The Candle Dragon seemed genuinely pissed. Who wouldn’t be? You’d set the table for a feast, only for the seafood starter to come alive, splatter wasabi in your eyes like a vengeful octopus, and chomp your finger on the way out.
It was blatant provocation, mockery dialed to eleven. The dragon bellowed and charged, rearing its foreclaw to smash these insolent pests flat.
The Celestial Stem Bronze Sword sheared off a single dragon scale, light as a feather—the damage barely more than a mosquito bite. Shi Zui seized Ye Jingqiu’s arm, her voice sharpening. “I’m ordering you to take the Awakening Ring and go. That’s not a request—it’s a command!”
“I won’t follow your orders,” Ye Jingqiu shot back stubbornly. “I’m the S-rank you personally vouched for. Maybe I’m the key to beating this Candle Dragon.”
“We don’t have time for experiments, and the Base needs its combat data,” Shi Zui countered coolly. “We have a fallback to kill it: the Source Weapon, genuine human tech. I just need to stall it for ten more minutes.”
The Base’s defenses were never that straightforward. The moment Shi Zui had vaulted into the Golden Hall, the orbital Source Weapon far overhead had begun zeroing in on its target. Anything emerging from the Heterodimensional Space—if it was a beast—would be blasted the instant it appeared.
“At the cost of your life?”
“At the cost of my life,” Shi Zui replied, her tone softening unexpectedly, her expression one she rarely revealed. “But you’re not like me. You have friends, family… maybe even a future lover. You deserve to live.”
“Friends… family…” Ye Jingqiu echoed softly. “Captain, don’t you have any of that?”
“No.”
Shi Zui met her gaze steadily, the world seeming to freeze in that moment. “No. I’m a lab creation, made for exotic beasts. I have no parents.”
Ye Jingqiu’s lips quivered, but she said nothing. In that instant, understanding dawned. She saw why the captain’s sense of duty bordered on obsession, while her demeanor toward others remained so aloof. She believed, with unshakeable conviction, that this was her purpose—to exist for the beasts.
That was why she’d volunteered the Dragon Trapping Box. Not some lofty ideal of power and responsibility, but because if someone had to die, it would be her.
No time for more words. Shi Zui gave her little teammate one last, lingering look. Then the gale rose anew, and her figure blurred toward the Candle Dragon—like a beast charging tirelessly toward its own doom.
Ye Jingqiu realized she was starting to go numb.
The exact same script had played out for the second time now. Why did everyone have to look at her and deliver those utterly resolute lines? She was the one who had arrived first, the one fully prepared to make the sacrifice.
If she obediently left this time, who would she run into next? Xie Pingzhi? Olivia? At this rate, she figured this farce could drag on for a million more repeats. The base’s members were all such idiots—this was straight out of that old fairy tale where the brothers charge in one by one to save Grandpa, only to get nabbed every single time!
No way was she playing along. This play wasn’t even worth watching anyway!
Ye Jingqiu steadied her resolve, gripped her sword, and charged after her. Flame streams from the Candle Dragon surged toward them like crashing tides. She dodged with frantic, humiliating effort. Out of the corner of her eye, Shi Zui spotted Ye Jingqiu’s figure, but she betrayed no surprise or anger—as if her little teammate’s defiance was exactly what she’d anticipated.
Whatever.
The word surfaced in Shi Zui’s mind for the first time. Maybe, in one’s final moments, it wasn’t so lonely to have company.
The Candle Dragon’s body, wreathed in azure flames, launched into the air once more. Shi Zui vaulted upward sword-first, gray mist coiling around her like a shroud, as if something monstrous was gestating within.
But the gray smoke’s progress halted abruptly! With speed no living creature should possess, the Candle Dragon snatched Shi Zui mid-leap. Ye Jingqiu’s heart turned to ice in an instant.
“Tyrfing?” The Candle Dragon mangled the word in its clumsy pronunciation. “So your instinct is stacking?”
Shi Zui felt the agony of her body being run through all too clearly. The instant those razor-sharp claws closed around her, they’d pierced her abdomen with effortless cruelty. The searing torment in her guts triggered violent spasms across her entire midsection.
Were it not for the Candle Dragon’s iron grip, instinct would have curled her into a fetal C-shape right then. That single blow had obliterated her core muscles, stripping away any chance of fighting back.
Humans were fragile like that. Sure, they could summon gales and infernos through their elements, but stripped of scales or armor, they were little more than bugs.
“Y-Yes…” Shi Zui rasped. Each syllable wrung every ounce of strength from her. Organ fragments and blood oozed out, sluicing down the claws to patter onto the floor.
In that moment, understanding dawned. They hadn’t endured this long because of their strength. The Candle Dragon had simply been testing her—the humans’ supposed pinnacle.
And she’d handed it the answer it craved.
“What a nostalgic instinct. It’s been centuries since I last beheld it,” the Candle Dragon intoned approvingly. “Summoning this cursed power proves you’re far stronger than you were five years ago. Alas, your journey ends here.”
