156. Back to the Present
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Meanwhile, in his haste to make Bailong suffer, Immortal Jin had failed to understand every aspect of the Ancient Seal, so the second Liwei broke it, he and the others forming the circle suffered an instant backlash which brought them all right to death's door.
Immortal Jin and two others survived, but their cores had been shattered, rendering them completely useless.
This was considered worse than death since the three had been High Grand Immortals... Even if they could miraculously heal their cores to some level of use, millennia might go by and they still would never attain the level they had lost!
It wasn't long before Sky Realm realized Yin Xiaolong had been alive all along, and Yan Liwei, his wife who had been spared, had been the one to set him free from his prison.
Tianlong and an enraged Fei Yun arrived at Caoyang with the Sky Army, but even with the seal, Bailong's aura had shot forth, striking fear in the soldiers.
"Get out!" They heard his voice rumble around as a shower of his bright blue swords rained down, forcing the army back and away.
'Weiwei...' Bailong thought as he performed a few seals. 'I won't permit anymore bloodshed in our home at least!'
There was a mighty quake and Tianlong and the rest watched in surprise as the entire Caoyang Mountain lifted away from the ground, rising to float in the air, and from the mountains base, giant chains dangled to the ground.
These chains had manifested from the Ancient Seal to hold the mountain in place, pulling its weight over Bailong, but now they dangled freely, frosting over as Bailong's icy aura swirled around.
"I'm imprisoned here, but that doesn't give you the right to act as you please!" Bailong's voice echoed around. "From this day on, no Immortal is permitted to enter Caoyang!" He finished, and a massive shield- the thirty-year age ban, appeared to surround the entire mountain.
Indeed no Immortal could ever step onto Caoyang after that, and this pissed off Fei Yun who had constantly monitored Caoyang before now to ensure Bailong was still suffering as he should be!
He simply could not believe Yan Liwei had managed to slip past his detection and rescue Bailong!
And now, Fei Yun turned his frustration and anger towards Yan Liwei, reminding Tianlong that by releasing Bailong, Yan Liwei had crossed the treshold of their Oath, and since she was dead, they were no longer bound by it.
And so, for the crime of setting free the 'Demon King's Incarnate', Immortal Yan Liwei was punished using one of the worst spells possible: An erase of her existence.
No living being in existence would remember her at all, including her own Clan.
For Bailong and her family, it was made worse. They would remember her, but never recall her face.
And in addition, Yan Liwei herself would never be granted a chance at rebirth, and her star would be destroyed!
This meant Bailong would spend an eternity missing and yearning for her, but wouldn't even remember her face... A torture beyond words!
Bailong learned true bitterness after that.
He spent the first few hundred years like a mad man, seeking out any painting or image of Liwei. But the spell had affected those as well, and the faces on every single painting of Liwei either appeared blank or distorted.
Crazed, Bailong drew endless portraits, willing himself to remember, but it was no use... The paintings ended up with blank faces, no matter how many times his hand painted in features.
The years trapped beneath Caoyang had left him weakened and internally wounded.
Even worse, Yinying had somehow managed to relink himself to Bailong, but it had cost him, and he now lay unconscious within Bailong's internal Sea.
'So what was it all for?!' Bailong thought bitterly.
In the end, he hadn't been able to protect a single person...
But before the despair could swallow him whole, the residents of Caoyang slowly reminded him that he had in fact saved them all.
He had saved Yin Xing, and saved everyone else that might have been implicated if he hadn't forced Tianlong and Fei Yun into the Unbreakable oath...
Still, thousands of years of misery passed before Bailong returned to some semblance of normalcy.
And with everyone around him, he rebuilt the heart of Caoyang to what it presently was, rebuilt another herb garden, summoning seeds right from Four-Petal garden, and then he focused on slowly healing himself and Yinying through the years...
(Flashback End)
*Sheesh, finally! ( ??? *)
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Yu Shui City, Present...
Yin Xing's spell finally came to an end, and all enshrouded within it drew in sharp breaths, emerging from trance-like states.
In reality, only a few minutes had passed, but the mortals felt like they had lived and experienced several lifetimes!
"So this is what happened..." Sect Leader Xu shook his head, feeling somewhat dizzy.
Sect Leader Huo reached out a hand to steady him. "Hmmm. Mortals have been played as fools for so long. We've finally seen what led to all this!"
Most of them could certainly recognise the new floating Caoyang, and were awed to learn the origins of everything they had faced there.
It turned out that none of Caoyang's dangers had been deliberately placed there by Yin Xiaolong to kill mortals, as they had been led to believe for centuries.
In fact, the frozen chains had only appeared because of the Ancient Seal, the Lava Sea had always been there, and the Giant Black Snake had been confined to the Lava Sea for the good of all three realms!
The Shadow Abyss was formed because of the Sky Emperor and Fate Immortal...
Their massacre of innocents on Caoyang had created a mass of grudges, and though Bailong had gathered the souls of the lost, their grievances had remained, mixing with the natural energy within that Abyss.
By the time the mortals began entering Caoyang, their own deaths only fed the Abyss, creating the ghosts and evil spirits presently on the mountain.
All the while, Yin Xiaolong might have even rescued more than a few of the mortals, but he had never been able to reach them from the other side of the seal.
So the only mortal he had been able to save ended up being Xu Weiyan who had somehow crossed to his side by Fate's design....
As for whether Yin Xiaolong was innocent or guilty, they had all seen with their own eyes... He had certainly returned to Caoyang right after transforming to the black dragon, and he never left Caoyang until after the massacre...
So which black dragon had run amok in the Floral Realm?!
And Yin Xiaolong had been imprisoned on Caoyang till Xu Weiyan 'killed him'...
So which black dragon had been attacking the Mortal Realm?!
Most mortals felt a bit foolish for blindly accepting what the Immortals had told them, and over the last thousand years or so, endless generations had blamed Yin Xiaolong, sending their young to die on Caoyang in a bid to kill him!
But something else bothered the mortals... Especially Sect Leader Xu who cocked his head from left to right in contemplation.
'That golden phoenix... Doesn't she look incredibly like my Yanyan?!'
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Meanwhile at the same time, a severely beaten Fei Yun performed a hand seal and vanished, successfully following the green crystal feather he had planted in the Black Butterfly.
'There's no way it's A-Fen beneath that cloak!' He thought as he reappeared somewhere else.
He looked around, noting he now stood in the scanty outskirts of Yu Shui city, and he was suddenly alerted to a presence up ahead.
He glanced up sharply to find a petite cloaked figure standing a few feet before him, their back to him.
Fei Yun felt an instant pull and he grasped his chest, his heart racing within.
'This aura -!' He staggered back a step as a familiar aura wove around him.
'It can't be!' He thought, recalling Bailong's taunting words from earlier.
'A-Fen won't do this to me!!!' He mentally affirmed.
Yet the endless coincidences returned now to torment him.
Meanwhile, the cloaked woman had sensed a sudden presence, and she swiveled to face Fei Yun.
"Oh?" Her soft voice pierced his flesh faster that any knife, and she lifted a hand to take off her hood, relishing the disbelief and slow-dying hope on his face.
"You found me..." She said calmly as the hood slowly fell away, revealing that long and luscious light-blue hair, with the small beautiful face and startling icy-blue eyes.
"Hmph. I guess you're not a complete fool after all."
At the sight, Fei Yun dropped to his knees, falling on all fours to retch out a massive reverse-flow of blood.
He couldn't believe his eyes...
The cloaked woman was indeed Zhurong Fen!
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