To dissolve a Life-and-Death Pact — calling it difficult was not entirely accurate. The Lang Jiuchuan of before, with her incomplete spirit and soul, might have struggled considerably with this. But she was no longer the person she once had been. She approached it with full composure.
In the moment when her powerful spiritual consciousness enveloped both Dao Jicang and the infant girl, her hand seals were changing at blurring speed as though building up force for a decisive strike — and then her eyes flashed with a sudden, sharp light, and the motion of her fingers abruptly reversed.
A surge of vast Profound Dark energy rushed in from all four directions at extraordinary speed. Like a tornado rolling and churning, the cold energy transformed into threads fine as cobwebs, and in moments wove itself into a great cocoon, wrapping all three of them inside it.
Jiangche, seeing this, reacted as though facing a great enemy. His fur stood on end, his tiger’s might radiating outward in all directions, his spiritual awareness deployed to full extent.
By virtue of the Heaven-and-Earth contract binding them, with a sliver of his consciousness residing in her sea of awareness, he shared a mutual understanding with her that surpassed the ordinary. He naturally grasped Lang Jiuchuan’s intent — and was simultaneously struck with awe at her audacity and daring. “This reckless person.”
Lang Jiuchuan had spoken grandly, but when it truly came to acting, she had held something back — letting you see, but not letting you see everything.
She used her Profound Dark energy to form freezing, bone-piercing fine threads woven into an ice cocoon, enveloping everything within her spiritual consciousness. Even if an outsider attempted to peer in, it would be as though looking through a murky, blurred phantom mirror — only able to glimpse hazy, indistinct shadows of the shapes within.
Even Dao Jicang — she suppressed his spirit, soul, and all five senses, blocking him from perceiving anything either.
This move was both risky and enormously costly to her spirit, soul, and spiritual power. It was a severe drain on her mental energy. Yet she did it anyway — a flat refusal to give what was demanded of her, an act of pure, characteristic rebellious defiance.
On the other side, the Imperial Preceptor, peering through the water mirror formed by Dao Jicang’s spirit and soul, furrowed his brow ever so slightly. A moment later it relaxed, and a look of keen appreciation passed through his frost-cold eyes. His lips curved into a smile. “Mischievous.”
Truly worthy of being the disciple he prized most in this lifetime. Capable of what others could not. Breaking this Life-Sharing Pact was already a drain on spiritual power, yet she still dared to form a phantom mirror to obstruct his view — to keep him from seeing clearly.
But — she was covering something up and concealing things. Was there something she did not want him to know?
He thought of how she had once dared to risk the scattering of her soul to break free of the Mysterious Heaven Chains, and of how she had been able to return to the mortal world with her spirit and soul completely whole. The Imperial Preceptor turned something over in his mind, and both hands formed a seal, directing a finger at the water mirror. A strand of his spiritual awareness seemed to pass through the mirror and arrive on the other side.
Dao Jicang let out a grunt, his face twisting, as though enduring immense agony.
Lang Jiuchuan’s temples were beaded with fine, dense sweat. Yet she watched every shift in Dao Jicang’s expression with perfect clarity. Her eyes flickered, and she bit down — pouring her spiritual power forcefully into Dao Jicang’s spirit and soul. He was coming. She had to move quickly and decisively.
She turned her hand over and summoned her talisman brush. Her fingertip forced out a drop of her life essence blood, which seeped into the talisman brush. Vast Daoist intent and spiritual will wrapped around it, her lips moving through an incantation at rapid speed. She brought the brush sweeping down in a decisive strike, severing the invisible karmic thread of the pact binding Dao Jicang and the infant girl.
“Pact of wickedness bound in life, Heaven cannot abide — by the divine brush of the Panguan, let spirit and soul be severed. Cut!”
A low, resonant hum rang out from the talisman brush. The full, formidable divine might and authority issued from the tip of the brush and drove into that invisible thread of karmic pact — and a streak of purple-gold radiance exploded outward.
Crack.
Somewhere in the unseen depths of the cosmos, a sound arose, as though chains had shattered.
Lang Jiuchuan watched the thread of karmic fate fracture and dissolve. She immediately drew her talisman brush back. Her spiritual power shuddered violently in reaction, and something sweet rose in her throat — a thread of blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. But her pair of dark eyes blazed with a light that was astonishing in its intensity.
At that moment, the spiritual awareness had already arrived — like a pair of eyes materializing in midair, gazing down upon everything below. Lang Jiuchuan acted as though she had not noticed. She no longer concealed anything. Her figure darted forward in one swift motion, arriving before the infant girl. Both hands formed seals, pressing against the space between the child’s brows. A surge of pure Supreme Yin energy carrying the essence of life force entered the child’s spiritual platform.
