"Nuwa..." Logan Sullivan somehow suddenly called out this name.

His voice rippled through the water like waves, trembling like a sigh, stirring up a deep, violent restlessness in the darkness. Logan Sullivan ignored it, and, as if compelled by some unseen force, reached out his hand, his fingertips touching the edge of the stone tablet. A white light surged into his mind, roaring so loudly that he couldn't see anything for a moment, yet his gaze seemed to pierce through all of time and space, landing on a woman with a human body and a snake's tail.

Her long hair trailed on the ground, her features were beautiful and elegant, and for no reason, he felt a sense of intimacy from the very source of life itself—like a mother, yet also like an elder sister.

The voice of this strange yet familiar woman sounded in his ear. She said, "Highspire, what if Embergrower was wrong? What if we were all wrong?"

Embergrower was wrong? What was Embergrower wrong about?

The voice spoke again: "But we can no longer turn back."

Wait!

There seemed to be tears in Nuwa's eyes. She looked at him with infinite longing, opened her arms to him, and as Logan Sullivan reached out, before he could touch her, Nuwa shattered before his eyes like a light fragmenting in the void, breaking into countless pieces.

"No..." Logan Sullivan murmured unconsciously, but no sound came out.

In the next moment, time flowed on, and Logan Sullivan seemed to return, dazed, to a distant past. For an instant, he couldn't tell whether he was Warden of Highspire or a mortal five thousand years later, lost in the confusion of time and space.

He felt as if he spent every day guarding the pitch-black great seal, sitting with his back against the massive stone tablet, idly staring at the ancient merit tree, sometimes for an entire day.

At some point, a handsome yet strange young man began to follow him around all day, like a little tail, always close behind.

At first, Warden of Highspire ignored him, but eventually couldn't help asking, "You're already in your own territory, so why do you keep following me?"

The youth replied, bluntly and honestly, "I like you."

Warden of Highspire, who was always being called unruly and disrespectful, finally had a chance to say it to someone else. Seizing the opportunity, he "rebuked" the youth without a trace of anger: "How rude."

The young Wraith King looked at him in confusion, not understanding how he had been rude.

Warden of Highspire had guarded the seal for countless years and was bored out of his mind, so he asked again, "What do you like about me?"

The naive young Wraith King was completely open about his desires and said straightforwardly, "You're good-looking. I want to hold you."

Warden of Highspire couldn't help glancing at this audacious little Wraith King. He didn't feel offended; instead, he found it rather amusing and teased, "You have no standards at all. I look down on you."

Although the young Wraith King didn't quite understand why he was being looked down on, he believed that whatever Warden of Highspire said must be reasonable, so he hung his head in deep shame.

Warden of Highspire beckoned to him, "Come here. Let me teach you a thing or two, you uncivilized little thing."

Chapter 87 Soulbound Lamp …

Back when the world was first formed, the great sage Embergrower Line personally descended to the mortal realm, tasting hundreds of herbs to save lives, taking the form of an old herbalist, and spreading enlightenment among the people. Warden of Highspire had mingled among the crowd and listened a few times, and basically just repeated what he’d heard to the young Wraith King, half-understood at best, but it was a way to pass the time. The completely clueless young Wraith King dared not miss a single word, treating every bit of nonsense Warden of Highspire said as sacred truth.

Gradually, at the gates of this hellish place, a bond grew between them, as if they depended on each other for survival.

The youth remained infatuated with Warden of Highspire, but being naturally shy, after hearing what Warden of Highspire said, he realized it wasn't good to speak so bluntly, so he stopped saying it out loud and instead tried different ways to please him every day.

Unfortunately, his options were very limited. In this forbidden land, there was nothing fun to do. The land was barren, not a blade of grass grew, and their usual pastime was to catch two low-level ghost beasts and watch them fight until one devoured the other.

But the young Wraith King didn't like this, and of course Warden of Highspire liked it even less.

So Wraith King racked his brains and collected thirty-six big teeth from ghost beasts, believing they symbolized the thirty-six great rivers and mountains that began at Highspire Pass. He used a few strands of his own long hair as thread, stringing them into a necklace so unique it challenged anyone's sense of taste, and gave it to Warden of Highspire.

