Xuan Ming's Doubts

Xuan Ming's Misgivings

The victory feast in Wind Burial Valley went on until the latter half of the night.

There was not much to celebrate, really—they had merely frightened off a three-hundred-strong Demon Race scouting party during the day, without even truly fighting. But that was the Witch Race's temperament. So long as they had a little justification and gained a little advantage, they had to drink, eat meat, and raise a deafening ruckus.

Dozens of bonfires blazed in the open ground at the center of the valley. Whole wild beasts were skewered over the flames, sizzling as fat dripped from them. The Witch Race men bared their chests, dancing and shouting around the fires while wine jars shattered with crackling pops. Even the injured Kuafu had come. His newly regrown arm was still tender, but that did not stop him from lifting a jar with his left hand and pouring wine down his throat.

Di Jiang sat in the seat of honor and barely moved. He simply watched the people below revel, occasionally clinking cups with Gonggong beside him. Gonggong's face was flushed red from drink as he threw finger-guessing rounds with a Houtu Tribe man in his arms, and whenever he lost, he yelled that they should settle it with an arm wrestle.

Xuan Ming sat on Di Jiang's other side, holding a bowl of wine without taking a single sip for a long while.

She was watching people.

She watched the Witch Race men drink until they swayed and staggered, watched the unmasked, uncomplicated delight on their faces. When the Demon Race came scouting during the day, they had been tense. Once the Demon Race retreated, they relaxed. It was that simple. They were happy when they won and frustrated when they lost—the Witch Race had always worn their emotions openly, like a mountain stream whose bottom could be seen at a glance.

But she was different.

It felt as though a clump of wet cotton had been stuffed inside her chest, leaving her stifled and uncomfortable. When Fei Lian had led his men here to scout during the day, she had been watching from the lookout at the valley entrance. She had watched the disciplined formation of those three hundred demon soldiers, their perfectly measured provocations, and their final retreat without a single casualty.

They had been too practiced.

Too practiced to be Eastern Emperor Taiyi's handiwork.

Xuan Ming remembered what Taiyi had been like in the past—wanted to scout the way? He would charge straight in with his men, the Chaos Bell clearing the path and True Sun Fire burning the mountains, making as much noise as possible. Unlike now, when he knew to send a small team to probe, knew to mix feints with truth, knew how to... restrain himself.

Restraint.

The very word felt bizarre when applied to Eastern Emperor Taiyi.

"What are you thinking about?"

Someone spoke beside her. Xuan Ming came back to herself and turned to find Di Jiang looking at her, the wine bowl in his hand already empty.

"Nothing." Xuan Ming set down her wine bowl. "I just feel that... things went too smoothly today."

"Is that a bad thing?" Di Jiang let out a wine-soaked belch. "The Demon Race got scared and didn't dare fight for real. Isn't that good?"

"They weren't scared." Xuan Ming shook her head. "They were too restrained. Since when has Eastern Emperor Taiyi ever been so restrained?"

Di Jiang paused and scratched his messy hair. "True... that kid used to be like a firecracker, ready to explode at the slightest spark. Did he suddenly change?"

"It isn't a change of temperament." Xuan Ming rose to her feet. "I need to go somewhere."

"Where?"

"The void," Xuan Ming said. "The place where you fought during the day."

Di Jiang's expression turned more serious. "What do you suspect?"

"I don't know." Xuan Ming said, "I just feel that... I need to take a look."

Without waiting for Di Jiang to ask more, her figure flickered and dissolved into pale blue mist. When she reappeared, she was already a hundred zhang above Wind Burial Valley. She glanced back at the noisy camp below, frowned, then turned and flew toward the void.

The void was still the same as ever.

Darkness. Deathly silence. The occasional spatial fragment drifting past. Xuan Ming stopped at the place where Taiyi and Di Jiang had clashed during the day, closed her eyes, and slowly spread out her divine sense.

She was "smelling."

Not with her nose, but with the unique perception granted by the Law of Rain. Water vapor could seep through all things and capture even the faintest traces of lingering energy. In the air, in space, those invisible marks gradually became clear to her senses.

First came the spatial fluctuations.

