Jiang Huai found himself standing in a strange space, with wisps of glowing clouds beneath his feet and shattered illusions of stars floating all around.
Everything appeared so peaceful, just like the scene after clearing a game, when rewards are being tallied.
Qin Qingyue was nowhere to be seen, though her faint, lingering fragrance still hung in the air.
“Where is this place? Where’s Qin Qingyue?”
“And who are you?” Jiang Huai raised his head and questioned the void.
He vaguely remembered that before he lost consciousness, Qin Qingyue had already been awakened and was coming toward his side.
So why was there no sign of Qin Qingyue now?
A sense of disgust welled up in Jiang Huai’s heart, making him hate the source of this mysterious female voice.
He detested this feeling, as if everything was within someone else’s grasp, hidden and untouchable.
It was like being bound by invisible ropes, making it hard to breathe, with no freedom at all.
“Where is Qin Qingyue? What did you do with her?”
Jiang Huai instinctively reached for his waist, but it was completely empty—even the Spirit Sword that Qin Qingyue had given him was gone.
“Her?”
The female voice let out a soft laugh, tinged with a hint of mockery:
“That Luckbringer Black Dragon? She’s fine—so fine she couldn’t be better.”
“But you, young lord, your situation is not so good right now.”
Jiang Huai frowned tightly. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know what’s flowing through your veins right now?”
The female voice asked leisurely, but without waiting for his reply, she continued on her own:
“It’s her Misfortune—the ‘ill-omen’ that Black Dragon was born with, seen as a Curse, shunned even by the Dragon Race.”
“It was supposed to drag her into eternal loneliness and destruction, yet by some twist of fate, you ended up ‘eating’ it instead.”
A tremor ran through Jiang Huai’s heart. He looked down at his arm, now covered in black markings.
The black lines flickered in and out of sight, resembling cracks on a piece of jade.
“Do you feel heavy? As if you’re bearing the malice of the entire world?” The female voice was laced with a devilish temptation.
“You crossed the River of Misfortune for her, barely surviving! Yet she emerged unscathed, even shedding the shackles that tormented her!”
“She’s free! And now you have to carry this eternal Curse for her!”
The space around him twisted slightly, and a hazy scene appeared before Jiang Huai’s eyes.
He was alone, walking across a desolate land. Wherever he passed, grass and trees withered, birds and beasts fled in terror.
Anyone who knew him avoided him from afar, their eyes filled with fear and loathing.
He tried to approach, only to be met with frightened screams and cold blades.
In the vision, his eyes were filled with the same loneliness and despair that Qin Qingyue once had.
Jiang Huai’s throat felt dry, and he unconsciously took a step back.
Is my fate really so bitter? Even Qin Qingyue’s Misfortune has clung to me?
What a hard and bitter destiny.
But there was one thing different—the female voice said he should be feeling heavy, carrying the world’s malice.
Yet Jiang Huai didn’t feel that way at all. Instead, he felt completely comfortable.
It was as if something in his body had merged with the absorbed Misfortune, forming a subtle balance.
As for the Jade Liquid Qi Refining he’d been cultivating lately, it seemed to have been replaced.
“What are you trying to say?” Jiang Huai calmed himself a little and asked the female voice.
The female voice suddenly became melodramatic and impassioned:
“But all of this can be changed!”
“Kill her! Kill the Black Dragon who transferred her Misfortune onto you!”
“As long as she dies, this parasitic Curse of Misfortune within you will vanish like water without a source, disappearing without a trace!”
“Your body will return to its pure state, and as a reward for ‘cutting off this doomed fate’ and ‘breaking the Curse,’ I will grant you the true Celestial Immortal Form!”
That was the purpose everyone came to this Secret Realm for—the Celestial Immortal Form, the foundation for future achievement as a Golden Immortal.
Once you became a Golden Immortal, you would be a titan in the Immortal Realm, revered by thousands, founding a Hundred Generations Sect!
A completely different scene replaced the earlier despair: amid immortal light and jade palaces, Jiang Huai was dressed in splendid robes, pure immortal aura flowing all around him.
Countless immortal maidens gathered, and immortal lords paid him respect.
With every gesture he made, the laws of heaven followed, and heaven and earth resonated in harmony.
“Just think about it. All you have to do is kill her.”
A jet-black dagger, exuding a chilling aura, silently floated before Jiang Huai.
Jiang Huai looked at those scenes, then at his own arm, and a trace of suspicion rose in his heart.
This female voice kept hiding in the shadows, always tempting him when he was alone, trying to make him kill Qin Qingyue.
He wasn’t dazzled by the Celestial Immortal Form before his eyes. In this world, there was no such thing as kindness or hatred without reason.
All this talk of Misfortune and good fortune was nothing but the words of this hidden female voice—even these visions were fabricated.
How could he possibly believe anything this bastard said? Trying to trick him into killing someone without even showing a card? As if things could be that easy!
All this talk of Luckbringer, liberation, and ascension was just her running her mouth.
A bastard who didn’t even dare show her face, trying to trick me into being her knife with empty words? Jiang Huai just found it utterly ridiculous.
With so little information, how could he be swayed by a few words? Besides, he had no intention to kill Qin Qingyue.
At the same time, outside this “void,” separated only by a thin, nearly transparent gray barrier—
Qin Qingyue was standing there quietly.
Everything Jiang Huai said and did, including his conversation with the female voice, she could hear and see it all.
Jiang Huai thought he was in a void, but in reality, he was just trapped behind a faint gray barrier.
A torrent of indescribable emotions—rage, wild possessiveness—instantly flooded Qin Qingyue.
She did not need to wait.
She did not need to choose.
Nor would she ever allow anyone, in front of her, to force her man to make any kind of choice.
“I don’t need him to make a choice!”
A roar filled with violence and dominance, the Evil Dragon’s Roar, suddenly shattered the deathly silence of the Secret Realm.
Black light erupted from all around Qin Qingyue, Profound Armor clanging into place, and a long spear instantly formed in her hand.
Her crimson dragon eyes locked unerringly onto that annoying gray barrier, which reflected Jiang Huai’s figure and the dagger within.
“I won’t allow him to make a choice, either!”
“Kill me if you want! Or don’t kill me, it doesn’t matter.”
On the long spear, wild spiritual power gathered madly, and the spear tip burst with a deep, dark light.
Her entire body transformed into a streak of black lightning, carrying earth-shattering might as she thrust her spear at the gray barrier dividing the space, holding nothing back in a single strike.
“He’s mine!”
The moment the spear tip touched the barrier, there was no stalemate, no resistance—only a shattering as unstoppable as a falling mountain!
The seductive illusion of the Celestial Immortal Form crumbled like dust, vanishing without a trace.
The female voice hidden in the shadows let out a muffled grunt, full of shock and fury, caught completely off guard.
The force of the shattered barrier whipped Jiang Huai’s robes, and he looked up in astonishment, meeting Qin Qingyue’s crimson dragon eyes.
“Don’t you want to see what kind of choice your beloved would make?”
“Don’t you want to know if he’ll choose you without hesitation?!” The female voice asked, full of disbelief and rage.
Qin Qingyue stepped forward, her overwhelming presence sweeping all before her, appearing before Jiang Huai in an instant.
Her dragon claw, clad in Profound Armor and brimming with irresistible strength, seized Jiang Huai’s wrist in a firm grip.
“I don’t need him to make any choice, nor do I want to know what he would choose.”
“Whatever the choice, he’s already mine.”