As a father, I just want to quietly watch you live a long life Chapter 1703 - 445: Devouring the Four Heavenly Kings—Li Che Breeds Monsters, Heart Unstained as Pure Heart Completes Fifth Transformation [Monthly Ticket Requested]...
Previously on As a father, I just want to quietly watch you live a long life...
Whoooosh——
A fierce gale raged through the wilderness, forcing countless trees across the vast mountain ranges and woodlands to bow low.
Two massive craters had formed in the soil.
Chilly rain cascaded endlessly, flowing from the thick, gray skies above.
Jin Taixui breathed in ragged bursts, hurrying back in desperation before stopping at the craters' edge, his eyes wide and veined with red as he fixed them on the pair inside.
Zhou Peng's features twisted into something monstrous, his grip tight on Yun E's finger.
However, that distorted visage held a serene peace and deep contentment, like grasping Yun E's finger meant clutching his entire universe, brimming with pure delight.
A soft, moonlit radiance shone from Yun E's form, her delicate, jade-like flesh etched with tiny fissures, ready to break apart into fragments scattered across the dirt at any second.
Cold rain continued its downpour.
Jin Taixui dropped to his knees in the mud, agony twisting his gaze; after endless years of grueling practice on Wushen Mountain, emerging from piles of bodies and rivers of blood, he ought to have grown indifferent to mortality.
For in Wushen Mountain's harsh tests, droves of youths and Divine Children met their end every round.
Still, the demise of Zhou Peng and Yun E stabbed Jin Taixui with unbearable sorrow—they counted among his rare companions.
Flashes of memories flooded Jin Taixui's mind: shared escapades in the jianghu, along Guangling Dao, the highways, the Grand Canal...
Frolicking wildly, courting danger, venturing side by side...
Shared chuckles, bursts of happiness, braving tempests as one, displaying their flair in unison.
On his knees in the muck, Jin Taixui sensed only his frailty and helplessness, hot tears tracing paths down his face as anguish warped his expression in sobs.
The man who always stood firm seldom shed tears like this.
All at once.
The downpour warped and ripped asunder by a horrifying might.
A pair of silhouettes materialized nearby, and Jin Taixui, snuffling, raised his gaze; past the sheets of rain blurring his sight, he spotted Li Che and Xi Xi.
Spotting Xi Xi eased the tension gripping Jin Taixui's anxious soul.
Xi Xi clasped Li Che's hand, a shadow of sorrow clouding her features.
Her eyes drifted to the craters, taking in the intertwined forms below, and a heavy ache swelled in her heart, like waves of unending grief crashing over her.
"Dad..."
"Xi Xi... Yun E is gone..."
Xi Xi's spirits plunged into despair, fat droplets spilling from her eyes.
Hard to say whether it was the storm's water or her own sorrow.
Li Che's ebony robes whipped about in the gale, his thick, dark locks lashed by the squall, while he softly stroked Xi Xi's hair, his stare settling on the duo in the craters who had burned out the Temple God’s power and fallen.
"No, they’re just sleeping."
With a gentle tousle of Xi Xi's hair, Li Che offered a warm smile.
Xi Xi batted her eyes, tilting her face up to Li Che; she knew her youth didn't make her naive.
The vital essence of Zhou Peng and Yun E had faded away...
But Xi Xi held her tongue; perhaps Father only meant to soothe her pain?
"Don’t worry, dad will go wake them up." Li Che smiled.
This left Xi Xi utterly stunned, though a flicker of expectation sparked in her gaze despite herself.
Resurrection...
Was such a feat truly within reach?
Xi Xi pondered the enigmatic Underworld, home to so many mighty mentors—surely they could manage it?
Jin Taixui rose too, brushing off his tears with few words, yet the exchange between Li Che and Xi Xi left him dazed as well.
Li Che gave Xi Xi's head another pat, let go of her hand, and strode ahead, materializing next to Zhou Peng and Yun E.
Zhou Peng's look was hideous, sporting a boarish snout with fangs arching upward, radiating a savage presence.
In contrast, Yun E radiated even greater allure, and both had shed their childish forms for mature ones, awakened by the Temple God’s power lurking in their spirits.
"Reincarnated Temple God..."
A glint passed through Li Che's eyes as he let out a quiet breath.
In the instant that followed, he gathered his mind.
He bundled their forms and vanished from the craters.
Upon returning, they stood within Mo City.
Shhhh——
The rain descending upon Mo City from the celestial vault carried restorative essence to mend the scarred urban landscape. Mo City didn't suffer perpetual showers, but Li Che's frequent upheavals were mostly to blame.
He kept drawing mighty foes into the city for clashes, wrecking its structures time and again.
Inky precipitation cloaked the skies and land, draining vibrancy from the metropolis in that instant, veiled in misty veils, reduced to stark monochrome evoking mortality.
Li Che remained the sole breath of life in Mo City; everything else consisted of lingering spirits of the departed.
Yun E and Zhou Peng's corpses dropped to Mo City's surface.
For these reborn Temple Gods, would soul retrieval truly succeed?
Li Che held no certainty, yet attempting it seemed right. Though reincarnated Temple Gods, the pair had matured right before his eyes.
From their early days in Golden Light Prefecture City, raised alongside Xi Xi, Li Che harbored fondness for them as well.
His fingers fanned out, summoning swirling gales that wove through the air above and below.
"Soul Return——"
Soul Capturing!
That deep tone echoed like a village shaman's incantation in a forgotten ceremony, bridging the gateway twixt the Netherworld and the living realm, forging a conduit through demise and renewal for the lost essences to reclaim existence.
Shhhhh...
Once Soul Capturing took effect, strangely enough, this invocation diverged from its prior casts.