After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 65

Fifteen minutes earlier.

When Luo Qingyi was dragged into the Hundred Coffins Array by the Right Envoy, her heart remained utterly unperturbed. She could roughly sense the Right Envoy’s cultivation level, the other was a demonic cultivator who relied on devouring flesh and blood, having abruptly ascended to the Great Ascension stage by absorbing some predecessor’s legacy. Their foundation was far from stable.

Although the Right Envoy carried a powerful yet unstable aura, it was clear they could not control it well.

Luo Qingyi had been at the Great Ascension stage for decades. A mere Right Envoy was nothing to worry about.

As expected, although the Right Envoy held an absolute advantage in controlling the Hundred Coffins Array, the gap in cultivation was like heaven and earth. After a few exchanges, the outcome became increasingly obvious.

The woman in the Asura mask was panting heavily, her hair seeming to dissolve into bloody foam amidst her sweat, her face dark with fury, the mask barely clinging on.

Luo Qingyi did not deliver a fatal blow. She maintained her sword-holding stance, the tip of her blade resting horizontally against the Right Envoy’s forehead, pointing directly at their spiritual core. “What were you waiting for just now?”

Earlier, when she and Jiang Qingbei arrived in the demon realm, she had used her spiritual sense to detect Wu Ruo near the demon sect’s headquarters. But when she reached the vicinity, Wu Ruo’s presence had vanished without a trace.

As if forcibly erased.

Just as she was growing frantic with worry, she spotted the familiar red-tiled eaves, the peeling walls still mottled, cracks like trails left by tiny insects.

Moreover, not far away, stood a figure clad in bulky black robes, wearing a half-faced Asura mask. The exposed half of their face was hideous, and they were surrounded by several of the demon sect’s most ferocious beasts, the Qingtie Pao, commanding the creatures to tightly encircle the red temple.

Was this the legendary Right Envoy?

As the demon sect’s Right Envoy, how could they alone, accompanied by demonic beasts, besiege a single red temple? It made no sense, unless there was something or someone inside that temple they cared about.

Furthermore, the Qingtie Pao had blood on their mouths, and the Right Envoy’s robes were splattered with fresh bloodstains.

This Right Envoy was clearly, lying in wait.

Almost the moment Luo Qingyi saw the Right Envoy, the other noticed her too, narrowing their eyes, a bizarre smile twisting their lips, flashing with a vicious glint.

In the next instant, both launched their attacks simultaneously. The chill of falling snow mingled with the savagery of demonic beasts, erupting in an intensely blinding light.

Then, the Right Envoy was defeated. In desperation, they dragged Luo Qingyi into the Hundred Coffins Array, attempting to shatter her sanity with the array’s demonic energy devouring her spirit, only to fail swiftly once more.

Even trapped in a overwhelmingly disadvantageous demonic array, Luo Qingyi remained composed. Countless ghostly hands were mere trivialities in her eyes. She swung her sword, again and again, cleaving through the endless horde of demons around her.

Until she pressed her sword tip against the Right Envoy’s forehead and asked the question whose answer she had already guessed: What were they waiting for?

“Heh heh hee. Waiting for your lover! You already know, don’t you? Why bother cough.”

“Is she inside? How long has she been in there?”

“Why would I tell you? Hehe, Killing me won’t help. Do you think she’ll forgive you if you kill me? Heh, everyone under heaven knows you, Luo Qingyi, proved your Dao by killing your wife!”

“Shut up!” Luo Qingyi showed no mercy, driving the sword tip several inches deeper into the other’s flesh. Dark demonic blood flowed from the right envoy’s neck, foul and pungent, staining her blade.

“I’ll say what I want, Hehehe. The esteemed Immortal Luo, how dare you act but not admit it? You killed her, then regretted it, used some method to revive her, yet refuse to acknowledge it. You’re truly laughable, hahaha.”

Luo Qingyi had no desire to waste further words. This demonic sect right envoy seemed to know her all too well, each word piercing the very memory she least wished to recall. She steadied her mind, suppressing the unwarranted turmoil within, and lowered her sword tip.

Waves of unrest lashed against the surface of her heart. Since the day she awoke from that profound dream, she had been lost and desolate, her spirit shattered to the ends of the earth.

Every day, she told herself that Wu Ruo had returned, yet the thought of those past days brought forth agonizing, tormenting memories.

This damned inner demon still so quick to emerge.

She laughed self-deprecatingly, clearing her mind of all thoughts, leaving only the singular intent to kill her opponent. The other was lying in wait, hunting Wu Ruo. Her dao companion was in danger.

“Perish.”

At the same time, seeing that his psychological attack had failed, the right envoy seemed to be calling out for something but to no avail. Then, on the verge of having his soul scattered, he let out a mournful cry: “Do you know who I am?”

Crack.

The mask on his face split open in an instant, revealing the right envoy’s true features. The lower half of his face beneath the mask was as beautiful as the rumors claimed, but that was not what caught Luo Qingyi’s attention.

