And then the cold, corpse-like blue-haired man beside Ye Tianxie suddenly moved… though “moved” was hardly the word. He simply vanished, appearing in an instant beside the tangled forms of the blue wolf and the Blood Phoenix… No! Across a distance of more than a kilometer… that was outright teleportation!

The clash of Blood Feather and Blue Soul with their powers fully unleashed produced energy waves whose magnitude could only be imagined — and yet the blue-haired man standing right there was as still as ever. Not even his hair was stirred by the shockwaves, as though force of that magnitude simply could not touch him at all.

Sensing his approach, the blue light on the wolf abruptly thickened, and a vivid blue glow kindled in its eyes as well. The pinned Blood Phoenix’s struggles were growing weaker and weaker, its body held down against the earth beneath those razor teeth.

“Huh? What’s he doing… he looks really strong,” Guoguo asked, wide-eyed with wonder.

Ye Tianxie: “…”

The blue-haired man slowly raised his right hand — and the sky abruptly darkened. A bolt of pitch-black lightning tore down from the heavens and struck into his hand, where it writhed and screamed… and took shape, condensing into a sword of strange make, wreathed in black lightning.

The blade was only half a meter long, longer than the daggers assassins used but far shorter than an ordinary sword. The lightning raging around it made the whole thing look mysterious and vicious, and even from a great distance, Ye Tianxie could almost hear it hissing and crackling.

Under Ye Tianxie’s watching eyes, the black shortsword came down — slowly, impossibly slowly. An attack like that looked as though it couldn’t possibly carry any destructive force at all. And yet, as it fell, it drew from the Blood Phoenix a shriek of genuine despair…

Shhhkk—

A sound from a kilometer away, and it nearly tore Ye Tianxie’s eardrums apart.

The black sword struck down onto the Blood Phoenix’s forehead, landing exactly on that crimson feather. Together with the sound of the tearing came an enormous, anguished cry from the phoenix — and in the midst of that cry, the Blood Feather lifted away from its body as though snatched up by a hurricane, flying far, far off… carried as if on a howling gale, straight toward where Ye Tianxie stood.

The instant the Blood Feather left it, the phoenix’s cries cut off dead. The crimson light on its body dimmed with terrible speed, and then its body began to disperse in a swirling mist of blood… from its head, to its neck, to its wings, to its whole phoenix form… like a limestone statue being blown apart, grain by grain, on the wind.

The cold man withdrew his arm, and the black sword in his hand turned into a streak of black lightning and vanished, eerily. Expressionless, he watched the crimson phoenix disappear in front of him…

A beast that the entire City of Stars would have been powerless against — dying like this, at the hands of one man and one wolf, dissolving into blood-mist scattering across the sky… utterly annihilated, until not a trace of it remained in the drifting ash.

The blue light on the giant wolf faded too, and vanished, and the savage aura pouring off it drew back entirely. Then its enormous body suddenly began shrinking, fast — in the blink of an eye it was no bigger than an ordinary wolf, standing quietly behind the blue-haired man. The one thing that hadn’t changed was those eyes: the eyes of a vicious wolf, terrible to meet.

Blue hair, a blue wolf…

There was no question about it — the blue-haired man was an NPC of this world, and an NPC of absolutely terrifying strength. He could not possibly be a player. And that equally horrifying wolf… the wolf that the Blue Soul among the Fate Cores had become… could it actually be his beast?

“The Blood Feather! The Blood Feather… master, it’s the Blood Feather!!” While Ye Tianxie stood there stunned, Guoguo was leaping up and down on his shoulder, both hands pointing at the crimson feather drifting slowly toward them through the air, her expression as frantic as if she’d spotted the most delicious food in the world.

The Blood Feather floated lightly to him, growing larger and larger in his pupils, until it came to rest, with flawless precision, right in front of his eyes. Ye Tianxie reached out and closed his hand around the crimson feather; it weighed as good as nothing. And at the same instant, a strange aura came off it and drove straight into the depths of his heart, throwing his mind into sudden disorder. Alarmed, he gathered his focus quickly and forced the rising turmoil back down.

Before he came to the Skeleton Cavern, he had never imagined he’d provoke a Blood Phoenix, still less that he’d witness a battle between two legendary beasts. He hadn’t imagined the Blood Phoenix was the Blood Feather, and even less that the Blood Phoenix would die right in front of his eyes… From the moment the Skeleton Cavern collapsed, everything had turned strange and dreamlike, wrapped in a thick, hazy sense of unreality.

The Blood Feather… Looking at the feather glowing crimson in his hand, Ye Tianxie closed his fist around it gently. But he didn’t ask Guoguo anything. Instead he turned to look at the wolf and the mysterious blue-haired man.

Where they had been, the Blood Phoenix had already vanished entirely into the air, without leaving so much as a trace behind. And the blue-haired man and the wolf had vanished from that spot too.

