Forbidden Spell: A Love That Topples the City

The summit of the Western Continent, Heavenly Dao Mountain.

This was the place closest to the heavens, yet at this moment, it had become an Asura battlefield closest to hell.

Howling winds whipped up a heavy stench of blood, dyeing the sky a dull, dark crimson.

Five once-arrogant peak Tribulation Passage realm experts were now kneeling amidst the rubble, trembling all over like lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Their protective astral qi was shattered, their intrinsic dharma treasures broken, and even their hearts for the Dao had been ground into dust by the monstrous demonic might of the woman in red.

Ye Qingcheng hovered in the void.

Clad in a fiery red wedding dress that billowed in the fierce wind, she looked like a phoenix bathing in flames.

Her hair was disheveled, and a drop of someone else's blood stained her cheek. This streak of red made her pale skin look even more breathtakingly beautiful.

She had won.

She had truly won.

At this moment, she trampled the masses underfoot and held the world in her hands.

Even though she had just passed her tribulation, she was already invincible in this world.

"Is this how it feels to be invincible?"

Ye Qingcheng slowly raised her hand, watching the spiritual energy dancing in her palm.

The corners of her mouth curled up uncontrollably into a smile that mixed ecstasy, madness, and relief.

"No one can stop me now... No one will ever separate me from my husband again!"

She turned her head abruptly, her gaze piercing the void to land on the Nine-Turn Exquisite Coffin that she had placed above the clouds, protected by layers of formations.

That was her altar, enshrining her god.

"Husband! Did you see it!"

Ye Qingcheng's voice was no longer that of a majestic empress, but of a child eager to show off to her beloved.

Ignoring the shivering losers behind her, she rushed toward the coffin like a gust of wind.

"Those who called you trash, I've killed them all!"

"Those who despised my demonic origins, I've exterminated their clans!"

"Everyone who has seen me in a wretched state, everyone who knows my past, they are all dead! Now, in this world, there is only you and me!"

"I am a clean Ye Qingcheng, a Ye Qingcheng who belongs only to you!"

She landed next to the coffin.

Her trembling fingers caressed the cold coffin lid, her heart beating so fast it felt like it would leap out of her throat.

How many years had it been?

She had waited for this day until her hair was almost white, until her heart was almost broken.

"Come out, husband."

Ye Qingcheng took a deep breath, revealing the gentlest, brightest smile on her face.

"Come and see our empire, come and see our wedding."

As spiritual energy poured from her fingertips, the coffin lid let out a heavy rumble.

"Creak!"

This sound was particularly piercing on the silent summit of the Western Continent.

The lid slid open.

Sunlight poured in.

However, the perfect smile on Ye Qingcheng's face froze in that instant.

It was very quiet inside the coffin.

Too quiet.

Ye Xuan lay quietly inside, wearing the red wedding robes she had sewn with her own hands.

She had secretly taken his measurements while he was asleep and embroidered it with the finest heavenly silkworm thread.

His hands were folded over his abdomen, looking as peaceful as if he were taking an afternoon nap.

But there was no breath.

No heartbeat.

Even the faintest trace of vitality was completely gone.

His body displayed an ashen, livid pallor, a sign that his lifeforce had been severed for a long time.

But what made Ye Qingcheng's heart stop was Ye Xuan's expression.

The corners of his mouth were curled into an arc.

It was not peaceful, nor was it relief.

It was an extremely bizarre, glaringly sinister smile, filled with malice and mockery.

It was as if, in the moment before his death, he had seen something that made him incredibly happy and immensely satisfied.

"Hus... band?"

Ye Qingcheng's voice trembled, as quiet as a mosquito's hum.

She reached out, wanting to touch his face, but stopped in mid-air.

She didn't dare. She was afraid that if she touched him, this nightmare would become reality.

"You're trying to scare me, right?"

Ye Qingcheng forced a smile uglier than crying, but large tears were already crashing down, dripping onto Ye Xuan's cold face.

