Volume 4: Immeasurable
Leaving the Mountain.
Snake Mountain was just an isolated island hidden in the North Sea, not particularly vast. Soaring high in the sky, one could already see the distant coastline.
Tonight was the night of the full moon, when the Heavenly Fire poison would assault the Yi Bird’s heart meridian. Just a moment ago, the memory seal within Chao Yun’s body had been forcibly destroyed by You Yan, which had also severely damaged the Yi Bird’s heart and soul. Without a doubt, the Yi Bird was now gravely injured.
You Yan’s cultivation level1 was already much higher than the Yi Bird’s to begin with, and now he was flying at full speed in his demon form. How could the heavily wounded Yi Bird possibly catch up?
Sure enough, just as Yi Qiu expected, they hadn’t been flying for long before You Yan had put a significant distance between himself and the Yi Bird.
But is the time gained by this distance really enough for You Yan to break the barrier sealing the mountain?
“You Yan, how are you doing?” Yi Qiu shifted, leaning against the back of the Qinyuan Bird’s neck and asking with concern, “Can you still hold on?”
“You don’t trust me that much?” You Yan couldn’t help but tease.
Hearing his relaxed tone, it seemed he was fine.
Yi Qiu instantly breathed a sigh of relief. She quickly pressed herself against the Qinyuan’s neck and mumbled, “I’m just concerned about you! I’m afraid of tiring you out!”
You Yan asked, “Then why don’t you get off my back and carry me and Chao Yun instead?”
Yi Qiu was momentarily speechless. While hugging Chao Yun, she rolled a white eye2 that You Yan couldn’t possibly see and said, “You know perfectly well I can’t carry you!”
You Yan let out a soft chuckle.
Yi Qiu pouted, feeling she had lost a bit of face3.
She pondered for a moment, then, as if pushed by ghosts and gods4, she reached out and stroked the soft nape of the Qinyuan’s5 neck.
The next second, she saw the Qinyuan instinctively shrink its neck. Unable to hold it in, she let out a puchi6 of laughter.
“Don’t mess around…”
“What? You’re allowed to touch me, but I’m not allowed to touch you?” Yi Qiu said, stretching her arm forward to stroke the feathers on the Qinyuan Bird’s head.
“…”
“What? Are you embarrassed?”
“…”
Yi Qiu never would have thought that You Yan could have moments of embarrassment.
Such a big Qinyuan, getting all withdrawn just like that. Doesn’t that make me, the culprit, feel so “embarrassed”?
Yi Qiu thought for a moment, then crawled closer to You Yan’s neck and said softly, “You Yan, once we’re back in the Demon Realm, I’ll follow you and train properly. When I get stronger in the future, I’ll be able to carry you too!”
Although she had no desire to be anyone’s mount, she was definitely willing to help if it meant she could be of use when You Yan was weak.
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is, it absolutely is! I have to be able to help you someday!”
“No matter how much you train, you’ll never be as fast as me,” You Yan said, twisting the knife a little deeper. “It’s useless on a normal day, and you won’t be of any use in a critical moment.”
“…” Can we still be friends here?
Yi Qiu fell silent for a short moment. When she came to her senses, she subconsciously turned to look behind her, only to see that the Yi Bird had vanished at some point.
“You Yan, the Yi Bird’s gone…” Yi Qiu couldn’t help but ask. “Did… did she stop chasing us?”
“If I’m determined to escape, how could she possibly catch me?” You Yan retorted.
“But she just gave up like that?”
No matter how she thought about it, that didn’t seem reasonable.
Interfering with the tribulation of the Golden Crow and Fusang, taking advantage of a moment of weakness to imprison the Wood God Goumang—either one of these was a grave crime. If Chao Yun escaped today and one day remembered everything, once she met with Luo Mingyuan and Jiang Yuyao, the Heavenly Realm would surely hold the Yi Bird accountable.
Even a cornered beast7 can erupt with terrifying power in a moment of desperation. Could it be that her injuries were already so severe that she was powerless to resist?
