Chapter 2226 — Chapter 2226 Lingyue

"Me? Naming you?" Yuan's eyes widened slightly at the young girl's request.

The young girl nodded in confirmation.

"..."

Yuan fell silent for a good moment before speaking again, "In that case, how does Lingyue sound?"

A weird light flickered within Yuan's eyes as he spoke the name.

"Lingyue…" The young girl mumbled.

"Do you want a different name?" Yuan asked after seeing her reaction.

"No!" she hastily responded. "Lingyue is good!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lingyue."

"Un!" Lingyue nodded with a bright smile on her face.

"Ugh…" A grunt suddenly resounded, causing Yuan and the others to look at Xiao Hua, who was starting to wake up from her daze.

A few more moments later, Xiao Hua no longer had a blank look on her face, and she started looking around with a somewhat confused expression.

"Xiao Hua," Yuan called softly.

She turned to face him but remained silent. Then, her expression began to contort with sorrow, and moments later, tears streamed down her face as she broke into a heart-wrenching cry.

"Waaah! I'm so sorry!" she started apologizing.

"What are you apologizing for?" Yuan said with a smile. "If this is about what happened just now, it's not your fault. Your memories were messed up, after all."

"That doesn't change the fact that I pointed my blade at you! I even seriously tried to kill you! If she hadn't stopped me in time, I would've likely killed you!" Xiao Hua said as she looked at Lingyue.

"Kill me?" Yuan chuckled. "You should know me well enough to know that I won't die to something like that."

"Regardless of what you say, I deserve to be punished! Please, punish me, Brother Yu—Master Tian!" Xiao Hua said. "I won't complain even if you decide to kill me!"

"What would I gain from killing you?" Yuan shook his head. "As for punishing you…"

He pondered for a moment before speaking, "Alright, I have decided your punishment. You are forbidden from calling me Master Tian."

"That's…" Xiao Hua wore a dumbfounded look on her face.

"What? Don't tell me you're not going to accept the punishment?"

"But what else am I supposed to call you…?" she asked.

"That's something for you to decide. You can continue to call me Brother Yuan, but now that you have regained all of your memories, I understand that it might be difficult for you, so I'll let you decide."

"..."

Xiao Hua fell silent for a good minute before responding, "Master Yu—"

"Rejected," Yuan instantly interrupted her from finishing.

"I won't accept anything that starts with 'master' or 'lord' or anything similar," he continued.

Xiao Hua sighed and said, "In that case, I'll just call you Yuan."

Yuan nodded.

"Now then, we've wasted enough time here. Let's go out and help the Asura Clan with the intruders. We'll continue this afterward."

"Okay."

They quickly left the Asura Clan's world and appeared outside shortly after.

However, by the time they arrived, Xiao Cangming and the others had already cleaned up half of the intruders.

"My lord," Xiao Cangming, who was still guarding the portal, greeted him the moment they appeared. "Sorry it took so long. Something came up." Yuan said, his eyes pointing at Xiao Hua and Lingyue.

"They're already awake?" Xiao Cangming was surprised by how quickly they woke up, as he had anticipated it would take several days, if not weeks.

"I'll explain everything later. What happened here?" Yuan asked, though the answer was already clear to him.

The ground was strewn with mangled corpses and soaked in blood—a sight eerily reminiscent of the Primordial Era, when he himself had painted countless battlefields in crimson as Tian Xian.

Xiao Cangming turned toward Xiao Meilin and the others, who were still fighting off the intruders, and said calmly, "We gave them a chance to turn back and leave, but as you can see, they chose otherwise."

"..."

Without a word, Yuan suddenly approached the battlefield.

"All of you, stop."

His calm voice rippled across the battlefield, imbued with quiet authority, and in an instant, all movement came to a halt.

"If you came here for the Spirit Tree, you're too late, as it no longer exists. So you can either leave now with your life or die a pointless death."

"The Spirit Tree no longer exists? You're lying!" one of them shouted.

Yuan merely shrugged. "Go see for yourself if you don't believe me. Even if I were lying, it changes nothing—you still won't get the Spirit Tree, and trying will only get you killed."

The cultivators gritted their teeth in frustration, yet none could refute Yuan's words. With most of their comrades already defeated, continuing the battle was meaningless. Still, none bothered to flee since they knew that even if they turned their backs now, the Asura Clan would hunt them down without mercy.

Yuan could see their concerns and said, "If you leave now, I promise you that we won't chase after you later. We'll even pretend none of this happened."

Yuan was willing to show them mercy, for he found little fault in their actions. Deprived of spiritual energy and driven by desperation, these cultivators had turned their blades against the Asura Clan, who had long monopolized the Spirit Tree, something that would solve their problem, even if only temporarily. Moreover, these cultivators had no clue about the origin of the Spirit Tree or that the Asura Clan had grown it. In their eyes, the Asura Clan was doing something the first Celestial Emperor had done, and if Yuan had been in their shoes, he would've likely done the same.

"How… How do we know that you won't go back on your word?" One of the cultivators suddenly questioned, his face full of skepticism.

Yuan shrugged, "You will have to take my word for it. Or would you rather continue this meaningless battle and die for certain? The choice is up to you."

When no one moved after a full minute, Yuan spoke again—this time to the Asura Clan.

"If any of them remain by the time I finish counting to three, kill them all."

"As you wish, Master!"

Xiao Meilin was the first to acknowledge Yuan's command, showing the cultivators that Yuan truly held some authority over the Asura Clan.