This small world, filled with the stench of blood and Demonic Qi, was instantly blanketed in ice and snow. All the filthy, bloody things seemed purified by the vast white expanse—even the Ten Thousand Bones Tower was cloaked in a silver sheen. If one didn’t look closely at its surface from nearby, the structure inexplicably took on an ethereal, immortal air.
The demons whose lives had been stolen by the ice and snow probably didn’t see it that way. Amid the thick snowdrifts stood many twisted ice sculptures, their expressions vividly lifelike, each one frozen in terror.
With a whoosh, a gust of cold wind swept through, shattering the ice sculptures into fragments across the ground.
A’chan, who had just fallen due to her legs freezing stiff, scrambled to her feet at once. She had spotted the Bone-Eroding Demon Lord’s claw from afar. If not for Qiu Leshao’s insistence on trying to save Wen Qiwu, she would have hoisted Qiu Leshao over her shoulder and fled by now.
She still lacked the power to confront the Demon Lord directly—rushing in to save someone would only get her killed too. But after considering Wen Qiwu’s plan, she found it highly feasible and decided to proceed with the rescue.
She hadn’t expected to trip suddenly! The once-viable plan now teetered on the brink of disaster.
A’chan wanted to check if Wen Qiwu could still be saved, but when she looked up, she found herself nearly buried in the snow.
Whose power was this?
No—not right. This snow was laced with pure spiritual power. It wasn’t the Demon Lord’s doing, but…
The falling body was caught midair by another figure. Snow had piled up to half a person’s height around them, yet the spot where they landed remained spotless, not a single snowflake touching it.
“…”
In mere moments, two shivering figures huddled in a snowbank at the corner of the Ten Thousand Bones Tower.
“Wen—Miss Wen, please wake up! If she doesn’t wake soon, we might not make it—achoo!” Qiu Leshao and A’chan huddled together there. Qiu Leshao’s power was much weaker, so she was already sneezing from the cold.
“Her power is on the verge of losing control!” A’chan’s limbs had gone stiff from the freeze. She channeled her Demonic Qi to ward off the chill while diverting some to warm Qiu Leshao.
“Let’s get out of here first. If that Yun woman goes berserk, no one here can beat her.” A’chan knew Yun Heng was formidable, but she hadn’t realized just how much—enough to pin the Demon Lord’s avatar to the ground with a single sword and slay it outright.
The white-clad immortal had entered from outside, dragging the Bone-Eroding Demon Lord’s avatar in her hand. The instant she saw Wen Qiwu plummeting from the sky, she hadn’t gone mad yet, but only a thread of reason held her back.
If she lost that reason, the immortal might not spare the two in the corner, friends or not.
“Don’t be scared—achoo! Miss Wen isn’t badly hurt. As long as she wakes up, it’ll be fine—achoo!” Qiu Leshao had seen it clearly. She reassured A’chan between sneezes—as long as Yun Heng didn’t lose control, her side was the safest place.
“A Que… Qiwu…”
The influence of that Bone Flute’s sound hadn’t fully dissipated. Wen Qiwu’s consciousness drowned in chaotic darkness. She seemed to hear her senior sister calling her name with a sob. She struggled fiercely, peeling back the fog bit by bit.
But the process took time, so the unconscious woman gave no response.
The blood on her hand had smeared onto her wings. As she fell from the sky like a bird with broken wings, Yun Heng caught her and felt the warm blood soaking her hands. The color and scent nearly drowned Yun Heng’s mind in crimson rage, her body trembling.
Her voice came out hoarse, able only to call Wen Qiwu’s name.
A blizzard began whipping through the secret realm. Qiu Leshao realized trouble was brewing. She wanted to remind Yun Heng to feed Wen Qiwu some soul-stimulating medicine, but the sudden gale blocked her path.
Yun Heng probably hadn’t even noticed her power slipping from control!
What to do, what to do? From afar, Qiu Leshao glimpsed Yun Heng’s eyes—that moment, a chill gripped her heart. It was a sign of demonic corruption!
“Cold…”
Just as the situation spiraled toward utter chaos, the person in Yun Heng’s arms shivered and murmured one word: cold.
That single word halted the snow across the small world and pulled back her crumbling sanity.
Yun Heng’s face was even paler than Wen Qiwu’s. Hearing her junior sister’s voice brought faint glimmers to her eyes. She activated a warming talisman to heat her hands, then took her junior sister’s chilled ones and warmed them in her own.
Phoenixes favored warmth. The rising temperature felt comfortable, and enveloped in her senior sister’s reassuring aura, Wen Qiwu—mid-struggle against the darkness—nearly drifted off to sleep right there.
No! She couldn’t sleep yet!
Wen Qiwu fought through the drowsiness and woke. She slowly opened her eyes, the first thing she saw being a pair of beautiful, panicked ones. Her senior sister’s eyes should have been deep and dark as the night sky, but because of her, those clear depths now swirled with glaring red and shimmering tears.
Wen Qiwu softly called “Senior Sister.” She hadn’t planned to burden her with complaints, but seeing her like this, her voice trembled unconsciously.
