Xiao Jin (or rather, this piece of golden lotus bone) cradled his face.
“Every time you find a piece of me, ‘That Being’s’ suppression of the heart-devouring lotus weakens by a fraction.”
The dungeon suddenly shook violently.
The dome cracked open, revealing the bloody sky outside.
In the center of that blood moon, the phantom of the golden-armored figure slowly emerged!
“No time.”
Xiao Jin abruptly shoved Xie Lin toward the bronze door: “Take the Frost Flower Sword and find the next piece of golden lotus bone. Remember…”
When the golden-armored figure’s fingers pierced through the dungeon dome to grab them, the golden lotus on Xiao Jin’s chest burst into its final radiance.
Xie Lin was blasted out of the door by the shockwave, his last sight being the other’s lips forming three words:
【Kill me】
The instant the bronze door closed before his eyes, Xie Lin’s heart-devouring lotus suddenly broke through its restraints.
His left-eye vision completely turned a bloody red as he saw countless golden threads extending from his own pupils, intertwining with the golden lotus spiritual power overflowing from within the door.
The symbiotic pact was repairing itself automatically!
“Brother!”
Lin Miaomiao’s voice came from the top of the stairs: “The City Lord’s Mansion is collapsing!”
Snatching up the Frost Flower Sword, the golden hair on the sword tassel suddenly caught fire, transforming into a wisp of golden smoke pointing toward the east.
Wiping away the blood seeping from his left eye, Xie Lin charged toward the exit without looking back.
Deep within the dungeon behind him, the golden-armored figure’s icy pronouncement echoed:
“Traitor Xiao Jin, sentenced to the punishment of the ninth soul nail.”
Xie Lin’s left eye was still bleeding.
The roots of the heart-devouring lotus grew frantically inside his eye socket, every pulse bringing a tearing pain.
Stumbling as he charged out of the collapsing City Lord’s Mansion, the golden hair on the Frost Flower Sword had long since burned away, leaving only a wisp of blue smoke pointing east.
“Brother!”
Lin Miaomiao crawled out from the ruins, the black lotus imprint on her chest writhing eerily.
“Your eye…”
Raising a hand to wipe the blood stains from his cheek, the texture Xie Lin’s fingertips touched was no longer warm flesh and blood, but some kind of dense plant fiber.
The heart-devouring lotus was assimilating his body!
“It’s fine.”
Tearing off a strip of fabric from his sleeve to wrap around his left eye, the Frost Flower Sword abruptly emitted a hum.
The blade reflected a streak of golden light in the eastern sky, the trace left behind by Xiao Jin.
Lin Miaomiao suddenly grabbed his wrist: “You can’t go!”
“The East Sea has the Mermaid tribe’s ‘Pure Sea Grand Ceremony’; going there now is just walking to your death!”
Shaking off her hand, Xie Lin demanded: “Do you know what I’m looking for?”
Biting her lip, Lin Miaomiao said: “Every time a piece of the golden lotus bone manifests, it triggers an anomaly.”
“Three days ago, a golden vortex appeared in the East Sea, and Xuan Tian Sect has already sent…”
Her words cut off abruptly because Xie Lin’s sword tip was pressed against her throat.
“Who on earth are you?”
Black blood oozed out from beneath the cloth strip covering Xie Lin’s left eye: “The real Lin Miaomiao should be just like Xiao Jin, merely a puppet catalyzed by the golden lotus bones.”
The black lotus on the young girl’s chest abruptly contracted.
Staggering backward, she collided with a half-broken stone pillar: “I’m… a vessel modified by the Netherworld Palace.”
Tearing open her collar, she revealed a bizarre stitching mark below her collarbone.
“Grand Envoy Left sewed Senior Brother Xiao’s golden lotus bone fragments… into my heart…”
Xie Lin’s sword tip remained completely steady: “Prove it to me.”
Trembling, Lin Miaomiao thrust her fingers into her own chest!
Flesh and skin parted like flower petals, exposing the ghastly white bones wrapped in golden threads inside—
And carved upon that phalange was shockingly the old scar left behind when Xiao Jin practiced swordsmanship in his youth!
Suppressing the urge to devour, he sheathed his sword: “Can you walk?”
The movements with which Lin Miaomiao stitched her wound back up were shockingly, terrifyingly proficient: “Wherever Brother goes, I go.”
When she raised her head, her pupils had turned into the dark purple matching the black lotus.
“Anyway… monsters like us… stopped having a way back a long time ago…”
The shores of the East Sea were far livelier than expected.
