Volume 3, Chapter 458 – My Fear Is— Falling in Love With Her

The Immortal Venerable was gravely wounded?

She had been beaten into serious injury by the Demon Sovereign?

Chi Xiyan’s heart reeled with shock.

This piece of information was simply too astonishing.

In everyone’s eyes, a Venerable Sage was the very symbol of invincibility. It was only because of Immortal Venerable Qingzhi standing behind them that the Lingxiao Sword Sect had been able to hold its current position for a thousand years.

And yet an existence that invincible had actually been beaten to the brink of serious injury by someone.

Even hearing it come from Chi Muxue’s own mouth, Chi Xiyan found it hard to believe.

But under normal circumstances, even if Qu Qingtang hadn’t used her full strength, her attack shouldn’t have been something a single Seventh Realm sword cultivator like Chi Muxue could block.

And then there was what had happened earlier. Right in front of her, Chi Xiyan had very nearly succeeded in killing Song Shixuan.

Although she had ultimately been stopped, the fact that a Venerable Sage had nearly let a Fifth Realm cultivator’s sneak attack succeed already spoke volumes.

All of this now served as evidence for what Chi Muxue had just said.

That invincible Immortal Venerable, the greatest sword cultivator under heaven, was at this moment a gravely wounded body.

Chi Xiyan could well imagine what kind of uproar this news would cause if it ever got out.

“Sister…” Chi Muxue turned her hand and squeezed Chi Xiyan’s palm, her fingertip tracing lightly across it.

Chi Xiyan’s expression paused for a moment, and she immediately understood what Chi Muxue was trying to convey.

Run.

Get away from here.

Qu Qingtang was gravely injured and unable to leave Lingxiao Snow Peak. This was their one and only chance.

But…

She couldn’t do it.

Chi Xiyan gripped Chi Muxue’s hand tightly.

If things had come to this, and she abandoned Muxue to flee alone, then what had everything she’d done before even been for?

Chi Xiyan had started with nothing at all, which was why she’d once been able to weigh gains and losses so rationally.

But now, having truly possessed something, she understood for the first time what it meant to hold something priceless.

“I’m not leaving.” Chi Xiyan said. “Whatever the outcome, I won’t leave you here alone.”

Chi Muxue turned her head and looked at her deeply for a moment.

A moment later, she broke into a smile.

“Sister, you’ve become someone I barely recognize.”

“How amusing.” Qu Qingtang laughed coldly. “So you blocked one attack from me. Do you truly believe you can still leave Lingxiao Mountain today?!”

Chi Muxue turned her head, raising her sword with a faint smile and pointing it toward the distant snowy peak.

“Enough with the empty talk!”

“Come then! Qu Qingtang!”

“I’ve had my eye on you for far too long!”

Qu Qingtang scolded coldly. “You truly don’t know when to fear death.”

As her words fell, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth surged toward the center like a rolling mist.

Chi Xiyan’s expression shifted slightly.

Chi Muxue traced another line of words into her palm.

‘Five Element Spirit Explosion. Sect’s main hall.’

Chi Xiyan understood at once. Chi Muxue wanted her to use the same technique she’d used against Song Shixuan to strike the Lingxiao Sword Sect’s main hall while Qu Qingtang’s attention was drawn elsewhere.

Chi Xiyan tightened her grip on the girl’s hand, signaling that she understood.

The next instant, Qu Qingtang’s attack arrived.

An overwhelming spiritual pressure crashed down like Mount Tai bearing down upon them.

“Now!”

Chi Xiyan heard Chi Muxue’s cry.

Without time to think through the meaning behind the command, she raised her hand and hurled out the five Five Element spirit pills she carried.

The five pills traced five graceful arcs through the air.

The pills disintegrated in midair, spiraling, and when they finally converged into one point, they unleashed an incredibly powerful shockwave.

Though its power fell short of the terrifying force she’d unleashed against Song Shixuan earlier, it came remarkably close to a Sixth Realm cultivator’s attack.

