The agonizing death Xiao Yifeng anticipated never arrived. Instead, a terrifying, archaic aura erupted from Su Miaoqing’s chest. The Coiled Dragon Jade Pendant, sensing her mortal peril, had activated on its own.
A magnificent golden dragon roared into existence, surging outward from the pendant. With a sweep of its ethereal claws, it utterly obliterated the first dozen Golden Core-stage roosters leading the charge. The remnants of this terrifying power coalesced into a shimmering barrier, enveloping the two of them in a sphere of golden light.
For a fleeting moment, the world outside was silent, held at bay.
Inside the barrier, Xiao Yifeng felt a bitter regret wash over him. The Nine Li Fire Dragon had wrung him dry; his meridians were empty, his spiritual energy exhausted. Even if he possessed other trump cards, he lacked the fuel to ignite them.
Outside, the swarm regrouped. Over a dozen Golden Core roosters circled like vultures, their beady eyes fixed on the fading barrier. They were merely waiting for the pendant’s energy to dissipate. If he couldn't conjure a miracle, he and Su Miaoqing would be buried here together.
Xiao Yifeng gritted his teeth. He began to circulate a forbidden technique—one that would burn his very cultivation base to fuel a desperate breakout. He would shatter his own foundation if it meant shielding her.
Just as his mana began to roil violently, a soft hand touched his arm.
"Little Feng," Su Miaoqing said, her voice strangely calm. She offered him a bright, confident smile. "Leave the rest to your Senior Sister."
Xiao Yifeng froze, the forbidden technique stalling. "Senior Sister, what are you doing? I still have ways. Don't be reckless!"
"Who is the Senior Sister here, you or me?" Su Miaoqing laughed, though her eyes shimmered with a new, dangerous resolve. "Since we entered this Immortal Abode, I’ve been hiding behind your back. I’m tired of it. For once... let me protect you."
Before Xiao Yifeng could stop her, she raised a slender finger and tapped the center of her forehead.
Screee—!
A piercing, crystalline phoenix cry resonated from the depths of her soul.
As the jade pendant’s barrier flickered and died, a column of raging golden fire exploded from Su Miaoqing’s body. It was a divine, domineering flame, possessing a temperature so intense that the air itself twisted. The Golden Roosters nearest to them didn't even have time to shriek; they simply melted into ash upon contact.
Yet, as Xiao Yifeng braced for the burn, he felt only a gentle warmth, like a winter hearth.
Su Miaoqing’s aura skyrocketed, shattering the bottleneck of her cultivation and surging straight into the early Golden Core realm.
Boom!
A pair of magnificent flame wings unfurled from her back, spanning ten meters. Countless spectral firebirds manifested in the air around her, chirping and circling like loyal subjects attending their queen.
When Su Miaoqing opened her eyes, the gentle warmth was gone. Her pupils had turned into vertical slits of molten gold, radiating a chilling indifference and a brutal majesty. Tongues of golden fire licked at the corners of her eyes. Her ink-black hair grew rapidly, cascading down her back like a waterfall of night, the tips glowing with embers as they danced in the heat waves.
A wave of Golden Roosters dove toward them. Su Miaoqing didn’t even draw her sword. She simply waved her hand.
A scythe of golden fire swept out, incinerating everything in its path. Regardless of their cultivation, the beasts were reduced to nothingness.
She turned to Xiao Yifeng, wrapping an arm around his waist to support him. Her smile was breathtaking, yet terrifyingly distant. "Rest well, Little Feng. I will take us out."
With a single beat of her wings, she shot into the sky, carrying Xiao Yifeng amidst a storm of firebirds, descending the mountain with god-like momentum.
Xiao Yifeng’s face was pale, not just from exhaustion, but from fear. He knew exactly what she had done. She had ignited the Undead Bird Source Blood again. He had barely suppressed it the first time; now that she was actively burning it, the ancient bloodline was fighting for dominance.
If she failed to assimilate the power, the Source Blood would consume her. She would burn to ash at the height of her glory.
I need to recover, Xiao Yifeng thought, forcing himself to calm down. Panic is useless. I must restore enough spiritual energy to suppress the bloodline before she loses herself completely.
Su Miaoqing held him tight as they tore through the airspace of Golden Rooster Mountain. To her transformed eyes, the swarm of roosters was no longer a threat, but a plague of insects. She felt a profound, primal loathing for them—an arrogance inherited from the Phoenix.
She showed no mercy.
