Chapter 598 Clear Heart

The blinding glare of the miniature sun hanging in the high stratosphere painted the leaden clouds in strokes of furious, molten gold.

Down in the lower sky, the air was choked with ozone, rotting bile, and the sickening stench of boiling sulfur.

The chattering mouths lining Haoran’s blackened shoulder clicked and ground their needle-thin fangs against one another, their discordant, maddening whispers clawing at Lin Yun’s sanity.

Azathoth remained locked in Lin Yun’s left grip, its obsidian spine shuddering with dark, oily tremors that threatened to dissolve the fabric of the atmosphere itself.

Lin Yun stared at Huo Yue, his eyes burning with rabid, cornered fury.

He looked up at the colossal sphere of starfire spanning the entirety of his city across the firmament—a miniature star fed by the celestial fires of the outer cosmos, hovering like an executioner’s blade directly above the sprawling walls, the spirit iron towers, and the millions of natives and Imperial Academy students who populated his city.

His jaw tightened until the bone beneath his skin creaked.

He could not leave his domain to swat her down, and he could not afford to let that miniature star touch the soil of his outer territories.

His teeth ground together in a venomous sneer.

Without warning, his right leg blurred in a brutal, lightning-fast arc and kicked Haoran directly at the chest!

BOOOOOM!

The strike carried the full, unbending mandate of his local invincibility, transferring an incomprehensible, reality-warping kinetic force directly into Haoran’s sternum!

The air around the impact exploded in a concussive ring of pale white shockwaves, blowing away the sea of clouds for a hundred leagues!

Haoran’s body turned into a horizontal meteor of pitch black sludge and shredded gold silk, tearing through the firmament at terrifying, sound shattering speed!

He smashed through three soaring mountain peaks in the distance, pulverizing millions of tons of ancient granite into fine grey dust, skipping across the desolate plains until his silhouette vanished past the horizon, leaving a straight, smoking scar of sundered earth hundreds of miles long

"He won’t be coming back for awhile, you withdraw with him."

Up in the heavens, Huo Yue’s crimson eyes burned with pure, homicidal rage as she glared at Lin Yun.

But without hesitation, she immediately flew towards Haoran, her robes trailing a fierce wake of scarlet light as she abandoned her perch in the stratosphere, and the ball of flame instantly descended!

ROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAR!

The apocalyptic sphere of five-color Heavenly Flame plummeted like a fallen deity!

The kinetic drag alone set the atmosphere howling, compressing the air below it into a solid wall of burning hot plasma that bore down on the mountain basin!

The decorative towers along the outer rim of Sky Reaching City spontaneously burst into roaring yellow fire before the sphere even reached the mid-sky; ancient reservoirs evaporated into boiling plumes of steam in the span of half a heartbeat!

Lin Yun’s eyes widened, his face twisting in frantic, panicked disbelief as the blinding solar glare reflected in his pupils.

"You bitch!"

He threw his hands into the sky, his arrogant, relaxed demeanor completely shattered as he mobilized every single thread of his domain’s authority, and call out to the system in a desperate attempt to try and expand his invincible domain to catch the descending sun before it reduced his entire outer province into a flat, bubbling sea of molten glass!

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Hundreds of miles away, among the shattered ruins of a pulverized mountain ridge.

The ground was a crater of smoking basalt and shattered crystal.

In the center of the pit, Haoran pushed himself upward. The fine black and gold silk of his dragon robes was shredded down the middle, his exposed left chest covered in radiant dragon scales, while his entire right side wrirthed as a grotesque, pulsing mass of living obsidian rot.

His left golden eye was sunken, clouded by a thick, milky film of madness, while his right side was covered in dozens of unblinking yellow eyes weeping foul mucus, with the three slick tentacles erupting from his ribs lashed against the broken boulders, snapping stone pillars into powder like dry twigs.

"Rrrrgghh..." Haoran growled and was about to fly back to Lin Yun, his boots tensing against the rock, his throat vibrating with an ungodly, layered screech that tore at the fabric of space—

CRASH!

When Huo Yue suddenly descended from the clouds like a falling hawk slammed into him, her arms wrapping around his torso with all the terrifying, desperate strength of her flame forged physique!

The impact shook the crater floor, the momentum of her flight ripping him violently off the bedrock, dragging him upward into the cold, trackless skies of the outer wilderness, far away from the domain of Sky Reaching City!

"Haoran, stop!" she shouted, the wind whipping her crimson hair across her eyes, her hands digging into his shredded robes.

"RAAARRGGH!" Haoran roared and bit into her shoulder!

CRUNCH!

It was not the strike of a refined young master; it was the feral, starving lunge of a rabid beast!

The needle thin fangs of his mouth sank deep into the soft flesh of her left shoulder, punching clean through the red silk and driving straight to the bone!

"GAH!?" Huo Yue cried out in pain, a sharp, ragged gasp tearing from her lips as black sludge began seeping through her wounds!

The oily, necrotic venom of Azathoth burned like boiling lye, eating into her fair skin, turning her veins a bruised, diseased violet.

