The cavern was deep, with thousand-year-old mermaid candles hanging along both stone walls. There were no winding, intersecting paths; Su Yunyu simply walked straight ahead.
Upon reaching the very end, he discovered that the trial required successfully refining a fifth-grade medicinal pill.
If successful, one would gain the right to use the ninth-grade pill cauldron.
Yes, merely the right of use, and restricted to just three times.
After all, the ninth-grade pill cauldron was a peerless treasure. Having already acknowledged an ancient mighty figure as its master, it had vanished in essence when that master fell, leaving behind nothing more than fragments.
The Water-Marsh Immortal was truly a generous soul, setting up no heavy, arduous obstacles. The test merely permitted a single person to enter, and upon completing the refinement, the cauldron could be claimed.
A mere fifth-grade pill, Su Yunyu almost wanted to stand with his hands on his hips and laugh out loud. He was determined to secure this ninth-grade pill cauldron.
After gathering all the necessary materials, Su Yunyu relied on instinct to add ingredients into the pill cauldron and control the flame intensity.
The higher the grade of a medicinal pill, the slower the refining process.
Take this fifth-grade pill, for instance, Su Yunyu estimated mentally that it would still take a full hour to successfully refine.
Neither exceptionally long nor short.
For safety’s sake, Su Yunyu decided to wait until he secured the pill cauldron before heading back out.
Thinking of the Dragon-Heaven protagonist outside, Su Yunyu pulled out his sound-transmission token to tell him to wait for an hour. However, the moment he took it out, a strangely heavy sound of panting seemed to drift from the other end.
Yet within the blink of an eye, the sound vanished. Su Yunyu wanted to press closer to listen and distinguish the noise carefully, but absolute silence had already returned.
Could it be that Xiao Shuying accidentally triggered the sound-transmission token?
Would it really be that simple? Why do I suddenly feel a sense of unease…
Gripping the sound-transmission token, Su Yunyu called out to the other side:
“Shuying? Xiao Shuying?”
No response.
Only his own voice echoed and reverberated against the four stone walls of the cavern.
Something is wrong, something is happening on Xiao Shuying’s end!
Su Yunyu turned around, intending to leave, but then looked back at the pill cauldron currently in the middle of refinement.
If he left for too long, the medicinal batch would be completely ruined.
If he waited this out, he could secure the pill cauldron.
However, Su Yunyu hesitated over this multiple-choice question for all of one second before turning around and leaving without a backward glance.
Though he knew that with the Dragon-Heaven protagonist’s fortune, he wouldn’t face mortal peril, some crises were severe enough even without threatening one’s life.
As he strode rapidly toward the exit, a sudden, booming clap of thunder echoed from afar, its lightning flash directly illuminating the cavern entrance.
What happened?
Overcome with a surge of urgency, Su Yunyu flew out of the cavern like a bolt of lightning. The moment he broke out into the open air and scanned his surroundings, his gaze abruptly locked onto a figure collapsed on the ground not far away, it was Xiao Shuying.
A flicker of anxiety stirred within Su Yunyu. Who on earth could have ambushed Xiao Shuying with timing so exquisite, as though they possessed absolute, intimate knowledge of their every move?
Wait, a certain person immediately springs to mind.
There was no time to dwell on that now, however. Su Yunyu hurried to Xiao Shuying’s side and checked his condition:
His Dantian was damaged, his ribs were fractured, and his meridians were in complete disarray, unmistakable signs of an assault by an external attacker.
Su Yunyu rummaged through his spatial storage for a medicinal pill, letting the unconscious Xiao Shuying swallow it first, before channeling his spiritual energy to gradually soothe the chaotic turmoil raging within the boy’s body.
Just as he was regulating the meridians, he abruptly detected a wisp of dark, malevolent energy slithering through Xiao Shuying’s Dantian. This foreign energy was violently rejected by the host’s body, thrashing and crashing about recklessly.
This was.
Demonic Qi!
That’s impossible, this is a mystic realm; where on earth would Demonic Qi come from?
Just as Su Yunyu drove away that strand of dark miasma, feeling a profound sense of shock, Xiao Shuying slowly regained consciousness, mercifully refraining from vomiting any more blood this time.
He blinked several times, his vacant eyes finally focusing upon Su Yunyu. Catching sight of the familiar sky-water blue robes, he bolted upright and grabbed Su Yunyu firmly by the wrist:
“Master! Song Chi, Song Chi has a problem! He headed in the direction of the thunder!”
Sure enough, Su Yunyu thought to himself, it really was him.
After all, he was the only one who possessed precise knowledge of their whereabouts.
