Breaking the Cocoon

The blood cocoon hung suspended in the air. The ghost city beneath the canopy had long since lost its sunlight, and anguished wails rose and fell from its densely packed streets—some from the living, some from the dead.

The living howled and wept over the dead departing once more.

The dead shrieked as agony suddenly descended upon them.

They had begun to pay the price of resurrection.

Black smoke was drawn from their bodies, forming slender threads that drifted toward the blood cocoon in the sky.

From afar, countless black strands layered upon one another as they connected to the blood cocoon, making even the heavens murky and dim.

"What are you worried about?"

Gazing at the eerie scene beneath the firmament, Tianye's golden eyes shone brightly. She seemed to be speaking to herself, yet also seemed to be speaking to someone else:

"Staying behind to win this war was Xu Yuan's own choice to begin with. Taking responsibility for one's own decisions is something even a three-year-old understands. Don't tell me a Saintess like you doesn't?"

"You're asking why I'm not helping him?"

Tianye seemed to have heard something amusing, the corner of her lips curving upward:

"Have I not done enough for him along the way? I even feel I may have interfered too much with the course of this calamity. No matter what you say, I will not interfere with this fusion again."

"Besides, I don't think you're qualified to criticize me. Though my motives were impure, if I hadn't given him the means to devour Mu Nuo, Xu Yuan would already be a dead man.

"And you, Tianyan—other than playing dead inside this body, what have you done in this war that deserves praise?"

"A little girl is a little girl. She understands nothing."

"Heh~ You