Chương 46: Chapter 21 Part 3

Xuan Ji walked swiftly through the acid-scorched corridors of the guest wing. The heavy, nauseating scent of vaporized blood and alchemical sulfur washed over her, a grim testament to the slaughter that had taken place here just hours prior. Despite the ruin, the atmosphere inside was vastly different from the cathedral in Kaelen's Crossing. Sitting against the blackened wall, heavily bandaged but undeniably alive, were Vice Guild Master Durgan and Axel.

The massive, necrotic hole in the half-orc's chest was completely gone, replaced by thick, shiny pink scar tissue left behind by Xuan Ji's brutal True Fire Samadhi cauterization. When the two mercenaries saw her step into the flickering torchlight carrying the young noble, their hardened eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.

"By the ancestors..." Durgan rumbled, his gravelly voice thick with awe. Ignoring the agonizing pull of his newly knit muscles, he instinctively reached for the hilt of his broken axe, attempting to push his massive frame upright to salute her.

"Stay seated, Vanguard," Xuan Ji commanded, her tone brooking no argument as she strode past them.

"You held the line. Save your strength." She stepped into the improvised alchemical laboratory. Standing over a ruined mahogany dining table, wiping a sheen of nervous sweat from his forehead with a bloody rag, was High Apothecary Silas Vane. Resting securely in a specialized mithril vial rack was a single, shimmering crystal flask.

The liquid inside glowed with a mesmerizing, twilight-blue hue, radiating a profound, perfectly contained chill that caused the moisture in the air to crystallize into snowflakes around the glass. Silas looked up, nearly knocking over a heavy mortar and pestle.

"Lady Ming! You... you actually brought her back."

"Is the elixir ready, Apothecary?" Xuan Ji asked, her voice cutting through the chaotic noise of the triage center as she walked over to an empty, conjured cot.

"Yes," Silas answered, his hands trembling as he carefully picked up the glowing vial with insulated tongs.

"The Abyssal Frost Marrow is perfectly suspended in the neutral Yang-base. The elemental equilibrium is absolute."

"Good," Xuan Ji stated. She gently laid the shivering, exhausted fourteen-year-old onto the cot. Xuan Ji placed her palm flat against Evanthe's chest and violently withdrew her Qi. She released the emergency cryogenic stasis she had placed over the girl's Dantian. Instantly, the terrifying, chaotic heat of the Heavenly Killing Star constitution aggressively surged back to life.

Evanthe arched her back, a pained gasp tearing from her cracked lips as her veins began to physically glow with a dangerous, boiling orange light beneath her pale skin.

"Administer it. Now," Xuan Ji ordered. Silas didn't hesitate. He uncorked the vial, gently tilted Evanthe's head back, and poured the shimmering, twilight-blue elixir past her lips. For three agonizing seconds, nothing happened. And then, the room's ambient temperature violently fluctuated. Evanthe's eyes flew open, glowing with a blinding, horrific mixture of absolute crimson and deep azure light. The cosmic clash of energies inside her small frame was visible to the naked eye.

The terrifying, boiling Yang of her core violently lashed out at the invading absolute-zero Yin of the Marrow. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Silas's genius held true; the neutral Sun-kissed Lotus extract acted as a flawless membrane, catching the two violently opposing mythic energies and preventing them from instantly detonating. However, Evanthe's mortal body was simply too fragile.

The sheer atmospheric pressure generated by the internal clash of absolute-Yin and absolute-Yang began to physically tear her apart. Tiny fissures appeared along her skin, weeping beads of blood as her blood vessels threatened to rupture under the astronomical stress.

"Her vessel is cracking!" Silas shrieked, dropping the empty vial in horror.

"The energies are suspended, but the sheer friction of the fusion is going to shatter her bones!"

"Not while I am here," Xuan Ji growled. She did not cast a healing spell. She stepped forward, placing both of her bare palms directly over Evanthe's glowing chest and abdomen. Xuan Ji unsealed her Dantian, pushing her Heavenly Demon aura outward, not as a destructive force, but as an inescapable, hyper-dense physical mold. She turned her profound Qi into a literal pressure chamber. The air around the cot warped and condensed, becoming as heavy as deep-ocean water.

Xuan Ji manually, forcefully clamped down on the expanding energies inside her disciple, using her own supreme internal gravity to physically crush the mythic Yin and Yang together. Spiral, Xuan Ji commanded the energies, her golden eyes blazing with authority. Balance. Under the crushing, inescapable weight of Xuan Ji's pressure chamber, the chaotic, blinding light beneath the girl's skin had nowhere to go but inward.

The extreme Yang and the extreme Yin finally yielded, locking into a perfect, perpetual rotation within Evanthe's Dantian. They formed a flawless internal Taiji diagram, stabilizing each other in eternal harmony. Evanthe collapsed back onto the cot, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. Her skin, previously cracked and glowing, instantly knit back together, returning to a healthy, pristine porcelain. The heavy, agonizing pressure that had sat on her chest since the slaughter of her family was completely gone.

For the first time in her new life, she was entirely free of pain. Silas exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, collapsing backward into a wooden chair as his legs gave out from the adrenaline crash.

"It worked," the Apothecary whispered, staring at his own shaking hands in disbelief.

"By the gods... we actually balanced such a crazy constitution."

"You did excellent work, Silas Vane," Xuan Ji praised, her voice carrying a rare, genuine warmth as she withdrew her heavy aura. She reached down and pulled a thick wool blanket over her sleeping disciple. Evanthe's breathing had already slowed into a deep, natural, profoundly healing sleep. The internal threat was completely neutralized. Xuan Ji turned her back to the cot.

Her golden eyes slowly flared back to life as the immediate crisis faded, replaced entirely by the looming, apocalyptic threat of the Ancient Gold Dragon.

"Lady Ming," Durgan grunted from the hallway. The massive half-orc had managed to drag himself upright, leaning heavily against the scorched doorframe.

"While you were gone, the Crown Prince deployed his elite First Battalion. They formed a literal shield wall of dwarven steel around the entire perimeter of the estate. No one is getting in." Xuan Ji raised an eyebrow. So, the Crown Prince has some tact after all, she noted internally. Securing her base of operations was a smart, desperate play to earn her favor after failing the quarantine.

"But understand this," Durgan continued, his flint-hard eyes locking onto hers with unwavering, gritty loyalty.

"The Royal Guard answers to the Crown. But the Vanguard answers to you. We lost the gates tonight, but we didn't break rank. The contract is not void. We will stand and guard her until she wakes, or until you explicitly dismiss us." In the blood-soaked underworld of Elyndria, loyalty was a commodity bought with coin and easily broken by a higher bid. But Xuan Ji hadn't discarded them when they failed against a threat. She had purged the death from their veins and dropped from the sky to avenge them.

"The contract holds, Durgan," Xuan Ji confirmed softly, a hint of deep martial respect weaving into her tone.

"Rest and recover. I am leaving her in your care."

"Where are you going, Boss?" Axel wheezed from his spot on the floor, his ash-grey face pale but his predatory eyes sharp. Ming Xuan Ji stepped past them, walking back toward the shattered threshold leading out into the freezing storm. The rain began to sizzle and evaporate violently as her aura actively began to build.

"To the Palace," Xuan Ji stated simply, her gaze locking onto the massive, glowing dome of the Aegis Array high above the city.

"I need to find out exactly which Noble thought it was a good idea to smuggle a dragon egg into the city."