The maid put away the Formation Plate and stepped to the side.
Shen Mo walked toward the center of the Formation.
His pace was not fast, but he tried to make every step steady.
As he passed by Chu Yi, he paused for half a beat.
“Miss Chu said last night that after we reach Yin Su’s Myriad Beast Mountain, I won’t have to see you again.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Shen Mo walked into the center of the Teleportation Array.
The ghost-blue array light reflected on his moon-white robe, wrapping his whole body in a cold halo.
He raised his eyes and saw Chu Yi bending down to push the last Spirit Stone into the array eye.
The array light suddenly brightened.
The instant the Teleportation Array activated, the entire third underground level shook violently.
It was not the vibration of the Teleportation Array itself.
It was heavier, duller, as if someone on the surface was using brute force to smash open the door at the bottom of the tower.
Chu Yi suddenly straightened up. Before she could react, an incomparably sharp Sword Intent cleaved down from above the stairs and tore a crack in the outermost defensive Formation.
Gray stones cascaded down. A maid screamed and retreated, her back hitting the wall, and she looked toward the stairs in terror.
Footsteps.
Two figures shot out almost simultaneously from the torn array gate.
Qin Shuying walked in front.
The Sword Intent radiating from her body had already distorted the air around the Teleportation Array for an instant.
Half a step behind her was Han Yi, the Formation Plate in her hand mostly cracked.
At this moment, her gaze was still locked firmly on Chu Yi.
The first thing Qin Shuying saw was not Chu Yi, nor the Teleportation Array.
She crossed over everyone almost without pause, her gaze pinned straight on Shen Mo’s face.
In the instant those frost-cold eyes saw Shen Mo, her pupils violently contracted.
The Ice Soul Jade had been removed.
There was also another, deeper, more fundamental—absence.
Something was missing from his Dantian.
Something she had never touched, yet instinctively regarded as her own territory.
The Essence was gone.
“Chu Yi,” Qin Shuying’s voice was not loud, but every word seemed ground out from deep in her throat, “what did you take from him?”
It was not a question.
It was a judgment.
Chu Yi straightened up beside the array eye, brushed the Spirit Stone fragments off her fingertips, still composed. “I took what I needed.”
Before the words faded, Qin Shuying took a step forward.
With just one step, the temperature of the entire third underground level dropped sharply, and a thin layer of frost condensed on the walls.
The Nascent Soul-level Corpse Puppet stepped forward, tense and ready for battle.
The eerie green Ghost Fire violently flickered in its skeletal eye sockets.
Han Yi took out the last intact Formation Talisman from her bosom, bit her fingertip, and activated it with blood.
The maid had already hidden behind a stone pillar, her face deathly pale.
Shen Mo stood in the center of the Teleportation Array, watching all of this.
Qin Shuying’s hand rested on the sword hilt.
Shen Mo wanted to say something, but another voice fell from the darkness above their heads, light and airy, carrying a sweet, honeyed smile.
“Master’s Husband.”
Everyone looked up at the same time.
A slender figure hung upside down from the dome’s crossbeam, toes hooked on the stone beam, long hair cascading like a waterfall.
Chao’er hung upside down above everyone, eyes crimson red, a smile at the corner of her mouth.
She wore a dark purple gauze dress, its hem still stained with blood that had not yet dried.
It was not her blood.
It was the blood of those Corpse Puppets on the periphery.
Chao’er’s gaze passed over everyone and landed on Shen Mo.
Her eyes were still so bright, still the little girl in his memory who would lie on his knee and say, “Master’s Husband is the best.”
But when those eyes swept over him.
She sensed it: the Essence had been stolen.
Her sweet smile shattered inch by inch.
The Teleportation Array’s light grew brighter and brighter beneath Shen Mo’s feet.
The last circle of Array Patterns was about to be activated. The ghost-blue light had already spread from the ground to his calves.
Yun Wei’s Divine Sense swept over!
Chu Yi chanted an incantation in a low voice, and the Formation’s operation suddenly accelerated.
She knew this was the best moment.
Once the Teleportation Array was fully activated, it would take only three breaths to teleport them to the outskirts of Myriad Beast Mountain.
Once they reached Yin Su’s territory, it would be up to her.
“Shen Mo.” Qin Shuying suddenly spoke.
Shen Mo turned his head to look at her.
Qin Shuying stood on the frost-white stone ground, her gaze sharper than Sword Intent.
“Listen carefully. I don’t care what was taken from you—I will make her give it back.”
Steady and word by word, she sent it into his ears.
“Even if I have to chase you to Myriad Beast Mountain, to a Soul Transformation Cultivator’s domain, I will definitely bring you back.”
She was supporting him.
Shen Mo understood.
Qin Shuying never said soft words.
The “I will definitely bring you back” she said was the gentlest thing she could give at that moment.
Chao’er tilted her head, looked at Qin Shuying, then at Shen Mo, and suddenly smiled.
That kind of smile reminded one of poisonous mushrooms growing on rotting tree trunks.
“Peak Master Qin, did you ask me before saying that?”
A wisp of dark purple Demonic Qi condensed at her fingertip, twining around the tip of her hair.
“If you chase him to Myriad Beast Mountain, does that mean I won’t chase him too?”
Chu Yi did not join this war of words.
Her fingers pressed the Formation Plate within her sleeve, and fine beads of sweat seeped from her temples.
The Teleportation Array was about to fully activate.
Just then, she suddenly sensed an extremely faint spiritual intent that belonged to no one present seep down from the ground, pass through layer after layer of Prohibition Seals, and infiltrate the very center of her Formation Plate. It was not an attack, but spying.
Someone had been watching from beginning to end.
Chu Yi suddenly raised her head, her gaze piercing straight toward the dome.
