Chapter 615: Countdown

This was no longer the pile of fragmented rune arrays that Yan Wuji had left behind back in the day. Under Su Ming's modifications, it had become a living prison of water.

The water curtain flowed slowly, emitting a soothing, gurgling sound. Through that layer of deep blue water, one could faintly make out the lifeless runes on the original stone carvings, which were now, wrapped within the water curtain, beginning to emit a weak fluorescent glow.

And in the deepest part of the water curtain, a blurry, distorted reflection of a star chart was slowly beginning to take shape.

That was the projection of the passage to the Spirit Realm! The violent spatial crack was being firmly suppressed within by this soft water curtain, no longer leaking even a trace of its cold, sinister aura.

"The Ruo Shui World Gate is complete."

Su Ming let out a long breath. He looked as if he had just been pulled out of the water, his robes completely soaked through with sweat. But in his bloodshot eyes, an unprecedented bright light flickered.

To ensure absolute certainty, Su Ming bit the tip of his tongue and sprayed out a mouthful of essence blood. His hands formed seals once more.

"Conceal!"

He layered his most adept concealment formation lines, one after another, into this water curtain.

In just three breaths, the deep blue water curtain began to turn transparent. Eventually, along with the stone carvings and spatial crack it enveloped, it all eerily vanished from the stargazing platform. To the naked eye, nothing remained but a flat expanse of greenstone floor. Even when divine sense swept across it, not the slightest anomaly could be detected.

After finishing all of this, Su Ming could no longer hold on. He collapsed onto the ground with a thud.

He gasped for air, frantically cycling the Like Water Art, absorbing the already extremely thin spiritual energy from the surrounding air.

Only after his spiritual energy had recovered to about twenty percent did Su Ming retrieve the jade token engraved with the two characters "Qiming" from the very depths of his storage pouch.

He extended his divine sense into it once more, but this time, he did not touch the massive star chart. Instead, he carefully skirted its edges, observing the dim star entangled by countless dark-gold chains.

"The Abandoned Lands..." Su Ming silently recited this name in his heart.

Those incredibly thick chains made him uncontrollably think of something else.

Back then, at Iron Wall Pass on the Northern Frontier, when he had been exploring deep underground to investigate the Rock Marrow Demon Earthworm infestation, he had sensed a similar aura through the resonance of the Border Defense True Seal, deep within the earth veins.

The Rockheart, the insect king.

"If this so-called Earth-Breaking Calamity in the Spirit Realm is also some kind of terrifying existence similar to the Rockheart insect king..." Su Ming's gaze grew profound.

He let out a bitter laugh, gently stroking the cold surface of the jade token.

"I've always hated those so-called arrangements of heaven and fate. A cultivator of the Way of Survival only believes in the trump cards and schemes in his own hands." Su Ming said to Lin Yu with self-mocking in his heart, "But this time, I feel like all of this is a little too coincidental."

From obtaining the Xuantian Ring to learning formation cultivation; from acquiring the Border Defense True Seal to obtaining Yan Wuji's national destiny grand formation blueprints; and now, to this jade token pointing toward a sealed calamity in another world.

All of it was like an invisible, massive net that had already been silently cast the moment he stepped out of Qingshi Town.

"There aren't that many acts of heaven in the immortal cultivation world." Lin Yu's voice carried a hint of disdain, but if one listened closely, one could hear a trace of irritation in his tone, "It's just that the pits our predecessors dug were too big, and the people who came after simply fell in carelessly."

Su Ming put away the jade token and was about to speak.

Suddenly, a bizarre change occurred!

"Drip... drip..."

Su Ming saw, in the midair above the center of the stargazing platform, a series of huge, constantly jumping ancient seal script numbers condensed from dark-gold spiritual energy.

It was a countdown.

Three hours.

Three hours later, this place would be reduced to nothingness. Within a radius of a hundred li, let alone Foundation Establishment cultivators, even Golden Core old monsters would, under the sacrificial detonation of the national destiny earth veins, absolutely meet an end where their very souls were obliterated.

"Yan Wuji, you old bastard!"

Lin Yu cursed furiously in the Consciousness Sea, his soul body trembling with rage, "This son of a bitch has been dead for thousands of years, and he still wants to drag the living into the grave with him! Just how afraid was he back then that this World Gate would actually be opened? Guarding against outsiders is one thing, but even rigging the repair formation to explode? This is the behavior of a complete and utter mad dog!"

