Jared clenched his teeth. He endured the violent pain churning through him, then slowly loosened his control over the draconic energy.


    The golden draconic energy stopped resisting the icy divine radiance.


    The two powers finally began to blend, little by little.


    At first, it moved so slowly he could barely sense any change at all.


    But little by little, that blending began to speed up.


    Gold and ice-blue mixed together and gave birth to an entirely new color.


    It was a warm pale gold, like the first light of dawn.


    That pale golden radiance surged out of their bodies and spread over the entire clearing.


    Under that light, the Worldtree''s leaves began falling faster and faster. Golden leaves spun and danced through the air, then settled around the two of them,yering the ground with one thick carpet after another.


    Jared could feel the Frost Deity Branch bloodline merging into his body.


    It was an ancient power, unbelievably pure.


    Cold, but not biting. Powerful, but not overbearing. It moved through Jared''s meridians like a trace of spring wind sealed inside ten thousand years of ice, slow and steady.


    At the same time, the Golden Dragon Bloodline inside him was flowing the other way, pouring into Gwendolyn''s body.


    Golden draconic energy and ice-blue divine radiance wove together inside her and fused, stirring awake the Ice God Bloodline that had slept in her body for ages.


    The bloodline power that time had worn dim began to live again under the nourishment of the chaotic force.


    Time slipped by around them without a sound.


    No one could have said how long itsted. Maybe 1 hour. Maybe the whole night. In the end, that pale golden radiance slowly drew back in and returned to their bodies.


    Jared slowly opened his eyes.


    Something inside his body had changed in a strange, unmistakable way.


    The spiritual power in the spirit well was fuller than before. His meridians were wider than before. Even the Golden Dragon Bloodline in him had grown denser and purer.


    He could tell his cultivation level hadn''t broken through, but his actual strength had taken a leap that was on apletely different level.


    It was hard to put into words. Like a sword that had already been sharp enough to split anything, then got tempered again and polished again until it turned tougher and keener than before.


    The peak of High Immortal Realm Level Five.


    Just one step more, and he would enter High Immortal Realm Level Six.


    Gwendolyn''s changes were even more obvious.


    The presence rolling off her was far stronger than before, by more than just a little.


    That cool, distant face had a little more color in it now, and a little less of that old pallor.


    Her eyes were brighter too, like stars that had just been wiped clean, giving off a faint glow.


    The Frost Deity Branch bloodline hade back to life inside her.


    Gwendolyn lowered her head and looked at her own hands. She stood there, feeling the power moving through her body, silent for a long time.


    Then she raised her head and looked at Jared.


    Something in those deep eyes had started to shift without a sound.


    The scrutiny was gone. So was the old measuring look. In its ce was something


    more... something gentle, something even she couldn''t have clearly named.


    "Thank you." Her voice was so soft it was almost impossible to hear.


    Jared shook his head and said nothing.


    Something subtle hung in the air between them.


    Everything that had just happened had changed the tie between them in a way that couldn''t be undone.


    Jared had said, "This is just a deal," but some things, once they happened, never went back to what they were before.


    Gwendolyn seemed to have caught that shift too. She rose to her feet, turned her back to Jared, then bent to pick up the thin veil scattered on the ground and draped it over her shoulders.


    Her movements stayed as calm as ever, but the slight tremor in her fingers gave her away.


    "You..." She hesitated, still not turning around. "Do you regret it?"


    Jared was quiet for a moment.


    "No." His voice came steady and firm. "I promised you I would do this, and I did it. There''s nothing to regret."


    Gwendolyn''s shoulders loosened just a little, like a breath had finally gone out of


    her.


    She didn''t say anything else. She only stood there beneath the Worldtree, head tilted up as she looked at the golden canopy overhead.


    The night wind swept past, and the golden leaves rustled softly, like they were whispering some ancient secret.


    Jared walked over and stopped beside her.


    Neither of them spoke. They only stood there in silence, watching the Worldtree sway gently in the night wind.


    A long time passed before Gwendolyn suddenly broke the silence.


