Xu Qing was aging. She no longer appeared to be in her twenties, but rather, middle-aged. However, to Meng Hao, she would eternally be that beautiful young woman to whom he had once given a Cosmetic Cultivation Pill.
“I won’t let you wither away,” he said softly. “We agreed to spend a hundred years together, and we will!” Eyes filling with a flame of unprecedented decisiveness, he reached down to stroke her cheek.
After a long moment, he closed his eyes briefly, then reopened them and extended his right index finger. From the look of it, it was now the only part of his body that hadn’t been affected by the withering. That was because… it contained what little remained of his Eternal stratum.
He carefully sliced a cut into his finger and slowly squeezed out a few drops of blood onto Xu Qing’s lips, blood which contained his Eternal stratum.
Her lips turned the color of blood, and it almost seemed they they were the only part of her body that had any color. It formed a stark contrast to her ashen skin. As the blood seeped into her mouth, her face suddenly wasn’t old any more.
Meng Hao, on the other hand, trembled, and his body withered up a bit more. His Eternal stratum was now weakened, but in his heart, he felt hope.
However, after three days passed, Meng Hao realized that his Eternal stratum could not prevent Xu Qing from withering. Finally, he started laughing bitterly.
Xu Qing’s hair was now mostly white, and her face looked middle-aged. She was skinny, and no longer beautiful like she used to be. However, the warmth in her eyes, and the curve of her smile, were things that Meng Hao would never forget.
Finally, she smiled and prevented Meng Hao from using any more of his Eternal stratum blood. It hurt her heart to see him doing such a thing, even more so than the thought of her imminent death.
“Just stay with me,” she said. “Until the end. Take me to be reincarnated…. That’s good enough.
“We agreed to a whole lifetime. So, it’s just like… I’m going to sleep for a bit. When I wake up, I’ll see you there. Right…?”
“Absolutely!” said Meng Hao, his voice quavering.
Days passed, and Xu Qing grew older. The time she remained awake every day lessened. Most of the time, she slept.
Meng Hao stayed by her side, and didn’t take even half a step outside of the valley. He held her the entire time, held her in a way that said he never wanted to let her go.
As for his own body, as the days passed, the Eternal stratum gradually awoke and began to restore him. Even as the curse power was slowly expelled from within, Xu Qing continued to grow weaker.
Meng Hao tried every method possible to reverse the fading of Xu Qing’s life force, all to no avail. He hated that his cultivation base wasn’t high enough, and even more so, he hated the cruelty of the Northern Reaches curse.
His heart was already Devilish, but he had been suppressing it, almost as if with shackles. But now… the shackles began to loosen….
He could do nothing but watch over Xu Qing. He watched as her hair turned white, and her youth disappeared. She went from being middle-aged to being elderly. Although he could have changed her out of the red wedding dress, he didn’t, and she still wore it.
At one point she forced her eyes open to look at him, but they were cloudy, and she couldn’t see him clearly. “Chu Yuyan is a good girl,” she murmured. “I told her that I can only stay with you for a hundred years, and that she should help me take care of you.
“Song Jia isn’t bad either….”
Meng Hao didn’t say anything. He looked at her, his eyes filled with grief as he slowly caressed her wrinkled face. What he saw was her former beautiful face that had changed in only a few days as he held her.
By now, the Devil in Meng Hao’s heart was unshackled and awakening….
In those few days that passed, great changes occurred outside in the Southern Domain. In the battle on the shore of the Milky Way Sea, the hundreds of thousands of Northern Reaches cultivators all died. The Milky Way Sea was stained red with blood.
Then the second wave of the Northern Reaches’ forces arrived. The hundreds of thousands of Southern Domain cultivators began to retreat. The battlefield grew from the border of the Southern Domain, to engulf fully half of the entire continent.
Fierce fighting raged every day. Among the hundreds of thousands of Northern Reaches cultivators were seven Dao Seeking experts, which made it virtually impossible for the Southern Domain to hold their ground. They were constantly forced into retreat.
All of the Southern Domain’s cultivators were mobilized. It didn’t matter the sect or clan, everyone was called into action for this war of life or death!
It was without a doubt a fight to the death. The Northern Reaches’ invasion was not one in which surrender was sought. They wanted the complete annihilation of the Southern Domain cultivators’ foundation. Furthermore, because of the casualties suffered by the initial wave of attackers, the Northern Reaches