My Husband’s Ascension C48 (Part 2)
Chapter 48.2 Betrayal
Zhao Zhao’s gaze drifted lightly past Lord Tianxuan. The pitifully small number of people behind him changed nothing.
Yet as though she had already anticipated this outcome, those obsidian-dark eyes showed not the slightest ripple.
One of her disciples who had been scouting from above rushed over to report, “Sect Master, Li Ying’s forces have discovered our position and are charging this way.”
Zhao Zhao’s long lashes trembled faintly. Only in that brief instant did the slight quiver in her gaze remind others that she was only twenty-five years old.
Compared to cultivators who often lived for centuries or millennia, her age was not even a fraction of theirs.
But the barely perceptible tremor quickly stilled.
She asked calmly, “How long until they arrive?”
“The demon race moves swiftly. At most, two incense sticks before they reach us!”
Two incense sticks.
The message sent to the Yao Realm should already have arrived, but with only that much time, there was no chance of aid arriving in time.
Zhao Zhao turned to Zhongli Shun beside her. “Go fetch your sword. We have a hard battle ahead of us.”
Zhongli Shun stared at Lord Tianxuan for several long seconds, then swiftly turned and ran deeper into the cave.
In that instant, the image of Dao Lord he had once revered, admired as the pinnacle of cultivation and virtue, shattered in his eyes, splintering inch by inch into dust.
…Liar!
What Dao Lord? What supreme leader of the Cultivation Realm? What great hero? All lies! He had deceived the entire world. He was nothing but a faithless charlatan!
As the reporting disciple had said, in two incense sticks’ time, they would clash with the forces of Demon General Li Ying on the plain outside the cave.
The most powerful cultivators, Lord Tianxuan and Li Feng, bore the front line together.
Yet Li Feng soon realized that Lord Tianxuan was not even using his full strength. He still had the leisure to observe the other disciples he had brought along, yanking them out whenever they advanced too deeply into the formation.
Li Feng cursed loudly, “You damned old fogey! If you walk away from this battle unscathed today, I swear I’ll twist your head off!”
Lord Tianxuan heard every word clearly, but he had no time to respond.
For he quickly realized the number of disciples on his side was growing as the battle continued.
The half of the disciples he had stationed on the rear slopes had joined the fray.
He had deliberately excluded those closely affiliated with Cloudculm Abode from this deployment. Why, then, had these disciples disobeyed orders and risked themselves to aid a Demon Successor?
“Miss Immortal Tanzhao, this way!” Amid the chaos, a path was opened through the melee by disciples from some sect, though it was impossible to tell which. “Just now, disciples from Moyan Sect sent word, they spotted two groups moving from the Yao Realm toward us. They’re still a bit far, but if we hold on a little longer, we might just make it!”
The battlefield was in chaos. Zhao Zhao glanced at the unfamiliar disciples and barely had a moment to nod her thanks. She hurriedly led Rong Yu, pressing toward the Yao Realm border.
A flicker of hope stirred in her heart, which had been on the brink of despair.
If they could hold out a little longer—
Just a little longer—
“Trying to run?” Demon General Li Ying, mounted atop a massive gyrfalcon, spotted them. His narrow, red eyes slitted with interest.
No one had time to react.
Overhead, the sound of beating wings cut through the air, and the magical formations were instantly shredded by the gyrfalcon’s razor-sharp talons.
One talon grazed Zhao Zhao’s cheek. The next instant, Rong Yu, who she had been carrying on her shoulders, was seized by a tremendous force and ripped away.
“Rong Yu—!!”
“Master!!”
In the span of a heartbeat, Rong Yu saw Zhao Zhao reduced to a dot no larger than a grain of rice. He spun around, fury burning in his eyes, only to meet a face twisted with greed and malice.
“Well well, esteemed Successor, you’ve made this pursuit no small feat."
He had scarcely had time to savor his triumph when the seemingly gentle, harmless little boy fixed him with a direct stare and shouted, “Put me down!”
A bloodline-born pressure surged forth, freezing Li Ying in place in an instant. Even the gyrfalcon beneath him stiffened, then plunged from the great heights.
Zhao Zhao seized the opening at once. Vines burst from the ground, lashing tightly around the gyrfalcon and dragging it across the earth for dozens of meters.
“Lord Tianxuan!” Zhao Zhao shouted toward him. “What are you standing there for? This is a demon general! No matter how much you despise me, you must know what takes priority!”
Lord Tianxuan’s gaze darkened. For a fleeting moment, he truly had been tempted to watch coldly from the sidelines.
But she was right.
Eliminating Li Ying should come first.
Sword light flashed.
Li Ying immediately abandoned his mount, rolling across the ground several times as successive sword lights struck down. A sense of danger flared in his heart.
“What are you all waiting for? Fire the arrows!” He barked.
Thousands of arrows rained down from the sky, dense and unbroken, their whistling cutting through the air and choking the breath.
Lord Tianxuan immediately broke off and withdrew. These were no ordinary arrows. With the cultivation of these disciples, a moment’s delay in reaction would mean grievous injury.
Seizing the chance to catch his breath, Li Ying hoisted Rong Yu in his grip and bolted toward the Demon Realm.
