At that moment, the young girl stared at the person in the mirror, her gaze fixed on Yang Kai. Seeing his weathered face and snow-white hair, her eyes suddenly reddened, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
The boy beside her also had snow-white hair, but unlike Yang Kai, his hair was naturally that way. Yang Kai's white hair, however, was a sign of his lifespan being consumed almost to its end — the approach of his final deadline. Though the girl had never walked the mortal world, her cultivation was far from weak. How could she fail to see this?
Her heart ached. That was why her eyes reddened. That was why she wept.
After the heartache came fury. The girl's gaze shifted to Lord Wind, who leaned against the wall, and her cold, phoenix-like eyes were filled with killing intent.
The boy beside her was also staring at the scrying mirror, cold sweat dripping from his forehead, looking as though he had seen a ghost. He muttered under his breath, "It's over, it's over, it's over — this time it's truly over, over, over..." As he spoke, he began pacing in circles, the very picture of someone with nowhere to run. Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he glanced at the girl beside him. "You can handle everything here on your own, so... I'll just be going ahead, then."
As he spoke, his figure blurred, tearing through the void, about to leave the place.
The girl raised her hand. Her slender, jade-like fingers closed around his ear with perfect precision, dragging him back out of the void.
The boy winced in pain, hunching over and crouching beside her with a miserable expression. "This trick again? Let's talk this out properly, please! If you have any orders, just say the word — your child would climb mountains of blades and wade through seas of fire without so much as a frown. But I'm begging you to show some mercy and stop yanking my ear. I am a dragon, after all. If word got out, where would my face be? I wouldn't be able to show my face as a dragon ever again."
Though the two of them looked roughly the same age, the boy referred to himself as "your child," and the girl showed not the slightest sense of oddness about it, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. She gave him a sidelong glance, then pointed a finger at Lord Wind in the mirror and said flatly, "I want him to wish he were dead."
The boy blinked. "That's it?"
"Can you do it or not?" the girl asked.
The boy thumped his chest. "Leave it to me." With that, he put on a ingratiating smile and gazed at her with a look of eager deference. The girl studied him for a moment before slowly releasing her small hand.
Free at last, the boy rubbed his ear, then fixed his gaze on Lord Wind in the mirror, grinding his teeth with hatred as though he were pinning the grievance of his揪bed ear squarely on him.
A moment later, he let out a soft laugh and spoke in a resonant voice: "Speak of fortune, speak of fortune — fortune inverted is fortune anew. The heavens are impermanent, the earth is impermanent, and on the path of impermanence, all beings are impermanent."
As the words left his lips, he took a single step forward and walked straight into the mirror. His figure passed into its surface like ripples on water and vanished. In the next instant, he had appeared inside the great hall, landing right before Lord Wind.
The boy's face was as flawless as carved jade, his smile warm and refined. Lord Wind was horrified, for from his perspective, this youth had appeared in the most uncanny manner imaginable — as though he had simply walked out of the void itself, with absolutely no warning beforehand.
Lord Wind narrowed his eyes and looked closely. With his abilities, he could not gauge the boy's depth at all. Granted, his current condition was far from ideal, but this still served as proof of just how extraordinary this youth was.
The boy's voice was the same as the one that had echoed through the hall moments ago. Lord Wind knew full well that the speaker had been none other than this boy. He straightened his expression, about to ask the youth's identity and origin, but the boy gave him no chance to speak. Still wearing that easy smile, he reached forward with a casual pinch of his fingers and said lightly, "Taking someone else's things — don't you find them too hot to hold? It's time they were returned to their rightful owner."
His manner was utterly relaxed, as though he were not facing a Pseudo Emperor, but a defenseless scholar. His posture was effortless, as though he were simply bending to pluck a flower, picking it up without a care in the world.
That pale, flawless hand passed with effortless ease through the barrier of light that surrounded Lord Wind — the very barrier that had withstood all of Zhuifeng's frantic charges and trampling without sustaining the slightest damage — and closed around the Infinite Hourglass in Lord Wind's grip.
Lord Wind was shaken to his core. The Infinite Hourglass was a Great Emperor's legacy treasure, his greatest crutch in this place, and the central node for controlling the Temple of Time. He had channeled the power of his essence blood to harness the Temple's might and shield himself. Even if a Great Emperor had come in person, unless they destroyed the Temple of Time entirely, there was nothing anyone could do to him.
He had told Yang Kai as much before, and it was the truth.
Yet in barely any time at all, a boy had materialized out of thin air before him. The boy had simply bent forward, reached out, pierced through the barrier of light, and seized the Infinite Hourglass.
How could Lord Wind not be horrified? This scene was even more terrifying to him than a Great Emperor appearing in the flesh. A Great Emperor, for all their vast abilities, would at least have left some trace of their methods that he could read. But the boy's reach had been entirely without any visible force or technique — Lord Wind simply could not comprehend how he had done it.
His mind wavered for a heartbeat. The weight in his left hand vanished, and the Infinite Hourglass that had rested in his palm was simply gone.
When he looked up again, the boy had already straightened to his full height at some unknown moment. The Infinite Hourglass now rested in the youth's hand, and he was examining it with idle curiosity.
In that instant, Lord Wind felt every hair on his body stand on end. A cold sweat broke out across his entire frame, and he felt as though the blood in his veins had turned to ice.