Against the Gods

Yun Wuxin opened her eyes immediately. She jumped out of Chu Yuechan’s embrace and onto her feet in a jiffy. Without saying a single word, her small hand swiftly stretched out and pressed against her mother’s chest. An extremely gentle current of profound energy wrapped around Chu Yuechan’s life vein while it also strove to suppress her agitated energy and blood.

She became extremely focused but she had been so startled that her face had turned pale. “Mom, it will soon… will soon be just fine…”

The warm blood that had sprayed on Yun Che’s hand contained faint traces of an abnormal cold intent. Amidst his horror and astonishment, Yun Che’s body violently tottered forward as he knelt to the ground. He could not stand up in time, so he swiftly grasped Chu Yuechan’s arm. He gritted his teeth as he tried extremely hard to calm himself down, but his hands still shook uncontrollably.

Chu Yuechan’s complexion was a sickly white but her expression was far calmer than his own. She gently wiped the corner of her mouth as she said, “Don’t worry, this is something that happens every now and then. I’m already fine.”

“...” Yun Che did not say anything and the fingers which grasped Chu Yuechan’s arm tightened and relaxed at varying intervals. Even though he had lost all of his profound strength, at the very least, he still had his excellent medical skills and his intimate knowledge of the human body.

Her blood and energy were extremely weak and also extremely cold!

He quickly figured out the situation… Chu Yuechan had cultivated an ice-based profound art her entire life, so cold energy filled her body. Even though she had destroyed her own profound art, the cold energy that had accumulated in her body for decades would not disperse in such a short amount of time. But given her profound strength that was at the level of the Emperor Profound Realm at that time, this cold energy would not harm her and if she simply guided it slightly, it would disperse before too long.

At that time, however, Chu Yuechan had been severely injured by others when she was pregnant and she had used all of her power to protect the still unborn Yun Wuxin, to the point where her profound veins had withered and died, and then she still had to go through the birth of Yun Wuxin...

As a result, she had lost all of her profound strength and her body had been weakened to an extreme degree. The cold energy in her body would undoubtedly become a dreadful curse that would chip away at her life.

The good thing was that even though Chu Yuechan did not have her profound strength any longer, there were still some traces of his Dragon God aura inside of her, which allowed her to endure this condition for many years. But even if that was the case...

His gaze shifted slightly as he looked at the little hand Yun Wuxin was pressing against Chu Yuechan’s chest. At this juncture, he was extremely convinced that if it was not for the fact that Yun Wuxin had acquired profound strength at such a young age and had grown at such an abnormal speed, Chu Yuechan would definitely have long ago...

He let go of Chu Yuechan’s arm as he gave a small sigh of relief in his heart. After that, he felt both elation and a lingering fear. His elation stemmed from the fact that the situation was not unsalvageable, and the lingering fear stemmed from the fact that he would have found a lonely and pitiful Yun Wuxin if he had found mother and child a few years later.

Chu Yuechan’s complexion finally grew better and it was only then that Yun Wuxin very carefully withdrew her hand. After that, she said in a anxious voice, “Mom, are you feeling any better? Does it still hurt anywhere?”

Chu Yuechan shook her head as she softly brushed her daughter’s long hair, her beautiful eyes filled with warmth and a … reluctance to part. She was most clear on what state her own body was in. She knew that she did not have much time left and she was already extremely grateful that the heavens were merciful enough to allow her to accompany Wuxin until she was eleven and meet Yun Che again. The only thing left was a great reluctance to be seperated from them. She did not feel any resentment or sorrow.

“Wuxin, don’t worry, your mother will be fine,” Yun Che said.

Those words caused Yun Wuxin to immediately turn her face towards him. Chu Yuechan also lifted her beautiful eyes as she stared at him in astonishment.

“Daddy, is what you’re saying… true?” the girl softly asked, her eyes filled with glimmering tears that had not fallen only because she had sought to hold them back.

“Of course,” Yun Che said with a faint smile. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that your father is a genius doctor?”

“Genius… doctor?” Yun Wuxin softly chanted and he did not know whether it was because she found it hard to believe or if she was stunned by those two words.

“Is there really a way?” Chu Yuechan’s beautiful eyes flashed with hope.

