The shared pain.

The world fell silent when Liang Chen got his answer. Or perhaps it was just him, his mind so focused on the fulfilment of that old promise that everything else just faded away. His hands felt warm, the touch of Yan Ling's skin felt like fire. Each beat of her heart was transmitted to him through their touch, each thump of her heart made the fire-like sensation dance passionately across his hands.

"Ah..."

When was the last time he had been this happy? When had his blood last rushed like this for a reason other than anger and death? Right now, he was alive. Right now, the heart that shouldn't exist in an elemental body like his was beating ceaselessly. And right now, this cruel world that had twisted him, for just a moment it seemed as if it had become the world he always envisioned as he killed.

"Aha, you should see the look on your face right now. You look even more dumbfounded than you did when I first tossed you around like a ragdoll, you look so dumb."

Sound broke into his quiet world, opened it up so that it could accept the wider world. Yan Ling was giggling as she looked at him, but she hardly looked better. Her lips were curled into a wide grin that occasionally twitched, it was trying to grow wider even though it was already stretched as far as it could go. Her face was also a wet mess, tears had started streaming from her face at some point, she really looked like a mess right now.

"You always need to get in the last word, don't you?"

But this mess, it was exactly what, who, Liang Chen loved. He wasn't confident in his own mental strength, especially not the mental strength of his past self. Were it not for Yan Ling then he would have undoubtedly become even more twisted than he already was, he would have become something he wouldn't even be able to recognize. But this mess had saved him, so he loved it oh so dearly.

His hands let go of the scorching fire and rose until they rested on her cheeks. He had cried, he had laughed, he had smiled, he had proposed, he had done everything he wanted after meeting her again. But there was one thing he had yet to do, and now the urge to do so was so strong that it made his lungs feel clogged.

His body bent and his head lowered, and finally, his lips met hers as he closed his eyes. If her hands were fire then her lips were the sun, that small moment of contact almost enough to completely swallow Liang Chen. He could feel the sparks, the air crackling as if it was alive. It felt as if their love had manifested itself into reality, a subdued celebration of their emotions.

But then a scent that had no home here hit his nose. Scorched flesh, the sizzling of burning meat. It was a scent and sound too familiar to him, he brought it with him wherever he went. But it had no home here, this was not a place where he had unleashed his death.

His eyes immediately shot open to locate the source of the smell, his pupils shrinking violently as he did. The sparks he heard, the crackling air, it wasn't just in his head. There really were sparks dancing between him and Yan Ling, they rose up from where their lips met, scattering after a few seconds. And that scent, it too rose from where their lips met. Yan Ling's lips were burning, crackling with lightning as they met Liang Chen's.

He hurriedly let go of her cheeks and pulled back, but Yan Ling did not allow him to escape. Her hands shot forward and landed on his cheeks, holding him in place as she leaned forward and resumed the kiss again. Her lips once again started to burn and crackle when they met his, the scent of sweet apples drifting through the air, one of Liang Chen's poisons. She maintained the kiss as she ignored the sizzling, separating their locked lips after a handful of seconds.

"Love is painful they say, but I say that it's definitely worth it."

She licked her lips as she spoke. There wasn't even any blood dripping from them, the lightning had seared through her skin without allowing anything to spill. The poison that had tried to enter her was stopped by the very same lightning that had seared her lips, evaporated before it could do any harm. She had separated their lips, but her hands were still resting on his cheeks, allowing her to peer deeply into his chaotic eyes.

"You've fought hard, Little Freak. You went far and you grew strong, you did a lot, and you saw a lot. You saved many, and you killed many. It must have been hard, you've even had to throw away your own existence and become something else entirely. But I'm proud of you, Liang Chen. My Chen'er, my Little Freak. So don't think about this pain, don't worry about it. I will bear it, and I will overcome it. So just kiss me, and don't be afraid."

She was the one who knew Liang Chen best in the world so she had been the first to notice it. Something was different about him, she had noticed it when he first arrived. And now, when they kissed, she had found out exactly what it was. He was no longer human. Well, he was technically a Sebettu originally, but that was a bit beside the point.

The crackling as their lips met, it felt like she was kissing a bolt of lightning, as if she dipped her lips into a pool of poison. They were laws she was intimately familiar with, they belonged to her husband after all. She wasn't stupid, she had lived and learned a lot so she could easily hazard a guess as to what had changed.

