Beastmaster of the Ages

"That\'s right. I have no grudge with you, and I don\'t wish to fight you either," she said, taking a step toward Tianming with her bare foot like she was hovering toward him.

Tianming was even more confused by what she said. Why would she remove her Oldgod Ring if she didn\'t want to fight? She didn\'t even answer Shenxi Shang. "Stop messing around. If you get closer, I\'ll strike." While it wouldn\'t look good for him to beat up a girl, and he didn\'t want to add the death of another ebon genius to his name, he had to defend himself.

"I\'m sorry." She quickly approached him, her obsidian eyes shedding black, crystalline tears.

"What in the world?" She was far too odd. Tianming immediately manifested his divine wonder, turning it into nine Prime Cosmic Rings beside him. Ying Huo burned bright with infernal flames.

"Ling Feng," Shenxii Yao said, the tears on her face scattering like small, black pearls as her gaze turned firm. The golden soul eyes in her hands burst with light.

"Something\'s wrong after all!"

She charged toward him with her palms open, revealing her taixi divine eyes. Tianming knew that their most powerful ability was controlling the soul! To defeat her, he would have to be able to weather her soul attacks. Tianming had been too reliant on the Soul Tower for that. His eyes could barely miss the golden eyes on her palms; completely avoiding them was far too hard. Tianming saw a spiritform extend from each gold eye, looking exactly like Shenxii Yao herself, complete with her short dress. They charged toward him and Ying Huo respectively.

"Can she project her vita like Feng?" Ying Huo said, shocked.

"No, this isn\'t the same! These are taixi souls, symbiotes that exist alongside her vita!" Taixi divine eyes gave rise to taixi souls, allowing each of the eyes to hold a minor vita that were known as taixi souls. They were like weapons wielded by the vita and could be used to attack and defend. Even if the taixi souls were destroyed, they wouldn\'t actually perish and could always be nourished back to full health.

"How quick!" It was the first time Tianming had encountered taixi souls, so he’d slightly underestimated them. It barely felt like he had any time to react! Subconsciously, he used the cosmic impulses in the Grand-Orient Sword, but the taixi souls turned into a golden mist to bypass the Flint Infernal Impulse and reformed when they were right in front of him. In an instant, one rushed into his sea of consciousness in a similar manner to Lingfeng\'s ultimate move, or the Soulfiend\'s Soul Embrace. Another taixi soul charged into Ying Huo\'s sea of consciousness. Using his own vita, Tianming saw a golden taixi soul that looked much bigger than his vita.

"Why’s your vita so weak?" Shenxii Yao\'s voice rang in his head. As she spoke, her taixi soul approached Tianming\'s vita. When it got near enough, the Soul Tower appeared and encased his vita.

"I see.... So there\'s a soul treasure guarding your vita. There’s fewer than three of such treasures in the entire Infinitum Mundus." Shenxii Yao\'s taixi soul seemed quite astonished, but that didn\'t stop her from taking action. Her golden hands touched the Soul Tower, causing it to shudder, yet the golden mist soon subsumed the entire tower and permeated its windows, eventually filling the area around Tianming\'s vita.

"Don\'t move. I just want you to experience a pleasant dream. Fall asleep, my dear. Rejoice, for you were able to touch a girl with grade-nine soul eyes in your lifetime. That should allow you to die without regrets." Her cold voice sounded like a soothing lullaby.

"Her soul... is so powerful...." Tianming was getting drowsy. His entire sea of consciousness, his vita included, had been subsumed by her taixi soul. From the outside, Tianming\'s eyes lost color and he helplessly shut them. The bird perched above his head also looked drunk. It fell to the ground and began foaming from its mouth, its eyes completely rolled up. Who knew what pleasant dreams it was experiencing?

As Tianming slumped over, Shenxii Yao\'s slender, petite hands gently cradled him. Her shining gold soul eyes were stuck fast against his body. Illuminated by the golden light, her face looked even paler. She gently put him down to the ground and turned his head around by the chin, closely inspecting him. "Could you be Yi Daiyan\'s son? If not, I really wonder who Lin Mu could\'ve mated with to birth such a good-looking man as you."

Tianming\'s eyes were completely shut and he couldn\'t move in the slightest. There was no answer to her question, not that she expected one. She leaned down toward his ear and gently said, "Close your lifebound space. I don\'t need an audience."

Then she felt up his face with her fingers, her eyes glued to his face.

"Shenxii Yao, what’re you doing? Break his Oldgod Ring and send him back home! Even if he\'s Lin Mu\'s son, he\'s still from the Swordgod Lin Clan! There’ll be benefits to sparing his life," Shenxi Shang cried from within his mini star cage.

"Big Brother, his Oldgod Ring is blocked, so nobody can see or hear what\'s happening here," she said, smiling. As for Yi Taoyao and Shenxi Shang\'s rings, they wouldn\'t be able to broadcast anything from within the mini stars either.

"So what?"

"I\'m sure you know better than I do how I don\'t love you in the slightest, right?" she said, biting her lip with a bitter look.

"I know, but what does it matter? You\'re still young, I\'m still young... the matter of passing on our legacies is up to our seniors. We don\'t have to think about it before we\'re a thousand years old," he said.

"But you keep controlling what I do, constantly monitoring me and putting pressure on me. The control you have over me has exceeded the limits of my tolerance. Our parents, grandmother, and elder siblings keep on telling me about how important our legacy, mission, and bloodline are, but that\'s just too boring, you see?"

"It doesn\'t matter if it\'s boring. It isn\'t a matter that should be interesting, either. The real fun is when our clan and descendants control the Infinitum Mundus for all eternity. As long as we can take down Yi Daiyan and rise back to the top, the mundus is our oyster! That\'s where the fun is!" Shenxi Shang\'s tone sounded far stricter than before.

"That\'s what\'s different between you and me, you know. You\'re the model paragon of what a child of the Shenxi Clan should be, but I\'m not! I can\'t stand it! I have my own feelings. I hate you. I hate everything about you! Every day, I have to swallow my vomit whenever I think of you!" she agitatedly said, tears flowing from her cold eyes.