Strongest Incubus System

Chapter 350: You opened a door.

The five lights did not resemble flowers, at least not at first glance. They were small blue suns suspended behind Han Qirong, each surrounded by concentric circles of runes so ancient that Damon could not follow them with his eyes. The symbols constantly rearranged themselves, forming petals, roots, stars, and structures resembling human meridians. At the center of that arrangement, a white shadow pulsed with a slow, organic rhythm, as though something slept inside an endless layer of ice.

Xue Lian did not move, but the cold around her changed immediately. Until then, her presence had been like a storm controlled by an absolute will, powerful even while weakened by the crystallization of her own body. Now, the cold became narrower, more concentrated, compressed around her sword and vital points. Damon recognized the gesture. She was conserving energy, which meant those lights truly represented a threat.

Han Qirong slowly raised one hand and allowed the blue illumination to travel across his fingers. The five-pointed crystal on his forehead reacted, emitting a dark pulse that made the symbol beneath Damon’s heart burn. It was not ordinary physical pain. It felt as though someone had placed their fingers inside his essence and squeezed a part of him he had never known existed.

Damon pressed a hand to his chest, trying to contain the reaction while feeling the icy Qi churn inside his ruined spiritual meridians. Although that body was only a manifestation within the memory, the energy reacted as if the threat were real. Small bluish fissures appeared along his arms, spreading beneath the skin like frozen lightning, and he had to control his breathing to prevent the phenomenon from worsening.

"What exactly are those lights?" Damon asked, without taking his eyes off the formation behind Han Qirong. "Because after the last few hours, I am beginning to distrust anything beautiful that appears dramatically on the horizon."

"They are projections," Xue Lian replied, keeping her sword raised. "The Five Heavens Ice Flower is not physically here, but he found a way to use the spiritual signature of its root to form a passage."

Han Qirong gave a faint smile, like a teacher pleased to hear a student complete an explanation. "Still so precise after all this time. I truly missed that, Shimei."

"I did not miss you," Xue Lian replied, and the simplicity of the sentence seemed to wound him more deeply than any previous threat.

His smile did not disappear, but one of the black stars inside his eyes stopped turning for an instant. Damon noticed the detail and understood that, despite all that artificial serenity, Han Qirong still reacted to that woman. Their relationship was not merely an ancient story used as context for the fight. It was a wound still open, kept alive for centuries by resentment, guilt, and a kind of distorted affection.

"If the flower is not here, where is it?" Damon asked, slowly removing his hand from his chest as the pain began to fade. "And please try to answer without creating three new tragic prophecies."

Han Qirong turned toward him. "It is in the Fifth Heaven, where it has always been. However, that domain cannot be reached by someone whole. The passage requires an existence divided between memory and flesh, between origin and continuation."

Damon looked at Xue Lian, waiting for a less offensively cryptic translation. She continued staring at Han Qirong, but answered after a few seconds. "He needs two parts of the same essence to open the path. One preserved in this memory, another reincarnated or transplanted into a living body."

"So I really am a key," Damon concluded, feeling bitter irritation replace part of the fear. "Not just some ancient metaphor used by dramatic monsters, but a literal key."

"You are closer to a lost half," Han Qirong corrected. "A half that grew unexpectedly, developed a will of its own, and apparently acquired a remarkably unpleasant sense of humor."

"That is rich coming from the man who appeared with a faceless army, a jade mask, and five funeral suns behind his head."

Xue Lian released a breath that might have been a laugh, though she did not take her attention off the enemy. Han Qirong, on the other hand, seemed to genuinely consider the comment before accepting the criticism with a small nod.

"Fair," he said.

The answer almost made Damon lose focus. For one brief second, Han Qirong had seemed absurdly normal, like someone capable of recognizing the theatricality of his own entrance. Then the five lights expanded, and the entire plain remembered that there was nothing normal about that man. The transparent ice beneath their feet darkened in circles, revealing thousands of human silhouettes trapped in the depths.

Xue Lian immediately stepped in front of Damon. "Do not look down."

He already had.

The figures beneath the ice were not still. They moved their arms, clawed at the underside of the surface, and raised faces distorted by silent agony. Some looked like cultivators dressed in ancient garments, others wore armor or religious robes. There were children, elders, warriors, and creatures that barely retained a human shape. All of them faced the symbol beneath Damon’s heart.

