"What's happening!"
King Jongliean's eyes flew wide open. The royal guards had helped carry his bed inside the central alchemy palace to shelter him there. The violent clash outside had been loud enough for anyone to hear, and on top of that, the surge of power radiating from that eerie black projectile gave even a dying old man like him goosebumps.
Because it resembled something he knew...
...The very power that had left a wound in the center of his chest for so many long years!
The magic of the Ancient Demons!
"Why would my second son..."
King Jongliean was thoroughly bewildered, and he was not the only one. The Palace's disciples, Luo Qingyan above all, her face drained of color, rushed toward Bai Fanxian, who had just been struck. The words Bai Fanxian had spoken only moments ago came flooding back into Luo Qingyan's mind, one scene after another.
"It's a process that demands intense focus..."
"There are Tier-7 alchemists who, once disturbed badly enough to shatter their own qi..."
"...were never able to form a Qi Raiment again for the rest of their lives."
"Lady Bai!?"
On the other side, the Second Prince became the focus of every eye almost at once. He kept standing perfectly still, a cold glint lingering in his gaze. His eyes moved to the medicine being refined, then to the body of his elder brother by blood, and finally met those of his own father, who was filled with incomprehension.
"...You... why are you doing this?"
King Jongliean's voice sounded years older.
Could his son want the throne?
Was that why he had come to strike, to keep his elder brother's treatment from succeeding?
No...
If that were so, there would have been no need at all for him to act in person like this...
"..."
But all he received in return was his son's silence. The old man tightened his fists. Yang Fujiu, who understood what the King meant to convey, quickly turned and gave orders to the royal guards around them.
"Take the Second Prince into custody!"
"Yes, sir!"
But then.
"...All of you, back off."
Fwoosh!
Before the guards could so much as move, two figures shot in from behind the Palace at tremendous speed, one red and one blue, weaving together like comets and leaving a trail of ice crystals and crimson flame in their wake. They were Tang Yeye and Hui'er, their eyes filled with fury.
Rumble...
A pair of blue wings, larger than ever before, spread wide enough to nearly blot out the dark clouds overhead. Without a trace of hesitation, Tang Yeye sighted along the barrel of a white sniper rifle. The wave of cold radiating from it was dyeing the air white, and even those of the Sage class felt such menace that their Intent screamed.
That attack...
...could kill even them in a single blow!
"Quick, get out of the way!"
The crowd below scattered to either side. The Second Prince, too, felt the hair rise across his body, which meant his own instincts were likewise warning him to get away from here as fast as he could!
"..."
But before he could even start to move, Hui'er appeared silently behind him. Both of his blackened arms rose of their own accord, crossing in front of his chest without any command from him, and by the time he understood anything, his body was already flying through the air and sinking into the Palace wall!
What... was that?
The Second Prince's eyes went wide. This pair of arms was something he had received from that person, yet now they were twisted out of shape, struck by something he had not been able to see coming. Worse, they bore large burns that stung so fiercely he had to struggle to hide his reaction even as sweat poured from him.
And when he lifted his head and turned, what he saw was a little girl wrapped in blazing red flame. Sparks from her body melted the ice around her. Even from several meters away, he felt threatened the moment she took a single step toward him.
Her gaze was so utterly flat that it hardly seemed like something a child could produce. The Second Prince could easily imagine that even if she drove that small hand through his chest and tore his heart from its root, she would not so much as frown or blink!
"...Die."
Hui'er's word, light as a whisper, sounded like a death sentence being pronounced. Tang Yeye, up in the sky, pulled the trigger, and her wings flared and beat from the force. A beam of white light several meters across tore through the air toward the ground, sending people fleeing in frantic panic.
BOOM!
When Tang Yeye's attack struck the ground, it formed a colossal pillar of ice. A violent wind swept the freezing mist that had clouded everyone's sight away entirely.
Tang Yeye dispelled her power and descended to stand beside Hui'er. The pair, one yin and one yang, held the onlookers' eyes completely captive, but the two little girls paid not the slightest attention to anyone else's gaze, because the only thing in their sight now was the man who had hurt their lady.
But then.
Once the mist had cleared, there was no trace of the Second Prince. At the same moment, the Heaven Sense of both girls picked up a strange current of energy that had appeared somewhere above the rooftop.
"What an interesting child..."
The voice that rang out belonged to a young woman in the full bloom of youth. Hui'er flicked her gaze upward and met the eyes of a woman in robes so loose and voluminous that they hardly seemed fit for moving freely. Slung across her shoulder was the Second Prince, who appeared to have lost consciousness.
"...You!?"
King Jongliean, not far away, was trembling all over. Now that the story was coming together in his mind, he glared in anger at the young woman smiling down at him.
