"What a good harvest…" Wang Xiao grinned, eyes shinning as he spotted the final target, Yue Qingshuang, desperately escaping into the distance.

Just as he prepared to give chase, the woman in his arms stirred. Her long lashes fluttered like butterfly wings.

"You are…?" the Night Empress whispered, surprise coloring her soft voice.

She gently freed herself from his grasp, staggered slightly in the air, then stabilized with graceful poise. Her crystal-clear eyes regarded him with a complicated, melancholic gaze.

"Did you save me?"

"You could say that…" Wang Xiao shrugged, not exactly lying, just twisting the truth.

The Night Empress nodded with genuine gratitude. After a moment, she asked softly, "Why?"

"Hm?" Wang Xiao blinked. "Why not? Were you trying to commit suicide? If so, I can throw you back. I won't stop you."

"..." The Night Empress fell silent, clearly not finding the his dark humour amusing. "Why would someone as great as you help me?"

"Do you know me?" Wang Xiao raised an eyebrow, genuinely stunned. "How do you know I'm 'great'? What if I'm just a random opportunistic bastard taking advantage of the situation?"

The Night Empress shook her head elegantly and removed her silver chain veil completely, revealing a pristine, breathtakingly beautiful face that seemed carved from sorrow and starlight itself.

"No… I am not aware of recent events in the Netherworld. However, only a truly great person could shield me against that demon."

"..." Wang Xiao was left momentarily speechless. 'Are the women in this world seriously this easy? Did I just become her knight in shining armor?'

The Night Empress, however, was sincerely grateful. She had almost believed she wouldn't escape today.

Wang Xiao didn't particularly care about her feelings. "Well, since you called me 'great' today, I'll grant you one wish. Speak fast."

The Night Empress nodded. "Can you help me?"

"In what? Speak quickly, my prey is escaping." Wang Xiao's tone grew annoyed as he could already feel Yue Qingshuang slipping further away.

The Night Empress didn't haggle. "It's okay. My story is long. For now, keep this."

Her delicate hands reached behind her neck, unfastening a necklace with a glowing blue ruby. "As long as you crush this stone, it will alert me. It also grants access to the deepest core... of my empire. Consider it yours. When you have time… break it, and I shall appear before you."

Wang Xiao looked the woman up and down once, sighed, and left without wasting another second.

'Her screw seems a bit loose…'

Little did he know, the Night Empress was perfectly composed. If anything, she was stunned that someone had dared to go against the Great Lord of the Yin Dynasty for her sake.

The Night Empress quietly returned to her broken empire. Contrary to the rumors, it was not completely destroyed. At the very center, the capital city still functioned normally under a powerful protective domain that shielded its people from the eternal rain.

Unlike the twisted tales, it wasn't her grief that caused the endless downpour, it was the greed of someone else.

The facts had been deliberately distorted to paint her as the villain!

Yet the Night Empress no longer cared. For the first time in centuries, a faint spark of hope glimmered in her eyes. She returned to her throne and allowed herself a moment of rest.

Meanwhile, the "hope" she had placed her trust in was being his typical self.

____

Wang Xiao glanced at the necklace the Night Empress had given him, along with a hidden scroll tucked inside. He unfurled it and raised an eyebrow.

"Is this her evolved version of exchanging phone numbers?" he muttered.

The scroll contained detailed techniques to bypass her empire's security measures and multiple ways to contact her directly. Wang Xiao snorted, burned the scroll to ash without hesitation, and yawned lazily.

"No thanks." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Instead of chasing Yue Qingshuang further, he dove straight down into the twelve-thousand-meter-deep ravine.

Deep below, a graceful silhouette was "surfing" across the black, stagnant waters, desperately evading a horde of massive Weeping Serpents.

"Hey, Shuangshuang~ When did you get here?" Wang Xiao called out with a trickster grade cunning smile as he flew past.

"Ah? Villainous father!" The girl puffed her cheeks into an adorable angry pout, though her eyes sparkled with obvious relief. "Save me!" she begged, twirling a delicate sky-blue parasol above her head to shield herself from the endless corrosive rain.

She completely ignored the very real possibility that Wang Xiao was the bastard who had teleported her here in the first place.

"Haha… I'm busy right now. I'll send Yanyan to help you later. Just play with them for a bit," Wang Xiao chuckled, showing zero intention of stopping.

"Okay…" The girl nodded obediently, gullible as ever.

"Keep this." He tossed the blue ruby necklace toward her. She caught it clumsily, her eyes widening at its beauty before she clutched it tightly to her chest. Anything given by him was... precious.

To any outsider, the scene would have been shocking. Each Weeping Serpent possessed the strength of an Immortal, yet this girl, barely at the Demi-God realm, was evading them with elegant, almost effortless movements, even if it was clearly exhausting her.

And yet Wang Xiao simply abandoned her there.

[A/N: How she survived calling him "Villainous" is a whole different side story. Spoiler: it's not because he teleported her here, that's just her normal way of addressing him.]

____

[Father, how can I help her if you don't separate me from yourself first?] Yanyan protested inside his mind.

The girl they had just left behind was none other than Eveline, his sixth daughter, also known as Shuangshuang, or Aria in her birth name.

Most of his daughters carried three names. One given at birth, another they chose themselves after learning his language and getting jealous that he had a cool-sounding name in a different tongue. The third was in their mother's ancient Greek language, which they rarely used.

"Why the rush?" Wang Xiao replied casually. "I'll separate you once I'm done with that green haired bitch. She's been running from me since Earth… and she even dared to kidnap Aisha and the others to lure me out."

His gaze hardened, this was one prey he could not let escape.

Yanyan's tired voice echoed again. [I don't like being inside here…]

Her soul had been merged with his, which had helped him ascend to Great Lord. He could absorb her at any moment. He had similar fail-safes with his other daughters, though not grafted as deeply. If they faced true danger, their souls would return to him.

[He doesn't want to separate you. He tricked her,] Yin Yue suddenly spoke inside his head.

Yanyan was stunned. [Seriously? Father, you're so bad… Shuangshuang is too innocent for this treachery of yours.]

Wang Xiao smirked. "Already feeling comfortable?" he asked Yin Yue sarcastically. She had been far more mechanical before. Now that her soul had evolved using Yang Yuhan's essence, she was becoming much more vibrant, and sharp-tongued.

Yin Yue replied mechanically, [I find this form much superior. The body was redundant… Although, if you prefer it, you can always give it back. Maybe you would enjoy inserting your reproductive organ inside me in that form?]

"..." Wang Xiao fell silent for a moment. "Yin Yue, you've really become too shameless lately. I don't remember you talking like this before. Since when did you develop such a sudden interest in reproduction?"

[Was I not always like this?] she replied with feigned innocence. [What a pity…]

Yanyan couldn't hold back her laughter. [And you called me shameless, look at her!]

[He can't look at either of us,] Yin Yue countered mechanically. [We are both subordinate consciousnesses within him. My words don't change the fact that you are shameless.]

"..." Yanyan was left speechless.

Wang Xiao let the two bicker, quietly noting how Yin Yue's personality had grown more lively. He didn't entirely dislike it, though she might need a proper "beating" later to straighten her line of thoughts.

[They went into that mountain range,] Xue Hanqin's voice suddenly broke in. [I've altered her Samsara path. She's hiding in one of the caves, injured and healing.]

Wang Xiao's eyes flashed with killing intent as he accelerated.

They had already entered deep into Samsara Great Lord territory.