Zhi Mei closed her eyes, letting herself be invaded by the overwhelming presence of her "Executor". She felt her own Qi binding to his, a dependence on the validation he had patiently anchored in her heart.

"I... I will always be by your side, my Lord," she swore while placing her hand on the young man’s muscular chest, feeling the titanic beats of his Omega Heart.

However, in the distance, the whistling of the wind on the Sealing Pagoda seemed to carry a lugubrious laugh. The true battle of the Immortal Grave was only just beginning, and the smell of divine blood mixed with the perfume of purifying lotus only agitated the Ashura.

...

The tumult of combat resonated against the bony walls of the petrified structures, creating a sinister echo that seemed to amplify the moans of the Yin entities. The air, saturated with a fetid humidity and a Death Qi of suffocating density, swirled violently under the impact of divine-rank techniques.

Xuan BaiShe, still imperial in his black tunic, wielded his lance of pure light with a precision bordering on arrogance. Each sweep of his weapon vaporized dozens of specters, leaving behind a trail of golden particles that fought against the creeping darkness. At his side, Zhi Mei, the Holy Templar, was a storm of azure, her Sidhe wings casting a purifying glow upon the scorched ground.

However, Chong Da, the blind monk, remained in the background, his white silk blindfold turned toward the horizon where the Great Sealing Pagoda stood out in the distance. His karmic senses, far keener than mere physical sight, perceived the threads of destiny tying and breaking with alarming speed. He felt the hunger of Ashura, that entity of millennial hatred, calling to his own Path of Humans.

’We are wasting our time here,’ thought Chong Da, his lips stretching into a rictus of ambition that his mask of serenity could no longer contain. ’These Yin entities are merely small fry. The real banquet lies at the heart of the tomb.’

The monk knew that every second spent protecting this young master and this templar was a second wasted in his race toward supreme divinity. If one of the holders of the six paths managed to absorb the chained Ashura, he would become the central pivot of reincarnation. Consequently, he did not hesitate for a second.

"Lord BaiShe, Holy Templar... May the Dao guide your steps in this darkness, I will come to fetch you after having finished, until then do not give up." declared Chong Da in a voice that resonated with feigned peace.

Before Zhi Mei could respond, a golden shockwave exploded from the monk’s body. It was not an attack, but a Buddhist movement technique. Chong Da rose into the air, his body enveloped by a lotus aura, and disappeared into the purple mist toward the Sealing Pagoda. He abandoned his allies in the midst of a tide of enemies without the slightest remorse. For him, the survival of a scholar and a temple woman was an insignificant variable compared to his own awakening as a true Buddha.

Zhi Mei stopped short, decapitating a Tomb Guardian with a backhand. Her blue eyes widened in stupefaction.

"He... he left?" she stammered, a glimmer of disbelief and burgeoning fury in her gaze. "That coward abandoned us in the middle of this nest of monsters!"

BaiShe, for his part, remained perfectly calm. His Omega Heart beat with the regularity of a predator. In reality, Chong Da’s flight was the opportunity he had been waiting for. This monk possessed 50,000 Luck Points, a feast that the Celestial Demon had no intention of sharing with anyone. To be able to track him and devour him without witnesses, he first had to separate from Zhi Mei.

’This is the ideal moment, I should isolate my prey to devour it without taking risks,’ thought BaiShe, his violet pupils capturing the flows of Khao saturating the air.

Chong Da’s disappearance had broken the defensive balance. Without the monk’s mantra barrier, the Yin entities rushed with decupled ferocity at the two survivors. A massive Yin entity, an Overlord-rank Void Specter possessing limbs like ebony scythes, emerged from the basaltic ground right behind Zhi Mei. The saint, still in shock from the betrayal, only perceived the attack at the last moment.

"Miss Mei, look out!" cried BaiShe.

Instead of using his illusion swords to parry from a distance, BaiShe propelled himself forward. He placed himself between the templar and the monster. In a perfectly orchestrated gesture of sacrifice, he took the attack head-on. The specter’s ebony scythe sank deeply into his left shoulder, the sound of crushed bones resonating with atrocious clarity in the silence of the plain. BaiShe’s silver blood gushed out in a luminous fountain, staining Zhi Mei’s armor.

