Zhi Xuan streaked through the low-level formations at the foot of the Tianluo Mountains, leaving the scenery behind him. The trees soon turned green again, providing a starkly different atmosphere from the grim landscape behind the Tianluo Mountains. The sky brightened once more, a sign that dawn was welcoming the day.

  Whump! Whump! Whush!

  He landed on the ground, not to stop but to dash in an astonishing spatial step; reddish lightning accompanied him, and rocks exploded whenever he failed to restrain his power. The ecstasy of success made him display a sense of arrogance, and the shockwaves generated by his body carried the strongest pressure of the Five Element realm.

  The air around him seemed to bow down. Every time his foot touched the earth, a crater of cracks appeared, scattering dust and fragments of soil that carried the aura of death from his dark left side. He no longer cared for subtle disguises; the energy overflowing from the Slaughter Pillar and the Xuan-Huang Energy within his soul demanded to be released.

  "This speed... this power," Zhi Xuan murmured behind the Ghost Veil. His voice echoed with a heavy metallic tone, resonating with the air he cleaved. "It is as if all my senses can now grasp the flow of the world's energy."

  He felt every leaf that fell, every movement of wild animals within a one-mile radius, even the smallest vibration of the earth's veins. His body, divided into two extreme poles, now functioned like a perfect god of war. His right side provided circulatory stability, while his left side provided an unmatched explosive thrust.

  Zhi Xuan stopped abruptly at the edge of a clear small stream, creating a long trench in the ground due to his unstable momentum. He stood frozen, staring at his reflection in the water's surface. A hooded figure with half a body radiating a golden sacred aura, while the other half looked as if it had just been dipped into a vat of indelible devil ink.

  The pleasure over his new power did not last long; as he looked down to stare at his left arm, his face grew pensive. He raised his right hand and pulled the robe on his left arm downward, trying to cover the darkness on his left arm that now felt exposed upon touching the outside world.

  "Dammit, why won't this stay covered," Zhi Xuan hissed, repeatedly pulling the robe on his arm down, yet the dark hand always peeked out again. "Can even the Ghost Veil not alter this perception?"

  Hush! Hush! Hush!

  Zhi Xuan stood stiffly by the river, his right hand busy tugging at the edge of his left robe with panicked movements that looked very undignified for a slaughterer who had just shaken the world. He tried to chant a high-level illusion spell, but every time the magical light touched his left arm, the dark energy there seemed to snort and flick it away like an annoying fly.

  "Dammit, come on!" Zhi Xuan growled, moving his fingers and trying to create an illusion formation, but it still did not work. "Even illusions reject me?"

  "It is not the illusions rejecting you; you are just too stupid to realize that you are now a walking boundary marker!" Ruo Xianxue's voice exploded in his head, this time not with an adoring tone, but a mockery thick with stifled laughter.

  Zhi Xuan snorted in annoyance, squatting by the river while staring at his left hand, which looked like charred firewood yet possessed sharp, gleaming nails. "Be quiet, Great Saint! This is a serious matter! How can I enter the city if half my body looks like a roasted devil? People will scream 'Devil!' before I even have a chance to order a bowl of noodles!"

  Zhi Xuan rubbed his hand against the ground, hoping it would turn brown or something similar, but nothing happened. It was then that a flash of Zhu Qinglan's face danced in his mind; those light gray eyes, though often cold, now seemed as if they were about to stab him repeatedly in the chest.

  "Oh, no," Zhi Xuan murmured, his face pale and showing a slight tremor in his lips. "My karmic bond, she must feel that something has happened to me, even if she doesn't fully understand it."

  Zhi Xuan suddenly stood up, but instead of dashing gallantly, he tripped over his own feet because his mind was imagining Zhu Qinglan's wrath. He quickly stabilized himself, but his eyes kept glancing at his blackened left hand with a look as if that hand were a mortal enemy that had just stolen his jade.

  "Qinglan," Zhi Xuan murmured, reaching back to touch the snow jade tying his hair, but it felt like a sharp hiss from Zhu Qinglan's beautiful lips, making him immediately pull his hand back with a shiver. "How will I return to the Empire if I am just going to be beaten senseless by her?"

