Red Yin had just concluded her conversation with Xu Hui of Sunset Valley, her smile and step back signaling an end to their exchange. As she moved, her gaze flickered past him, subtle yet unmistakable.
Within the Divine Bronze Mirror, Yu Ci, the Yin Spirit, felt a powerful sensation, akin to an ice needle breaking through the peripheral barrier and piercing him directly. This intense stimulation caused both the Yin Spirit and his thoughts to shudder, creating a ripple of disturbance. However, this ripple quickly dissolved into the swirling vortex of external force, leaving no trace behind.
The ice needle was Red Yin's gaze.
"That woman," Yu Ci's mind tensed, immediately followed by Red Yin's slight movements.
Performing tricks under the watchful eyes of two Vacuum Walking masters would be a risky move for any Golden Elixir cultivator, yet Red Yin dared to do so without hesitation.
Yu Ci didn't see what method Red Yin employed, but at this moment, the Divine Bronze Mirror was clearly sinking. Swiftly, it was completely buried in the snow mud. The sinking speed did not decrease but rather increased, plunging seven or eight feet underground in a blink. It was as if the surroundings were not frozen land and rocks, but a powerless swamp.
No one noticed this change.
In terms of distance, Red Yin was the closest to the Divine Bronze Mirror. Due to the previous resistance to the "Golden Stone Fluid", the Divine Bronze Mirror was nearly ten feet away from Yu Ci's flesh body. Red Yin was conveniently positioned between the two, her body blocking the view of Xie Yan and others. As for those further away, their attention was entirely drawn to the two Vacuum Walking masters, Xie Yan and Xu Hui. Occasionally, someone would glance at Red Yin, but who would bother to gaze into the dark depths of the forest?
After burrowing several feet underground, the mirror seemed to be pulled by an invisible hand, moving sideways. This area was beyond the sensing range of the Fish-Dragon, but there were some insects underground, illuminated by the starlight of Divine consciousness. Through these fragmented and narrow perspectives, combined with the views from the Fish-Dragon above, Yu Ci could ascertain that the mirror was moving towards Red Yin. The speed was very fast, and within a few moments, it stopped right below her. From beginning to end, no one sensed anything.
At this moment, besides Red Yin, no one else knew the whereabouts of the Divine Bronze Mirror.
The vertical distance between the mirror and the female cultivator was no more than five feet. In a sense, this was the closest Yu Ci had been to Red Yin since his escape from the Twin Immortal Sect.
But this was by no means an amusing experience. If things continued to unfold in this manner, once the affairs here were settled, the cultivators would disperse. Xie Yan would take his flesh body, and Red Yin could inconspicuously take the Divine Bronze Mirror. Even if anyone remembered this incident later, they would never associate it with her.
If that were the case, Yu Ci did not believe he had any chance of survival.
At this moment on the ground, Xu Hui turned his head and spoke to Xie Yan, then without looking at anyone else, he turned and left. At the same time, Xie Yan remained silent, holding Yu Ci's flesh body, his toes already off the ground. Also at this moment, everyone's attention was focused on the two Vacuum Walking Cultivators. Red Yin smiled faintly, the Divine Bronze Mirror that had been still for a moment, under the pull of her pure True Sha, began to rise slowly.
Following this path, in two breaths' time, it would break out of the ground, under the cover of the female cultivator's gorgeous skirt, following the elegant line of her leg, closely attaching itself, completely under her control.
It was a sensual but deadly path. Yu Ci's mind was cold and clear, now, he did not have to choose.
The next moment, with a determined spirit, Yu Ci rushed towards the "Deep Sea Vortex" on the periphery.
Without any reservation, Yu Ci seized a certain suction force created by the rotation of the peripheral power, exerting force with the momentum, not like before, allowing the power of the Yin Spirit to extract a force, following the predetermined path towards the edge of the Treasure Mirror, but instead, he threw himself into it with all his heart and soul, it was a desperate gamble of the entire Yin Spirit!
His thoughts shook violently, the raging power contained within the Divine Bronze Mirror instantly overwhelmed him. If the Yin Spirit could "breathe", Yu Ci would certainly be suffocating now.
The shock waves came one after another, seeking to shatter Yu Ci's consciousness, to tear the power of the Yin Spirit that was thrown into it into thousands of pieces, then recycle, refine and disperse it.
However, the more this happened, the clearer Yu Ci's consciousness became.
Under the state of Yin Spirit Manipulation, the Yin Spirit would continuously deplete, radiating divine consciousness starlight, until it drained him; if he disengaged from the Yin Spirit Manipulation state, the Treasure Mirror would swallow him directly. Choosing the lesser of two evils, Yu Ci chose the former, and then went one step further:
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Since both involved drawing power from the Yin Spirit and ultimately radiating starlight, why couldn't he throw the source of the Yin Spirit's power, namely the Yin Spirit itself, out? The circulation of peripheral power was like a complex network of rivers, but the "river" ultimately had a "sea outlet", and reaching there meant victory!
This was not the result of careful consideration, but a gamble he had to take.
It was like a life-and-death sword fight, with no room for thought, he just needed to trust his well-honed intuition, and infuse it with courage, that was enough!
From the moment the Yin Spirit was invested, the shock waves never ceased, all senses became chaotic, completely unable to distinguish east from west. The power of the Yin Spirit was rapidly depleting, the Structure of the Soul was also in constant turmoil, Yu Ci was like a battered little boat, crashing into the underground dark river, only able to struggle against the "darkness" and the raging current, enduring collision after collision, at any moment he could collapse and disintegrate.
