Chapter 54

#So this is what fate intended—for me to meet you here.

Qin Shuyan and I didn’t delay and immediately returned to see the Queen Mother of the West.

Old Qin reported everything Zhu Lian had said in full.

The Queen Mother of the West listened, then lowered her head and sighed. “For a thousand years, the remaining gods and I have failed to grasp how the Evil God would return. So it was by borrowing the power of the mountains and rivers… Xie Zhuo traveled to the past and thus gained the opportunity to witness the Evil God’s techniques and comprehend this path. It is indeed the will of Heaven…”

“Queen Mother of the West.” Old Qin, somewhat anxious, couldn’t help interrupting her musings. “When Jiuxia and I returned, the evil aura outside had already grown rampant, nearly crushing the Kunlun barrier. If, after comprehending this path, Xie Zhuo could absorb all the evil aura under Heaven and return it to the mountains and rivers, could we perhaps emulate this?”

The Queen Mother of the West nodded. “Return to your posts and guard the interior of Kunlun well. I will contact the other gods through the Mirror of Spirit Stone and discuss this matter with them.”

Old Qin gave a nod and immediately turned to leave.

I, however, paused and looked toward the Queen Mother of the West. “Xie Zhuo used his own body as a vessel to contain all the evil aura in the world, then crossed into that icy forest, finally perishing alongside it… You…”

“I merely did what I ought to do—no different from Xie Zhuo, or the gods who have already passed,” she replied plainly.

Her tone was calm, but to my ears, it felt heavy.

I knew I shouldn’t say more, so I took the responsibility I now bore and turned to leave as well.

From that day on, I issued strict orders for the Kunlun defense forces to keep vigil day and night. Before each shift, comrades must check one another’s spiritual consciousness to ensure clarity and confirm no trace of evil aura had infected them.

Every day, I patrolled each point where the Kunlun barrier connected, not daring to slack even a little.

I had to watch both the evil aura beyond the barrier and my fellow soldiers at my side, fearful they might suddenly show signs of corruption…

After just ten days or so, even without direct combat against the evil forces, I already found my spirit wearing thin.

I tried my best not to think about how Xie Zhuo had survived such days in the past.

But every time I closed my eyes, the moment I relaxed even slightly, I would see a blurry image of Xie Zhuo standing beside me. Out there, he rarely looked directly at me—he was always watching, always on alert, always guarding in my place.

Thus passed a month, fraught with anxiety.

And then, like the final judgment of the apocalypse, the temporary barrier above Kunlun finally shattered.

All the connecting formations exploded, injuring many of the immortals stationed to guard them. Some were even immediately infected by the evil aura.

Chaos spread across the barrier formations of Kunlun.

I held my point, but I was already stretched thin.

As panic erupted all around, I saw a massive formation bloom from the peak of Kunlun. The Queen Mother of the West’s chanting echoed into every ear, carried on the wind.

At this moment, Kunlun’s principal deity was fulfilling her duty.

Just as she had once said, she was using a massive guiding formation to emulate Xie Zhuo, trying to draw all the evil aura into her own body.

Like countless other immortals and demons of Kunlun, I could do nothing in the face of such divine power but pray.

The evil aura surged across the sky, gathering at the peak of Kunlun. The evil energy within the infected people was also being drawn away, flowing in the same direction—as if the disaster might truly end here.

But soon, I realized something was wrong—the flow of evil aura toward the Kunlun peak had slowed.

Something was off. I’d seen in the stone mirror how Xie Zhuo once absorbed the world’s evil aura—it was fast, accelerating like a vortex that left no chance of escape.

But atop Kunlun now, the situation clearly wasn’t right.

And sure enough, as if confirming my fear, the massive formation above Kunlun shattered in an instant. The guiding power at the peak vanished, and the gathered evil aura, like a wave, came crashing down from Kunlun’s summit, submerging the entire mountain in moments.

It felt like I’d returned to the Undying City. Everyone was swallowed in that black evil mist.

Some soldiers, consumed by the thick evil aura, had their skin turn entirely black in an instant. Their eyes lost all whites.

Soon, only the sounds of slaughter remained around me.

