Bring That Human Back!

In the space beneath the Lake of Life in the Star Dou Forest, Gu Yue was closing her eyes to regulate her breathing.

After merging with the fragments of Na'er's memories, she had been constantly digesting those unfamiliar human emotions, attempting to understand Na'er's obsession with that human boy.

Then, she snapped her eyes open.

It was not a perception; it was a tearing.

Something deep within her soul had been uprooted, clean and decisive, leaving not even a single echo behind.

A sharp pain pierced her chest, as if someone had carved a piece out of her. This pain was not physical; because she and Na'er were one, the dissipation of the other half was no less than being split in two by a blade.

She pressed her hand against her chest, her knuckles turning white, her breathing rapid and shallow, her eyes instantly bloodshot.

"Na'er... has sacrificed herself."

She spoke in a very low voice, yet the air in the entire space trembled along with it.

That impact was mixed with too many things.

Fury, astonishment, and a trace of emptiness she was unwilling to admit but which existed nonetheless.

Di Tian and the others appeared before her almost instantly, dropping to one knee. They had never seen Gu Yue in such a state; her face was frighteningly pale, and her eyes were red enough to drip blood.

"Master?" Di Tian asked tentatively.

"Lin Qingzhou." When Gu Yue uttered this name, every syllable sounded as if it had been chewed up and spat out, the taste of blood lingering between her teeth.

"That human cub! He used the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art to absorb my other half as a sacrifice."

Gu Yue stood up abruptly, slamming her palm against the stone wall, causing spiderweb-like cracks to explode across the entire surface.

"I should have killed him back then. I actually let Na'er persuade me."

Di Tian kept his head bowed, not daring to respond. He remembered that night at the villa, Na'er standing before him; the little girl's figure had been so small, yet so stubborn.

At the time, she had bargaining chips—she was still alive, and Gu Yue needed her to live. Now, those chips were gone.

"Di Tian." Gu Yue's voice suddenly turned very flat, so flat it was frightening. "Go bring him here. Alive. I want to see for myself exactly what a human who survives by feeding on my other half looks like."

Di Tian looked up at her. A smile hung on the corners of Gu Yue's mouth, but it did not reach her eyes; it was cold enough to chill one to the bone. He dared not say anything more, his figure flickering as he vanished from the spot.

In the living room.

Lin Qingzhou was still kneeling in front of that pile of pajamas.

He had tried several times to stand up, but his legs felt soft, as if they no longer belonged to him.

He simply stayed kneeling; it wasn't as if he had the strength for anything else anyway. The silver specks of light on the floor had almost all extinguished; the last one floated above his palm for a few seconds, flickered once, and then died out.

The living room returned to dimness, and the blood-colored sky outside the window began to turn pale.

His mind was blank.

That was not a metaphor; it was truly blank. In the past, no matter how desperate things were, there had always been a voice turning in his head.

What to do next, how to survive, how to protect her.

Now, it was gone. That voice had gone mute.

He was alive, he had a Martial Soul, he had cultivation; he could feel the soul power raging within his body, flowing through his previously withered meridians.

But the softest part of his heart had collapsed.

He reached out to touch the small blanket draped over the sofa armrest—the one Na'er used for her naps—still stained with a few silver strands of hair.

He gripped the blanket, his knuckles turning white, a lump forming in his throat; he could neither cry nor swallow.

"Silly girl," he said, his voice hoarse. "Your brother didn't even get the chance to say sorry."

The air outside the door suddenly grew heavy.

It was not mere pressure.

Simple pressure might still make one want to resist. This was pure oppression, like a mountain crashing down from the heavens, making the very frame of the house creak.

Fine cracks appeared on the window glass, and the milk cup on the coffee table wobbled twice before tipping over, the milk spilling out and soaking the cover of the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art.

Lin Qingzhou did not reach out to steady it.

He knew who had come.

He was far too familiar with this aura; it was the same feeling as when Di Tian had arrived that night, only this time it was heavier, heavy enough to crush his bones. Yet, he still did not stand up. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid of death; it was that at this moment, he truly felt that dying was no big deal.

Di Tian pushed the door open.

To call it a push was an understatement; his finger merely brushed it, and the entire door flew off its hinges, slamming into the wall opposite the living room and shattering into several pieces.

Every step he took into the room caused the floor tiles to crack and cave in. A pair of golden beast-pupils locked firmly onto the curled-up body on the floor, undisguised killing intent surging within his eyes.

"Human."

Di Tian's voice did not sound like speech, but rather like some kind of low-frequency roar that made one's bones go numb.

"Do you have any idea what you have done? The Master ordered me to bring you before her. But I think..."

Di Tian raised a hand, a Dragon Claw Phantom condensing at his fingertips. "...breaking your limbs before dragging you back will be no different."