"Your Majesty... you've disappointed me, you know?"
"..."
"After all that my *Wild Bloom* did to help and look after both you and the Crown Prince?"
Yes.
The one who had appeared could be none other than the Wild Bloom Sect Head!
Her appearance was shrouded in mystery. She cast a glance at the bodies of her own sect's disciples lying unconscious and scattered across the ground, with a look no one could read.
With a sharp snap of her fingers, black flames appeared out of thin air, swallowing their bodies and reducing them to ashes without even a chance to scream for mercy. The power that remained in those disciples' bodies turned into green light and flowed into her, spilling faintly out of her form.
"Wasn't the medicine I gave you good enough... that you had to go looking for a new alchemist like this?"
A smile still adorned the Wild Bloom Sect Head's face. Her barbed words left King Jongliean gritting his teeth, unable to argue back.
"That..."
"...You call those *curses* medicine?"
But at that very moment, a distinctive, even voice rang out from behind them. Before anyone realized it, Bai Fanxian, who should have been collapsed on the ground right there, had reappeared without a single scratch on her. Her hands were still steadily channeling qi into her own enormous cauldron, which meant the refinement had not failed and was proceeding without a hitch!
"Lady Bai!?"
Luo Qingyan's face was full of joy. When she looked behind Bai Fanxian, she found the mysterious object, Bai Fanxian's Qi Raiment, still perfectly intact. Tang Yeye and Hui'er, sensing the familiar current of power, came to their senses at once. The two little girls rushed joyfully back to their lady's side, the border offering no obstruction.
Bai Fanxian gave a light nod, then turned toward the Wild Bloom Sect Head, on whose face no smile remained.
Curses...
It was a curse she knew well.
Because it was the very same curse Zhu Jinming's wife was suffering... in other words, the vile life-draining curse that had once been wiped out ten thousand years ago!
At first she had only felt a sense of familiarity and had not been entirely sure. That was because the Crown Prince's body bore no seal on the heart, the mark that ought to have been sending its owner's power on to a target.
But the Crown Prince himself was the target, the one being sent life force!
The *oh-so-wondrous medicine* that Wild Bloom had falsely claimed and used to keep the Crown Prince alive for so long had, in the end, simply turned his body into a target that drew power from elsewhere. As long as the connection was not severed, he could go on living for ten years, or a hundred!
"...Who exactly are you?"
The Wild Bloom Sect Head stared at Bai Fanxian with wary suspicion. Hardly anyone, even within her own sect, knew of this curse. How could Bai Fanxian, who had appeared out of nowhere in such mysterious fashion, possibly know of it?
"...I guessed right, didn't I?"
Bai Fanxian paid no attention to the question. She swept her hand out to the side, and the border of the Goddess Alchemy Palace answered with a shuddering rumble. Countless characters flowed into layered arrays, and without anyone needing an explanation, it was clear what they were for. They would keep anyone she had not permitted from leaving!
"...You mean to stand in my way?"
The Wild Bloom Sect Head glanced over without any emotion. There was no trace of worry on her face as a current of black power slowly circulated out from the tips of her feet, lifting her body into the air along with the Second Prince.
"...I've got a lot of questions for you."
BOOM!
An enormous bolt of red lightning, born of the border's power, gathered at high speed and slammed down on the two of them without a flicker of hesitation, so fiercely that King Jongliean, who still felt the bond of a father, went deathly pale.
Its force could grind a Sage to dust!
Whoosh!
But beneath the cloud of smoke left by the strike, a pair of black wings appeared out of thin air. They spread wide on both sides, black feathers drifting scattered across the sky.
"Now this is truly interesting... but a border like this won't stop me."
Accompanying her words, an immense pressure burst outward, enough to make even the Palace's border tremble!
"W-why?"
"...It's like an Ancient Demon is standing right in front of us."
The townspeople who had come to watch the spectacle felt as though they were walking down the path of death. Before they knew it, the woman's image had mesmerized them and taken deep root in their minds.
Long white hair, gleaming and loose, contrasted with the jet-black wings. A shattered crown sat tilted on her head as though it were a mere ornament. The baggy robe that had once looked so unkempt, now fluttering in the wind, strangely suited her as she was in this moment.
"...The wings and the cracked crown."
"According to the legends... there's no mistake."
Among the onlookers there were bound to be some who studied ancient history. One old man fumbled in a panic as he pulled out the old records he always carried tucked in the fold of his robe, unfolding them while swallowing hard.
The page stopped at an image drawn in black ink. Though incomplete, it captured the distinguishing features in full.
"One of the Seventy-Two Ancient Demons..."
The Angel Who Fell from Heaven
Astaroth!