The ghoul flew into a towering rage.
Its gray-green, terrifying palm shrank into a clawed hand and clamped down on Yanxiang Fang’s morphing sword.
“Despicable humans—!”
In the ghoul’s palm, Yanxiang Fang abruptly shattered from a sword into countless spikes, instantly piercing the hand until flesh and blood hung in tatters.
The ghoul howled in pain and fury before violently flinging the weapon away. Its claw, trailing a foul wind, lunged straight for Lou Yue’s face.
Xiao Rangchen lashed out with one leg. His kick was as sharp as a blade, and its fierce force struck the ghoul’s wrist head-on, forcibly halting its attack.
Taking advantage of the momentum, Lou Yue placed one hand on his shoulder. With a light twist, she flipped backward and landed against the stone wall.
She raised her hand into the air. Frost surged explosively, and hundreds of icicles instantly took shape, their sharp points aimed directly at the ghoul’s vital spots.
Xiao Rangchen had already closed in, engaging the ghoul at close quarters. The chains wrapped around the ghoul whipped and clanged wildly.
Lou Yue’s icicles struck with deadly precision, seizing every opening the ghoul revealed.
Pain and fury intertwined within the ghoul as it let out a series of snarls. The spiritual power Lou Yue had previously driven into its body rampaged wildly inside it. Every movement felt like being scorched by blazing fire, while the backlash from the suppressive seals on the chains sent its blood and vital energy surging chaotically.
The two worked together with perfect understanding. Sometimes they attacked with fists and feet, sometimes with the spear, and every now and then they drove icicles toward the ghoul’s vital points. Under their combined assault, the ghoul could only defend itself passively.
Dark, evil energy erupted from its body, and a violent wave of force sent Lou Yue and Xiao Rangchen flying backward.
Xiao Rangchen caught Lou Yue by the lower back and steadied her.
Lou Yue slapped his hand away. Her gaze lingered for an instant on his frost-white hair before shifting away. Without looking at him, she stared only at the ghoul ahead and said coldly,
“I’ll settle the score with you later!”
Xiao Rangchen pressed his thin lips together.
“How dare you deceive me! Cunning! Humans—every last one of you is rotten!”
The ghoul’s eerie green, vertical pupils were filled with murderous fury. It threw back its head and let out a shrill howl. The sound waves rippled outward as icy, sinister energy gathered. Countless lesser Ghost Wraiths were summoned, swarming over in a dense mass until the area was completely sealed off.
Those vertical pupils locked onto Lou Yue. In the next instant, its clawed hand lunged toward her.
Xiao Rangchen’s figure blurred as he flashed in front of her. His spear tore through the air, wrapped in a biting force and cold radiance as it shot toward the ghoul.
The ghoul let out a harsh, bone-grinding laugh.
“I’ll kill the person you care about right in front of you!”
Its withered gray-green fingers suddenly clenched.
The next moment, the eerie green bracelet around Lou Yue’s wrist exploded apart, dissolving into specks of green light that vanished into the air.
“Without my power, do you really think she can survive?”
Lou Yue finally understood. She slapped away the dozens of lesser Ghost Wraiths surging toward her, then glared furiously at Xiao Rangchen.
“That bracelet wasn’t given to me by you at all!”
Xiao Rangchen turned sideways to avoid the ghoul’s swinging claw. His brows drew together slightly, but he said nothing.
The ghoul seized the opportunity and gave a sinister, provoking smile.
“He even hid the truth about the bracelet from you. Why don’t you ask him about the coma as well?”
“What coma?”
Lou Yue’s heart tightened as she remembered what she had asked Xiao Rangchen after waking up—
“How long was I asleep? When did we arrive at the Chaos Abyss?”
“Three days ago. You were unconscious for three days.”
She knew full well that the ghoul was deliberately stirring up trouble, but she still could not stop herself from asking, “Was the three-day coma a lie too?”
The ghoul answered for him.
“Hahaha! Three days? Three months would be closer to the truth!”
Xiao Rangchen’s gaze turned cold. He thrust his spear with lightning speed. The ghoul hurriedly arched backward to evade it, but Xiao Rangchen spun and kicked viciously toward its head.
The ghoul hastily raised an arm to block, but at that very moment, the chain wrapped around its leg suddenly went taut, tangling it up. Its enormous body instantly lost its balance.
“Boom—!”
Xiao Rangchen’s kick landed with tremendous force, smashing heavily into the ghoul’s skull.
