347: Chapter 347: Exposure

"Retreat!"

At the same moment Xiao Ran's sharp shout rang out, countless black phantoms surged from all directions of the depression.

They had no fixed shape, resembling ghostly faces condensed from thick smoke, their mouths open in silent roars as they lunged at everyone.

Each phantom was wrapped in a dense, bone-chilling resentment, and a sharp screeching filled the air.

"A swarm of Ancient Wraiths!"

Fairy Hehuan drew her sword to meet them, her pink sword light tearing through one of the phantoms.

"They are sentient! Form a formation!"

The team instantly dispersed.

Su Qinghan drew her short blade. As a wraith lunged straight at her, she sidestepped to avoid it and slashed horizontally. The blade's golden patterns clashed with the wraith's body, emitting a sizzling, burning sound.

The wraith shrieked as half of its form dissipated, but even more surged from all directions, dense as a plague of locusts.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Poison Lady's direction.

Deep green spiritual light flared as Poison Lady was simultaneously entangled by three or four wraiths.

However, she released a layer of eerie green poison mist around her, and any wraith that touched it shrieked, twisted, and was annihilated.

The Ten Thousand Poisons Spirit Body possessed a natural devouring power over Yin fiendish energy. Poison Lady moved through the wraith swarm as if walking through an empty field, even finding the leisure to glance over at Su Qinghan.

There was little warmth in that glance, yet it seemed as though she was evaluating something.

Su Qinghan had no time to think further.

Poison Lady's spirit body could dispel the wraiths, but her own spirit body actually attracted them, making her situation far more difficult than Poison Lady's.

She resisted with all her might, but more and more wraiths swarmed toward her face.

At the exact moment she was distracted, a beam of black spiritual light several times thicker than the other wraiths suddenly shot out from the depths of the rift valley, accurately striking the crown of her head.

The thing was too fast—so fast that her protective spiritual light didn't even have time to react.

A bone-chilling force surged into her Sea of Consciousness, and Su Qinghan felt her vision go dark.

Countless overlapping roars and wails echoed in her ears, and the Heart Demon seed that had originally been suppressed seemed to be catalyzed, suddenly swelling to three times its size.

Its roots spread frantically, digging deeper into her Dao Heart.

"Ugh..."

Su Qinghan let out a muffled groan and dropped to one knee.

Illusions surged up once again.

Clearer and bloodier than ever before.

The flames of the Supreme Dao Palace burned so fiercely they made her eyes sting, and she could even recognize the faces on those corpses.

That was the Senior Brother who had guided her when she first entered the sect, and that was the Senior Sister in the cafeteria who always ladled an extra spoonful of spiritual soup for her.

The giant tail of the Nine-Headed Snake Emperor swept across, crushing crowds of Cultivators like paper.

Xiao Ran stood atop the head of the Snake Emperor, holding a spear wrapped in black lightning, looking down from above.

His gaze was icy, and his lips parted slightly as if he were saying something.

Then, Su Qinghan clearly read his lips.

"Leave none alive."

She suddenly coughed up a mouthful of bloody froth, and the illusions before her shattered into countless fragments.

"Liu Qingyan!" Fairy Hehuan's voice came from extremely far away, as if separated by a thick curtain of water.

Someone grabbed her arm and dragged her backward, the spiritual fiendish energy and the howling of the wraiths blending into a mess of white noise in her ears.

Su Qinghan's Sea of Consciousness was being invaded by the frantically growing Heart Demon seed.

She mobilized her Mystic Yin power with all her might to freeze it, layer upon layer of ice-blue spiritual energy covering it, wrapping the seed into an icy sphere.

But just as the ice layer formed, the seed expanded and cracked from within, as if something were desperately struggling to break out of its shell.

In her blurred consciousness, she felt someone support her from behind.

The breath was warm and dry, carrying a very faint scent that resembled cedarwood and old book pages.

The breath pierced through the freezing cold of the wraiths and covered her back, like a silent wall sealing out all the Chaos.

"Steady yourself," a voice whispered right next to her ear, kept so low that only she could hear it.

"Don't use spiritual energy to suppress it. The more you suppress it, the faster it grows. Let it out, and use your Dao Heart to wear it down."

Su Qinghan was extremely familiar with this voice.

It was none other than Xiao Ran.

Su Qinghan's entire body stiffened, but her chaotic Sea of Consciousness could no longer support her to make any further reaction.

She can only barely withdraw her spiritual energy from the surface of the seed, allowing the black speck to completely unfurl within her Sea of Consciousness.

