Was this... the end?
The world suddenly became so quiet that even the falling snow had a sound.
Past events, one after another, played vividly before his eyes. Tinted with blood, they became all the more striking.
Pain! Such pain!
A drill boring into his heart! The Spell Seed had rooted itself atop his head, ceaselessly drawing from him. Every inch of skin across his body split apart.
What lay beneath his skin were no longer veins, but distinct tree roots, writhing through flesh like loaches, drilling and churning until the pain made him wish for death.
The flickering firelight in the distance reflected in his eyes...
That human face, brimming with mockery and contempt, seemed to be ridiculing Yue Gongli's cowardly, worthless life...
There was no light left in it.
He could not protect even the one person he wished to cherish.
He could not become the pillar of the Cold Palace clan. In the end, even after borrowing Sui Yin's light, he could not change his essence as a wastrel, nor rise above the grand scheme.
Would this ugly farce, this tragic life, finally draw to a close here? Yue Gongli was dazed, his eyelids unbearably heavy. Blood and tears mingled, blurring his vision.
Yet just as his eyes were about to close for the last time, he caught sight of his sister outside the Nanli Realm, weeping so hard she could not make a sound.
"Roar—"
He snapped his eyes open in fury, a beastlike roar tearing from his throat.
In that instant, life ignited into a miracle. Yue Gongli's flesh shriveled bit by bit, yet his essence, energy, and spirit abruptly surged.
A quarter of an hour!
A quarter of an hour—it was not over yet! My life may be ended, but my will will not,