As her own complexion grew whiter and whiter, the infant girl retched up a mouthful of dark blood — but her color gradually shifted from pallid gold-paper white to a warming, healthy red. A soft, small sound escaped her lips. Her breathing deepened and lengthened.
Dao Jicang spat out two great mouthfuls of essential lifeblood. The Life-Sharing Pact had been forcibly broken — and as the one who had cast it, he bore the full brunt of the violent shock and backlash. His cultivation began receding at speed. His hair turned to silver threads; his face no longer resembled a man of middle age but rather showed the deep-carved wrinkles and ravines of a truly aged century-old man. Every mark of his years pressed into view all at once.
He stared at Lang Jiuchuan in shock, his expression caught between disbelief and something that felt strangely like inevitability — as though it had always been obvious that she would resolve this pact.
Her strength, then…
But before he could think further, Lang Jiuchuan suddenly aimed her talisman brush at his spirit and soul. The speed was blinding, like lightning and flint striking — bringing with it supreme divine might as it plunged into his spiritual platform and drove straight for the strand of spiritual awareness in his soul that did not originally belong to him.
Shhk.
Dao Jicang let out a most horrifying, desperate shriek and collapsed instantly. He felt his spirit and soul blown apart, shattered into fragments in all directions. The supreme, overpowering divine force was like the fires of hell itself, intent on burning and incinerating every last scattered piece.
The one who also felt this was the Imperial Preceptor. He had not anticipated that Lang Jiuchuan would react so swiftly — that even before the pact dissolution was fully complete, she still had energy in reserve to launch an attack on his spiritual awareness.
The Imperial Preceptor felt his blood and vital energy roil and surge in his chest. He violently coughed up a mouthful of heart’s core essence blood. His complexion fell, his spirit and soul burned with searing pain. He raised a finger and wiped at the dark blood at the corner of his lips. The tip of his tongue pressed gently against his cheek, and he let out a low, amused sound.
What a reversal of the situation.
The wolf cub’s teeth had indeed become sharp.
Willing to wound herself greatly to land a blow against him — truly her consistent nature as always.
This was an open act of warning and defiance — using this shock to tell him: even inside the trap you set, I possess the power to break out of it. And the terms of how we play — she sets them.
The Imperial Preceptor laughed until his chest shook. This provocation and audacity did not anger him — it delighted him. This was the kind of disciple who deserved his most careful cultivation — a peerless uncut jade of the highest order.
“The more brilliant you are, the stronger you are — only then do you have the qualification to become the core of my supreme Dao.” He murmured to himself, fingertips unconsciously tracing the surface of a jade talisman, running over the familiar lines. He looked down at it.
It was the birthday gift Lang Jiuchuan had personally carved and presented to him all those years ago. It had been worn smooth by his constant handling over the years, now rendered extraordinarily soft and supple to the touch.
A flicker of something tender passed through his eyes, carrying a thread of contentment he himself had never noticed was there.
He regarded all things under heaven as straw dogs — yet for this disciple he had personally cultivated and personally destroyed, he harbored a difficult-to-sever expectation.
Gradually, the smile faded from his face. His thoughts returned to the talisman brush she had wielded. It carried a genuine, overwhelming divine might — the true majesty of divine authority. Only that could, through a single strand of spiritual awareness, sear his spirit and soul and cause him to suffer loss.
Where had she obtained such an immortal artifact?
Connecting this further to how she had reassembled her spirit and soul even after it was blown apart and scattered — and had now come into possession of an artifact of this grade — it seemed the little wolf cub had been hiding no small number of things from him, her master.
The Imperial Preceptor’s expression turned cold and severe. He did not like this feeling — as though someone had stolen one of his playthings.
“Who is helping you?” He murmured the question to himself. In his tone, a trace of possessiveness — and something faintly, inexplicably like jealousy.
Lang Jiuchuan made a sound of contempt and spat out a mouthful of bloody foam. She looked at Dao Jicang lying prone on the ground, barely alive, his spirit and soul on the verge of dissolution. She could not help but curl her lips.
In the end, she laughed.
“I may not be able to wound you fully — but to wound you even a little is still something.” She fell back onto the ground, her complexion white as paper, laughing even as her chest ached and her spirit and soul felt on the verge of tearing apart. But the pair of dark eyes that blazed in that deathly pale face still radiated a light that was nothing short of awe-inspiring.