Chapter 12: Blood Pledge

Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Blood Pledge

Ye Xuan listened. With Qingyu still on his neck, he followed Yan Jin out of the hall.

The hall doors opened, and Ye Xuan stared in shock at the life below the ground. It was true! There was no sunlight, so the place was dark as night.

Sturdy buildings stood underground, and oil lamps burned brightly over what could only be called a small city with thousands of residents.

Ye Xuan’s steps stopped as he took it all in. Yan Jin turned and looked at him.

"Snake clans aren’t welcome on the surface. So we decided to live underground," Yan Jin said.

"Who forbids you from living on the surface?"

Yan Jin was silent for a moment, then turned back and answered, "Humans."

Ye Xuan walked on, following Yan Jin. He was the only human in the place, which immediately drew the attention of the Blazing Flame Serpent race and stirred up their hatred.

"Anyone who hurts him will answer to me!" Yan Jin declared loudly to his entire race, and they obeyed.

"A human?!" someone shouted from ahead, and Ye Xuan heard it. "Why are you letting him live, Father?! He’s our eternal enemy!"

A half-human, half-snake man came toward Yan Jin and called him father.

Yan Jin held him back from attacking Ye Xuan and explained why he hadn’t killed the human.

"He saved that snake. The white snake means a great deal to every snake race," Yan Jin said.

"It seems you’ve gone soft, Chief Yan Jin," said another man.

Three men approached, one of them old, with legs like Yan Jin’s instead of a tail. The clan chief turned and glared at him.

"What do you mean, Grand Elder Jiang Hei?"

"The chief of the Blazing Flame Serpent Clan should follow the rules and etiquette our lives have followed since the age of our ancestors. Bringing in a human and dealing with one of them is taboo, forbidden by the Third Ancestor!" Jiang Hei said.

He struck his snake staff against the ground, and a magic rune suddenly appeared.

A qi serpent manifestation lunged at Ye Xuan. He tried to dodge and fight back, but he could feel that Jiang Hei’s power was nearly equal to Yan Jin’s.

"If Clan Chief Yan Jin won’t kill him, then I’ll do it myself!" Jiang Hei declared.

Yan Jin sighed softly, then stamped his foot on the ground and summoned a far larger and stronger projection of his qi serpent. It was red and seemed to blaze in a great fire.

"What right do you have to kill my guest?!" Yan Jin demanded.

Their clash was fierce. Yan Jin’s qi serpent smashed Jiang Hei’s, freeing Ye Xuan from the serpent’s grip for the moment.

"So you choose to betray us, Yan Jin? You’d throw away our pride as the Blazing Flame Serpent Clan just to protect that human?" Jiang Hei asked.

Yan Jin said nothing, unsure what to say in this situation. But he knew his clan disliked it when humans came to their home, even though they had done everything they could to keep humans from wandering in.

"I’m the one who decides everything. If I refuse, our clan will be destroyed in the future," Yan Jin said.

"True. The destruction of our clan began the moment you brought that human here!" Jiang Hei said.

Ye Xuan could only stay silent and listen to their quarrel. But he was startled when Qingyu leaped from his neck and landed on the ground.

Its eyes closed, and slowly its body began to transform, growing larger.

Ye Xuan was stunned. Yan Jin and Jiang Hei were just as startled, so much so that both of them deactivated their magic runes.

Qingyu’s sudden growth shocked everyone. A red rune appeared in front of its forehead, and a crimson beam of qi shot toward Jiang Hei’s forehead.

It did exactly what it had done with Yan Jin. Ye Xuan saw it and was sure Qingyu was communicating with Jiang Hei.

Before long, the crimson beam faded and Jiang Hei came fully to his senses. He looked ahead and let out a short sigh.

"Greetings, Senior Qingyu."

Senior...? Someone that old calls her senior? Could Qingyu hold an even higher standing?

"I apologize for not recognizing you, Senior Qingyu."

"I won’t stand in your way. The Blazing Flame Serpent Clan will help you fully," Jiang Hei said.

Qingyu closed its eyes again and changed its body, shrinking back down and lying on the ground. Ye Xuan walked over and picked up the snake, holding it in his hand.

The white snake was limp and drained. It made sense, since it had used its power quite often today.

Ye Xuan caught it and gave it a spirit stone. That was the only thing that would help it recover quickly.

[Congratulations! You have given an item to your partner.]

[Item given: 1x Low-Grade Spirit Stone]

[Item returned: 100x Low-Grade Spirit Stone]

[Multiplication Level: 1]

[Affection: 90/1000] [+15]

[Daily use of Infinite Return exhausted: 1/3]

As soon as Qingyu absorbed all the energy in the spirit stone, Ye Xuan saw it recovering, and it crawled back up to his neck.

Not only that, Ye Xuan also received a black pouch holding 100 spirit stones.

He put the black pouch into his bag of holding. Yan Jin was pleased that Qingyu had helped ease the tension with Jiang Hei.

Yan Jin turned and looked at the two of them. "Come... the blood pledge altar is close."

They walked on until they reached a wide altar surrounded by snake-shaped pillars. Jiang Hei and some of the snake clan’s residents came too, to witness a ceremony that was unusual for them.

A human marrying someone from the snake clan. Jiang Hei and Yan Jin didn’t seem to care much about etiquette or norms. They couldn’t refuse Qingyu’s command.

Yan Jin had them sit on the altar and bring forth their soul blood.

Since Ye Xuan’s cultivation base wasn’t strong enough to draw out soul blood, he was told to give a single drop of blood from his body instead.

"Will that work?" Ye Xuan asked.

"The qi bond between you will be too weak. But if you break through to Foundation Establishment, you can strengthen your blood pledge," Yan Jin replied.

"All right."

Qingyu managed to bring forth its soul blood, while Ye Xuan let a drop of his own blood fall, which formed a sphere and shot toward Qingyu’s soul blood.

Yan Jin formed a hand seal and directed his red spiritual qi to the center of the altar. Slowly but surely, the carvings on the altar lit up bright red, filling the entire altar.

"The blood pledge is activated!"

Qingyu’s soul blood and Ye Xuan’s blood merged into one. The process wasn’t complicated. Yan Jin did it the way he helped his own people perform blood pledges.

There was no significant boom of qi. Once the two bloods had fully merged, the blood split and shot toward both of them.

It flew into Ye Xuan’s body and Qingyu’s, marking the end of the blood pledge ceremony.

At first Ye Xuan felt nothing, but when he received the blood, which held part of Qingyu’s soul blood, his body suddenly convulsed with violent turmoil.

His body burned and spasmed, his heart pounded, and he gasped for breath.

Yan Jin was startled. He hadn’t known there was a risk when a blood pledge involved a human and a snake clan member.

"What’s happening to you, Brother Ye?"

"It seems his body is suffering a qi surge because of the mixture of Senior Qingyu’s soul blood," Jiang Hei said.

"If he isn’t saved soon, his dantian could explode and he’ll be crippled for life," Jiang Hei said.

Yan Jin fell silent, then stood in front of Ye Xuan and sent his spiritual qi into the man’s body to control the surge of qi inside him.

"Hold on, Brother Ye," Yan Jin said. "I’ll help you!"