Chapter 877: Who Dares Touch Her

"Ugh!"

Under the cover of night, not far from Xu Bang's tent, Lei Shuangxing suddenly grunted and squatted down, clutching his head.

"What's wrong?" Luo Leilei exclaimed, startled.

She had been walking behind him and witnessed him squat down without warning. She quickly rushed over, knelt down, and asked, "Headache? Haven't you fully adapted to the power of yin and yang... that?"

She gently pushed aside Lei Shuangxing's hands and looked at his eyes. Luo Leilei could clearly see that even with his disguise, his face was contorted in such extreme pain that the disguise couldn't conceal it.

"Ugh!"

Lei Shuangxing pressed two fingers to his temples. Even though the pain was excruciating, he only let out a muffled grunt, making no other sound.

"That makes no sense..." Luo Leilei panicked when Lei Shuangxing didn't speak. She muttered to herself, "Didn't the adaptation period end a long time ago? Is it... incompatibility? But if it's incompatible, why would it act up now? Shuangxing, are you alright?"

Lei Shuangxing endured it for quite a while, and it seemed the pain had only just begun to subside when he managed to utter, "It's not my problem..."

"If it's not your problem, then whose is it?" Luo Leilei was bewildered. Lei Shuangxing looked so pained. Could it be a psychic attack from an unknown enemy?

"Is there an enemy attack?" Luo Leilei stood up in alarm, scanning her surroundings warily.

"No..." Lei Shuangxing struggled to get the word out, but found it difficult to explain further. For over a decade, his vision had only been in shades of black, white, and gray. But at this moment, amidst the searing pain in his eyes, throbbing temples, and a brain that felt like it was about to explode, a blurred image appeared!

For an ordinary person, such a blurred image would have been indecipherable. But for Lei Shuangxing, what appeared before him was not a spiritual projection, but a tangible sight, something he could see with his own eyes. It was the first time in over a decade!

"My eyes..." In his agony, Lei Shuangxing seemed to understand something. He braced himself with one hand on the ground, then stumbled as he used his staff to push himself up. He suddenly turned his head, as if trying to pierce through space to pinpoint the origin of his eye pain.

But... he still couldn't see. Aside from that fleeting blurred image, when he tried to look again, his vision had reverted to the boundless black, white, and gray.

Although it was only for an instant, Lei Shuangxing thought for a moment about the figure in the image and remembered.

"Elder Wuxiu!"

"How could it be Elder Wuxiu?"

The pain subsided as the blurred image vanished, but Lei Shuangxing was deeply alarmed. He had never seen Elder Wuxiu's face, but the unique aura of that person had been etched into his memory since he was very young. Now, what that blurred image conveyed... The figure itself wasn't important! What mattered was that the aura emanating from that person was identical to Elder Wuxiu's!

Holy Slave Wuxiu, also known as Sang Qiye, was apparently arrested after the Battle of White Cave and imprisoned beneath Mount Gui's Sacred Mountain. How could he possibly be in the Yunlun Mountain Range?

"Xi'er..." Lei Shuangxing murmured softly. Suddenly, an overwhelming killing intent erupted from him.

No matter what, for the God-Devil Eyes to stir like this, sending images back to their original owner, it meant their current host was in grave danger. And just moments ago, he had barely heard her footsteps...

"Who dares to touch her!" Lei Shuangxing gritted his teeth. Around his tightly closed eyes, ferocious white patterns erupted, seemingly from his exertion. These patterns, accompanied by bulging veins, quickly spread to cover his eye sockets, then extended further, transforming half his forehead and one side of his face into a terrifying, beast-like mask.

"The Lifelong Mark!" Luo Leilei exclaimed, her face filled with shock. She had never felt such chillingly terrifying killing intent from Lei Shuangxing, not even when he faced targets who absolutely deserved to die during missions. Yet now, without even seeing his enemy, his killing intent had erupted to such an extent that it activated the Lifelong Mark!

"What happened?" "What does this headache of Shuangxing's mean?" Luo Leilei's heart pounded with unease, a vague premonition that something terrible was about to unfold.

The Lifelong Mark, recorded in *Eyes of the World*, was one of the Lei family's eye techniques, and the only one that required postnatal cultivation to master. Its sole purpose was to tap into one's potential, unleashing immense combat power in a short period. Its side effects were terrifying. Yet, before the Lei family's downfall, the Lifelong Mark was hailed as the world's greatest burst technique.