The port, which should have been sealed off due to the Pure Sea Grand Ceremony, was crammed with cultivators, and Xie Lin spotted quite a few Xuan Tian Sect disciples at a glance.
They were inspecting passing ships one by one.
“Disguise ourselves.”
Lin Miaomiao pulled two sets of shark-silk robes from her Qiankun pouch: “The Pure Sea Grand Ceremony allows Mermaid merchants to enter and exit.”
Just as Xie Lin draped the outer robe over himself, a familiar crisp, clear voice echoed from behind: “This fellow daoist, might I inspect your transit jade token?”
His entire body stiffened. He had listened to this voice for three hundred days and nights—in the bamboo forest while practicing swordsmanship, in the medicinal baths during healing, and upon the bed during moments of passion—
Xiao Jin.
Or rather, the Xiao Jin formed by the transformation of a piece of golden lotus bone.
Xie Lin slowly turned around.
The young man wore the snow-white Dao robes of Xuan Tian Sect’s Chief Disciple, yet hanging at his waist was a Netherworld Palace heart-devouring bell.
Bizarrely of all, he carried a glazed lamp in his right hand, the lamp wick burning none other than golden lotus fire!
“Senior Brother Xiao is inspecting so strictly, could it be he’s hunting for a lover?” the neighboring Xuan Tian Sect disciples teased.
“Indeed,” Xiao Jin smiled lightly, the glazed lamp suddenly illuminating Xie Lin’s left eye.
“Hunting a little thief who stole something from me.”
The instant the lamplight brushed against the cloth strip, the heart-devouring lotus in Xie Lin’s left eye violently contracted.
What was even more terrifying was that he clearly saw a circle of fine stitching around Xiao Jin’s neck.
This piece of golden lotus bone’s transformation wasn’t complete!
“Jade token.”
Reaching out, Xiao Jin let his fingertips brush across Xie Lin’s palm, leaving behind a golden mark.
“Or… come back to Xuan Tian Sect with me to take your punishment?”
Lin Miaomiao suddenly thrust herself between the two of them: “Don’t trouble my elder brother, Senior Lord; he was born with an eye affliction…”
Deliberately lifting Xie Lin’s cloth strip, she exposed the gruesome scar beneath—
The one she herself had corroded with black lotus magic earlier that morning.
Xiao Jin’s pupils shrank.
Taking advantage of the moment he was stunned, Xie Lin grabbed Lin Miaomiao and walked away at a brisk pace.
A hundred meters away, the golden mark on his palm suddenly grew piping hot, manifesting a few small characters:
【At the third watch of the night, coral reef】
“It’s a trap.”
Staring at his palm, Lin Miaomiao said: “Xuan Tian Sect has deployed a demon-locking array at the coral reef.”
Fingering the remaining golden threads on the Frost Flower Sword’s tassel, Xie Lin mused: “If it were Xiao Jin, what kind of array would he set up?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lin Miaomiao answered: “The Seven Stars Exorcism Array! He always said seven was an auspicious number… wait!”
She abruptly grabbed Xie Lin’s hand.
“The Pure Sea Grand Ceremony lasts for seven days, and today is precisely the seventh day!”
A sharp pain lanced through Xie Lin’s left eye.
The roots of the heart-devouring lotus pierced right through the cloth strip, sketching out a bizarre scene within his field of vision.
Seven stone pillars were arranged in a Big Dipper formation underwater, with a right hand bound in golden chains suspended right in the center!
The coral reefs at the third watch were terrifyingly quiet.
When Xie Lin dived thirty fathoms underwater, the heart-devouring lotus suddenly issued a warning.
Sidestepping violently, a beam of golden light shot past his ear, blasting the reef behind him into fine dust.
“Half a quarter-hour slower than anticipated.”
Xiao Jin’s voice dropped from overhead.
Standing upright upon the water, the hem of his Dao robes was stained with a suspicious dark crimson, and the golden lotus fire within the glazed lamp had transformed into bloody flames.
Even stranger was that he wore a silver-silk glove on his right hand.
Precisely the missing right hand from the ice coffin!
“You killed the Xuan Tian Sect disciples guarding the array?” Xie Lin asked coldly.
Tilting his head with a smile—an expression that ought to have been cute looked exceptionally eerie on him—Xiao Jin replied: “They volunteered to sacrifice themselves.”
Shaking the glazed lamp, seven pained human faces surfaced within the lamp flames.
“Only with the blood of seven Golden Core cultivators can ‘That Being’s’ perception be temporarily blocked.”
Xie Lin’s Frost Flower Sword abruptly cleared its scabbard: “You are not Xiao Jin.”