The void turbulence ended at the edge of a bottomless, freezing pool.
With a heavy thud, the two slammed into the icy water. In the instant of impact, Cang Yaochen forcibly twisted his body, using his own back to take the brunt of the water's massive pressure. The bone-chilling cold seeped into the cracks of his demonic frame, jolting his fading consciousness back to life.
He hooked one arm around Jiang Li, his other hand clawing desperately at the jagged rocks on the bank, dragging them both onto the shingle beach.
They were in a desolate valley under a leaden sky, surrounded by withered, yellow wormwood grass reaching waist-high. Cang Yaochen collapsed to his knees in the weeds, his strength spent. The red lotus mark on his chest flickered with agonizing slowness. Ignoring his own wounds, his trembling hand reached out to check Jiang Li's breath.
It was faint—cold as ice.
The cinnabar mark on Jiang Li's brow had completely faded to a dull, stony gray, as if its very essence had been drained. The price of forcibly driving the Mirror of Profound Inquiry to summon the ancient souls in the God-Graves was nearly the extinction of her own spirit.
"Jiang Li, wake up." Cang Yaochen's voice was a jagged ruin. He pressed his palm against her back, attempting to transfer the newly stabilized Nirvana power within him.
But the power of the Divine Marrow was too violent. The moment that domineering dark-gold light touched Jiang Li's frozen spine, it triggered a primal rejection from the Evil God origin within her. The two forces clashed between their skin, producing a terrifying series of explosive pops.
"Damn it..."
Cang Yaochen cursed under his breath. He remembered the words of the remnant soul: the marrow was the origin of the Nirvana Karma-Fire. Jiang Li's body was currently too fragile; she could not withstand such fierce vitality.
He scanned the surroundings. The valley was thick with an unnatural aura of death. Deep within the wormwood, several pairs of ghostly green eyes flickered—scavenging ghouls of the wilderness, waiting for wounded titans to draw their last breath.
Cang Yaochen's gaze went cold. He flicked a piece of jagged stone with a snap of his fingers.
Puff-puff.
A few short, muffled shrieks echoed from the grass, and the green eyes vanished instantly. Forcing himself to stand, he hoisted Jiang Li onto his back and staggered toward a natural stone cave deep within the valley.
Inside, the air was damp and dark. Cang Yaochen laid Jiang Li on a bed of dry grass. He looked down at the red lotus pattern still etched into the webbing of his thumb. This was the Karma Lock; their lives were now truly bound together.
"You haven't paid back the half-heart you owe me. I don't give you permission to die."
A flash of resolve crossed his eyes. He sat cross-legged opposite her, hands joined in prayer before snapping them apart. The purple crystals at his spine surfaced once more, but under the blessing of the marrow, they were no longer a lethal toxin. Instead, they condensed into a dark-gold orb the size of a palm.
He was going to split the Divine Marrow's origin in half.
For a man who had just reforged his demonic body, this was equivalent to self-destructing his foundation. Yet, he did not hesitate. With a flick of his finger, he wrapped the golden orb in Asura malice and carefully guided it into the center of Jiang Li's brow.
Hum—!
Jiang Li's body levitated into the air. As the dark-gold orb entered her, her withered meridians were instantly distended, and a mask of extreme agony contorted her features.
Cang Yaochen watched her intently. His own aura plummeted as he lost half the marrow; his recently healed wounds tore open once more. He ignored it, focusing entirely on guiding the power, forcing the soul of the Evil God to resonate with the Nirvana light.
As time bled away, the gray cinnabar mark on Jiang Li's forehead finally flickered with a faint, dark crimson.
Her long lashes trembled. Through the slit of her eyelids, a glimmer of heretical scarlet appeared.
Simultaneously, in the highest reaches of this unknown world, several sanctified gazes swept across the land.
"The karmic fluctuations have vanished?" "That old dog Cloud-Ascension failed. The graves collapsed and the aura is in chaos. But those two won't live long. Pass the order to all sect affiliates in the mortal realm: even if they have to dig three feet into the earth, they are to bring back that mirror."
Inside the cave, Jiang Li snapped her eyes open, coughing a mouthful of black blood onto Cang Yaochen's chest.
She looked at the pale, swaying man before her, her gaze sharpening from confusion to clarity.
"Priest... you gave me half the marrow?" Her voice was raspy, laden with a fury she couldn't suppress. "You fought so hard to snatch that for yourself. Do you want to die?"
Seeing her awake, the tension in Cang Yaochen's spine finally snapped. A faint, mocking smile touched his lips.
"Didn't you say... you were my needle? If the needle is broken, I, the demon... can't live in peace."
Before the words could fully leave his lips, he fell backward, stiff as a board.
Jiang Li lunged forward, catching him by the waist. Feeling the near-total exhaustion of his life force, her eyes suddenly burned red.
"This debt... it seems we'll never finish calculating it in this lifetime."
She gripped her cold Heart-Piercing Crossbow and looked toward the dawning light outside the cave, her eyes filled with a murderous, world-ending ferocity.