Qian Renxue stared coldly at Gu Yuena, her eyes brimming with murderous intent.
She was almost certain that this woman had something to do with Su Ling's current state!
Unforgivable.
Absolutely unforgivable.
I'll kill her!
Gu Yue paid no attention to the killing intent practically taking physical form in Qian Renxue's eyes.
She only stared blankly at Su Ling.
The man who had once been cold and heartless, and who had driven a sword into her heart on their wedding night.
Now he was weeping uncontrollably like a child abandoned by the entire world.
She had never seen Su Ling like this.
In her memories, he had always looked down on everything with indifference.
Even when standing at death's door, he had never shown the slightest weakness.
But this figure, utterly broken, with even his soul trembling, somehow filled her with a strange, piercing heartache.
She turned instinctively and looked toward Ye Wanqing, who was weeping profusely, utterly grief-stricken.
That familiar face, those heartbroken cries, were like an invisible key, suddenly prying open the lock on the memories she had deliberately forgotten and forcibly sealed away.
Boom—!
A flood of memories from another world violently smashed through the icy defenses she had barely maintained.
They burst open within her vast sea of consciousness!
Heaven Dou City was engulfed in flames, dense smoke blotting out the sun.
Large sections of the city walls had collapsed, and the once-prosperous streets had long since become a living hell.
Terrified crowds wailed and shoved their way toward the city gates, which had not yet fully closed.
Ye Wanqing stumbled against the flow of people, tears and soot streaking her face, but her gaze remained stubbornly, almost madly, determined.
She shoved aside those fleeing for their lives and cried out hoarsely. Her voice was broken, yet each word pierced the heart. "Ling'er... where are you? Answer your mother, Ling'er!"
She grabbed everyone she could and questioned them, from scattered soldiers to fleeing civilians.
All she got in return were frightened headshakes and rough shoves.
She even seized a young officer whose face was smeared with blood, digging her nails into his arm as she pleaded desperately, "Please! Help me find my son! He's the Su Family's young master—Su Ling!"
The officer shook her off without a trace of feeling and shouted hoarsely, "Su Ling? He's been missing for years. He's surely dead by now!"
"Wake up, Madam Ye! King Zhenyuan fell in battle, Tian Jin Douluo perished, and the Su Family is gone! Run for your life!"
With that, he plunged into the crowd without looking back.
Ye Wanqing shuddered as if struck by lightning, but she did not fall.
"No... no, that's impossible! My Ling'er can't be dead! He's still alive... He's waiting for me..."
She shook off a woman trying to drag her to safety and charged even more recklessly toward the imperial palace, where the Soul Beasts roared loudest!
The plaza before the imperial palace had become a slaughterhouse.
Enormous claw marks tore through the ground. Several hundred-thousand-year Ferocious Beasts surrounded a tiny figure, their roars mocking and cruel.
An oppressive weight filled the air.
It was the Titan Giant Ape's Gravity Domain.
Ye Wanqing was pinned firmly to the ground, her palace dress already soaked with blood.
Yet she kept staring toward the depths of the palace.
Toward the place where a faint trace of life, tugging at her entire soul, seemed to be.
"Ling'er... Mother's here... Don't be afraid..."
She murmured, her voice faint, yet filled with a heartbreaking determination.
"Tut, tut. So this is Su Zhantian's woman?" King of Ten Thousand Demons sneered coldly.
"The Su Family... killed quite a few of our kind."
The Scarlet King's three heads swayed. The middle one exhaled a sulfurous breath, its voice harsh as a gong.
"Don't kill her too quickly. Humans have oppressed us for ten thousand years. Today, it's time they tasted despair."
Di Tian's golden, dragonlike eyes swept over Ye Wanqing, looking down on her like an insect, without a trace of emotion.
His gaze seemed to pass over the depths of the imperial palace, settling on the shadow of an inconspicuous corner.
The faintest curve touched his lips, cold enough to freeze the blood.
And at the far end of Di Tian's gaze...
Beneath the shadow of a half-collapsed palace wall, a figure pressed himself tightly against the stone.
Su Ling wore a black robe, his hood hiding his face as he all but disappeared into the darkness.
Every muscle in his body was taut. He clenched his teeth, blood seeping from between his lips.
He watched with his own eyes as his mother was lashed by King of Ten Thousand Demons' poisonous vines, as the Titan Giant Ape's Gravity Domain crushed away her life inch by inch.
He heard the Ferocious Beasts describe the "deaths" of him and his forebears in the vilest terms.
His towering hatred and heart-wrenching pain nearly burst from his chest!
[Host, hold on! Gu Yue and Di Tian are watching you. You must not give yourself away.]
For once, the system's cold, mechanical voice carried a note of urgency.
[You have used up all your save slots. If this mission fails again, nothing can be undone.]
[Time cannot be reversed. Your father, your grandfather, Qian Renxue, Ye Lingling... They will all have died in vain.]
"Shut up! You never told me... Why did healing Gu Yuena's injuries lead to this ending?!"
Su Ling roared furiously in his mind, his nails digging deep into his palm. Blood trickled between his fingers, but he didn't notice.
He regretted it.
He regretted it more than anything.
Why had he saved Gu Yuena in the first place?!
He wasn't Tang Wulin. He had no Golden Dragon King Bloodline, much less a God King for a father to back him up.
When faced with Gu Yuena's decision, he hadn't even had the right to stop her.
Even if he knelt and begged, all he would get in return was her cold, retreating figure.
All he could do was watch as the human empire crumbled beneath the Soul Beasts' vengeance, and his loved ones fell one after another.
"Ling...'er..."
Within the Gravity Domain, Ye Wanqing's consciousness grew hazy.
Her life was rapidly ebbing away.
With the only eye she could still move, she struggled to look across this hellish scene, to no avail.
Her voice was as faint as a sigh. "Mother... came to find you..."
"Don't be afraid... Mother's... here..."
"Cold... so cold... Ling'er... hold me..."
Before her final words had even faded, the Titan Giant Ape, which had held back long enough, suddenly erupted!
"Shut up, you annoying bug! Die!"
It roared furiously and raised its enormous hand.
Rather than striking directly, it targeted the space around Ye Wanqing and pressed down with tremendous force!
"Roar—!"
Gravity Control: Hundredfold Gravity!
Crack! Crack-crack-crack—!
The sickening sounds of bones snapping rang out in rapid succession!
Under the sudden, invisible force crashing down like a collapsing mountain...
Ye Wanqing's body twisted and deformed in an instant, like a rag doll clutched in an unseen giant hand!
Blood mist burst from every pore and every gaping wound across her body!
A rain of crimson sprayed out, mixed with shattered bone and scraps of her entrails.
Crushed by the Titan Giant Ape's Gravity Domain, it suddenly burst into a dazzling, nauseating flower of scarlet!
The figure who had once been so full of life, who had loved him with every breath...
Right before Su Ling's eyes.
In the most brutal, most unbearable way.
Was reduced to a mangled heap of flesh and blood.
Not even a whole corpse remained!
Only her eyes, wide open to the very end, stubbornly gazed in the direction where he was hidden.
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