As Yin Haoran flew with the maximum speed allowed by his cultivation, his mind was only dominated by fighting the demon to death to save his love.

  But, he could not hold onto these thoughts for long.

  Just a few miles off the entrance to the secret realm, he was suddenly intercepted by a force that felt familiar but different.

  “Wha-!?”

  The prince of the Yin Long empire did not even have the time to scream before a bck blur crashed into him and took him in a different direction.

  In a matter of mere seconds, the precious time it took for the disoriented prince to regain his bearings, they had already fshed at least a hundred miles away from the demon he wanted to fight.

  “Who are you!? Let me go!!”

  “…..I am sorry but I can’t let you get yourself killed.”

  The familiarity of the voice stunned the prince before he stopped struggling, allowing the blur to nd in the forest below, the canopy only allowing beams of light to pass through that further highlighted the figure that basically kidnapped him.

  Her figure was just as beautiful as ever, with her long bck hair flowing behind her while her bck eyes held longing and sadness within them. Her beauty which could rival even his sister marred by the tiredness from whatever she had been doing.

  Mo Qingyin, the daughter of the heavenly demon, Mo Yexuan, looked sadly at the prince.

  “I apologize, but I cannot allow you to-“

  Whatever she was going to say was forgotten as Yin Haoran crashed into her with a tight hug, the young but old prince slightly trembled with suppressed anguish within his heart.

  Without the need for words, the woman instantly understood what was going on and the light returned to her eyes as they misted over with emotion, making her reciprocate the hug even tighter.

  “You came back as well?”

  “Yes, I woke up nearly a year ago.”

  Mo Qingyin smiled at the words of her lover.

  How much had she longed to hear his voice? How much had she longed for his touch like this? How long had she dreamed of a scenario where he would suddenly appear at Huxing Xiang’s abode and take her away from that pce?

  How much had she longed to see him one st time before everything went wrong because of that monster that she called a father?

  When she was forced by her father to cultivate Blood Qi arts or watch him kill her disciple, she had no choice but to follow his words and cultivate the arts that she had abhorred all her life.

  Satisfied and deriving pleasure from her ruin, that monster left her alone with her disciple, knowing that she would now be forced to kill her disciple with her own hands and drain his essence for herself because if she didn’t do so, she would turn into a mindless demon that thirsted for the blood essence of mortals and cultivators alike.

  So, with her sheer willpower, she held back the technique’s influence and begged Huxing Xiang to kill her with his own hands before she was consumed by the demonic arts and did something truly regrettable.

  Watching the tear-stained face of her disciple as he reluctantly complied and remembering his maddened and despair-filled howls, she had thought that this was it for her, making her feel regret for not being able to say goodbye to Yin Haoran.

  But, who would have imagined that she would wake up in the distant past like this?

  Back before everything changed, back before the fateful day she had taken in a wandering loose cultivator as her disciple because of how miserable she found him, because she saw the same kind of helplessness in him that she felt every day under her father.

  Back before the same beloved disciple of hers locked her up within his abode located in a remote corner of the continent, hoping to isote them from the rest of the world and keep her away from her love, thinking that, with time, her feelings for Yin Haoran would disappear and finally give Huxing Xiang a chance to prove that he was better than her current lover in every way.

  And yet, even after being reborn, even after everything that happened, she did not bme Huxing Xiang for what he did.

  She had known about his admiration and budding love for her for a long time before he knew it himself. And yet, she chose to do nothing about it, to not make things clear between them, so the bme lies solely with her for what happened afterward.

  As someone who was in love herself, she knew better than anyone how unreasonable love can be for a cultivator, especially those who cultivate the dark arts like herself and her disciple.

  But still, the shadow of his actions was still there on her heart, that was why, she never sought him out despite knowing exactly where he was because of the unique connection they shared and the threads of fate that bound them.

  Unlike the orthodox path that strictly dealt with the material world and the power of the elements, the unorthodox and demonic paths focused more on the esoteric aspects of existence, including things such as fate, predictions, and other such things.

  It was also because of the destructive potential these arts held that the demonic path is so heavily despised by the orthodox path and the unorthodox path is heavily frowned upon.

  Shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts, she turned up to see the face of her lover who was still trembling while holding her to his chest.

  “Haoran, calm down, I am here and I am never leaving you again. But, this is not the time for us to relish in our reunion, we need to get out of here right now.”

  The urgency in her tone brought the prince out of his chaotic thoughts and he instantly became alert.

  “What? Why? Did that demon find you already? Don’t worry, I am sure I can take him right now and keep you safe. He will not take you away from me again.”

  Mo Qingyin shook her head at his words.

  “No. While my former disciple is indeed in this secret realm, he has no idea that I am here as well. After all, you were the only one who ever knew about my hiding pce in this realm before I met Huxing Xiang.”

  “Then, what is the problem?”

  “The problem is that things have changed this time around.”

  Those words made the prince fall into silence before he spoke up again.

  “That reminds me, Yin’er, do you know anything about how we came back in the first pce?”

  Mo Qingyin’s eyes fshed with worry before she spoke.

  “I have an idea but I am not certain if my theory is correct.”

  “A theory is better than knowing nothing, tell me about it.”

  “…I think it has to do with that foreign technique that we gave to Yan Ling.”

  Yin Haoran could not hide his shock at those words.

  “You mean the prodigy from the Crimson Realm Holy Land? What does the technique we gave her have anything to do with our current situation?”

  Mo Qingyin gave a wry smile at her lover’s question.

  “Did you forget that the techniques used by the invaders are all based on the concepts of space and time? That was why it took me nearly a decade to modify the damned thing so that it was usable by humans and then gave it to that girl so that she could one day defeat Huxing Xiang.”