They had been left behind by Di Jiang. Violent and direct, like an axe brutally splitting wood apart, leaving ragged edges. It was very Di Jiang—he had never cared about technique in battle, relying only on brute force to meet force head-on.

Then there was... fire.

Xuan Ming's brows drew together.

She was very familiar with the aura of True Sun Fire. That supreme yang, supreme rigidity, that blazing grandeur—there was nothing else like it in the entire Great Wilderness. But the lingering fire here was wrong.

It was still yang, but something else had been mixed into that yang.

Yin? No, not yin. It was... chaos?

Xuan Ming opened her eyes and made a grasping motion. A ball of pale blue water condensed in her palm, ripples spreading across its surface as it reflected the surrounding veins of residual energy. She stared at the water sphere for a long time, then suddenly flicked her finger.

A drop of water separated from the sphere and flew into the void ahead.

The droplet burst in midair, turning into a fine mist that spread outward. Wherever the mist passed, those energy traces invisible to the naked eye were "developed"—golden-red fire patterns, dark red twisted lines, and wisps of gray-black aura.

That was baleful energy.

Xuan Ming's expression changed.

How could True Sun Fire contain baleful energy? And it was not merely baleful energy. There was also a chaotic aura—that disorderly, lawless sensation that seemed capable of devouring everything. She had only seen it in ancient records describing Chaos Demon Gods.

She stepped closer and reached out to touch those revealed traces. The moment her fingertips brushed the golden-red fire patterns, pain seared through them—the tyranny of True Sun Fire was not something that could be easily touched, even in residual form.

But what truly alarmed her were the dark red lines at the edges of those fire patterns.

They coiled around the True Sun Fire like vines, twisting and writhing with a sinister air. Xuan Ming tried sending a thread of divine sense toward them. The instant it touched them, a violent will slammed into it and hurled it back.

"Hiss—"

She abruptly withdrew her hand, her face turning pale.

What was that thing?

It did not seem like cultivated power. It was more like... a living thing? Or rather, something with its own consciousness?

Xuan Ming steadied herself and condensed the water sphere again. This time, she split it in two. One half enveloped the traces of True Sun Fire, while the other wrapped around the dark red lines. Then she began to analyze them.

The True Sun Fire portion was very clear—its structure was stable, its energy pure. Though its intensity had increased considerably from before, its essence had not changed. It truly was Eastern Emperor Taiyi's power.

But those dark red lines...

The more Xuan Ming analyzed them, the more tightly her brows furrowed.

Chaos. That was her most direct impression. Not mere disorder, but a chaos filled with the urge to destroy, a chaos that wanted to tear apart all order. Moreover, it contained several different auras—violent energy, baleful energy, and... remnants of a Chaos Demon God?

The thought startled even her.

The Chaos Demon Gods had long since died out. Most had perished during the great calamity of the creation of heaven and earth, and Pangu had slain all the rest. How could remnants still exist? And how could Eastern Emperor Taiyi have refined them?

Unless...

Xuan Ming suddenly remembered something, and her face darkened completely.

Unless Taiyi had come into contact with something he should never have touched.

She withdrew the water sphere and stood where she was, looking at the energy traces around her as they gradually faded, her mind racing.

Di Jiang had said Taiyi had changed, that his fighting style had changed. Kuafu had said Taiyi's fire was wrong, that its heat was unnaturally sinister. She herself had observed the formation Fei Lian led during the day and found it too restrained, too orderly.

If she pieced these fragments together...

Xuan Ming closed her eyes and began searching through her memories. Memories of Eastern Emperor Taiyi, of the Chaos Bell, of True Sun Fire, and... of Chaos Demon Gods.

The Ancestral Witch of Rain possessed a little-known ability—she governed not only rainwater, but also "memory." Not her own memories, but memories carried by the water vapor between heaven and earth. Wherever rain had fallen, rivers had flowed, and vapor had risen, the events that occurred there would more or less leave imprints within the moisture.

She invoked that ability and began to trace backward.

Time rewound. Back to the first time she felt that Taiyi was not right—several days ago, during the confrontation outside Wind Burial Valley. Earlier still, to the day Kuafu was injured. Earlier still...

