Jared gave a crooked smile. "I told you. I''m just an ordinary wandering cultivator."
Back in Stoneford Vige in the Ethereal Realm, Jared had already carried those three powers inside him.
And the three of them had already fused into the threefold force.
He just hadn''t paid it much attention.
He''d assumed anyone could have that kind of power.
"An ordinary wandering cultivator?"
Gwendolyn let out a coldugh. "A normal wandering cultivator could carry the power of the Draconians and the demons in the same body without exploding and dying? A normal wandering cultivator could possess chaotic force? A normal wandering cultivator in the High Immortal Realm could fight with strengthparable to the True Immortal Realm?"
One question after another came at Jared so fast he had nothing to say.
Gwendolyn drew in a long breath, sat back down, and looked at him with a gaze that wouldn''t settle into any one thing.
"Your body can contain any bloodline and any kind of power. There won''t be the slightest bloodline rejection. That means you can fuse every bloodline in heaven and earth. Celestial bloodlines, demon bloodlines, Draconian bloodlines, even bloodlines older and stronger than those. None of them would sh inside you."
Her voice dropped lower, carrying a kind of gravity Jared had never heard from her before.
"Jared, do you know what that means?"
Jared shook his head.
"It means you''re the most perfect bloodline vessel in this world," Gwendolyn said, each wordnding hard. "There is no second one."
Silence settled over the stone chamber.
Jared sat there with Gwendolyn''s words pressing down on him, turning over one after another inside his head.
He had always treated his Golden Dragon Bloodline as his greatest trump card.
But now it looked like the real trump card was the chaotic force he himself had never truly understood.
"So what?" he asked evenly.
Gwendolyn looked at him and stayed quiet for a long time.
Then she made a move Jared never sawing.
She rose, walked over to him, and slowly knelt down in front of him.
Her white robe spread across the cold stone floor like a white lotus blooming on
snow.
She lifted her head and looked straight at Jared with those deep, star-dark eyes. There was a plea in them. Resolve too. And a thin, unguarded fragility he had never seen from her before.
"Jared, I have a request."
The move caught Jared so hard he jumped, and he reached for her on instinct, trying to pull her up.
"What are you doing? Get up and say it."
"Listen to me first."
Gwendolyn pressed a hand over his, and her tone did not waver.
She drew in a slow breath.
When she spoke again, her voice dropped so low it was almost a whisper.
"I am thest heir of the Frost Deity Branch. By my generation, the Frost Deity Branch''s bloodline has already weakened to the brink.
"If I still can''t find a way to strengthen the bloodline, the Frost Deity Branch will disappearpletely. I guarded thiske, this tree, for ten thousand years. Not to watch the Frost Deity Branch end in my hands."
A faint redness touched the rims of her eyes.
It was the first time Jared had ever seen that look in them.
"What I need is someone whose bloodline can fuse with mine. Someone who will not reject the Ice God Bloodline, and whom the Ice God Bloodline will not tejest. For ten thousand years, I searched at through the Fourteenth Firmament. Not one person could do it."
She kept her eyes on Jared.
The look in them turned scorching.
"Until you came."
Only then did Jared fully understand what she meant, and his face changed.
"You''re saying..."
"I want to dual cultivate with you."
Gwendolyn''s voice stayed even, but a faint blush quietly spread along the tips of her
ears.
"I want to fuse the Frost Deity Branch''s bloodline with yours. Only then can the Ice God Bloodline be strengthened. Only then can the Frost Deity Branch continue on." Jared shot to his feet and stumbled back two steps. His face turned ugly fast.
"No."
His voice came down hard, leaving no room for bargaining.
The reason Jared refused was simple.
He couldn''t stand being treated like a breeding stud by Gwendolyn.
He liked dual cultivation with women. There was no point pretending otherwise. That
kind of thing had always been one of life''s pure pleasures.
But dual cultivation with no feelings behind it—what was that, if not acting like a stud put out for mating?
Back in the Ethereal Realm, Catina had forced him into dual cultivation and kept drawing on his bloodline. At the time, he hadn''t had a choice.
He needed Catina to save his life.
Later, though, one round of cultivation after another had changed things between them. Feelings had grown somewhere along the way, and after that, Jared had taken to it dly.
But Gwendolyn was different.
She was beautiful. Her figure was stunning. Her skin was wless. Even so, Jared kept sensing something dangerous about her, and that made him unwilling to enter dual cultivation with her justo
because she asked.
Gwendolyn stayed kneeling on the ground and looked up at him. The light in her eyes dimmed a little.
"Why?" Gwendolyn asked.
Jared turned away from her and faced the other direction. His fists locked tight.
"I have a wife. I have women. I even have dozens of women. But every one of them has feelings for me."
"And you? You only want dual
cultivation with me for your own bloodline. There''s not a shred of feeling in it for me. I''m not some breeding stud you can drag around and pair off wherever you want."
The stone chamber fell into dead silence.
Gwendolyn said nothing for a long time.
Then she slowly rose to her feet and brushed the dust from her skirt.
By the time she straightened, that cold, distant look had settled back over her again.
But when Gwendolyn spoke again, there was a faint rasp in her voice that hadn''t been there before.