Half an hour earlier, in the neighboring courtyard separated by a single wall.
Undying Flame's group returned to this temporary guest courtyard and gathered beneath the old tree in the yard. Someone had already lit a soft spirit-stone lamp on the stone table, its warm yellow halo driving away some of the night's chill.
Jing Cangyi sat beside the stone table, moonlight falling across his shoulders, his pink-and-white robes seeming dusted with clear frost. His gaze fell upon Qu Lin—more precisely, upon her softly hanging left arm, where bloodstains and scorch marks intertwined—before shifting to the young man at the edge of the lamplight.
"Twenty-five."
Sui Yang immediately stepped forward and lowered his head. "Yes, Eldest Senior Brother."
He said nothing more, yet the aura around him underwent a subtle change in an instant. A gentle spiritual resonance quietly spread through the air. Then clear light flowed—
"Myriad Transformation—"
Sui Yang's figure changed subtly. His shoulder-length black hair abruptly grew, becoming a cascade of snow-white silver hair that fell to his waist. Even his brows and lashes took on a frosted hue.
The exposed skin of his body became translucent and lustrous, almost jade-like in its pallor. There was not a trace of blood in it, yet it glowed with a warm sheen. Most peculiar of all were his pupils, which had also turned a pure silver-white, like a bright moon hanging high above. When his gaze shifted, it carried an inhuman stillness.
Two slender, half-transparent silver-white antennae quietly emerged from amid the hair at his forehead, trembling faintly. They looked round and adorable. This was his Myriad Forms Incarnation—Pureblood Silkworm, a spiritual silkworm variant renowned for its pure vitality and cleansing power.
The instant his incarnation was complete, Sui Yang raised fingers that had turned equally pale and luminous.