Betrayal and a bloody banquet herald the end!

Ying yue opened his eyes when he felt the hard ground beneath him. Zhen yan was breathing heavily. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead and his chest rose and fell unevenly. Ying yue supported him.

It was dark, so dark that he couldn't see anything. Everything was black, the sky above them, the earth at their feet. When he got down on his knees, he felt a smooth, hard surface. They had reached the black jade plateau.

The earth vibrated beneath them. Ying yue drew Xiaodan, the light of his sword cut through the darkness like a beam of light. He swung his sword, conjured up a hundred replicas and sent them hurtling into the darkness.

As expected, the demons collapsed around them out of the blackness. Some remained standing, others made a move to pounce on him. Black-green smoke slid over the ground, swallowed the front of Yao and let it disintegrate into dust with inhuman sounds.

Ying yue breathed heavily. He had expected to fight Yao, but what was standing in front of them now was not a few dozen or hundreds, it was a crowd of thousands of demons. Ying yue prepared himself. They had to make it to the center of the seal. He let Xiaodan reassemble himself and covered the blade with a thin layer of blood.

Ying yue prepared himself and gathered all the spiritual energy inside him. Zhen yan rose, his gaze gliding over Ying yue to the demon front. On any other day, he would have crushed all ten thousand of them into dust in an instant. But as fate would have it, he was unable to do so at this very moment. He had to be careful; an arbitrary outburst of his power could trigger the same catastrophe as when he was born.

Ying yue let his qi flow within him, around him, and into his sword. His fight resembled a sword dance, carving a path through the swirling, toothy, and clawed darkness. Sweat pouring down his body and every muscle in his body aching, they reached the center of the plain. Zhen yan had lost much of his external human form.

His hair was wild and open, thin black lines, from which the black-green smoke billowed, stretched across his face and half-exposed body. He seemed to merge more and more with his surroundings, and Ying yue could no longer tell where the demon began and the darkness ended.

»Zhen yan?« He called to him. The demon looked up. His eyes, usually so warm and glowing, were black and cold. The carefree smile that was usually on his lips was gone. Ying yue went up to him and held him close. He felt the irregular heartbeat and an icy pain as the smoke brushed over his skin. Zhen yan pushed him away. For a moment, pain was reflected in his black eyes, then he let himself fall.

Ying yue jumped after him without hesitation. Around them, the demons were torn apart by Zhen yan's smoke. There was thunder and lightning. The only light in the eternal fall was provided by Xiaodan.

Ying yue reached for Zhen yan, but he vanished before her fingers. Magic and smoke engulfed him, causing him pain but not injury. There was thunder and lightning as Zhen yan and Xiaodan clashed. Two powers that could not combine, even if they had the same goal. Suddenly, something pierced the darkness and went through his shoulders.

Ying yue groaned and lashed out with Xiaodan. The smoke closed in as the next claw emerged from the darkness. It was between the demon world and the mortal one, and all Yao trying to reach the surface had to pass through it.

He summoned all his strength and pushed the demon horde back as far as he could. While the smoke swirled around him, eating deep into the jade around them, and the sky thundered more and more powerfully. He had to buy Zhen yan as much time as possible. A thorny tongue lashed out of the darkness. It pierced his clothes and broke through his chest. It missed his heart by a hair's breadth. Choking on the pain, he cut off the tongue and tore the tip out of his chest.

Experience told him that two of them would soon be leaning on him. Ying yue took the trembling blade, which shone brighter than ever before. Previously, a few hundred replicas was the most he could manage. But with each copy of Xiaodan, the sword grew a little weaker. Nevertheless, he gathered what spiritual energy he had left and channeled it into the sword.

He needed more than a hundred blades to fight against the tens of thousands of demons. He sensed that his spiritual power was reaching its limit, the source of his power was exhausted; if he continued, it would mean his death sooner or later. If he didn't, it would mean death not only for the mortal world, but also for Zhen yan.

He sensed the smoke surrounding him becoming restless. Zhen yan's last shred of sanity suppressed the urge to release his formidable power all at once. The demon's magic had spread across the plain and was piling up to the sky. If Ying yue launched a final attack now, Zhen yan would no longer be able to control the power vacuum. The plain would be sealed, but they would be trapped here. He hesitated briefly.

»It's okay,« he murmured softly. More to himself, but he felt Zhen yan's magic carefully solidify around him.

