Rumbling sounds echoed out as the Essence of space of the Eighth Hex descended and locked everything in place. Space was sealed, the air was sealed, everything was sealed!

Even the beam of light lurched to a halt. Meng Hao strode forward, completely ignoring the light and the destructive power that filled it, as he stepped inside.

The light washed over him, distorting a moment before being blasted away. Meng Hao stepped onto the spell formation, reached out, and grabbed the half-transparent Han Bei.

Almost as soon as his hand latched onto her, she laughed bitterly.

"If you kill me, Chu Yuyan dies!" she shrieked. Even as her words echoed out, and before she could speak another sentence, Meng Hao's face turned icy cold. Without the slightest hesitation, he snapped her neck.

Han Bei couldn't believe what was happening as a boom rang out and she exploded into a haze of blood and gore. She had been destroyed in body and mind.

"This isn't your true self," Meng Hao said coolly," only a tool to be discarded, or perhaps a clone to be used as a seed for rebirth.

"Now that I've killed this body, I'm curious to see what other means you will use to try to evade my wrath." He closed his eyes as he followed the aura of Han Bei's flesh and blood to try to track her down yet again.

Han Bei was crafty to the extreme, and had prepared many life-saving backup plans. Strangely, even Meng Hao was having trouble detecting the signs of where exactly she had teleported away to.

He had followed various clues to this place, and found her clone. Han Bei was certainly clever. Clearly, her true self and her clone had fled in different directions. If Meng Hao ended up following her clone, then that would suit her plans nicely. If he followed her true self, then the clone could make its escape and be the seed for rebirth if he ended up killing her true self.

"Gotcha," he said, eyes flickering as he looked off into the distance. There, his divine sense had spotted a figure who hadn't been there moments ago.

It was the fleeing figure of... Han Bei's true self!

Her hair was in disarray, and her face was ashen. She seemed shocked, in disbelief, as if she could never have imagined that Meng Hao would have the mental fortitude to survive and track her down from outside the Vast Expanse.

It really seemed impossible to her. No one could survive the experience of going outside the Vast Expanse, especially not... Immortals who had transformed into Demons!

"He wasn't assimilated and wasn't consumed. He's still himself. He didn't become the Emissary of Allheaven! How did he do it? Dammit!!" A tremor ran through Han Bei as she thought about Meng Hao's raging, murderous aura. She could well imagine that Meng Hao's heart was completely fixed on the notion of slaughtering her.

Furthermore, she had no desire to test out whether Meng Hao had slipped into a state where he didn't care about Chu Yuyan's soul. If he had, Han Bei knew that he could kill her as easily as flipping over his hand.

"There's no way he doesn't care about her!" she thought, gritting her teeth. As she flew along, suddenly, one of the cities of the mortal world appeared in front of her!

When Meng Hao realized what direction she was flying in, his pupils constricted. Beyond the mountains on the horizon was the city where his clone's ninth reincarnation was living. There, on the sprawling plains, was the enormous capital city of the mortal empire.

Meng Hao had very little connection to this ninth reincarnation. He could sense him, but that was all. And yet, that sensation allowed him to pinpoint exactly where the clone was located.

That didn't help him to check the clone's current situation though. Not even divine sense revealed anything more than a blurry haze. However, he could sense a familiar aura brewing within his clone's ninth reincarnation.

It was the complete aura of the Ninth Hex, an aura which could change all lives in unpredictable ways. It was an aura that could cover over all life, that twisted the air, making divine sense impossible to penetrate the area.

"How does Han Bei know where my clone's ninth reincarnation is? Could it be just random chance?" His eyes glittered brightly.

Of course, he had no idea that Yan'er had become a part of his clone's ninth life. It was only because Han Bei was connected to Chu Yuyan's soul that she was going in that direction. She had no idea of knowing that his clone's reincarnation was obscuring the divine sense in Chu Yuyan's area. However, she was able to determine the general location.

And therefore, she was speeding there to try to track Chu Yuyan down!

Even as Han Bei sped along, Meng Hao let out a cold harrumph, and blurred into motion as he gave chase.

Rumbling sounds filled Heaven and Earth. Han Bei was moving so quickly that she was soon in the air above the capital city where the clone's reincarnation lived.

"This must be the place!" she thought, face gleaming with delight. This was her final life-saving backup plan. She knew that even if she fled to the farthest corners of the Vast Expanse, Meng Hao would still be able to track her down. Furthermore, because of the injuries she had sustained, it was impossible for her to safely summon the will of Allheaven upon her. Therefore, her final chance at survival lay with Chu Yuyan.

