Chapter 40: Path to Escape

The entire underground palace shook violently, the exotic beast statues cracking like fine porcelain tiles. Xu Xianyue couldn’t even keep her footing, reduced to watching helplessly as the Candle Dragon slowly lifted its head, armored in scales.

How massive was this dragon? No one could say for sure, because nothing like it existed in the world. Even the towering financial skyscrapers in Beijing CBD wouldn’t provide enough space for it to coil around—like asking a python to wrap itself around a spindly tree branch.

Biology offered no answers. What kind of skeletal structure could support a body weighing hundreds or even thousands of tons? And if it was a living creature, it would need to eat, yet every animal on Earth combined wouldn’t sate it for a few meals—unless it grazed on leaves like some massive herbivore to scrape by.

Xu Xianyue had once wrestled with those questions herself, but now she needed no answers. All doubts crumbled to dust at the mere mention of the Candle Dragon. This was a dragon—the divine dragon of legends, sung in tales across generations! It transcended the realm of mere beasts.

“So that’s what you all saw before you died,” Xu Xianyue murmured to herself. She stepped forward, the Lamp Azure Potion surging through her veins and limbs, filling her with the audacious confidence to stand before a god-dragon.

She had no idea why that old man had so generously aided her, but someone courting death didn’t sweat the small stuff. She only needed the power to confront the true culprit.

A thick, eerie fishy stench began to drift through the Golden Hall. The Candle Dragon arched its serpentine neck, splaying its four dragon claws, its spear-sharp talons locking onto Xu Xianyue. In that instant, it reopened its majestic vertical pupils and threw its head back, unleashing a triumphant roar that proclaimed its return!

Xu Xianyue’s heart hammered like a war drum. She drew a deep breath and advanced another step, just as the Azure Flame began to coalesce—

“Whoosh—”

Ye Jingqiu shot in from midair, sweeping Xu Xianyue up around the waist.

Instinct: Wind Slash, activated.

The Awakening Ring’s Rampage Value had spiked into five figures. Ye Jingqiu had no clue why her word-made-reality power had returned, but right now, she just needed it to work.

The scene from that day on Mist Spirit Mountain flashed before her eyes. Ye Jingqiu clutched Xu Xianyue tight as they rocketed away from the Candle Dragon’s descending claw, the true Golden Dome sparkling overhead.

“Xiao Qiu, put me down,” Xu Xianyue wriggled futilely and let out a helpless sigh, tugging at Ye Jingqiu’s sleeve. Her voice remained as soft as ever. “I really don’t want to leave.”

The walls built by secrets and lies dissolved in that moment.

Ye Jingqiu snorted coldly. “I don’t give a damn what you want.”

“I know you want to kill it, but this dragon’s way beyond any one of us. Teacher Xiao Xu, trust me—we get out of here first, round up some backup. The base will figure out how to handle it!” Ye Jingqiu channeled the air currents to hoist them even higher, her words tumbling out in a rush.

Xu Xianyue rested a light hand on Ye Jingqiu’s shoulder. “I’ve been hunting this dragon for years, Xiao Qiu. Put me down.”

Her pleas fell on deaf ears, and Ye Jingqiu burned with frustration. “But staying here’s a death sentence!”

Xu Xianyue said nothing more. Silence fell over Ye Jingqiu’s ears amid the vast hall’s howling winds, broken only by the Candle Dragon’s resonant cry echoing from behind.

An ominous chill gripped Ye Jingqiu. After a long, wordless pause, she clenched her jaw, trembling, sensing Xu Xianyue behind her as still as a statue.

“But I never wanted to live anyway.”

The words came soft and sudden.

A thousand arguments lodged in Ye Jingqiu’s throat, leaving her speechless. She couldn’t bear to dwell on it. Resentment flared toward her own instinct—it lay dormant while the Candle Dragon slept, only rousing lazily now that it was awake. What kind of “hero moment” was this? It wouldn’t quit until she’d been backed into a corner of certain death!

Otherwise, she could’ve whisked Teacher Xiao Xu far away ages ago, sparing her the chance to voice such despair.

“Teacher Xiao Xu, how’d you even get in here?” After an eternity of silence, Ye Jingqiu forced her emotions in check and asked, pretending those words had never been spoken.

“Someone brought…”

Xu Xianyue’s voice cut off as a massive orb of searing Black Flame detonated right above them. The extreme heat warped the airflow, sending their bodies fluttering wildly like fragile insect wings.

A stray ember drifted onto Ye Jingqiu’s long sleeve, and even this fireproof combat gear ignited.

Ye Jingqiu recoiled in shock, blurting new commands in a panic. “Flame Dissipation Art? No—Fireball Vanishing Method! If nothing else, make this damn thing vanish flames and all!”

It worked at last. Ye Jingqiu slapped out the flames in a frenzy, too harried to mourn her ruined sleeve. Glancing back, she saw the Candle Dragon had fully reared up, its crimson Dragon Scales flaring open like a predator baring its fangs.

Fresh from an endless night, it had regained its wits, those vertical pupils fixing on the two ant-sized humans below. It drew in a massive gulp of oxygen through its fanged maw, then exhaled—a gentle breath forward.

The superheated Dragon Breath surged forth, alive and homing in like artillery shells.

