Protected by His Sister-in-Law, Xiao Yan Breaks Through to Dou Di

The instant the blade brushed his clothes, his sister-in-law stepped in.

Crimson Dou Qi formed a shield and stopped the blow before it could reach Xiao Yan.

Then she swept Xiao Yan into her arms. A pair of flame-red Dou Qi Wings burst from her back, and she raced out of the Holy City at the terrifying speed of a Dou Emperor.

Held tight against her, Xiao Yan caught a faint fragrance. His face burned.

Not from shyness. From embarrassment.

"Of all things, I really did end up being protected by my sister-in-law... Even if this is a dream, I've completely lost face..." Xiao Yan covered his face, wishing he could crawl into a hole.

Before they could exchange a word, three powerful auras came after them.

All three elders were Dou Emperors, each far stronger than his sister-in-law. They moved with astonishing speed and blocked their path in an instant.

"Human... you die today!" The Grand Elder pointed at Xiao Yan from afar, her eyes filled with deep-seated hatred.

Faced with the tribe's powerful elders, his sister-in-law instinctively felt afraid.

But she gritted her teeth and kept Xiao Yan firmly behind her.

For some reason, she had felt an inexplicable familiarity and affection from the moment she first saw Xiao Yan.

That feeling told her he was important to her.

The three elders were about to attack when Medusa finally arrived.

The Grand Elder's eyes lit up. "Kill her and that human, and you will be the Snake-People Tribe's one and only queen!" she ordered Medusa.

But Medusa paid no heed to the command.

She silently stepped in front of her younger sister, shielding her, then raised her head and met the three elders' gazes without a trace of fear.

And so the elder sister protected the younger, while the younger protected Xiao Yan.

The three stood together against the elders.

The air grew taut with the threat of battle.

"This feeling of being protected..." Standing at the very back, Xiao Yan felt his face burning. He couldn't help mocking himself. "I came to save someone. How did I end up being the one they're protecting? Could this get any more embarrassing?"

He could leave the dream at any time, but that was not Xiao Yan's way.

He had come this far. Unless he had no other choice, he would not give up.

Besides, he still had the Talisman...

The Sheep Talisman! A thought flashed through Xiao Yan's mind. He remembered what had happened when he forced his way into the dream.

Did the Sheep Talisman's power allow him to control dreams?

Without hesitating, he followed his instincts and drove the Sheep Talisman's power to its limit. In his mind, he declared:

I am a Dou Zong!

Sure enough, the moment the thought formed, Xiao Yan's aura surged. In the blink of an eye, it broke past the limits of a Dou Zong.

The sudden change left the three elders and the two sisters staring in disbelief.

"It worked!" Feeling the immense power surging through him, Xiao Yan nearly laughed aloud.

A dangerous glint appeared in his eyes. His grin widened as an even wilder idea took shape.

He took a deep breath, drew on the Sheep Talisman again, and pronounced each word in his mind:

I am a Dou Di!

At that silent declaration, his Dou Zong aura began climbing at an almost violent pace.

Dou Zun... First-Turn Dou Zun... Half-Saint... Dou Sheng... Peak Nine-Star Dou Sheng!

Boom!

The final barrier shattered, and vast, incomparable pressure erupted from Xiao Yan.

The surrounding space could no longer withstand power of that magnitude. Great swaths of it collapsed and broke apart.

The entire dream world shook violently, on the verge of falling apart.

"So... this is what it feels like to be a Dou Di?" Xiao Yan looked down at his hands. Feeling the near-limitless power within him, he could not contain his excitement.

He lowered his gaze to the three figures beneath him, now as insignificant as ants.

His gaze alone was enough. Without another movement or the slightest ripple of Dou Qi, the three Snake-People Tribe elders turned to ash and vanished.

Medusa and her younger sister stood frozen, unable to recover from the shock.

Their beautiful faces were filled with disbelief.

As the dream world hurtled toward destruction, Xiao Yan came before the younger sister and held out his hand.

A gentle, warm smile appeared on his face. "Come with me. Let's go back to the real world... Your sister is still there, waiting for you." His voice was as soft as a spring breeze.

"The real world?" the younger sister murmured, bewildered.

Yet when she looked into Xiao Yan's clear, steady eyes, she felt no urge to resist.

She slowly raised her hand and obediently placed her soft palm in his.

The instant their hands met, the dream world reached the end of its collapse.

Medusa's figure began to turn transparent, the change spreading slowly upward from her fingertips.

She looked down at her fading hands, then up at Xiao Yan and her younger sister. A smile of relief and gratitude slowly spread across her beautiful, cool face.

"Take care of yourselves when you reach that world..." she said softly, as though she were merely leaving on a short trip.

As her words faded, the dream world shattered with a roar. Medusa broke apart with it, dissolving into countless shards of light.

In the real world, inside the ice coffin...

A pale finger that had not moved in years gave a faint twitch.

Medusa was a Peak Dou Emperor, after all. She caught that tiny movement at once.

She jerked her head up and stared at the hand inside the ice coffin with her weary eyes. For a moment, she stopped breathing.

At first, she could not believe it.

She feared she had imagined it after longing for so long. She feared this would be another hope that came to nothing.

Then she saw it clearly: the finger twitched again.

After checking again and again, emotions she could not put into words burst free inside her.

And this was only the beginning.

After that finger, the rest of her younger sister's body began to regain life, one part at a time.

Warmth returned to her cold skin. Her stiff joints slowly loosened. The deathly stillness that had clung to her for years was quietly giving way to a faint breath of life.

After a long, agonizing wait, the younger sister moved again under Medusa's tear-filled gaze.

Her eyelashes fluttered.

The eyes that had been shut for untold years slowly, laboriously opened a sliver.

Harsh light met her gaze, along with the cold ceiling of the sealed chamber.

"I... Where am I...?" Her pale lips moved faintly. Her voice was weak and hoarse, full of confusion.

Then her vision slowly focused on the figure keeping watch beside the ice coffin.

It was a face identical to her own.

Tear tracks marked that face, which held a cautious, ecstatic joy she had never seen before.

Memories slowly came flooding back.

She propped herself up in the ice coffin, moving stiffly and slowly, as though she was not yet used to having a body again.

She looked at the woman she knew to her very bones, yet from whom she felt separated by an entire lifetime. Her lips trembled before she finally whispered:

"Are you... my sister?"