In this overwhelming evil aura, Kunlun’s warriors… turned into wraiths.

I had no time to think. A soldier-turned-wraith lunged at me. I raised my sword and cut him down—but from another direction, another figure charged straight at me!

I recognized her—

Mengmeng…

I froze.

Looking at Mengmeng, now entirely devoid of reason, I didn’t strike. She lunged, claws sharp and grown, trying to rip out my heart.

But the moment she touched me, a white light flashed. Mengmeng recoiled as if burned. Her entire hand turned to black smoke.

She howled in pain, backed away a few steps, then turned and fled into the black mist born of evil.

I looked down at my palm. Beneath the skin, a faint white glow shone—the color of the icy lake water that Xie Zhuo had drawn into me when he erased the blood oath.

Perhaps this was why I could still remain conscious.

Even now, the trace Xie Zhuo left in me… was still protecting me.

There was no time to dwell on it. I gathered myself and rushed toward the peak of Kunlun.

I thought—if the Queen Mother of the West was still alive, and if I could find her, maybe… there was still a way to save Kunlun.

The dense evil aura blinded me, and I stumbled through, east and west, until I finally reached the peak. But the sight there left me shaken to the core.

It wasn’t just the Queen Mother of the West—

Lord Ji and more than a dozen other Principal Deities were there too!

All the world’s Principal Deities… were here. So the guiding formation wasn’t just the Queen Mother’s doing—it was…

Each deity had clearly been wounded when the formation shattered. Some sat or lay on the ground adjusting their internal energies; others looked deathly pale. The Queen Mother, at the edge of the formation, wiped the blood from her lips and, with effort, raised her hand toward me.

I understood and quickly moved forward.

The deities all looked at me too. Seeing that I was still clear-minded, they seemed surprised.

“The guiding formation has shattered. To draw in all the evil aura of the world—only Xie Zhuo can. His body was forged by the Evil God. Only he can do this. The Evil God… guessed right.”

A chill ran through me.

I turned toward the gathered deities. Their expressions were sorrowful—as though they had already accepted the end.

“There’s… no other way?”

“You carry the pure power Xie Zhuo left within you—it protects you from corruption. Go. Find a hidden, untouched land, and carry our hope.”

I fell silent, looking at each deity. They all seemed to agree that what the Queen Mother had said was the final option.

But when I looked to Lord Ji, I saw something different in his usually indifferent gaze.

“Perhaps,” he said, “there is another hope.”

All of us turned to him. He was silent for a moment, then said:

“Find Xie Zhuo.”

I immediately asked, “How!?”

“Go back to the past and stop the separation.” The Lord God Ji spoke. “Fu Jiuxia, if you can stop yourself on the eve of the separation and discuss again with Xie Zhuo how to resolve the evil aura plaguing the world, perhaps this world might still take a different path.”

I was stunned…

Atop the peak of Kunlun, all fell silent for a moment.

“I’ll go back.” Without any hesitation, I answered immediately, even feeling a little excited. “I can stop myself.”

Another Lord God behind me spoke, “After the guiding formation just now, our bodies are nearly devoid of soul power. How can we open a space-time passage to send her back?”

Lord God Ji looked at me and said frankly, “Indeed, without the Pangu Axe, our soul power is insufficient to send you back entirely. But if we imitate the Evil God and only send your spirit…”

I instantly understood what he meant and nodded at once. “That works…”

We didn’t have the Pangu Axe, and the Lord Gods lacked enough soul power to send my whole body back. But sending only my spirit posed no issue.

Moreover, Lord God Ji had once sacrificed his body to combat the Evil God—sending only his spirit to seek a suitable vessel, fighting the evil in the Undying City until now. When it came to separating body from spirit, he was undoubtedly the most knowledgeable among them.

“Jiuxia,” Queen Mother of the West hesitated before speaking. She frowned and looked at me. “Destroying your body, leaving only your spirit—do you understand what that means?”

“I understand.”

She continued, “Returning to the past with just your spirit—finding a compatible vessel in a short time is nearly impossible. And if you try to use your own body, it means you’ll have to fight your past self for that body. One of you will disappear. You may not win. You might not even be able to deliver the message we want Xie Zhuo to hear.”