The ghoul’s head rang with a dull roar as it staggered back two steps. Before it could regain its footing, a storm of icicles came crashing down upon it.
The chains restricted its movement and strength. No matter how much the enormous creature dodged, it could not escape the dense barrage of ice spikes. Before long, green blood splattered through the air.
Taking advantage of its unsteady footing, Lou Yue pressed down with her fingertip, freezing the ground beneath the ghoul’s feet into a slick sheet of ice.
The ghoul stepped onto empty air. Its body slipped, and right in front of the two of them, it was forced into a full split.
The ghoul’s gray-green, savage face froze in place. Its expression twisted, revealing pain, fury, and utter humiliation all at once.
Lou Yue had no intention of caring whether it was suffering. Seizing the opportunity, she unleashed everything she had.
A violent gale exploded outward, whipping Xiao Rangchen’s frost-white hair into wild disarray.
“You think you can act all high and mighty?”
“You lied to me!”
“You’re asking to die!”
“So what if you’re a ghoul? I’ll beat you flat anyway!”
With every sentence, Lou Yue hurled out another devastating attack. Ice blades, ice hammers, and spiritual techniques crashed down without pause, forcing the ghoul into a miserable defense at the same spot.
The lesser Ghost Wraiths summoned around them fared even worse. Caught in Lou Yue’s indiscriminate bombardment, they shrieked and scattered in every direction. Those that failed to escape exploded on the spot, dissolving into clouds of gray-green mist.
The shrill whistle of breaking icicles, the ghoul’s agonized roars, and the wails of the lesser Ghost Wraiths blended into one chaotic cacophony.
Xiao Rangchen watched the ghoul being brutally beaten before him and, for once, stood off to the side in a daze.
“Roar—!”
The ghoul let out a thunderous roar of rage.
The chains around its body began to tremble violently, the blood-red runes upon them flashing in rapid succession.
The ghoul raised both arms sharply. A huge, terrifying orb of eerie green—almost black—energy rapidly condensed before it. Bursting with enough sinister force to destroy heaven and earth, it hurtled viciously toward Lou Yue.
Xiao Rangchen’s expression darkened, and he immediately threw himself toward her.
The eerie green orb skimmed over their heads, its shockwave sending broken stones flying in every direction.
But in the next instant, the orb twisted strangely in midair and shot back at them with astonishing speed.
Xiao Rangchen wrapped his arms around Lou Yue and rolled across the ground, narrowly avoiding it a second time. Before either of them could rise, the ghoul let out a sharp cry. The orb split into three, forming a pincer attack as they shot toward the pair.
At the same time, the surrounding stone walls began to collapse amid violent tremors. The scarlet runes on the chains blazed brightly, and the ghoul suddenly spat out a mouthful of green blood. Clearly, it was suffering a severe backlash as well.
The ghoul glared fixedly at Xiao Rangchen and Lou Yue, its vertical pupils filled with uncontrollable murderous intent.
When one of the orbs shot between them, Lou Yue shoved Xiao Rangchen away. The two separated and dodged in opposite directions. The orb slammed into the ground, unleashing a powerful shockwave that forced Lou Yue several steps backward.
At that moment, another orb streaked toward her.
She was just about to leap aside when dizziness suddenly struck her head. Her vision blurred for an instant.
By the time she reacted, she was half a beat too slow. The orb grazed one side of her arm before crashing into the ground.
The ghoul’s violent power instantly invaded her body. The dizziness surged over her like a tide, swallowing her whole. She fell into an endless void of chaos, her ears ringing incessantly as the world spun upside down and even her consciousness began to blur.
The instant Lou Yue was struck, Xiao Rangchen had already rushed to her side. He caught her limp body and tapped the ground with his toes, leaping repeatedly to evade the incoming orbs.
His gaze swept over Lou Yue’s tightly furrowed brows, and his eyes turned frighteningly dark.
Without that bracelet, the ghoul’s power permeating the Chaos Abyss would invade her soul, rendering her unconscious and unable to awaken.
Carrying Lou Yue in his arms, Xiao Rangchen dodged the energy orbs while racing toward the vortex passage. But how could the ghoul allow him to leave? It raised a hand and forcibly began closing the vortex it had opened.
Seeing the vortex shrink, Xiao Rangchen’s spiritual power erupted all at once, and his aura surged dramatically.
