The Immortal’s "White Moonlight" Reborn - Chapter 30

The voice of Wen Qiwu drifted into her dreams.

The dungeon was so silent that the only audible sound was the rhythmic drip of some unknown liquid onto the stone floor. Most of the Soul-Guiding Everlasting Candles in the outer formation had flickered out; the meager light from the remaining wicks could barely illuminate Yun Heng’s silhouette.

The Lord of Ten Thousand Souls—not yet fully dead crawled out from the now-defunct formation. Seeing Yun Heng trembling slightly, he let out a silent, mocking sneer in the depths of his mind.

She failed. Haha… she must have failed!

The Demon Lord only dared to gloat internally. He had witnessed Yun Heng’s descent into madness firsthand; at a time like this, he wouldn’t dare provoke her even if he were given a hundred times his usual courage.

Having finally broken free, his priority was survival.

He crawled through the darkness inch by inch. He knew that escaping the Wenshen Sect on his own was a pipe dream, so he needed to call for reinforcements. He carefully sent a wisp of his demonic qi toward the exit of the dungeon. The process was surprisingly smooth, but before he could even feel a spark of joy, a piercing, bone-chilling sword intent cleaved his soul-form directly in half.

A shrill, wretched scream echoed through the dungeon. His soul was currently at its weakest; a single strike from Yun Heng was enough to scatter his spirit entirely, but she had stayed her hand on purpose. She wasn’t going to let him die that quickly.

When the Demon Lord saw a pair of boots enter his field of vision, he was so terrified that he ignored the agonizing pain in his soul, scrambling to crawl away. However, a frost-laden divine sword pierced through his upper torso, pinning him to the ground. This artifact dealt massive damage to spiritual entities; the more he struggled, the faster his soul dissipated. Left with no choice if he wanted to avoid total annihilation, he lay flat on the ground.

Suddenly, he felt a force tighten around his neck, hoisting him up. The Lord of Ten Thousand Souls was forced to tilt his head back to meet Yun Heng’s eyes.

Seeing those blood-flecked pupils, the Demon Lord suddenly felt that this “Immortal Venerable” might be better suited to rule the Demon Realm than he ever was.

“Why can’t I find her soul?” Yun Heng’s voice was soft, yet it rang clearly in the silent dungeon. The flickering yellow candlelight cast a pallor on her face that made her look more like a ghost than a living being.

The Demon Lord knew she was asking him, but he had never actually researched this specific resurrection technique. How was he supposed to know why it failed?

But he couldn’t say “I don’t know.” He had no doubt that if he did, Yun Heng would bury him alongside her junior sister immediately.

“If… if the ritual was performed correctly, there are only two possibilities,” he stammered. “Either the person isn’t actually dead, or there is something wrong with her soul. For instance, if she were under the influence of some occult art, it might prevent the technique from retrieving her soul from the past.”

The former was a certainty in his mind, while the latter was merely a desperate guess.

“Occult arts”

Yun Heng murmured the words. Her junior sister hadn’t been under any curse, but she did suffer from Spirit-Dissipation Syndrome. Could it be because of that illness?

This had been her greatest fear. Her sister’s soul was fragile, like porcelain covered in cracks; a single touch might shatter it. The secret arts of the Demon Realm always carried a hint of sinister energy, and Yun Heng feared that even if she managed to call the soul back, A-Que wouldn’t be able to survive the ordeal.

The Demon Lord’s eyes darted around before he spoke again. “I have extensive knowledge of the soul. Perhaps we can strike a deal.”

His title wasn’t for show; his research into souls was built upon the suffering of countless spirits. In the current Cangwang World, no one surpassed him in this field.

Yun Heng looked at him, the cold, murderous aura in her eyes making him shiver. It was as if she had already seen through his ploy.

Is she insane or not? The Demon Lord wondered nervously.

“You’re right.” Her voice took on a disturbingly gentle tone. The candlelight swayed, and several more wicks went out silently as shadows climbed up the snow-white robes of the Immortal Venerable.

She took a step forward. Sensing danger, the Demon Lord’s internal alarms blared, but it was too late. She raised a hand, and her divine sense pierced straight into his sea of consciousness.

The Demon Lord’s many faces distorted instantly. She was performing a Soul Search!

Soul searching had once been his own specialty; now, the tables had turned, and it was his turn to taste that particular agony.

The technique required immense precision; a slight lapse could cause the victim’s soul to collapse. He couldn’t trust Yun Heng to be careful, so to prevent her power from obliterating his mind, he had to desperately hold his consciousness together.

His memories were peeled away and scrutinized piece by piece. Yun Heng meticulously imprinted his years of research onto her. Even in her madness, she wouldn’t trust her sister’s fate to a treacherous demon; she would do it herself.

Once his memories were harvested, the Demon Lord was thrown back into his cell. Yun Heng spent day and night studying his knowledge, repeatedly activating the demonic ritual. The Demon Lord, acting as the sacrificial offering, grew so weary of the constant failures that he began to pray for a swift death. Every ounce of suffering he had once inflicted on others was now returning to him tenfold.

