Chapter 587 – Ghost Emperor, Empress Yuan, Five Years - Part 2

After two years apart, father and daughter finally sat and talked again, really talked.

Li Yuan, newly awake, also saw Meng Xingxian, Han Feng, and Ying Zhuoyao.

The first two were visibly anxious. Carefully, almost pleadingly, they asked when he’d be heading to the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain. The two ancient halls there were the last hope they had left, and they were desperate to reach them.

Li Yuan replied casually, “If you're in such a hurry, go ahead without me.”

Neither woman responded. Of course they didn’t. No one dared to go first.

Ying Zhuoyao, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned in the slightest.

Whether they went to the Eastern Sea or not made no difference to her.

So long as she was by Li Yuan’s side, she was content.

And if she were given the choice, she wouldn’t go to the Eastern Sea at all.

Because right now, that place was nothing more than a meat grinder, chewing through the lives of the strong.

That, perhaps, was the essence of the end times, a frenzy before the fall.

The Great Zhou’s martial artists scrambling to cross the sea. Cultivators from the Immortal Domain desperate to explore the ancient halls, and te western gods clawing their way out of coffins. It was all just a fevered chaos, masquerading as purpose.

Li Yuan asked Ying Zhuoyao to divine the course of fate. She said 27 years remained.

A little faster than before, but not by much.

No major storms on the horizon. Not yet.

When she finished, Li Yuan extended his hand.

Ying Zhuoyao reacted like a traveler spotting an oasis after days in the desert. She threw herself at his knees, breathless, reverent. Gently cradling his hand, she placed it over her heart, then wrapped her red lips around his fingertip, gazing up at him with dreamy, obedient eyes like a beast, tamed and docile.

Li Yuan suddenly pulled his hand back. She blinked, stunned, then panic flickered in her eyes.

He flicked his fingers. With a thought, he summoned a chair with his domain power and set it down beside him.

“Eat your snack in the chair,” he said.

He stretched out his hand, and the beautiful woman in the teal blouse shyly scooted closer again, inch by inch, until she was nestled against his side. Then, without a word, she reached out and gently took his hand once more.

Moments later, Ying Zhuoyao’s radiance returned, her beauty glowing like polished jade. She bowed and quietly withdrew.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Having caught up on the state of things across the lands, Li Yuan turned his thoughts back to Earth Soul cultivation.

The second stage of the Earth Soul technique had proven to be solid, promising. Now, he intended to push forward to the third stage.

But just as he began, he noticed something odd.

In the permafrost below, the aqua formed of concentrated Yin energy had shrunk.

He couldn’t tell whether it was due to his own cultivation consuming too much Yin energy, or if it was because the collapse of the Great Union of Yin and Yang was slowly draining away the elemental aqua and withered flame from the Western Extremes.

Either way, a sense of urgency rose in him.

Just 27 years remained.

And once those years were up, no matter how the world might shift or change, the final gate of cultivation would close for good.

Before that day came, he had to break through.

The world might be changing, but it was still *this world. The new age would be rooted in the old. That meant he had to cross that threshold as one of the strongest in this dying era.

That was the only thing he could do now. Survive and live until the end.

He was just one more soul struggling to endure this frenzied, decaying apocalypse.

With his thoughts settled, the youth looked toward the Earth Soul stele, then walked closer to the aqua. After a moment’s consideration, he simply seated himself directly above it.

Only Yin energy this pure could help him reach the third stage quickly.

Then, he began circulating the Earth Soul cultivation technique.

The Yin energy no longer trickled in like threads. It surged up from the depths like wide, black silk ribbons, twisting and thickening, until they became massive serpents of shadow. These long, writhing pythons coiled around him in layer upon layer, growing ever more dense, more potent.

Li Yuan ignited the withered flame within him and began drawing the Yin energy into motion.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Far beneath the earth, in the depths untouched by the human world, there lay the Underworld.

Its skies were gray, its land unending. A pale mist hovered through the air, carrying the faint chill of corpses.

On a mountain high above the banks of the Yellow Springs stood a woman in green. Her hands hung at her sides. The mountain was opposite the river of the dead, and buried within its slopes were coffins, each holding a ghost.

She stood quietly, watching the endless procession of ghosts pass by with bowed heads.

“Yuan,” she murmured softly.

The only clue she had left, the only tether she could recall.

But no matter how she whispered it, the memory refused to return.

Perhaps it was because she’d spoken that name aloud, that something stirred among the wandering dead.

Some of the ghosts, those with a shred of sanity left, began to echo her instinctively.

“Empress Yuan... Empress Yuan...”

The woman who had lost everything, who had been devoured entirely, once known as Yan Yu, no longer remembered that name.

In time, she came to believe

Empress Yuan

was her own name.

Her memories may have been lost, but her humanity, her intelligence, was beginning to return.

With that clarity came the knowledge. “When people die, they must reincarnate. The ones who remain, who wander aimlessly, are lonely, unclaimed spirits.”

But here, at the edge of the Yellow Springs, the spirits just kept walking.

Year after year, and still, they were only walking.

“Reincarnation...” the woman in the azure dress murmured the word to herself.

But there was no place for reincarnation in the Underworld.

This place was more like a vast cocoon, everything within was still being reshaped, recombined. Nothing was finished. Nothing had taken its final form.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

And in the blink of an eye, three more years passed.