  "You look like a chick terrified of being slaughtered by its mother, Zhi Xuan," Ruo Xianxue commented, this time her laughter truly broke out, filling the Sea of Consciousness. "Where is the Devil figure who just swallowed the Xuan-Huang Energy so arrogantly? Where is the Slaughter Pillar that shook the earth? Now you tremble just by imagining a Holy Fairy of an Ancient Clan?"

  "She is not just a 'Holy Fairy,' she is a walking natural disaster when she is angry!" Zhi Xuan argued in a half-whisper, as if if he spoke too loudly, Zhu Qinglan would appear from behind the jade tree in front of him.

  He tremblingly patted his waist, taking out the heavenly silk given by Zhu Qinglan long ago; it now felt like a form of torture because he was hiding something with an item given by the person he did not want to see it.

  Zhi Xuan held the heavenly silk as if it were an amulet to ward off a curse, when in reality, it was just a clean white cloth that now seemed to deeply insult the existence of his pitch-black left hand. He tried to wrap the silk around his left arm with hurried movements.

  "Two... four... ten wraps, success!" Zhi Xuan murmured with a bit of relief; he could feel the silk clinging and wrapping his hand, though a faint aura of darkness still wafted from his hand.

  Zhi Xuan took a long breath, staring at his arm now neatly wrapped in Zhu Qinglan's white silk. He looked more like a swordsman who had just suffered a carriage accident than a feared devil cultivator. However, that relief only lasted for three heartbeats.

  Ssttt! Hsshhh!

  The black steam coming from the Slaughter Pillar on his forehead seemed to feel insulted by being wrapped in a sacred cloth. The smoke crawled down his shoulder, seeping between the silk wraps, and began to form strange patterns that made the white cloth look like a rotted bandage moldy with black spots.

  "Dammit!" Zhi Xuan cursed, his eyes widening as he saw the sacred silk slowly being stained by his own dark aura.

  He took a deep breath, trying to force his Killing Intent deep into his bone marrow, but the Slaughter Pillar on his forehead pulsed even harder, as if refusing to be suppressed by a piece of mortal cloth.

  "Then let the Extreme Ice suppress you," Zhi Xuan hissed coldly, moving his fingers and waving his hand.

  From his hand, a cold aura immediately shone with sharp ice light, freezing the ground around him even if it did not touch it directly. Zhi Xuan directed the cold air toward his hand, wrapping the silk weave with Extreme Ice that seeped into his own body as a restraint.

  The bone-chilling cold spread quickly, encasing the white silk wraps with a layer of ice crystals that were clear yet as hard as heavenly steel. A soft creaking sound was heard as the Extreme Ice from his Law of Winter clashed with the heat evaporating from the Slaughter Pillar. A cold war occurred beneath the surface of his skin; the ice tried to seal, while the darkness within his flesh tried to explode.

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  "Cold..." Zhi Xuan murmured, his teeth chattering. His pain was no longer from the transformation, but because he had just tortured his own body with two opposing forces.

  However, he succeeded. His left arm now looked like a long block of ice wrapped in cloth, giving the illusion that he was just a cultivator who had suffered severe injuries from an ice-elemental attack. A clumsy disguise, yet far better than looking like an incarnation of an Ancient Devil that had just crawled out of hell.

  He adjusted the Ghost Veil on his head, covering the Slaughter Pillar which now dimmed behind a thin layer of ice on his forehead. With a jerk, he jumped back into the air, leaving behind the stream where part of its surface had now frozen into crystals.

  Zhi Xuan's speed now surpassed what could be captured by the naked eye of most cultivators in the Five Element realm. He crossed the green plains like a white line cleaving the horizon, leaving traces of frost on every blade of grass he stepped on. However, behind that intoxicating speed, his mind still grappled with a ridiculous sense of anxiety.

  After traveling for several hours, the scenery began to change. The dense Tianluo forest was replaced by wide dirt roads, and in the distance, the majestic gates of the Imperial City—one of the outposts of the Hongmeng Empire—began to appear behind the morning mist.

  Zhi Xuan landed behind a small hill, a few miles from the city gates. He panted, not from physical exhaustion, but from mental fatigue due to keeping the Extreme Ice on his left arm from being shattered by the rebellious pulse of Devil energy. However, only a few breaths after he stopped, a flash of pure white arrived, causing his robe to flutter gently.

