304: Chapter 304 Everything about her will eventually be known to him.

His legs felt as if they no longer belonged to him.

They moved stiffly toward the bench.

The distance grew shorter and shorter.

The red outline became increasingly clear.

It was a person.

A woman wearing a flowing red dress, leaning quietly against the bench.

She sat gracefully, her head tilted slightly.

It looked as if she were taking a nap, or perhaps gazing up at the sparse yet bright starry sky above.

Her thick, curled eyelashes cast two small shadows on her cheeks.

A hint of a satisfied arc lingered at the corners of her lips.

Yet, that face, which could bewitch all living beings, lacked even a trace of color.

In an instant, Su Chen's mind went blank.

The world spun around him.

All sounds and perceptions receded like the tide.

Before his eyes, only that glaring red remained, along with the lifeless shell beneath the red dress.

A short, broken gasp escaped his throat.

His body swayed, and he teetered backward, about to collapse.

"Sir!"

"Husband!"

"Brother!"

Several exclamations rang out from behind him simultaneously.

Zhuge Jinyu was the first to rush up and steady his tottering body.

Ye Jingjun and Cang Mingyue caught his arms from left and right.

Although Su Wanyue and Teacher Wang Jin did not know Su Daji, seeing the beautiful woman dead on the bench, they guessed what had happened.

They froze in place, their pupils contracting sharply.

Jiang Luoli gasped, covering her mouth.

"Is it really... Hall Master Su?" Cang Mingyue said in horror.

"How... how could she?"

No one could answer.

Su Daji, Hall Master of the Central China Hall of Valor, the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox.

At this moment, she had died silently on her own Star-Gazing Platform.

There were no external injuries on her body, no signs of a struggle; she looked as quiet as if she were merely asleep.

Yet, none of those present were weaklings.

They could tell.

She was dead.

She had died on this bench where she and Su Chen had last sat side by side.

Su Chen, supported by Zhuge Jinyu and Ye Jingjun, was trembling uncontrollably.

He pushed their hands away, broke free from their support, and stumbled toward the bench.

"Demon Concubine Su Daji..."

"Su Daji, wake up."

"Stop playing around."

"This joke isn't funny at all..."

He reached out, his trembling fingertips touching her cold cheek.

The moment his fingertips made contact with her skin—

"Hum..."

A faint halo of silver light quietly emerged from between Su Daji's eyebrows.

It flickered like a candle in the wind.

Immediately after, a gentle ripple of spiritual consciousness radiated from her body, softly spreading out and enveloping all seven people present.

Su Chen's vision suddenly changed.

Unfolding before them were flowing images, frame by frame, spread out before everyone's eyes.

Each frame slid by silently.

Every frame was accompanied by a gentle, calm, and slightly smiling female voice.

It resonated softly in the depths of their consciousness, like intermittent whispers brought by the night wind.

That voice belonged to Su Daji.

In the first frame: atop the Star-Plucking Tower engulfed in roaring flames, the figure of a young emperor slowly collapsed amidst the fire.

A blood-soaked woman rushed madly into the encirclement of the Ji Dynasty army, snatched up the charred body, hoisted it onto her back, and let out a long cry toward the sky.

Carrying him on her back, with every step leaving a bloody print, she fought through the layers of blockades set by the heavenly soldiers and generals, slaughtering her way up to the Nine Heavens.

The heads of immortals and gods rolled down, their divine blood staining the sea of clouds red.

She stood upon the ruins of the Lingxiao Palace, the corpses of countless gods and Buddhas beneath her feet, holding that long-cold body tightly in her arms.

"My King, look, the power you left for Demon Concubine Su Daji is truly formidable."

"After you left, Demon Concubine Su Daji carried your body and slaughtered all those heavenly gods and Buddhas who harmed you, deceived you, and looked down upon the common people as ants."

"From that day on, only Demon Concubine Su Daji remained as a god in this world."

"The Heavenly Court without you is so cold, so empty."

In the second frame: time passed, the seas turned into mulberry fields.

The woman in the red dress sat alone in the sky, occasionally walking among the human world that was gradually regaining its vitality.

She watched the civilization beneath her sprout from the ruins, watched tribes turn into villages, and villages into cities.

She watched generation after generation of dynasties rise and fall.

Occasionally, she would intervene to quell a catastrophe that should not have happened or disperse a natural disaster passing through.

But most of the time, she simply watched quietly, her eyes filled with loneliness.

It was as if she were looking through the passing time, searching for something long lost.

"My King, you always said you wanted to see 'everyone like a dragon'."

"Demon Concubine Su Daji has been guarding this world for you, watching the civilization you cared about grow little by little."

"Although it is very slow, and although they still fight, make mistakes, and hurt each other."

"But they are indeed, slowly moving forward."

"You would be happy, right?"

In the third frame: the background turned into a dark void.

A twisted, massive rift stretched between two planes.

Su Chen and the others were very familiar with that rift.

It was the spatial rift used by the Alien Demon plane when it invaded Blue Star.

However, this one in the image was much larger than what Su Chen and the others had seen.

The aura was also far more terrifying.

Su Daji stood alone on this side of the rift.

A brilliant light erupted from her body, and her nine fox tails, like giant pillars holding up heaven and earth, held firmly against the edge of the rift.

From the other side of the rift came the roars and onslaught of countless twisted monsters.

Her face visibly paled, but her figure remained motionless.

In the corner of the image, the changes of human dynasties were vaguely visible.

From the Tang and Song to the Ming and Qing.

"My King, I'm sorry."

"About nine hundred years ago, some very dirty and bad things set their sights on our world."

"Back then, everyone was still farming with hoes; they couldn't withstand it."

"Demon Concubine Su Daji had to help you block it first."

"I didn't expect that this blocking would last so long."

"I'm a bit tired, but thinking of our promise, and thinking that you might be watching from somewhere."

"Demon Concubine Su Daji felt... I could hold on a little longer."

In the fourth frame: the rift still existed, but the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox that Su Daji had transformed into was much smaller.

During these hundreds of years of blocking, her depletion was truly too great.

She withdrew a small portion of her power, and the rift expanded slightly.

Some weak auras seeped through.

At the same time, the images of the human world became vivid.

The roar of steam engines, the light of electric lamps, the giant wheels of steel.

The era of the Industrial Revolution had arrived.

Gradually, individuals capable of sensing and utilizing "Spiritual Power" began to appear among the crowd.

That was the origin of Spiritual Energy Recovery.

"My King, they seem to have grown up a little."

"Demon Concubine Su Daji really can't hold on anymore."

"So Demon Concubine Su Daji secretly opened a very, very small gap to let those bad things seep through a little bit."

"This might be dangerous, disasters might happen, and people might die."

"But Demon Concubine Su Daji thought, they must learn to stand up on their own, learn to fight."

"Otherwise, when Demon Concubine Su Daji really can't hold on one day, what will they do?"

(The knife is fake, everyone rest assured.)