“We meet again!” the girl replied to John, her voice soft and gentle. Although she was wearing her veil, John could tell that the girl was smiling, although he didn’t why. The situation they found themselves in was no smiling matter.
“Why are you here?” John asked, getting straight to the point. Just the same as the first time he had met her, John felt his breath catch in his chest for a moment, as if he were being bewitched by looking at her veiled face. He quickly raised his guard and wiped away the feeling, as he hated losing control of himself like that.
He had realized the girl’s identity when she healed Adam, but never expected her to venture through the portal as well. “Did Kadin push you in as well?” he asked.
“No,” the girl replied while lightly shaking her head to the side, “I came in on my own volition.”
A frown appeared on John’s face as he heard her reply, as it made no sense to him. “Why would you come in here by choice?” John asked.
No one in their right mind would do such a thing. While the girl’s aura was powerful, and he could tell she was in the Peak Heaven Tribulation realm, it was still not enough to get them through this land. He could tell from their previous interaction that she specialized in healing and not combat.
“If I said it was to repay for my interference back in the Yuan Continent ancient city, would you believe me?” the girl asked..
“No,” John replied succinctly, not believing it for a second. “You already paid your debts when you helped Miko and I with that dead skeletal creature. No, you came here for another reason, and I want to know what that reason is.”
The current situation made no sense to John, and so he wanted to understand it fully. As far as he was concerned, the girl was throwing her life away by entering this trial, and something that inexplicable could only mean one thing; there was far more to the situation than the girl was revealing.
“Either you’re suicidal…or you came here for me specifically,” John continued his questioning of the girl. “I refuse to believe you entered this trial with the expectation of passing it on your own. I must admit, your Dao of Life healing is beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, but I feel no threat from you combat wise.”
“Maybe it’s for both those reasons,” the girl replied, her voice gentle but tinged with a trace of sadness that John could barely make out. “But you’re right, my combat prowess is quite average, so I’ll be relying on you to get us through this trial,” she continued, her voice gentle and eyes smiling at him.
John frowned again as he heard her reply, as he couldn’t make sense of what was going on. However, she had saved Adam’s life with no need to do so, and so John’s guard relaxed slightly as he realized she was not his enemy.
Roar!
The deafening and terrifying roar from before bellowed out once more, shaking the ground with its power. Both John and the girl gazed in the direction of the roar, and John suddenly sped forward, while the girl quickly followed after him. John’s divine sense flared out to his maximum as he cautiously made his way forward through the fog-filled land.
The two of them sped forward for a mile before they suddenly came to the edge of a cliff and stopped. The cliff was several miles high and overlooked the land for as far as the eye could see through the swirling fog.
A land of towering withered trees, dead swamps, and thick fog came into view. In the distance a dozen miles away through the fog, John was barely able to make out movement. A towering silhouette lumbered through the fog, its features obscured. However, each footstep it took shook the land, a testament to its size, weight, and power.
Another roar boomed out from the creature, the power of the roar directly blasting onto John and the girl. Both were knocked back a few feet from the powerful roar, and after it subsided, they both glanced at each other.
“A Dao Transformation beast,” the girl said, while John nodded his head in agreement. Whatever was out there within the fog, its power was beyond both of them.
“Thankfully this cliff is here,” John said as he studied the nearby land. “I’m sure the flight restriction of this land is still in place, even for the beasts. This cliff must be a safe haven for when one first enters the trial, but as soon as we step off it, we can’t return.”
“That appears to be the case,” the girl replied as she shifted her gaze towards John once more. John noticed her gaze and stared back, and felt his heartbeat speed up again. A frown appeared on his face as he forcefully washed the feeling from his body again, not enjoying the fact that it happened every time they locked eyes.
The girl noticed his expression, and giggled slightly as if she found it quite amusing.
“What are you laughing at?” John grumbled.
“Nothing,” the girl replied, “it’s just that your reaction whenever I look at you is quite…unique. It’s as if you despise my gaze. It’s not something I’ve encountered before,” the girl explained.
John ignored her words and didn’t explain himself as his gaze shifted back to the massive creature that lumbered through the fog in the distance. After studying it for a while, he retreated and returned to the area where they had first arrived.
“We’re safe up here, but the only way out of this trial is forward,” the girl said to John as she stood next to him. “Do you have any way to get out of this?” she asked curiously, although there was no fear or urgency in her voice, as if she didn’t care one way or another.
To John, it seemed as though she found this whole situation more amusing than frightening, something that he once again couldn’t make sense of. John’s focus shifted to the girl’s question, as he thought of a way to get out of it.
‘The only way I even have a chance of making it out alive is to raise my cultivation to the Heaven Tribulation realm…but I don’t know if I can make it through it. I should be fine bodily wise, but I still haven’t strengthened my soul to a level that I’m sure I can withstand the tribulation…but I don’t think I have any choice at this moment.’
John’s gaze shifted back to the girl, and he stared at her for a moment before he nodded his head at her question.
“I just might…but I need to ask you something first,” John said to her.
“Hmmm?” the girl hummed lightly, her curiosity piqued at his request for help.
“Your healing powers…can they heal someone’s soul?” John asked her directly. Asking about someone’s powers was usually taboo, but this situation didn’t allow for courtesy.
“It can,” the girl replied quickly without hiding anything and began to explain further. “My true power is the Dao of Life. One’s soul is part of one’s life, and so that is under my ability to heal. As long as it is something living, it can be healed.”
“And Adam?” John asked, “he was…no longer living. How exactly did you manage to bring him back to life? I can tell that it took quite the toll on you when you brought him back…what exactly did you do?”
John had noticed that the girl had easily healed most of Adam’s wounds, but struggled the most with his life-force. When she brought him back to life after he had clearly died and his soul began to fade, she shuddered and swayed slightly.
“That…,” the girl said but stopped her words, as a light suddenly began to glow from within her robes. Her robes suddenly faded away, revealing a dazzling blue and white dress that she wore underneath. The girl’s beauty magnified tenfold, as John once again felt his breath pause for a moment.
The girl’s dress revealed a portion of her upper chest, and in the very center of her chest just below her collar bone, a profound rune which glowed light blue was lit up. John’s eyes widened as he recognized the aura coming from the rune, as he had experienced it once in his life, when he had met his ethereal mother and felt the aura around her.
“The Dao of Time!”