Yun Ruoyan’s kiss was a spark that ignited Li Mo’s longing and passion for her. He reached out, grabbed her waist, and pulled her body against his own. Her desire for Li Mo was as strong as his for her. Under their combined will, the dual cultivation technique manifested in earnest. White spiritual energy emanated from Li Mo’s spiritual vortex and enveloped them both.

“Li Mo… we can’t… not here.” Li Mo’s kisses were electrifying, and she was reluctant to detach from his body. Nevertheless, she still maintained some shred of rationality.

“I’m not familiar with this place. Yan’er, where’s a secure location?” Li Mo’s voice was husky and hoarse.

Returning to the inn now would surely create a commotion, so Yun Ruoyan suggested, “There’s a forest by the west—”

Before she could finish, Li Mo had brought them both up into the air as they flew toward the west. This was the forest where Li Mo’s spiritual sword had first brought her when she escaped from the barrier that trapped all the cultivators from the lower realms.

In the quiet, secluded forest, amidst hoots and howls, on a relatively flat stretch of land, two bodies lay intertwined. They were shrouded by a spiritual energy; just like a cocoon, it enveloped and protected them both.

After their climax, Yun Ruoyan once again felt the familiar embrace of a warm ocean, one that she had only experienced using the dual cultivation technique. After an interminable amount of time, the ocean water suddenly began to heat up, turning hotter and hotter.

“It hurts, it hurts!” Yun Ruoyan moaned.

“Yan’er, what’s the matter?” Li Mo had also noticed Yun Ruoyan’s abnormal behavior. Her once-serene expression had turned into a frown, and her body was scalding hot. A thin sheen of sweat covered her body, as though she were being roasted over a spit.

Just then, a strange phenomenon occurred. Li Mo saw a black fog seep out from Yun Ruoyan’s body, slowly swallowing up the white fog emanating from Li Mo’s body. The couple was quickly enveloped by this black fog.

“Yan’er, Yan’er!” Li Mo repeatedly called out Yun Ruoyan’s name. When she finally opened her eyes, her pupils were blood-red…

When Yun Ruoyan woke up, the sun had just popped up over the horizon. Her senses were immediately assaulted with the concentrated aroma of meat. She sat up to find Li Mo by the fire pit. A pheasant was skewered over the fire, one that Li Mo was intently roasting.

“You’re up?” Li Mo smiled at her.

Yun Ruoyan nodded, then walked to his side. He tore off a drumstick and handed it to her, and Yun Ruoyan slowly began to eat. It tasted amazing, but without her usual hunger, she no longer felt the impulse to gorge herself.

“I’m full.” After finishing the drumstick, she declined the next piece of meat that Li Mo handed her.

“Yan’er.” Li Mo put the meat back on the skewer and turned to Yun Ruoyan. “Do you remember what happened during our dual cultivation last night?”

Yun Ruoyan looked back at him. She nodded, then shook her head. “I can sense that something went amiss, but I don’t know what exactly happened.”

Li Mo described what had happened last night to her. “After I stopped the technique, the black fog retreated back into your body. I investigated your spiritual vortex and found that you have a surprising fraction of an unusual black spiritual energy. Do you know what it is?”

Li Mo’s tone and expression dripped with concern.

“I wanted to ask you about this as well,” Yun Ruoyan replied. She then described her experiences after leaving the Pi city to follow the slaves’ wagons that were headed to the Pi spirit crystal mines. She had fought and almost lost to the long-faced guard. At a critical juncture, the demonic eye blocked an attack for her, vanished, and left her with a little demonic dragon aura. Using that aura, she had begun cultivating the dragon’s art, the source of the mysterious black spiritual energy.

“After my battle with that guard, I became a ninth-rank blademaster,” Yun Ruoyan continued. “Then, I headed to the Pi spirit crystal mine and fought Pi Batian there.”

Li Mo frowned, and his expression turned alarmed. “But you’re no match for him!” 

He was very upset by Yun Ruoyan’s dangerous escapade. A ninth-rank blademaster against a second-rank sword saint was no different from a child trying to fight against an adult, and Yun Ruoyan wouldn’t be able to withstand even a single blow from him!

“I naturally wasn’t his match,” Yun Ruoyan replied. “I thought I was going to die, but after receiving two blows from Pi Batian, I suddenly felt the dragon’s art activate itself. Without my conscious input, it began to heal my body, internal and external injuries alike, as though my body and consciousness had been cleanly separated.”

