The heavy silence in the shattered forest stretched for what felt like an eternity.
Broken trees dripped sap onto the torn bark, and the residual ozone left in the wake of the ascending pillar of light hissed like dying serpents in the cold night air.
Xu Xiansu stood entirely motionless upon the branch, her knuckles, white as bleached bone, slowly regained their color as the blood began to circulate once more.
Her chest rose and fell in a sharp, shallow breath, her bangs casting a jagged shadow over her eyes.
Beside her, Xia Mengyao's pupils remained wide, locked onto her companion with an expression of stunned bewilderment.
That signature, the interlocking resonance of primeval solar brilliance and eternal lunar stillness, had not been a mere echo or a clever counterfeit.
It was the undeniable pulse of Xu Xiansu's soul, along with the hint of the Sun Moon Divine Physique, carrying an ancient density that even Xiansu herself had not yet fully unlocked in this lifetime.