  The despair that she felt as she spoke those words was palpable, prompting Yin Haoran to embrace her once again as she started to sob into his chest.

  In her life, there were many things that she regretted, but the greatest regret and guilt she felt even when she was on the verge of death was the fact that she had consciously pyed a hand in ensuring the defeat of her own disciple.

  In those days, she never bmed Huxing Xiang for locking her up in his abode, keeping her from her lover. But, what she did bme him for, were the actions that resulted in the death of countless innocents and painted him as an even worse monster than her father.

  In his thirst for revenge, he ravaged and entire empire and made it colpse on itself. Worse yet, the empire in question was the home of her lover, how could she not be affected by something like that?

  So, she used her many techniques to secretly correspond with Yin Haoran to smuggle out resources given to her by Huxing Xiang, helping him establish a force that would help her lover deal with her disciple, and take her away.

  And yet, all was for naught as she died before she could even see the pn come to fruition.

  Yin Haoran’s expression took on a contemptive look before he nodded.

  “That makes sense. Still, why did it affect us? I mean, you were killed by that demon a long time before the final confrontation, and I, I died along with the team I assembled to fight him shortly after his and Yan Ling’s death.”

  Suddenly, Mo Qingyin felt a suffocating sensation as her vision blurred. Her mind filtering out everything and only holding onto some of the words spoken by her lover.

  “You died? Xiang went on a rampage? Final confrontation? Yin Haoran, speak clearly! What happened after I died!?”

  Yin Haoran smiled bitterly, knowing that she would not stop until he told her everything, and he couldn’t even lie to her or omit any details since she had the terrifying ability to tell the truth from lies, even lies by omission were useless in front of her.

  “….After he killed you, that demon went on a rampage across the continent, killing every cultivator he came across, no matter if they were orthodox, unorthodox, or demonic. Meanwhile, Mo Yexuan, took advantage of the chaos to further solidify his powerbase and indulged himself in his sick pleasures.”

  “It was a time of great despair for the entire continent. Later on, he killed Mo Yexuan and became the new Heavenly Demon.”

  Mo Qingyin nearly colpsed at those words, but held on as Yin Haoran took a deep breath and continued to speak.

  “He started cultivating Blood Qi arts and rapidly enhanced his power. For nearly a thousand years, the continent lived under his shadow. Finally, once we were done preparing and were confident, I led our team along with that girl, Yan Ling, to end his threat.”

  The twisted look on Yin Haoran’s face made Mo Qingyin’s heart drop as despair clouded her mind.

  “We won. We all sustained fatal injuries and died one by one shortly after the battle, but we won. Yan Ling delivered the st blow by piercing his heart with her sword. That is the st memory I have before I succumbed to my wounds.”

  She could not hold on any longer and colpsed to the ground, wailing in heartbreak.

  She had indeed helped her lover form a team to defeat her disciple so that she could escape from him, but she never meant to kill him. How could she even think of doing something like that when they had spent decades together as master and disciple?

  It was already heartbreaking for her to learn that he had gone mad after her death, but to learn that her lover personally helped kill her disciple, her heart simply could not take it as she broke down.

  For a long time, her wails of despair echoed across the forest and Yin Haoran simply held her tightly, knowing that he could not do anything to help her and that he could not lie to her, saying that he regretted his actions when he really did not regret his part in orchestrating Huxing Xiang’s death.

  ‘……I see. So that was why those kids were so well equipped and wielded weapons that were exactly matched to suppress my art back then.”

  The despair and self-deprecating tone I heard from Xiang made me feel really bad. I could not help but feel pity for my older self.

  It is one thing to be hated by everyone else, but to be hated and schemed against by his own master? That must hurt more than I can imagine.

  I can’t even bring myself to imagine what I would feel if I were in the same pce.

  Now, I don’t even know if I made the right choice when I decided to use my newly enhanced senses to keep an eye on Yin Haoran when I felt him being taken away mid-flight when Yin Lingxi was dealing with the assassins on the airship.

  Perhaps, it would have been better to not know of Mo Qingyin and Yin Haoran’s existence and their knowledge of the future.

  Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

  But, now that things have progressed to such a state, we can’t really ignore it anymore.

  ‘What do you think about Mo Qingyin’s theory? Do you think it holds any merit?”

  ‘…I don’t know. I always thought that our situation was caused by the Heavenly Reversal Bead, but this new information is something that we will have to validate step by step. Worse yet, we don’t know what kind of modifications my master made to that accursed foreign technique.’

  ‘And even if we did have access to that knowledge, there is no guarantee that we would know what to look for. Your master was a genius in terms of understanding techniques and was without equal in your life.’

  ‘True. The decades it would take me to modify a Heaven-Grade technique, she would do in a matter of weeks. After all, her brilliance was one of the many reasons why I fell in love with her in the first pce.’

  Once again, I felt the dark emotions he felt as he lost himself in those memories, making me stop asking questions and let him be.

  It will take time for him to recover from this devastating blow to his mind.

  For now, I think it is better if I keep away from those two and let Xiang recover.

  Fortunately, I still have the issue of dealing with the holy nds, so that should give us plenty of time to work through his issues.

  I just hope that I never have to suffer the tragic life that my older self has.

  I don’t think I have the willpower to endure that kind of despair.

  With those thoughts in my mind, I turned back to the forces of the Holy Land that were tied up like dumplings by Yin Lingxi after they tried to force me into accepting their invitation by subtly threatening her safety.

  The tired grin I held on my face must have been something truly scary since the people of the holy nd flinched as I directed my gaze at them.

  “Now then, shall we talk about how you should not threaten the loved ones of someone more powerful than you?”

  Author Notes:

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