Then his phantom shattered into golden motes of light that filled the sky, merging with the valley's warm air.
Those motes did not immediately disperse. After circling through the air several times, they drifted down in a fluttering shower.
They fell upon the surface of the Icefire Yin Yang Well, onto the leaves of the surrounding immortal herbs, and into Mu En's grizzled hair. Their warm touch felt like an impossibly fine, gentle golden drizzle.
Tang Wulin floated at the boundary between the two springs, his eyes lightly closed and his breathing long and steady.
The radiance of ice and fire alternated around him, illuminating him like a statue standing at the boundary of yin and yang.
The energy of the two immortal herbs within him had not been fully consumed. Most of it continued to seep deep into his marrow, forging his already resilient body again and again.
Those residual powers seemed to have developed a will of their own, splitting into two streams.
One climbed up his spine, while the other sank along his meridians. Only after slowly circulating through his body for seven great cycles did they gradually settle down, condensing into two tiny cores of light in his dantian.
The ice and fire attributes slowly settled within his meridians. One thread merged into the vines of his Blue Silver Emperor martial soul, while another sank into the patterns on the surface of the Clear Sky Hammer.
The two martial souls grew faintly warm, as though silently accepting something entirely new.
The Blue Silver Emperor's vines gently unfurled. Every newly grown leaf bore intertwining crimson and blue veins, as though the spring veins of the Icefire Yin Yang Well had been branded into the martial soul itself.
The Clear Sky Hammer, meanwhile, became even more solemn and