A sharp pain pierced from between her brows straight down to her Dantian. She clenched her teeth, a bloody taste seeping through.

Yet miraculously, when she stopped resisting, the speed at which the seed spread actually slowed down.

Xiao Ran's palm lingered on her back for three breaths, then moved away.

"Can you still walk?"

His voice returned to its businesslike coldness.

Su Qinghan opened her eyes, and the blurry vision before her gradually came into focus.

The wraith swarm had already been mostly suppressed. Poison Lady stood not far away, her deep green poison mist not yet fully retracted, her gaze staring straight over here.

Staring at the exact spot where Xiao Ran's hand had just moved away from Su Qinghan's back.

Something surged in that gaze for a brief moment, like an undercurrent deep beneath the water.

But she said nothing, turning around to continue clearing the remaining wraiths.

Su Qinghan pushed herself up from the ground, cold sweat from her forehead dripping down her chin.

The Heart Demon seed in her Sea of Consciousness had quieted down somewhat, but it still remained like a malignant tumor that could detonate at any moment, entrenched in the most fragile part of her Dao Heart.

Fairy Hehuan rushed over to support her arm: "How are you? Did that beam of spiritual light hit you just now?"

"I'm fine," Su Qinghan swallowed the bloody taste in her throat, her voice hoarse.

"I was caught off guard and blasted, but I've recovered."

Fairy Hehuan sized her up for a few seconds and did not press further.

But Su Qinghan knew her complexion must be terrible, because the way Fairy Hehuan looked at her held an extra layer of worry—along with a trace of complexity she couldn't quite decipher.

She lifted her eyes to look for Xiao Ran's back.

Xiao Ran had already walked to the edge of the rift valley. His black-robed figure stood above the eerie blue glow, squatting down to observe something below.

He looked as if he had done nothing just now, so composed that his reaching out to support her seemed merely like a casual gesture.

Su Qinghan lowered her head, gripping her short blade tightly.

Her palms were covered in cold sweat.

...

The exploration of the Secret Realm lasted for three days.

Xiao Ran covered the entire area with his Void Refinement Stage Divine Sense, finding the ancient spiritual fiend crystal core in the depths of the rift valley.

It was the size of a baby's fist, completely eerie blue, with a chaotic halo swirling inside, emitting a heart-palpitating, majestic power.

When he reached out to collect it, it triggered a spiritual energy backlash from the entire Secret Realm, causing the spatial crack to suddenly expand.

Su Qinghan happened to be standing on the edge of the crack. The moment the rock surface collapsed beneath her feet, she was sucked into the turbulent flow.

The moment the feeling of weightlessness engulfed her consciousness, she heard the explosive sound of shattering space, felt the stinging pain of the freezing turbulent flow cutting her skin, and saw a figure rushing through the wind.

A hand reached through the turbulent flow, accurately grabbing her wrist.

The force with which Xiao Ran pulled her back was so strong that she almost crashed entirely into his chest.

At that instant, her protective spiritual light shattered completely, and the ice-blue aura of her Mystic Yin Returning Essence Body leaked out without any concealment, like a bud suddenly torn open, revealing the layered petals within.

In the distance, Poison Lady stopped her actions of clearing the wraiths.

Her gaze pierced through the gray-black spiritual fiend mist, landing on the layer of ice-blue halo surrounding Su Qinghan.

Her narrow eyes narrowed slightly, and her lips moved silently.

Then she turned her head, continuing to clear the remaining wraiths as if she had seen nothing.

When Su Qinghan fell into Xiao Ran's embrace, the spatial crack above slowly healed behind him.

The Mahayana Stage Law power of the law seed spread out from the light between Xiao Ran's brows, stitching the torn space back together inch by inch.

The dark purple electric arcs retreated submissively before the Law power, like a pacified swarm of snakes.

When Su Qinghan struggled out of Xiao Ran's embrace, he let go faster than she had expected—so fast that she didn't even have time to feel the warmth of his chest.

"Stand steady."

Xiao Ran said, his tone flat.

Then he turned and walked back toward the edge of the rift valley, his back as calm and unhurried as when he arrived.

Su Qinghan stood in place, looking down at the remaining ice-blue spiritual light in her palm.

That layer of light was too bright, so bright that it was like a lamp in the otherwise gray-black Secret Realm.

She knew that from that brief moment just now, at least two people had clearly seen her Mystic Yin Returning Essence Body.