32: Treasure retrieved from the bottom of the pool

The warm sun jade barely managed to sustain a small, warm Domain around Lin Feng, but his spiritual power was being consumed rapidly.

Luo Linger, beside him, also turned pale, but she did not panic.

She quickly formed a peculiar hand seal with both hands, and a faint cyan halo emerged from her body, helping her share the burden of resisting some of the cold.

'Is this some kind of protective secret technique from Hundred Flowers Peak?' Lin Feng felt slightly relieved.

Their bodies slowly sank under the immense water pressure, and they could only hear their own heartbeats.

The faint light from the warm sun jade and Luo Linger's protective cyan glow could only illuminate the area within a foot around them.

Lin Feng hurriedly activated the heaven-stealing vine to scout the surroundings.

'Why are there so many beast bones and human bones down here?'

After descending about a dozen zhang, the surrounding scenery began to change.

Huge underwater stone forests appeared on both sides, and some stone pillars were covered with plants emitting a faint, eerie blue light.

Luo Linger pointed at those glowing plants and transmitted her voice to Lin Feng via Divine Sense: "These are 'Ghost-Face Moss' and 'Phosphorescent Mushrooms'... they only grow in places of extreme Yin... their light seems to be able to absorb the surrounding heat..."

The further down they went, the lower the water temperature and the greater the pressure.

Just then, the heaven-stealing vine caught the energy fluctuations becoming clear behind a huge coral cluster to the front-side.

Lin Feng's spirits lifted, and he pulled Luo Linger to carefully approach that direction.

After bypassing a large coral that looked like deer antlers but exuded cold Death Qi, the scene before them made both of them pause slightly.

They saw a solitary plant growing quietly on a relatively flat patch of sandy bottom in the pool.

Its stem and roots were like the finest cold jade, its leaves as thin as cicada wings, with faint silver radiance flowing along the edges.

At the top, a bowl-sized, nearly transparent lotus was slowly blooming, its petals crystal clear, as if formed by moonlight and ice crystals.

At the center of the lotus, a drop of lotus dew was slowly forming, plump and about to fall.

'moonlight soul lotus!' Lin Feng was excited inside.

Just as Lin Feng wanted to step forward to investigate, the water flow deep within the coral cluster stirred violently without warning.

An undercurrent surged out, churning up a large amount of mud and debris from the bottom of the pool, instantly making the already dim vision even murkier.

In the murky water, two huge, scarlet lights suddenly lit up.

Although he couldn't see the full appearance of the creature clearly, through the violent fluctuations of the water, Lin Feng instantly understood that a terrifying aquatic Yao Beast had been awakened by their approach.

'A guardian Yao Beast.' Lin Feng's heart instantly jumped to his throat, and his muscles tightened abruptly.

Luo Linger's face turned pale: "It's... it's the Cold Evil Flood Python. Looking at those eyes and that Evil Qi... it definitely is. It's over, it's over... It seems we woke it up."

That scarlet gaze moved in the water, accompanied by the muffled sound of a heavy body crushing the rocks at the bottom of the pool and the rustling sound of scales rubbing against each other.

'We cannot fight it head-on!' Lin Feng made an instant judgment.

He grabbed Luo Linger and kicked off hard with his feet, using the recoil from the pool bottom to rapidly retreat to the rear-side, trying to put some distance between them.

They saw the water flow being broken as a huge black shadow covered in ice-blue scales darted out, a bloodthirsty maw snapping open to reveal dagger-like, pale-white sharp teeth, spraying out a stream of Qi.

Wherever the Qi stream passed, the pool water instantly condensed into countless ice crystals, its speed not slowing in the slightest.

However, just then, the petals of the moonlight soul lotus began to shake violently.

A cold beam of light descended from the sky, piercing through layers of pool water and straight onto the lotus.

The moonlight soul lotus bloomed proudly in this beam of light. At the center of the lotus, a dewdrop became plump and round at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Cold Evil Flood Python let out a hiss, its massive body lunging toward the lotus in the beam of light.

