The Miraculous Paimon

Following the direction indicated by the star chart, Chu Yuan led Keqing and Mona through several quiet alleys to an abandoned district of manors by the outer city wall.

Years ago, the area had housed the villas of several nobles from the Balak Kingdom. With the rise of the commercial district in the south of the city, it had gradually fallen into disuse, leaving only a succession of secluded manors with weather-stained walls.

After nightfall, even the city guards making their rounds rarely set foot here.

"It's the outer wall of that abandoned old manor up ahead."

Mona lowered the brim of her hat and warned quietly, "The black-clad girl's destiny star is flickering violently in a dark alley on the eastern side of the manor. Of the five malicious star trails surrounding her, one has a particularly formidable presence. By this world's division of strength, I'm afraid it has already surpassed the level of a fortieth-level Soul Ancestor."

Chu Yuan paused, his gaze piercing through the layers of darkness toward a narrow alley between broken walls several dozen zhang away.

A slender figure in black staggered and fell to one knee on the cold flagstones.

Compared to her cold beauty and neat appearance during the day, the girl had now been driven into a truly desperate predicament.

The close-fitting black leather outfit she wore had been torn in several places by sharp blades. A wound on her left shoulder, deep enough to expose bone, was steadily seeping crimson blood, staining a large patch of her clothing dark red.

Ten paces in front of her, five elite assassins with black cloths covering their faces stood in a fan formation, completely sealing off her escape from the dark alley.

"Second Young Miss, stop struggling in vain."

The Soul Ancestor assassin leading them gave a sinister chuckle:

"The First Prince gave his orders. Since you insisted on escaping to find that good-for-nothing Dai Mubai, you might as well leave your life here!"

At the mention of Dai Mubai's name, a flash of profound disappointment and bone-deep chill suddenly passed through Zhu Zhuqing's deathly cold catlike eyes as she knelt on one knee.

She had escaped, and she really had found Dai Mubai at noon today.

But what had she seen?

A coward who, faced with the cruel struggle for life and death within the family, had sunk completely into the comforts of feminine company, taking twin girls to a hotel to get a room, one on each arm! A spoiled young master who, after being driven back in a single move, could only put on a fierce front to hide his weakness, having lost even the courage to face a powerful opponent!

When she had been ambushed by these Star Luo Imperial Family deathsworn at an inn in the west of the city just now, she might have been able to force Dai Mubai to intervene and share some of the burden if she had fled toward the Rose Hotel or the pleasure quarter in the south.

But the pride and coldness in Zhu Zhuqing's bones made her prefer to flee alone to these remote northwestern manors and die fighting in a bath of blood rather than wag her tail and beg that man, who disgusted her, for mercy!

"You want to take my life and claim credit from Zhu Zhuyun and Dai Weisi... You'll have to leave a few lives behind in exchange!"

Zhu Zhuqing bit down hard on her bloodless lower lip. The two yellow Hundred-Year Soul Rings beneath her feet lit up again with a faint glow.

She forcibly gathered the last trace of her twenty-seventh-level Soul Power, tensing the muscles of her long, shapely legs as she prepared to unleash her first Soul Skill, Hell Stab, before she died. Even if they perished together, she would bite a chunk of flesh out of the Soul Ancestor before her!

"Stubborn fool! Since Second Young Miss is so eager to be on her way, this subordinate will send you off-third Soul Skill, Shadow-Splitting Hook!"

A fierce light flared in the Soul Ancestor assassin's eyes. He turned into a twisted black shadow and lunged straight for Zhu Zhuqing's pale throat!

The full-force strike of a forty-fourth-level Soul Ancestor was unimaginably fast.

Zhu Zhuqing's pupils widened. Gravely injured and exhausted, she did not even have enough Soul Power left to support a dodge. She could only watch as the iron hook coming for her life rapidly expanded in her vision.

Am I going to die...?

That's fine too. At least I won't have to face the suffocating fate of my family anymore, or cling to any more ridiculous hopes about that man.

Zhu Zhuqing closed her eyes in despair.

Just as the darkly gleaming iron hook came within three inches of her throat, a dazzling bolt of purple-gold divine lightning tore through the thick night above the manor!

Chu Yuan walked out slowly and gently pointed the index finger of his right hand toward the center of the dark alley.

His purple-gold, thousand-year First Soul Ring quietly burst into a brilliant divine radiance!