At that moment, Chi Xiyan heard Qu Qingtang’s furious shout.

“Chi Muxue! You mad girl!”

Chi Xiyan saw that the Five Element spirit pills she had detonated had been pinned in midair by an invisible force.

As that raging elemental power was held in place, within the concealing veil of five colored profound light, the trace of a small jade sword revealed itself.

Chi Muxue had used Chi Xiyan’s attack as cover to launch an assault of her own.

But before Chi Xiyan could even feel surprised.

Chi Muxue seized her hand and turned to run.

“Go!”

With a boom, a burst of spiritual energy struck them, sending both of them flying backward.

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Chi Xiyan’s expression shifted. The force within that spiritual energy was more than a Fifth Realm sword cultivator like herself could withstand.

The next second, Chi Muxue leaned in and wrapped her arms around her.

The two of them turned into a streak of light in the sky, fleeing into the distance.

Along the way, Chi Xiyan could still hear the furious roar of a sect elder.

“Damn it!”

“That girl detonated the sect’s underground spiritual veins!”

“Was she planning this from the very start!”

“Everyone, form up with me and repair the spiritual veins!”

Soon, those voices faded out of earshot.

***

Chi Xiyan wasn’t sure how long had passed before she noticed Chi Muxue’s sword light gradually weakening.

The two of them slowly descended to the ground.

“ Cough, cough… “

The moment they landed, Chi Muxue half knelt on the ground, leaning on her sword, and coughed up fresh blood.

“Muxue! Are you hurt?” Chi Xiyan hurried to support her. “I still have some medicine for wounds here!”

The girl shook her head, refusing the offer.

“I detonated the underground spiritual veins beneath the Lingxiao Sword Sect. There’s no going back now between me and the sect.”

“They won’t let us go. We need to leave here right away!”

Chi Xiyan bit down hard on her lip as she looked at Chi Muxue’s utterly bloodless face.

Even without checking the girl’s pulse, she could tell that her injuries were far from minor.

“Where can we even go?”

Chi Xiyan lifted her head and looked up at the sky.

The sky above was a deep, clear blue, without a single cloud for miles.

Chi Muxue said weakly, “Leave the human race, go to the land of the demons…”

“Go to Nether Abyss City. There will be someone there willing to take us in.”

“ Cough, cough… “

Her complexion turned a shade paler still.

Chi Xiyan fell silent.

Nether Abyss City?

That was the Demon Sovereign’s domain.

Chi Xiyan bit her lip until it bled. “Little Xue’er, you’re the reincarnation of the Sword Venerable… the Demon Sovereign holds a deep grudge against the human race. If we go to demon territory…”

“Sister, don’t you understand yet…” Chi Muxue coughed up another mouthful of blood. “We don’t have a choice left anymore.”

Chi Xiyan froze, a bitter look crossing her face. “Perhaps, we could go find the Empress…”

But Chi Muxue shook her head. “The Empress didn’t intervene three years ago.”

“Three years from now, she’ll care even less…”

Chi Xiyan had no answer to that.

She watched as the girl before her lowered her head.

“Sister, we already share a blood feud with the Lingxiao Sword Sect. The demon territory is our best option now.”

“Well, listen to what I’ve stumbled upon.” A rough male voice suddenly cut into their conversation. “Little girl, so it turns out you haven’t just betrayed the sect. You even mean to betray the human race too!”

“Who’s there?!” Chi Xiyan immediately moved to shield Chi Muxue.

At that moment, an unkempt middle aged man stood not far from the two of them.

He wore a flowered robe and a wide brimmed hat, the half of his face visible carrying a faint, unreadable smile.

Chi Xiyan didn’t recognize him, but she could feel an unbearably terrifying pressure radiating from him.

“I’m the one who’s come to kill you both.”

The middle aged man tilted his head slightly and gave Chi Xiyan a faint smile.

Suddenly, the ring of a sword’s cry shattered the air.

