Dugu Bo's face froze in an expression of utter shock and disbelief.
His entire body became a lifelike ice sculpture, radiating terrifying cold,
and plummeted straight down from the sky,
crashing into the ground with a THUD,
sending ice shards flying everywhere.
Instant kill!
"Gu Yue" didn't even spare another glance at the frozen Dugu Bo.
She furrowed her brow slightly,
sensing the limits of this Split Soul body and the resistance from Gu Yuena's Split Soul.
There wasn't much time. She had to catch up with him!
Her gaze once again turned toward the direction where Su Ling had disappeared.
Deep in those icy purple eyes, complex emotions surged—emotions even she herself couldn't fully understand.
Yet her face remained hidden behind its cold, hollow mask.
Shengyan... This time... you won't escape me!
She didn't linger. Her figure became a silver bolt of lightning, tearing through the night sky as she sped after him.
The night was as dark as ink, its cold seeping through the deserted streets on the outskirts of Heaven Dou City.
The cracked stone road gleamed eerily beneath the faint, flickering light of the Soul Guiding Lamps.
Su Ling finally stopped.
It wasn't that he wanted to stop. His body had reached the absolute limit of collapse.
The Destruction God Armor had long since exhausted its last remaining power. It silently dispersed, returning to the sea of consciousness deep within his soul.
Now, every disguise had fallen away.
His young face was deathly pale and smeared with blood.
The only reason he was still standing was the monstrous strength of his Mental Power, forcing his body to hold on.
Every inch of muscle screamed in agony.
Hairline fractures riddled every bone.
The excruciating pain of his shattered organs surged like waves, battering his nearly scattered consciousness again and again.
Blood kept spilling from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the ground and spreading into a small, dark-red stain.
His vision began to blur, and everything before him was veiled in a haze of blood.
Only the slender figure not far ahead, outlined by the moonlight, stood out clearly in his muddled mind.
Gu Yuena—or rather, Gu Yue, the divine ruler controlling this body—stood quietly a few yards away.
Moonlight filtered through sparse clouds, grudgingly casting a few pale rays that illuminated her cheek.
The violet eyes that had once brimmed with humble pleas now held nothing but endless coldness.
Her long silver hair fell behind her, stirring in a windless night and radiating an otherworldly pressure.
"Shengyan..."
Gu Yue spoke.
It was no longer Gu Yuena's hoarse, broken voice,
but a voice that was ethereal and cold, vibrating directly through the soul.
It carried a trace of warped sweetness, like honey laced with poison.
"Why did you do this to me?! Tell me!"
She took a step forward, and the flagstones beneath her feet silently crumbled to dust, leaving a clear footprint.
"You said... you'd spend every day and night with me..."
She savored each word, those distant, sweet lies.
"Watching stardust fall, clouds surge across the sea... all things living and flourishing..."
"You said... heaven and earth would eventually grow old, but you and I would never part, in life or death."
Gu Yue suddenly raised her hand, pointing a slender finger at Su Ling's heart.
Her hand trembled violently with barely contained fury.
"But in the end..."
"You used the Sword of Destruction... right here... to pierce my heart!"
"For your damned Godhood of Destruction?! Just for that ridiculous divine authority of yours?!"
Her voice grew sharper and sharper, nearly hysterical.
"Fine! You win! You're ruthless! I accept it! The winner takes all. If the Lord of Soul Beasts died by the Destruction God King's sword, it was no injustice!"
She stopped abruptly.
Her icy purple eyes fixed on Su Ling's face.
Her gaze seemed to carve away every inch of flesh on his face and scrutinize it in minute detail.
"But why?!"
Her body swayed slightly under the force of her emotions.
A crack appeared in the Divinity Mask, revealing the Fire of Jealousy roiling beneath, powerful enough to incinerate everything.
"Why could you look at that useless Split Soul like that... that piece of trash who carried all my weakness and filth, whom I threw away with my own hands?! Why could you look at her that way?!"
"That guilt..."
"That... damnable tenderness!"
"You never looked at me that way! Not once!!"
She practically screamed the words.
Her icy Dragon Might erupted out of control, crashing down on the surroundings like an invisible tsunami.
The ruins on either side of the street groaned under the strain.
"Am I not as pretty as her?! Am I not as weak and helpless, not enough to make you pity me?! Shengyan! Say something—!"
The accusation struck Su Ling's battered body like a tangible wave of sound.
He grunted, and another stream of black blood spilled from his mouth, tracing his jaw before dripping down.
His vision darkened in waves.
Gu Yue's little face, twisted with rage and jealousy, wavered and split apart in his vision.
The strength holding him up was rapidly draining away.
I can't fall... Not until I've completely escaped her...
A glint of ruthlessness flashed through Su Ling's still eyes.
"Heh..."
He tugged at the corner of his mouth, forming an incredibly strained smile, tinged with pain and mockery.
"Women who won't let go..."
His voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping against itself.
"...aren't very likable..."
As soon as the words fell, he lightly tapped a finger.
A spark wrapped in Destruction Divine Power shot straight toward the space between Gu Yue's brows!
Gu Yue didn't dare take it lightly and hurriedly dodged to the side.
But just as the spark was about to reach her face, it strangely vanished without a trace.
At the same time, Su Ling's body burst apart, transforming into countless tiny sparks that merged into the night wind and disappeared.
Gu Yue froze in midair.
The ferocity, rage, accusation—every expression on her face froze completely in that instant.
For the first time, those cold, hollow purple eyes clearly reflected an emotion called "astonishment."
"...You tricked me again..."
A broken syllable, as if squeezed from the very depths of an abyss, escaped her pale lips.
Her voice was no longer ethereal. Only utter emptiness and bewildered disbelief remained.
"...You always... trick me like this..."
Moonlight fell on her, edging her slender figure in cold silver.
But it couldn't dispel the despair enveloping her, so dense it seemed impossible to dissolve.
Her body swayed almost imperceptibly.
A faint trace of Gu Yuena's own fear and despair, like silt from the bottom of a lake, surged uncontrollably to the surface.
In an instant, it broke through the suppression of the divine will.
"Mm..."
A faint whimper, like the dying cry of a young beast, escaped from deep in her throat.
This immense, instinctive fear struck her like an electric current.
"He... He left me again..."
A clear, despairing thought exploded in the depths of Gu Yuena's consciousness.
"Just like last time... on our wedding night..."
"NO!!!"
Gu Yue suddenly clutched her head and let out a shriek so piercing it sounded nothing like a human voice!
Her long silver hair flew wildly, like a nest of enraged serpents!
Divinity and humanity, two utterly different consciousnesses, fought and collided violently in the depths of her soul!
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