Yun Heng, however, was in no better shape. Her frame grew increasingly gaunt, and the exhaustion and anxiety in her eyes became more pronounced. This ritual gradually siphoned the life force of the practitioner. The Demon Lord noticed her coughing up blood more frequently, and her movements during the ritual became clumsy due to her failing energy. In his rare moments of lucidity, he would viciously curse her, hoping she would die before him so he could recover and slaughter the entire Wenshen Sect.

He clung to life fueled by that malice. But one day passed, then two, then three… as time marched on, he was on the verge of fading away, yet Yun Heng remained like a clockwork ghost, repeating the ritual every single day as if her frailty were a mere illusion.

It was the ninth day of failure.

Facing the once-again closing rift, Yun Heng tried to stand, but her vision blurred, and she nearly collapsed.

She waited a long time before color returned to her eyes.

She didn’t know what was wrong. She had mastered the Demon Lord’s soul arts; she had even risked entering the rift herself to search for A-Que’s past soul, but she had found nothing.

Was the demonic ritual useless? If so, she was left with only one final option.

But that method… she had even less confidence in it.

Let me try the demonic way one more time, she thought.

Her exhaustion had reached its limit. Her clothes were stained with untreated blood. The only reason she hadn’t collapsed was the sheer depth of her obsession. She stumbled back toward her room, intending to refine the soul art further, but the moment she tried to tap into her power, a splitting pain tore through her mind.

The next second, she fell into total darkness. In the pitch-black nightmare, she heard her sister calling. But in this dream, the voice wasn’t gentle. It was a blood-soaked interrogation that cut like a knife into her heart.

“Senior Sister, how much longer must I wait?”

“You promised to protect me! Why didn’t you come? Where were you when I needed you most?”

I’m sorry, I’m sorry… It’s my fault.

“Senior Sister, it hurts so much. It’s so dark here. Won’t you come and stay with me?”

A blood-stained A-Que stood in the nightmare, reaching out with hands covered in wounds.

In her coma, tears escaped Yun Heng’s eyes. In the dream, she cradled those hands, trying every possible way to heal the injuries, but the scars only grew more gruesome and terrifying.

“Senior Sister, I know you tried your best.”

The voice of “Wen Qiwu” suddenly turned tender. She gently wiped away Yun Heng’s tears. “I don’t blame you.”

Yun Heng’s voice trembled with sobs. A-Que, do you really forgive me?

“Of course. Look, I’ve come to take you with me.” “Wen Qiwu” gripped Yun Heng’s hand tightly, leading her toward the deeper darkness.

Yun Heng froze for a moment, looking at her sister’s scarred hand, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go.

They were slowly being swallowed by the void. On some subconscious level, Yun Heng knew what lay ahead in that darkness, but her reality held nothing but exhaustion and despair. She couldn’t bear to release Wen Qiwu’s hand.

Nine days of failure had left her hopeless. If she couldn’t bring A-Que back, she couldn’t endure another day. If she could simply leave with her sister, she would welcome it.

“Chirp! Chirp!”

Just before the darkness consumed her consciousness entirely, Yun Heng faintly heard the sound of a bird.

The expression of the “Wen Qiwu” in the dream distorted for a moment, and she quickened her pace to pull Yun Heng away.

“Senior Sister!”

Suddenly, Yun Heng heard a blurred shout.

A-Que?

She stopped, her expression vacant. Is that A-Que’s voice?

The face of the “Wen Qiwu” beside her grew dark and sinister. She urged Yun Heng to hurry, but through some inexplicable connection, Yun Heng let go of the phantom’s hand to search for the source of the sound.

“Senior Sister, don’t waste time. If you don’t come now, I won’t wait for you anymore,” the dream-version of her sister said, sounding angry.

Yun Heng feared nothing more than Wen Qiwu being angry or ignoring her. Just as she was about to apologize, the blurry voice became a little clearer.

“Senior Sister” Wen Qiwu’s voice was thick with tears. “Wake up, the demon cultivators are here!”

What a hauntingly similar memory.

Yun Heng’s hands shook. Scenes from a hundred years ago, when the Sect ran red with blood, flashed through her mind. All these years, she had heard her sister crying in her nightmares, saying the demon cultivators had come, saying.

“Senior Sister, please save me.”

A sword intent that seemed capable of cleaving heaven and earth tore through the sky of Wunwu Mountain. The “rats” that the Demon Lord had summoned didn’t even have time to scream before they were annihilated.

Yun Heng’s eyes snapped open, glowing a deep, crimson red. Her killing intent locked onto every enemy in the vicinity. As she unleashed her sword intent, she habitually turned to her side and said, “A-Que, don’t be afraid. Sister will protect”

But the space beside her was empty. There was no one there.

That’s right. Her sister was already gone.

Yun Heng’s tears fell instantly, and her unfinished sentence dissolved into a broken sob.

Support