Yun Che nodded his head as he stared at both mother and daughter calmly. “You possess the Dragon God power that came from me so even if you don’t have any profound strength anymore, the cold energy inside your body won’t destroy your vitality so easily. I have a method to allow you to completely recover and even if I am not able to, there is still Ling’er and my master in the medical arts… My master is the greatest medical practitioner in the world and he is the only one worthy of the title ‘Medical Saint’. Right now, he’s in the Illusory Demon Realm and as long as he is around, not only will he be able to restore you back to perfect health, he will even be able to completely restore your withered and dead profound veins.”

He was not exaggerating in the slightest when he said those words, because these were not words meant to comfort or console. Given Yun Gu’s ability, he was definitely able to do it.

The Little Demon Empress’ condition at that time was a hundred times worse than Chu Yuechan’s current condition and it had rendered him completely helpless. But Yun Gu had only said a few words and with the help of Su Ling’er, he had rescued the Little Demon Empress from the condition that was threatening her life.

It was simply a pity that he could no longer use the Sky Poison Pearl. Otherwise, he could retrieve a drop of spiritual nectar that had been given to him by Shen Xi. Not only would that allow Chu Yuechan to completely recover in a short amount of time, it would also allow her profound strength to directly enter the divine way.

After all, this was a divine item that would cause even the king realms to water at the mouth. A divine item that realm kings of normal star realms did not have the qualifications to even sniff at, much less the rest of the profound practitioners in those realms. Yet Shen Xi had given several hundred thousand years worth of this resource to him.

Upon hearing Yun Che’s words, Yun Wuxin’s starry eyes flashed and the tears that she had held back finally started to drip to the ground like raindrops. “Is it really true… Is it really true…”

“A father won’t trick his daughter,” Yun Che lightly rubbed her head.

“...Your daddy is indeed a genius doctor and it was because of this that your mother and father even met in the first place,” Chu Yuechan softly said. All those years ago, he had been able to sense the cold poison in her body with a single distant glance. It was just that she had never imagined that the brief instant where they had brushed shoulders with each other would completely change her entire life. “Since he said those words, it’s definitely true.”

“Mother will get better… and will always accompany… Wuxin?” To Yun Wuxin, the words that rang in her ears were undoubtedly the most beautiful sound in the world, it was so beautiful that she found that she did not dare to believe it for a moment… It was just as if she was in a dream.

Yun Che gave a faint smile but he felt a fierce stabbing pain in his heart… She was only eleven years old, but for all these years, she had undoubtedly been quietly enduring the pressure and pain of possibly losing her own mother at any moment. For a girl as small as Yun Wuxin, that was an indescribable cruelty.

As such, she had very carefully and meticulously barred anyone from taking a single step into this bamboo grove because she was not willing to let anyone harm even a single hair on her mother’s head.

“Of course she will.” Yun Che looked at her eyes before vigorously nodding his head. “Your mother will always be by your side, even if it’s thousands of years later or tens of thousands of years later, she won’t leave you.”

“Then Daddy will… also always be with us, right?” Her voice had grown even more muffled and Yun Che’s figure was reflected in her misty eyes… along with an incomparably billowy and dazzling light.

Daughters had always idolized their fathers. They did not need a reason to do so, it was a sort of natural tendency. In a daughter’s heart, the small spots of light that radiated from their fathers would be enlarged by several times, and sometimes, even by ten or a hundred times… Even if the father in front of her would only be an eternal cripple, he had already become as tall as a mountain in her heart right now.

“Of course I will.” He nodded his head once again, even though...

He held up Chu Yuechan and Yun Wuxin’s hands while he looked into the distance, his heart no longer containing any dark haze or hesitation. “Yuechan, Wuxin, leave this place with me. The world outside is no longer dangerous anymore. It is filled with family members and people who would protect us. Master and Ling’er will help you completely recover, Xue’er and Caiyi will make sure that Wuxin will grow properly… Let’s bring Wuxin home so she can recognize her ancestors and her family. Her grandfather and grandmother will definitely be overjoyed…”

“When my mother found out about your situation all those years ago, she wept as she implored me to find you at all costs… Even though it has been late by so many years, I can finally… allow her to put down that heavy burden in her heart…”

“The outside world, Grandfather… Grandmother…” the light in Yun Wuxin’s solemn eyes grew even more dazzling, but after that, she quietly hid it away as she turned her head to look at her mother...