Clearly claiming to be nothing more than an elder’s disciple with virtually no cultivation to speak of, how on earth did he harbor Demonic Qi.
And more importantly, why on earth was he heading toward the thunder?
Rumble.
Another terrifying bolt of thunder split the sky. Anyone unaware of the truth might have mistaken it for someone undergoing a divine tribulation, but upon spotting that particular bearing, an instinctive premonition of disaster welled up inside Su Yunyu:
“That’s the Nine-Palaces Thunder Fire Array!”
This formation served as the core eye of the entire mystic realm, continuously pumping spiritual energy into the realm every second of the day. It resonated directly with the thunder and fire of the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams. If it encountered weather conditions laden with lightning like today, the abundance of spiritual energy it could harness would increase exponentially.
Su Yunyu wasn’t entirely certain what other functions the array could unleash, but if someone deliberately sought to sabotage it, especially someone with the terrifying strength demonstrated by Song Chi, doing so likely wouldn’t present much of a challenge.
“Come with me first.”
Without another word, he swept Xiao Shuying up and flew into the air on a current of wind. Within a fraction of a moment, they arrived at the grand array, and standing dead center at the array eye was none other than Song Chi!
At the core of the array eye, a slender, crystalline stream of pure white energy pierced straight through the distance connecting heaven and earth, a towering pillar formed by the convergence of all the realm’s spiritual energy.
Yet right now, Song Chi stood tall amidst that pillar, his palms continuously churning and regurgitating a terrifying, pitch-black demonic miasma that steadily stained the previously immaculate, pristine white light-pillar with a sickly shade of grey.
“Stop right there”
Instantly deducing that the fellow intended to pollute the array core, Su Yunyu drew the Xuehua Sword without hesitation, soaring forward with a fierce slash.
Hearing the disturbance, Song Chi whirled around abruptly. Catching sight of the Xuehua Sword’s scabbard, specifically its hallmark ring of seven glowing pearls—his eyes widened in utter disbelief as he stared fixedly at Su Yunyu:
“You are,”
Before he could finish, nor affording him the time to complete his sentence, the razor-sharp edge of the Xuehua Sword was already bearing down upon him. Song Chi scrambled to dodge aside, demonic Qi surging across his palms as a death-fraught demonic chain abruptly materialized into reality.
He lashed out with the demonic chain toward the blade of the Xuehua Sword. Su Yunyu brought his sword down in a heavy chopping motion, only to discover that the chain refused to snap.
Just as Song Chi’s lips curled into a smirk, the demonic chain began freezing over rapidly from its tail end.
…Oh? Song Chi hurriedly retracted the chain, stroking it affectionately with a look of genuine appreciation:
“As expected of the Xuehua Sword, truly extraordinary power.”
“Who on earth are you?” Su Yunyu hovered in mid-air, holding his sword aloft as he stared down the figure standing close by, demanding an answer in a cold, icy tone.
Song Chi gazed at the fluttering robes of the person before him, his eyes lingering on the pale frost-white silk ribbon binding his inky black hair, before finally shifting down to fixate upon the sparrow-patterned mask. A flash of profound amusement danced within his pupils:
“My name is Feng Mingye.”
Su Yunyu had never heard of the name.
He had no choice but to mentally prompt the system to run a background check.
Meanwhile, standing quietly outside the perimeter of the array, Xiao Shuying silently witnessed the exchange between the two. Hearing the name Feng Mingye, a sudden wave of familiarity washed over his memory.
He felt as though he had heard it somewhere before…
“Su Yunyu,” Feng Mingye who moments ago wore the humble attire of an outer-sect disciple, spoke as his white robes dissolved into blazing crimson garments. His eyes narrowed into slender, upturning crescents, brimming with provocative interest:
“As the grand number one person in the world, how could you possibly lower yourself to enter this mystic realm? Isn’t that utterly unfair to the rest of the disciples?”
“Or perhaps.” He cast a sidelong glance toward Xiao Shuying, noting that the youth he had knocked unconscious not long ago was now standing hale and hearty in the distance, prompting a soft curve of his lips:
“You truly care a great deal about this disciple of yours.”
A murderous intent instantly flashed within his pupils. Detecting the sudden spike in hostility, Su Yunyu launched himself forward once more, raising his sword to press the offensive.
Facing this overwhelming, all-encompassing torrent of sword intent, a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out across Feng Mingye’s forehead, leaving him with zero leisure time to plot against Xiao Shuying.
This time, when he lashed out with his demonic chain, his target wasn’t the Xuehua Sword, but rather.
Crack!
With a crisp snap, a fracture splintered across the sparrow-patterned mask, which instantly broke apart and fell away.
