The next to awaken was Wang Xiaoyun. Her groans of pain had stilled for half an hour before her eyes opened.
She looked around in confusion, but when her eyes landed on Xue Wei, a bloodlust suddenly swept out from her body.
While she struggled to her feet, Bai Tianyi and Hei Gou moved swiftly to stand between Wang Xiaoyun and the unconscious Xue Wei.
“What are you going to do?” Bai Tianyi asked tentatively. She did not respond at first, though the answer was clear considering the flow of tears running down her cheeks.
“He deceived me!” she exclaimed with grief in her voice. “Was it fun? Deceiving me and making me think him human!?”
She yelled this out at the top of her lungs, her eyes filled with sadness.
Bai Tianyi could only sigh.
“You know him,” he tried to reason with her. “He himself does not know he is a beast.”
“How can he not know that he is a beast?!” Wang Xiaoyun did not buy it. The Qi she exuded grew increasingly turbulent.
“Seriously? An Earth Knight?” Bai Tianyi felt a headache coming his way.
He knew that the blood of a Sovereign Beast could thoroughly mutate the body of other beasts, but it was clearly also very useful for Wayfarers. To have gone all the way from a Heavenly Warrior to an Earth Knight was mind-blowing.
As expected, although Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi were in the way, a simple wave of Wang Xiaoyun’s hand sent them tumbling into the back of the cave with their heads spinning. Hei Gou’s wounds opened again as a result.
Wang Xiaoyun walked towards the unconscious Xue Wei, tears streaming down her face. In the very moment when she stood next to him, she saw a single tear fall from one of his eyes. Why that was so she could not figure out, as he was as unconscious as one could be.
“A tear of the soaring dragon,” Wang Xiaoyun muttered to herself. The shock she was experiencing made her whole body tremble.
The tears in her eyes flooded down her cheeks. Her hands never stopped trembling when she reached out and latched them around Xue Wei’s throat.
With a single squeeze, he would die. Hei Gou roared and Bai Tianyi turned into a large sword, both attacking Wang Xiaoyun with all their might, but neither could even dent the protective barrier she had erected around herself and Xue Wei.
“Why did it have to be you?!” she cried out loud, her agony and hopelessness reverberating in her voice.
Without going through with it, she withdrew her trembling hands and rushed out of the cave, leaving behind Xue Wei, Hei Gou, and Bai Tianyi.
They were alive but battered up badly.
Xue Wei was unaware of what had happened. He was unconscious, but a single tear had indeed fallen when Wang Xiaoyun was about to kill him. It was as if his body had sensed her overwhelming sadness, reacting instinctively.
Time passed by, but Xue Wei did not awaken. His wounds had healed, but he still showed no signs of waking up.
They fed him all the herbs and pills they had in an attempt to wake him up, but it had no apparent effect apart from causing his cultivation base to grow.
Half a year went by in the cave. During these six months, Bai Tianyi and Hei Gou became more and more desperate.
They did not know what they should do to awaken Xue Wei. They even forgot everything about Wang Xiaoyun or the fact that they were wanted men.
After seven months, Xue Wei’s body had a breakthrough into the Heavenly Warrior stage because of all the pills they had fed him.
It was also at this point that his eyelids twitched before he slowly opened his eyes.
His body felt heavy. He could not move, almost as if he had forgotten how to use his own body.
“Hey,” he called out in a voice that cracked and sounded vanishingly weak.
“You’re awake!” Bai Tianyi shouted. The child-form sword spirit collapsed to the floor, releasing a heavy sigh of relief after seeing Xue Wei’s strong eyes again.
“What happened?” Xue Wei asked hoarsely, confused by his environment. Bai Tianyi shook his shoulders. “I think a mixture of losing too much blood and using that strength increasing technique did a number on you,” Bai Tianyi guessed. No one really knew.
“Where is Xiaoyun?” Xue Wei asked anxiously. Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi went silent and exchanged glances.
“You tell him,” Hei Gou said, but Bai Tianyi shook his head. “I’m just a contracted sword spirit. This is better said by someone who is like his brother.”
What they said scared Xue Wei. Had something happened to her?
“Let us start from the beginning, then.” Hei Gou sighed.
“Wei. Look at yourself. Do you think you are human?” He went straight for the question that had bothered Xue Wei ever since he transformed into a true azure dragon.
Xue Wei frowned. “If I am not human, then what am I?”
“A Sovereign Beast,” Bai Tianyi said with a low voice.
“A beast, huh?” Xue Wei had already more or less guessed it.
“I guess she figured it out.” He sighed.
“She did.” Hei Gou approved with a nod of his head. “She couldn’t bring herself to kill you, though, and left heartbroken.”
“Of course…” Xue Wei did not find this strange at all. The bond between Wang Xiaoyun and him was not light. Even if she came to hate him one day, it would take some time before she would be able to kill him in cold blood.
“For how long was I unconscious?” Xue Wei queried, but the answer stunned him.
He had been out for over half a year, seven months to be precise?
“The world must have changed a lot since then,” he muttered. “We did not leave to check it out,” Bai Tianyi added in a low voice.
“We will meet Xiaoyun again, sooner or later, but I hope that I can prove to her that I am not like the Ice Harpy by that time,” Xue Wei said weakly.
“You will not let her go?” Hei Gou asked with surprise. Considering her hate towards beasts, it seemed like a very masochistic thing to continue chasing her.
“I won’t. In this life, I will be faithful to my emotions, and I love Xiaoyun. One day she will understand.”
Xue Wei sighed, knowing that it was more difficult than scaling the highest mountain or diving into the deepest ocean, but he could not give up. He truly loved Wang Xiaoyun.
“It will be sorted if I can end the war between humans and beasts,” he concluded with a smile. Although he had always said outrageously ambitious things in the past, they were nothing compared to what he spoke of now.
If Xue Wei thought he was strong enough to end the war that had gone on for millennia already, one would consider him delusional.
“Don’t worry.” Xue Wei grinned. He felt much better after realizing his real heritage. “I am not saying I can do much now,” he said to assure his two skeptical companions, “but one day I will be so strong that no one can say anything against what I do. At that time, I will punish those that deserve to be punished and build a utopia for all to live in peace. The continent is called Chang’an. It means perpetual peace. I am sure that this continent is meant to be a place of peace and prosperity. I will bring it back to those days.”
While Xue Wei was uncharacteristically optimistic, Bai Tianyi and Hei Gou were confused and could not figure out where he got his confidence from.
“Well then, guys, let’s move on!” Xue Wei jumped up to his feet. He pulled out clean clothes from his storage ring and quickly changed from a set of Hei Gou’s clothes into his own.
“I want to know more about my background,” he declared seriously. “And I think the only one who can give me answers is Lan.”
“So we continue to the center of the continent?” Hei Gou asked. Xue Wei nodded his head.
“Yes. Let’s go, we have no time to waste.”