Curses aside, Lin Yu reacted swiftly: "Boy, don't just stand there! With the power of this earth vein detonation, prepare the Grand Teleportation Talisman, we need to retreat now!"

Su Ming did not move.

In that instant, he displayed the most terrifying quality of a Way of Survival cultivator, extreme calm.

"Cheep cheep! Cheep!"

The Shadow on his shoulder sensed that lethal sense of crisis. It paced anxiously around on Su Ming's shoulder, the golden ring on its tail feathers spinning rapidly, occasionally using its beak to peck at Su Ming's collar, urging him to leave immediately.

Su Ming raised his hand and gently stroked Shadow's bristling black feathers, calming its emotions.

"Master." Su Ming's voice was low, yet carried a desperate, ruthless determination, "I'm staying."

"You've lost your mind!" Lin Yu snapped, "Three hours! Do you think you're some kind of supreme immortal? You're going to fix a broken formation in this death trap and also deal with the activation condition that drains your very origin? You're playing with your life!"

"I never play."

Su Ming abruptly raised his head, a sharp glint flashing through those pitch-black eyes.

He suddenly remembered something.

"Yan Wuji was a madman, but he was also an emperor. And an emperor always leaves himself a way out." Su Ming analyzed rapidly, "If he had truly made up his mind back then to destroy everything completely, he could have simply smashed this stargazing platform. Why go through all the trouble of laying down these three thousand six hundred formations?"

He stared fixedly at the direction of the massive Bronze Door.

"That condition is the backdoor he left himself!"

Su Ming didn't hesitate for a moment. With a flip of his palm, that ancient Turtle-Knob Seal appeared in his hand once more.

This small seal was not only the key to opening the Bronze Door, it was also the symbol of the Great Yan dynasty's supreme authority.

Su Ming strode to the stone carving hidden by the water curtain at the "Spirit Court Boundary Route" and removed a small section of the camouflage formation lines, revealing a hidden, hair-thin square groove on the edge of the stone carving.

He aligned the Turtle-Knob Seal with that groove.

"His Majesty, the Emperor of Great Yan." Su Ming looked at the cold stone carving, his tone carrying a complex emotion as he said in a low voice, "I need to borrow this passage of yours."

With that said, Su Ming pressed the Turtle-Knob Seal down with force!

"Click!"

The seal wedged against the edge of the groove, not budging an inch.

A resistant dark-gold light rippled across the cold stone surface, as if silently mocking this outsider's wild fantasy.

"It's useless." Lin Yu sneered from within the ring, "This is the national destiny grand formation. You don't have the bloodline of the Yan imperial family. This door, you cannot open."

Su Ming was not discouraged. Instead, his gaze grew even colder and more resolute.

"No bloodline? Then we create a bloodline."

Su Ming bit the tip of his tongue without hesitation, forcing out a drop of pure Golden Core essence blood. This was a precious bit of origin essence blood that he had barely recovered after the brutal formation backlash he had just suffered.

He precisely dripped that drop of essence blood, brimming with rich vitality, onto the back of the Turtle-Knob Seal.

At the same time, he furiously drove the Ruo Shui spiritual energy within his body.

"Water excels at benefiting all things, embracing all forms. Absorb for me!"

Su Ming wrapped that drop of essence blood with his Ruo Shui spiritual energy, forcibly transforming it into countless strands of fine, blood-red threads, and forcibly seeped them into the internal structure of the seal along the texture of its surface.

He was gambling.

Gambling that when Yan Wuji had set up this backdoor back then, he had not established merely a rigid "bloodline authentication," but rather some higher level of "intent authentication." The essence blood represented his determination to burn his bridges, while the ultimate all-embracing water spiritual energy was meant to simulate that kind of broad-mindedness capable of bearing the weight of a nation's destiny.

Time passed, breath by breath.

The veins on Su Ming's forehead bulged. His Ruo Shui spiritual energy and the dark-gold repulsive force engaged in a brutal tug-of-war within the seal.

One breath, two breaths, three breaths...

Just as the tenth breath was about to pass.

"Hum—"

The previously lifeless Turtle-Knob Seal suddenly let out a crisp, soft hum!