The crushing sword intent ground to an abrupt halt. Beneath the cascading waterfall of ink-black hair fluttering in the wind, a face of supreme, peerless beauty was suddenly laid bare to the world.
Distant mountain brows, vermillion lips, an exquisite visage. Those eyes concealed the brilliance of a thousand stars and the pristine frost of ten thousand winters, with crimson-tinted corners framing pressed, unyielding lips. Aloof, transcendent, yet unbearably breathtaking.
Feng Mingye’s gaze froze entirely. He blinked repeatedly before snapping out of his daze, throwing his head back in unrestrained, ringing laughter:
“Today I am truly blessed to witness your true face. Truly worthy of being the number one under heaven, your cultivation and your beauty are both absolute perfection.”
Instinctively, Su Yunyu wanted to raise his sleeve to shield his face, but immediately checked himself, his identity was no longer a secret anyway; there was no reason to hide away like a coward. He simply glared furiously at Feng Mingye and pressed his attack with renewed vexation.
Feng Mingye, however, had no intention of prolonging the battle. He was already at a clear disadvantage facing Su Yunyu head-on, having spent most of the skirmish purely on evasive maneuvers; seeing that the man was now fighting with genuine bloodlust, common sense dictated that making a hasty exit was the wisest course of action.
Pulling back his demonic chain, he attempted to execute a spatial teleportation technique. Yet at that exact, critical juncture, his body unaccountably seized up in a sudden wave of stiffness.
Damn it!
That brief, suffocating second of physical rigidity locked his movements entirely in place, leaving him wide open to take the full brunt of the Xuehua Sword’s ferocious strike.
Fresh blood instantly saturated his shoulder, blooming in a gruesome crimson flower. Wracked by an agonizing wave of pain, Feng Mingye’s expression warped violently. Yet stripped of any remaining time to linger and entirely incapable of investigating the bizarre source of his sudden physical paralysis he hastily triggered his escape array.
Amidst billowing demonic miasma and splattering trails of blood, the wounded assailant vanished completely from within the array core. Before disappearing entirely, however, he left behind a final, arrogant declaration:
“Just wait and watch the good show I’ve prepared for you.”
As Feng Mingye vanished into thin air, the taut, rigid posture of Xiao Shuying outside the array finally relaxed, and he exhaled a long, steady breath of turbid air.
His inner power remained terribly unstable, prone to surging back violently whenever he experienced extreme emotional rollercoasters.
Case in point: just moments ago, watching Feng Mingye shatter Su Yunyu’s mask and catch a glimpse of his true face, especially seeing the man stare in open, captivated awe, an inexplicable tidal wave of old grievances and new hatreds had violently erupted deep within his soul. In that instant, his consciousness had narrowed to a single, burning obsession: he needed to make Feng Mingye pay a heavy price.
Driven by that consuming intent, a demonic state took hold of him, locking his focus entirely onto a single objective while rendering him utterly blind to everything else.
Once that objective was achieved, the devastating toll of force-overdrawing his strength instantly struck the still-recovering Xiao Shuying, sending him stumbling heavily to the ground.
Su Yunyu, who was just about to inspect the irregularities plaguing the array core, heard the commotion and immediately flew over to support Xiao Shuying, discovering to his dismay that the boy had grown even weaker than before.
Clueless as to the root cause, he instinctively attributed it to the lingering aftereffects of the demonic miasma infiltrating his body, and generously channeled another steady stream of spiritual energy into him.
“Are you alright?”
Su Yunyu lowered his gaze, his expression composed as he asked Xiao Shuying.
Yet he remained entirely oblivious to the fact that his own complexion at that moment was significantly paler than Xiao Shuying’s.
The fierce clash against Feng Mingye had drained an immense volume of spiritual power; compounded with the endless rounds of healing and spiritual energy transfers he had continuously lavished upon Xiao Shuying, he currently looked as frail and bloodless as a withered white narcissus, teetering on the verge of shattering at any second.
“I’m fine,” Xiao Shuying shook his head. Seeing Su Yunyu’s profound pallor, he suppressed the complex emotions roiling in his chest and put on a hypocritical mask of simulated concern:
“Master, are you holding up alright?”
“I am unharmed.”
In truth, Su Yunyu felt as though his entire being had been completely hollowed out.
However, the fact that he had just fought Feng Mingye to a standstill and emerged victorious filled him with a sudden, surging confidence in his own formidable prowess, lifting his mental state into a remarkably buoyant space.
Yet the very next second, as Xiao Shuying cast his gaze toward the array core behind them, his pupils contracted sharply. Pointing a trembling finger backward, he spoke with a voice laced with shock:
“Master something is terribly wrong.”