Yun Ruoyan was frowning, and her gaze somewhat distant. During this process, she couldn’t feel any pain or fear, as though she had been isolated from the mortal world. “While my body was recovering, a black-clad man stopped Pi Batian’s finishing blow. Then, Pi Yan appeared, the black-clad man began to fight with him, and Zhuo Yifeng escaped with me and Qingxue. A lightning storm suddenly appeared, and we were buried by a rockslide. Finally, we were found by a troupe of courtesans who were passing by.”

Yun Ruoyan lowered her head. “I could see and hear what was going on, but it felt more like a play than reality. When my body had fully healed, my consciousness was transported into a dream.”

“What sort of dream?” Li Mo took Yun Ruoyan’s palm as he looked into her eyes. “Yan’er, no matter what’s going on, I hope you can count on me to share your burdens.”

Yun Ruoyan stilled, paused, then finally spoke. “I saw an apocalyptic war between the demonic dragons and the silver dragons.

The demonic dragon clan and the silver dragon clan were forces on the high-grade Jiyuan continent that balanced and countered one another. Both forces wanted to reign supreme over the Jiyuan continent, and that conflict had ultimately evolved into a full-scale war.

The demonic dragon clan turned out to be no match for the silver dragons. Through defeat after defeat, they were chased out of the Jiyuan continent and into the Mingyuan continent, then from the Mingyuan continent into the Chenyuan continent.

The war lasted centuries. With the help of the humans on the Chenyuan continent, the silver dragons successfully vanquished the demonic dragons once and for all. Through the dream, Yun Ruoyan saw how the silver dragons had slaughtered the demonic dragons to the last, then burned their draconic forms. 

Hulking black dragons burnt to a crisp within a roaring inferno, but although the silver dragons could destroy their bodies, they weren’t able to annihilate their souls. Instead, they could only seal the demonic dragons within the Chenyuan continent.

Because the seal was made to be everlasting, after a millennium, both the humans and the silver dragons had almost completely forgotten about the threat of the demonic dragons—until a few centuries prior, when the demonic dragon souls suddenly regained consciousness and awakened the latent bloodline of their descendants on the Chenyuan continent.

Through the dream, Yun Ruoyan found that many such descendants had been produced by rape, by demonic dragons who had forced themselves on human females. These descendants were initially half-human and half-dragon, but the bloodline thinned and diluted with every subsequent generation. In the end, only a rare few descendants still possessed a significant concentration of the demonic dragon bloodline, one of whom was Long Yin, and another of whom was Yun Ruoyan herself.

“Over the last few centuries, after the continued eradication of the demonic dragon bloodline by the silver dragon clan, I might be the last descendant of the demonic dragons,” Yun Ruoyan finished, her eyes aged with solitude and despair.

“Yan’er, you can always count on me. We’re a married couple, and you’re no longer alone. No matter what trials lie ahead of you, I’ll share your burden.”

Li Mo stared resolutely at Yun Ruoyan, and she nodded with firm resolve. “Li Mo, no matter what challenges you face, I’ll be there with you as well.”

Based on Yun Ruoyan’s recounting, Li Mo deduced that the black spiritual energy in Yun Ruoyan’s body was a result of cultivating the dragon’s art. As for whether this occurrence was normal or not, beneficial or not, he couldn’t tell. Because there was no such precedent, even Qiuqiu was unable to predict what would happen next.

Li Mo retrieved the dragon’s art manual which he kept on his body. The two of them tried to find an answer to their concerns in the manual, but when she flipped through it, she suddenly found that she could only understand the portions which she had already read.

Qiuqiu explained that  the dragon’s art was intimately related with Yun Ruoyan’s demonic dragon bloodline. The demonic dragon aura that the demonic eye had left behind before it vanished was sufficient to awaken part of her bloodline. Because Yun Ruoyan had read the contents of the manual prior to this awakening, the bloodline caused her to start cultivating it immediately.

However, the partial awakening was unable to support further cultivation of the technique, so Yun Ruoyan was unable to understand the contents of the rest of the manual.

Li Mo handed her the manual for safekeeping, instructing Yun Ruoyan to keep reading it even if she weren’t able to understand it. It was possible that her bloodline would suddenly reach another stage of awakening, at which point her prior study of the technique could well save her life.

By the time they had decided on their course of action, the sun was hanging directly over them. They walked out of the forest in the west. Yun Ruoyan would head back to the town and leave with the troupe, whereas Li Mo prepared to return to the Pi manor...

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