Inside the main hall of the Punishment Chamber.
“You little wretch, kneel!”
High above, Yuyang Immortal Venerable Nathaniel Whitmore sat in white robes pure as snow. He looked refined, cold, spotless, like he did not belong to mortal dust at all. But the anger in those blue eyes was pressed down hard, like frost over fire, and every bit of it was aimed at the girl standing in the middle of the hall.
People lined both sides of the hall. Some glared in fury. Some watched with jealousy. Some stood there for the show. Some kept their faces flat, as if none of this touched them. Yet all of them were looking at the same person.
The girl looked about fourteen. Long black hair fell to her waist. Her skin was pale as fresh snow. Her features were so fine they almost felt unreal. She was still young, but anyone with eyes could see it already—she would grow into a stunning beauty.
She had a pair of violet eyes.
Then all at once, her whole body shook.
Those beautiful eyes swept across the hall, and shock burst out plain and raw.
Evangeline Whitmore was stunned.
What was this?
Wasn’t she supposed to be dead?
She should have perished together with the Black Heavenly Emperor. That was how it should have ended. So why was she here? Why were these familiar yet distant faces around her again? These people should all have been dead. Dead for years. Dead for so long the memory of them should have turned to ash.
And yet there they were, standing around her, breathing, watching.
And this scene...
Had she returned to the past?
Or had she fallen into some illusion art?
Above her, Nathaniel Whitmore saw that she was still standing there in a daze. The anger in him flared even harder.
“Evangeline Whitmore!”
The cold voice came down from above, sharp with restrained rage.
Evangeline lifted her head and looked at the man seated high on the platform. Her pupils shrank in an instant.
She had never thought she would see him alive again.
Nathaniel Whitmore was her master in name.
In truth, he was her father.
Because her mother was the Demon Venerable Morgana Voss, he had never acknowledged her identity. To others, he only said she was an orphan he had taken in.
At first, Evangeline had known nothing. She had only failed to understand—if he had adopted her, why was he always so cold? Why did he punish her at the slightest thing? Yet toward her junior sister, Darla Marigold, he had always shown care and concern.
Later, after she learned the truth of her birth, she could not accept it. She left Xuantian Sect, wandered the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, and in the end was picked up by her mother, Morgana Voss. After that, she became the second-generation Demon Venerable.
All that time, she had thought neither Nathaniel nor Morgana loved her.
One refused to admit she was his daughter.
The other had thrown her away at birth.
How could that be love?
Only when the Black Heavenly Emperor brought ruin upon the world, and both of them died for her, did she finally understand.
They had loved her.
They had just hidden it too deep.
Too deep for her to see.
She stared at the man above her and remembered the final moment. He had stood in front of her and taken the Black Heavenly Emperor’s sword for her. His blood had splashed across her face, hot and blinding. He had forced all his power into her body and said only two words.
“Live on!”
Then his soul had scattered right in front of her eyes.
Until the very end, she had never managed to call him Father.
She was supposed to have died too.
She had not been able to bear it—both her parents dying for her. So she dragged the Black Heavenly Emperor down with her.
You want to destroy the world?
Fine.
Then don’t live either.
Let everything burn together.
So what was this now?
Had she been reborn?
Had everything started over again?
Bright tears welled up and spilled from Evangeline’s eyes.
Nathaniel, seated high above, looked at the girl whose eyes had turned red. Seeing her with tears trembling in her lashes, he went still.
He was not the only one.
Everyone in the hall froze.
Evangeline Whitmore... cried?
She actually cried?
Who in Xuantian Sect did not know how hard her temper was? This girl was all bone and edge. Yet now she was crying?
“Evangeline Whitmore, don’t think a few tears can wipe away what you did to Junior Sister.”
The voice cut in without warning. The one speaking was a young man with thick brows and large eyes.
Through tear-blurred eyes, Evangeline glanced aside and saw Roland Ashcroft and Darla Marigold standing there.
Darla Marigold.
The Black Heavenly Emperor’s hound.