A common Lei family king-tier once achieved an extraordinary feat: activating the Lifelong Mark unexpectedly, successfully ambushing and severing a Great Void's arm, then escaping. Unfortunately, with the Lei family's annihilation, this ultimate burst technique also vanished.

Luo Leilei wasn't surprised that Lei Shuangxing had mastered the Lifelong Mark; she had known about it for a while. However, the conditions for activating it were either extreme rage, an overwhelming desire for survival, or the most absolute killing intent... Luo Leilei had never seen Lei Shuangxing activate the Lifelong Mark before.

This was because if someone activated the Lifelong Mark and failed to shed blood, to kill, and to annihilate the target of their hatred, the eye patterns would never fade! Moreover, every second the Lifelong Mark's patterns were present, the user had to expend an infinite amount of life force to fuel the surge in combat power. Luo Leilei knew that someone who activated the Lifelong Mark could, at most, endure it for a day. If the enemy wasn't dead within that timeframe, the user would surely be the one to fall.

"Shuangxing, what exactly happened? Please tell me..." Luo Leilei panicked. This inexplicable battle, whose location wasn't even known, had come too suddenly. She had no idea what had transpired to trigger it.

After the pain subsided, Lei Shuangxing had perfectly suppressed his killing intent, appearing as if nothing had happened. He turned his head and said calmly, "It's nothing. You continue towards the mission location. I'm going to kill someone; I'll be right back."

Luo Leilei quickly grabbed his arm and said urgently, "You don't even know where you're going or who you're killing! How can you do that? The Lifelong Mark... it has appeared, and you only have half a day!"

One day was a theoretical duration. Under such a violent drain of life force, a normal person might struggle to remain rational for even two hours. Luo Leilei looked at the terrifying, protruding eye patterns on Lei Shuangxing's otherwise calm face, feeling even more acutely the immense killing intent hidden beneath the surface.

"Xi'er?" "Did you just say 'Xi'er'?" A sudden realization flashed through her mind, grasping the crucial detail. She quickly asked, "Is it that..."

*Tap.* A hand gently rested on her head, interrupting her words. Luo Leilei froze. She had never seen Lei Shuangxing make such a gesture before. In the darkness, she thought she saw him smile, a faint, almost imperceptible curve of his lips. The hand on her head gently ruffled her hair. Then, in a voice she had never heard, one filled with the utmost tenderness, he said:

"In this world, there are always some things you must protect with all your might." "I'm grateful that I, who have nothing, can still have this one bond that gives me a reason to cling to life..."

"You always used to ask me why I trained so hard with my sword, didn't you? Was it for the Great Dao? For revenge? Or for the immense blood feud I carry?" Lei Shuangxing paused. "Yes," he said, "but not entirely."

A slight curve formed on his lips as he faced the deep, boundless night sky. He transmitted softly, "Now I can tell you, I, Lei Shuangxing, have lived this entire life for one person..." "I train my sword to protect!"

With his last word, the hand on her head vanished. The tenderness of the night was instantly gone, leaving only the biting cold of the harsh wind. Luo Leilei was completely stunned. She understood now. Lei Shuangxing's words weren't meant for her; they were for himself. Or rather, the person who should have been standing before him wasn't her, but the one he wished to protect.

"Xi'er..." Luo Leilei murmured in her heart. She wanted to stop him, but she knew that at this moment, she had no reason to detain the man before her.

"Go," Lei Shuangxing said, turning away, "proceed to the mission point." Luo Leilei's heart seized; she reached out but grasped only air. Watching his figure gradually recede into the distance, she could only whisper sadly, "If... I mean, if the person you're going to face has a cultivation realm beyond imagination..."

Lei Shuangxing strode forward, not looking back. He subtly twirled the God Staff in his hand and tucked it behind his elbow.

"But I move forward, fearless!"

With a pop, a mist of blood erupted from him, and he transformed into a streak of light, merging into the Heavenly Dao and vanishing without a trace.

"But I move forward, fearless..." Luo Leilei gazed blankly at the night sky, repeating the departing man's last words, her heart filled with bitterness. "You have someone you want to protect, but haven't I too?" In this world, no one was truly obligated to live for others, even if their past was steeped in bloodshed.

"You'll just forever stare at memories, never once considering the family by your side or the future..." "Fool!" "You're just like Big Brother, just like Father... all of you are fools! All of you are idiots!"