  From that flash, the beautiful face of Zhu Qinglan appeared with a pearl face covering; her light gray eyes radiated firmness and also a deep curiosity upon seeing Zhi Xuan. She slowly floated down from the air, stopping right in front of Zhi Xuan.

  Zhi Xuan froze. His heart, which possessed two different rhythms, seemed to stop beating simultaneously. Zhu Qinglan's sudden presence was not only surprising but felt like an accelerated death sentence. The scent of cold lotus radiating from the woman's body was usually calming, but now, that scent felt like a sword ready to slash his neck.

  "Zhi Xuan," Zhu Qinglan's voice sounded flat, yet there was a subtle tremor indicating she had traveled a long distance at full speed. Her light gray eyes narrowed, staring at the figure behind the Ghost Veil with a gaze capable of piercing any layer of illusion. "Wearing a hood, disappearing for nearly a month, ignoring that he himself is the fifth envoy, and returning like a boy playing with mud."

  Zhi Xuan swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing behind the hood that suddenly felt suffocating. He did not dare to look directly into those gray eyes—eyes that seemed capable of reading every sin he had just carved in the Ruins of the Heavenly Light Sect.

  "Qinglan... you are here," Zhi Xuan murmured, his voice intentionally lowered, trying to hide the metallic tone that still remained from the Slaughter Pillar's resonance. He reflexively hid his left arm, wrapped in ice and silk, behind his back, a movement that only made him look more suspicious.

  Zhu Qinglan stepped forward, her feet not touching the ground but stepping on thin snowflakes appearing beneath her shoes. She stopped just an inch away from Zhi Xuan. The cold air radiating from her body felt far purer than the Extreme Ice made by Zhi Xuan, causing the ice layer on the youth's left arm to vibrate faintly as if it had found its origin.

  "You are trembling," Zhu Qinglan said coldly. She raised her smooth right hand, but before she could touch Zhi Xuan's hood, the youth jumped back three fathoms with an odd, clumsy movement.

  "Don't! I mean... I am injured, Qinglan. This wound... ah, it is very bad and disgusting to look at," Zhi Xuan lied frantically. He laughed awkwardly, a laugh that sounded more like the croak of a crow choking on an acorn.

  Zhu Qinglan's eyes flashed sharply. She did not pursue, but the aura around her instantly froze. "Injured? Do you think I don't know your nature? You surely went there trying to hide it from me, and you emerge from there with a body you hide like a thief?"

  She glanced at Zhi Xuan's left hand, still hidden behind his back. "And that smell... the smell of blood so thick that even your ice cannot fully freeze it. Whom did you slaughter down there to bring home tombstones all over your body, Zhi Xuan?"

  "No one! Just... a few corpses that didn't know how to rest in peace," Zhi Xuan answered quickly, trying to give the most plausible reason even though he knew it was futile before this woman.

  Zhi Xuan felt the Slaughter Pillar on his forehead pulse again, as if his Killing Intent felt challenged by the pressure of Zhu Qinglan's aura. He gritted his teeth, desperately trying to suppress his devilish air. Cold sweat began to pour down his temples, freezing the hood he wore.

  Zhu Qinglan snorted softly, a sound full of mockery and disappointment. "You think you can lie to me? I can feel our karmic bond screaming every time your heart beats. You are not injured, Zhi Xuan. You are... changing."

  Suddenly, Zhu Qinglan flicked her finger.

  Crack!

  An extremely sharp ice wind streaked through the air, cutting the strings of Zhi Xuan's hood with terrifying precision. The Ghost Veil came loose and floated back into his storage bag, revealing Zhi Xuan's deathly pale face with the dark red pillar pattern extending on his forehead—a mark that radiated a frightening aura of darkness.

  Zhi Xuan gasped, automatically raising his left hand to cover his face, but doing so only revealed the block of ice and silk wraps that had now turned completely black from the seepage of devilish air. Zhu Qinglan's white silk now looked like a cursed bandage holding back a darkness that wanted to explode.