The Yao Realm was adjacent to the Demon Realm. At full speed, he would reach it in no time.
“Lord Tianxuan! Chase him!” Zhao Zhao cried out hoarsely. “Reinforcements from the Yao Realm will arrive any moment. Go after Li Ying! I’ll hold off these arrows. If you don’t go now, it’ll be too late!”
Countless vines erupted from the ground. Zhao Zhao all but burned her very soul, pushing herself to her utmost to force the arrows to change direction and strike down the demon race instead.
Li Feng and Xiao Bai were pinned down protecting the disciples of Cloudculm Abode. With their combined spiritual power, along with the disciples, they could maintain a barrier to withstand the barrage.
Only Lord Tianxuan, the strongest among them, had any hope of cutting down Demon General Li Ying alone. Zhao Zhao had to free his hands and send him in pursuit.
And yet—
“No.” Lord Tianxuan calmly swept his gaze over Zhao Zhao’s flustered expression. “Your so-called reinforcements from the Yao Realm—who knows when they’ll arrive. I cannot abandon these disciples. Li Ying does not have to be killed right now, but once these lives are lost, they can never be reclaimed.”
A vast surge of despair and helplessness flooded her chest, choking her breath and giving rise to a drowning sensation.
In that fleeting instant, Zhao Zhao’s eyes skimmed across the ravaged battlefield, across Lord Tianxuan—so composed he was indistinguishable from Dao Lord Tianshu—and with her mind reduced to a blank, she scarcely knew where she should go or what she should do.
By the time she came back to herself, she had already cast aside Li Feng and the others’ shouted calls, charging alone in Li Ying’s direction.
She knew she was no match for Li Ying.
She wanted to beg for help, but there was no one who could help her.
She wanted to hate someone, yet aside from hating her own inadequacy, there seemed to be no one else she could blame.
Zhao Zhao took out the withered vine Daoist Ming Jue had given her from her spatial storage pouch.
This item was called the Undying Wood.
Daoist Ming Jue had never told her what it did, nor what would happen if one consumed it.
But now, with no one left to turn to, Zhao Zhao could only shove the withered vine into her mouth and swallow it whole.
In her heart, she prayed unceasingly for the heavens to show mercy.
Help her. Help Rong Yu, help that innocent child.
Suddenly—
At the edge of her vision, a familiar snow-white figure appeared beneath the firmament.
The ground was strewn with demon corpses. Even Li Ying seemed stunned by the sight, halting involuntarily.
Coming back to himself, Li Ying staggered two steps back, then fled faster and faster, sprinting headlong toward the Demon Realm’s border without once looking back.
“Tianshu!” Her voice had already fallen apart. The gash raked across her cheek by the gyrfalcon’s talons was deep, blood streaming down without end.
“Tianshu!!” She called out again toward his retreating figure, her hoarse voice trembling with the sound of an emotional collapse. “I beg of you! I beg you to save him… Tianshu! Xie Lanshu! I’m begging you! If you’re willing to save him, I’ll agree to any condition! Whether it’s crippling my cultivation or never stepping into the Cultivation Realm again, anything is fine! I’m begging you…”
Her voice tore through the heavy silence like the dying wail of a small beast, raw and desperate.
But that figure, the figure not far from her, never once turned his head.
Zhao Zhao could not read his expression. All she saw was his immense spiritual power holding the barrier firm, keeping the last scattered demons at bay.
At his waist, the Single Intent Sword rested silently in its sheath, unmoved, with no hint of being drawn.
Zhao Zhao lowered her head. Blood trickled from her jaw like teardrops, splattering the muddy ground.
Suddenly, a strange sensation surged through her body.
The Undying Wood she had swallowed had likely taken effect. A tremendous, almost life-consuming spiritual power flooded her being, coiling through her veins.
It would lend her strength…but at the cost of her own life, drawing from the very span of her years to fuel its power.
The rampaging vines burst from her back, piercing forward like arrows toward the barrier Li Ying had set before fleeing.
The barrier shattered with a thunderous crash. Li Ying, holding Rong Yu, barely had time to glance back before a tidal wave of spiritual force crashed toward him.
Though the wooden element should symbolize healing, it now burned with such ferocity that it seemed as if his life force itself had been set ablaze, coalescing with hers until nothing remained but a handful of ash.
Rong Yu, thrown to the ground mid-flight, watched in horror as the two figures writhed together in the green flames, locked in a deathless struggle.
“Ma–Master… Master… Master!! Master!!!!”
No matter how hoarse his cries, Zhao Zhao no longer heard them.
She looked at the lifeless Li Ying beneath her, his blood-red eyes wide, as if he could not comprehend that he had been slain by a female cultivator far weaker than himself.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Her breathing became a thin, steady line.
As her gaze returned to the darkness, Zhao Zhao let herself smile faintly.
How utterly laughable.
Even after severing her threads of attachment, she still for a fleeting instant, harbored the foolish hope that he might turn back and save her…
Boom—
High in midair, that frost-and-snow pale figure finally stirred.
At his waist, the Single Intent Sword that had lain dormant for many long years trembled, as though letting out an ominous, grief-laden cry.
Author’s Note: Tomorrow marks the day he succumbs to madness!