She hoped that, in the case that Meng Hao had lost himself in his hatred, suddenly seeing Chu Yuyan in the flesh would awaken him.

Unfortunately, even though she knew Chu Yuyan's general location, she couldn't pinpoint exactly where she was. She only knew that she was in this city, which was somehow covered with a blanket of obscurity.

However, she had no way of knowing that the closer she got to her target, the stronger Meng Hao's killing intent grew. After all, how could he possibly allow anything bad to happen to his clone?

Even as Han Bei arrived outside the mortal city, sounds like muffled thunder filled the air. Suddenly, the air seemed to rip apart, and Meng Hao emerged to hover in front of Han Bei.

His eyes were icy cold, and his killing intent swirled madly. Han Bei suddenly shivered and began to pant.

Apparently, Meng Hao's appearance provoked a reaction from the clouds up above. More thunder crackled, breaking the clouds open and causing rain to begin to fall. Moments later, the lands were soaked in rain.

Countless mortal citizens in the city scurried about to get out of the rain; it was currently evening, and as the sky darkened, the rain began to fall even harder.

In a narrow alley in one particular corner of the city was a carpenter's shop. Little Treasure sat there, carving a piece of wood, relying on his memory to sculpt the shape he remembered. Outside, thunder rumbled, and the sound of rainfall could be heard. Normally speaking, those sounds would stir his imagination, and make him think about what it might look like outside.

But today, he felt uneasy, as though something important were about to happen.

Soon, he heard footfalls behind him. It was his wife, who sat down next to him and leaned on his shoulder. A smile broke out on his face, and suddenly, the uneasy feeling in his heart gave way to calmness.

His wife looked at him warmly and also smiled. Her belly appeared to be slightly swollen; a tiny little life was there inside, slowly growing....

Because of the blanket of obscurity, Meng Hao's true self was unaware of what had occurred in his clone's ninth life. At the same time, the person who had accompanied that reincarnation through life had no way to detect the familiar aura which existed beyond that obscurity.

"If you kill me, Chu Yuyan's DEAD!" Han Bei said shrilly. She was nervous, and very afraid.

Thunder crashed, and the rain fell. Meng Hao didn't use his cultivation base to prevent the rain from touching him. He hovered there in the air, eyes swirling with killing intent, and as the rain landed on him, it turned into ice which fell down toward the ground.

Meng Hao looked over at Han Bei, then said, "The first time we met was when we went into the Black Sieve Sect's ancient Blessed Land."

His eyes flickered with memories. In the past, he would never intentionally take the time to indulge in nostalgia. But as the years went by, he grew more lonely, and then experienced the destruction of the Mountain and Sea Realm. Eventually, he reached the point where he would reminisce.

If it were possible, he would prefer that all of the people who had once been his friends not perish. That was especially true... of those he killed himself.

He felt that way about Chen Fan, and also felt that way about Han Bei.

Han Bei looked back at him quickly, eyes flickering with mixed emotions as she thought back to the past.

Then, Meng Hao's eyes shone with bright light. What he had said just now had been seventy percent sincere and thirty percent duplicitous. He truly had been sighing, but the intention had been to cause Han Bei to think about the past!

In the blink of an eye, Meng Hao's right hand flashed with an incantation gesture. Karmic Hexing appeared, and the wave of a finger caused Han Bei to begin to tremble. All of her Karma Threads appeared above her head, from which Meng Hao extracted a single thread.

It was none other than the Karma Thread which connected her to Chu Yuyan!

At the same time, Meng Hao's hand slashed through the air. The pieces of ice which had fallen off of him moments ago suddenly flew through the air, transforming into countless sharp blades that flashed through the air toward Han Bei. More precisely, they shot toward the Karma Thread which connected her to Chu Yuyan.

Han Bei's eyes widened, and she gasped. She immediately fell back, hands flashing in a double-handed incantation gesture. Then she shoved her hands out, unleashing the power of her cultivation base. However, she was not even close to being a match for Meng Hao. In the blink of an eye, the chunks of ice were directly in front of her and on the verge of slashing through her body.

In that moment, she shrieked. Her black pupils rapidly extended outward until they had overtaken the whites of her eyes. A boundless will then began to emanate out from her.

It was the will of Allheaven, and as it exploded out, blood oozed out of the corners of her mouth. She began to shake violently, and the sounds of breaking bones echoed out from inside of her.