As if afraid Luo Qingyi would strike, the right envoy pleaded rapidly: “I am Wu Ruo’s once closest friend. My name is Wu Xiang. If you kill me, she will hate you for life!”

Ah Xiang?

Luo Qingyi naturally knew that name Wu Ruo chanted it in her ear daily.

This friend was the first name Wu Ruo had spoken upon awakening, the one she trusted most, her dearest companion. The bond between them must have been incredibly intimate.

Luo Qingyi was all too familiar with this Ah Xiang, who lived on in Wu Ruo’s words.

Back when they first formed their bond, she knew Ah Xiang was already dead. Unwilling to contend with a ghost, every time she heard Wu Ruo mention the name, her heart soured with jealousy, though she feigned magnanimity.

But now., Ah Xiang was alive, having climbed to the position of right envoy in the demon realm, second only to one, commanding thousands. Yet she had become a villain who slaughtered her own kind and brought shame to Miaojiang.

A pang of sorrow struck her heart, and her grip on the sword loosened slightly, though her expression remained stern. “You have fallen into demonic ways, slaughtered your kin, and bloodied Miaojiang. Your crimes are unforgivable.”

“Because I am not like Wu Ruo.”

Ah Xiang held onto Luo Qingyi’s sword tip, preventing it from harming her further. In truth, her heart was unmoved as she spun lies. Seizing the moment Luo Qingyi let her guard down, a fierce, cold smile erupted on her face. Demonic energy surged around her, bursting from her hands in a dazzling bloom!

“Ahahaha! Heart Demon Curse! The moment I saw you, I knew you had an inner demon! Once the heart demon takes hold, it only grows, never fades. When you can no longer bear its weight, it will expand and torment you until you succumb completely to demonic deviation.”

“From now on, you will only be a monster plagued by inner demons either abandon your status and join the demonic path, or perish beneath their blades! The esteemed Immortal Luo, once a savior of the world, has now taken the form of a demonic cultivator. Hahahaha.”

“In the future, she will not like you, nor will she ever glance your way again, because you have become a demonic cultivator. She will not love you; the Miao people despise demonic practitioners above all. Only you will remain, foolishly loving her from the shadows like a clown. Hahaha.”

“Shut up!”

Luo Qingyi gritted her teeth, forcibly restraining the violent and rampant spiritual energy within her to prevent herself from falling into demonic ways. Yet, in that moment of weakness, the opponent’s curse had already latched onto her, clinging like maggots to bone.

She had been struck.

Overwhelming negative emotions surged over her, instantly seizing control of her mind. Before her eyes swirled the agony of resentment, the despair and bloodshed of a shattered vessel, the churning decay within her heart memories of the past of…

No, no. She must not think. She was still in battle; she had not yet found Wu Ruo. She could not afford to dwell.

If her mind were to be disturbed by inner demons, no!

Luo Qingyi bit the tip of her tongue hard, forcing herself to endure. She steadied her spirit, striving to suppress the negativity within, and concentrated her sword energy into the blade in her hand, then slashed out fiercely.

Boom!

A sweeping sword aura exploded through the pitch-black expanse of a hundred coffins, powerful and breathtaking.

The sword light was boundless, piercing through the sealed darkness like a white rainbow cleaving the sun, relentlessly colliding and cutting in all directions until, at last, it carved a minuscule crack in the impenetrable coffin.

“…?!” The Right Envoy sensed the danger, her eyes widening in disbelief as she desperately sought to reinforce her defenses. She leaped forward, channeling all her demonic energy to that single point, attempting to block the fissure with her own body.

Seeing this, Luo Qingyi held her breath and focused her spirit. The sword light blazed with grandeur, its energy piercing through the setting sun as she struck fiercely toward her opponent.

Bang!

Daylight broke through.

The confined space shattered in an instant, fragments of countless coffins scattering through the air. The Right Envoy, driven to her last resort, plummeted like a falling boulder, crashing heavily onto the desolate soil of the demon realm.

Luo Qingyi could no longer hold back. She clutched her chest, then covered her mouth, swallowing back a mouthful of bloody foam.

The inner demons had begun to retaliate.

It felt as if she had returned to years ago, when she awoke from the adverse effects of the love gu.

Back then, she had emerged from the Condensing Heaven Grand Formation as a heroine of the cultivation world. The Zhiyuan Immortal Sect had suffered the most severe losses, with Falling Snow Peak bearing the brunt.

Everything from the past had been leveled by the heavenly tribulation including her Falling Snow Peak, the wintersweet and palaces atop the summit, the training grounds, and the immortal deer that had fled to who knows where.

Hah, perhaps it was for the best.

Regretting the past was futile; with everything overturned, she would no longer be bewitched by the Miao witch, her cultivation diminished and her reputation tarnished.

A self-mocking smile curled her lips as intense hatred overwhelmed everything else. During the heavenly tribulation, she had no time to dwell, but once idle, only one name echoed in her mind.