Luo Leilei clenched her fists and cursed furiously at the empty night sky, her eyes already misty with tears. She gazed into the night for a long time, as if seeing scenes and figures from another world. Yet, in the end, she couldn't bring herself to take a single step in the opposite direction.

Under the cover of night, a low, self-mocking voice spread: "Father, oh Father, if I died, would you be willing to step even half a pace out of that dilapidated blacksmith shop for me?" She paused, then smiled bitterly. "No!" "Perhaps, from the moment I was born, I never existed in your eyes..."

Purple lightning struck. Beautiful thunder wings bloomed behind Luo Leilei. With a gentle beat, she looked in the direction Lei Shuangxing had vanished. Purple lightning slashed across the sky, momentarily illuminating the darkness, and her figure disappeared.

Above the Nine Heavens, the spot where Rao Yaoyao had been sitting was now occupied by a veiled woman.

"Xuan, Tong, Heng, Chi..." Yu Zhiwen chanted, changing her hand gestures as she gazed at the unfamiliar, massive Heavenly Mechanism array, the "Cloud Realm World." In her star-like eyes, there was an extremely rare flicker of hesitation.

"This incantation should be correct," she mused. "But I have very little experience with world-type Heavenly Mechanism arrays like this. Why was I called here? Where did Situ Yongren go?"

Although she muttered to herself, Yu Zhiwen's hand movements didn't cease. Instead, they rapidly shifted as she quickly familiarized herself with the Cloud Realm World's rules. Rao Yaoyao was an amateur who could only use a simple array command to activate a minor function of the Cloud Realm World. As the second-ranked individual on the Dao Department's Heavenly Ranking, Yu Zhiwen, even without prior contact with this array, intended to take direct control upon her arrival.

She channeled principles with hand gestures and commanded heavenly mechanisms with incantations. The complexity and profundity of this process were infinitely more difficult than simply operating the Heavenly Mechanism array with a command token. Yet, despite the difficulty, Yu Zhiwen showed only slight hesitation, brimming with confidence in herself!

"Zhen, Yin, Fa, Heng..." "Da, Ming, Shuang, Jue..." "Done!" As she completed the final thought, Yu Zhiwen's star-like eyes lit up. Her hands, forming a seal, pushed forward a straight mark towards the thousands of spirit mirrors flickering with light and shadow before her.

"Command!" she cried out clearly. The thousands of spirit mirrors before her suddenly flickered. Expectation shone in Yu Zhiwen's eyes... However, as if a machine had broken, a sizzling sound suddenly erupted. Then, with a snap, all the spirit mirrors went dark!

"Huh?" Yu Zhiwen's star-like eyes almost popped out. She stood up in alarm, completely losing her composure, staring in disbelief at the scene before her. "It failed?" "That's impossible, my incantation couldn't be wrong, and my hand seals were absolutely correct." "But how did these thousands of spirit mirrors go dark?"

Yu Zhiwen was terrified. If she had broken the Cloud Realm World as soon as she took over, she wouldn't be able to clear her name even if she jumped into the Yellow River; she'd be utterly indefensible. She quickly tried again. The process was correct, and there were no errors in her hand gestures or incantation. Yet, the dark display on the thousands of spirit mirrors simply wouldn't return.

"It's over, it's over..." Yu Zhiwen's heart pounded wildly, and her pretty face beneath the veil was filled with panic. In the Dao Department, she had never made such a significant mistake. Moreover, this was on a battlefield, at a crucial strategic center point. The Heavenly Mechanism array had been rendered ineffective... That wasn't the terrifying part. The terrifying part was that Yu Zhiwen had no idea where the problem with the now-defunct array lay, and thus no idea how to fix it!

*Ping.* The communication bead rang at that moment. Yu Zhiwen picked it up and saw it was from Sword Immortal Rao.

"It's over, it's over." "How could it be so fast? I just broke the Cloud Realm World, and Elder Rao already knows..." She gritted her teeth, steeled her heart, and answered the communication bead.

Rao Yaoyao's grave voice came through, getting straight to the point: "Situ Yongren just sent a message. There's a Heavenly Mechanism alchemist in the Yunlun Mountains who has disrupted the Heavenly Mechanism principles and seized his control over the Cloud Realm World... He says you probably can't see anything now, but before this, did you notice anything unusual?"