Against the Gods (Web Novel)

Chapter 1972 - White Silhouette

Partially Edited Chapter - Rubble

Western Divine Region, Blue Dragon Realm.

Outside the bedroom of the Blue Dragon Emperor, Yun Che’s silhouette slowly turned solid as if he had just stepped out of the void.

Countless guards had been stationed across the entire capital, but not a single person had noticed his presence.

“Your… Your Majesty!”

Qing Ruo had been personally guarding the Blue Dragon Emperor’s bedroom for the past few weeks. She was the only one to notice Yun Che’s presence because he let her. She quickly withdrew her aura—Emperor Yun clearly didn’t want to reveal himself to the others—and was about to drop to her knees when a gust of energy stopped her. Yun Che shook his head lightly and said, “Withdraw for the moment. I will see her now.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” Qing Ruo hurriedly replied before walking backward away from Yun Che. Her eyes were filled with excitement when she finally turned away.

This was the first time Emperor Yun had set foot in the palace of his own accord. The Blue Dragon Emperor’s bedroom was simple, cool and quiet just like Mu Xuanyin’s Ice Phoenix Sacred Hall.

Yun Che stopped concealing his presence the moment he stepped into the bedroom, so the Blue Dragon Emperor was able to detect his presence immediately. However, her aura remained as still as a pool of calm water. If she was surprised or disturbed by his presence, she didn’t show it.

Yun Che stepped around a series of folding screens meant to afford the Blue Dragon Emperor some privacy. A pond exuding a strange aura entered his vision.

The pond glowed with a kind of clear, crystalline blue light even though this was indoors, and no sky was reflecting off the water.

A tall, slender woman was seated quietly inside the pond. Blue hair floated on the water, and milky skin glowed from underneath like the prettiest canvas. Her countenance was gorgeous yet intimidating. She looked like a river goddess who had descended from the heavens.

Her legs were especially attractive. They were incredibly long, slim, and eye-catching. They glowed like flawless jade despite being submerged inside the pond.

This was the first time Yun Che truly looked at her not as the Blue Dragon Emperor, but a woman; one who seemed so unwilling to mingle with the secular world. He found himself entranced by her.

“You would enter a woman’s bedroom without her permission?” The Blue Dragon Emperor slowly opened her eyes. “It seems that the rumors that you are a lecherous and debaucherous man are true after all!”

The Blue Dragon Emperor was clearly in the middle of recuperating her injuries. She was only dressed in her underwear right now.

This was the first time someone had seen her like this since she became the Blue Dragon Emperor, so of course she was angry with him.

Yun Che averted his gaze while cursing inside his head: there are rumors like these in the God Realm!? Unbelievable! What the hell was Cang Shitian doing?

Despite his internal dialogue, he stepped up to the Blue Dragon Emperor and replied in a tone that would brook no argument, “You are my consort. No barriers exist between us.”

“...” The Blue Dragon Emperor’s expression did not change one bit. It looked like she found it beneath her to even react to her false title.

She slowly removed the aura-infused arms she had laid across her chest. She was about to produce her clothes to cover herself when something blurred, and a warm hand gently caught her hand.

Yun Che stood right next to the pond as he slid his fingers down to her wrist. “Don’t move. Let me take a look at your injuries.”

His profound energy had already entered her body before she could voice a response.

Unable to reject him, the Blue Dragon Emperor had no choice but to close her eyes again.

A frown slowly built up on Yun Che’s face as he inspected her injuries. A Blue Dragon’s physique was no match for a Dragon God’s, but they were still far tougher than your average being. On the other hand, the person who dealt the Blue Dragon Emperor a fatal blow was Mo Beichen himself. Even if she had miraculously survived the attack, it should’ve taken her a long, long time to recover completely.

That was not what his senses were telling him. It hadn’t even been half a month yet, but over thirty percent of the Blue Dragon Emperor’s wounds and vitality had recovered.