Lou Yue shook her head, but the dizziness refused to leave. When she caught sight of the arms reaching out from behind Xiao Rangchen, she immediately endured the vertigo and conjured several thick walls of ice to block the ghoul.
Seeing the vortex grow smaller and smaller, Xiao Rangchen suddenly shoved Lou Yue toward the passage. Understanding his intent, Lou Yue circulated her spiritual power and shot toward the passageway. The moment she entered the vortex, she immediately stretched out a hand toward Xiao Rangchen.
Xiao Rangchen reached out to seize it.
But just as their fingertips were about to touch—
An endless expanse of eerie green ghostfire erupted around them. A burning whip suddenly coiled around Xiao Rangchen’s legs and dragged him backward with brutal force!
The surging green flames instantly cut the two of them off from each other.
“Trying to leave? Not a chance!”
The ghoul was repeatedly vomiting blood from the backlash of the incantations, yet it still grinned viciously as it reached for the bound Xiao Rangchen.
Separated by the raging green flames, Xiao Rangchen looked toward her. For the first time, emotions she could not understand surged through those usually tranquil eyes.
The instant the flames soared, Lou Yue’s mind was struck by excruciating pain, as though countless needles were piercing through it.
Summoning the last of her strength, she forced her eyes open. All the spiritual power in her body gathered in her palm, and behind the ghoul, a colossal sword silently took shape.
The vortex narrowed to nothing. A flash of dazzling light passed through, and she was teleported away.
Her final glimpse was split in two by the eerie green flames.
On one side was the sight of a spear and an ice sword piercing through the ghoul’s body at the same time, pinning it viciously in place.
On the other was Xiao Rangchen, gazing at her from afar across the boiling sea of fire.
There was no sound. No movement.
Only his snow-white hair, whipped up by the raging wind and flames, and those eyes as deep as an abyss—eyes that held nothing but her.
After a burst of green light, she tumbled out into the outside world.
The depths of her soul were still writhing with cold, sinister energy, like countless needles stabbing into her and making her head swim.
Lou Yue sat down cross-legged and circulated her spiritual power again and again, driving the invading evil energy from her body.
Before she could completely purge it, she rose to her feet. The surroundings were unfamiliar, but it was clear that she was no longer in the Chaotic Abyss. Qinglin, who had left earlier, was nowhere nearby either. The exits of the passageways were evidently not fixed.
Lou Yue knitted her brows tightly and immediately leapt away from where she had landed.
She had to reach the Chaotic Abyss at once and enter it again.
Fortunately, the place where she had emerged was not too far from the Chaotic Abyss. After three hours, she finally arrived.
But the entrance to the Chaotic Abyss was no longer as it had been before.
The four enormous green stone pillars, each more than ten feet thick, still thrust straight up from the deep sea. Runes and seals flickered across their surfaces, but the cracks had grown deeper.
Runes of the same origin as the stone pillars intertwined into a dense web of talismans, firmly sealing the pitch-black mouth of the Chaotic Abyss—the abyss that could swallow everything.
Lou Yue flicked her hand and sent an icicle flying.
Before it could even touch the web of talismans, the icicle instantly dissolved in midair, unable to offer even the slightest resistance.
This was beyond what she could shake at present.
She simply sat atop one of the stone pillars, quietly watching the web of talismans below as golden light flowed across it.
Just before dawn, Qinglin swooped down from the horizon and landed beside her. A pair of green wings had grown from its back.
Qinglin gazed downward, tears falling in a steady stream. “Brother… is he never going to make it out…?”
In the crisis just now, it had entered its mature stage. Its strength was now far greater than before, and it could be of even more help—but it could no longer return to his side.
The more Qinglin cried, the more heartbroken it became. Its sobs scattered and gathered again in the sea wind, echoing for a long, long time.
No one knew how much time passed.
Far away on the surface of the sea, a warm red glow slowly tore open the horizon.
Little by little, the faint light spread across the deep blue, dyeing the cresting waves golden red and driving away the chill of night. Bit by bit, it illuminated the entire world.
Lou Yue slowly raised her eyes and gazed toward the light of dawn.
The wind lifted her hair. Her voice was soft, yet resolute.
“He’ll come out.”
“He is Xiao Rangchen.”
He was the kind of person who, even when trapped in a desperate situation, would never give up lightly.
The kind of person who, even if there were only one chance in ten thousand, would still fight with all his strength to tear through the darkness—
Xiao Rangchen.
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