His body cultivation technique, it revolved around turning your body into your laws. He had succeeded in it, he had accomplished what the technique set out to do. She didn't know whether it was part of the technique or not, but he had become his laws, his elements. He had lost his humanity and become an Elemental, a body consisting solely of his fused law.

And in that, laid the current problem. A body consisting of lightning and poison, how could a normal person interact with it? The skin he wore could be considered clothes that kept the elements chained down, preventing them from interacting with the outside world. But his fluids, they did not have the same safeguard. His tears were poison to all who dared drink them, his saliva was liquid lightning, his blood was wind and water, you had to touch them at your own risk.

"...I was hoping that it wouldn't be like this..."

Liang Chen's expression turned bitter and skewed. He knew that there would be consequences to becoming an elemental, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options at the time. He had unknowingly made a mistake in his body cultivation, the only way he would be able to survive while cultivating was to become an Elemental.

He hoped that the consequences wouldn't extend to a point where they would affect his family, but it seemed like it was a vain hope in the end. As he was now, he couldn't even kiss his wife without hurting her. His thoughts were written plainly on his face, engraved onto his twisted and bitter lips. And Yan Ling did not like what she saw, so she erased those letters with her own lips.

The sound of crackling once again spread through the air, the scent of scorched flesh accompanied by sizzling. Her fingers almost dug into Liang Chen's cheeks as she held his head in place, she would not allow him to escape her love because of something so small. When she finally pulled back her head again, the lips that had started to heal thanks to her strong bloodline were burnt once more. But she licked them all the same, a satisfied expression on her face.

"I like it, it tastes like the Little Freak I know. It's just pain, nothing more. I've felt it a thousand times before, you've felt it a thousand times before, we've suffered enough to get used to it. So let me savour this pain, let me bear it for you, that is how we share burdens. One day we'll overcome it, we always do."

She leaned forward again when she finished talking, planting her lips against his. Her lips had just started to heal but now they were burning again. It was as if she was trying to scar herself, to brand herself with his mark for all to see. But she just wanted to bear his pain. That was one of the reasons she had fought so hard, trained so desperately.

The Storm Wolf sect, it didn't consist of just the wolf, nor did it consist of just the storm. Only when the two were together could it reach its true potential, only when the storm raised the wolf, only when the wolf supported the storm, only then would it show its true splendour. She was weak in the past, undeserving of the storm that she found. But now she was strong, now she could support the storm, now she could bear its pain and burdens, now they could fly together.

"Always... You've always been unfair, you know that, right?"

Liang Chen felt a strange mixture of bitterness and gratitude when Yan Ling pulled back her lips again. She was always like this, always making him do things he didn't want to. But he never was able to say no to her, the sheer conviction and care in her eyes when she looked at him made it impossible to say no. It was always for him, every time. She made him hurt her, but it was always for him. And every time he relented, she flashed him the same smile as she did now, that bright smile that melted him.

"Only towards you, Little Freak, it was always only towards you."

She wasn't lying, it was always only towards him. Back in the sect, she was always different, the young miss everyone wanted to get close to but couldn't because she kept them at arm's length. It was only towards him that she was different, only towards the one who she had shared her pain with.

Her lips had finished healing during the short exchange they shared, even burnt flesh was no trouble for her strong bloodline, especially now that she had become a Sovereign God. So she presented them. She didn't push them forward, she just presented them. She wanted him to do it, she wanted him to share it with her. And so he did. He made sure that Lan Yun wasn't squeezed between them due to their earlier movements and then leaned forward, placing his lips on hers.

The sizzling of flesh, the crackling of lightning, the dancing of sparks that lit up between them. He looked straight at her as they hit him, and she too looked straight at him, not even flinching. This was their pain, it belonged solely to the two of them, and it was shared solely by the two of them. It was a vow, just like the rings they now bore. And because she knew that, she could smile brilliantly as they separated again.

"The wedding, it needs to be grand enough for the whole universe to see. But before we get it started, there's someplace I need to take you. I met some people in the universe where I trained, a lovely couple and their daughter. They need to be at our wedding, I promised them that they would become part of the family, so we need to go pick them up."