Back then, despite his fading consciousness, he had clearly sensed the Blue Dragon Emperor sealing all of Mo Beichen’s power into her body to save him. As a result, her internal organs were ground to bits. She shouldn’t be alive, much less recovering way faster than expected.

Next, he tried searching for the light energy Chi Wuyao had told him about, but of course he was too late. He could not find even a hint of that energy anymore.

He withdrew his divine perception and asked directly, “Do you know anything about the light energy that saved your life?”

“... I know it didn’t come from you,” said the Blue Dragon Emperor with indifferent eyes. It was impossible to tell from her tone if she was disappointed or sad to hear this.

Yun Che replied, “You and I were right next to each other at the time. You should know how bad my condition was. There was no way I could’ve unleashed that level of light profound energy.”

The Blue Dragon Emperor’s reply had indirectly answered his question, but Yun Che still pressed her with a frown, “Do you really know nothing at all? Not even an impression?”

The Blue Dragon Emperor’s blue eyes were immaculately tranquil. “You are the only profound practitioner besides Shen Xi to possess light profound energy, and I have never had any close contact with Shen Xi before. Even if I had, there is no way I could have received her light profound energy without realizing that it had come from her.”

“It wasn't her,” Yun Che whispered. “The injuries you sustained were fatal. Even if she had poured all of her power into you, it still would’ve been nigh impossible for her to save you, much less accelerate your recovery to this extent.”

“This… is beyond me as well.”

It was common knowledge that the higher the level of energy that injured you, the harder it was for your body to remove the traces of that energy and recover. Even Yun Che had fallen unconscious for half a month after all the injuries Mo Beichen had dealt to him. That was why the Blue Dragon Emperor’s recovery made no sense whatsoever.

What is going on here?

Who saved her?

“Are you sure it’s light profound energy that saved your life, and not some sort of racial self-recovery ability that has remained dormant until now?” Yun Che asked.

The Blue Dragon Emperor looked up slightly before saying, “The Devil Queen as my witness.”

Yun Che fell silent for a long time before saying, “In that case, the light profound energy must have appeared to you after I’d fallen unconscious. There is no way it could’ve eluded me otherwise.”

“You had almost run out of vitality when I fell unconscious, but your deeper consciousness should not have fallen asleep yet. You might even have retained some fragments of surface consciousness. You might know nothing about the light profound energy that saved your life, but what about abnormalities? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary at all?”

Yun Che wasn’t expecting anything concrete, to be honest. If there was, the Devil Queen would’ve found out already. But to his surprise, the Blue Dragon Emperor did not shake her head.

A moment of silence later, she said slowly, “Although I survived the attack, both my mind and my soul were quite confused during the first week. It was only recently I recalled seeing something, or rather someone when I was near death. If I’m not mistaken, it was a white silhouette.”

“You saw a person!?” Yun Che blurted.

“I think… she was a woman.” Indecipherable emotions rippled within the Blue Dragon Emperor’s pupils. Even she could not find the words to describe what she saw back then. “The woman had been right in front of me, but for some reason, I had this feeling that she was so beyond me that I could never, ever get close to her.”

This was the second time she had felt this feeling.

The first time was when she was standing in front of the crimson crack and facing the returned Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor for the first time.

She did not reveal this though. She knew how much Yun Che respected the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor. If she were to claim that the white silhouette—something she could very well have hallucinated on the verge of death—was equal to the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor, Yun Che might not take offense, but it would still be greatly disrespectful toward the Devil Emperor.

“No,” the Blue Dragon Emperor replied without hesitation. “In fact, I’m growing certain that it was just something I hallucinated before I fell unconscious.”

“...” Yun Che mulled it over for a bit longer before changing the subject, “Never mind. Forget I said anything and just focus on getting better.”

He had come here mainly to confirm that the Blue Dragon Emperor had recovered from her fatal injuries, and she had. So, he removed his hand from her wrist and turned away.

“Farewell, Your Majesty,” said the Blue Dragon Emperor while closing her eyes once more. She did not get up.

