"Run away!!!"
Shen Qing turned around and roared, but it was already too late.
Not only Hong Chaoyang and the other two, but also the remaining disciples who hadn't evacuated began to form a thin layer of ice on their bodies. They were so frozen that they couldn't even take a step.
This coldness penetrated deep into their bones. It was as if even the crevices of their bones were sealed by ice.
"Sister, they can't escape," Han Ze's figure exuded a sense of pleasure. A blue-and-white dragon coiled down from the clouds, letting out a dragon's roar in the air.
"It's a dragon...!"
"Is there really a dragon clan in this world!"
"Is the dragon here to harm us or... help us?"
The disciples shivered in the cold. Although they were shocked by the reappearance of the dragon clan, their top priority now was to save their own lives.
Shen Qing landed from the air. The Forget-Me-Not in her hand transformed into an ice dragon, circling around the frozen disciples twice. The spell cast on them was immediately dispelled.
Hong Chaoyang trotted up to Shen Qing. Looking at the huge dragon hovering in the sky, she felt the pressure but was not afraid.
"Shen Qing, what are you going to do next? I can..."
Shen Qing turned around and hugged Hong Chaoyang.
Hong Chaoyang was surprised. Her eyes widened, and she momentarily forgot what she was going to say. "Shen... Shen Qing?"
Shen Qing whispered in Hong Chaoyang's ear, "Chaoyang, that's enough. I'm really happy to have you as a friend. Don't get involved in what's going to happen next. There aren't many junior brothers and sisters left in the Qingyun Sword Sect. You have to protect them. Do you understand?"
Hong Chaoyang understood Shen Qing's determination. She struggled excitedly, but then her body went limp, and she fainted.
Shen Qing carefully supported Hong Chaoyang and laid her down on the ground slowly. Then, with a sharp look in her eyes, she glanced at Xue Ling and Xiao Jinglan, who were still standing there in a daze.
The two of them woke up from their stupor and quickly ran over.
Xue Ling took the lead and hugged Hong Chaoyang in her arms. Xiao Jinglan beside her was filled with remorse.
Shen Qing couldn't bear to look at them any longer. She warned, "This is not the time to stage a drama of love and hatred."
The two of them immediately averted their eyes.
Shen Qing stretched out her hand and pointed at Nan Zhijin, who had been lying on the ground in a state of disbelief since earlier. "Take him away too. The master has entrusted him with some tasks. Don't let him die."
The two hesitated for a moment and then nodded.
Before leaving, Xiao Jinglan turned back and glanced at Li Xian, who had already come to Shen Qing's side. "Senior Brother... The master has passed away, and most of our fellow disciples are gone. Senior Brother... You must stay alive."
Li Xian smiled faintly. He took out a jade pendant representing the senior brother of the Five Elements Dao Sect from his storage bag and threw it into Xiao Jinglan's hand.
"Don't say any more."
"From now on, you are the senior brother of the Five Elements Dao Sect. Protect the junior brothers and sisters who are still alive, just as I did for you all before."
Xiao Jinglan's nose twitched. He lowered his head and didn't dare to look Li Xian in the eye. Finally, he just let out a nasal "mm" and quickly left.
The disciples whose spells had been dispelled could move freely. They didn't even bother to look at the dragon in the sky and fled one after another.
Han Ze was very patient. It seemed that he was just waiting for the irrelevant people to leave.
At this moment, except for the main hall behind Shen Qing and Li Xian, everything else in the Five Elements Dao Sect had been completely destroyed. There were broken walls, scorched earth, and corpses everywhere. It was a tragic sight.
Li Xian held Shen Qing's hand. For the first time, he smiled so cheerfully. "Shen Qing, do you know what I saw when I was in a coma?"
"I saw that I should have died a long time ago. But for some reason, my soul couldn't enter the cycle of reincarnation. It could only drift in the world, watching the person who had harmed me thrive by borrowing my luck and harming everyone I cared about."
"I still remember clearly the heart-wrenching pain I felt when I saw you being devoured by the demonic beast."
As Li Xian said this, he placed his hand on his chest.
Moreover, he also saw that Yu Xuzi had been killed by that woman. Xiao Jinglan had approached Lin Yibai to take revenge, but because he had fallen in love with Hong Chaoyang, the two of them had been buried alive.
As a spiritual body, he could only watch helplessly as the people he cared about gradually walked towards death.
After waking up, he saw Yu Xuzi's death.
The double blow of the dream and reality almost drove Li Xian crazy.
Shen Qing's breath caught in her throat. Her hand tightened involuntarily.
Li Xian noticed Shen Qing's strangeness. He smiled and moved his head closer. The distance between them was very close.
"You remember it too, don't you? That's why you saved me."
"But it wasn't until now that I came to my senses. I'm sorry, Shen Qing. In my previous life, I didn't meet you earlier, which made you have such painful memories. It's my fault."
Shen Qing's eyes were slightly red. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she shook her head.
"Li Xian, I just realized now that I really like you."
Li Xian's eyes suddenly widened.
He had thought that with Shen Qing's personality, he would never hear her express her feelings in his lifetime. Although the situation was not right now, he finally heard these words.
The two of them looked at each other with tears in their eyes. The love in their eyes overflowed.
"Sister, he's just a merman. Our dragon clan has a noble bloodline. How can we combine with such a lowly bloodline?"
Han Ze transformed into a human form and landed heavily from the air.
The cold air under his feet condensed into ice. When he landed, the ice cracked into pieces and exploded in all directions.
Li Xian and Shen Qing raised their hands to block the flying ice fragments.
The two of them stood side by side. Their blood-stained white clothes fluttered in the wind, stinging Han Ze's eyes.
Han Ze curled his lips into a sneer. His tone was filled with a hint of jealousy. "Sister, are you going to abandon your brother for such a merman?"
"What's so good about him? If you're willing, you can choose any excellent cultivator from the main shrine. Even if you take a hundred of them, your brother will agree."
Li Xian glanced at Shen Qing out of the corner of his eye: A hundred of them?
Shen Qing was helpless: Is this the time to worry about this?
Shen Qing looked at Han Ze and said coldly, "You've been scheming for a long time, just to revive the dragon clan. But what crime have the cultivators of the Nine Desolate Continent committed? You didn't even spare a single one of them?"
Han Ze sneered, as if he had heard something extremely ridiculous.
"Innocent?"
"My dear sister, I've already shown you my memories. How can you still ask such a naive question? If you were me, if you had seen your parents and clansmen being dismembered with your own eyes, if you had seen the cruel smiles of the abusers, if you had seen your homeland filled with blood, would you spare these stinking humans?!"
"Back then, it was the cooperation between the humans and the demons that led to the destruction of our dragon clan. So now, I'm just making the humans and the demons oppose each other and making them taste the pain of killing each other."
"Sister, why are you looking at me with such a hateful look in your eyes?"
By now, Han Ze no longer pretended to be calm and profound. His expression was ferocious, and his eyes were filled with hatred.
Shen Qing remembered what Bai Li had said and tried to make Han Ze come to his senses.
"Back then, if the dragon clan hadn't tried to make all the beasts submit to them, why would the dragon clan have incurred the public's wrath? When the Dragon Abyss was breached, not a single clan came to their rescue..."
"That's because they were selfish!!"
Han Ze interrupted Shen Qing. His originally handsome face now looked ugly.
"The dragon clan is the leader of all the beasts. Why can't they rule?!!"