225 chapter 21A disgusting scent of burnt flesh oozed from him. Xia Che hugged his right hand and moaned. It hurt, everything was hurting. His muscles to bones.....everything was burning. He silently sobbed against Long.
Long glanced around at the small spatial rifts in time. He had thought that the spatial rift would bring him to heaven or demon realm, but unexpectedly they had landed in a void realm. They were completely surrounded with nowhere to go. Some rifts were visible, some were invisible, so he had to be extremely careful not to get lost in time.
He started panicking. His lover needed a healer’s care soon, or else he might even lose his dominant hand.
“Xia baby, stay awake. Look at me,” He whispered softly, caressing his pale face. Xia’s eyelashes trembled but his eyes did not open. “Baby...please...wake up. Or else you might go to eternal sleep. Please look at me,” he whispered.
He softly pulled his lover’s burnt hand out of his tight clutches. His hands were completely burnt and the tribulation fire was still not extinguished. “Shit,” he tried devouring the flame, but it made things even worse as the fire started spreading fast. ‘I need to heal him soon,’ he sliced his wrist and let his golden blood flow freely.
The moment it landed on Xia’s burnt skin, it started healing fast. Yet the flame was not extinguished, making his wound worse.
“God!” he shouted and tried every healing medicine he could find, even the spirit water, but nothing was effective. Since he had lost his original ring, he did not have any lifesaving pills with him. He shuffled through Xia’s ring and found a few herbs. Even so, the purple flames were unquenchable.
“Xia....baby....I don’t know what to do.. I—I ....” he sobbed as he hugged his unconscious lover.
His lover’s heart beat was slowly slowing down. Panic hit him. Long Aotian started prancing around. “Maybe my heart’s blood can heal well,” he whispered and set him down softly.
.....
He knelt down next to him and took out a small dagger. It was sharp enough to pierce through his tough scales. He wiped his tears away and held the dagger to his heart.
But unexpectedly a soft weight landed on him.
“Don’t.....don’t do that,” Xia mumbled softly. He hugged his neck as tight as he could. “Don’t hurt.... yourself even more. Aotian...it’s okay. It’s just a hand..... don’t risk your life for it,” he cried. He regained consciousness a while back, but due to physical exertion he was not able to move at all. Just as he opened his eyes, he saw that Long was about to stab himself and panicked.
Long Aotian sobbed hard. He hugged his lover as gently as he can. “My heart’s blood can definitely heal it. Xia, it won’t be painful for me. It’s just a small stab it would heal on its own,” he said.
“No! I won’t allow....you to,” Xia panted. His arm was throbbing fiercely. He bit the inside of his cheek to hold back his painful sobs. ‘I should...cut off my arm,’ he thought and plucked the dagger from his hands.
All of a sudden, the chain mail glove trembled again. It shook so much that dusted off all the rust that it had, revealing its beautiful purple lustre.
“Xia, what is this? Is it hurting you,” Long Aotian went to remove the glove from his mangled hand but he glove shone brightly and pushed his hands away.
The glove shivered and trembled continuously. “Master....wait,” a little boy’s voice resonated from it.
Xia glanced at it thorough his hazy eyes. “You have...evolved?”
“Yes, master....please hold on,” the glove whispered with broken words. It started glowing purple. A huge amount of spiritual energy flowed out of it and spread inside Xia’s meridian.
???????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ????????????????????-????????????.????????????
It felt warm. That was all Xia could feel, because his hand had become numb.
The small glove vibrated vigorously. The purple glow from each is its scales pulsed into Xia’s veins and muscles and started healing him instantaneously. Furthermore, the little flame that was still remained was completely devoured by it.
Long Aotian saw this and was shocked. He swiftly dripped his blood onto the wound. Usually tribulation wounds are the hardest to heal. Thankfully for him, the magical glove had absorbed the residual spiritual energy. Soon the entire hand was completely healed.