Yun Che did not leave immediately though. He asked, “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

The Blue Dragon Emperor’s aura was perfectly calm, so calm that not a ripple could be seen. “Thank you for pardoning Qi Tianli, Your Majesty. With this, we no longer owe each other anything. I only hope that your word is as heavy as a mountain, and your heart is as vast as the sea. I will not be pleased if I find out that you are just postponing Qi Tianli’s punishment into the far future.”

Her statement was detached and almost offensive, but Yun Che didn’t look displeased in the slightest. He even smiled and said, “You are overthinking this. If I was going to punish him, I would not have forgiven him in the first place. I do not like my revenge served cold.”

“Also, you seem to think that your favor done to me has been offset by my favor done to you, but I must say that you are completely wrong. To begin with, Qi Tianli’s life can never be compared to my or your life. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Blue Dragon Emperor: “...”

Yun Che continued, “That day, everyone including myself had been intimidated by Mo Beichen’s power. God Emperor or not, it is perfectly natural to want to escape the final attack of a Half God.”

“But not only did you defy your base instincts, your first and immediate reaction was to throw yourself in front of death to save my life. You and I both know you did not have the time to weigh the odds and judge that saving my life would be a good enough merit to pardon Qi Tianli.”

The Blue Dragon Emperor opened her mouth to say something, but Yun Che ignored her and continued, “I will be going to the Abyss very soon, and I do not know how my journey will end. If I am able to return safely, then I would like to speak with you once more.”

Her words forgotten, the Blue Dragon Emperor opened her eyes in shock. “You’re going to the Abyss!?”

“If I don’t, then Primal Chaos itself will become an eternal abyss,” Yun Che replied casually. “Don’t worry. I will come home. It would be uncouth of me to die lightly when you have literally sacrificed life to save mine.”

“Before I return though, I would like you to understand one thing.”

His voice grew distant as he took off toward the exit, “On the day I was made the emperor of Primal Chaos, and you were named my consort, did anyone say that it was a false title?”

“From the moment we became husband and wife, who owes what is no longer something you get to decide alone.”

“...” Silence returned to the bedroom and stayed there for a very long time.

However, ceaseless ripples on the pond told a different story.

…

Emperor Yun City.

News of the Abyss’ inevitable arrival and Emperor Yun’s injuries had made the Northern Divine Region quite restless these days, but instead of handling these external affairs, Chi Wuyao isolated herself in her bedroom and focused on recovering her wounded soul. It was because she was trying to determine the thing that had disturbed her Nirvana Devil Emperor Soul.

What was the strange artifact that the Abyssal Emperor had used to pierce the Abyss?

She had a feeling that it was a very important question, perhaps the most critical of them all.

If it could be destroyed, could they prevent the denizens of the Abyss from returning to Primal Chaos once and for all?

It was at this moment the door to her bedroom was opened. Yun Che stepped in with a calm and collected expression on his face.

Chi Wuyao awoke from her meditation and shot him a surprised look. “That quick?”

Yun Che sat down beside her and said, “I already knew this, but attachment and longing really are the death of determination. I was trying to strengthen my resolve by wrapping up all my unfinished matters, but all I got was the opposite.”

“So, it’s time to leave.”

His attachments, regrets, unfulfilled promises, unfulfilled wishes, and the endless words he wished to say to his loved ones… he could only complete them on the day he returned.

So he would. He must.

He had basically recovered anyway. There was no reason to delay the inevitable any longer.

“Very well,” said Chi Wuyao with a nod. She could sense his feelings. His choice was a sign that he was slowly but surely maturing into a true emperor of the world.

“My devil soul has mostly recovered, and I have sorted out all of the memories I had obtained from Mo Beichen,” she said while staring into his eyes. “I will now tell you the basic picture of the Abyss and the detailed information of some key characters. Be sure to engrave the knowledge into your soul.”

Yun Che gave her an imperceptible nod. A frigid, dark sky began covering his bright eyes.