Lin Qingzhou finally turned his head slowly to look at Di Tian. His eyes were hollow, as if separated by a layer of gray mist, and his voice was so calm that even he was surprised by it.

"When she left... did it hurt?"

Di Tian froze. He had expected this brat to beg for mercy, offer an explanation, or at least say something to defend himself.

But he simply knelt there on the floor, clutching a small blanket, and asked that one question. Di Tian did not know how to answer, nor did he intend to.

"When you see the Lord, ask her yourself." The Dragon Claw Phantom clenched shut abruptly, compressing the surrounding air into a sphere visible to the naked eye, emitting a dull, humming thud.

Just as this strike was about to descend...

"Host vital signs abnormal. Threat level: Special. Defense protocol initiated."

A blue light screen manifested out of thin air in front of Lin Qingzhou, precisely blocking that fist.

The Dragon Claw Phantom slammed into the light screen, exploding in a blinding white glare. The shockwave rippled outward, overturning every piece of furniture in the living room. Di Tian's pupils constricted; he had used seventy percent of his strength for that punch, a blow that even a beast of the same rank would not dare to take head-on.

The light screen began to deform—not shattering, but yielding and then snapping back to its original shape. Di Tian's force was completely absorbed, converted, and then rebounded with identical intensity. Di Tian let out a muffled grunt, sliding back half a step, plowing two furrows into the living room floor as his heels shattered the threshold.

He looked down at his hand, his finger bones aching faintly.

"What is this?"

Lin Qingzhou was also stunned. He looked down at his chest, where a small pendant had appeared at some point.

It definitely hadn't been there a moment ago.

The pendant was shaped like a miniature planet, its surface flowing with deep blue light patterns. It was growing slightly warm, the heat radiating through his clothes.

When did this thing... He rapidly backtracked through his memories, and it hit him. He had seen it many times when he was pulled into the Ruins of the Divine Realm every night...

At the very center of that battlefield, a core that had long since extinguished hung suspended in the air. He had always assumed it was just background scenery, a piece of the wreckage.

"Failure to initiate protection mechanism, teleportation preparation. Countdown, five!"

That voice sounded again. It didn't enter through his ears; it resonated directly inside his brain, cold and devoid of any emotional inflection.

"Trying to run?"

Di Tian stepped forward, lotus-shaped light patterns spreading beneath his feet as black dragon scales instantly covered his entire right arm.

He held nothing back. He struck down with a claw, tearing five pitch-black fissures into space itself. Carrying an aura of destruction, the blow slammed straight toward the light screen. He had used his full strength; even a Limit Douluo would have to avoid its edge.

The blue light patterns on the screen flickered rapidly, fine cracks appearing on its surface.

"Two."

"One."

The light screen exploded. The Dragon Claw Phantom pierced through the spot where Lin Qingzhou had been kneeling, blasting a deep crater into the floor and spraying stone fragments across the wall.

But there was nothing in the crater. No blood, no remains. The air twisted slightly, a blue light flashed in mid-air, and then it vanished completely.

Di Tian stood by the edge of the pit, his expression dark enough to drip water. He had sensed that spatial fluctuation... it wasn't a soul skill, nor was it a teleportation array. It was a power system he had never encountered in his eight hundred thousand years of life.

Cold, precise, like a machine in operation.

He raised his hand and punched the air again. Fissures spread across the middle of the living room, the aftermath shattering every window and sending shards of glass clattering to the ground.

It was useless. The person was already gone.

Di Tian stood where he was, a flicker of something approaching wariness appearing in his golden beast-eyes for the first time. He had lived too long and seen countless powerhouses, but that moment just now—

The way that light screen appeared, that method of energy operation without a shred of soul power.

He did not recognize it. It made him deeply uncomfortable.

After a moment of silence, he retracted his dragon scales and vanished in a flash, leaving behind only a crumbling house and the deep crater in the floor. Wind poured in through the broken windows, whipping the curtains into a frenzy.

In the distant Star Dou Forest.

Gu Yue sensed Di Tian's aura vanish and reappear in an instant, bringing back a result that made her expression sink completely.

"The person is lost."

Di Tian knelt on one knee before her, his voice carrying a rare note of defeat.

Gu Yue did not fly into a rage. She simply remained silent for a long time, then slowly turned her head to look in the direction of Proud Arrival City.

That human cub had lived under her nose and grown within her palm, and now, just as she thought she could finally settle the score, he had been rescued by a power entirely unknown to her.

She closed her eyes. What surged in her mind was not anger, but a faint, lingering trace of emotion left behind before Na'er dissipated... fear, reluctance, and a sense of relief so calm it made her heart ache.

"Find him. Bring him out. No matter where he hides."