A streak of sword qi tore through the void and slashed straight down at Chi Xiyan’s head.

Chi Xiyan’s hair stood on end in an instant.

The overwhelming threat of death made her body feel as heavy as if it had been filled with lead.

A bone chilling cold shot up her spine in an instant.

She couldn’t move. She was going to die.

This man was even more terrifying than Qu Qingtang.

“Watch out!”

In that split second life or death moment, Chi Muxue, who had been shielded behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist and wrenched her back, pulling Chi Xiyan behind herself instead.

With a sharp clang, the two of them were forced back several steps.

Chi Xiyan felt a dull, throbbing pain in her chest.

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The sharp sword qi had been blocked, but the impact it carried had still injured her internal organs.

But right now, Chi Xiyan had no room to worry about herself.

She felt warmth soaking through in front of her.

Her vision filled with a wash of blood red.

“Muxue… Muxue…”

Chi Xiyan’s hands trembled as she wrapped her arms around the girl.

But the girl raised a hand and pushed her away.

“Go! Run, now!”

“That’s Jiang Hongliang! The Lingxiao Sword Sect’s Sect Master!”

“ Cough …” Chi Muxue vomited another mouthful of blood.

The sect master, an Eighth Realm sword cultivator.

Within the sect, second in strength only to Immortal Venerable Qingzhi, Qu Qingtang.

Run? Could they even outrun him?

The sword cultivator’s killing intent had condensed into something almost tangible, sealing off this small stretch of world completely.

Chi Xiyan’s mind could still hold onto reason, but she couldn’t stop her body from being crushed beneath fear.

Her blood and muscles felt as though they had frozen solid.

All she could do was watch, helpless, as the man walked closer step by step.

He drew his sword and pointed it at Chi Muxue’s head. “Any last words, little girl?”

“No… don’t… don’t kill her…”

Chi Xiyan begged, but she found she couldn’t even force out her voice.

All that filled her sight was Chi Muxue, half her body drenched in blood, and the increasingly labored sound of her breathing.

“It seems… there truly is no other way…”

Facing Jiang Hongliang’s blade, Chi Muxue’s eyes still held not a trace of fear.

“Sister… I’d once thought we might leave this place together.”

“Go to Nether Abyss City, go anywhere no one knows who we were.”

“But it looks like… my strength simply isn’t enough…”

“I’m sorry, sister. It seems I may have to break my promise…”

Chi Xiyan’s eyes went wide, nearly splitting at the corners.

Was there truly no way out?

Was there truly not a single sliver of hope left?

No. There was still one way. One last hope.

Thud thud … thud thud …

Her heart pounded in her chest like a war drum.

The pill.

The Nine Nether Fate Reversal Pill.

That pill was right there, inside her storage ring.

If she had that pill, even if she couldn’t defeat Jiang Hongliang, she could hold him off for just a moment, long enough for Muxue to escape!

As for whatever side effects the pill might bring, in the face of the hope of letting the girl she loved escape, none of that mattered anymore.

The thought of it, and the hope swelling in her chest, overcame her fear of death.

Her trembling hand gently opened the storage ring.

A pill as black as ink appeared in her palm.

Jiang Hongliang noticed, and he gave a faint sneer, paying no attention at all to Chi Xiyan’s small movement.

That contempt was exactly what gave Chi Xiyan the opening she needed to swallow the pill.

Her hand trembled as she raised it and stuffed the pill whole into her mouth.

Then, the next instant, the pill flew back out of her mouth as if it had met with some kind of resistance.

“What?!” Chi Xiyan’s eyes filled with shock.

She had just felt that force of rejection come from within the pill itself.

The pill refused to let her swallow it.

“Sister, it seems you didn’t take even a little of what I asked Qing Niang to tell you to heart.”

Chi Muxue’s voice reached her.

“This pill is far too dangerous. It’s not something you should ever touch…”

Chi Xiyan was utterly stunned in that moment.

