Beastmaster of the Ages

The Radix World Tree fell to the ground and took root. Xian Xian's spiritform looked fine, if a little fatigued. It was right next to Feiling's flower with Tianming, anxiously looking at it.

"Why did this happen… why…." It tried hugging the flower, only for the blood grudge to turn into a ghostly figure and slam into it, pushing it back and corrupting it.

"Ling'er!" Tianming approached the flower, prompting the same reaction when his arm approached it. The slightest touch of the bloody storm caused the flesh around his body to painfully rot. It could be fatal.

"Can you hear me?" Tianming was completely panicking. Everything that was happening was making him lose his breath.

"Ling'er!" He tried approaching the bloody flower again, weathering the strong blood grudge that was tearing him apart. If he didn't have the Soul Tower, his vita might have been negatively affected as well.

"Can you hear me?!" His voice was hoarse and his eyes were cracking apart. Panicking, he was afraid that the blood grudge would tear Feiling apart the next moment. Losing her would be a complete nightmare. He didn't care about anything else and forged ahead, swallowed up by the blood grudge. It didn't take long before his skin fully rotted. The blood grudge entered his body from his ears and nose, gradually destroying his albi. Searing pain spread across his entire body.

"Tianming!" Long Wanying quickly charged into the mass of the blood grudge and pulled him out.

"Aunt Ying, think of a way! What can we do?!" he cried, clasping her arm like it was his lifeline.

"I…." Long Wanying had no idea what she could do.

"Xian Xian, can you suck the blood grudge back?" Tianming asked. He knew he couldn't lose his cool at a moment like this, nor could he blame Long Wanying for not knowing how to help.

"Let me try!" Xian Xian used everything it had. Feiling was technically connected to its main body, after all.

Once more, Tianming charged in without regard for his life. His palm eventually touched the blood-colored petal. The moment it did, it felt like he was touching a soft hand. That was the same feeling Feiling gave off, something he was intimately familiar with. "Ling'er, don't be scared. I'm right here! We'll take this on together!"

He embraced the flower without caring about anything else. The blood grudge began permeating his body, corroding it at a rate that even the Greenspark Tower couldn't keep up with. His veins pulsed with pain. He didn't know if hugging the flower would do anything. All he wanted was for her to feel his presence. Standing together, they would have all the courage in the world.

"Don't abandon me, Ling'er," he said with everything he had. Their memories together surfaced in his mind. She had left to travel with him at the young age of sixteen, survived the Tomb of the Ancients with him, stayed apart and yearned for each other at Taiji Peak Lake, and were connected to each other by a single dimensional rope at the mooncore.

"You've undergone a hundred cycles of Perpetual Nirvana and survived! You can't lose here! You're my life, Ling'er!"

He kept his face and hands plastered on the petal. The blood grudge tore him apart piece by piece, and there was even more of it within the flower. Tianming knew she could feel and hear him. They were hugging each other like the saplings of the divine tree. There was no way she couldn't feel his dedication and love.

Blood from his body dripped into the flower, blending into an arcane mix of the ages. All of a sudden, the remaining blood grudge was absorbed into the flower he was tightly hugging. The blood grudge around Tianming was no more and the flower seemed to be digesting whatever it had absorbed. Gradually, the redness began receding from the flower, leaving only specks of red on the original light blue of the petals.

Everything seemed to have calmed down. The flower looked as vibrant as it used to. In fact, it looked like it was the largest it had ever been. The same fragrance was still there, almost as if it was Feiling's own enchanting odor, but seemingly intensified. The flower seemed a little more dangerous than before.

Tianming deeply breathed it in as the injuries he suffered from the blood grudge began recovering. As the harm was mostly superficial, it hadn't affected him too badly. After all, his soul was safe from the blood grudge's influence. He kept his eyes on the flower that seemed to be lazily stretching like a girl before snuggling in his embrace, then dazedly looking at him and going back to sleep.

"How is she, Little Li?" Xian Xian asked, widening its eyes.

Tianming felt Feiling's lively heartbeat through the flower. "Her life force seems stronger than before." Tianming had a feeling that she had overcome yet another tribulation. While she wasn't completely done with it, it didn't seem like there would be much longer to wait.

Tianming knew that the blood grudge hadn't entirely disappeared, but had been absorbed into the flower. What would happen to it in the end was anyone's guess. The only thing that showed it was still there were the bloody streams of light that swirled around the blue flower petals. However, he knew that Feiling was fine from the warmth he could feel.

"Thank goodness… I thought I was gonna lose her," Xian Xian said, wiping her tears away.

"Me too. I thought the pleasure ball contraceptives I've been stockpiling would go to waste…."

"What are those?" Xian Xian asked.

"Nothing!" he yelped, only for two spikes to poke out of the flower at his stomach. "Watch out! Don't pierce my kidneys!"