Chapter 337

Chapter 337: Burned Qi Yan to his heart’s content

The blow neared the edge of the Formation. The barrier was small; in only a few more meters it would slice straight through to hit her. The Contracted Beasts’ hearts leaped into their throats. Shen Sang Ruo looked calm, but she was not calm at all inside.

Right then, the strike that should have slipped cleanly through the Formation slammed into a barrier that appeared out of nowhere and broke apart on the spot.

Qi Yan’s eyes flew wide. Before he could say “How can this be,” Shen Sang Ruo’s Glazed Flame streamed through the Formation. Right after it came the attacks from the Dodder Flower Sprite and the other two. With Qi Yan’s strike gone, nothing blocked them as they shot toward him.

Still stunned that his own attack had been stopped, Qi Yan failed to dodge and was struck by the Glazed Flame. A fierce burning pain exploded across him, and shock deepened in his eyes. As one of the Five Divine Beasts, normal attacks could hardly harm him. But this fire burned like it reached into his bones.

He first thought his Divine Spark had been weakened by Devil Qi for too long, dulling his defense. But the follow-up hits from Snake Maiden and the others were not even a thousandth as strong as that Glazed Flame.

The Glazed Flame swept a wide arc. Almost half of his body felt lost in a sea of fire. He nearly dropped to his knees, sweat beading over his face. His features darkened; he had never met anything like this. His defense was fine. The problem was that flame. He was sure of it now: this was no ordinary fire.

“We’re alive, we’re alive, thank goodness,” the Dodder Flower Sprite said as it patted Kui Ox on the chest with a trembling vine, voice bursting with relief.

“Moo moo moo!” Kui Ox yanked its hooves up to guard its chest and bellowed in protest. It seemed to say: Don’t you have your own chest? Why are you patting mine? How indecent!

“If I had one, would I need yours?” the Dodder Flower Sprite grumbled, sounding very wronged. “I’m just a vine.”

Snake Maiden, more proper than the other two, asked in a low voice: “Why did that Formation help us by blocking his attack?”

Shen Sang Ruo answered with a thoughtful look: “Even if Devil Qi has stained him, he is still a Qilin, one of the Five Divine Beasts. They hold the highest authority, and that comes with limits. The Five Divine Beasts belong to the righteous side. The Heavenly Dao gave them the power to guard the Cultivation World. To stop them from rebelling or crowning themselves kings, there are restrictions. I don’t know the details, but I’m sure of this: Qi Yan cannot kill me if I am not evil. That Formation should be a judgment Formation that weighs good and evil. And from how it went, I guessed right.”

The Dodder Flower Sprite puffed up with pride and said with a swagger: “See? She said she isn’t Ya Lan, but you didn’t believe it.”

Just then, the Formation’s verdict arrived. It burst with bright gold light, so pure it almost blinded them. The purer the gold, the more righteous the judged person was; the darker the black, the more evil.

The result showed Shen Sang Ruo as righteous to the extreme. The “Little Black” within her, refined and changed, was essentially different from Ya Lan. The worst thing it had done was sneak energy clumps when she wasn’t looking. She passed the judgment with ease.

Qi Yan, sweating through the burn, stared at that shining verdict. Even he had never seen one so bright. The Devil Lord Ya Lan, who had committed countless crimes, could never have gotten that result. Only those judged evil were his to kill outright. That was both his right and his limit.

His face looked terrible as he said in a weak voice: “You really aren’t Ya Lan?”

Someone impersonated Ya Lan, and did it so well it fooled him again and again. His chest filled with a stuffy, helpless anger. He felt completely played.

Only then did Shen Sang Ruo and the three Demonic Beasts take in Qi Yan’s state. His face was paper white, and the burn marks on him left no doubt who had made them. The three beasts stared at Shen Sang Ruo with wide eyes. This was Qi Yan, one of the Five Divine Beasts. She had hurt him this badly. It was terrifying.

The Dodder Flower Sprite sent her a quick Voice Transmission: “You should’ve told us you could do that. Then why were we scared of him?”

Shen Sang Ruo herself was out of the loop. She had no idea her Glazed Flame was so strong against Qi Yan. She had planned to try recruiting him later. Now she had burned him like this. With his strange temper, avoiding becoming enemies would already be lucky. [I really didn’t do it on purpose.]

Qi Yan clenched his teeth and glared at the group, forcing power to smother the drilling pain. Anyone could feel his anger. The air turned oddly still, as if it had frozen.

The Dodder Flower Sprite shrank into Shen Sang Ruo’s hair and muttered, trying to sound brave: “This wasn’t our fault. We told you she wasn’t Ya Lan. This was self defense. Even if you’re a Qilin, you should be reasonable. Warning you, don’t do anything crazy.”

As the pain slowly faded, Qi Yan steadied himself. A flash of surprise crossed his eyes, but the fierce look returned. He drew a cruel smile and said to Shen Sang Ruo with a strange excitement: “Keep burning me.”

The clearing fell into an even stranger silence. Shen Sang Ruo and the three Demonic Beasts stared at him in confusion. [What did he just say?]

Seeing their blank faces, Qi Yan clicked his tongue and repeated, even more direct: “I told you to burn this Young Master. Do you not understand?” He added bluntly, eyes gleaming green and gold with an odd thrill: “Hurry up.”

The three beasts exchanged a look, and somehow the scene felt familiar. They all turned to stare at Kui Ox, and Kui Ox pointed a hoof at its own head, as if to say that a certain beast-to-beast contagion was happening.

“Is your masochist habit contagious?” the Dodder Flower Sprite whispered.

“Qi Yan, one of the Five Divine Beasts, likes this too?” Snake Maiden said in a serious guess, then added with a frown: “Maybe your fire burned his brain?”

Kui Ox tapped its head with a hoof as if asking, Is it broken here?

Shock rippled through Shen Sang Ruo’s chest, but she quickly smoothed it down and searched for the reason. [Guessing in my head is worse than asking him outright.] She looked at Qi Yan, who held a faint, eager light in his eyes, and asked in a steady voice: “Why do you want me to burn you? You should at least give me a reason.”