"Are those the people who tried to enter the Fifth Heaven?" he asked, unable to look away immediately.

"Some," Han Qirong replied. "Others are people who agreed to help build the passage. Some voluntarily, others after understanding that individual will is a small concern before eternity."

Xue Lian moved her sword, and a wave of white ice crossed the ground. The images below vanished beneath an opaque layer, ending the sight of the bodies. "You were always skilled at turning cowardice into philosophy."

"And you were always skilled at calling courage what was only an inability to trust."

Her sword trembled for a fraction of a second, not because of physical weakness, but because the words had struck a specific memory. Damon noticed, and also realized that Han Qirong was choosing each sentence carefully. He did not merely want to defeat her. He wanted to open old cracks, force her to spend emotional energy, and perhaps push her into making a mistake.

"He is trying to irritate you," Damon murmured.

"I know."

"Is it working?"

"Yes."

"Good. At least we remain honest."

Xue Lian cast him a quick and deeply threatening look. "If you survive, I will remember this conversation."

"If I survive, I will accept that as a victory."

Han Qirong raised his right hand, and the destroyed soldiers began rebuilding themselves around them. This time, they did not emerge as incomplete human forms. The particles of black ice gathered into larger creatures, combining several bodies into a single structure. Too many arms emerged from crystalline torsos, smooth heads grew atop uneven shoulders, and spears fused into long curved blades.

"He is using the souls beneath the ice to reinforce the projections," Xue Lian explained. "Do not waste energy trying to destroy every body. Break the connection to the five lights."

Damon studied the field. Thin black lines linked the creatures to the luminous points behind Han Qirong, but they only appeared when he stopped focusing directly on them. It was like seeing faint stars in the sky: looking to the side revealed more than staring at the center.

"I can see the connections," Damon said.

"Then cut them."

"You make that sound simple."

"Would you prefer that I describe your low probability of success?"

"Definitely not."

The creatures attacked at once. The first stood nearly four meters tall and advanced by breaking the frozen surface with every step. Damon avoided the curved blade, feeling the wind of the strike cut through his white hair, and tried to reach the black line extending from the creature’s back. His sword passed through it without effect, as if he had cut only a shadow.

The monstrosity swung two of its arms and struck Damon from the side. He was hurled across the plain, sliding several meters before driving his sword into the ice to stop himself. The spiritual pain of the blow spread through his ribs and reopened the recently closed wound in his abdomen.

"You said to cut it!" he shouted as he stood.

"You cut it with a sword."

"That is normally the recommended object!"

"Use Qi."

"My meridians are destroyed!"

"Then be creative."

Damon blocked another strike and nearly lost the weapon when the force traveled through his arms. "Your teaching method remains criminal!"

Xue Lian was already fighting three creatures at once. Her sword traced arcs of white light, destroying limbs and immobilizing void cores before they could re-form. Even so, every technique spread more crystallization through her body. The ice had reached part of her left cheek and was advancing beneath the collar of her hanfu, turning her skin into a translucent surface.

Han Qirong remained still, watching her die little by little.

The sight stirred sudden anger in Damon. He had not known Xue Lian for long, though time in that memory felt unstable. Even so, he understood enough to know Han Qirong had planned this. Every enemy forced her to spend energy. Every attack accelerated the crystallization. He did not need to defeat her directly. He only needed to wait.

Damon retreated from another blade, allowed his body to turn with the momentum, and instead of attacking the creature, closed his eyes for an instant. The black line was not matter. Nor was it merely energy. It was intent, a bond telling the creature where it should exist and whom it should obey. Cutting it required something more fundamental than a weapon.

He guided Qi into the blade.

The reaction was violent. Cold exploded through his arms and opened new luminous fissures beneath the skin. The sword turned white, but not with ordinary ice. It was the same glow that had appeared when he destroyed the first echo, only stronger and more unstable.

The creature attacked.

Damon advanced toward it.

At the final instant, he lowered himself beneath the curved blade and struck the black connection with his own will concentrated along the edge of the sword. This time, he felt resistance, as if trying to cut a chain made of compressed memories.

Then the bond snapped.

The creature stopped in the middle of its movement. Its arms fell, the crystalline plates lost support, and the entire body collapsed into inert snow, without any sign of regeneration. One of the five lights behind Han Qirong flickered.

Xue Lian noticed immediately. "Good."

Damon breathed heavily, watching his hand tremble around the hilt. "You could say that with a little more enthusiasm."

