Having goaded the chief villain to death with a few words, Xing Yan did not turn back to see the goddess.
He tested for breath beneath Meng Zhang's nose. Once he confirmed that Meng Zhang was dead, he sprang away in several bounds to the girl hovering between life and death. Holding Lingyi in his arms, he poured his last trace of Dao Power into her to replenish her vitality, trying to bring her back to life. Yet perhaps Meng Zhang's earlier blow, delivered with absolute confidence, had been too devastating: even this supremely clear and pure Dao Power did no good. Against such grievous injuries, the usually unfailing Great Splendor Dao Power proved utterly powerless.
Helpless, he looked again at the girl in his arms. Her once sweet, radiant face, as lovely as though brushed with rouge, had lost all color and turned white as snow. Her youthful body, once brimming with life, could only lean weakly against him; as life drained away thread by thread, she grew light as a swan's feather. The only lingering sign of life was her slightly parted mouth. Her pearl-like lips, now dark purple, trembled along with her body, as though she had something to say, yet she could not utter so much as a syllable. The sight plunged Xing Yan deeper into grief. The anguish filling his chest crushed him like a collapsing mountain, leaving him unable to breathe, until he longed to follow her into death.
Although the events just described had been tangled and bewildering, they had actually passed in the flash of lightning, the strike of flint. Dark fire had filled the sky throughout, casting bizarre, shifting lights, so even those present had mostly been unable to comprehend what happened during the deadly calamity. Only now did Qiong Rong,