First divine-authority Soul Skill, Heavenly Principles Lightning Judgment!

A purple-gold pillar of lightning as thick as a bucket slammed down on the Soul Ancestor assassin's head!

For an instant, the entire gloomy alley was as bright as day.

In the next breath, the lightning faded.

"Thud..."

The forty-fourth-level agility-type Soul Ancestor, who had been so menacing moments ago, had been reduced to a blackened corpse. He fell stiffly in front of Zhu Zhuqing and shattered into pieces of charcoal across the ground!

The four other Three-Ring Soul Elder assassins, who had been following behind and preparing to surround her and finish her off, froze in their tracks like roosters seized by the throat!

"Wh-who's there?!"

"One strike... He killed Commander Black Hook, a forty-fourth-level Soul Ancestor, in just one strike?! Retreat! He's a powerful expert at least at the level of a high-rank Soul King or even a Soul Emperor!!"

The four Soul Elder deathsworn were scared out of their wits. No longer daring to concern themselves with Zhu Zhuqing, they turned and frantically channeled their Soul Power, trying to leap over the manor walls on either side and flee for their lives.

"You disturbed my lord, and now you think you can leave?"

A young woman's voice rang out at the mouth of the alley.

Keqing gently raised a slender, pale hand, sending a Lightning Stiletto flashing with purple electricity into the air above the dark alley. Her graceful figure became a purple afterimage, flashing between the four assassins as they leaped into the air!

"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"

Four flashes of sword light appeared like sudden thunderbolts.

From the moment Chu Yuan raised his hand and brought down Heavenly Principles Lightning Judgment to annihilate the Soul Ancestor commander, to Keqing's instant killing of the four Soul Elder deathsworn, only two short breaths had passed!

Zhu Zhuqing opened her eyes in a daze and looked at the Soul Ancestor's remains in front of her, still giving off the smell of scorching and the lingering might of Electro. Slowly, she raised her head and looked at the three figures walking toward her from beyond the manor's stone archway.

"It's... it's you?"

Zhu Zhuqing's cold eyes trembled slightly as she recognized the person before her as the mysterious young man from the Rose Hotel lobby at noon today.

She had never imagined that the squad of Soul Ancestor deathsworn who had pursued her all the way from the Star Luo Empire to Suotuo City would be utterly wiped out before this young man without lasting even a single exchange!

And the Soul Ring that had lit up around the young man just now...

A storm of shock rose in Zhu Zhuqing's heart.

If she had seen correctly, that had clearly been only the young man's first Soul Ring. Yet its strange, intertwined purple-and-gold color was a hundred times more terrifying than even the black ten-thousand-year Soul Rings of her family's elders!

Chu Yuan walked slowly up to Zhu Zhuqing and looked over the Hell Spirit Cat girl kneeling in a pool of blood.

It had to be said that even grievously wounded, Zhu Zhuqing still had an astonishingly voluptuous figure.

The slender waist and rounded curve of her hips beneath her tight black leather outfit formed an exaggerated silhouette. Her delicate body trembled slightly from blood loss, giving her an air of untamed wildness and solitary coldness, as though she were on the verge of breaking.

"You knew you were injured, yet instead of asking that fiancé of yours for help, you ran alone to this forgotten, abandoned manor to wait for death. What's the matter? Now that you've seen what that sick cat is really made of, have you given up even the thought of asking him for help?"

Chu Yuan's words were like a sharp scalpel, cutting open the deepest scars and humiliation in Zhu Zhuqing's heart.

She braced both hands against the cold ground and tried to force herself to her feet, to preserve the last of her dignity. But the severe injuries to her left shoulder and meridians made her vision go black. Her body had risen only half an inch before she fell heavily back down.

"Cough, cough... Thank you for saving my life."

Zhu Zhuqing wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and raised her cold, stubborn eyes to look Chu Yuan straight in the face:

"Whether I, Zhu Zhuqing, live or die has nothing to do with that coward Dai Mubai. If you seek the bounty from the Star Luo Imperial Family, then go ahead and act. If you have no such intention, I, Zhu Zhuqing, will risk my life to repay you someday!"

Seeing her still putting on a brave front despite her injuries, Mona could not help muttering quietly:

"This girl certainly has a fierce temper... But the assassins just now even fractured the bone in her left shoulder, and she's full of congealed blood. If she isn't treated immediately, never mind repaying you someday-whether she can survive tonight is still in question."

