74: An incarnation of the Heavenly Dao? The woman within the crystal.

Ye You glanced at the deep night outside the window, then suddenly seemed to remember something.

“Finally, I extracted his Divine Soul, made it into a lantern, and hung it on a tree.”

“As long as another imposter approaches, the lantern will light up, light up, shining brightly.”

After she finished recounting this past event, the temperature inside the bamboo house dropped by several degrees.

The four kittens huddled in a corner shivered, not daring to make a sound.

Ye You, however, pressed her cheek against Su Lin's chest again, feeling the steady and strong heartbeat, and her tone returned to its previous intimacy.

“So, Revered Master… don’t be so strong-willed anymore, and don’t give anyone a chance to impersonate you again, okay?”

For a hundred years, each of them had lived in the pain and fear of losing their pillar, building a hard shell in their own way.

“So, Revered Master, you still haven’t told me how this weapon came to be?”

Ye You’s fingers gently slid along the Machine-Guiding Thread, changing the subject as she asked.

“Also, the dragon soul abyss sword in Fifth Junior Sister’s hand is likewise no ordinary item.

Revered Master’s body holds many secrets.”

It wasn’t that Su Lin was unwilling to answer; it was that this question was genuinely difficult for him to explain.

Seeing Su Lin remain silent, Ye You suddenly chuckled to herself, and her aggressive Aura dissipated with it.

She released the Machine-Guiding Thread and instead wrapped her arms around Su Lin’s neck, hanging onto him.

“Never mind,” she mumbled, resting her chin on Su Lin’s shoulder.

“Revered Master has never delved into the true Origin of my Abyssal Devouring Bloodline, has he?

As long as Revered Master is by my side, that’s enough.”

She unbound Su Lin, and the Machine-Guiding Thread transformed into a golden light, coiling around her wrist, becoming an exquisite golden bracelet.

Regaining his freedom, Su Lin flexed his somewhat stiff wrist joints.

As if to dispel the heaviness brought by the previous topic, Ye You changed the subject, and her palm flipped again, revealing an irregular polyhedral crystal.

The crystal was a deep, inky black, with what appeared to be nebulae slowly swirling within.

“void spirit crystal?” Su Lin was slightly startled.

Then, a flash of spiritual light appeared in his palm, and an identical crystal appeared in his hand, though the one in Ye You’s hand looked a bit dimmer.

Inside the bamboo house, the air seemed to solidify.

Both Su Lin and Ye You’s gazes were focused on the deep, inky black crystal in the other’s palm.

The two crystals were irregularly shaped, but their material, color, and especially the slowly swirling, nebula-like quality within them, were almost identical.

“That’s right! Revered Master, what you got from Sixth Junior Sister is indeed it.”

She brought the crystal in her hand closer, placing it side by side with the one in Su Lin’s palm.

Observing them up close, the sense of a shared Origin became even more apparent, as if they were originally part of a single entity.

Su Lin looked serious, his fingertips gently touching the crystal.

“Qiu Yue said she obtained this by chance at an overseas auction, and finding its Aura special, she kept it.

Where did you get yours?”

“Beyond the Southern Realm, there is a place called the Chaos Desolate Domain.”

Ye You put away her intimate demeanor she had with Su Lin earlier, her tone becoming solemn.

“After the great battle a hundred years ago, I had been tracking clues about that enemy.

Revered Master, your self-detonation was too powerful, almost erasing all traces.

It took me many years to capture a faint, abnormal Aura from some surviving spatial fragments.”

She paused, then continued: “I followed that wisp of Aura all the way to the edge of the Chaos Desolate Domain.”

The Spiritual Qi fluctuations there were extremely chaotic, and spatial rifts were everywhere; even a Cultivator at the Body Integration Stage entering would face certain death.

I guarded there for several months, finally waiting for a lull in a spatial storm, before venturing deeper.

Deep within the Desolate Domain, there is a massive spatial wound that has yet to heal.

This crystal is what I found at the core of that wound.

When I discovered it, it was enveloped by countless spatial turbulences, and within a hundred-mile radius, not a blade of grass grew; any living creature that approached would have its Divine Soul directly annihilated by the Aura it emitted.

Ye You’s description was understated, but the danger it contained was self-evident.

To retrieve it, I used the Origin power of my Abyssal Devouring Bloodline, barely managing to suppress it and bring it back.

For the next few decades, I had been studying it, but with little progress.

Its structure is too stable; my Divine Sense cannot penetrate it, and I can only confirm that it is related to that enemy from back then.

I originally intended to investigate further after my cultivation advanced, but I didn’t expect Revered Master… to return.”

Su Lin looked at the floating crystal before him, his expression serious.

“I suspect that the one who ambushed me a hundred years ago was not a specific living being, but an Incarnation of the Heavenly Dao’s will.

The Aura attached to this crystal is identical to that Incarnation.”

He explained his previous speculation: the Heavenly Dao Law maintains the world’s operation, which is for justice.

But the Heavenly Dao’s will would, for certain reasons, eliminate “anomalies” in its eyes.

And his reborn self was probably still on the list to be eliminated.

“I had previously tried to probe the one Qiu Yue gave me with my Divine Sense.

But the crystal’s structure is unusually stable, and my Divine Sense simply couldn’t penetrate it.

Now with an additional piece, perhaps their resonance will allow me to glimpse some clues.”

Su Lin decided to try again.

Upon hearing this, Ye You immediately became anxious; she instinctively wanted to stop him, but seeing Revered Master’s gaze, she swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

She knew this was Revered Master’s unresolved issue, and it was the unresolved issue for all of them.

Until that enemy was eliminated, they would not know peace.

Su Lin took a deep breath and extended his Divine Sense towards the two hovering crystals.

The two crystals seemed to sense the external probing; their inky black surfaces shimmered with a faint light, and an invisible barrier instantly formed, blocking Su Lin’s Divine Sense.

Su Lin did not give up, gathering his Divine Sense once more.

The barrier sensed the external pressure, and the faint light on the surface of the inky black crystals grew brighter.

Ye You stood by, watching Su Lin nervously.

Her hands were tightly clasped, Spiritual Qi gathering in her palms, ready to respond to any possible accident.

Su Lin’s Divine Sense and the barrier were in a stalemate for several breaths.

He mobilized the power of his Nascent Soul, raising the intensity of his Divine Sense to the limit his current Realm could achieve.

Finally, a subtle crack appeared in that solid barrier.

Su Lin immediately seized this opportunity and poured his Divine Sense in.

The moment he penetrated the barrier, everything before Su Lin’s eyes vanished.

The bamboo house, Ye You, the external light—all ceased to exist, leaving only darkness.

In the center of this darkness, he saw a figure.

It was the silhouette of a woman, tall and slender, standing silently there.

She was enveloped in a thick mist, preventing Su Lin from discerning her appearance, clothing, or even her specific form.

Su Lin could only confirm that it was a feminine figure.