»As long as we're together!« The sound of the metal shattering was cruel. It was as if Xiaodan cried out as it bent under the pressure of the demon mass he tried to push back and finally gave way. Amidst a whirl of hundreds of thousands of splinters of the sword copies, Ying yue felt himself falling. It seemed as if he had lost the weightlessness with which Zhen yan had caught him.

Involuntarily, he stretched out his hands. Xiaodan, his sword, which had been trying to tell him something. The shards had the illusion of flower petals scattered in the wind. As if the blade had been a tightly closed bud for a thousand years, now unfolding layer by layer. A shimmering, silvery being with flowing, silken robes fanned out. He saw the face of a beautiful young woman, her delicate fingers reaching out to him, her arms encircling him as he fell.

Ying yue was so overwhelmed by the sight that he was momentarily speechless. He pulled himself together.

»Zhen yan, the seal NOW!« he shouted as loud as he could into the darkness. The divine figure smiled broadly at him. The power structure trembled around her. Ying yue felt the immense power vacuum that Zhen yan had created expand one last time before it collapsed at breakneck speed. The enormous pressure of the magic that arose from it formed shimmering golden characters that engraved themselves deep into the black jade. Like brightly shining veins, they permeated the entire plateau.

»So you are the precious treasure he found?« the divine apparition asked, her voice melodious, like a warm breath of wind.

»I'm so glad he found you. He's a good boy.«

»He's over fifty thousand years old,« Ying yue replied, perplexed. Xiao Lian laughed.

»My goodness, he's become a real old hand at it.« She hugged Ying yue. The free fall had stopped.

Xiao Lian's figure glowed brightly, yet Ying yue could not see the beginning or the end of the hole where he had followed Zhen yan. Black smoke enveloped them both hesitantly, but seemed to maintain a certain distance. The shimmering silver figure of the goddess took Ying yue's face between her cool little hands.

»You look just like him,« she murmured dreamily. She took his hands in hers and let the smoke flow around them into the palm of her hand.

»This is the very last time I can help him. From now on, you're responsible for this big, stupid demon,« she said softly. Small, glistening tears welled up in her eyes as she stroked his cheek and gave him a broad smile. Ying yue couldn't help but notice how similar the two were. He closed his eyes as Xiao Lian transformed into a thousand shimmering petals, and this time, instead of falling, he felt as if he were flying. The feeling ended abruptly when he landed on a hard, cold stone.

He gasped. After the goddess's magic had completely withdrawn, the pain and exhaustion in his body hit him. He curled up, unable to see or hear, feeling only the heat on his skin and the pain. Carefully, he held what Xiao Lian had given him in his hands. Only after a long time did his eyesight return. He blinked. In his hands, he held a lotus flower made of black jade.

Black smoke swirled around the wide-open petals, which were criss-crossed with light, delicate golden threads. It took him a while to get up, despite his battered body. He looked around. The black jade plateau stretched far and wide. No matter which direction he looked, he saw neither an end nor a tree or shrubbery, only black stone with glowing golden sigils.

His clothes were tattered and soaked in blood. He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. The jade lotus exuded the same aura and smell as Zhen yan. When he concentrated, he could hear a gentle heartbeat. He sat there for quite a while, only when it started to rain and the dust was washed off him and out of the air, could he stand up.

»Time to go home!« Ying yue whispered and set off in a random direction. When he reached the former residence of the Gao clan, which had been completely destroyed, there was no sign of anyone still being alive. Everything was in ruins and Ying yue had trouble finding a way through the debris. Dead bodies were piled up and the air was thick with the smell of coagulated, poisoned blood. He saw talismans and seals that had been hastily erected by the survivors to appease the resentment of the souls left behind.

He found Gao Teng Fei's body slumped in the middle of the battlefield. The painting at his feet had faded. The blood of the battle had washed away the color. His body was covered with sacred ghostly threads, prayer bells and talismans, so that his body resembled a mummification. Nevertheless, Ying yue could see that his head was missing. The fight must have been brutal if none of the survivors had managed to bury the bodies and appease the grudges. Envoys would surely be sent soon to take care of this battlefield.

Ying yue stretched his face towards the sky. The rain did not stop; it was as if heaven was mourning. But something else was happening with the incessant downpour. It pressed the angry energy to the ground, preventing the hatred and the strong Yin energy from spreading, and Ying yue couldn't help but wonder if heaven was mourning the loss of the last shard of Xiao Lian's soul. He held the jade lotus closer and left the ruins. He hadn't seen Wang Bing wen or the fox's body. Maybe they had made it.