The Nine Nether Fate Reversal Pill had been refined by Muxue!

The mysterious alchemist Qing Niang had spoken of was Chi Muxue herself!

At this moment, she saw that the black pill had somehow already flown into Chi Muxue’s hand.

Chi Muxue gave her a radiant smile.

“Actually, this pill was never meant for you, sister.”

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“That’s why I made a small adjustment to it.”

Chi Xiyan suddenly understood.

This pill had been prepared by Chi Muxue for herself.

“No! Don’t!” She immediately cried out to stop her. “Muxue! You can’t.”

“What kind of pill is that?” Jiang Hongliang, too, had grown somewhat curious about the pill in the girl’s hand.

“Want to know what this pill is?” Chi Muxue kept smiling faintly, utterly indifferent to the fact that her chest was already soaked in blood.

“No need to rush. You’ll find out very soon.”

With that, she flicked her fingertip, and the pill turned into a streak of black light that she swallowed down.

The next moment, she clutched at her chest, her expression twisting in agony.

The sword in her hand slipped uncontrollably to the ground.

The girl sank to her knees, her body trembling without pause.

“Muxue!” Chi Xiyan cried out anxiously.

“Sister… don’t look at me… please…”

Amid the girl’s soft, choked sobs, the aura around her suddenly began to change in a way that overturned everything.

Dark. Deathly still. Beyond words.

Merely brushing against it with spiritual consciousness alone brought indescribable murmurs pouring into one’s sea of consciousness.

The girl’s body split at the skin and flesh, bones and tissue turning outward.

Across her body, a form impossible to describe in words, countless purple eyes bloomed, packed densely together.

At this moment, Chi Muxue looked like a monster that had crawled straight out of the abyss.

“Nine Netherworlds reversing fate. The Yellow Springs thrown open…”

Chi Xiyan’s jaw dropped, her whole body trembling.

Though this was the first time she’d witnessed it, she knew this was the side effect brought on by the Nine Nether Fate Reversal Pill.

“Falling into a corrupted, deathless husk. Never to be reborn…”

Jiang Hongliang let out a horrified scream. “Damn it! What kind of monster is this!”

“How could such a thing possibly exist in this world!”

Chi Muxue’s aura had now reached an extreme of power. And an extreme of chaos as well.

Impossible to grasp, impossible to name.

But one thing alone was certain.

The combat strength she was unleashing at this moment had already surpassed the Seventh Realm entirely.

Even the sect master couldn’t suppress her.

Her assault followed no pattern at all. Her attacks came like a wild beast.

Cruel, and utterly primal.

Chi Xiyan stared, dumbstruck, her consciousness on the verge of shutting down.

That monster was her Muxue.

Muxue was fighting to buy her a chance to escape.

Blood colored runes condensed into a cocoon in midair, and every bone in Chi Muxue’s body let out a teeth grating creak.

Across her body, those countless purple eyes gushed forth black light, forcibly withstanding the Lingxiao sword intent radiating from Jiang Hongliang’s blade.

“Run!”

The girl’s anguished cry jolted Chi Xiyan out of her daze.

She saw that Chi Muxue, her body now barely recognizable as human, had clamped down on Jiang Hongliang’s sword.

Countless jet black tendrils wound themselves tightly around Jiang Hongliang’s limbs, as though trying to tear him apart.

Panicking, Jiang Hongliang drove the sword lodged inside Chi Muxue’s body deeper, its sharp sword intent surging out and shredding her internal organs and her very life force.

Chi Muxue’s body was pierced through with countless holes by the sword qi, her riddled form gushing black blood without pause.

The scene was brutal beyond words, shocking to witness.

And it shook Chi Xiyan to her very core.

Why… had it come to this…

Wasn’t that pill supposed to be taken by me?

Shouldn’t I be the one saving Muxue right now?

Why, in the end, could I only watch like this…

Tell me why! Chi Xiyan!

Chi Xiyan clenched her fists, her nails digging so deep they broke through the skin of her palms.

