On the surface of the river, two people stood face to face after one thousand years—but everything had changed. Good and evil had reversed. The man who once wore the Green Lantern Ring had become a Black Lantern demon. The once gentle woman had turned into a savage undead corpse.
Li Jong wore black night gear. His face was gaunt, his hair pure white—like he'd walked out of a black-and-white photo. Nothing about him looked natural. Biyue, on the other hand, wore a modern purple qipao. Her curves were eye-catching, but her eyes were filled with gloom. In the one thousand four hundred years since her death, she had never once felt joy. Most of the time, she buried herself in intense cultivation to burn through her endless life. And the rest of the time, she cursed the man who had revived her—Li Jong.
A month ago, Biyue had gotten her hands on a Black Lantern Ring by chance. She used it to awaken Li Jong—just so she could kill him again.
Li Jong had resurrected Biyue. Then Biyue turned around and brought Li Jong back to life. Their relationship had become a twisted curse. Maybe from the very beginning, their bloody encounter had already doomed them to a lifetime of tragedy.
The Black Lantern was one of the emotional spectrum rings. Its main power was to bring the dead back to life, and then absorb more power through killing.
"Give up, Biyue. You're no match for me." Li Jong still retained his past memories. Even though his emotions were gone, he still acted based on those memories. That's why he planned to collect Biyue's heart last.
"You'll never know if you don't try!" Biyue quickly formed hand seals. Black smoke poured from her palms. Clearly, after over a thousand years, she'd learned some dangerous things.
Magic. It might be basic, but even in the age of waning laws, it couldn't be underestimated.
The black smoke wrapped around her and transformed into a suit of armor. In a cold voice, Biyue said, "All I've ever wanted was to make you pay. To make you understand—you never should've brought me back."
But the truth was, Li Jong hadn't known there was a cost to resurrection. After seeing what Biyue had become, he'd felt guilty while he was still alive.
Li Jong looked at her wild expression with a calm face. The Black Lantern's power now controlled his actions, not his emotions. But he wasn't completely unaffected. He seemed to remember the final days of his life after he removed the Green Lantern Ring. Back then, Biyue had begged him to kill her.
But how could he bring himself to do that?
Maybe that was why Biyue hated him. Because he didn't follow through. If Li Jong had killed her before he died, she wouldn't have had to suffer for a thousand years.
"Die!" Biyue suddenly had a sword in her hand. The blade was icy cold and as soft as silk. She stepped forward, landing impossibly on the rippling water and lunged at Li Jong.
He stood still atop the river, unmoving and unbothered—even when the sword was already at his throat.
Hissss—
A sharp cry rang out. For a moment, the river reversed its flow. A massive undead warhorse shot out from beneath the surface. Riding on its back was a fearsome general in black armor. But the pale, bloodless face made it clear—this general was also dead.
This was a battle between undead who had clawed their way back from hell. A twisted struggle fueled by bitter regret and unwillingness to let go.
The love and hate between Biyue and Li Jong was a song no one could truly play, a tale no outsider could change. But others would still be caught up in its fallout. Their descendants were the first to suffer. The Black Lantern Ring, unlike the others, needed hearts to recharge.
The undead general also wore a Black Lantern Ring on his hand. That meant Li Jong wasn't the only Black Lantern demon on Earth.
"Li Jong, you're actually relying on someone else's power now? Pathetic—you deserve to die!" Biyue hadn't expected Li Jong to start summoning allies. He'd always fought alone, standing up for justice. Now he'd fallen this far?
"I told you already, you should give up." Li Jong sounded disappointed. "Maybe... maybe I really let you live too long."
"I'll kill anyone who stands in my way!" Biyue dodged the undead general's thrusting spear, leaped backward, and landed on a small boat. Her force instantly sank the boat beneath the water—it never surfaced again. Gaining speed from the impact, she turned into black smoke and shot toward the undead general.
The smoke left a trail—and took the general's head with it. Compared to Li Cong's defensive techniques, Biyue's magic was far more aggressive.
"Courting death!" Biyue reappeared, now holding a severed head in her hand. No blood. It was an undead corpse, just rotting flesh and bone.
Crack!
Before Biyue could react, she heard the sound of bone snapping—and the next thing she knew, she was flying. She skipped across the river like a stone skimming water.
The headless general's skull was already growing back. It regenerated visibly fast. That was the nature of Black Lantern demons—killing them like normal people didn't work.
Even though Biyue had learned magic, at her core, she was just a depressed, ordinary person. After that brutal blow, she had no strength left. Luckily, Li Jong didn't want to kill her. At least not yet. He still needed to collect the hearts of the remaining descendants first.
"Let's go, Zhao Hu. We'll kill her later. I like doing things in order," Li Jong said calmly. He had trained since childhood. Even under the Black Lantern's control, he could stay composed like nothing was happening—showing insane self-control.
The undead general pulled his reins, and the horse returned into his ring. The two Black Lantern demons turned into beams of black light and shot through the sky.
Li Cong knew the area well. When Liu A'dou asked for a quiet place to fight, he led them to a small waterfall. It was a stone-ringed lake with plenty of space.
"Alright. Now you can go home," Liu A'dou told Li Cong.
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm afraid he'll come after me again. I'd rather stay close to you." Li Cong was a close blood relative of Li Jong—technically, he was also a power source.
But it looked like Li Jong preferred to kill in order—from distant to close. Liu A'dou agreed. Herding a bunch of ducks was the same either way.
"Hey, you two kids! Come here to your ancestor!" Li Cong shouted at Ming Wu and Liu Su.
Liu A'dou casually asked, "Didn't Li Jong and Biyue never get married?"
Li Cong replied, "No one ever said you had to be married to have a kid. They had a daughter. Their family was even prosperous for a while. But after several wars, only these two are left. They're the last of the bloodline." Li Cong sighed. "I never thought my father would end up like this."
Ming Wu and Liu Su were still dazed. Everything had moved way too fast. They couldn't even process it. The one chasing them this whole time… was their own ancestor?
Ming Wu had wanted to avenge his brother. But now, everything was out of his hands. He didn't even know how to face the killer.
It was just a corpse being controlled. Would the police even arrest a corpse? A dead body that had been buried for over a thousand years with no ID?
But letting that corpse do whatever it wanted? Ming Wu couldn't accept that either. He was determined to get revenge. He still hadn't given up. Ming Wu clenched his fists. No matter what kind of monster the guy was, he swore he'd land at least one punch—for his brother.