Chapter Ninety-One: The Shadow Spirit

The small world had already been swallowed by a thick, blood-red glow. The figure before them was so faint and indistinct that even Old Mo could not make out its features; he could only see that head of gray-white hair, and terror rose in his heart.

Its armor had long since rusted away, tattered and ruined, revealing the deathly pale skin beneath, blue-green like jade. Where the eyes should have been, two tongues of ghostly fire flickered; in its hand it held a broken sword.

The blade was covered in spiderweb cracks and veiled in a thin haze. At a glance, Old Mo could tell it was the manifested baleful aura of this ancient battlefield.

At that moment, Old Mo had no choice but to abandon any pretense of restraint. The defensive light around him flared brilliantly, mysterious symbols flashing in layers, transforming what had been a thin sheen of protection into a massive shield several yards thick.

A golden radiance shot from between his brows, taking the initiative to attack that figure.

The gray-white-haired being withdrew its ghost-fire gaze from the plant beside Qin Yue and gave a faint glance at the golden flying sword striking toward it.

Though the two were exceedingly close, by Old Mo’s perception as a mighty cultivator of the third realm, the sword should have pierced its target in an instant.

Yet that distance of less than a yard seemed instead to span endless mountains and rivers.

No matter how it approached, the golden light could not draw near the figure in the tattered armor with gray-white hair.

“Not good!”

Old Mo, who had deep understanding of space and time, immediately realized that the existence before him was not something he could contend with.

The lingering obsession of the decayed deity had truly been awakened. This was the manifestation of that obsession.

Their understanding of the Dao was not even on the same level.

The gulf between them was greater by who knew how many times than the gap between himself and a technique cultivator.

Even after expanding his defensive barrier to the extreme, Old Mo’s heart was still filled with tension and unease.

In a flash of lightning, he seemed to sense the terrifying being across from him smile faintly.

In truth, one could not even make out its face or expression, yet in his spiritual perception, the other was unmistakably smiling.

A contemptuous, icy smile.

It merely raised the broken sword slowly and pointed it toward the blood-red sky.

In that instant, within the entire small world, countless shattered swords suddenly trembled violently. Broken blades, fragments, even hilts buried deep in the earth all broke free of their restraints and transformed into innumerable streams of light, converging toward the broken sword in its hand.

The blood color in the sky was instantly drained away, leaving only black and white between heaven and earth.

Yet the broken sword in its hand erupted with a horrifying, uncanny streak of crimson, becoming the only color in this place.

Old Mo, with his crane hair and boyish face, a mighty third-realm expert, seemed no more than a fragile and helpless child before such momentum.

He wanted to flee, but his feet had taken root, pinned firmly to this gigantic, incomparable, bloodless eyeball that now looked so vividly alive when seen from the vault of heaven.

This was true spatial power, far beyond Old Mo’s comprehension and understanding.

Gods could not be profaned, even if they had decayed.

Then the figure with the gray-white hair let its blood-colored broken sword sweep lightly toward Old Mo.

It was only a very simple diagonal slash, not even appearing fast, in fact almost slow.

Yet it contained an unimaginably profound and mystic intent.

The instant the blood-colored sword light touched Old Mo’s massive defensive barrier, the brilliant runes upon it melted away like snow. The barrier, like the shell of a shattered egg, cracked inch by inch before bursting apart.

A streak of blood light cut straight into Old Mo’s brow and continued downward.

His final gaze was one of terror and despair.

Only then did he finally understand that so-called experience of surviving the forbidden zones, so-called preparation, were worth nothing at all.

Those third-realm immortals who had once perished in the forbidden lands must have encountered something like this.

His outer robe and inner armor were easily severed. He could feel no pain in skin or bone, and before blood could even surge forth from within, it was already vaporized by the dreadful divine power contained in that blood-colored sword light.

The next moment.

Old Mo “miraculously” vanished from where he stood, leaving behind only a wisp of pale green smoke.

A third-realm immortal had been cut down into nothingness just like that.

Qin Yue, who was not far away, witnessed everything from beginning to end. He only felt that the sword strike contained endless profundity, yet he was utterly unable to “catch” the trajectory of the gray-white-haired figure’s attack.

A shock beyond words surged in his heart. No matter how strong Old Mo and the other third-realm immortals were, they were still within the human sphere. But the blurred figure before him was wielding the methods of a god.

And yet, his state of mind at this moment was strangely calm, as though the boundless fear that should have arisen had been forcibly stripped away.

He was calm to an alarming degree, even finding the spare thought to glance at the two fruiting pearls on a divine plant resembling zhuhu.

“Shouldn’t I be using Nether Escape and fleeing under the protection of the little cauldron? Could I have been influenced by this inexplicable existence?”

But in the very next instant, he had a strong intuition: that dreadful figure with the gray-white hair would not act against him—or rather, could not see him.

Indeed, the other had never seemed to pay him any attention from first to last, as if deliberately ignoring him.

At that moment, the gray-white-haired figure vanished from Qin Yue’s sight. When it appeared again, it was already at the entrance to the passage opened by Old Ding and the others.

Chaos erupted there at once.

Then the entrance vanished, and Qin Yue froze. Had he been trapped here? In such a bizarre and evil place, how was one supposed to escape?

Could earth-escape techniques get out?

But these thoughts flashed by only briefly. Just as fear could not arise within him, they seemed to be forcibly suppressed.