She buried herself in her senior sister’s embrace, as if having endured the greatest grievance.
The jade pendant at Wen Qiwu’s neck held a drop of Yun Heng’s Heart Blood, ensuring she would sense any danger to her junior sister immediately.
Each flash of red light from the pendant tore at Yun Heng’s heart with pain, but that agony paled against the fear of history repeating itself.
She silently suppressed the pain surging in her chest and hugged her junior sister tightly. “I’m sorry—it’s Senior Sister’s fault. I came too late…”
She knew that demon was scheming against her. Pushing her junior sister away had only been to keep her out of the demons’ plot against herself. Yet the outcome was the exact opposite of what she hoped.
Yun Heng had been teleported to the Demon Domain. Whoever brought her there had likely acted on impulse, so no ambush awaited. The kill order only came after she arrived.
But she noticed that while the Demon Lord issued a supposed kill order, only small fry came after her—none of his main forces appeared.
From then on, Yun Heng suspected their true goal. She hadn’t expected the jade pendant to warn her of her junior sister’s peril so soon. At that moment, cold pierced from her heart to her limbs.
The pendant guided her to the Bone-Eroding Demon Lord’s stronghold. She arrived just in time to overhear his order to kill without mercy.
After that, she barely remembered how she entered. Her mind held only one thought: anything blocking her path deserved death!
Wen Qiwu lifted her head from her senior sister’s embrace and lightly kissed the tear-streaked corner of her eye. “Senior Sister arrived right on time—they didn’t hurt me at all.”
“But you pushed me away before!” Wen Qiwu poked her senior sister’s chest lightly with a fingertip, her tone petulant as she voiced her grievance.
“I won’t do it again.” How could Yun Heng dare let her junior sister out of sight now? If it happened once more, she feared she’d half-step into demonic corruption.
“Hmph! You’d better mean it!” Wen Qiwu huffed lightly.
Yun Heng could only coax her softly, repeating her guarantees over and over.
“A Que…”
The pale, frail beauty tugging at her sleeve in coquettish apology made Wen Qiwu relent despite herself—she couldn’t harden her heart against it.
Seeing her senior sister like this could melt even a stone heart, especially after learning of the torments she’d endured all those years ago. Pity had long overwhelmed everything else.
Wen Qiwu sighed softly. Amid Yun Heng’s tense expression, she kissed her bloodless lips—a sign she harbored no grudges.
With their backs to the one demon and one human at the Ten Thousand Bones Tower’s edge, the two shivering in the cold had no idea what transpired.
The environment wasn’t ideal, and eyes watched from nearby, so Wen Qiwu kept it to a brief taste.
“Why do I taste blood? A Que, are you hurt somewhere else?!” Yun Heng detected the metallic tang in that kiss, her briefly relaxed mind snapping taut again.
“No other injuries… Oh, right—that Demon General’s flute was powerful. To stay awake, I bit my tongue.” Only then did Wen Qiwu notice the sting at her tongue’s tip.
“Let me see.” Yun Heng worriedly lifted her junior sister’s chin gently, gesturing for her to open her mouth.
Wen Qiwu obediently extended her pink tongue tip, the self-inflicted bite wound stark and alarming.
Yun Heng leaned down, conveying cool immortal power through a kiss to numb the pain. She then hooked her junior sister’s retreating tongue with her own, accelerating the healing with immortal power.
This was treatment, after all—it naturally took time. Yun Heng, the responsible “physician,” continued until the wound fully mended.
By then, Wen Qiwu’s body had gone limp, a flush tinting her eyes’ corners.
She suspected her senior sister of intent, but seeing the lingering panic and fear in those reddened eyes, it didn’t seem calculated.
Fine, whatever—she enjoyed it anyway.
“Senior Sister… Is that the Bone-Eroding Demon Lord?” Wen Qiwu pointed at the ice-encased lump pinned by the sword, her soft tone still laced with a seductive lilt from their earlier intimacy.
Yun Heng finally spared a glance at the nearby corpse.
“That’s his avatar—he didn’t descend in person. Pity…” Otherwise, she could have left the Wise Master’s Demon Lords as the sole survivor.
Bone-Eroding Demon Lord… Right!
Wen Qiwu sat up straight in her senior sister’s arms, tense. “I just heard his subordinate say he plans to retrieve something from the tower’s top to deal with you—some old Demon Lord’s corpse. We should leave quickly; whatever’s inside must be troublesome.”
But Yun Heng didn’t leave immediately. Instead, she gazed steadily at the Ten Thousand Bones Tower behind her.
“He’s activated the inheritance ritual, infused with the power of laws. It’s the only way to trap me temporarily. The tower’s original owner was a True Immortal Realm Bone Demon from ten thousand years ago—very powerful. Until we complete its trial or break through the tower, we probably can’t leave.”
“I knew he wouldn’t let it go easily!” In her anger, Wen Qiwu stood—and promptly staggered.
Yun Heng moved to scoop her up, but Wen Qiwu, spotting the two pairs of eyes behind them, struggled to walk on her own. Her legs weren’t incapable; they were just weak from various reasons.
