167: Chapter 167 Fish Eat Awakened Ones, I Eat Her Charm

The sound in the reeds was softer than the wind, yet Chen Fan captured it with perfect clarity.

He tightened his hold on Su Shuang, his peripheral vision sweeping over the swaying reed tips—a small girl was curled up there, wearing a coarse cloth short shirt smeared with grass clippings. Beneath her blind eyelids, her eyeballs were darting rapidly, as if watching something alive.

"Three zhang to the east, there's a void underwater... It's a fake palace gate."

The childlike voice, like shattered jade falling onto the water's surface, made Chen Fan's ear tips tremble.

He squatted down, gently placing Su Shuang on a reef on the shallow bank. Just as his fingertips were about to touch the girl's shoulder, he paused—this child's skin was as cold as if soaked in ice water, and her wrist bones were so delicate he could count the joints.

"The Ninth Palace is directly below, but the path is alive... It bites people," the blind child tilted her face up. Her empty eye sockets faced Chen Fan. "Every twelve breaths, the sand and stones at the bottom of the lake shift the path once more."

Chen Fan's Adam's apple bobbed.

He could feel the hammer of the thunder god heating up in his palm, and Critical Hit Foresight was drilling straight toward his eyes along the hammer handle—the lake water in his vision suddenly became transparent. The sand grains at the bottom were undulating according to some rhythm, as if mimicking a heartbeat.

"This lake... is breathing," he blurted out.

"It's afraid... the moon marrow will be taken away," Su Shuang's voice was as light as a sigh.

Chen Fan looked down and saw water droplets condensed on her eyelashes. Her originally snow-white lips were now tinged with an ashen blue, and even her fox ears had faded to a translucent pale pink.

He touched the back of her neck, his palm coming away slick with cold sweat—her lifeblood was drying up; every word she spoke seemed to draw out her last shred of vitality.

The sacrificial drum suddenly boomed. Midnight had arrived.

Chen Fan unbuckled his outer garment and wrapped Su Shuang tightly within his embrace.

He could hear his own heartbeat overpowering the drum. On the third beat, he gritted his teeth: "Xiao Shuang, I'll take you down."

"Don't..." Su Shuang's fingers clutched his collar. "There's an illusion... underwater."

"I have Critical Hit Foresight," Chen Fan pressed her hand against his chest. "It can tell me which path is real." His fingertip brushed past the fox tail silver ornament in her hair—that was the bloodline token she hid most securely. "When I get the moon marrow, I'll make you brown sugar ginger tea, with ten extra pieces of rock sugar."

Su Shuang smiled, a faint blush blooming at the corners of her eyes.

Chen Fan took a deep breath and plunged into the water, holding her.

The coldness of the lake instantly enveloped his entire body.

As soon as he opened his eyes, Chen Fan saw a blaze of fire—the Fox Clan's stilt houses were frighteningly clear underwater. Girls wearing silver ornaments were kneeling before braziers; the flames licked at the edges of their skirts but could not burn away the reflection on the water's surface.

Su Shuang's clansmen?

Just as he was about to look closer, Critical Hit Foresight suddenly exploded with golden threads across his retina—["Illusion judgment, true path deviated by 15 degrees"]!

He twisted violently, his shoulder slamming heavily against the hard stone wall.

Behind him came a "crash," and the braziers in the illusion shattered into thousands of light specks, revealing a bluestone door frame concealed by sand.

Chen Fan just managed to breathe a sigh of relief when the smell of rust suddenly invaded his nose—it was the blood of an Awakened.

The Light Erosion scales surged toward him from all directions.

The eyes of the Light Erosion scales resembled two rows of small lanterns. Their sharp teeth scraped past Chen Fan's earlobes, tearing three bloody gashes on the back of his neck.

Su Shuang suddenly looked up and bit his palm, drawing blood.

The fox tattoo bloomed in the blood droplets, and the pale pink power of charm spread out like smoke—the school of fish slowed by half a beat; some crashed into the stone walls, others tore at each other. The originally tight encirclement developed cracks.

["Bloodline Devouring +5% (Cumulative +20%)! Critical Hit Rate Temporary Cap Triggered!"]

The system notification exploded like a clap of thunder.

Chen Fan felt a surge of heat rush from his dantian straight to his scalp, and the handle of the hammer of the thunder god suddenly felt as light as a swan's feather.