As Yi Qiu was thinking this, she suddenly saw an incredibly bright, five-colored spiritual light8 flare up in the dim distance.
She instinctively raised a hand to cover her eyes. Only after adjusting to the glare did she stare, stunned, at the piercing light source.
Although she knew very little about the magical arts of this world, she could still feel that the spiritual light was anything but ordinary…
She watched the five-colored spiritual light lose its brilliance, bit by bit. It merged with the night, no longer resembling a rainbow, but rather a bizarre, monstrous fog that devoured heaven and earth. It grew more distorted in the distant night sky, like a huge abstract oil painting had been pasted onto the heavens. Just looking at it from afar felt incredibly oppressive.
What the hell9 kind of description is that?!
Yi Qiu couldn’t help but slap her own forehead.
When she looked in that direction again, she saw black smoke and the color of blood gradually seeping into the twisted, colorful mist.
That strange feeling felt somewhat familiar, yet she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was.
An indescribable sense of oppression slammed into her heart.
The scent of blood. She could smell the scent of blood.
The demon spirits10 of Snake Mountain instantly fell into chaos, scattering and fleeing in a panic.
Yi Qiu saw something being sucked out of their bodies by that twisted, colorful mist.
At the same time, a suction force pulled her slightly in that direction, only to be immediately blocked by the protective spiritual energy You Yan had deployed.
“What is the Yi Bird doing?!” Yi Qiu cried out in alarm.
You Yan was silent for a moment before saying, “She’s gone mad.”
“Mad?” Yi Qiu’s eye twitched.
What do you mean, mad? Hasn’t that Yi Bird always been completely insane?
“She can’t control herself anymore.” As You Yan’s voice fell, he had already carried Yi Qiu to one of Snake Mountain’s coastlines.
The mountain-sealing barrier before them had also changed due to the Yi Bird’s “madness.”
The five-colored radiance that once enveloped Snake Mountain had become a strange mist tainted with black smoke and the stench of blood.
Yi Qiu’s heart gave a gedeng11. She violently recalled where she had encountered this familiar feeling before.
“Demonic energy12! That’s demonic energy!”
“Right. Hold on tight!”
As You Yan spoke, he leaned his body back slightly.
Yi Qiu was shocked. She quickly wrapped one arm around Chao Yun and held on tightly to the Qinyuan Bird’s neck with the other.
The Qinyuan Bird flapped its dark red wings, whipping up a massive ball of eerie green spiritual light in front of it, a light that was also mixed with black smoke and the color of blood.
She was right. This was demonic energy.
You Yan was born a demon, so it was perfectly normal for him to use demonic energy. But how could the Yi Bird wield it?
“She… she’s fallen into demonhood13?”
“Those with a weak mind will naturally be disturbed by a heart-devil14. She wants to use the power of demons to deal with me,” You Yan said coolly, blasting a huge hole in the mountain-sealing barrier before them.
The next second, he flew through the hole and escaped.
Yi Qiu frantically looked back behind her. She saw the Yi Bird let out a piercing shriek as it shot into the sky, its entire body now tainted with demonic energy, chasing after them at a terrifying speed.
“You Yan, she’s catching up!”
“She can’t control her inner demon, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless… she devours the thousands of demon spirits on Snake Mountain and uses that power to calm her mind…”
Yi Qiu looked down in astonishment.
The one who had spoken wasn’t You Yan, but Chao Yun, who was still in her arms.
Seeing Chao Yun struggle to sit up, Yi Qiu quickly helped her. Propping up her own weak body, Chao Yun stood unsteadily on the Qinyuan’s back. She looked at the Yi Bird and raised her hands, as if about to form a hand seal.
The novel once wrote that when Goumang descended to the mortal realm, he sealed his own divine power15 to evade the Heavenly Realm’s surveillance. If he insisted on using his divine power before the seal was lifted, it would surely damage his spiritual veins16.