It clenched its claws with gentle finality, shrugging off the feeble pricks from below. Fresh blood spurted forth, draining Shi Zui’s face to paper-white.
“Such a lovely hue. I’ll paint the world in it,” it murmured with a smile, drunk on bloodlust and the thrill of torment. “A fitting tribute to my old friend.”
With labored effort, Shi Zui glanced at its body. The gash in its claw—from the Bronze Sword—had already begun to knit. Only the spine, shrouded in azure flames, wept blood.
“So… it’s the Azure Lamp…”
Her whisper came soft in her dying breath. At last, she recalled the azure flame’s name. Legend held it was the fire Gan Jiang and Mo Ye had used to forge their blades. The master smith had fueled the forge with his own life flame, birthing a peerless pair of divine swords. They said the furnace had burned an eerie blue—the shade of a life guttering to its end.
The Candle Dragon flinched at the name, but imperial poise swiftly returned. With a cold snort, it tightened its hold on Shi Zui and summoned the Wind Element, drifting slowly toward the White Jade Throne looming in the great hall.
Its tail touched down. It coiled upward in layers onto the High Heaven Throne. But before it could settle fully—
A scream rent the heavens, raw and shattering!
Shi Zui! Inch by inch, she’d driven the Bronze Sword deeper into the dragon’s clawed leg. Pure azure flames danced along its edge—identical to Xu Xianyue’s Azure Lamp.
What force sustained her through this was beyond imagining. Her mere wakefulness was miracle enough.
The Candle Dragon thrashed its claws in frenzy, desperate to shake her loose. But the Bronze Sword clung like a wolf to the hunt, more azure flames burrowing along its limb, threatening to merge with the blaze along its spine.
Resolve hardened Shi Zui’s features once more. In this instant, she was again the unbreakable S-Class Awakener. Her instinct was stacking: a horror without limits or restraint. Master the pattern and name of any instinct, and it joined her arsenal forever.
This azure flame had cost her life to claim.
Ye Jingqiu stood speechless beneath the White Jade Heavenly Seat.
Her fingertips brushed the blood dripping from the dragon’s claw—Shi Zui’s blood. Indescribable agony clawed her heart. She felt no pulse of her own anymore.
The second time. The second time watching someone die raw and real before her eyes. Why did everyone insist she leave first? Her life wasn’t worth more than theirs.
She’d been wrong from the start. The instant she’d matched the Candle Dragon’s power, she should’ve transformed into a super dragon hybrid and obliterated it. Fleeing never ended well. It just crushed your hopes underfoot and spat in your face that dreams were for fools.
Any other way?
That low voice echoed in her ears again. Any way to turn this around?
From the distance came faint rolling sounds. The little dragon, roused from the flames, was gleefully batting a bottle it’d unearthed from who-knows-where.
A bottle?!
Ye Jingqiu’s mind whirred at light speed, senses razor-sharp as never before. Memory yanked her back to July 22nd, the night she’d parted with Xu Xianyue. She’d seen it clear as day: two wooden boxes in her backpack.
That’s right—two instinct potions. If Teacher Xiao Xu had only used one…
Then the other was her last hope.
She didn’t need a massive gift like the Azure Lamp. All she needed was a shot of adrenaline to restore her strength. As long as she could unleash power equal to the Candle Dragon’s right now, that would be enough to save the Captain.
As for the cost…?
Ye Jingqiu scrambled to grab the vial, downing it without a moment’s hesitation.
Whether it led to life or death no longer mattered.
“Captain,” Ye Jingqiu forced a smile, murmuring to herself, “there’s one thing you got wrong.”
She and Shi Zui weren’t all that different. She’d been wandering alone in the world for a long time. How could someone who’d lost all their memories, with no idea where they’d come from or where they were going, live a normal life?
In front of Xie Pingzhi, she was a reliable friend. In front of Olivia, she was a mysterious wanderer. But the only one she could—truly the only one she could—completely rely on was the Captain.
Only in front of the Captain could she be a real little teammate.
Ye Jingqiu spread her arms wide, feeling a strange power surging through her body. A drunken euphoria washed over her from head to toe, dopamine surging as if in overdrive, leaving her mind blissfully hazy.
A rare sensation.
Ye Jingqiu had no idea she’d just swallowed Tyrfing, a forbidden ability before the twentieth century. Named after the ancient sword from Norse mythology, it brought unparalleled glory to its wielder—but also utter ruin.
From a scientific standpoint, Tyrfing accelerated cellular regeneration in the human body, enhancing an awakener’s physique and abilities. The inevitable consequence? Rapid aging and bodily decay.
But none of that mattered anymore. Ye Jingqiu gripped the Earth Kun Profound Sword. She already possessed strength equal to a dragon’s, and now she felt like the incarnation of two.
Shi Zui was on the verge of passing out. The moment she saw Ye Jingqiu charging with sword in hand, the Candle Dragon casually tossed aside the near-dead figure it held.
