Chapter 61 · The Power of Faith
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Spirit-Realm Forest · Dusk
The setting sun painted the drifting mist in hues of amber.
Dew clung to low shrubs, refracting the light into soft halos—
each one delicate, ephemeral, like a prayer mid-utterance.
Ryan whispered without moving his lips:
“Seriously… is this bait even working? We’ve squatted here for an hour—”
“Shh.”
Han Yue’s pupils tightened. Instantly.
The forest fog shifted—
as though an unseen hand had drawn back the veil of the world.
And then—
It stepped through.
Its whole body gleamed like carved jade,
light flowing beneath its fur in slow, verdant currents.
Antlers branched like frostbitten trees, fading from green to translucent white in the waning sun.
Sapphire eyes reflected the night sky.
And on its brow, a third eye—half-lidded, shimmering blue—
hovered like a boundary stone between truth and illusion.
A Tri-Eyed Verdant Qiong.
It lowered its head in cautious grace, brushing its nose against the white Spirit-blossom.
Golden motes dusted the petals, scattering like tiny blessings.
Entranced, the creature extended its tongue—once, twice—
Swish! Swish!
Two arrows ripped the silence.
The third eye snapped fully open.
The beast leapt, streaking into the air like green lightning—
but not fast enough.
Thump!
YiChen’s Spirit-infused arrow hit clean through its chest.
A muted crack followed—like an icicle shattering against jade.
Ryan burst from the brush.
“Holy—Chief, that shot was god-tier!”
By the time they reached him, YiChen was already kneeling beside the fallen Qiong.
Soft light still drifted from its antlers. His chant faltered—only for a heartbeat.
He couldn’t help it.
In the past, ChengYu would always recite the final line with him.
This prayer was meant for two.
“…Send its spirit to rest.”
His voice was taut, hollow—stripped down to duty alone.
“If a beast like this dies with resentment,
it’ll breed mountain miasma for a hundred li.”
Before dusk could swallow the forest, the three returned to camp.
YiChen carried the kill over his shoulder—
its luminous blood dripping onto the moss, each drop blooming into pale blue flowers as they walked.
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Camp · By the Fire
The fire crackled, flinging sparks upward—brief, burning stars in the dark.
Max sat cross-legged beside it,
arms curled around the trembling white-butterfly Light beast.
Its tiny body glowed faintly, pulsing with each beat of Spirit.
Max’s energy flowed into it—slow, steady—
like frost settling on still water.
And as the Light beast drank it in, a shimmer pulsed back through his hands.
Something was resonating.
This creature
had lowered its guard for no one but him.
YiChen approached, setting the Qiong’s body down before Max.
The jade fur shimmered in the firelight.
Its third eye still glowed faintly—like a shard of frozen moon.
“Let it absorb the moon-essence,” YiChen said quietly.
“It’ll help it heal.”
Max nodded, wordless.
With careful hands, he lifted the Light beast
and placed it gently atop the Qiong’s brow.
The creature flinched—then stilled.
As if it recognized something.
A stream of blue essence began to rise—
flowing from the Qiong’s dying eye into the Light beast’s torn wing.
The body below dimmed, collapsing into a pale husk—
but the Light beast began to glow.
Its wings pulsed.
Silver etchings emerged along the edges—
like constellations drawn by an invisible brush.
The patterns shimmered, fine as ink on rice paper.
It rose—
one slow arc around the fire, scattering starlight like a quiet snowfall—
Then landed again on Max’s arm, antennae curling around his finger.
As if to say: Thank you.
Firelight danced across Max’s face.
He lowered his gaze, touching the creature’s head lightly.
And in that moment—
Something shifted.
Deep in his chest, a long-sealed mechanism stirred—
ancient gears rolling awake.
YiChen exhaled—barely audible.
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“Good recovery.”
He glanced toward the last smudge of gold on the horizon.
“Night Fiends come after dark.
We’ll release it tomorrow.”
He lifted the rest of the Qiong’s body and moved to the far side of camp.