    "Do you know why the Celestial Pce was built here?"


    Jared shook his head.


    Gwendolyn turned, her gaze going across theke''s surface and down toward the ce deep below where Return to the Void slept.


    "Because this is the oldest ce in the Fourteenth Firmament. Older than the celestials, older than the human race, older than any known race."


    Her voice dropped, carrying the weight that came with telling an ancient legend.


    "The Worldtree wasn''t nted by the celestials. When we found it, it was already here. And the reason it can grow here is because....."


    She pointed toward the bottom of theke.


    "Because of Return to the Void."


    Jared followed her gaze.


    The dark sapphireke looked bottomless.


    That enormous creature had already sunk to the deepest part, and all he could make out now was a faint thread of golden radiance flickering in the dark. "Return to the Void isn''t just a fish," Gwendolyn said, her voice barely above a whisper. "It''s the Warden of Voidreturn Lake, the Warden of the Worldtree, and more than that... the Warden of a gate."


    "What gate?" Jared asked.


    Gwendolyn didn''t answer right away.


    She stayed silent for so long that Jared started to think she wouldn''t answer at all.


    Then, all at once, she spoke.


    "A gate that leads to... the ancient age."


    Jared''s pupils tightened a little.


    "The roots of the Worldtree run all


    the way down to the deepest part of theke. At the bottom, there''s a fissure guarded by Return to the Void. On the other side of that of that fissure is a world time forgot. the Ancient Battlefield of the ancient


    age."


    There was a strange rhythm in her voice, like she was chanting an ancient epic.


    "The most powerful beings of the ancient age are buried there. The ancestors of the celestials, the


    Sovereigns of the Drace the


    progenitor of the demon race met


    them left behind their inheritances


    and relics on that Ancient Battlefield."


    of


    She turned to look at Jared.


    Her eyes burned.


    "I''ve always wanted to go down and


    see it for myself. But Return to the Void doesn''t allow anyone near that crack its quarded that ce for countless years, and it doesn''t let anyone step into the Ancient Battlefield."


    "But now it''s different."


    The corner of Gwendolyn''s mouth lifted a little.


    There was a trace of slyness in that smile, and something expectant too.


    "Return to the Void knows my bloodline, and it knows your Golden Dragon Bloodline


    too. But it doesn''t know... our bloodline."


    Jared paused. "Our bloodline?"


    Gwendolyn reached out her hand, palm facing up.


    A pale golden radiance appeared in her palm.


    It wasn''t purely gold, and it wasn''t purely icy blue either. It was what those two


    colors became after blending together perfectly.


    That was the power formed after the Ice God Bloodline and the Golden Dragon Bloodline fused together.


    It was also the power Jared and Gwendolyn both carried inside them after dual cultivation.


    "Return to the Void won''t stop someone who has this kind of power."


    "Because this power shares the same origin as the power of certain beings in the


    Ancient Battlefield..." Gwendolyn said, her voice quickening.


    Atst, Jared understood what she meant.


    "You want me to go down there with you?"


    Gwendolyn nodded.


    "This is the second thing." She raised two fingers and waved them in front of Jared.


    "Come with me and explore the ce Return to the Void protects."


    Jared stood there for a moment without saying anything.


    Then he gave a slow nod.


    "Okay."


    Gwendolyn smiled.


    It was a faint smile.


    Still, it was more real than any smile Jared had seen from her before.


    It wasn''t that cool, distant smile anymore, the kind that always kept people a step


    away.


    This one came from somewhere deeper, the kind of smile a woman showed after finally getting the promise she wanted.


    "Tomorrow."


    She turned and looked down toward the deepest part of theke, toward the


    massive sleeping creature below.


    "Tomorrow, we go down."


    Deep under theke, a thin slit opened in Return to the Void''s golden eye.


    That gaze pierced through the dark sapphire water and settled on the two of them


    standing side by side beneath the Worldtree.


    It stayed on them for a long time.


    Then the golden eyes slowly closed again and sank back into the darkness.


    As if giving its permission.


    As if waiting.