"BAISHE!" screamed the saint, her heart skipping a beat.

The young master did not retreat. He grabbed Zhi Mei’s arm with his valid hand, his jade face contorted by a feigned grimace of pain.

"Leave... Miss Mei..." he murmured in a hoarse whisper, spitting a trickle of silver blood. "Logic dictates that the Executor protects those who serve him... Do not let my sacrifice be in vain... Find a way out..."

Simultaneously, a vast cloud of Yin Qi, attracted by the divine bloodshed, enveloped BaiShe and the specter. In a final glance laden with an emotion she took for heroic devotion, Zhi Mei saw BaiShe’s silhouette being sucked into the swirling darkness. A second later, there was nothing left. Only the fetid mist and the silence of death remained where the Celestial Judge had stood a moment earlier.

Zhi Mei stood petrified, her hands trembling, her gaze fixed on the spot where BaiShe had disappeared. A pure, cold, devouring hatred seized her Sidhe soul. It was not against the monsters that she directed this fury, but against Chong Da. For her, the monk’s betrayal was the direct cause of BaiShe’s loss.

"Chong Da..." she murmured, her voice vibrating with murderous intensity. "By the Dao, I swear that if BaiShe has perished, I will tear out your eyes with my own hands before crushing your Dantian."

She deployed her wings to the maximum, releasing her 5th stage Overlord Qi in an azure explosion that razed the surrounding bony structures. She began frantically searching the Yin clouds, calling her companion’s name with a distress that testified to the corruption of her own Dao by dependence on BaiShe’s validation.

Meanwhile, atop an isolated hill of the Immortal Grave, far from prying eyes, a silhouette emerged from the shadows with insulting nonchalance. Xuan BaiShe appeared, his broken shoulder already healing under the influence of the Khao produced by his Omega Heart. He adjusted his monocle, a sadistic and cruel smile stretching his lips.

Suddenly, the system interface blinked before his eyes.

[Ding! The reputation of the Lucky Son Chong Da has suffered a severe blow! The Holy Templar’s disgust has altered the karmic threads. You have gained 5000 Luck Points!]

’Five thousand points for a simple staged scene, I shouldn’t kill him now...’ thought BaiShe with satisfaction. ’The emotions of the pious are truly an inexhaustible resource.’

He turned towards the direction taken by the blind monk. His eyes, once again violet, burned with an insatiable hunger. The banquet of the Path of Humans had just opened its doors, and the Celestial Demon had no intention of leaving leftovers.

"Lord Chong Da..." murmured BaiShe into the icy wind. "Logic dictates that the one who flees is the most delicious to hunt. Prepare yourself, for your reincarnation stops here."

....

Zhi Mei no longer knew how long she had been fighting. Minutes felt like centuries. Her Sidhe wings, once so majestic, were now stained with black fluids and her own purple blood. Her light armor, carved with sacred runes, bore the stigmas of specter claws: deep gashes revealing bruised skin and purple hematomas. She breathed in gasps, her lungs burning from inhaling this air poisoned by Yin Qi, but she did not stop. She could not stop.

"BaiShe!" she shouted for the umpteenth time, her hoarse voice breaking in the heavy silence of the Immortal Grave. "Answer me, I beg you!"

Only the mournful whistle of the wind answered her, carrying with it the nauseating smell of decaying flesh and sulfur. The petrified bony structures stood around her like macabre sentinels, their shadows dancing under the purple glow of the sickly sky. Every corner seemed capable of hiding the inanimate body of her young master, and this thought alone drove her forward, beyond exhaustion.

She searched a pile of scorched rocks, lifting debris with her gloved hands to ensure no body lay there. Nothing. Only ashes and bone fragments of long-defeated entities. Frustration rose within her, hot and bitter, mingling with the visceral fear twisting her guts.

"This is my fault..." she murmured, her blue eyes clouding with tears she refused to let fall. "I should never have agreed to him coming here. I should never have imposed this burden on him."

She remembered the day she had first approached him. Then, through a series of adventures, she had proposed a deal to him: play the role of the Executor, carry the will of the Dao, and in exchange, she would offer him her protection, her loyalty, even her body. He had accepted, not out of naivety or thirst for power, but because he knew he was intelligent and that this deal was not fair...

So why had he put his life in danger like that?