The memory fragments within the water vapor were blurred, as though seen through frosted glass. Yet Xuan Ming still caught several key images:

The strange hum emitted by the Chaos Bell when Taiyi refined baleful blood.

The flash of dark red within Taiyi's flames when he fought Di Jiang.

The unfathomable calculations in Taiyi's eyes as he looked upon the Witch Race camp.

Image after image flashed past, finally freezing on a certain moment—when she had stood on the lookout during the day and seen Taiyi's back in the distance as he stood before the Demon Race camp.

The sun was setting, its golden afterglow spilling over him. But Xuan Ming could clearly "see" that within that golden light was an extremely faint, nearly imperceptible dark red thread, like ink dropped into clear water, slowly spreading outward.

She opened her eyes and let out a long breath.

"So that's how it is..."

It was not possession. Possession could not possibly inherit someone's power and memories so perfectly.

Nor was it a change in temperament. A person's nature was not so easily altered.

It was... contamination?

Or perhaps, fusion?

Xuan Ming recalled a Forbidden Technique recorded in ancient texts—using remnants of a Chaos Demon God as a catalyst to fuse with one's own origin, thereby gaining power beyond one's limits. The price was gradual erosion by the chaos's disorder, until one ultimately lost oneself and became a monster that knew only destruction.

Was Taiyi walking that path?

The speculation was too bold, so bold that even she found it absurd. Yet the evidence before her forced her to consider it.

She remained in the void for a while longer before finally turning and flying toward the Great Wilderness.

By the time she returned to Wind Burial Valley, the victory feast had ended. The bonfires still burned, but everyone had drunk themselves unconscious and lay sleeping in all directions. Di Jiang was drunk as well, leaning against a large boulder and snoring.

Xuan Ming did not disturb anyone. She quietly returned to her own tent.

The tent was simple, containing only a stone bed and a stone table. She sat beside the table and took out a palm-sized crystal from her robes. The crystal was pale blue, and a drop of rainwater was sealed within it—her refined "memory droplet," capable of recording important information.

Holding the crystal, she closed her eyes and began pouring into it everything she had discovered today: the energy traces in the void, the anomaly within the True Sun Fire, the results of her analysis of the dark red lines, and her own deductions.

When she finished, the crystal gave off a faint glow. The rainwater inside seemed to come alive, slowly flowing.

Xuan Ming looked at the crystal for a long time.

Then she tucked it into her robes and kept it close to her body.

This matter was too serious to act rashly. She needed more evidence, something more conclusive. And besides... even if it was confirmed, how should she handle it?

Tell Di Jiang? If that brute found out, he would definitely charge over and start killing. But could Di Jiang defeat the current Taiyi? Even if he could, would the Heavenly Court simply let it go? If the Witches-Demons War erupted early, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Tell the other Ancestral Witches? Houtu might believe her, but Gonggong, Zhu Rong, and the others would probably think she was overly suspicious. And once the news spread, people's hearts would be thrown into turmoil.

Xuan Ming rubbed her brow, feeling a headache coming on.

She walked to the entrance of the tent, lifted the curtain, and looked outside. The night sky was clear, filled with stars. In the distance, Buzhou Mountain's outline stood silently in the darkness like a guardian deity.

But it seemed that this world was about to descend into chaos.

She remembered what Taiyi had said that day: "People always change. Especially in the Great Wilderness. If you don't change, are you waiting to die?"

At the time, she had thought it was just an excuse. But now that she thought about it... perhaps he had meant it sincerely?

Only the direction of this "change" was far too dangerous.

Xuan Ming lowered the curtain and returned to sit by the stone bed. She decided not to raise the alarm for now. She would continue watching, continue gathering evidence. If Taiyi truly had embarked upon that forbidden path, then she had to prepare early.

Not for the Witch Race, but for the entire Great Wilderness.

Some lines could not be crossed.

She closed her eyes and began regulating her breath. But that clump of wet cotton in her heart seemed to grow even more stifling.

Outside the tent, Witch Race guards changed shifts, their footsteps very soft. The long, mournful howl of some unknown beast drifted in from afar.

The night was still deep.

But some people could no longer sleep.