Chapter 9: The Wedding of Soul and Blood
The battlefield was silent, save for the crackling of frost and the sizzling of heat.
Luo Tian stood frozen on the hill. His army of three hundred students—the elite of the younger generation—was backing away. Their weapons clattered from shaking hands.
"Attack!" Luo Tian shrieked, his voice cracking. "Why are you stopping?! He's down! Finish the—"
"Kneel."
It wasn't a shout. It was a whisper that echoed inside every skull on the plains.
Mo You stepped forward. She walked over the frozen grass, her black dress flowing like liquid ink. Shadows stretched from her feet, turning into hundreds of grasping claws.
"You broke my Master," Mo You said. Her purple eyes were gone, replaced by voids of absolute nothingness. "So I will break your world."
She raised a single finger.
[Abyssal Art: The Dark Horizon.]
The shadows on the ground surged. They didn't attack the students; they swallowed them. Dozens of students screamed as they sank into the floor, trapped in a nightmare dimension of cold and silence.
"Monster! She's a monster!" A Ye Clan berserker tried to run.
"Where are you going?" Feng Xi hovered in the air, her wings of golden fire spanning thirty meters. "The sun is watching you."
She snapped her fingers.
[Solar Art: Judgment Rain.]
Beams of concentrated sunlight—thin as needles, hot as plasma—rained down from the sky. They pierced armor, melted shields, and cauterized wounds instantly.
It was a massacre.
It wasn't a battle. It was two goddesses venting their grief and rage on mortals who had dared to touch their property.
"Retreat!" Luo Tian screamed, crushing a teleportation scroll in his hand. "Get me out of here!"
In a flash of blue light, Luo Tian and his inner circle vanished, fleeing the island like rats leaving a sinking ship.
The remaining students weren't so lucky. Within sixty seconds, the Thunder Plains were empty of enemies. They were all unconscious, buried in shadow, or paralyzed by fear.
The storm clouds parted. The silence returned.
But the two goddesses didn't celebrate. They rushed to the center of the devastation, where a broken boy lay in a pool of blood.
The Cave of Respite
They carried him to a secluded crystal cave nearby.
Jiang Chen was pale—a deathly, translucent white. His breathing was shallow, a rattling sound in his chest. His black suit was shredded, revealing the terrifying extent of his injuries. His shoulder was mangled, his ribs crushed, and his skin was covered in spiderweb cracks where the Grandmist energy had tried to tear him apart.
"He's cold," Feng Xi sobbed.
The Solar Phoenix, who usually radiated infinite warmth, was trembling. She pressed her hands against Jiang Chen's chest, pouring S-Rank healing light into him.
"Why isn't it working?!" Feng Xi cried. "I'm knitting his flesh, but his life force is leaking out! It's like pouring water into a cracked cup!"
"His body..." Mo You knelt beside him, wiping blood from his cheek with a surprising tenderness. "He used Overdrive. He forced the Grandmist energy through mortal meridians. He burned his own soul to break that array."
Mo You looked at Jiang Chen's face. She remembered his back as he stood before the army. She remembered his roar.
'I said get back.'
For eons, Mo You had been the Calamity. The Destroyer. She was the one beings prayed to for mercy. She had never known what it felt like to be protected.
It felt... warm. And terrifying.
"We can't let him die," Mo You whispered.
"If he dies, we just unsummon," Feng Xi sniffled, tears of liquid gold dripping onto the stone floor. "We go back to the Void."
"No," Mo You's eyes narrowed. "I refuse to go back. I refuse to let him end like this."
Mo You looked at Feng Xi. "There is one way. The Ancient Rite."
Feng Xi froze. She looked at Mo You with wide eyes. "The Soul Union? But... Sister, that is irreversible! If we do that, we aren't just Summons anymore. We bind our Origin Sources to him. If he dies, we die. Truly die."
"He bled for us," Mo You said simply. "He threw away his life for us. Is your life worth more than his?"
Feng Xi looked at the boy who had bought her snacks. The boy who had brushed her hair. The boy who had called them 'family' instead of 'weapons.'
She wiped her tears. Her expression hardened into determination.
"No," Feng Xi said. "He is my Master. My... Human."
"Then let us make him our King," Mo You said.
The Ritual
They stripped off his ruined jacket.