Yet simultaneously, Yu Ci also sensed that with each tremor and collision, threads of power seeped in, reacting with the force of the Yin Spirit, ultimately impacting the Yin Spirit and altering some of its properties. He was uncertain whether this was good or bad, because before he could further comprehend, they had arrived at the "seaport"!
A long sound, akin to a "shhh," resonated only within Yu Ci's Divine Soul.
The Divine Bronze Mirror had already broken ground, probing beneath the hem of Red Yin's skirt. At that moment, an enormous starlight burst forth from the mirror's surface, piercing through the female cultivator's magnificent flowing skirt of emerald smoke and haze, and shot into the air.
Through the transformative power imbued within the Treasure Mirror, the Yin Spirit's starlight was intangible and immaterial. No one could see it, nor sense it - it should have been thus. However, the moment the starlight ejected from the mirror, Yu Ci clearly felt that he had collided with an invisible net.
The net was clearly set around the Divine Bronze Mirror well in advance, possessing an incredibly potent restraining effect. However, due to the extreme uniqueness of the Yin Spirit's starlight, the net did not stop him. Yet, at a level barely perceptible to ordinary people, the moment the starlight collided with the net, a subtle ripple was transmitted outward.
The smile on Red Yin's face suddenly became somewhat rigid.
But Yu Ci had no time to interpret this expression.
The Yin Spirit's starlight flew to the sky above the forest, just as a mountain breeze blew by. The wind, from outside to inside, almost instantly tore the starlight's shell, directly touching Yu Ci's Yin Spirit. Yu Ci shuddered abruptly, followed by a burning pain. In that instant, it felt as if he had been skinned!
This was not the suffering of the flesh, but the pain was directly applied to the depths of the Divine Soul, without any delay or reservation.
Yu Ci suddenly thought of a very serious issue.
After the formation of the Yin Spirit, Old Daoist Yu Zhou had once warned him solemnly: When the Yin Spirit is initially formed, although its power is already strong, it is also extremely sensitive, like oil, directly contacting the Primordial Qi of the outside world, it will cause a very intense reaction, resulting in severe consumption. Therefore, without cultivating to a sufficient level, without adequate protective preparations, one must absolutely not recklessly astral project, otherwise, perhaps the Primordial Qi contained in a gust of wind could completely ignite it, causing the soul to scatter and dissipate.
Now, Yu Ci was facing this situation.
The Yin Spirit was exposed to the air without any preparation, due to its sensitivity, it instantly received immeasurable complex information, and also the fire-like Primordial Qi of the heaven and earth. These things came with the wind, and with just a slight contact, intense pain seeped in from the outside, truly like layers of skin being peeled off, unbearably painful.
Yu Ci, enduring the pain, forced himself to calm down: time was pressing, he needed to know, where was his flesh body?
In truth, the Yin Spirit's direct perception of the outside world and its subsequent translation into the five senses and six consciousnesses familiar to humans required a period of practice. However, Yu Ci was well-versed in the pattern of Soul Sensing. With a moment of haziness, the somewhat chaotic world around him gradually came into focus.
Soon, he had the entire situation of this shady slope of the mountain "in sight".
He saw Xie Yan, who had already flown over the treetops, and the flesh body in Xie Yan's arms, of which he was completely unaware.
They hadn't gone far!
Yu Ci was overjoyed, even forgetting the pain of his Yin Spirit, and urged it to fly upwards. But just at this moment, another gust of strong wind blew by. Strangely, there was a hint of fragrance in the wind that he detected.
How could one smell fragrance in the Yin Spirit State?
As his confusion arose, an intense reaction ignited from within.
In an instant, the Yin Spirit, like an inflated skin sack, swelled up "whoosh", and suddenly swelled to the point of bursting. For a moment, he even heard the fine cracking sound, or perhaps the explosive sound of licking flames. The strong wind outside was even more "fuel to the fire", under the pressure from both inside and outside, Yu Ci's consciousness was almost burnt to ashes!
The reason he could still hold on was thanks to the power of the Divine Bronze Mirror. When he was twisting and turning in its "river", his Yin Spirit seemed to have changed a bit, at least providing a buffer, preventing Yu Ci from losing his soul in an instant.
"Ah!"
Unable to bear the pain, Yu Ci screamed. The scream of the Yin Spirit is actually the most intense vibration and deformation of the Structure of the Soul. There is no sound, but that vibration can stir the External Primordial Qi, causing ripples at a level that ordinary people can hardly touch.
A Golden Elixir cultivator is not an ordinary person. At this moment, nearby cultivators more or less sensed something. But the ripple was too short and abrupt, and almost no one could accurately grasp the information within.
Of course, some could.
Ming Lan, who had arrived with Yi Xin and Lu Mingyue, had been standing quietly on the side due to the difference in status, with very little presence. But at this moment, her usual smile faded, and her gaze shifted from somewhere in the treetops to Red Yin, and did not move away.
In the sky, Xie Yan, who had a high level of cultivation, also sensed something in his unsettled mind. He paused, looked back down, and quickly locked onto a general area.
However, at this point, all he saw was a Fish-Dragon suddenly leaping out of the treetops.
***************
I have also posted the following more chapters [All free] on: https://www.readgates.com/article/74a39e