Wu Ruo.

The mere thought of that name made her gnash her teeth, filling her with a hatred that penetrated deep into her bones. She didn’t understand why her usually unshakable composure could be so violently disrupted by such intense emotions, but she couldn’t help it she wished she could grind that person’s bones to dust.

As the master of a peak, she had been bewitched by a wicked heretic, lost her cultivation, and wasted ten long years for that person’s sake. How utterly ridiculous.

Fortunately, she had awakened in time and pierced the culprit through the heart with her sword.

That person was gone now, leaving behind only an unspoken, boundless hatred in her heart.

Using the White Tiger Token as a guide, she transformed the massive sect’s earth-suppressing puppet into a new Falling Snow Peak, a peak without Wu Ruo, a place she wanted to be entirely new.

Yet, the moment she stepped onto the newly formed Falling Snow Peak, something inside her shattered.

It was as if a towering dam had suddenly sprung a tiny crack, unleashing a torrential flood that, in an instant, brought heaven and earth crashing down.

Within her icy, frigid emotions, like snow that had long lain dormant, a seed was suddenly planted.

The frozen ice quietly melted away, and all the feelings she had once buried surged back into her heart.

She remembered now.

With a clatter, Jinghong Descending to the World fell to the ground. The blood that had stained it was gone without a trace, leaving the sword pristine once more.

Yet it seemed as though countless streams of fresh blood still flowed over it, thick and writhing, the blood of the one she had deeply loved.

The Love Gu could make a person devoted to the caster unto death, bound together in life and demise.

But if the gu were dispelled, love would turn into endless loathing. The afflicted would hate the caster to the very marrow of their bones, until they journeyed to the Yellow Springs.

Until the Yellow Springs.

The hatred born from transformed love emerged the moment the gu was broken and vanished only when the caster met their complete and final end.

In that instant, Wu Ruo died.

The Love Gu dissolved on its own, no more love, no more hatred. If any feelings remained, they were emotions born purely from the heart.

At the very moment Luo Qingyi completed the mending of the heavens, restored her cultivation to its peak as a Great Ascension cultivator, basked in unparalleled reverence, enjoyed the worship of thousands, and rebuilt Falling Snow Peak.

Her once deeply beloved lover no, that wicked heretic who had cast the sinister gu poison on Immortal Luo, that ruthless Miaojiang enchantress who had ultimately reaped what she sowed had, at the same time, quietly died in some dark, foul, and filthy corner.

Completely, annihilated.

Luo Qingyi’s eyes widened in disbelief as countless powerful emotions fermented once more from the depths of her heart. These were hers truly and wholly her own feelings.

Unrelated to the Love Gu, they were the genuine emotions born from her very soul.

It was love, a deep, aged love, like deceptively gentle waves that had filled vast oceans, like a massive iceberg submerged beneath the sea, hidden and unassuming.

That iceberg revealed only a tiny fraction above the water’s surface, while beneath, in the unseen depths, lay ten thousand times more ice silent, yet more profound and steadfast than anything else.

That love had long seeped from her heart into every part of her being; she simply hadn’t known it.

She simply hadn’t realized that the overwhelming hatred she had felt recently, the hatred that pierced her heart and felt like a knife twisting inside her was only because in the past, she had loved that person with a silent, immense love.

Now.

Wu Ruo was dead. The hatred was gone.

Luo Qingyi collapsed to the ground with a thud, then weakly groped her way to her knees. She picked up her lifebound sword, her fingers gripping its cold, sharp blade.

The thin blade sliced her hand until it bled profusely, drop by drop falling onto her pale blue sect robe, dyeing the moon-white cloud patterns into a crimson soaked with blood blossoms.

It was as if the Snowfall Peak of the past still stood, countless fallen plum blossoms blooming from its summit.

Luo Qingyi mindlessly caressed the blade, feeling no pain at all. The sharp edge carved cut after cut into her hand, yet she remained kneeling on the ground, silent and stubborn, repeating the motion over and over.

As if by constantly stroking this spot, she could still feel the warmth of her beloved, as if she could bring back the one, she had lost.

Did she suffer much?

She always hated pain. That sword piercing through her heart must have been excruciating.

Yet even so, Wu Ruo did not die then. Instead, she waited until just now, until moments ago, when she even received the sect’s legacy, when she even mended the heavens.

Only then did the other, in agony, resentment, and perhaps even amidst torture and bleeding, meet a cruel death.

She had countless chances to save her, to see her, to seek medical cultivators and pull Wu Ruo back from the brink of death. She had always been on good terms with the Apricot Grove Sect’s leader, there must have been a way.

But it was all too late.

Everything had been missed.

“Ah!”

Luo Qingyi hugged the sword, her fingers still gripping the blade, half her robes stained red with the blood from her own hands. She tilted her head toward the heavens, her eyes vacant and chaotic, and let out a heart-wrenching scream.

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