The last fragment of the Dream World dissipated.
Si Chen opened his eyes and saw his mother watching him, her eyes still red.
"Chen'er?"
Ye Fu asked softly, "Just now... was that...?"
Si Chen smiled at his mother, then looked into the distance. "Mother, it's over."
Ye Fu froze for a moment.
Over?
She followed her son's gaze...
Lin Qing He and Chen Xiao were weeping over Ye Jing's body. His eyes were still open, but the light in his pupils had long since faded.
The two of them had followed Ye Jing since childhood, attending lessons together, being punished together, and sneaking out of the palace to play together.
Now, he was gone.
But in the end, who was it they were holding?
Was it the third prince who slacked off, skipped lessons, and horsed around with them, or the ancient monster that had lurked within that shell for who knew how long?
Ye Fu did not know. Perhaps Ye Jing himself had not known either.
She looked beside her again. Ye Hong lay in the rubble, long since dead.
The new emperor of Great Yin lay with his hair loose, his crown askew, and blackened lightning burns still marking his face.
That bolt of heavenly lightning from Song Chi had struck brutally hard. Besides, he had only been a shell controlled by the Mirage Dragon, his oil spent and his lamp long since burned dry.
Great Yin's civil and military officials slowly gathered.
They looked at Ye Hong's corpse, then Ye Jing's, then at Patriarch Ye Cang lying unconscious in the distance, and at the gravely wounded Ye Qing and Ye Xuan. Finally, every gaze slowly converged on the Heaven-Worshipping Platform.
On Ye Fu.
An old general in battle dress staggered to the foot of the altar, dropped