He swung the hammer in a horizontal sweep. Golden light wrapped around seven afterimages and smashed into the school of fish—the first critical hit shattered fish heads, the second critical hit flipped fish tails, and the third critical hit directly pulverized three Light Erosion scales into mince!

Blood mist exploded in the water, which only served to infuriate more fish.

Chen Fan gritted his teeth and swam toward the deeper waters. Su Shuang in his arms grew lighter and lighter, as light as a feather that might drift away at any moment.

He felt her wrist; the pulse was so faint he could barely detect it, and even her fingernails were turning blue.

"Hold on," he murmured close to her ear. "We're almost there."

The stone gate of the Ninth Palace finally appeared before his eyes.

Just as Chen Fan was about to enter, a corpse blocked his path—the old monk sat cross-legged in the center of the door. The golden threads on his kasaya had faded to gray, but the posture of his hands pressed together in prayer was even more devout than when he was alive.

His mouth opened and closed. Chen Fan had to lean in close to hear the scripture, muffled by the lake water: "...If one sees forms as non-forms, one sees the Tathagata..."

"He chanted sutras every night only to prevent the lake's heart from opening its eyes," the voice of the mirror-eyed child suddenly echoed in Chen Fan's mind. "That is the living lock suppressing the moon marrow."

Chen Fan tried to move the old monk's shoulder. The moment his fingertip touched the kasaya, the ground suddenly collapsed.

A thousand chains drilled out from the stone crevices in the four walls. Their sharp points were adorned with broken bones and rust, lunging straight for his throat!

Critical Hit Foresight flashed wildly before his eyes—the trajectory of the chains was broken down into slow motion.

Chen Fan rolled to the side. The chains scraped past his ribs, carving bowl-sized holes in the stone wall.

As soon as he stabilized himself, he saw Su Shuang slip from his arms. She stood weakly in the water, her fox ears completely transparent, their outlines almost invisible.

"Xiao Shuang!" He lunged forward to embrace her, but she pushed him, staggering him.

Su Shuang tilted her head back, a trace of bloody foam oozing from the corner of her mouth.

She formed a complex Fox Clan hand seal with both hands, and the last trace of her charm power exploded like fireworks—the surface of the water reflected the figures of a hundred priests, all frozen in the posture of the ritual. Even Water Flawless's hand holding the bone bell was stiff in mid-air.

"You destroyed my sacrificial formation!" Water Flawless's roar shook the lake water. A skeletal hand suddenly extended from the water flowing around her right half-body, gripping a black blade and cleaving toward Chen Fan's head.

Chen Fan shoved Su Shuang into the stone niche, his forehead veins bulging as he turned around.

The cold light of the black blade magnified in his pupils, but Critical Hit Foresight suddenly went silent, projecting only a line of small text onto his retina: [In 0.6 seconds, the chain connection points will resonate].

He did not dodge.

The hammer of the thunder god smashed heavily onto the nearest chain node.

The golden light of [Critical Hit x 4] struck his eardrums painfully; the entire Ninth Palace trembled.

The afterimage of the black blade shattered into light specks, and the crisp sound of the breaking chains connected into a continuous burst.

Chen Fan rushed back to the stone niche. Su Shuang had already passed out, her fingertips cold as ice picks.

The system notification lit up at the opportune moment:

[Bloodline Devouring Completed Phased Evolution]

[Can actively guide the fusion of non-human buffs]

[moon marrow crystal — Will manifest in 30 seconds]

Chen Fan clenched Su Shuang's hand and looked up at the stone platform in the center of the Ninth Palace.

A crack had opened on the platform at some point, and milky white light was seeping out from the fissure, like moonlight dissolved in water.

"If you save her, a hundred souls will perish... Do you still dare to take it?"

Water Flawless's voice, wrapped in chill air, drilled into his ears.

Chen Fan looked down at the water droplets on Su Shuang's eyelashes and suddenly laughed.

He pulled out the piece of brown sugar from his pocket—he had snagged it from the tea shop when leaving that morning, originally planning to pay it back after getting paid.

Now, he pushed the sugar cube into Su Shuang's mouth, watching her unconsciously purse her lips.

"Damn right, everyone lives."

He stood up, the hammer of the thunder god humming in his palm.

The crack in the central stone platform of the Ninth Palace was widening. Something was floating upward along the light, like a pearl nurtured by moonlight for a thousand years.

Chen Fan took a deep breath and walked toward that ball of light.