Tiny, microscopic mouths began to manifest along the edges of the bite wound, snapping their teeth as they chewed greedily on her blood and meridians!

The agony was nauseating, cold, and was slowly eroding her sanity, but she gritted her teeth and still didn’t let go!

Her fingernails bit into the flesh of his back, her arms locking around his waist like iron bands, refusing to yield an inch of distance even as his teeth ground against her collarbone!

’Clear Heart Flame, do your job!’ Huo Yue screamed internally.

HUUUUM.

From the depths of her spiritual sea, an ethereal, cool azure fire flared to life beneath her skin.

It did not carry the scorching, violent destruction of other domineering Heavenly Flames meant to destroy, instead, it was gentle, pure, and quiet, radiating the tranquil, crystalline stillness of deep mountain water beneath winter ice.

Clear Heart Flame, rank 21st of the Heavenly Flame Rankings with the ability to calm the heart, burn away inner demons, and reveal all falsehood.

In ancient times, grand daoist masters had spent centuries searching the sacred valleys of the central continent for a single wisp of this celestial fire, using its gentle light to cleanse their souls before facing the terrifying mental tribulations of the Heavenly Saint realm.

It possessed no peerless destructive might, but against the creeping rot of mental corruption, illusion arts, and the maddening voices of the void, it was a pristine, inviolable shield.

Of course, Huo Yue knew that this one shouldn’t be enough to completely clear away whatever this thing that took ahold of Haoran, but it should be enough to wake him up, and he can do the rest himself!

She knew the monstrous depth of his sea of consciousness, and she knew that beneath this layer of alien rot lay the unyielding, terrifying soul of the young master of the Shen Clan—a dragon that can swallow worlds and crush ancient monarchs beneath his boots!

He did not need her to slay the outer god for him; he merely needed a spark of light to find his own blade in the dark!

The translucent blue fire surged outward, wrapping around Haoran’s writhing pitch black coated limbs!

SKRRRRREEEEEEECH!

A sound that was half human and half the wail of a drowning fiend tore from Haoran’s throat!

The dozens of mouths along his shoulder snapped shut, hissing as the pure blue light sizzled against the black grease, causing the milky yellow eyes on his flesh to blink frantically, weeping trails of smoking yellow mucus!

But it didn’t seem to have any effect.

The ancient madness running through the blood of this ancient primordial outer god was too dense and too primal to be dispersed by a mere wisp of surface flame!

"RAARGH!" Haoran’s left hand suddenly gripped her wrist, tearing her arms off his torso with terrifying, hydraulic force!

In the same instant, the obsidian blade of Azathoth in his right hand lunged forward in a straight, merciless thrust!

SHCK.

The cold black steel punched through her sternum!

The point of the blade burst out through her back, drinking her heart blood with a sickening, wet slurp!

"Guh...!"

A heavy, dark crimson flood spilled over her pale lips, splashing down Haoran’s pale cheek and across the dark metal of the sword.

The necrotic corruption of the blade did not hesitate; the moment the steel touched her marrow, thick black sludge seeped into the open wound, turning the muscle fibers gray, sprouting clusters of needle toothed maws that immediately began gnawing on her ribs and tearing at her spiritual core!

The pain was beyond the realm of mortal endurance—a cold, ravenous fire that sought to dissolve her soul into grease.

But, she didn’t even flinch.

Her crimson eyes, blazing with an unyielding, fanatical light, never left his clouded golden pupils.

Her lips, stained bright red with her own blood, pulled upward into a bloody, mocking sneer.

She did not look down at the black sword driven through her heart; she did not look at the rot eating her ribs.

Instead...

SKRRRR.

With terrifying, suicidal resolve, she stepped into the blade!

She allowed the black steel to slide deeper through her chest, through her bone, through her lungs, closing the distance between them inch by agonizing inch until her breasts pressed flat against his chest, her arms wrapping around his neck once more!

"Finally ..." she smirked at him, "This time... you can’t get away..."

Her voice was thick with blood, yet hard and unbending as ancient flint.

She leaned her head up, closing the remaining distance between their faces as she opened her mouth and kissed him, her warm, blood slicked lips pressed firmly against his cold, pale mouth!

Before the alien corruption could spread from his tongue to chew her face, she unlocked the gates of her dantian completely!

The entirety of the 21st Heavenly Flame, a concentrated, blinding torrent of pure, translucent azure fire, surged up from her throat, through her lips, and was forcefully pumped straight into Haoran’s mouth, flooding down his spiritual esophagus like a river of molten sapphire light!

BOOM!

The blue fire did not burn his flesh; it detonated inside his spiritual sea like a cleansing morning star!

The gentle, tranquil light washed across the churning, oily black waves of the foreign god’s madness, illuminating the dark abyss where his true consciousness lay drowning!

It burned through the chattering whispers, silenced the bone flutes of the void, and severed the creeping black roots that were trying to anchor themselves to his golden dragon soul!

Inside the dark, roaring void of his mind, her clear, furious voice echoed like a ringing war gong.

Wake up.

Wake up, Haoran!