"You're still mad at me, aren't you? I shouldn't have locked you up, I shouldn't have forced you... Stop pretending to be asleep. I've won, you can scold me now. Please, just scold me, okay?"

There was no response.

The wind blew across the coffin, lifting a strand of Ye Xuan's white hair, looking so desolate.

"Wake up!"

Ye Qingcheng suddenly broke down. She threw herself into the coffin, hugging the stiff corpse tightly and shaking it frantically.

"Ye Xuan! Wake up right now! You are mine! I forbid you to die! Who allowed you to die!!"

Like a madwoman, she channeled the vast, ocean-like spiritual energy of her Tribulation Passage realm into Ye Xuan's body.

The golden spiritual energy poured in like a reversing river, enough to grow flesh on bare bones, enough to make a mortal instantly ascend to immortality.

But it was useless.

Ye Xuan's body was like a leaky sieve; no matter how much spiritual energy she poured in, it dissipated into nothingness in an instant.

Inside his body, there wasn't even the slightest fluctuation of a soul.

Empty.

Completely empty.

"No... no... this is impossible..."

Ye Qingcheng, her hair disheveled and her face covered in blood and tears, groped around the coffin like a madwoman.

"Who killed him? Who killed him through an immortal artifact? I will slaughter their nine generations!"

Just as she was about to suffer qi deviation from her grief, a cold memory of divine sense suddenly exploded in her sea of consciousness.

It was the spell Ye Xuan had transmitted to her last night.

Qingcheng's Love.

Ye Qingcheng stiffened all over, her pupils shrinking violently.

Trembling, she used her divine sense to touch the incantation she hadn't yet had time to examine closely.

As every word etched into her mind, her complexion turned from pale to ghastly white, and finally to a deathly gray.

[Qingcheng's Love.]

[Using the caster's three immortal souls and seven mortal forms as a sacrifice, and the karma of a hundred lifetimes as fuel, triggering obliteration by the laws of heaven and earth.]

[This spell ignores defense, ignores realm, ignores immortal artifacts, and ignores time and space.]

[The only restriction: It can only be used on the caster themselves.]

[Effect: Body dies and Dao perishes.]

It was as if a clap of thunder exploded in Ye Qingcheng's mind.

She stared blankly at the corpse in her arms, at Ye Xuan's mocking smile.

So... so this was the earth-shattering spell he had spoken of.

So this was the gift he had given her.

It turned out that last night's so-called forgiveness, the so-called transmission of the spell, and even the phrase "look at me," were all a trap!

He had spent hundreds of years in the sunless coffin, enduring loneliness and humiliation.

He was not waiting for her to change her mind, but deducing a method of dying that would cause her the most agony.

He wanted to do it in the very second she was at her proudest, her most glorious, the moment she thought she had finally achieved happiness.

Right in front of her.

To destroy himself.

"How cruel your heart is... How cruel your heart is! Ye Xuan!"

Ye Qingcheng roared at the sky, her voice so mournful that even the heavens would shed tears.

She pounded the walls of the coffin forcefully, blood dripping from her hands.

"You would rather your soul scatter than look at me? Why! How did I ever wrong you! I've given you my very life!"

Despair drowned her like a tidal wave.

Just as she was on the verge of collapse, she suddenly noticed that at the very end of the incantation, there was a line of extremely small text.

[If there is regret, this curse can be undone with this incantation. However, there is only a sliver of hope.]

This was an incantation to break the curse.

Ye Qingcheng was like a drowning person clutching at a final straw.

She had no time to consider if this was yet another trap. She only knew that as long as there was a glimmer of hope, even if it meant sacrificing the entire world, she was willing to do it!

"Break the curse! Break it for me!"

Ye Qingcheng formed hand seals, desperately burning her origin blood essence.

A red light enveloped the coffin.

Time flowed backward.

