Quick Travel to the Clouds

Chapter 612 I am a Rabbit-Eared Clan 30

"Ugh—!" Yun Chu was completely unable to control herself. Her body felt as if it had been struck by an invisible giant hammer. She arched and convulsed violently, letting out an extremely shrill and inhuman scream!

It was a hundred times more painful than facing a branding iron or the wound on her shoulder! Her mind went completely blank in an instant, her sight and hearing seemed to be stripped away, and the world was left with only pure, indescribable pain!

The excruciating pain lasted only a fleeting moment, yet it felt like an eternity. Just when Yun Chu felt her spirit was about to completely collapse, the tearing sensation that penetrated her very soul receded like a receding tide!

She collapsed to the ground as if all her bones had been removed, gasping for breath. Cold sweat soaked through her thin clothes like a stream, and her body still lingered with extreme fear and spasms.

She collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted, her eyes unfocused, filled only with the bewilderment of surviving a catastrophe and overwhelming fear.

Yin Yan had already withdrawn his hand, which was about to touch her.

He stood there, motionless. His face showed no surprise or delight, only the previously pure, cold curiosity in his eyes, like a spark thrown into fuel, was suddenly ignited!

That was a fervent, boundless desire for understanding!

For the first time, a genuine, complete smile appeared on his lips—a smile of excitement and greed, as if he had discovered a rare treasure. But the smile held no warmth, only a chilling coldness and an all-knowing, controlling arrogance.

"As expected... space." A deep, metallic murmur rolled on his lips, each word falling clearly into Yun Chu's ears as she regained a sliver of consciousness.

"It's not teleportation, it's not passing through walls or burrowing underground... it's a more essential... a more core 'existence'."

Silver Flame's golden eyes shone brightly, like molten gold in the dark night. "The fragility of lurking in the nodes amidst chaos... this subtle perception... this gap that I can still touch despite being suppressed by layers of sealing runes... it's too beautiful..."

He lowered his head, his gaze refocusing on Yun Chu, who lay lifeless like a dying fish. That gaze was no longer that of a slave, nor even that of an interesting "poisonous creature," but rather…

A rare "treasure" with extremely high research value.

"Mark her." Yin Yan ordered a tiger-clan guard who had appeared out of nowhere in the shadows of the stone chamber. The guard was dressed in special dark leather armor and had strange black markings on his face. His voice regained its absolute control and left no room for argument.

The guard appeared beside Yun Chu in an instant, like a ghost melting into the darkness.

He held in his hand a small, strange object made of some kind of black metal and shimmering purple crystals. At the top was carved a miniature, roaring tiger's head totem, and the totem's right eye was inlaid with a silver-gray gem that emitted a cold, faint light.

Before Yun Chu could react—and she was too weak to react—the guard slammed the instrument against the back of Yun Chu's neck!

Phew——!

A force far colder than a branding iron, yet sharper and more soul-piercing, instantly pierced her skin and seeped into her flesh!

"Ah!!!" Unlike the previous outbursts of pain, this scream was filled with the tearing sensation of the soul being forcibly branded by a foreign object and a sense of eternal curse!

A complex totem instantly appeared on the back of Yun Chu's neck: it was a miniature outline of a roaring tiger's head, composed of flowing silver-gray lines, with the tiger's right eye being a tiny point of light shimmering with an eerie silver glow.

As the mark formed, a cold and sinister aura, like a leech, tightly bound her core sense of spatial existence, as if an invisible chain had been completely pulled down!

After the excruciating pain subsided, Yun Chu lay sprawled on the cold ground, only able to convulse.

The mark on the back of her neck resembled a piece of ancient ice, radiating a chilling aura, while clearly indicating who it connected to—Yin Yan. She could feel the last glimmer of light in the depths of her soul being completely covered, suppressed, and linked to by this icy mark.

The fear reached its peak, turning into a deathly silence.

Yin Yan looked down at everything from his vantage point, his expression one of utter satisfaction. He even nodded slightly, approving of the tattooed guard's skill.

“From this moment forward, Yun Chu,” Yin Yan spoke again, his deep voice carrying a peculiar sense of declaration, “you are no longer slave number ninety-three.”

"You are my beloved servant."

“Serve me, be mine. Everything you have, including this tiny yet magnificent little ‘talent’ that you have hidden, belongs to me.”

“Keep an eye on her,” Yin Yan turned and walked toward the cold stone chair. “Don’t let her die before we reach the main city. And don’t let anyone touch a single hair on her head—her ownership has been transferred to me.”

The tattooed guard bowed silently, dragging Yun Chu, who was completely mentally broken and like a shattered doll, out of the cold obsidian cage as if she were a lifeless, precious object.

The heavy stone door closed behind her again, isolating Yin Yan's golden eyes, burning with a pure desire for control and exploration, as well as the powerful aura around him that was like an icy abyss.

Her imprisonment, at the moment of her identity change, entered a new and even more desperate level.

The heavy stone door isolated Yun Chu from the suffocating oppression of Yin Yan, but the cold, piercing tiger head brand on the back of her neck, radiating an eerie silver light, was like a leech, firmly nailing Yun Chu's soul to the cross of despair.

She was being dragged along by the tattooed guard, her body like a broken doll, her spirit on the verge of collapse.

Instead of being thrown back into her original slave cell, she was taken to a more heavily guarded and colder stone house in the camp.

Her "treatment" was not out of pity, but to ensure that Silverflame's newly acquired "possessions" remained intact before arriving in the main city.

The tattooed guard watched coldly as he relayed the order to a tiger-clan healer with a blank expression who was only responsible for carrying it out.

The branded wound on my shoulder was sprinkled with irritating powder, and the excruciating pain was like a wildfire, but the icy coldness of the powder strangely suppressed the burning sensation.

The medicine used to clean the wounds had a pungent smell, and as it washed away the congealed blood, it caused her already scarred hands and elbows to twitch intermittently.

A thick ointment emitting a strange chill was applied to the brand on the back of her neck. The chill penetrated to her very bones, almost freezing her mind.

The medication used was incredibly effective; the wound healed at a visible speed, and the bruises faded quickly.

But this healing was accompanied by unbearable numbness, itching, stinging, and a bone-chilling cold, constantly reminding her of her physical weakness and the terrifying effects of the new brand.

The food consisted of jerky and medicinal soup that could quickly replenish energy, but it was bland and cold, and eating it was like completing a task.

The tattooed guards, like ghosts, often appeared in the shadows outside the door, or stood directly in the corner of the stone chamber, coldly watching her every move with their emotionless, tattooed eyes.

The brand on the back of her neck continued to emanate a faint chill, like an icy chain binding her pitiful "spatial" perception, and was also a silent declaration: everything about her was under the control of Yin Yan.

The brand itself is like a continuous warning and part of the treatment.