115. Like A Precious Glaze
.
"Isn't it a narrow road between enemies...?" Fei Yun, the Fate Immortal asked, the wind swaying his black robes and greyish hair, which bore brilliant green tips.
His voice was calm, but it shook the surroundings.
"Fei Yun." Luoyin whispered, a shocked expression on his face.
An eternity of silence passed between the two as joyful and sorrowful memories alike swirled around them...
.
At the edges of Yu Shui City, the Cloaked woman's smirk could be felt.
"He has arrived... My chief general."
Qin Yuelian smirked. "Another ignorant fool! One thought of his 'love', and he'll do our every bidding!"
Her brows furrowed prettily. "But Mistress, I endlessly wonder... Why don't you kill Yin Xiaolong right now? It won't matter if anyone sees you, and in his current state, it's as easy as crushing an ant!"
All the cloaked woman said was, "Kneel.", and an immense force pushed Qin Yuelian to her knees.
"You can now teach me how to do things?" The cloaked woman asked, and Qin Yuelian hastily bowed her forehead to the ground.
"Forgive me Mistress! I misspoke!!"
There was only a slight shift of the cloaked woman's hood. "'A little impatience ruins great plans'... The Floral kingdom is important to my plans, but my presence is the only thing preventing the Sky Soldiers from sending their soldiers in.
"The War deity won't step in because he has no idea what I'm capable of... But if we're suddenly revealed to be absent, wouldn't he realize the 'Tiger is away from the mountain'?
"Will you be responsible if the Floral Realm is conquered?! You also haven't considered what Yin Xiaolong and his Immortal friends are planning... Do you think he would come here unprepared?!"
"My apologies, Mistress! I'm near-sighted and foolish!" Qin Yuelian bowed her head to the ground.
"Foolish indeed." The cloaked woman folded an arm behind her back.
There were other reasons why she couldn't afford to reveal herself yet...
The entire Baishan tournament had been to lure the pillars of Baishan and gather enough fodder for the demon seal, but most of all, to kill Yin Xiaolong.
And she had recently realized...
Yin Xiaolong would never die if Xu Weiyan herself remained alive!
"Rise. Don't concern yourself with Yin Xiaolong." The cloaked woman said looking down at the bowing Qin Yuelian.
"Find Xu Weiyan and kill her before those two finish dueling!" She ordered as she turned towards the arena, where two enemies stood in the most unpleasant of reunions.
Qin Yuelian's brows bent to a furrow.
She had never understood why her mistress bothered with an unimportant mortal like Xu Weiyan, and she considered asking why...
But she thought better of it and simply responded,
"Understood, Mistress!"
.
.
Meanwhile, Luoyin and Fei Yun indeed faced each other in what could only be considered an unpleasant reunion.
Fei Yun eyed Luoyin. "Hmph. You're finally back to your real appearance."
But Luoyin waved a hand, and he was back to his usual look, his black hair and brown irises back in place, and his skin and clothes back to normal. "I find I prefer this look." He said, surprising even himself.
After his rebirth, he had needed to hide his identity and this was the only reason he had used 'Zhang Luoyin's appearance. If not, he would have long returned to his immortal appearance.
However in the past year, he had simply found too many joys as Zhang Luoyin...
In fact, if not for constant dangers and the fact that one's past could never fully be erased, he would willingly exist as 'Zhang Luoyin', with no ties to Sky Realm.
He sighed. "'Yin Xiaolong's' appearance should have perished on Caoyang."
"YOU should have perished on Caoyang!!" Fei Yun thundered, his furious aura making several buildings shatter.
But Luoyin simply sighed, his thoughts on Weiyan.
After he left the Arena, he could sense demon aura around, but some odd spell was skewing his senses, so he could neither trace Weiyan, nor the sources of the demon aura.
'Yanyan! Please be safe!' He couldn't afford to waste time here with Fei Yun...
"You should never have returned!" Fei Yun spat, his gaze like an endless void. "Your crimes are too many, and your existence defies Fate! For the sake of all three realms, I will erase you here and now!!"
"What a high-sounding excuse!" Luoyin snapped. "Simply say you seek personal vengeance... If 'Fate' itself truly sought my death, I would indeed be dead, but here we are!" A brilliant sea-blue seal appeared beneath him, and the sound of waves filled the air.
The surface of the seal stirred like the deepest seas, and a magnificent blue crystal sword rose out of it, coming to hover beside Luoyin, water dripping off its gleaming blade.
"High Immortal Fei, shouldn't you be more honest?" Luoyin finished, deliberately switching to a formal address.
He had mostly tried to evade the thoughts of his old friends over thirty thousand years and more, alternating between love and hatred- his fond memories of them often eclipsed by their cold actions.
