Chapter 294: Gong Moran — The Final Forbidden Art
It had already been three months since Li Yunduo’s death.
Gong Moran brought her body to the Witch Clan’s sacred land from three hundred years ago. Though the place had long since fallen into desolation, the Witch Clan’s sacred treasure—the Ice Bed hidden deep within a stone cavern—was still there.
Placing a corpse upon the Ice Bed could preserve it from decay for a hundred years.
Gong Moran stood before the Ice Bed, gazing at the woman’s body. His eyes were dead still, devoid of the slightest ripple. The man’s once silver hair had long since turned snow-white, and his complexion was as pale as paper.
Over the past three months, he had cast heaven-defying summoning spells time and time again, yet no matter how many times he tried, her soul never returned—not even once.
Gong Moran could not understand it. He had clearly carved a Soul-Locking Array into Li Yunduo’s body, so why had her soul vanished less than five days after her death?
All that lay before him now was merely the shell of that woman. The soul within it was gone—gone three months ago already.
Suddenly, he felt it was all absurd.
He had believed everything was under his control, yet in the end, it all turned into a cruel joke.
Duoduo had clearly warned him: if he ever used another heaven-defying forbidden art, she would make him regret it. He had heard her words back then but hadn’t taken them seriously.
He thought—she loved him so deeply. How could she bear to punish him?
Arrogantly, he believed that Duoduo’s love for him would allow her to tolerate everything. And so, in the end, he indulged himself one last time.
The fate of Southern Yun Kingdom had already run its course. It was destined to be carved up by Eastern Lin and Western Lin. He could be considered to have avenged himself—yet even that was not enough.
Back then, the founding emperor of Southern Yun Kingdom had burned the entire Witch Clan to the ground. The inferno raged for days and nights, reducing every clansman to ashes. It was utterly inhumane.
He had never witnessed those scenes with his own eyes, but his mother had implanted them into his mind again and again, making him feel as though he had been there himself.
He knew her purpose. She wanted him to live with hatred, to shoulder the burden of vengeance. And she had succeeded. From the moment he was born, she used witchcraft to instill a sea of blood and hatred into him, causing that hatred to grow ever deeper within his heart.
Only by destroying Southern Yun Kingdom could that bone-deep hatred ever be eradicated.
His mother had cast a heaven-defying life-extension spell, transferring the lives that the clansmen should not have lost onto him. And because of that forbidden art, she herself exhausted her life force and died.
She was a pitiful woman. During the decade or so she raised him, she was completely consumed by hatred. Her mind had become grotesquely twisted. In her eyes, perhaps he was no longer her son, but merely a tool for revenge.
Her death was a release for her—but for him, it was the beginning of everything.
Gong Moran felt that this was fine. Living too long was meaningless anyway. Only with a purpose to support him did life become bearable.
Thus, he became the National Preceptor—second only to the emperor, above ten thousand others—repeating the same monotonous days year after year.
Until Duoduo appeared, breaking the stillness of his life.
At first, he only thought her resilient, bold beyond reason. She foolishly spied on him, believing she had hidden it perfectly. Had it not been for her clear eyes and pure intentions, he might have taken her life on the spot.
Later, when she sneaked into Mo Ran Hall to become a gu-bearer, he hadn’t thought much of it either, only that the little girl was courting death. Yet he never expected that such a small girl could endure the brain-devouring pain and heart-eating agony that even grown men could not withstand. He happened to lack a test subject, so he accepted her.
What followed was completely beyond his expectations.
Her presence was overwhelming—she was always deliberately or inadvertently appearing before him. When he began to fall for her, even he could not say. He only knew that he grew increasingly indulgent toward her, unable to resist the blazing passion and fervent adoration that never left her gaze.
He had considered distancing himself from her. But the moment he heard that something had happened to her, the only thought in his mind was—
This girl cannot be allowed to suffer harm.
Before, he indulged her closeness and her temptations. That one time, however, he indulged himself.
After that night of madness, everything changed.
Duoduo’s love had once been restrained, but once unleashed, it became blazing and intense. It was precisely that intensity that gave him the illusion that no matter what he did, she would always follow him, never leave him.
Because she loved him that deeply.
She had even said she would go to hell with him.
Yet in the end, she broke her promise—all because of a single mistake of his.
Duoduo believed that when faced with hatred and love, he chose the former.
But she did not know that from the very beginning, he had never been given a choice. Hatred had long since clung to him like a parasite in his bones. Only by eradicating it completely could he finally retreat into seclusion with her in peace.
Later, he wondered—had she known all along that he would set up the Heaven-Scorching Array? Was that why she deliberately took the Rain-Prayer Sword with her when she left?
That day, when he said they were leaving, there had clearly been a trace of pleading in her eyes. But he had been too eager to destroy that place to notice it.
If… if he had known Duoduo would stop him, he would have abandoned this final obsession without hesitation.
Nothing in this world mattered more than her.
She loved fiercely.
He loved profoundly.
Only at the very end did he finally understand—not that she could not live without him, but that from beginning to end… it was he who could not live without her.
At the moment of her death, he still clung to one last shred of hope. He believed that with the Soul-Locking Array in place, even if she died, he could bring her back with heaven-defying witchcraft.
That final shred of hope was what allowed him to leave the place he had wanted to destroy.
Gong Moran gently lifted the woman from the bed and cradled her in his arms. Thanks to the Ice Bed, her complexion was rosy, as though she were merely asleep. He loosened her garments, revealing the flower-like Soul-Locking Array on her back, lowered his head, and softly kissed it.
“Duoduo… where did you go?” he murmured.
After holding her body like this for a full day and night, Gong Moran finally made his last decision.
He would cast the ultimate forbidden art—Soul-Burning Soul-Seeking.
He covered his own body with countless intricate arrays. When combined, they formed the Witch Clan’s most mysterious and supreme forbidden technique: Soul-Burning Soul-Seeking.
The man lay down beside Li Yunduo, slowly closed his eyes, and clasped her icy right hand with his left.
In the next instant, his soul tore free from his body.
Freed from its vessel, the soul seemed even colder. Those eyes were dark, lifeless, without the slightest ripple. He quietly looked at the two corpses lying side by side as raging flames engulfed his soul, beginning to burn it inch by inch from the feet upward.
The burning did not reduce him to nothing. After the inferno, his form twisted violently and slowly began to change.
A trace of confusion flashed through the man’s eyes. Only after a long while did he slowly lift his head to gaze into the distance—then suddenly swung his arm, tearing a massive rift open in the void before him…