Mo You lay down on his left side, her body cool and soft. Feng Xi lay down on his right, her body radiating a gentle heat.
"Grandmist Trinity: Soul Resonance."
They spoke in unison, their voices overlapping in a harmonic chord that vibrated the very air of the cave.
Mo You leaned in. She kissed Jiang Chen on the lips. It was a cold, dark kiss, breathing the essence of the Abyss into his lungs.
Feng Xi leaned in next. She kissed him deeply, breathing the essence of the Sun into his soul.
HUMMM.
The cave exploded with light. Purple. Black. Gold.
Inside Jiang Chen's subconscious, he was floating in a dark, cold sea. He was drifting away. Dying.
Suddenly, two hands grabbed him. One was made of shadow, the other of light. They pulled him back.
"Jiang Chen."
The voices echoed in his mind.
"You do not have permission to die."
"You are ours."
"Accept our blood. Accept our souls. Become the Vessel."
A surge of power—infinite, ancient, and terrifying—rushed into his shattered meridians. The cracks in his soul were filled with gold. The broken bones were reinforced with obsidian.
[System Critical Alert!]
[External Origin Sources Detected.]
[Yin (Dragon) and Yang (Phoenix) have initiated Soul Union.]
[Grandmist Sovereign Body: Evolving...]
[...Evolution Complete.]
[Tier 2: The Trinity Vessel Unlocked.]
The Awakening
Jiang Chen gasped, his eyes snapping open.
The pain was gone. All of it.
He sat up. He felt... incredible. His body felt light, yet dense with power. He looked at his hands. His skin was flawless, glowing with a faint luster.
He looked down at his chest.
Over his heart, two new tattoos had appeared. A black dragon coiled around a golden phoenix. They pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"You're awake."
Jiang Chen turned.
Mo You and Feng Xi were sitting next to him. They looked exhausted, their faces pale, but their eyes were shining with an intense emotion he had never seen before.
"What..." Jiang Chen touched his chest. "What did you do?"
"We fixed you," Mo You said softly. She reached out and traced the dragon tattoo on his chest. "We gave you half our Origin Souls. We are no longer just bound by the System, Jiang Chen."
"We are Soul Bound," Feng Xi whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder. "We share a life now. If you get hurt, we feel it. If you die... we fade from existence."
Jiang Chen was stunned. "Why? Why would you take that risk?"
Mo You grabbed his collar and pulled him close. Her nose brushed against his.
"Because you were stupid enough to stand in front of an army for us," she hissed, though there was no venom in her voice, only fierce possession. "Because you are the first being in the universe to treat us as women, not weapons."
She kissed him.
It wasn't like the ritual kiss. This was passionate. Possessive. It claimed him.
When she pulled back, she smirked. "And because now, you are my Husband. And a Dragon does not let her treasure break."
"Husband!" Feng Xi threw her arms around his neck, tackling him back onto the stone slab. She kissed his cheek, his nose, his lips. "I want to be a Wife too! You have to take responsibility, Jiang Chen! You touched my heart!"
Jiang Chen lay there, the two most powerful goddesses in the multiverse draped over him. He felt their warmth, their love, and the terrifying power they had gifted him.
He laughed. A genuine, relieved laugh.
He wrapped his arms around them, pulling them closer.
"Wives," Jiang Chen tested the word. It felt right. "I guess I have to work harder now. Supporting two goddesses isn't going to be cheap."
"Very expensive," Mo You agreed, resting her head on his chest. "I require planets."
"And I require desserts!" Feng Xi added.
Jiang Chen smiled, his eyes glowing with a stabilized, deep purple light.
"Then let's go get them."
He stood up, helping his wives to their feet.
[Status Update]
Name: Jiang Chen
Class: Sovereign
Partners: Mo You (First Wife), Feng Xi (Second Wife)
Rank: S-Rank (Tier 2)
He looked at the entrance of the cave. The exam was still ongoing. Luo Tian was still out there.
But the dynamic had changed.
Jiang Chen summoned Nightfall. The blade turned purple, infused with the power of the Trinity.
"Let's go," Jiang Chen said, walking hand-in-hand with his wives out of the cave. "Our honeymoon is going to be painted in the blood of our enemies."
(Feng Xi: "Can we have cake after?")
(Jiang Chen: "Yes. After we win.")