Chu Yuan looked at the girl, whose eyes were as stubborn as a lone wolf's, and fell into thought.

To establish the Heavenly Principles Divine Court that would rule both worlds, he naturally needed more than the beauties of Teyvat. He also needed some local subordinates with steadfast characters and absolute loyalty to manage worldly affairs and wield his hidden blade.

The Hell Spirit Cat before him, abandoned by her family and completely disillusioned with Dai Mubai, was undoubtedly an excellent blade for the night.

"Trade you for a bounty? You think a trifling bit of gold and silver is worthy of my notice?"

Chu Yuan gave a soft, derisive laugh and stepped forward. Under Zhu Zhuqing's astonished gaze, he crouched down in front of her and held out his left hand.

"Hum."

A tender green branch, translucent and lustrous as though carved from glazed jade, quietly blossomed as a phantom above Chu Yuan's left palm.

The pungent smells of blood and burning in the air were instantly swept away by the refreshing fragrance of grass and trees.

"Don't move."

Chu Yuan spoke the words calmly and gently placed his left palm, wrapped in emerald-green divine light of life, above the wound that exposed her bone.

"Mm...!"

Zhu Zhuqing instinctively tensed her delicate body and tried to pull back and evade him.

But the next moment, when that wisp of divine power from Irminsul's life essence flowed into her body through Chu Yuan's palm, Zhu Zhuqing froze completely!

What kind of inconceivable power was this?!

Her broken shoulder bone healed in the blink of an eye. The torn, curled flesh regrew and closed at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming delicate and smooth again, fairer than frost and snow!

Irminsul's life essence coursed through her damaged meridians, driving her depleted, overdrawn twenty-seventh-level Soul Power straight through the barrier to level twenty-eight!

"Ah..."

Enveloped in warm vitality, she could not help letting out a soft moan.

She stared blankly down at the skin beneath the torn black clothing on her left shoulder, now whole again, and felt the surging twenty-eighth-level Soul Power circulating within her. Her mind went blank.

Within the Star Luo Imperial Family, she had seen healing-type Soul Saints above level seventy save people before. But even a healing-type expert at the level of a Soul Saint or a Soul Douluo could never mend a broken bone, erase every wound, and even help someone break through a level of Soul Power in a few breaths, using only a wisp of their presence and without releasing a Soul Skill!

This was not a method any mortal Soul Master could possess. It was a miracle!

Before this man, both the family deadlock she had struggled so desperately to escape and the talent and influence of which Dai Weisi and Zhu Zhuyun were so proud were as laughably insignificant as dust.

"I've healed your injuries."

Chu Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, the night wind stirring the hem of his white robe with its gold patterns:

"However, when those five deathsworn fail to return tonight, the Star Luo Empire will soon receive word. With your current strength, even if you escape tonight, you won't escape the next group sent to kill you."

Zhu Zhuqing's long eyelashes trembled.

She understood better than anyone that Dai Mubai could barely protect himself and had long since fallen into depravity. Even if Shrek Academy truly had some ability, it could never confront the entire Star Luo Imperial Family head-on for an outsider like her.

Only the young man before her, who seemed like a god descended to the mortal world in his every gesture, possessed the power to truly rewrite her fate!

"You said just now that as long as you didn't die today, you would do everything in your power to repay me for saving your life."

Chu Yuan looked down at her, his indifferent gaze carrying a hint of scrutiny from a superior that allowed no resistance:

"As it happens, I need an attendant to oversee intelligence in the shadows. Zhu Zhuqing, I'm giving you a choice. Will you continue clinging to that laughable family betrothal of yours and seek death, or will you sever your past and offer me your loyalty?"

When his words ended, silence fell over the dark alley.

Keqing and Mona stood behind Chu Yuan, quietly watching the black-clad girl kneeling on the ground.

Zhu Zhuqing raised her cold, exquisitely beautiful face and gazed blankly at the young man before her, who was reaching out to her like a god. The cold stares she had endured in the Star Luo Zhu Family flashed through her mind, followed by her sister Zhu Zhuyun's murderous intent and Dai Mubai's sickening face outside the Rose Hotel. Finally, her thoughts settled on the purple-gold divine lightning that had torn through the night sky and slain her powerful enemy, and the emerald-green vitality as warm as spring.

Deep within her long-frozen catlike eyes, a blazing flame kindled for the first time, a flame of truly living for herself.