A blade caught firelight—
then came the clean, rhythmic sound of dressing the kill.
His shadow stretched long across the cave wall—
rising and falling with each arc of the knife.
Max didn’t move.
The Light beast had curled against his neck—
its tiny heartbeat pulsing in sync
with his own.
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Deep Night
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Inside the Tent
The embers of the campfire had long since gone cold.
Silence lay thick across the forest—so dense it felt physical—
broken only by the wind lifting the tent flap now and then,
soft as breath, cold as bone.
YiChen sat cross-legged on his mat, fingers sealed in a mudra.
The Taiwei Guiyuan Art coursed through his Spirit Meridians in a familiar rhythm.
At first, it felt the way it always had—
Spirit Energy from heaven and earth flowing like cool spring water,
gently nourishing his slowly hardening conduits.
But tonight…
…was different.
A pressure crushed suddenly against his chest—
dull, suffocating—
like an invisible hand squeezing his ribs inward.
His eyes snapped open—
And before he could draw a steady breath—
A force erupted in his Consciousness Sea.
Hum——
Voices—countless voices—
poured in like floodwater bursting a dam.
“May the Light be with you, YiChen…”
“Please… protect my child…”
“If you truly walk under Heaven’s will—watch over us…”
They weren’t prayers.
They were confessions—
raw, desperate, trembling with fear and longing.
Thousands of them.
Shoveled into him like coal into a furnace already on the brink of collapse.
His mind plummeted—
dragged downward into a frozen ocean of belief.
Crushing. Endless. Inescapable.
“Faith…”
His voice rasped through clenched teeth.
“This much faith… it’s too chaotic…”
He remembered—
a warning spoken years ago by the Patriarch of Taiwei:
“The will of the masses can forge a god…
or destroy a mortal.”
This wasn’t reverence.
It was weight.
A burden.
A blade.
A shackle.
“The first layer of Taiwei Guiyuan converts external force…”
His breath hitched.
“But who said—”
His voice cracked.
“—that external force would be gentle?”
He inhaled—once.
Focused.
Tried to guide the incoming tide—
And then—
Agony.
What had been flowing energy turned into microscopic blades.
Each breath of cultivation scraped his meridians like razors dragged across raw nerves—
not burning, but flaying.
At the corner of the tent, the small pink Light beast startled.
His fur puffed up, trembling with alarm.
He tried to reach YiChen—
But the light erupting from YiChen’s body shoved him back.
No longer warm.
No longer soft.
It had become a cutting edge—
brilliant, blinding, deadly.
Endure.
Just one cycle.
Just one more.
Sweat beaded down YiChen’s face, dripping from his chin and wrists.
His fingers trembled.
His lips bled where he’d bitten through—
But he did not stop.
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3:00 a.m.
YiChen collapsed forward.
A shallow puddle of sweat soaked through the pad beneath him.
His hands twitched with aftershocks—tiny electric spasms, nerves still alight.
The Light beast crept forward at last.
He nudged YiChen’s chest with his nose—hesitant, frightened—then licked the bruise blooming faintly beneath his collarbone.
A hairline mark, drawn as if in ink—
but so deep it pulsed down to bone.
The little creature whimpered and curled tightly against him,
his trembling coming as much from fear as from helplessness.
YiChen finally slipped into sleep.
Shallow.
Fragile.
But real.
And as he did—
Something began to change.
His Spirit Meridians, pricked and eroded and torn, did not simply heal.
They began to reform.
This was not recovery.
This was forging.
Along the inner lining of each channel, faint golden tracery bloomed—
star-maps etched in divine ink.
They shimmered. Faded. Shimmered again.
As though destiny itself had pressed a signature against his bones.
A breaking.
And a rebirth.
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Morning · The Camp
Sunlight filtered through the tent canvas in thin, golden flecks.
Outside, the wind stirred the leaves with a low, easy hush.
YiChen opened his eyes to the soft murmur of voices beyond the tent wall.
“…He must’ve trained till dawn.”
“Shh. Let him sleep a bit longer.”