“Alright.” Without any hesitation at all, Chu Yuechan gave a light nod of her head… which also caused the brightest light to shine in Yun Wuxin’s starry eyes.

…………

The Phoenix Ruins, within the trial grounds.

The scarlet eyes of the Phoenix slowly opened in the black world in front of him. Yun Che had once again come to this place and upon seeing those eyes, he solemnly and respectfully bowed to them. “Phoenix Spirit, I thank you for giving me my second life. It is just that Yun Che is currently only an ordinary mortal. I don’t know how I can repay you and the only thing I can do is to carve this into my memory.”

Those scarlet eyes froze on his body in an instant and after that, the voice of the Phoenix reverberated in this dark space, “Your mindset and the state of your heart have already changed. It looks like you’ve already found them.”

Yun Che lifted his head and said in a somewhat helpless fashion, “As expected, you knew long ago that she was my daughter.”

“She did not only inherit a pure and unadulterated Phoenix aura from your origin blood, her body also contained the Dragon God’s aura and… a faint and weak Evil God aura. The only possibility was that she was one of your progeny,” the Phoenix Spirit said.

“Why didn’t you tell me that from the very beginning?” Yun Che asked, even though… he had more or less thought of the answer.

“To fall from the highest of mountaintops into a deep abyss, this heavy and cruel blow is also something that will temper and steel your heart and mind. The heavier the gloom that wreathed your heart and mind previously, the more dazzlingly bright it would have been to you once you found them. In fact, if it was possible, I would have hoped that this process would have continued for an even longer period of time…”

Yun Che shook his head as he gave a bitter laugh, “If it went on for any longer, I’m afraid I would have been on the brink of collapse.”

“Today, I’ve come to bid farewell to you,” Yun Che’s tone grew more solemn as he said this. “Even though my life has been a short one, I have been greatly favored by the Phoenix. Even though I will never again be able to ignite the Phoenix flames in this life, Wuxin has inherited my Phoenix bloodline. In the future, her body will definitely burn with a Phoenix flame even more dazzling than my own.”

“Heh heh…” The Phoenix Spirit gave a light chuckle, it was just that compared to the warm and mighty laugh that it had let out all those years ago, the bland laugh that it had just let out was filled with a deep frailty. “My time is also about done, so I’m afraid that I won’t be able to wait till that day. However…”

Its voice stopped for a brief moment before it continued in an incomparably slow and gentle fashion, “Are you… truly content to return to an ordinary life?”

“...” Yun Che’s gaze went rigid and it was a full ten breaths later that he finally spoke with a faint smile on his face, “I will find hope, but even if I really can’t find it, it will be fine as well. Because I have many things which are far more important than power by my side.”

“...” at this moment, the Phoenix Spirit suddenly lapsed into silence but the light from its scarlet eyes continued to faintly flicker. It was as if… it was pondering something.

This heavy silence continued for a very long time

It was just when Yun Che was about to open his mouth that the voice of the Phoenix Spirit suddenly rang in the air, “There is a method that might perhaps be able to awaken your power once more.”

Those words caused Yun Che’s heart to stop in that instant… After that, his face, a face which had been completely calm and tranquil as he had said “it will be fine as well”, started to tremble uncontrollably and it was trembling rather intensely at that as he said, “You… Is what you’re saying… true?”

“What method… What method!?”

Yes, it was true that he had accepted his present condition.

But…was he content?

How could he be content!?

“I previously told you that the only thing that had been rebirthed by the Flames of Nirvana was basically just your life, and all of the power that you had previously possessed had died. In other words, they are all still within your body. It is just that they died together with you, but they did not revive together with you.”

“What exactly is the method!!?” Yun Che directly yelled in a low voice as he itched to know. “Hurry up and tell me! No matter how hard it is, I will definitely think of a way to do it!”

“It isn’t hard. On the contrary, one could say that… it is incredibly easy. It’s just that to you… this would be an extremely cruel choice.”

“...??” The words of the Phoenix Spirit caused bewilderment to fill Yun Che’s face. He very clearly remembered the Phoenix Spirit telling him before this that there was no power in this universe that could awaken the dead Evil God power, unless one could find another drop of the Evil God’s Indestructible Blood… Yet right now, it said it could be accomplished easily?