“I will win,” I told her. “I will surpass my past self.”

I had walked further with Xie Zhuo. I had seen the Undying City, experienced life and death. None of it would pass by me in vain.

I had to win—if only for the sheer resolve to destroy my former self.

I would not lose…

Queen Mother of the West looked at me and gave one final word of advice: “Even if you disappear like this, that itself… is hope.”

“The Kunlun Defense Force has no deserters. Weren’t those your words to me? And besides…” I looked at her. “Facing a world like this alone… isn’t called hope.”

She said nothing more.

I turned to Lord God Ji. “Please help me destroy my body.”

He nodded.

What followed was simple.

Lord God Ji drew the formation beside me and taught me the incantation. I watched as my body, inch by inch, dissolved into the array—like melting spring snow, silent and subtle—disappearing into the formation amid searing pain.

I didn’t cry out or scream. Not once. Until I became a ball of white mist, like light, floating in the air.

I could feel the wind of this world, passing through my spirit from a perspective I had never known before.

It was strange—without a physical form, I felt closer to the true essence of the world.

The formation glowed beside me. The Lord Gods surrounded me, and slowly, a rift opened in the sky.

Unlike the rift Xie Zhuo once split open, this one carried with it the grace and mercy of the divine.

I slowly rose, getting closer and closer to the rift. But suddenly, the formation below flared, and the wind in the rift above began to howl.

I didn’t yet know what had happened when I heard a Lord God below exclaim, “The power of the space-time tunnel is too strong!”

“It’s the unexpected power released from the dissolution of her body! It pushed the tunnel forward in time!”

Huh!?

Even as just a spirit, I started to panic.

What did they mean by that!?

“With our current soul power, we can’t control it anymore!”

“She’ll be sent thousands of years into the past… to an unknown time… and an untraceable place…”

I had almost reached the mouth of the space-time rift. Upon hearing this, I desperately wanted to reform my body and grab one of the gods by the collar and ask: Are you serious? How could you mess this up!?

But I didn’t get the chance. The rift pulled me in. Just before I was fully swallowed, I suddenly saw Lord God Ji looking up at me. The usual cold mercy in his face was finally stirred.

He seemed to realize something, stunned as he watched me disappear into the rift.

His lips moved, and I vaguely saw him say: “So… it was you?”

What did he mean?

I didn’t understand. I had no way to ask.

The rift dragged my spirit through time at breakneck speed. It felt like an instant—or perhaps eternity—until the howling wind faded and the lights dimmed.

I found myself in a quiet, snowy forest under the night sky.

My spirit form finally felt free of the fatigue and tearing sensation from traversing time.

Unbound by pain, I floated up almost immediately.

That’s when I realized—this place… it was the homeland of the Snow Wolf Tribe. That icy forest…

There was firelight flickering in the woods, but the surroundings were eerily silent. In the silence under the moonlight, I finally heard a wail that tore through the quiet.

I flew toward the sound. Wind passed through me. Leaves brushed by me. It felt like I was being called. I flew faster, and faster. I saw the homes of the Snow Wolf Tribe—simple tents scattered among the trees.

I passed through them. No one saw me.

Until I floated before the main tent.

The chieftain of the Snow Wolf Tribe—the one I’d seen in my dreams—walked out of the tent, cradling a baby.

I stared blankly at the child.

Crying under the moonlight.

“From this day forth, the Snow Wolf Tribe shall offer sincere devotion… to the Evil God’s vessel.”

The chieftain placed the child on the ground. Then, drawing out his soul power, he poured it into the infant’s chest.

Following his lead, the Snow Wolf clansmen outside—some gritting their teeth, others silently enduring—each drew soul power from their bodies and offered it to the child.

Under the steady offerings of soul power, the baby opened his eyes. He lay on the snowy ground without the slightest sense of cold. His tiny hand reached out into the air, grasping unconsciously.

I floated before him. His hand passed through my spirit.

For a moment, even as a spirit, I felt the sting of tears.

Xie Zhuo—so this is where fate meant for me to meet you.