But no physical pain could compare to the pain stabbing through her heart.

She was the elder sister. It should have been her protecting her younger sister.

She was the alchemist. That pill should have been made for herself.

She had made a three year pact with the Lingxiao Sword Sect, and it should have been her bringing Muxue home safely once everything was over.

But now, everything had turned out the exact opposite of what she’d intended.

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She had worked so hard, done so much, all for Muxue’s sake. And in the end, not only had she failed to accomplish anything, but Muxue was the one left to bear everything, using her own life to buy one last sliver of hope for her.

Chi Xiyan, your effort and resolve are nothing but a joke.

Her vision grew blurrier and blurrier, and in her ears she could still hear Chi Muxue’s broken, half formed cries.

She couldn’t make out the words clearly, but she understood the meaning within them.

‘Run! Run now, while you still can!’

That was the strongest wish Chi Muxue was pouring out to her at this moment.

But Chi Xiyan would rather not understand what it meant.

The scene before her felt like a nightmare.

A nightmare where illusion and reality could barely be told apart.

This nightmare was on the verge of shattering Chi Xiyan’s will completely.

‘If exchanging hearts with Muxue, cultivating together with her, growing close to her, was meant to be a beautiful dream, then why must this dream end in tragedy?’

‘If this is a nightmare, fated to make me experience separation from the living and the dead, to be abandoned by everyone, until I have nothing left at all, then why was I also allowed to experience those beautiful, carefree, joyful days from when I first met Muxue?’

She closed her eyes and questioned the void in her mind.

‘Tell me, what does this all mean?!’

A voice, coming from nowhere she could place, answered her in a tone utterly devoid of emotion.

“You want to know why?”

“Then open your eyes, Chi Xiyan. I will give you the answer.”

“No…” Chi Xiyan wanted to refuse.

But that invisible force wouldn’t allow Chi Xiyan any resistance. It forced her vision to return.

The instant she saw it, Chi Xiyan’s eyes felt as though they would split apart.

Countless sword blades pierced through Chi Muxue’s body, propping up her ruined form like a frame holding up torn cloth.

The girl turned her head with great difficulty, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Sister… there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you.”

“If I don’t say it now, it seems there may never be another chance…”

“Chi Xiyan… I love you…”

“I’ve loved you from the bottom of my heart since the very first time we met.”

Chi Xiyan felt her heart take another crushing blow, her eyes going wide.

As Chi Muxue’s words fell, the evening primrose hairpin slipped from her hair, shattering into pieces on the ground.

The next instant, Jiang Hongliang pulled his sword free from her body.

Countless streaks of sword light erupted in that moment, blasting the girl’s body into fragments.

Chi Xiyan felt as though her own heart had shattered along with her, a pain that tore through her very soul.

“No—!!”

The agony in her heart nearly pierced straight through her spirit.

“This is the answer I meant to give you, Chi Xiyan.”

That emotionless voice sounded once more.

“A flower blooms in an instant, and withers in an instant too.”

“It is only by having had something that one can truly know the depth of the pain of losing it.”

“The Illusory Heart Realm, questioning one’s true heart, seeing one’s nature with clarity.”

“Desire and fear can be forged in the same flame, from the same flesh and blood.”

“Heh.”

“Chi Xiyan, now, tell me the answer you found within the Illusory Heart Realm.”

“What is your desire? And what is your fear?”

Desire? Fear?

Chi Xiyan felt her consciousness sink into a haze, unable to tell where she was, unable to tell what state she was even in.

But she could feel her soul crying out without pause, urging her to give an answer.

“Desire…”

“My desire is the desire born of love…”

“To love her, to protect her, to possess her…”

“Not bound by human relations or heaven’s law, not bound by worldly convention…”

“A forbidden desire.”

“And my fear…”

Chi Xiyan’s words caught.

Her soul trembled as though it might shatter at any moment.

But even through that trembling, she heard her own answer.

“My fear is…”

“Falling in love with her.”