"Do you think I’m some pure and upright righteous maiden like Nangong Xi?!"
"If it buys me time for my comeback, what does my virginity or chastity mark matter if I give it to you?"
"Yino, if you want it, come take it! I admit I was careless earlier. Now that I’ve fallen into your hands, the winner is king and the loser is prey. This body was already spoils you seized, so do whatever you want with it!"
"But don’t forget, once the flower poison wears off, no matter how you humiliate me, I’ll fight you again. Then we settle it with life and death!"
The more Ruzhi spoke, the more madly she laughed. Even so, Yino still caught a trace of fear in her eyes.
The world called her the double-pupiled demoness, but in the end, she was still a young half human girl. How could she truly erase her humanity and obey the law of the strong devouring the weak without hesitation?
Only...
For Ruzhi, she would fear violation like any ordinary girl. She would fear having the most precious first time of her life taken so casually. But compared with those things outside herself, she held a belief in her heart important enough to overcome that fear.
That belief was the Dao she cultivated.
For that Dao, she could kill people for treasures and refine their blood and bones. Now that she had gambled and lost, she could naturally accept the loss and give up her virginity.
Thinking of this, Yino almost laughed from anger.
"Ruzhi, Oh Ruzhi. Is nodding and admitting defeat really that hard?"
As he spoke, Yino raised his hand and gently stroked the girl’s face, quietly wiping away a tear at the corner of her eye.
His voice was no longer cold and threatening. It softened instead.
Ruzhi looked into his eyes. Something sealed in her heart seemed to stir, and the sickly cold smile on her face faded a little.
"I can’t lose."
She murmured to herself. Her double pupils lost focus and turned empty, as if some instinctive defense had been triggered.
Yino raised a brow, cupped the girl’s face in both hands, and kept his gentle gaze fixed on her eyes. "Why?"
"I am the bearer of ancient double pupils. I am Lord Dragon Sovereign’s spiritual embryo. I am the only hope left for the future of the Eastern Sea dragon clan. I am destined to stand at the peak of immortal cultivation and look down on all living beings. For cultivation, I must use any means necessary, even if I have to abandon everything and stake it all..."
".... Isn’t it lonely to live like that?"
Yino’s sudden question cut off the girl’s repeating thoughts by force.
Ruzhi woke as if from a dream, her double pupils widening.
"Even if you really stand at the peak of immortality and look down on all living beings, then what? What does that change? Won’t you be lonely?"Yino asked again.
"I..."
Ruzhi could not answer. Her double pupils trembled. "I... I don’t know..."
It was as if the logic chain at the deepest layer of her mind had snapped. The will that had refused to bend even in death was shaken by Yino with ease.
Seeing this, Yino knew he had succeeded, and the corner of his mouth lifted in secret.
But just as he was about to keep persuading Ruzhi to wake up, a black-purple evil curse pattern appeared between her brows.
[Wen Ruzhi, do you know that your ancient double pupils were a karmic opportunity won only by sacrificing thousands upon thousands of your clansmen’s lives?]
A woman’s sharp reprimand rang through her mind.
In an instant, Ruzhi’s mind seemed to be struck by lightning. Her body shuddered, and the double pupils that had begun to clear now burned with endless fighting spirit again.
"Noooooo!!!"
She shouted in fury and covered her face with both hands. Between her fingers, two strange black-purple lights emerged from her ancient double pupils.
Crack!!!
The huge dharma idol of the ancient double pupils returned to the world, hanging high above the nine heavens of this double-pupil world as it looked down on the scorched earth of the ancient battlefield.
"You tell me to admit defeat, but how would you know what I’ve gone through to reach this point!"
"I have shed more sweat and effort than you. I bear far more pain and karma than you!"
"I should be stronger than you. I was always meant to be the strongest among our generation!"
"Yino, tell me. I carry countless threads of karma, so why should I admit defeat to you? Am I supposed to deny the entire path of immortality I’ve walked for more than ten years?"
Her terrifying Emptiness Refining stage cultivation surged again. The double-pupiled demoness from the past broke free of the illusion’s suppression completely and descended once more into this double-pupil world with divine pressure from above.
Yino looked up at her in silence. At last, he felt the last of his patience wear away.
He raised his hand and recalled the demon blade. At the same time, he released his ancient true phoenix bloodline again, and the six paths dharma circled around him.
"But if you still lose in the end, then by the principle that the winner is king and the loser is prey, wouldn’t that also prove that the immortal path you’ve believed in all this time was wrong from beginning to end?"
Yino’s voice was cold. In midair, he bent his limbs and gathered strength, his body poised for a charging dive like a drawn bow.
High in the skey, the purple-eyed girl gasped for breath. Black blood overflowed from the corners of her eyes, but her clenched teeth carried a will to win stronger than ever.
"Ridiculous! In a head-on fight, I can’t possibly lose to you again!"
As she roared, an abyssal rift formed behind Ruzhi again, and the phantom of the ancient mirage dragon howled within it as it appeared.
The two dharma collided once more.
This time, Yino no longer spared his body from the backlash of the black curse seal. He let the endless resentment and battle will from the depths of the Demon Abyss dungeon surge into his heart.
For a moment, scenes from the ancient war between dragons and phoenixes flashed before Yino’s eyes like a lantern reel.
He saw his younger sister from that past life being hanged in public. He saw his former mentor standing at the very rear of the dragon clan’s ranks...
These are... mother’s memories?!
Yino’s heart tightened. The hatred from the source of his bloodline was so dark and venomous that it nearly broke past the limit his primordial spirit could bear.
In an instant, demonic flames burst around Yino in three successive waves, and his cultivation surged past the limit of the Emptiness Refining stage.
So this is why I don’t want to risk my life against people lightly. I’m afraid of being devoured by the resentment in my bloodline and repeating the death script of He Yino’s original character!