From high above, one could now see that the aqua deep within Kabrol had shrunk dramatically.

Not just the aqua, the nine sacred bonfires of the Nine Flames Tribe were also beginning to flicker and fade.

The light of the sun had pushed westward from Sword Mountain Pass, inching ever deeper into what was once the Evernight.

In the midst of snow and shadow, Li Yuan opened his eyes.

He let out a long, heavy breath, and his entire body radiated a strange, penetrating cold.

With a thought, the lotus throne appeared beneath him.

In the next moment, the white-bodied ghost, crowned with the ceremonial crown, was once again seated in still majesty.

The ghost raised a hand and pressed against the lotus.

“Go.”

And the black lotus scattered, not with a burst, but with a shimmer, like countless dewdrops sparkling under the first light of dawn.

But look closely, those were no dewdrops. They were eyes. Cold, pale, expressionless eyes.

Each pair of eyes belonged to a ghost.

138,000 pairs of eyes, 138,000 ghosts.

At length, the crowned ghost faded away, and the young man who remained let out a slow sigh.

“So that’s the third stage...the ghosts open their eyes. With this many, I doubt anyone alive could survive the full force of their attack.”

But he frowned slightly.

The ghosts couldn’t leave the lotus. Their power was bound within it. Unless someone drew near, they couldn't do a thing.

That wasn’t ideal.

Still, he reconsidered. The third stage of the Earth Soul Realm, whether it was at the level of a dual-entity or multi-entity ghost, was never meant to handle this kind of volume.

𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

138,000 ghosts, while technically still

multi

, was also...absurd.

He gazed down at the shrinking aqua in the permafrost below.

A thought flickered.

Should I try to swallow it?

But he shook his head.

He had only managed to fuse with the Yang flame back then because of Yan Yu.

And now? Fire and water were opposites. Yin and Yang even more so. Unless he had not just Yan Yu by his side, but also a

flame goddess

version of her to help balance them both...the risk was too high.

He rose, and the little black crow fluttered down beside him.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Some time passed.

Then, a wolf-drawn carriage rolled toward them across the snow.

There was no coachman because the massive ice-furred direwolves pulling it were being controlled remotely by Meng Xingxian. It was as if an invisible hand held the reins.

Li Yuan stepped toward the carriage.

He had made his decision. It was time to leave. The crow had already summoned the others.

As the curtain was drawn back, he saw Meng Xingxian, Han Feng, and Ying Zhuoyao inside.

Li Yuan climbed aboard, gave the two women a glance, and said, “You really didn’t leave?”

Meng Xingxian pouted sweetly. “No matter where you go, I will always follow you, Father.”

“Neither of us is any good at direct combat. We’re well-suited for guarding the Western Extremes, but the Immortal Domain? That’s another story entirely.” Han Feng gave a rueful smile. “We only have a sliver of hope if we stay by your side, my lord. That’s why, even in these past five years, no matter how anxious I felt, I still waited.”

“You needn’t worry,” she added. “We may each have our own secrets, our own motives. But with so few years left before the great shift of heaven and earth, none of us would dare hesitate now, not at the very end.”

Li Yuan looked at her young, girlish face in silence.

And for a fleeting moment, he thought of the Wolfmother from years ago, the one who once just wanted to watch a sunset.

Now, though it seemed there were only four passengers in the carriage, there were actually five.

The fifth was that same girl, transformed long ago into the Wolfmother. But whenever Han Feng was present, the girl would fall into a deep sleep.

Li Yuan had no time to dwell on it. He raised a hand, and a little black crow fluttered down outside the carriage curtain.

After checking on the world outside, he fell into thought.

Meng Xingxian’s voice piped up, sticky-sweet as ever. “Papa, are we going to the Immortal Domain now?”

She was anxious too, even if she tried to hide it behind a flirtatious smile.

The little black crow shot her a cold look.

Li Yuan replied, “Don’t call me Papa. I look like a youth now. Just stick with Han Feng and call me Young Master, it’ll avoid raising suspicions once we’re outside.”

Meng Xingxian pouted, but a cold and sharp look from Li Yuan shut her up. Reluctantly, she muttered, “Yes, Young Master.”

Only then did the little black crow look the slightest bit appeased.

“Bring all five of the secret art steles. They might come in handy in the Immortal Domain. And...I want to make a detour to the Outer Region first,” Li Yuan said.

The Outer Region, what the fallen Xia Dynasty used to call the severed western lands, was absurdly far away. Even traveling by wolf-drawn carriage, it could take a year or more to reach, and it was notoriously easy to get lost.

But direwolves had a good sense of direction. And with Ying Zhuoyao, his little navigation sprite, on board, the risk was manageable.

Sharpening a blade would never slow down the chopping. No matter how tight time was, Li Yuan believed it was worth going. After all, the secret art steles that could peer into fate, the one Ying Zhuoyao once acquired, had been found in the Outer Region.

And the place where the Northern Dipper had taken her?

Li Yuan was very curious about that.

Before long, the two secret art steles from Kabrol were loaded into the wolf carriage, stacked together with the other three.

Dried rations were heaped on top of the steles, and with everything packed in, there wasn’t even space to stretch their legs.

Li Yuan planted his boots right on top of a stele without hesitation, sprawled out casually. The three women exchanged glances, then followed suit.

The direwolves pulled the carriage forward, carving deep trails through the ice and snow, heading west into the heart of the Evernight.