  A heavy silence fell between them. Zhu Qinglan fell silent, her eyes widening for a moment upon seeing the Slaughter Pillar and the transformation on Zhi Xuan's left hand. For the umpteenth time, the ripple of emotion appearing behind the calmness of her face—a mixture of shock, anger, and the pain she hid tightly—was now louder than any sound.

  "So this is the result of your 'practice'?" Zhu Qinglan whispered, her voice now sounding very low and full of sadness, a lack of belief while looking at the man before her. "You... Wh-what happened to you?"

  Zhi Xuan fell silent, his hand wrapped in ice and silk trembling in front of his own face. He saw Zhu Qinglan's gray eyes, which were usually as deep and calm as an ice lake, now shaking violently—like a mirror that had just been struck by a cracked reality.

  "Qinglan, this... this is just a minor consequence of the Law I pursue," Zhi Xuan's voice came out hoarsely, more like a ghost's whisper than a human voice. He slowly lowered his hand, letting his pale face and the forehead carved with the dark red pillar be fully exposed under the dawn light.

  Zhu Qinglan stepped forward, this time not with the speed of a cultivator but with the heavy steps of a woman seeing something she trusted shatter before her eyes. She reached out, her smooth and cold fingers touching the blackened silk wraps on Zhi Xuan's left arm.

  "This cloth... is the silk I gave you," Zhu Qinglan whispered, her voice trembling with restrained emotion. "And you used it to wrap this destruction? You let this darkness consume my gift, Zhi Xuan?"

  "I had no choice!" Zhi Xuan exclaimed suddenly, his voice exploding from the unbearable pressure. "If I didn't use this ice and silk, I wouldn't have been at peace walking before I could look at you again! You wanted me to return, didn't you? I have returned! Even if only half of me remains human!"

  Zhu Qinglan recoiled as if she had just been struck. She stared at the red pillar on Zhi Xuan's forehead—the First Pillar of Slaughter that now pulsed red in rhythm with the youth's breath. The aura from the pillar was so evil, so bloodthirsty, that the snow Zhu Qinglan created around them instantly turned into black ash before touching the ground.

  "You... carry the burden of thousands of lives in just half a month," Zhu Qinglan said, her tone now shifting to a deadly cold, a cold different from ice—a cold born of deep disappointment. "You weren't seeking strength to protect me or to calm the competition. You are surrendering your soul to a bottomless abyss. Look at yourself... you can't even restrain the trembling of your own hand."

  Zhi Xuan laughed bitterly, a laugh filled with piercing pain. He clenched his ice-wrapped left hand, causing the ice crystals to crack and emit a heart-wrenching creaking sound. "Protect? In this cruel world, Qinglan, only those with fangs can protect anything! You want to walk toward Eternity with me? This is the price of Eternity!"

  "But not at this price!" Zhu Qinglan shouted; tears rarely seen now welled in the corners of her beautiful eyes, but she immediately wiped them away with a freezing cold air. "Do you know what the Imperial Elders would say if they saw you like this? They would hunt you as a monster! The Three Plains Competition... you think you can step onto that stage with a face that carries a devil's tombstone?"

  Zhi Xuan fell silent, his anger instantly extinguished, replaced by an immense weariness. He looked down, staring at his frozen footprints on the ground. "Then let them come. If the whole world wants to call me a devil, let it be. As long as you..." he left the sentence hanging, staring at Zhu Qinglan with his sapphire eyes that still radiated human clarity. "As long as you still recognize me."

  Zhu Qinglan turned her face away, unable to look into those eyes any longer. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the ice storm in her heart. She grabbed Zhi Xuan's left wrist—ignoring the devilish air that began to bite her own skin—and channeled a much more stable flow of pure ice into it.

  "Come with me," Zhu Qinglan commanded, her voice now returning to the undeniable authority of a Holy Fairy. "We cannot enter the city through the main gate in this condition. I know of a secret pavilion belonging to my clan on the outskirts of the city. We will hide this 'disaster' before the sun truly rises high."

  Zhi Xuan could only obey. He let Zhu Qinglan pull him, feeling the cold warmth from the woman's hand spread through his blackened arm. In his heart, a large question still hung: would this disguise be enough to cover the "Devil" within him, or was this merely a delay before everything truly exploded in the Three Plains Competition to come.