But right now, You Yan, whose spiritual power was severely depleted, was certainly in no state to fight the Yi Bird who had already fallen into demonhood. The only one left who could stop the Yi Bird was Chao Yun.
“Chao Yun, you…” For a moment, Yi Qiu didn’t know if she should stop her.
“She was not supposed to become this…”
As Chao Yun spoke, the hand seal at her fingertips was complete.
A gentle spiritual light sprinkled from her fingertips toward the isolated island behind them, which was being eroded by demonic energy.
That spiritual light looked so faint, yet it gently caressed the incomparably bizarre demonic mist.
For a moment, Yi Qiu couldn’t believe her eyes.
She saw the giant Yi Bird freeze in mid-air, and the bizarre, five-colored demonic mist suddenly began to slowly disperse in the night sky.
And the vast autumn scenery beneath her, at that very moment, transformed into the vibrant green of spring.
Chao Yun stood beside Yi Qiu, her braided long hair undone by her spiritual power, fluttering in the wind against the bright night sky.
The spiritual light illuminated her slender figure, making her white robes seem as pure as if they were borrowed from the moonlight. Even the demonic energy surrounding the Yi Bird was completely suppressed by the spiritual light from her fingertips.
But the next second, Chao Yun suddenly lost her strength and collapsed into Yi Qiu’s arms.
“Chao Yun!” Caught off guard, Yi Qiu was pushed into a sitting position by the sudden weight.
Before she even had time to worry about Chao Yun’s injuries, she heard the Yi Bird’s mournful cry from the distance.
This time, it was no longer the boundless rage from before, but more like a question, an accusation.
She spread her five-colored wings, as if wanting to give chase, but she was entangled and bound by a surge of demonic energy, finally plummeting downward.
Having lost the suppression of Chao Yun’s spiritual power, it seemed she could no longer control that demonic energy.
“What happened to the Yi Bird?” Yi Qiu asked blankly. “Is she not going to be able to catch up?”
The Qinyuan Bird glanced back, its eyes filled with cold indifference.
“If she’s still willing to devour the power of the demon spirits on Snake Mountain, she should be able to catch up soon enough,” You Yan said, flying toward the horizon without a backward glance.
Yi Qiu looked at Chao Yun, whose brows were tightly furrowed in her arms. In the howling wind, she heard her seeming to mutter something and couldn’t help but lean her ear closer.
“Don’t… leave her behind…”
Don’t leave her behind? Is Chao Yun talking about that Yi Bird?
Yi Qiu opened her mouth, as if wanting to tell You Yan what Chao Yun had said, but when the words reached her lips, she swallowed them back down forcefully.
This couldn’t be considered selfish of me. After all, even if You Yan knew what Chao Yun said, he definitely wouldn’t go back to care whether that Yi Bird lived or died.
Besides, so what if it’s selfish? Who would want to save a creature that hurt them?
If that Yi Bird really did devour all the demon spirits on Snake Mountain, she wouldn’t be someone You Yan could handle. Fleeing as fast as possible is the right thing to do.
As she thought this, her gaze couldn’t help but drift toward the distant island in the sea, her heart pounding with anxiety, as if afraid the Yi Bird would chase them again.
But she kept watching and watching, until the island had completely vanished from her sight, and she still hadn’t seen the Yi Bird’s figure again.
She lay on the Qinyuan Bird’s back. Above her were the stars, below her was the sea. The cool wind rushing against her face slowly cleared her chaotic thoughts, inch by inch.
The Yi Bird probably won’t be coming after us, she thought.
Because Chao Yun didn’t want her to commit such a great sin of killing17.
✨ Unlock Early Access to Chapters! ✨
Choose your perfect membership at bamboopandatl.net:
📚 Full Access ($4.99)
• Advanced chapters of ALL ongoing novels
• Access to complete finished novels
• Ad-free reading experience
📖 Single Novel Access ($1.49)
• Advanced chapters of ONE specific novel
• Ad-free reading for chosen novel
PayPal is the only current payment option!