The Charm of Soul Pets

NEW NOVEL: First and foremost, I'm delighted to announce that our long-time veteran translator littleshanks has finally launched his new novel, Rise!  Rise is a novel about the esports scene in Shanghai, the competitive gaming capital of China. It follows the story of Lin Feng, a boy who has just moved to the city for his last year of high school. He's a passionate gamer and dreams of being the best professional League of Legends player in the world. The twist? He almost achieved his dream, but failed at the...

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The blue skies seemed to have no end. Empyrean Cyan Hidden Dragon unceasingly struggled against the air resistance to reach the vaster and deeper skies. Its wings didn’t stop at all. 

It flew higher and higher. The ocean was just a small blot of blue now. It was full of hot blood and fighting spirit, but for some reason, the further it was from the ground, the more tired its heart grew.

Its head went blank. It no longer knew where it was from, but felt that it must reach a certain place.

However, it forgot everything. It forgot the past few hundred years, forgot the whereabouts of its species, forgot the direction of the dragon abyss that it yearned for in its dreams…...

It tried to look through the west side of the eternal ocean but the god of prison island told it that the dragon abyss was in the complete opposite direction.

It knew that its soul was too old to keep its body from going on another long journey, so it could only choose this way to return to the skies of its home. Legends said that the second region of sky floats towards the dragon abyss.

Slowly, the sky was no longer blue. It fell into darkness. Even though there were still rays of sun, it was no longer as bright and natural as nature…...

Darkness came with cold. Empyrean Cyan Hidden Dragon felt its blood flow slowing down. Its armor was getting frost burned, wings getting stiff and heavy, causing its flying to grow increasingly hard.

“Huhuhu~~~~~”

Empyrean Cyan hidden Dragon breathed heavily. It had only gotten to second level of sky for a short while and it was already this tired. It felt ashamed of itself. It felt that it had to at least see the division to the third level of sky before it could stop flying.

    ……

On the ocean, god of prison island was washing away its blood within the ocean, occasionally glancing upwards in the skies.

Little hidden dragon flapped its wings aside, and was slightly shy and guilty.

God of prison island looked at the pure fellow, and sighed like an old man. Hesitating for a moment, in the end it felt that it was better if it told little hidden dragon the truth.

Every organism’s growth had to be accompanied with death. This sky burial was an event it felt little dragon had to attend to understand the importance of life!

God of prison island’s mental voice reverberated through little hidden dragon. It stared at the god of prison island blankly. Only when god of prison island made it clear that its mother was flying towards her death did little hidden dragon suddenly come back to its senses, as if it was struck by thunder!

“Wuwuwuwu!!!!!!”

Little hidden dragon lifted its head and roared towards the skies!

Opening its wings, little hidden dragon lifted into the skies and broke through all the clouds that blocked its way, following empyrean cyan hidden dragon’s flight path!!

Little hidden dragon’s flight speed was faster than empyrean cyan hidden dragon. The countless souls surrounding its wings. These wings helped it break through some of the air resistance in the air, causing it to become a bright blue beam that charged straight into the deep blue sky.

Slowly, little hidden dragon was already in the second level of the sky, the one where darkness and chill coexisted.

It looked through the darkness and saw, far away, even higher in second level of sky, an old cyan figure flapped strenuously to fly towards higher skies!

The back image caused little hidden dragon’s eyes to tear up. It had never seen its mother so worn out…...

“Wuwuwuwu!!!!!!!”

Little hidden dragon let out a grieved call and flapped its wings faster, constantly drawing power from the souls within its soul gathering orb to strengthen its wings and chase after the empyrean cyan hidden dragon.

Hearing the little hidden dragon’s call, empyrean cyan hidden dragon stiffly turned its head to glance at the small cyan blue figure.

Its tired eyes rippled with a hint of gratification, but it didn’t stop continuing to challenge the last battle in its life. Its almost completely frozen wing flapped and slowly sent its body further into the dark world.

“Gezhi~~~~~~”

Frost covered its entire body. Its blood nearly stopped flowing, and it was continuing purely with willpower.

“Wuwuwu!!!!!!!”

Little hidden dragon roared. It was getting closer and closer to empyrean cyan hidden dragon as it chased, yet it was still a long distance away. It could feel its mother’s life force growing ever weaker, edging ever closer to death.

It didn’t understand why it wanted to leave soul covered land, leaving the place that could let its mother live a few more years. Instead, it came to look for death in this way.

“Huhuhu~~~~~~~” The second level of sky’s raging wind blew with freezing air, causing little hidden dragon to feel torturous pain on every wing flap.

Little hidden dragon was the worst at taking pain. Such torture was causing it to tear up already, forcing it to give up flight.