Only one thought remained in his mind: use Heaven-Stealing and Earth-Swapping to seize the essence of the two fruits on that divine plant!

As the thought arose, action followed immediately. Qin Yue, who had long since no longer needed hand seals to cast the art, brought his hands together and went through the full procedure exactly as he had when first learning it.

An unimaginable vital essence, together with all sorts of energies he could not yet comprehend, surged instantly into his body.

The great roc within the chaos world of the bronze giant rat burst forth with dazzling light.

The true meaning of the North Sea automatically began to circulate, precisely sorting those energies. The primordial essence that ought to belong to the lower dantian continuously converged toward his violet-black inner core.

A vast amount of innate vital energy gathered directly in his middle dantian, without the need to refine essence into qi.

A surging and profound innate primordial spirit energy flowed into his spiritual sea.

The giant cauldron manifested in his spiritual sea trembled, and countless mysterious inscriptions on its body shone as brilliantly as the sun.

Qin Yue felt as if something within his spiritual world were about to be forced into being. The cultivation that had already reached its limit broke through in an instant, though that inner core still showed no sign of taking form.

His cultivation surged from the sixteenth level of peering into emptiness toward the seventeenth.

Yet Qin Yue no longer had time to think about any of this. He only felt something in his spiritual sea was about to break through the soil and sprout.

The bronze wheel was shining, and the chaos world of the giant rat was also trembling, resonating with the cauldron in harmony.

At this moment, they seemed to have become one with Qin Yue.

Boom!

A great Dao thunder echoed through the spiritual world.

Qin Yue felt his will and perception split into two at that instant.

Then, within his spiritual world, a figure took shape, its height and appearance very similar to his present form, yet closer to his former life.

Their hearts and minds were linked. In theory, they were one person, yet could exist apart. Such a sensation was wondrous beyond measure, and Qin Yue instantly knew what this figure was.

A shadow spirit.

The embodiment of his spiritual will.

Previously, Ling Jinsong had told him that great experts in the spiritual realm could cultivate a shadow spirit within the spiritual world, one that could not appear in the light. When it was refined into a sun spirit, it could walk beneath the blazing sun and be no different from an ordinary person.

Its function was akin to an immensely powerful avatar, capable of roaming between reality and illusion.

At present, the shadow spirit was still weak and possessed no formidable divine abilities.

But for a cultivator, this was tantamount to birthing a second life. Once successfully cultivated to the level of a sun spirit, it would be a true second incarnation.

Bearing the same memories, thoughts, and will, it could act independently.

Qin Yue stared in disbelief at the increasingly radiant divine plant and the two red fruits atop it, now looking even more vibrant and alive.

Old Ding and the others from the immortal sect had gone to such great lengths to cultivate it here. Their purpose... was probably also to train a shadow spirit, or perhaps a sun spirit.

Yet by some twist of fate, it had fallen into his hands.

“If they hadn’t been so cautious and afraid for their lives, and had not deliberately brought me from Bright Sun Sect, keeping me under such close watch all the way and never giving me the slightest chance to run, this opportunity would never have been mine,” Qin Yue muttered inwardly.

Of course, if they had not brought him along, then even if Old Ding’s group had grown the divine plant and borne these fruits, they likely would not have been able to take them away.

That gray-white-haired figure was far too terrifying.

At this moment he looked at the divine plant and decided not to touch it.

Whether or not the gray-white-haired being had exterminated Old Ding and the others, he would ultimately have to return to Bright Sun Sect.

Old Mo was dead, yet he was still alive; that alone was difficult to explain.

Even if it could be explained, the people of the immortal sect would not easily let him go.

Taking such a divine plant, drained of its essence and impossible to hand over, would only bring trouble upon himself.

By now the small world had turned a hazy gray, looking almost unreal.

He glanced at the place where Old Mo had vanished. Only a one-yard-long flying vessel remained there, and he could not help but feel some regret.

That gray-white-haired figure was too terrifying. With one sword it had cut down Old Mo, along with everything on his person, into nothingness.

Just as he was about to leap aboard the vessel and find a way out, his vision suddenly blurred, and a figure appeared out of nowhere.

Looking closely, it was indeed the gray-white-haired being, watching him with eyes formed of ghostly fire, its gaze cold and indifferent.

Qin Yue’s heart trembled violently. He had not expected the other to return so quickly. Had it killed them all?

Yet he still did not feel afraid, remaining inexplicably calm.

Without hesitation, he cast the earth-escape art of Nether Escape and vanished from atop that giant eyeball.

Just as he had previously surmised, Nether Escape was indeed unaffected by the domain here.

In an instant, he appeared deep within this eyeball, and only then did he finally believe that it truly was an eye.

From the outside one could not tell much, but upon entering, one found a network of enormous passageways crisscrossing in all directions. In some of them flowed currents that, when reflected in the spiritual world, appeared as winding rivers of blood.

There was no trace of decay inside; indeed, one could even sense a vast life force.

Only it was far too large.

Like a miniature world, he ran for a long time with Nether Escape and still could not break out from within the eye.

The gray-white-haired figure did not chase after him. He pushed his movement technique to the limit, teleporting continuously, and felt as though he had been running for at least an hour.

At last he was about to escape this strange giant eyeball, but in the next moment a thunderous boom, like a muffled clap of thunder, exploded within his spiritual world.

“Since you have seen a god, why do you not kneel?”