'Now is the time!'

Lin Feng gritted his teeth, forcibly activating his almost frozen spiritual power, focusing all his mental energy on his fingertips.

The emerald-green light of the Wood Spirit Extraction Technique lit up, reaching out toward the lotus dew that was about to fall.

His left hand opened the jade bottle, and his right hand gently guided the emerald light; the lotus dew traced a faint stream of light and fell precisely into the jade bottle.

Lin Feng struck with his backhand, instantly sealing the jade bottle.

As for that Cold Evil Flood Python, it slammed headfirst into the moonlight beam; the beam of light trembled slightly and actually knocked it back a little.

It roared angrily, the Flood Python's huge scarlet eyes locking onto Lin Feng, and its massive body lunged back.

'I'm... going to die here...' Having collected the lotus dew, Lin Feng's body went limp and sank downward, unable to move even a finger.

Just as he was about to collapse, Luo Linger pulled him toward her, and her other hand quickly formed a seal, throwing several pitch-black seeds she had been holding in her palm toward the furiously charging python.

The seeds grew wildly upon contact with water, turning into a forest of black algae, instantly blocking the python's line of sight and charging path.

The python crashed into the black algae, emitting muffled roars, frantically tearing at those tough and slimy plants.

Luo Linger looked down, seeing Lin Feng's cyan-purple face and bloodless lips, a flash of shyness crossing her eyes, but then she did not hesitate, leaning down to press her lips onto his.

'Mm...' A stream of pure, gentle Wood-attribute spiritual power, through their pressed lips, was transferred into Lin Feng's almost frozen body.

This spiritual power carried Luo Linger's unique vitality and warmth, and wherever it passed, that terrifying feeling of freezing was actually dissolved bit by bit, and his stiff, dead Meridians regained a trace of weak vitality.

Lin Feng's consciousness, which was about to be completely extinguished, was pulled back to a sliver of clarity by this sudden warm current.

He subconsciously absorbed this life-saving source, his body instinctively craving more warmth.

In the cold pool water, the two figures embraced tightly.

Lin Feng opened his eyes and met Luo Linger's shy and nervous eyes, which were right in front of him.

Seeing him wake up, Luo Linger backed away, her cheeks blushing, and she pointed upwards in a fluster, her voice trembling in the Divine Sense transmission: "Quick... hurry. The black algae won't last long."

Lin Feng suppressed the ripple of strange emotion in his heart and the lingering soft sensation on his lips, nodding heavily.

He wrapped his arm around Luo Linger, kicked hard with his legs, and dashed desperately toward the faint light overhead.

The two broke through the surface of the pool and crashed heavily onto the cold rocks on the shore, coughing violently, greedily swallowing the cold air, soaked to the bone.

However, before they could take another breath.

"Boom!!"

That incomparably furious Cold Evil Flood Python had already broken through the obstruction of the black algae, its massive upper body emerging from the water, bringing up sky-filling cold splashes.

"Roar!!!"

A deafening roar shook the valley.

The python's huge head paused, and its scarlet pupils, which had originally been locked tightly onto Lin Feng, seemed to be attracted by the spiritual fluctuations and terrified screams from other directions on the shore.

Its head turned slightly at a very small angle, and its cold slit pupils swept across the side of the pool.

And at this moment, those Loose Cultivators who had originally been guarding the side of the pool, preparing to reap the rewards without effort, were all scared silly.

They had originally thought that what would come up were two fat sheep exhausted and waiting to be slaughtered, but they never expected that what they would get was a Flood Python.

"Mommy!!"

"It's... it's a Tier 2 Yao Beast. Run!"

The Loose Cultivators were instantly struck with Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering, no longer caring about any treasure, only wanting to turn and run for their lives.

But it was already too late.

The furious Flood Python did not distinguish targets at all; its huge tail whipped out from the pool water, bringing up sky-filling cold waves, and with the momentum of destroying everything in its path, it swept fiercely toward the shore.

"No——!!"