However, everytime it saw the old cyan body get closer, it didn’t dare to give up, biting its teeth to continue flying!

In the dark icy sky, the tired cyan figure still continued to challenge the limits of its life, slowly becoming smaller and slower. Below it, an adamant figure continued to speed up to try to catch up to its mother…….

    ……

Empyrean cyan hidden dragon’s vision grew fuzzier. It no longer saw the darkness of the second level of sky, instead seeing an azure dragon’s sky. Within this sky flew countless dragons that were both familiar and strange…...

This was the sky of dragons as well as the final destination. Empyrean cyan hidden dragon felt that it finally reached its destination. An untold peace passed over its tired eyes…...

“Pa~~~~~~~”

One crisp crack sounded, completely shattering the frozen empyrean cyan hidden dragon and scattering it! 

The moment it saw the destination in its heart, its life reached its end.

Its soul finally rested when it saw the world that gave it peace. After its body was scattered by the raging winds, it fell as countless specks of dragon dust that floated down from the skies like soft, scattered starlight…….

These glimmers slowly fell around little hidden dragon’s body and disappeared along the wind.

Little hidden dragon still flapped its wings furiously, trying to collect all the dragon dust so that it could reconstruct its mother. However, the crystalline essence was too much to collect. It kept on getting scattered along different gusts of wind- visible but intangible…..

The empyrean cyan hidden dragon was buried within the entire sky, bringing a rare beautiful yet mournful scene to the dark and cold second level of sky. However, soon after, the only thing remaining was the whistling wind and the heart-wrenching cry of a child. Its cyan blue figure was still vainly trying to chase after its mother…...

    ……

Spring came to the Eastern Wild Forest. The snow had melted and become small creeks that flowed down the forest bed.

Chu Mu stood at the side of the creek and stared at the clear water stream past pebbles and fell into deep thought.

“Chu Mu, what’s wrong, you aren’t talking.” A crisp and pleasant voice came from behind him.

Chu Mu turned around. Seeing the beautiful Ye Qingzi walk over slowly, he smiled gently. It looked like Qingzi still knew him well, noticing such a slight emotional change.

Chu Mu hugged her soft body and said nothing, staring into the sky.

Ye Qingzi understandably laid down in his embrace and said nothing. From Chu Mu’s expression she could see that today, he was somewhat melancholic.

After a while, Chu Mu finally spoke, “Empyrean Cyan Hidden Dragon lost all signs of life.”

After going through jade spring sacred blood that originated from empyrean cyan hidden dragon, once it died, Chu Mu could feel the permanent stillness within his blood…...

Ye Qingzi looked up at Chu Mu. She already heard Chu Mu describe his story with empyrean cyan hidden dragon. Though she couldn’t understand the short relationship, from Chu Mu’s description of it, she could tell that it was one of Chu Mu’s most respected organisms!

Ye Qingzi didn’t know how to comfort Chu Mu, only able to run her hands down his back.

“In reality, the last time I saw it, I knew that its soul was very very old already….’ Chu Mu slowly continued.

Feeling a life worthy of respect leaving this world caused Chu Mu to feel sorrow.

Always, the power of empyrean cyan hidden dragon was something Chu Mu yearned for, hoping he could soar through the skies and fight like it had.

Now, he finally stood on the same height as it. However, it was already deep into its old age, and had left this world in some unknown sky…...

“Better?” Ye Qingzi saw Chu Mu slowly calm down and asked gently.

Chu Mu nodded. This was a cycle of life and death. Chu Mu only was reminiscing on empyrean cyan hidden dragon’s tumultuous life. He was slowly finished adjusting his emotions. After all, all life had to come to an end. One could only keep the memory dear in one’s heart and occasionally look back at it…..

“Little hidden dragon seemed to be in eternal ocean already. I just felt its soul.” Chu Mu said.

Ye Qingzi saw little hidden dragon’s birth, and thought back to the cute little dragon and smiled, “It’s probably really powerful now too, right?”

“En, however, I don’t think it detects me.” Chu Mu siad.

“En?” Ye Qingzi didn’t understand why the detection was one way.

“I’m afraid of defector young girl detecting my presence, so I restricted my soul waves. Unless its a soul pet that has followed me for many years, like Zhan Ye, they can’t find my exact position. Because little hidden dragon was still young, we haven’t made a deeper connection, and it won’t detect me.” Chu Mu said.

“Oh, then should you go look for it back?” Ye Qingzi asked.

“It’s still far away, it’ll take time to find it. First, let’s bring dead dream’s phase up first. I feel like if I go east, it will quickly detect me.” Chu Mu said.

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