C155 Woman's Heart

"Soulforge Pool."

Yu Yuan made his way toward the core of the Soulforge Matrix, following the direction indicated by the bronze monument and the White Walker. Despite the violent spiritual energy surrounding him, he remained unharmed.

The remnant soul and the power within his arm bone had vanished, leaving behind only a pure imprint.

His connection to the Forbidden Area was gone, severing his ability to counterbalance the likes of Qin Yun and Lee Yuchan. He had been cast down to the mortal realm, with no means of leveraging the Forbidden Area's power.

Suddenly, Yu Yuan halted.

The approaching figure behind him triggered an instinctive sense of danger. A brief moment of contemplation was all he needed to realize what was happening. He chuckled and turned around.

Lin Zhuyun stood there, her attire immaculate, her demeanor cool. Her fair skin glowed like jade, and her striking beauty seemed to have regained its former grace.

Her eyes were icy and detached, seemingly devoid of any pronounced emotion.

"You've changed a great deal," Yu Yuan remarked, squinting slightly as he initiated the conversation. "You weren't like this before. When you first joined the Yu family, you were a great help. How did it come to this?"

The Lin Zhuyun before him felt increasingly alien, as if she had transformed into someone else entirely.

"Do you know? When the White Walker held me captive, my life in her grasp, using you to shame me without restraint, I truly wanted to die," Lin Zhuyun confessed, pausing to look at him with a bitter smile. "Do you realize? Standing before you now, I feel an overwhelming sense of inferiority."

Yu Yuan remained silent.

"If I could do it all over again, if I could return to the time when I first arrived at the Yu family, knowing that you would awaken..."

Lin Zhuyun hung her head, letting out a soft sigh, unable to meet Yu Yuan's gaze. "Perhaps I would have made different choices. I shouldn't have entangled myself with you. Yu Yuan, I must admit, I am quite cowardly."

"You seem quite bold now," Yu Yuan said with a smile.

"I've just become accustomed to going with the flow," Lin Zhuyun replied, a sense of resignation in her voice. It was the first time she had opened up to him. "Yin Jue doesn't act on my command. If I had known everything, I wouldn't have stopped him that second time in the courtyard. It's Winter's Bite that wants you dead."

"I'm in the same boat as my family; we'll all have to depend on Winter's Bite from now on. There's nothing I can do about it."

"If Winter's Bite orders Yin Jue to take you out, what choice do I have? Without their support, the title of the Empire's New Moon will forever be out of my reach."

"You might not believe me, but I never wanted you dead to begin with. I just... never anticipated you'd shine so brightly."

"The brighter you shine, the more it shames the family, the more it shames me. I've come to realize that ever since you awoke, I've been living in your shadow."

"You've become the source of my pressure, suffocating me until I can barely breathe."

"So..."

She lifted her head, her gaze fixed on Yu Yuan with unwavering determination.

"Chi! Chi!"

Streams of icy light shot from her slender fingers, crystallizing into sharp icicles upon contact with the air.

The icicles glimmered with a piercing, cold brilliance, their Yin cold spiritual energy incredibly refined.

Yu Yuan chuckled, "There's one thing you've got wrong."

"What's that?" Lin Zhuyun asked, taken aback.

"From the moment I awoke, you, Lin Zhuyun, lost any chance of killing me." Yu Yuan shook his head gently, "Beings like the Stormcrowned Emperor, the Sky Fiend, the Indigo Wraith, and the Terra Fiend, with their ancient origins, might outmaneuver me and overwhelm me with their formidable realms. I'm merely at the Soul Awakening stage, lacking their eons of life. Losing to them, I can accept."

"But if I were to be outwitted and outplayed by you, that I could not accept."

Yu Yuan, calm and collected, addressed Lin Zhuyun, who was brimming with murderous intent, "But rest assured, I won't kill you. I'll let you live a good, long life."

"Such arrogance." Lin Zhuyun scoffed, "Without this realm's restrictions to aid you, do you truly think you can best me with your modest Soul Awakening cultivation?"

"Come and see for yourself."

Yu Yuan suddenly engaged the Evil Body Refining technique, seizing the turbulent divine force with a swift motion.

