475: Chapter 475 A Haven for Mixed-Race

Outside the Qingyun Sect, deep within the Azure Maple Forest.

A slender figure was desperately fleeing.

Her name was Su Tang, seventeen years old, a Half-blood of a foreign race.

Her clothes were tattered, her hair disheveled, and her bare feet stepped on withered branches and jagged rocks. Her soles were already a bloody mess—yet she did not dare to stop.

She couldn't stop.

Behind her, a blood-scented wind drew closer.

'I only came out to find some food...'

She thought as she ran, her eyes stinging.

'Is it... so hard just to want to live?'

The sound of breaking branches came from behind, getting closer and closer.

'Why must they keep chasing me?'

'Why is it always me who's unlucky?'

'On what grounds?'

She remembered when she was seven years old.

When she was driven out by the villagers with stones, she had asked herself the same thing.

She remembered when she was twelve, being discovered while hiding in a ruined temple and having to continue fleeing in the rain; she had asked the same thing then too.

She remembered every time she was so hungry she felt faint, every time a wound festered, and every time she thought she wouldn't make it but did—she had asked it every single time.

No one had ever answered.

Behind her, a Yao Beast burst through the forest to attack.

A Snow-patterned Tiger, massive in size, its mouth full of fangs gleaming with a chilling light.

It stared at the fleeing figure ahead, its eyes filled with greed.

This strange-smelling blood-meal was about to be in its mouth!

It lunged.

Its bloody maw aimed straight for the girl's nape—

Su Tang's mind went blank.

It's over.

Just as the thought surfaced, before her body even had time to tremble—

Suddenly.

A crisp sword hum abruptly struck her ears.

Qiang—!

Immediately followed by a loud explosion that made her eardrums ache.

The blood-scented wind stopped dead.

The tiger's head was pierced through by a sword, its entire body sent flying by that immense force, booming as it was pinned to a giant rock thirty meters away.

The shockwave knocked Su Tang to the ground.

Her vision went dark, and she fell unconscious.

An unknown amount of time passed.

Su Tang slowly opened her eyes.

What met her eyes were dappled tree shadows and fragmented sunlight spilling through the leaves.

She was stunned for a moment, then suddenly sat up.

She looked back.

That Yao Beast was still there.

Its head was pierced by a long sword, pinned to the rock, devoid of any aura.

It was dead.

She stared blankly at that sword for a long time.

"Awake?"

A voice came from above.

Su Tang snapped her head up.

On a branch of the ancient tree stood a person.

That withered branch was so thin even a bird couldn't stand steadily on it, yet she stood there motionless, like a flake of snow fallen on the tip of a branch.

White clothes like snow, black hair like a waterfall.

Her face was covered by a layer of light veil, revealing only a pair of eyes.

Those eyes looked down at her.

No sizing her up, no scrutiny, just looking at her like that.

Like a deity looking down at the mortal realm, like an outsider watching a play that had nothing to do with them.

It was precisely Luo Lingxi.

Su Tang did not know her.

But she knew that this was definitely no ordinary person.

"I came here seeking that person's aura, I didn't expect an accidental harvest."

The voice came from behind the veil, cold as Broken Jade, showing no emotion.

She drifted down from the withered branch.

Landing three paces in front of Su Tang.

Only then did those eyes truly begin to look at her.

Her gaze moved from the tattered clothes to the disheveled hair, finally landing on those pupils that were slightly off-colored due to being a Half-blood, pausing for a moment.

Then, Su Tang saw those eyes curve slightly.

That was a smile.

"You have received my God's pity."

Su Tang was taken aback.

"Pity?"

She instinctively lowered her head, looking at her own body.

When had this body, cursed as a 'bastard' by countless people, ever been associated with the word 'pity'?

She had heard nothing but insults since she was a child.

"Of course it is pity."

"Pity that only you, only your kind, can receive."

Luo Lingxi's voice remained indifferent, as if stating a fact that needed no argument.

"Come with me."

"By that God's decree, I shall provide you with a sanctuary."

"And you shall offer everything to my God."

When Su Tang heard the word 'sanctuary', her pupils trembled slightly.

"A sanctuary..."

"Does such a thing really exist?"

Since she could remember, the concept of a sanctuary did not exist.

The Human Race despised her Bloodline, and the foreign races viewed her as a traitor.

She lived in the cracks, lived on the path of flight, lived through every night she didn't dare close her eyes.

"Of course."

Luo Lingxi's answer didn't have a hint of hesitation.

"My God is just that merciful."

"Otherwise—"

She paused, her gaze falling on the corpse of the Yao Beast.

"Why else would you have been saved?"

As she spoke, Luo Lingxi's eyes were filled with a pious fervor.

In her eyes, Qin Wangchuan was no different from a god.

Su Tang didn't understand her expression, but she understood one thing.

The one who saved her was precisely the "God" this person spoke of.

"You are?"

"The God's messenger."

"Are you coming? To the sanctuary."

A sanctuary.

Those words were too tempting.

Too many Half-bloods had met their end because of them.

But even more Half-bloods flocked to it like moths to a flame.

Su Tang was silent for a long time.

Finally, she nodded.

Before leaving, Su Tang walked to the Yao Beast's corpse.

That sword had entered through the left eye and pierced the entire skull, leaving only a section of the hilt visible.

She bent down and grasped the hilt.

She pulled hard.

With a squelch.

The sword was pulled out.

But it was broken.

The front half of the blade had been snapped by the Yao Beast's skull and was buried deep in the ground; only the back half remained in her hand.

Su Tang looked at that broken sword and was silent for a moment.

Then, she held it to her chest.

Luo Lingxi just watched, not rushing her.

Only when she held the broken sword tightly did she begin to lead the way.

"Do you have other companions?"

The girl's voice came from behind.

"I used to."

Luo Lingxi fell silent.

A moment later, her voice rang out again, slightly softer than before:

"You will have them in the future."

"Many, many companions."

The moment the broken sword was held to her chest, a thread of Karma was quietly tied.

Settling one fruit, and sowing another cause.

————————————

On the other side.

Qin Wangchuan's consciousness withdrew from his dharma body and returned to his main body.

Before he even opened his eyes, Ye Jianwei's voice reached his ears:

"Young Master! It's so magnificent!"

Although she couldn't see, she could feel it.

That overwhelming sense of pressure, that vast aura that made one's scalp tingle.

Qin Wangchuan turned his head at the sound.

Then, his eyes lit up.

Outside the carriage, overhead—a black hole hung in the firmament, swallowing all the surrounding light.

And within this absolute darkness, a vast astral orbit was slowly unfolding, as if someone were using the stars as a brush to outline something on the night sky.

The Yun Family had been reached.