Her immortal sword, now wreathed in the golden phoenix fire, became a reaper’s scythe. Every slash cleaved the air, sending waves of impossible heat crashing into the enemy. Even the Golden Core roosters, sensing the suppression of a higher bloodline, hesitated to engage.
Xiao Yifeng, dangling in her grasp, offered a bitter smile. He had never expected to be the damsel in distress. But his smile faded as he felt the temperature of her body rising.
The heat radiating from Su Miaoqing was becoming unbearable. Where her arm gripped his waist, Xiao Yifeng could smell his own clothes singeing. The skin beneath was likely blistering, but he didn't make a sound.
The fact that the heat was leaking out meant she was losing control.
They were nearing the edge of the mountain, but the swarm had thickened into a solid sphere of feathers and claws, blocking out the sky. Su Miaoqing roared, her voice overlapping with the cry of a bird, and blasted the blockade apart.
She was not unscathed. Talons raked her arms and back, drawing blood. But the moment the wounds opened, golden flames cauterized and healed them instantly. It was a terrifying regeneration—the immortality of the Phoenix.
Her aura climbed higher—Middle Golden Core stage—and showed no signs of stopping. Her expression grew colder, her humanity receding behind a mask of divine apathy.
She sheathed her sword. It was too slow.
Extending her free hand, she grabbed a lunging rooster by the throat. With a squeeze, she crushed it. The golden flames didn't just burn the beast; they refined it. The rooster dissolved into a stream of pure, crimson spiritual energy, which Su Miaoqing inhaled greedily.
Xiao Yifeng watched in horror. Devouring. It was the eerie ability he had seen in the original Undead Bird.
At first, her movements were jerky, unfamiliar. But soon, she became a fluid engine of slaughter. Kill, refine, absorb. With every life she extinguished, her power swelled.
She slowed down.
She was no longer flying toward the exit. She was hunting.
The golden flames roared higher, turning the sky into a furnace. Xiao Yifeng could sense the Undead Bird Source Blood merging with her own essence, rewriting her biology. The roosters were no longer enemies; they were food. A cruel, ecstatic smile played on Su Miaoqing’s lips. She was drunk on power, addicted to the slaughter.
Xiao Yifeng’s heart sank. The residual consciousness of the Undead Bird was eroding her mind. Combined with the ancient memories she had absorbed, the assimilation was accelerating.
She was forgetting she was Su Miaoqing. She was becoming the beast.
"Senior Sister! Wake up!" Xiao Yifeng shouted over the roar of flames. "Stop killing! The Source Blood is assimilating you!"
Su Miaoqing’s face twitched, a flicker of struggle appearing in her golden eyes. But the euphoria of the kill was too potent. She ignored him, hovering in mid-air to catch another wave of enemies.
Her Phoenix pressure was now so heavy that the weaker roosters fled in terror. Only the mindless or the powerful dared approach, and they were instantly obliterated.
The heat was now critical. Xiao Yifeng’s protective robes began to carbonize, turning black and brittle.
He needed to shock her. Logic wouldn't work. He needed something visceral.
Xiao Yifeng looked at the flames dancing across her body and had an epiphany.
"Senior Sister!" he bellowed, infusing his voice with the last scrap of his energy. "If you stay here any longer, we’re going to be stark naked! I don't mind the view, but you’re a girl! Do you really want to bare it all to the world?!"
The words cut through the bloodlust like a blade.
Su Miaoqing froze, her hand halting mid-strike. The golden firebirds swirled confusedly around her. She blinked, the vertical pupils dilating slightly as human embarrassment pierced the divine apathy.
She looked down.
Her face drained of color.
Her specially crafted immortal dress, unable to withstand the Phoenix flames, was disintegrating. The sleeves were gone. The hem was dissolving into ash. Patches of her creamy, jade-like skin were glowing under the golden light, exposed to the open air. The fabric clinging to her chest and waist was threadbare, revealing dangerously large expanses of her snow-white skin.
Another few breaths, and she would be completely unclothed.
"Ah!"
Su Miaoqing’s face turned crimson, the blush visible even through the golden glow. She let out a mortified shriek, glaring hatefully at the surrounding roosters as if they were perverts trying to peek.
Without a second thought, she clamped her wings tight and shot toward the boundary of the mountain like a meteor, abandoning the fight instantly.
Xiao Yifeng let out a long, heavy exhale.
She still knew shame. That meant Su Miaoqing was still in there. If she had continued that slaughter... the consequences were too terrifying to imagine.