249: Chapter 249 But she was too tired.

She knew this world was sliding toward an irreversible collapse.

She knew countless people were dying.

She knew that after Jiang Luoli awakened, she had been frantically searching everywhere for Su Chen's whereabouts.

She even knew about the past between Su Chen and the trio of Zhuge Jinyu, Cang Mingyue, and Ye Jingjun.

She also knew...

That her own shell, which seemed as powerful as ever,

Was already riddled with holes, a lamp running out of oil.

Before Su Chen appeared in her line of sight,

There were only two things in the entire High Martial World that she could not perceive.

One was Su Chen himself, and the other was the ice soul mirror he had left for her.

According to her deductions, these two things must have been shielded by some power from a higher dimension.

This was the reason why she always kept the ice soul mirror by her side and had been driven to a mad fury after losing it.

But then again,

Her inner thoughts regarding imprisoning Su Chen here

Had always been very simple.

These days would be the final moments in her life

Where she could have him all to herself, accompany him, and feel his true warmth and heartbeat.

Talk of a wedding in ten days, or of eternal imprisonment and intimacy—

Naturally, it was all to deceive him.

To deceive this little man she had loved for two lifetimes, whose current cultivation was still too shallow to see through the fact that her life's fire was about to be extinguished.

How could she have any 'eternity' left?

Even ten days would likely be a very, very difficult stretch.

Having seen his radiant glory in his past life,

How could she bear to truly lock him away forever in this dark, sunless underground palace,

Clipping his wings

And snuffing out the light in his eyes?

A thousand years ago, amidst the soaring flames of the Star-Plucking Tower,

She had carried his cold body and slaughtered all the immortals and gods.

She returned alone to this devastated mortal realm.

From that moment on, Su Daji's existence became tightly bound to the survival of this plane.

After slaughtering the gods, she became the only true 'Transcendent' of this world.

After the Investiture War ended, the immortal paths of this world were severed.

Su Daji had forcibly ascended to the supreme height by devouring half the incense and power of prayer from the Heavenly Court and sacrificing the soul of her beloved, and she personally buried the old order of the Heavenly Dao.

To fulfill her promise to Su Chen, she had no choice but to temporarily take its place.

She became the 'keystone' that maintained the operation of the newborn Heavenly Dao.

In a sense, since Su Chen's death, she had become the fragile personified avatar of this plane's Heavenly Dao.

Though she lived within the world, she also hung outside of it.

Using her supreme power, she barely held the plane's barriers together, resisting the filthy things peering and eroding from the endless void.

Being such a being, she was almost omniscient regarding everything that happened in the main world.

After Su Chen reappeared,

She could even clearly see the karmic curves entwined around this man.

Zhuge Jinyu, Ye Jingjun, Cang Mingyue, Jiang Luoli...

And even others.

How could she not know of those deep obsessions?

If she didn't know, if she didn't care,

Why would she need to use such a fierce and paranoid method to lock him by her side?

It was a punishment for him attracting so many romantic debts.

And in this punishment,

How much was jealousy, and how much was resentment?

And how much was the pitiful longing for him to look at her more, knowing her time was short?

Even she herself could no longer tell.

In fact, as early as a thousand years ago,

The High Martial main world had already experienced its first collision with the spatial plane where the 'monsters'—viewed as humanity's greatest threat since the era of Spiritual Energy Recovery—resided.

At that time, human civilization was still in the ignorant era of agriculture and cold weapons.

Civilization was too fragile.

Faced with this dimensional erosion that surpassed all understanding, they had no power to resist.

It was she who forcibly channeled her own vast Demonic Power as a Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox.

With her body alone,

She blocked the 'crack' that first formed between those two planes.

This blockage lasted for nine hundred years.

During those nine hundred years, Great Xia and human civilization went from the weakness of the Song Dynasty through the Yuan-Mongol iron cavalry,

And then to the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Civilization developed slowly and tortuously through the dark middle ages.

Meanwhile, Su Daji stood guard alone at the unknown dimensional rift.

Using herself as a shield, she endured the constant scouring and pressure from that monster plane.

Her power, which originally transcended the realm of the plane, was slowly and continuously consumed in the confrontation.

Her cultivation, which was enough to sacrifice the entire Immortal Realm to the heavens, slowly slipped down to the level of the Fourteenth Stage.

Only slightly higher than the Thirteenth Stage Transcendence Realm.

Her life essence was worn away bit by bit in the long war of attrition.

Loneliness.

Exhaustion.

Pain.

The longing for Su Chen.

Day and night, they tormented her soul.

Many times,

She fell to the brink of power depletion and blurred consciousness.

In those moments, she wanted to let go.

To let the two planes collide and annihilate each other.

To let everything return to nothingness.

That way, she could go and find him.

But.

Whenever that thought surfaced,

The scene of the fire at the Star-Plucking Tower would flash before her eyes.

His final look toward her.

Those gentle and relieved eyes.

His low, raspy instructions would always ring in her ears.

The vision of 'every person like a dragon,' and the promise to protect this world.

Even though she had already seen through it—

That the promise was likely just a kind lie he wove so she would live on in peace.

"At least..."

"Keep this world he once cared about around for a little longer."

Holding onto that thought,

She squeezed out every last drop of power from her body time and again.

She barely glued the damaged plane barriers back together.

She firmly blocked out the seeping aura of the monsters.

Until three hundred years ago, the spark of human civilization finally reached the Industrial Age.

Their use of energy and understanding of the world took a qualitative leap.

Since the immortal paths were severed after the Investiture War, individuals who could sense and utilize 'spiritual energy' finally began to appear sporadically.

At that time, Su Daji,

During her long vigil,

Finally saw a glimmer of hope belonging to the living beings of this world themselves.

She was too tired.

So tired that even maintaining consciousness became difficult.

Thus, shortly after the Industrial Age began, she carefully withdrew a tiny bit of the power suppressing the plane's crack.

A negligible little hole finally appeared between the main plane and the monster world.

She thought,

Let the people of this world feel the threat from beyond for themselves.

Only by growing through blood and fire can a civilization truly awaken.

Only then can they truly walk the path of survival by relying on their own strength.

And she,

Perhaps she could catch her breath for a moment.

Perhaps she could have more energy to do other things.

For instance...

Aimlessly searching for the traces of her King's reincarnation, scattered who knows where.

Sure enough,

Once the floodgates of the plane collision were opened, its development far exceeded her initial estimates.

'Spiritual Energy Recovery' swept the globe at an astonishing speed, and the main plane slowly began to upgrade into a High Martial World.

While it brought people power, it also brought greater chaos and more violent collisions.

Even some small worlds merged into the main world along with the recovery of spiritual energy.

(Reward update progress 65/99)

(This isn't May Day, this isn't May Day, right? Why is it so cold? QWQ)