Na'er's Sacrifice Begins

Na'er turned and ran, her slippers slapping rapidly against the floor.

Lin Qingzhou braced himself against the wall and shuffled toward the sofa one step at a time before collapsing heavily into it.

He dumped all the spoils of war onto the coffee table, then picked up the disinfectant, unscrewed the cap, and poured it straight onto the deepest wound beneath his ribs.

The sting was like a red-hot knife gouging into his flesh. He groaned, veins bulging on his forehead, and his hand trembled so badly he almost dropped the bottle.

But he gritted his teeth, quickly rinsed the wound, then haphazardly wrapped it a few times with a bandage, barely managing to stop the bleeding.

"See? I told you I'd be fine." He tied off the bandage, leaned back against the sofa, and reached out to wipe the tears from Na'er's face.

Just then, a violent wave of dizziness suddenly swept over him.

His heart spasmed, as if an invisible hand had seized it in a crushing grip. As expected, there wasn't enough time. Lin Qingzhou had used medicine to delay the poison's progress, but it was still too late.

A bone-chilling cold began spreading from the wound beneath his ribs, racing through his blood vessels to every limb and bone.

It wasn't ordinary cold, but a frigid, decaying chill that seemed capable of freezing his soul. His body began to shake uncontrollably, and his fingernails turned a purplish blue before his eyes.

He looked down at the wound beneath his ribs. The bandage was soaked through, but the blood was the wrong color. It wasn't the usual dark red, but a viscous, eerily fluorescent shade of dark green.

Poison.

The strange smile the Evil Soul Master had worn before dying finally made sense. It really had been him.

He knew he wouldn't survive, but he also knew that anyone he struck wouldn't survive either.

Lin Qingzhou tried to reach for the alloy medicine case, but his body had stopped obeying him. His legs felt as if their bones had been pulled out; the moment he tried to stand, he collapsed heavily back onto the sofa.

The poison spread at an astonishing speed. The frigid aura rushed back from his limbs to his chest, then surged upward into his brain. His consciousness began to blur, and the world before his eyes shattered into fragments.

"Brother! Brother! What's wrong? Brother!" Na'er threw herself at him, cupping his face in both hands, her voice breaking into a wail.

Lin Qingzhou saw her mouth moving, but her voice seemed to come from very, very far away.

He tried to say, "I'm fine," but his lips only moved a few times, and not a sound came out. His tongue had gone numb, and his throat felt as if it were packed with cement. Every breath came with a hoarse, abnormal wheeze.

The poison had reached his heart.

His pupils began to lose focus, and a faint bluish-black hue spread across his skin. His veins bulged beneath it like twisted earthworms, crawling from his neck up to his cheeks.

Blood began to seep from his fingertips, dripping onto the sofa and spreading into small, dark-red stains.

Lin Qingzhou struggled at the edge of the darkness. He could feel the pain—a violent, tearing agony that spread from his heart throughout his body, every nerve as if immersed in molten lava.

He suddenly found it a little funny. He'd died more than a thousand times in that hellish place, yet none of it had managed to kill him for good. And now he was going to die at the hands of an Evil Soul Master who hadn't even left behind a name.

What a pity. He'd finally been given another life and come to Douluo Continent, only to die without even leaving his name behind.

He didn't know if he could be reborn again, or where he would end up next time. Heaven had given him a chance, and he hadn't cherished it.

But that bitterness was soon drowned out by another feeling.

Na'er.

She was crouched in front of him, shaking all over as she cried. What would happen to this little girl if he died? Would they take her back to the Star Dou Forest, fuse her with the Dragon God, and erase every memory and feeling she had as "Na'er"?

His lips moved faintly. Summoning all his strength, he forced out a few hoarse, almost inaudible words: "In the wardrobe... there's..." He couldn't finish. His fingers fell limply to his side.

Na'er froze. She stared at Lin Qingzhou's limp hand, his pale, bluish face, and the ever-shallower rise and fall of his chest.

He was dying.

The thought struck her mind like lightning, shattering every last trace of reason and restraint.

She sprang up, rushed into Lin Qingzhou's bedroom, and opened the wardrobe.

A metal box lay quietly inside. Na'er hurriedly opened it and found it filled with Federation Currency. This was the private stash Lin Qingzhou had saved. He had no use for it now, so he might as well leave it to Na'er.

Na'er wiped away her tears, then suddenly remembered something. She dashed back to her room, opened a drawer, and took out an ancient-looking book.

Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art

She opened the manual and skimmed through it. The archaic characters weren't hard for her to understand; the inheritance of the Dragon God Bloodline let her sense ancient writing by nature.

As she read on, her breathing grew faster and her violet eyes shone brighter. She had already learned that her brother had taken her in back then for this reason.

But when the thought crossed her mind, it stirred no anger or disappointment. She didn't care. His reasons back then didn't matter at all.

From the moment she learned to call him "Brother," she knew that the cold calculations had long since melted away beneath his daily tenderness.

She knew what kind of person he was better than anyone. And now, this art that could let him defy fate was the only thing that could save him.

Clutching the manual tightly to her chest, she returned to the living room and dropped to her knees beside Lin Qingzhou. She reached out and gently caressed his cheek. It was frighteningly cold.

"Brother, you fool." Sobbing, she began, "You took me in, so why did you lock it away? If you'd used it earlier, you'd already be a Soul Master, and tonight you wouldn't have had to..."

She couldn't go on. She knew the answer. He couldn't bear to.

He would rather go to that terrifying place every night and be killed over and over, enduring the torment night after night. He would rather swing a hammer day and night, rather risk his life in a fight, than so much as take the tiniest thing from her.

When he locked away that manual, he hadn't just locked away a few pages. He had locked away all his ambition and his only hope.

"If you couldn't bear to, then I can."

She opened the manual to the page describing the sacrificial ritual and formed an ancient, intricate hand seal before her chest.

Her lips parted slightly as she uttered one obscure, solemn syllable after another. They were the sacrificial words once spoken by the ancient Dragon Clan, and each syllable sent visible ripples through the air.

Using the Dragon God's memories, Na'er had reshaped the manual a second time, adapting it until it perfectly suited Lin Qingzhou.

The sacrifice began.

Her body began to glow. It wasn't the dazzling brilliance of a Soul Skill, but a gentle, slightly dreamlike silver-white light.