Boots rustled over dry leaves.
Han Yue’s voice drifted away—clearly taking his shift.
YiChen sat up slowly.
His muscles tingled—
a gentle, humming current,
like static electricity dancing under the skin.
Compared to last night’s torture, this—
This almost felt like comfort.
He let out a quiet breath.
Shixi’s gift…
the Spirit-time technique—
its true value wasn’t speed.
It was survival.
The Light beast nuzzled anxiously into his chest and chirped.
YiChen reached out, fingers brushing his fur in a slow, steady motion—
a grounding touch, quiet and reassuring.
—————
Beyond the Barrier
Max held out his palm.
The white-butterfly Light beast alighted with feather-soft grace, leaving a trail of starlike motes that shimmered faintly across his skin.
“Go on,” he murmured, brushing the edge of a delicate wing with his fingertip.
“Don’t let any Fiends grab you again.”
The creature lifted off, tracing a luminous blue arc through the newborn sunlight.
It circled each team member once—its wing-tips scattering phosphorescent dust that hung in the air like a suspended bridge of light—
then spiraled back to Max’s outstretched finger, antennae curling around his index with gentle insistence.
“Looks like he’s attached to you,” Ryan chuckled.
But the instant Max stroked his wing—
Shff!
A faint tremor rippled through the creature.
The next heartbeat—
SHFF—!
Max’s eyes flew wide.
A sharp pulse shot up his arm—
the antennae had stabbed cleanly into his Spirit Meridian.
Too late to pull back.
Spirit Energy flooded him like a burst dam,
drowning his senses in a single, blinding instant.
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Images surged—
He stood beneath a full moon,
surrounded by thousands of white butterflies streaming toward him from every direction.
He walked atop mist—
legs submerged in fields of impossible, hallucinatory blossoms.
He saw himself—
shattered into a hundred crystalline reflections within the creature’s mirror-bright eyes—
before the fragments snapped back together
into a shape entirely new.
Pain seared the base of his neck—
and a Pact Mark unfurled there:
a pristine butterfly,
a single point of deep blue buried at its heart,
like a star drowned in the abyss.
【My name is Phantom Chime.】
The voice was soft—
not heard with ears,
but blooming in the quietest corner of his mind.
【I weave dreams…
between the real,
and the unreal.】
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Max’s vision steadied.
Phantom Chime perched lightly on his shoulder now,
his wings glowing in slow, pulse-like waves of light.
Max rose and walked toward the forest’s edge.
The Light beast fluttered upward—
and began to fly.
His wings carved perfect arcs through the air.
Threads of violet and gold unspooled behind him, each stroke sending out ripples
like stones skipping across a mirrored lake.
And then—
the entire camp vanished.
Tents.
Footprints.
Weapon crates.
Fire pit.
Even the faint smell of ash—
All erased.
In their place lay only untouched forest floor—
serene, unbroken, as if no human presence had ever passed.
“That’s incredible…” David breathed.
“With this, Fiends won’t track us at all—”
But YiChen didn’t move.
His gaze fixed on the space before them.
To him, the illusion was only mist—
a thin veil clinging to the world like frost on glass.
Every distorted beam of light,
every delayed echo,
every lingering trace of aura—
He could see through it all.
Just like that night.
The Gilded Flamefang Sovereign’s gaze—
the way it had sliced through illusion, through distance, through any barrier he had prayed would hold.
The memory struck without warning.
ChengYu’s terrified eyes.
His small fist clenched in YiChen’s sleeve.
That voiceless plea—
Don’t let go.
YiChen’s chest tightened.
Last night’s chaotic surge of faith-force twisted violently through his meridians,
a tide returning too soon, too heavy.
“Captain?” Han Yue’s voice cut in—quiet, edged with alarm.
YiChen didn’t answer.
He simply tucked the pink Light beast into his pocket, turned away,
and said in a low, clipped tone:
“Pack up.”
No room for questions.
No room for hesitation.
Because he knew—
From here on,
the road would only grow harsher.
