Xīng Hé watched the opponent dissolve into nothingness.
Not die. Dissolve. His body came apart at levels she couldn't see, reality unmaking what had been solid moments before. No corpse. No blood. Just empty space.
Her gaze lifted to Yao.
The woman hung suspended in the air. The sky had darkened around her—not clouds, but light itself withdrawing. Wind coiled in patterns that defied sense, spiraling toward and away from her simultaneously.
What is she?
One second Yao had been fighting—laughing, delivering her combat tutorial like violence was a game. The next, she was this: suspended, transformed, radiating something that made the air taste wrong.
The Transcendents had to know. They left Yao alone, let her serve Heiyun Jue directly, ignored disrespect that would get others killed. There had to be a reason.
Now Xīng Hé knew.
Yao could match a Transcendent. Maybe more.
Whatever hid beneath the bored exterior was powerful enough to make rulers hesitate.
Movement at the courtyard's edge.
More contaminated approached—elders, judging by their robes. Higher rank. Greater power.
Before Xīng Hé could shout, they arrived.
And dissolved.
Like the first. Like the disciples before him. They reached Yao's influence and unraveled.
The remaining children stared.
Xīng Hé forced herself to move. "We need to collect the weapons. Before more come."
No response. They were still staring at Yao.
"Now," Xīng Hé said. "While we can."
That broke the spell.
They scattered across the courtyard, gathering sacred weapons. Musical instruments. Blades. Cooking implements. Each saturated with Dao, each valuable to the divine existence system.
Xīng Hé worked alongside them, hands moving while her mind raced.
Unconscious concept control.
She recognized it from her own Preservation concept—barriers she hadn't willed into existence. Small. Defensive. Barely noticeable.
Whatever Yao was doing could reshape reality.
We should wait. Wait for her to come back. We're safe while she's like this.
The weapons accumulated. More than four months of careful exploration had yielded. More than twenty-one lives had purchased.
Because Yao had simply walked in and taken them.
Minutes passed.
The sky remained dark. The wind held its impossible patterns. Yao floated, motionless.
Then she began to descend.
Her feet touched ground. The darkness retreated. The wind settled. Reality remembered itself.
Yao turned away immediately.
"Walk forward," she said. No amusement in her voice now. "We're not done."
Xīng Hé caught it before Yao could hide it.
A tear.
Single. Silent. Gone in a breath.
Was she feeling bad for killing them?
Absurd. Yao, who radiated indifference. Who treated suffering as entertainment and death as inconvenience. Who had spent three years doing nothing while children trained and died around her.
But the tear was real.
Maybe there was more beneath the surface.
It didn't make her less dangerous. Less unpredictable. Less terrifying.
But it made her something closer to human.
They walked deeper into the Sect, following Yao's lead. The elders' quarters. The technique libraries. Pavilions that housed forbidden artifacts.
All of it fell.
All of it yielded treasures without resistance.
Nothing here could survive proximity to whatever Yao was.
Finally, they reached the Sect Master's peak.
The architecture here felt different—grander, more deliberate. Every surface carried weight. This was where the leader had lived. Where the most powerful practitioner had spent their days.
The innermost chamber was smaller than expected.
Simple furnishings. Clean lines. The aesthetics of someone beyond material display.
In the center, a figure sat.
Mostly contaminated—his body carried the same corruption twisting everyone else. But his face retained color. His eyes held awareness. His posture held something the others had lost.
He opened his eyes as they entered.
The children tensed. Xīng Hé's hand moved toward her space pouch.
He didn't attack.
"Please," he said.
His voice was rough, unused. But clear.
"End this."
Yao looked at him.
Neither moved. Two beings from different worlds, different paths—both carrying burdens grown too heavy.
Then Yao walked to his side.
She drew his sword—a blade that had probably been with him since youth, grown alongside him through every cultivation stage. She held it with respect that seemed foreign to everything Xīng Hé knew about her.
"I'm sorry," Yao said.
She bowed slightly.
And ended him.
The children watched in silence.
They had never seen Yao show real emotion. Only tired boredom, lazy amusement, profound indifference. This was different.
"We should go," Yao said, straightening. Her voice had flattened again. "But we have unfinished business first."
She turned to face the two children who had found her in the outer district. The ones who had brought her here. The ones who had eaten meat from contaminated beasts.
"You've been contaminated," she said.
The words dropped like stones.
"What?" one gasped. "But we—we cooked it, we purified it using the methods—"
"Purifying beast meat isn't the same as purifying contaminated beast meat."
No cruelty in Yao's voice. Just observation.
"Did you think you could cleanse something that turned an entire civilization into this?"
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End of Chapter 58