Xia sat up and moved around his fingers. Everything was completely functional. “Aotian, you are still bleeding,” he whispered as held tight onto his lover’s hands. He knew that the dragon’s saliva could heal, so he held his own hands towards his mouth. “Lick,”
Flabbergasted, Aotian licked his own wrist. The wound disappeared instantly.
Xia pulled his newly healed wrist closer to his face and analyzed it thoroughly. “It’s really healed. Thank god, I thought you would even stab yourself,”
“I would have if things got worse.”
Xia whacked him on his forehead. “You shouldn’t. Listen Long if I lose my hand I can still live, but if you lose your life, I would.....I would follow right behind,” he whispered.
The golden dragon was stunned. He slowly nodded and hugged him tight. His eyes went to the glove on his hand. ‘Don’t tell me that this glove was the one, who attracted the tribulation,’ he slowly tried to remove it but the glove was tightly attached.
“Master....no.....me.....help,” the glove said. Suddenly its entire body expanded and small golden-purple scales popped out of it. Initially it was just covering the back of his palm, now it was covering his entire arm.
Xia tapped on it shiny surface of it. “Nice, you have upgraded into a powerful entity,” he chuckled out loud.
On the other hand, Long Aotian was not that thrilled. “Xia, it’s better not to have this risky weapon.” he whispered with a frown.
Xia glanced at him and then at the glove. At first he thought so too, but now he was completely attached to it. He softly caressed its shiny surface. “Can you disguise yourself, little one?”
“Yes....master,” the glove exclaimed with its cute little boy’s voice. Of turned back into a scrap metal kind of rust but it was not convincing. It changed its color to Xia’s skin. Each of its scales completely converted into its master’s contours. Soon the glove disappeared.
“Wow,” Xia caressed it cold surface, yet he could also feel some residual heat of his body. It was quite a fascinating sight, really.
Long Aotian still frowned at it. But he did not say a word. “Let’s get out of here.” he carefully lifted Xia’s onto his back and slowly stepped forward. If he came too close to a spatial rift he could feel it, so he carefully proceeded.
On the other hand, Xia was thoroughly enjoying himself. The shattered space was similar to a shimmering diamond, so thousands of space rifts created a spectacular sight.
He cheerfully chatted about to the dragon. “Long, that one looks like an oval diamond, oh this one is super cute to, it completely pink...”
After walking around for a while, Aotian was still not able to find the space rift they initially came from. He slowly lowered Xia to the ground and made him sit down. “Just a moment, I will look around at the path we came in,” he glanced back to find that the entire space that he had walked had been filled with spatial rifts. ‘No wonder they call the void realm. It is impossible to escape this. ‘No... I have to find a way. I can’t let my darling suffer.’ He thought with resolution. “Xia, stay close to me always okay,”
“Okay,” Xia nodded. Suddenly something peculiar caught his eyes. It was not the colour of the space rift, rather what was inside of it.
A small rainbow swirl attached to a stick. It was emitting a tantalising sweet scent even from a distance. ‘Why does that smell so sweet? What kind of sweet is that?’ he thought as he watched it with curiosity. That space rift moved closer to them and was nearby Xia.
Taking a glance at Long, Xia slowly crawled close to this space. “Hmm, what are you, you are not some creature, are you some treat? Then how are you so colourful yet smell so sugary?” he whispered.
His stomach growled right at this moment. Holding it, Xia glanced at the small rainbow thing again. ‘Just a bite, nothing would happen right,’ he thought and reached out to it.
Aotian noticed this anomaly at the right moment. “No, Xia, don’t touch the rifts,” he shouted, but it was too late his lover’s body was slowly getting sucked into the space. Only his left hand was revealed by the time he got close. Long held on and dragged him, but the pull from the space was too vast. Soon both of them got sucked into the mysterious space.
Just as they disappeared, the space inside the void trembled and a small lotus flower swirled inside, followed by another. And a hand ripped through the space and entered the void.