But when Warden of Highspire accepted the thirty-six big teeth, his expression was very strange—stranger even than the necklace itself. He looked as if he had a toothache, yet still forced his features into a not-very-convincing smile and gritted out a thank you.

The little Wraith King thus concluded that Warden of Highspire probably didn't like it—after all, Warden of Highspire never wore it, and every time it was mentioned, he would change the subject.

But he couldn't think of anything else. One day, the youth sat on a large root of the ancient merit tree, absentmindedly recalling a fleeting glimpse he'd had of the outside world, and suddenly said, "There's a kind of flower that looks like a bell, comes in all colors, and if you get close, it has a very faint fragrance."

Warden of Highspire turned to look at him. "Hmm?"

The guileless youth showed a look of longing. "It's really beautiful. If I made a necklace out of those flowers, you'd like it, right?"

Warden of Highspire was silent for a moment, then said with a half-smile, "So, the reason you're trying to please me is because you want to go outside?"

The young Wraith King was stunned, then quickly shook his head.

Warden of Highspire deliberately teased him, "Then why? I'm guarding this place not to let you all out. Not a single one can escape."

For the sake of... The young Wraith King stared at him, meeting Warden of Highspire's teasing gaze, wanting to speak but not knowing what to say. The emotion surged in his chest, but he couldn't find the right words.

He felt that any confession would sound too crude, and even then, it might not express what he truly felt.

Wraith King couldn't say it, and his nails unconsciously extended into sharp claws, his expression turning dark and somewhat aggressive in his frustration.

Legend has it that, aside from the suffering of unfulfilled fate, most of the world's pain comes from thinking too much and reading too little. Books were left by the sages, but those ancient sages themselves were born in chaos, with no books to read and no one to answer their questions. They could only stumble forward with countless doubts about heaven and earth, surely in great anxiety and pain... So much so that even to say a word to the one they loved, they couldn't find the right thing to say.

Warden of Highspire finally burst out laughing, gently hooked the youth's chin, and placed a light kiss on his smooth, beautiful forehead, then leapt up into the branches.

The young Wraith King sat in a daze for a while, not knowing when all his poisonous barbs had retracted. His face flushed from his cheeks to the tip of his chin and the sides of his ears. After a long time, he stood up in a daze, as if drunk, his legs weak, and tumbled off the root of the ancient merit tree.

The youth was born a Wraithborn—though somehow he had grown into a strange specimen of the Wraithborn—but all he had ever seen was low-level Wraithborn driven by desire to mate. He had never known what a kiss was. The first time he experienced it, he felt as if his whole being was enveloped in warmth, floating lightly as if suspended in midair.

Not even the waters of the River of Forgetfulness could make him float so freely.

The young Wraithborn suddenly turned and ran into the Great Seal that could not restrain him, plunging into the Blighted Grounds, and disappeared for decades.

When he appeared before Warden of Highspire again, he seemed to have grown up a bit, his body taller, almost as tall as Warden of Highspire, his once soft features now more defined, though his eyes and brows remained as beautiful as ever.

He carefully held a cluster of dazzling golden fire and brought it to Highspire.

"This is..."

"This is the soul fire from your left shoulder. It was scattered throughout the Great Seal, and it took me fifty years to gather it all together." Wraith King carefully cupped the warm flame, then affectionately rubbed it against his own cheek before reluctantly handing it to Warden of Highspire. "I'm giving it back to you."

The smile at the corner of Warden of Highspire's mouth faded. After a long while, he looked at the other and asked, "So, what do you want from me in return?"

"Um..." Wraith King was at a loss for words, not knowing how to express himself. After a while, he shyly pointed to his own forehead. "Um... could you do it again?"

Warden of Highspire studied him for a long time. In the end, the youth grew visibly nervous and awkward before him, but Warden of Highspire suddenly reached out and lifted his chin. This time, he kissed the youth's lips very gently, then softly took Wraith King's hand and let the youth's slender fingers grasp the ever-burning soul fire.