Chapter 3 The Desolate Butterfly.
The devastating energy storm triggered by the system crash not only tore his soul apart but also brutally tossed half of his soul and the three golden lights into the unknown spatial turbulence.
When he regained his senses, he found himself in this bizarre and perilous forest.
Worse still, having lost the support of his original physical body, existing only as a soul, he could clearly feel his existence was like a candle flickering in the wind, his soul becoming thin and transparent, about to completely dissipate into the world.
Just as his consciousness was about to return to nothingness, one of the three golden lights that had been thrown there with him suddenly became incredibly gentle.
The light was no longer fierce and dazzling but like a babbling brook under the moon, warmly and peacefully enveloping his collapsing soul essence.
Then, the golden light slowly condensed and shaped before his eyes, finally transforming into the outline of a flawless young girl.
Silver hair, purple eyes, pointed ears, and delicate features—this was exactly what she looked like now.
It was during this process that a faint yet incredibly clear thought, accompanied by gentle kindness, was transmitted to his fading consciousness:
"Please... use my body."
There were no questions, no hesitation, only the purest and most selfless offering.
It was at this moment that Yin Chen realized the true form of this golden light.
She was Xia Die, a character from a game in his past life, the demigod of death.
She was also one of his fictional wives.
Only someone as gentle and kind as Die Bao would, upon sensing that half of his soul was on the verge of extinction, unhesitatingly choose to give up her body, offering it as a sanctuary, completely.
Yin Chen's fading consciousness was almost instinctively drawn in, like a fledgling returning to its nest, merging into the vessel opened for him.
His soul and new body quickly merged, the impending crisis instantly averted, and a grounded sense of existence returned.
However, he also clearly sensed that the instant he took over this body, Xia Die's consciousness, already weakened by the impact of the system's explosion, fell into a deep sleep.
She had given everything for his survival, including herself.
Initially, controlling two bodies with one soul caused Yin Chen immense suffering.
His body at home was stiff and mechanical; he could only stay motionless in his room. Fortunately, Uncle Hui thought he was confined to his room because of the shock of his parents' deaths.
Meanwhile, Xia Die's body in the forest repeatedly fell.
The pain from these falls was clearly felt by both his main body and Xia Die's body.
Two kinds of sight, two kinds of hearing, two kinds of touch… almost completely tangled his thoughts.
However, perhaps because his soul was forcibly split in two, some compensatory mechanism was activated.
Or perhaps, having survived an impact of the scale of a system explosion, his soul's resilience had already exceeded common sense.
After the initial chaos, sensory confusion, and intense mental discomfort, Yin Chen was surprised to find that he seemed... to be adapting rapidly.
Just as the brain is naturally able to process slightly different images seen by the eyes and integrate them into clear stereoscopic vision, his split yet coherent core consciousness also began to instinctively learn how to handle these two parallel and compatible streams of sensory information.
He attempted to build an invisible barrier within his consciousness.
Initially, this barrier was fragile and full of loopholes, and information from both sides would still uncontrollably permeate each other.
But gradually, as his mind focused, the barrier solidified.
He could choose to block the senses of the other body, gradually adapting to manipulating two different bodies, perfectly multitasking.
Having adapted to the impact of dual senses, another, more private and embarrassing problem emerged—the discomfort with this sudden female body.
When he looked down, he saw a flat chest, slender arms, and delicate fingertips belonging to a girl.
When he walked, he could feel the emptiness between his legs, a physiological structure completely different from before.
When the forest breeze brushed against his neck and arms, the touch seemed more acute and…unusual.
All the information reminded him that he was now a girl.
Yin Chen held her breath, pressing her petite body tightly against the back of an ancient tree covered in moss and exuding a decaying aura, her heart almost stopping.
She could clearly feel a violent and scorching aura slowly moving in the distance, each step causing the ground to tremble slightly, and the withered branches and leaves to crack under the weight.
That was at least a thousand-year-old soul beast, its exact species unknown, but certainly far beyond what she, unarmed at the moment, could contend with.
"Left, behind that tree, go around."
A cold, indifferent, yet strangely authoritative female voice resounded deep within her mind, devoid of any emotion.
Without hesitation, Yin Chen, like the most nimble cat, obeyed. Using the twisted trees and dense, strange plants as cover, she silently changed her route, gradually distancing herself from the terrifying aura.
Only when the suffocating oppression completely disappeared from her perception range did she dare to breathe slightly and slide down onto a cold boulder.
"Thanks, Ronawa," she murmured to herself.
The consciousness area belonging to another guest in her mind only emitted a barely perceptible fluctuation, a response.
This was her greatest asset in surviving so far on the edge of the perilous forest.
It wasn't the death power of her original body's owner, Xia Die, which required contact to take effect and was somewhat useless against powerful soul beasts. Rather, it was the demon god who wielded the power of death, the Ruler of Death, Ruona, who descended with her soul and has now become her martial soul.
Yes, corresponding to the Ruler of Time, Ishtar, awakened by her original body, Yin Chen, the martial soul born from this half of her soul when it merged with Xia Die's body and completed its innate martial soul awakening was precisely this Ruler of Death, symbolizing ultimate peace and the end of all things.
Ruona was also one of the three golden lights, and the last golden light, like the original body, was also intangible.
Of the five golden legends, three belonged to Xia Die, Ruona, and Ishtar; the other two were hidden within the bodies of Yin Chen and Xia Die, respectively.
Ruona's form of existence was extremely unique.
She was neither completely asleep nor completely awake.
She herself seemed unable to directly interfere with reality or use powerful forces to defend Yin Chen, at least not yet.
(End of Chapter)