In a flash, the spiritual energy around him surged toward him in a frenzy.

In a mere moment, a massive vortex formed around him, with him at its core.

At the edge of the vortex, a maelstrom of impurities swirled, filled with the essence of hatred, destruction, despair, and slaughter.

The spiritual energy within the whirlpool was of exceptional purity. It coursed through Yu Yuan's Primal Body, seeping through his pores and suffusing his flesh and blood.

His corporeal form swelled and contracted rhythmically at the heart of the vortex.

His skin and muscles appeared to be saturated with the rich spiritual energy, which was rapidly assimilated and refined by his body.

Yu Yuan felt a profound sense of ease throughout his being, as if he possessed an inexhaustible reservoir of strength. His heaven soul, which he was diligently refining, acutely detected the malevolent aura at the periphery of the whirlpool.

The heaven soul's thoughts sprang into action!

"Hu!"

A multitude of gray, dark brown, and green specks, swirling with ruthless, murderous, and resentful "evil" thoughts, surged toward Lin Zhuyun.

Lin Zhuyun let out a huff, her left hand channeling ice energy into crystalline ice shards that merged into the form of a sword.

She struck with her sword!

A dazzling, multicolored beam of white light cleaved through the enigmatic, misty cloud.

"Chi! Chi! Chi!"

The impurities in the spiritual energy and various toxins were scattered by the brilliant sword light.

Yet, the "evil" aura within resisted the division by the spiritual energy and exploded abruptly before Lin Zhuyun.

Eerie tendrils of smoke, like persistent shadows, pursued her relentlessly, spreading toward her regardless of her evasive maneuvers.

Lin Zhuyun perceived that the subtle smoke, infused with thoughts of brutality, malice, and slaughter, had the power to warp one's mind and taint the soul, making it all too easy for one to succumb within the forbidden area and transform into what is known as an alien soul.

"After reaching the Veil Breaking Stage, I understand your confidence; you're indeed the empire's pride," Yu Yuan said cheerfully. "With the middle elixir field newly opened and the eight extra-channel providing vitality, the combination of vitality and spiritual energy dramatically enhances your lethal force. It shatters the boundaries of lifespan, allowing you to endure more energy's purification and to adapt to the climate of Euwrea."

"However, you have yet to truly purify yourself in the Veil Breaking Stage, so your overall enhancements remain limited."

"Thus, the notion that you can decisively overpower me with the might of the Veil Breaking Stage is somewhat presumptuous."

As he spoke, Yu Yuan's consciousness shifted, and he abruptly cast his gaze to the space behind Lin Zhuyun.

A shadow, swift as a night owl, was closing in against the backdrop of the star-studded night sky.

The shadow possessed four peculiar items that resonated with his own thoughts.

Yu Yuan offered a carefree smile, his composure deepening as he remarked, "Your luck is truly terrible."

Qin Yun from the Midnightshields had arrived, bearing four Dawn Arrows imprinted with a strand of his consciousness, capable of detonating in an instant.

In the absence of the sword spirit and with the constraints of the Heaven and Earth lifted, Qin Yun was still expected to comply obediently.

Despite his frailty, Qin Yun remained a cultivator at the pinnacle of the Lunar Spirit realm and the leader of his sect.

With his presence, not only Lin Zhuyun but perhaps even the forbidden area where the Soulforge Matrix had failed could be swayed to his advantage.

He sensed that when the bronze coffin ascended, taking with it Hantian, the Indigo Wraith, and the White Walker, it had claimed the three mightiest beings of the forbidden area. Those who remained were merely a few notches less formidable.

Such a Moonfall Sanctuary could now be deemed secure, unlikely to undergo any further earth-shattering upheavals.

If he could strategically utilize Qin Yun, he might smoothly extricate himself from the forbidden area. It was even conceivable that before Qin Yun's return to the Crimson Sun Empire, he could gradually empower the cultivator with the feeble alien soul and goast, elevating him to the Spirit Walk realm.

"I need to devise a plan with him."

The minor menace posed by Lin Zhuyun was merely a fleeting concern, quickly dismissed from his mind.

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