Beneath Star-Magnetic Peak lay a dungeon cast entirely from soul-suppressing star iron. There was not a trace of spiritual energy here. The air reeked of nauseating blood and decay, and ancient Binding Runes covered the walls, designed specifically to suppress cultivators' spiritual power and divine souls.
Yue Li was imprisoned in a stone chamber in its deepest recesses. Eight specially forged black iron chains, etched with Spirit-Locking Runes, pinned her spread-eagled to an icy stone bed. The once lofty, imperious Mulan Saintess was now haggard, her formerly splendid Beastskin Battle Skirt in tatters. Dark red lash marks and charred burns covered her exposed skin.
Most chilling of all were her eyes. The silvery moonlight in her left eye had dimmed like a pearl veiled in dust; the scarlet-gold flame in her right had gone out entirely, leaving only a dead, ashen emptiness. Han Li had not merely sealed her cultivation. He had also polluted her meridians with true demon qi, making even suicide an unattainable wish.
"Cough, cough..."
Yue Li coughed violently several times, dark red, bloody froth spilling from the corner of her mouth. She laboriously raised her head and looked at the man sitting at the foot of her bed, studying the ancient lamp in his hand with an amused expression.
Han Li still wore black, star-patterned palace robes, but the aura surrounding him had undergone an earth-shattering change. If he had once been a peerless, vicious sword concealed within its sheath, its edge held in check, then now he was a demon god newly awakened. Every movement radiated an overbearing pressure that froze the divine soul. In his hand was the inherited treasure whose very name struck terror into the Heavenly South and Mulan-the Origin Bright Lamp.
"Awake?" Han Li raised his head, his mismatched eyes settling