It was time to admit it...
Whatever bosom friendship they held in the past had flown away the moment they became capable of killing so many innocents and condemning him to an eternity of suffering without looking back.
...or giving him the benefit of doubt.
Their friendship was like a rare and precious glaze... Once shattered, it could never be the same, some pieces even grinding to fine powder, lost in the wind forever...
At the moment, Fei Yun's eyes narrowed, realizing exactly what such a 'respectful' address meant.
But rather than dwell on it, he directed his gaze to Luoyin's beautiful crystal sword.
"Hao! You can summon items from the Eastern Sea!" He accused. "Who is to say you never reverse-summoned yourself from Caoyang to wreak havoc here in the Mortal Real-?!"
He was suddenly pushed back as a dense wave of water hit him. "You-!"
"So you knew I was imprisoned on Caoyang? Why then did Sky Realm let my name be associated with the 'Black Dragon'?" Luoyin's sword was now in his hand.
"What better way to quell a mortal uprising than give them an enemy of both realms?" Fei Yun replied with a cold smirk. "I was the one who fanned the flames after those rumours arose, because I had grown tired of ignoring your existence!
"Why should you flourish on Caoyang after your crimes back then!"
He raised his sword. "And besides, I also suspected you were escaping in some way! I wouldn't put it past you, so I simply reminded A-Tian that you yourself had created the Seal which imprisoned you on Caoyang!
"Wouldn't you be able to break your own seal?!"
A wave of sadness washed over Luoyin. "Hao. I knew, even back then... Your grief had blinded you, so you never cared who was guilty. You simply needed someone to blame and hate!
"And all this while... You blinded yourself to the real danger to the Mortal Realm, all because you decided I was guilty... You preferred to chase after my shadow, instead of finding the real black dragon and saving the mortals!" Luoyin swung his arm, directing another jet of watery aura at Fei Yun.
But Fei Yun shattered it easily.
"Who do you think you are?" Fei Yun held out a hand, and a deep green sword appeared, his sleeves rippling in a swiftly rising wind. "I might hold some respect if you were still Immortal... But how dare a mere mortal disrespect me?!"
His aura surged, unbelievably powerful, and reminding Luoyin once again, that he was indeed essentially mortal.
But as the clouds above churned, he held his sword resolutely.
No way he would falter here...
'Yanyan is waiting for me!'
.
It was practically dark now, and the dense fog settled, almost heavy enough to weigh down the ground.
But Xu Weiyan ran carelessly through, her own tears enough to blind her even on the clearest of days.
'How could I -?! with my own hands -!' Her thoughts and memories tormented her with every beautiful memory of Yin Bailong on Caoyang, all leading to that terrible night...
The way she had drawn in a cold breath, awakening to find her hands on the crimson stained dagger...
... the way his immaculate white hair had soaked with his own blood...
... the look of hurt and disbelief on his face, as more blood poured from his lips...
And yet he had stood between her and every single one of those terrible lightning bolts, taking them all unto himself!
... and then he dissipated into nothingness before her very eyes...
Weiyan gripped her chest as a heart wrenching pain shot through her, making it hard to draw in breath, and she wretched, suddenly feeling immensely sick.
She tripped and fell to the ground, but she didn't rise.
Instead, she remained there on her knees, staring down at her shaking hands which were somehow drenched in blood.
'Why...?' She wondered, her tears pouring down. 'Why is fate so cruel?!'
She who was an orphan had always felt unworthy, simply accepting whatever fate threw her way...
Until Yin Bailong.
The tragedy of that night on Caoyang had broken her, and for the four months she had spent parading the Mortal realm, she had been a mere shadow with no will to live.
But the same tragedy had somehow awoken her, snapping her out of her life-long daze...
The instant her eyes fell on Luoyin the night of her return, she had found herself unwilling to simply accept fate.
She had found herself clinging to- and fighting for Zhang Luoyin.
Wasn't it a cruel irony that the tragic event which had awoken her and brought her closer to Luoyin, was the same event where she had killed him with her own hands...?!!
"Are all mortals so careless? Or are you a particularly dim one?"
The voice cut through Weiyan's senses and she was instantly on her feet, wiping her tears away.
Her sword appeared in her hand as she glanced around, but she could see nothing through the dense fog, so she swiftly raised her free hand in a one-hand seal, surrounding herself with a shield, her white flames beneath her feet.
"Hmph, useless." A figure appeared right before her, and with a simple wave of her hand, the shield shattered easily.
Weiyan's eyes widened as she glanced downward.
A sleek and beautiful pink blade was suddenly at her throat...
.