A blue shape flickered beside him. Ye Tianxie turned his eyes and caught the two of them in the act of arriving — man and wolf stepping across space to stand right at his side. The man’s expression was still as flat as dead water, and the two temperature-less eyes had fixed on Ye Tianxie’s face from the instant he materialized. It was a gaze that carried no emotion at all, and therefore gave no hint whatsoever of what lay behind it. Behind him, the wolf with its appalling strength was watching Ye Tianxie too, and under that stare Ye Tianxie could distinctly feel two cold spikes pressing against his body.

“Who are you? Why did you help me… and how did you know… that I needed this Blood Feather?” Ye Tianxie broke the silence, his voice low. The wolf appearing to save him had been no accident. The man stepping in to save him had been no accident either… And the man deliberately sending the Blood Feather into his hands — that couldn’t possibly be an accident.

How could he know he needed the Blood Feather… Did he know that Ye Tianxie carried the Hour of Fate?

“With your ability, you could never have taken the Blood Feather. So… I helped you,” the man said. From the first second he spoke, Ye Tianxie was slightly taken aback — because beneath that rigid, frozen expression, his voice was startlingly gentle. Gentle as a warm, easy wind… or like a man murmuring to a lover.

“Oh la la, this weird uncle’s voice is really nice,” even Guoguo whispered into Ye Tianxie’s ear.

“…Why help me? Shouldn’t you tell me your name first?” Ye Tianxie’s expression didn’t shift in the slightest. What the man had said was true enough — with his strength, taking the Blood Feather was flatly impossible. Never mind as he was now; even at level 50, or level 100, he wouldn’t have been a match for the Blood Phoenix. He had to admit it: the tier of strength the Blood Phoenix occupied was one no player could ever reach.

And the man’s answer had, plainly, been an admission… He knew Ye Tianxie needed the Blood Feather!

The fact that he carried the Hour of Fate should have been known only to himself and Guoguo. So why did this person…

“Your Hour of Eternal Fate needs it. You need it.” The blue-haired man’s reply finally confirmed Ye Tianxie’s suspicion outright, and sent another small tremor through him. Still, he didn’t say who he was.

It seemed some interesting things had been going on all along, without his knowing.

“How do you know I carry the Hour of Fate? Is it because of… it?” Ye Tianxie’s eyes shifted, coming to rest on the wolf. If what Guoguo said was true, then this wolf was the Blue Soul, one of the seven Fate Cores, made flesh — and perhaps it could sense the presence of the Hour of Fate.

In which case, was the Blood Phoenix’s sudden attack on him also because he carried the Hour of Fate?

The blue-haired man neither confirmed nor denied it. After a brief silence, he said something that made Ye Tianxie’s brow tighten: “It seems you already know. It is the Blue Soul.”

Ye Tianxie: “…”

“There are seven Fate Cores in all. The crimson Blood Feather is the weakest; the purple Heaven’s Heart is the strongest. From weakest to strongest they run red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple. Though the Fate Cores originally belonged to the Hour of Fate, each of them possesses entirely independent power and consciousness. Even the weakest of them, the Blood Feather, can gather spiritual essence by its own power and take shape as a living creature. Never expect that they will return to the Hour of Fate willingly just because you have found them…” the blue-haired man said coldly.

“And what is it you’re trying to tell me?” Ye Tianxie’s brow drew tighter.

“If you want the Blue Soul… defeat it.” The man stepped aside, and Ye Tianxie’s gaze met the wolf’s. An aura like the weight of Mount Tai crashed down onto him, and in an instant his body swayed, barely able to keep its feet.

Ye Tianxie gathered his focus, gritting his teeth in secret, holding out against the wolf’s aura-lock with everything he had. He looked away from its eyes and shook his head. “As I am now, I can’t defeat it.”

“Then you may as well give up any hope of ever getting the Blue Soul. Consider the Blood Feather a kindness bestowed on you.” The blue-haired man shook his head as well, his expression and his eyes still without the faintest flicker of the vitality or feeling a living person ought to have.

Ye Tianxie studied his face steadily — and instead of frowning, he smiled, lightly. “So it seems you came here specifically to find me…”

The man glanced at him and didn’t deny it.

“Tell me. Who are you?”

“Defeat me, and you will know… Defeat me…” The blue-haired man looked at him, saying it quietly, in a tone Ye Tianxie could make no sense of at all.

Ye Tianxie: “…”

“Defeat me… Defeat me…” The young man repeated it over and over — and at last, that face of dead water showed an emotion a living being ought to have… and the emotion was pleading. It was actually pleading.

“Defeat me… I beg you, defeat me…” A tremor appeared in his gaze, and as his expression changed, so, quietly, did his eyes… grief. A grief Ye Tianxie could not read.

And that look in his eyes made Ye Tianxie’s own gaze go abruptly hazy — and in that instant, his heart felt as though it had been struck square by a bolt of lightning…

That look… why was it so familiar…

And why did it make his heart hurt?

Had he met this man before… Impossible. He was an NPC of this world, Ye Tianxie was a player in it, and there was no way their paths could ever have crossed before this… But then what was this familiarity, driving into his heart like a spike… What was it…

(End of Chapter 105)