The light dissipated.

A faint cough came from within the coffin.

"Cough..."

In that instant, Ye Qingcheng felt as if she had come back to life.

She scrambled over, tripping and crawling, and cupped Ye Xuan's face. Her face was covered in tears and snot as she cried, "Husband! You're alive! You scared me to death... Woo woo... I was wrong, I was really wrong. I shouldn't have locked you up. I'll give you whatever you want, just please don't kill yourself again..."

Ye Xuan's eyelashes fluttered a few times before he slowly opened his eyes.

Those eyes were terrifyingly clear and terrifyingly cold.

There was no rejoicing at surviving a disaster, only a kind of pity and cruelty as if he were looking at an ant.

He looked at Ye Qingcheng, who was crying her eyes out. He looked at this female demon who had just slaughtered the entire Western Continent, now crawling before him like a dog begging for pity.

He smiled.

Though his voice was weak, it carried a bone-piercing chill. "What are you crying for? Ye Qingcheng, didn't you say you were invincible in this world?"

Ye Qingcheng shook her head desperately, tightly gripping his hand for fear he would disappear in the next second. "I'm not invincible anymore... I don't want anything else, as long as you're alive. Husband, let's go home. I won't force you to dual cultivate anymore. I'll worship you like an ancestor, okay?"

Ye Xuan sighed softly, a trace of mockery revealing itself in his eyes. "It's no use."

"Do you still not understand? Since the 'Love of Qingcheng' bears the name Qingcheng, it is a death trap I set specifically for you. It has no cure."

Ye Qingcheng's body stiffened. "Impossible... You're clearly awake! The curse-breaking method obviously worked!"

"That was a lie."

The smile at the corners of Ye Xuan's mouth deepened, like a slowly twisting knife. "This wasn't a curse-breaking method at all; it was a 'Terminal Lucidity' art. I left this move behind just so you could bring me back for five minutes."

"Fi... five minutes?" Ye Qingcheng was struck by lightning, standing there completely dumbfounded.

"Yes, five minutes."

Ye Xuan looked at the sky, his gaze distant. "I felt that just dying like this would be letting you off too easily. I have a few words I wanted to say to you personally. If I didn't get to see your current expression, wouldn't my hundreds of years of suffering have been for nothing?"

Ye Qingcheng opened her mouth, but couldn't make a sound.

A massive fear gripped her throat.

He came back specifically... just to see her suffer.

Ye Xuan struggled to raise his hand. Ye Qingcheng subconsciously leaned her face in, thinking he was going to caress her.

However, that ice-cold finger merely tapped lightly against her heart.

"Ye Qingcheng, congratulations."

Ye Xuan's voice was chillingly calm. "Your dream has come true. Look at this Western Continent; rivers of blood are flowing. You have killed everyone who ever touched you, everyone who ever saw your filthy side. Including me, who is also about to die."

"Stop talking... please, stop talking..."

Ye Qingcheng covered her ears and screamed in agony.

"The current you is the true, pure, and flawless Empress of the Western Continent."

Ye Xuan forcefully pulled her hands down, staring piercingly into her eyes. "In this world, there is no longer anyone who can threaten you."

He leaned in close to her ear, using the last trace of his strength to enunciate every word like the whispers of an evil spirit:

"And there is no one left to love you."

This single sentence directly shattered Ye Qingcheng's final psychological defense.

"Ahhhhh!"

She let out a beast-like wail. "I don't want this! I don't want no one to love me! You love me! If you didn't love me, why would you rack your brains to do all this!"

"Love?"

Ye Xuan laughed, laughing so hard that tears flowed out. "You think you are worthy of talking about love? Ye Qingcheng, every time I smiled at you, I was retching inside. Every time I was touched by you, I felt disgusted with myself. My only motivation for staying alive was for today, for this very moment!"

"I want to watch you fall from the clouds into hell, to watch you gain everything only to lose it all!"