Chapter 248: Two as One

Ru Yi’s breathing was getting weaker and more laboured. Lieyin gently brushed the dark strands of hair away from Ru Yi’s face.

"Ru Yi..." Lieyin called softly.

Ru Yi opened her eyes. They were almost entirely black. But somewhere beneath the darkness, Lieyin could still see her.

"Can you hear me?" she asked softly.

Ru Yi gave the faintest nod.

Lieyin swallowed. "Kael says there’s a way to save you. But it requires me to share my core energy with you without any barriers between us."

Ru Yi’s expression tightened. "No.."

"What do you mean by no?" Lieyin was confused. So was everyone in the room. "You’re going to die if we do nothing about this."

The shadows crawled across Ru Yi’s cheek like they were trying to comfort her. "I won’t let you do that," she managed to whisper. "The shadows could kill you if this doesn’t work."

In that moment, the anger and heartbreak she felt for the sisters did not matter. Whether they abandoned her first or not did not matter. But she would not be the reason for any of their deaths.

"Stay with me,"Lieyin whispered. "Let me find you inside it."

"Lieyin—"

"Everyone leave us!" Lieyin yelled. "I need to do this now before it gets even more deadly."

Yexue and Qingyue exchanged worried glances.

"We all need to leave," Kael said, already heading for the door. "And you two should follow me, there’s something else you need to know."

Lieyin waited until they left before turning back to Ru Yi. "Can you hear me?"

There was no response from Ru Yi, so Lieyin put her fingers on her cheek. "Ru Yi...stay with me," Lieyin whispered.

The darkness around them stirred.

Slowly, Lieyin intertwined their fingers together. A faint silver light appeared between their hands. Lieyin leaned in and pressed their lips together. Ru Yi’s was cold, like warmth had been totally drained out of it.

It was Lieyin’s turn for her breathing to be laboured.

All the times she’d felt Ru Yi’s emotions in the past, all the times her heart had fluttered and Lieyin wondered if the feelings were hers or a reflection of Ru Yi’s—

"I need to get into your core energy," was all Lieyin said to an almost unconscious Ru Yi before completely claiming her mouth.

They were cold but yet so soft, tasting as sweet as she’d almost imagined it. Everything around them faded out. There was only Ru Yi and the vast, cold darkness surrounding them.

Lieyin felt herself sinking inward. Her consciousness slipped through the barrier of Ru Yi’s spiritual core, and suddenly she was standing in a world without sky.

Black mist stretched endlessly in every direction, moving like a living sea. Beneath her feet was nothing solid, yet she did not fall.

Somewhere far ahead, a faint light flickered. Lieyin followed it. "Ru Yi?" Her voice echoed through the darkness.

No answer came.

She continued forward, the black brushing against her skin. It was cold at first, then it became strangely warm. She felt something searching through her spiritual energy, testing it...tasting it...

The shadow recognized her and moved toward her in waves. Lieyin’s instincts told her to fight, but Ru Yi had taught her that not everything had to be resolved with violence.

She lowered her hands. "I know you’re afraid, and you’re trying to protect her. But so am I. Believe me...I mean no harm."

The darkness surged toward her.

For one terrifying instant, Lieyin felt it enter her chest. Her breath caught as memories that weren’t hers flashed through her mind.

It was Ru Yi standing under the rain, but she was wearing strange clothes that Lieyin couldn’t identify. It looked like she was in a different time and era.

Her head was bowed as rain drenched her. She looked like a lonely soul standing in an endless darkness.

Lieyin’s chest tightened. "Ru Yi!"

Suddenly the image split into two. They looked exactly alike. Same face. Same body. Same long dark hair. But they were not the same person.

The figure with the strange clothes wore the expression Lieyin had come to recognize—the quiet uncertainty, the stubbornness, the strange warmth that appeared whenever she looked at the triplets.

The other looked different.

She stood with her arms folded, her expression guarded and almost painfully familiar in a way Lieyin couldn’t explain. But she was wearing robes that she was familiar with.

"Ru Yi?"

Both women looked at her.

The woman on the left stepped forward. "I am Ru Yi."

The woman with the strange clothes looked at Lieyin. "And I am Ruby."

For several moments Lieyin couldn’t speak or make sense of what she was seeing. "What does this even mean?"

"It means I’m the original Ru Yi," Ru Yi said quietly. "This body belonged to me first."

Ruby continued for her. "And I’m the one that came from another world. But it’s fine, I’ve come to see this new world as my home." Her voice turned desperate. "It’s fine if your sisters don’t love me anymore, but I want to help them win the war before I have to go—"

"Stop!" Lieyin had never been this confused in her entire life.

Ruby continued frantically. "You need to find the divine sword before the shadow takes over completely!"

The moments she mentioned the shadow, the entire spiritual world shuddered. Black tendrils appeared beneath their feet.

Ru Yi’s expression changed. "It’s waking up."

Lieyin immediately moved closer to her. But Ruby grabbed her wrist. "Don’t. It isn’t attacking her...It’s attacking the separation between us. The relic doesn’t recognize two souls, it only recognizes one vessel."

"I don’t understand any of this!" Lieyin cried out. "Can you at least explain why there’s two of you?"

"There’s no time for that," Ruby answered, and grabbed Lieyin’s hand. "You must go back now. Her core is stable enough, but anymore and it’ll trigger the shadow again."

"Wait, how do you know that?" Lieyin asked, but the two women were starting to fade away. "Hold on..."

The darkness surrounding them dissolved into silver threads, and Lieyin was back in Qingyue’s room.