Liyue, Wangshu Inn.
"I'm going to the restroom."
After speaking, Xiu Yuan slowly rose from his seat and headed toward the restroom.
Once again, only Xiu Yuan and Xiao had come to Wangshu Inn.
Zhongli had not accompanied them.
He mainly feared that others would work out his identity, so he usually avoided being too close to Xiao.
Xiao also strictly followed Zhongli's instructions: anywhere in Liyue, at any time, he was to call him Zhongli, never Rex Lapis.
Since they had arrived so early, there were few people at Wangshu Inn.
On his way to the restroom, Xiu Yuan passed the counter and asked the clerk for a sheet of paper and a pen before continuing inside.
Only after quite a while did Xiu Yuan emerge. He returned the paper and pen, thanking the clerk with a faint smile. "Thank you very much."
"You're welcome," the clerk replied.
He watched Xiu Yuan walk away with a strange look in his eyes.
He strongly suspected that Xiu Yuan had some peculiar fetish.
For example, perhaps he disliked wiping his butt with toilet paper and preferred writing paper instead.
But he quickly dismissed that ridiculous notion and slowly unfolded the sheet.
When he saw what was written on it, he froze briefly, then looked up in realization.
Xiu Yuan and Xiao had already risen.
"Whew, I'm stuffed!" Xiu Yuan exclaimed, stretching.
Then the two of them left Wangshu Inn.
After stepping outside, Xiu Yuan glanced back and gave the clerk a meaningful look.
The clerk nodded and slowly put the paper away.
The two headed toward their destination at an unhurried pace, chatting and laughing along the way. Xiao had finally let himself relax completely.
They did not arrive until the afternoon.
"The barrier really does seem to be weakening..."
Xiao immediately noticed something wrong with the barrier. Cracks seemed to have appeared.
Crack... crack... crack...
Bang!
As he approached to examine it, more cracks suddenly appeared, spreading outward like a spiderweb. Then a large hole burst open at their center!
And one second before that hole opened in the barrier, something else happened.
A huge, translucent purple dome appeared, centered on them.
It enclosed them completely.
"This is bad! The barrier's been breached!"
Xiao's expression changed drastically, his eyes turning utterly cold.
In an instant, the sky changed, and countless monsters burrowed up from the ground.
Like an endless tide, they charged at Xiu Yuan and Xiao with weapons in hand.
Both immediately raised their spears and swept through the monsters surrounding them.
Xiao's eyes grew colder still.
He knew what that purple dome was.
A barrier.
A Demon God's barrier!
With them enclosed inside, no one outside could sense them.
In other words, if the barrier suppressing the Demon God broke, Zhongli should have sensed it.
But now, those four purple pillars had completely blocked that connection!
Even if the barrier suppressing the Demon God shattered entirely, Zhongli would have no way of sensing it!
Crack... crack...
The cracks kept multiplying, as though the entire barrier might explode at any moment.
The hole continued to widen slowly, with endless sinister energy surging out through it.
"No, at this rate, the barrier will break! Once it's destroyed, the Demon God could emerge into the world again!"
Xiao's face was grim. This was an incredibly difficult situation. If the Demon God emerged again, the world would once more descend into the chaos of war.
There was no way to contact Zhongli now, either.
And there were far too many monsters around them, so many it was suffocating.
"So what do we do now?"
Although Xiu Yuan had expected something to happen, he had never imagined it would be this bad.
If a Demon God of this world emerged, everything he had lived this life for would lose its meaning.
"There are only two options now. First, destroy those purple pillars and break the Demon God's barrier. Then Lord Zhongli will be able to sense what's happening."
"Second, guard me. I can temporarily repair the barrier, but nothing can disturb me. I have to concentrate completely."
After hearing Xiao's two proposals, Xiu Yuan looked again at the sea of monsters, a vast expanse of black, and his lips kept twitching.
"The second one," Xiu Yuan decided.
"If we try the first, the sealing barrier will probably give out before we can fight our way over there."
Xiao nodded, then suddenly leaped high into the air and slammed down with terrifying force.
An immense burst of energy erupted in every direction, temporarily clearing the monsters around the barrier.
He immediately took out his yaksha mask and placed it over the hole, then sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. A faint, pale green glow radiated from his body.
"Burn!"
Xiu Yuan instantly tossed out a tiny black flame.
The moment it touched a monster, the fire swallowed its entire body and spread black flames to every monster around it.
Blackflame's power was extraordinary. It had burned a Mitachurl King to charcoal in mere seconds before, and these monsters could not withstand its scorching heat at all.
Almost the instant the flames engulfed them, they turned to ash.
But as Blackflame spread, Xiu Yuan's mental energy drained away like water gushing from a spring.
Blackflame spread like a drop of detergent in water covered with oil, its speed astonishing. In an instant, it burned a vast swath of the surrounding monsters to ash.
And Xiu Yuan's mental energy was being consumed at a terrifying rate.
He immediately withdrew Blackflame. Dizziness washed over him, cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and even his ears began to ring.
"Die... die... stop struggling..."
"Feel death... accept death..."
"Come... come to us... we welcome you... let us become one..."
"To live is to slaughter... slaughter... let go... reveal your true nature..."
"Stop holding yourself back... you crave blood... you want to kill... you will slaughter anyone... come... come..."
The whispers of karmic debt sounded beside Xiu Yuan's ears.
No.
They were not beside his ears. They were inside his mind.
It hurts...
My head hurts so much!
Xiu Yuan felt as though his head would explode.
The karmic debt had chosen its moment well, invading precisely when Xiu Yuan had depleted so much of his mental energy.
"Urgh..."
Xiu Yuan dropped to one knee, clutching his face with one hand as he let out a beastlike growl.
Wormlike streaks of blood filled his eyes, and saliva dribbled uncontrollably from the corner of his mouth.
"Get away... get away..."
"I have to get up... I have to... guard him..."
Xiu Yuan stared at the approaching monsters with murder in his eyes, forcing back the corrosion of karmic debt through sheer, stubborn willpower.
At that moment, Xiao could clearly sense Xiu Yuan's condition.
After entering meditation, he could perceive everything happening around him.
He knew Xiu Yuan was suffering from the corrosion of karmic debt, and his brow furrowed slightly.
Crack... crack...
The moment his focus slipped, the surrounding cracks spread instantly, and the hole beneath his mask widened a little.
Startled, Xiao hurriedly brought his attention back.
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