“Xie Shilan.” She uttered the name in a low voice.
Chao’er and Qin Shuying both paused for an instant.
“Are you really going to interfere?” Chu Yi said. “That Lotus Seed you lent him through the Dream Realm last night has already crossed the line.”
A lazy female voice sounded from all directions at once, impossible to tell its source, as if the air itself was speaking:
“I didn’t interfere. I just thought it was pitiful for him to be locked alone in the tower through the long night, so I sent a Lotus Seed as a snack. Does that count as crossing the line?”
Her tone was innocent to the point of shamelessness.
“But Miss Chu, what you took was the snack. You took away his very means to continue his line, and you still won’t let me take a look?”
Qin Shuying suddenly turned her head to look at Chu Yi.
She had only known before that the True Yang was gone, not how it had been taken, and even less what it meant.
She had only thought Chu Yi took some kind of Spiritual Power essence—the cultivation world had many methods of extracting Spiritual Power, most of which could be recovered.
But loss of fertility could not be recovered.
This meant Chu Yi had not only taken a part of Shen Mo, but also taken something she cared about even more.
Chao’er’s smile also disappeared.
Demonic Qi surged around her, and the stone tiles beneath her feet silently spread into a spiderweb of cracks.
She did not care whether Shen Mo had descendants—she considered herself the one who possessed him, yet Chu Yi had taken something she had not yet had time to take.
“Chu Yi,” Chao’er’s voice was no longer sweet, only cold, “what you took was my thing.”
Chu Yi did not answer.
The Teleportation Array’s light completely swallowed Shen Mo’s vision—in the last glance, he saw Qin Shuying’s hand on the sword hilt loosen.
It was not because she gave up, but because she decided not to rely on the sword anymore.
She looked at him and moved her lips. Through the array light about to close, he read those two words.
“Return Home.”
What she said was “Return Home.”
The array light swallowed everything.
The Teleportation Array suddenly spun faster.
The ghost-blue light stretched Shen Mo and Chu Yi’s figures into two blurry afterimages, then violently contracted inward and disappeared at the center of the last circle of Array Patterns on the ground.
Teleportation complete.
The third underground level returned to silence.
Qin Shuying stood in place without moving.
The Nascent Soul Corpse Puppet left behind to guard the rear watched covetously.
“Yin Su’s Myriad Beast Mountain never allows anyone to teleport in. The Teleportation Array only drops people in the Myriad Beast Forest outside the Mountain Gate.”
“That place has over 10,000 Demonic Beasts,” Chao’er said.
“Yes.” Qin Shuying turned and walked toward the stairs. “Shen Mo can’t hold out.”
Chao’er watched her back, eyes narrowing slightly. “So what do you plan to do, Peak Master Qin? Chase on foot? By the time you cross half the Northern Border—”
Qin Shuying stopped, turned her head slightly, her voice cold and certain.
“Boundless City has a Teleportation Array that directly teleports to the Northern Border’s border. I’m going now.”
Chao’er was silent for a moment, then smiled.
“Count me in.”
“I won’t stop you.” Qin Shuying started walking again. “But when we reach Myriad Beast Mountain, if you dare touch him again—”
“We’ll see when we get there.” Chao’er leaped onto the crossbeam and vanished into the shadows of the dome in a few steps. “For now, catching up to him is what matters.”
The third underground level was finally empty.
Han Yi collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
The maid peeked out from behind the stone pillar, lips trembling, unable to speak.
The Corpse Puppet, deprived of orders, stood rigidly in place, its Ghost Fire flickering uncertainly.
And high above the ground, who knew how many zhang up, on the flying eaves at the top of Boundless City’s tallest tower, Xie Shilan tilted her head back and drained the last drop of wine from her gourd.
She closed her eyes, a trace of an amused smile at the corner of her mouth.
The tendrils of the Dream Realm had already spread—Qin Shuying, Chao’er, Chu Yi, Lin Jingzhe, Su Wan’er, everyone was on her Go Board.
But she had not placed a piece. She had only given each player a different map.
The word “Underground” was for Shen Mo.
Another talisman message, “See you in the Northern Border,” was for Lin Jingzhe.
There was one more—a wisp of extremely faint Spirit Communication condensed at her fingertip and cast toward the Northern Border—”An old friend requests your presence,” for Yin Su.
She opened her eyes and looked toward the Northern Border.
That was Myriad Beast Mountain, the Array Emperor’s domain, the forbidden ground where Yin Su had lived in seclusion for 300 years.
The Demonic Beasts there were more unreasonable than any cultivator.
Northern Border.
Outskirts of Myriad Beast Mountain.
Myriad Beast Forest.
The teleportation light dissipated extremely quickly.
Before Shen Mo’s feet could steady themselves on the ground, a hot, humid gale carrying Blood Scent rushed at his face and filled his mouth with the stench of beasts.
This was not a forest commonly seen in the mortal world.
Above, ancient trees blotted out the sky and sun.
The canopy was so dense no light passed through; only scattered phosphorescence of unknown origin floated among the forest.
The soil underfoot was dark red, soft and sticky when stepped on, like swamp mud soaked full of blood.
A low roar came from the distance. That was not one Demonic Beast.
It was a pack.
The teleportation light had startled them.
Chu Yi steadied herself at his side, quickly scanned the surroundings, and her expression changed slightly. “We’re off.”
“What?”
“The teleportation landing point is off. We should have landed at the boundary marker on the outskirts of Myriad Beast Forest. This place is—”
A second roar, closer.
Chu Yi had no time to explain. She grabbed Shen Mo’s wrist and swiftly retreated.
Almost at the same time, the place where they had just stood was smashed to pieces by a giant claw bursting out from underground, sending rubble and rotting mud flying everywhere.