"Do not exaggerate. You cut one line." ƒrēewebnovel.com

"It was a very unpleasant line."

"Dozens remain."

"And there goes the enthusiasm."

Two more creatures advanced, but now Damon understood the principle. Instead of fighting their bodies directly, he focused on the connections sustaining them. The problem was that each cut required Qi to flow through meridians that, even in that spiritual form, reproduced the damage of his real body. The second line broke with difficulty. The third froze his left arm to the elbow.

He felt his fingers lose strength.

The sword almost fell.

Xue Lian appeared in front of him and destroyed the fourth creature before it could reach him. "Enough."

"You just said dozens remained."

"And now I am saying enough."

"Make up your mind."

She grabbed his frozen wrist and examined the spiritual fissures. Her serious expression revealed that the problem was worse than Damon imagined. "Every time you use this power, you bring your consciousness closer to the state of your body outside this memory. If you continue, you may make the freezing permanent."

"And if I stop, those things keep attacking."

"I will handle them."

"You can barely move half your arm."

Xue Lian’s blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "I can still destroy this domain."

"And die doing it."

"I am already dying."

"You use that sentence as an argument for everything."

"It is an efficient argument."

"It is an irritating argument."

Han Qirong watched the exchange with a melancholic smile. "You adapted quickly. Perhaps because, in many ways, you are the same person."

Xue Lian turned toward him. "He is not me."

"No," Han Qirong agreed. "He is what you might have been without the Cult, without the title, and without us."

The statement seemed to pass through her defenses. Damon noticed it in the way her fingers closed around his wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, only enough to reveal that something had been touched.

Han Qirong continued, "Impulsive, vulgar, attached, and absurdly willing to destroy his own body for people he has known only a short time. Everything you tore out of yourself to become the Heavenly Demon."

"You do not know what I tore out."

"I was there."

Those words silenced Xue Lian.

The remaining monsters also stopped, as though Han Qirong had suspended the battle merely to let the wound remain open. The five lights shone behind him, reflecting against the broken mask now floating in fragments around his head.

Damon slowly pulled his wrist away from Xue Lian’s hand. The arm remained frozen, but some feeling was beginning to return. "Then explain. No riddles, no historical insults, and preferably no other army interrupting."

Han Qirong looked at him with interest. "You believe you deserve answers?"

"No. But apparently I am dying because of them, so I consider that a reasonable participation fee."

Xue Lian closed her eyes for a brief instant. When she opened them, there was too much exhaustion in that gaze, but also a decision. "The fragment was not removed to save me from the First Winter."

Han Qirong tilted his head, satisfied that she was finally speaking.

Damon remained silent.

"It was removed to seal him," Xue Lian continued. "Han Qirong tried to use the Heart of the First Winter to transcend the limitations of cultivation. When the process failed, he became an opening between this domain and the void beyond the natural cycles."

Han Qirong did not deny it. His smile merely vanished.

Xue Lian pointed her sword at him. "I could not destroy him without destroying everything linked to the ritual. So I divided my own Pure Ice Heart. I used half as a seal and kept the other half to prevent my body from dying immediately."

Damon felt the understanding arrive slowly, accompanied by profound discomfort. "The half used as a seal escaped."

"It should not have escaped."

"But it did."

"Yes."

"And it ended up inside me."

Xue Lian looked directly at him. "Yes."

The silence that followed was different from all the others. Damon had suspected a connection, an inheritance, or some shared essence. But understanding that he carried a piece deliberately torn from that woman, a piece created to imprison Han Qirong, changed the situation completely.

He looked at the symbol beneath his heart. "So when my veins ruptured at Arven Manor, I weakened the seal."

Han Qirong smiled faintly again. "You opened a door."

One of the five lights blazed with brutal intensity.

The entire plain split apart.

Black cracks crossed kilometers of ice, and the distant fortress answered with a deep thunder. The towers began to move, rearranging themselves like pieces of an ancient machine. Between them, a vast passage opened through the mountain, revealing a road illuminated by five layers of blue sky.

Han Qirong raised his arms, and the surrounding creatures knelt.

"The door recognized both halves," he said. "Now all that remains is deciding who crosses first."

Xue Lian tightened her grip on the sword.

Damon raised his own blade with the arm that still responded.

And despite the situation, he could not stop a tired smile from appearing.

"Finally," he murmured. "A simple question."