“No way…” Ye Jingqiu went numb. Dozens of Dragon Breath fireballs hurtled toward them in fearsome array—like a hundred Captains unleashing Yinghuo all at once.

No way, no way—wasn’t Lord Dragon God’s whole deal supposed to be apocalyptic destruction? Would something as insignificant as me even register? Take a breather, recover your strength, then kill us—why settle for two scrawny trees when you’ve got a whole forest?

The Candle Dragon couldn’t hear her frantic inner monologue. It simply thrashed its body, spewing Dragon Breath after Dragon Breath, a relentless dragon-shaped killing machine locked on Ye Jingqiu.

The blistering flames closed in from behind at blinding speed—in seconds, they’d be human skewers. Ye Jingqiu’s scalp prickled; the sheer scale of it was overwhelming.

So this was facing death head-on. Ye Jingqiu shuddered. No Captain, no Xie Pingzhi, no Aether or Ning Wan—just her, forced to judge life or death on her own.

Wind Slash thrummed at maximum speed, her Rampage Value doubling over and over. Shouting at it to let her out brought no response from Instinct, leaving Ye Jingqiu no choice but to dodge frantically.

This was the seventh time she had tapped into Instinct, and by now she had a rough sense of what commands would actually work. According to Ning Wan, the Thirteen Laws inscribed on the Emerald Jade Record were mountains Instinct could never surmount—life and death, time and space, existence and disappearance…

Resurrection, teleportation, conjuring matter from thin air, annihilation: those were higher-order laws. She couldn’t instantly transport herself and Xu Xianyue to the Captain’s side, but at least she could harness the Candle Dragon’s own power to flee.

Dragon Breath streaked past them in furious arcs. Ye Jingqiu plunged downward now and then, using the vast dome overhead to shield their forms. She was starting to feel grateful for the sheer size of the Golden Hall; otherwise, where could she and Xu Xianyue possibly run?

The Dragon Breaths kept slamming into empty air, but the Candle Dragon was growing cleverer by the moment. Its Dragon Flame blasts began to cluster in pairs—lure one away, and you’d have to weather the other.

Cold sweat streamed down Ye Jingqiu’s back, her tattered protective jacket clinging to her skin like a sodden second layer. Even her twisted commands fell flat. At present, her power matched the Candle Dragon’s; she couldn’t simply redirect the Dragon Flame because it was a force equal to her own.

Dragon Flame roared in from every direction, leaving no gaps front, back, left, or right. Ye Jingqiu clenched her teeth and plunged straight toward it, dragging Xu Xianyue along.

Fortune favors the bold, as they say. She might as well gamble for a way out.

Wind Slash shut off in a heartbeat. Ye Jingqiu wrapped her arms tightly around Xu Xianyue from the front, compressing their profile as tightly as possible. A shell of fire, thin as an eggshell, encased them both, and they hurtled toward the Dragon Flame like a shooting star.

Boom!

They just barely scraped past, squeezing through a narrow gap in the Dragon Flame. The fire shell collided head-on with the Dragon Breath, the flames mutually annihilating—but in their stead erupted a colossal shockwave. The two women tumbled like kites with cut strings, plummeting wildly toward the floor.

No human body could endure such punishment. A piercing screech filled Ye Jingqiu’s ears as her ribs shattered in an instant. Even so, she clutched Xu Xianyue fiercely to her chest.

Her organs twisted like refuse crushed in a hydraulic press, waves of agony crashing through her. Struggling to form words, Ye Jingqiu rasped, “Re… repair!”

Resurrection was off-limits, but healing had to work, didn’t it?

Divine power stirred in that fleeting moment. Shattered bones knit anew, mangled flesh pulled itself together. Ye Jingqiu hacked up a storm of coughs as Wind Slash reignited, propelling them back into the lofty heights.

Her command must have boldly encompassed taking all the damage herself. Xu Xianyue emerged without a scratch, save for a few flecks of Ye Jingqiu’s black blood on her sleeve.

You’ve got to admit, Instinct got the job done—it was just the cost that hurt like hell.

Xu Xianyue, snapping back to awareness, looked utterly terrified. She yanked desperately at Ye Jingqiu’s clothes, her voice thick with plea: “Xiao Qiu, are you all right? Ah? You scared me half to death! Ye Jingqiu, I’m begging you—get out of here first, please?”

Fresh from her brush with death, Ye Jingqiu panted hard. At those words, a smug grin crept back onto her face. She seized Xu Xianyue’s hand and said breezily, “Nope, not gonna. Relax, Teacher Xiao Xu. I might not be able to take down the Candle Dragon solo, but add my Captain to the mix? No problem at all. My Captain was the one last time who…”

The words died on her lips.

“No, wait,” Ye Jingqiu went ashen as paper. She clamped down on Xu Xianyue’s wrist like a vise, desperate to disprove her own suspicions. “Why is your body temperature this low? It wasn’t this cold a minute ago!”

She recalled the Azure Flame that had flickered into existence in Xu Xianyue’s palm. She remembered the Captain’s talk of the Instinct Potion.

Even a powerhouse like the Captain had slumbered for nearly forty-seven days after that injection. And if you swapped the Captain out for Xu Xianyue…

What had Teacher Xiao Xu said?

She’d never wanted to live in the first place.