfect synchronization.
Bai Qianshuang severed the invisible strikes.
Luo Xi sealed off the space and held back the spread of contamination.
But every time the figure was cut open, it healed. Every time it was sealed in ice, new eyes grew from within the frozen layers, eventually corrupting the ice itself.
Time passed, minute by minute.
The twenty-first floor was riddled with scars.
The tower walls cracked. The ground caved in.
Bai Qianshuang could only continue holding her sword in her left hand. The blade itself was now covered in fine cracks.
With every strike she made, her face grew a shade whiter. The weakness from her damaged origin was slowly consuming her power.
Luo Xi was in no better state.
The Emperor Seal on her forehead flickered, its light unstable. Her cold energy was no longer as pure as before. Several threads of gray-white contamination coiled around her sleeve, which she forcibly suppressed.
Yet the figure remained calm.
"The... door... open..."
It raised its hand again.
This time, every eye in the entire floor opened at once.
Countless gazes fell upon the two women. Bai Qianshuang and Luo Xi's bodies froze almost simultaneously!
The shadow's power began to gather onto Luo Xi.
Not good!
No...
"Luo Xuan Sword Intent!" Bai Qianshuang bit the tip of her tongue, and the radiance around her shot up into the sky, forcibly severing the restraints with her sword intent!
She stepped forward and stood in front of Luo Xi!
The shadow struck.
A thunderous crash rang out as Bai Qianshuang's chest caved in violently. She was sent flying backward, crashing through half the tower wall, blood scattering in the air!
Luo Xi's expression changed drastically. "Qianshuang!"
But at that very moment, a figure appeared out of nowhere, catching Bai Qianshuang mid-flight.
The next instant, the entire tower was locked down by a terrifying force, as if time and space itself had come to a standstill.
Di Lin, his voice like thunder from the heavens,
"Who dares to touch my wife?!"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
