Chapter 622: It Belongs to Me Now

"The Concealment rune, descend. The Seal rune, lock."

Su Ming murmured to himself, his hands forming hand seals slowly but firmly before his chest.

The first layer was a flawless soundproofing array, sealing any sound that might emerge from within the crack, even the beating of his own heart, within a three-foot square of space.

The second layer was a high-grade aura-hiding array stacked atop the soundproofing array. This formation incorporated the "nesting" technique he had secretly learned from the Great Yan National Fortune Array Vault, completely assimilating that faint trace of human flesh-and-blood scent on his body into the surrounding cold rock aura.

Two layers stacked, the formation was complete.

After finishing all of this, Su Ming's forehead was already covered in fine cold sweat, and his already pale complexion had turned even more sallow.

"Shadow." Su Ming turned his head to look at his shoulder.

"Cheep!"

The Profound Shadow Crow let out an extremely low, short cry. It seemed to have sensed the gravity of the atmosphere as well. It leaped lightly from Su Ming's shoulder, landing silently at the very front of the crack, within the shadows near the edge of the formation.

Those golden eye-rings gleamed in the darkness like two miniature searchlights, watching unblinkingly for any sign of movement from the outside world. The black feathers that had been standing on end were now pressed tightly against its body surface, ready to explode into action at any moment.

"Everything is ready." Su Ming transmitted his voice through his Consciousness Sea. "Master, go ahead and do it."

Within the Xuantian ring.

Lin Yu did not reply. His ethereal blue Soul Body suddenly expanded several zhang in mid-air, and a terrifyingly vast wave of soul power instantly filled the entire ring space.

This was the true pressure of a half-step Ghost King.

"Open the hell up!"

Lin Yu violently tore his hands outward before his chest!

The soul fire seal that had already been covered in cracks shattered with a tremendous boom under that tearing motion!

The freed cyan light mass, the moment the seal broke apart, expanded violently at a terrifying speed.

"Wooom!"

A flood of chaotic memory images, like a dammed river bursting its banks, carrying thousands of years of vicissitudes and personal joys and sorrows, transformed into a cyan torrent that surged directly toward Lin Yu's Soul Body!

This was Qingyan's entire life.

There were scenes of him playing among the spirit races' vegetation as a child, scenes of him wailing in agony under the Dark Current Sect's brutal training, the terror of his hands stained with blood when he first killed a spirit, and even more so, the day-after-day disguise and torment when he donned his mask and infiltrated the Qiming Sect.

If these memories were to be endured by an ordinary Golden Core cultivator, even a slight brush with them would instantly shatter their Dao heart with another person's intense emotions, turning them into a schizophrenic madman.

But Lin Yu showed not a trace of panic.

His Soul Body stood like a ten-thousand-year reef amidst the raging torrent, unmoved no matter how the cyan tide washed over it.

"Trying to play information bombardment with me? Do you think I wasted my past life in the information age?"

Lin Yu sneered inwardly.

Qingyan's memory fragments, though vast in information volume, were far inferior to his half-step Ghost King soul power in terms of purity and refinement.

"Spirit Nourishing True Explanation, Reverse!"

On the surface of Lin Yu's Soul Body, a layer of ethereal blue soul fire suddenly ignited, deeper than before, seeming capable of devouring all light.

He opened his illusory gaping mouth and inhaled fiercely!

That surging cyan torrent was actually forcibly dragged into his Soul Body.

Throughout this process, Lin Yu displayed a terrifyingly precise micro-manipulation ability.

He used his half-step Ghost King's formidable soul power to transform into countless sharp scalpels, performing an extremely brutal "forced disassembly" of the flooding memories.

He didn't need to know what spirit fruits Qingyan liked to eat, nor did he need to know which female spirit Qingyan had harbored feelings for. These memory fragments laced with intense personal emotions, trivial matters, and useless details were mercilessly wrapped in ethereal blue soul fire the moment they touched Lin Yu's Soul Body.

"Sssss..."

A sound like a branding iron pressing into rotten flesh echoed through the void.

Those useless images were treated as worthless garbage, directly incinerated into the purest soul power nourishment.

And the core information Lin Yu had carefully selected, the spirit races' current social structure, the Dark Current Sect's century-long core plan, the specific coordinates of the Abandoned Lands seal, and the most fundamental survival laws of the spirit realm...

These valuable pieces were carefully peeled away by Lin Yu with soul power, like categorized archives, neatly stored at the very edge of his memory vault, never allowing them to fuse even the slightest bit with his subjective consciousness.

Outside.

A pale purple aurora drifted slowly across the sky.

A breeze passed by, carrying a stench of decay even stronger than before.

A bizarre beetle, the size of a full-grown hunting dog with a back covered in barbed spines, crawled out from a pile of rocks in the distance. Its two long antennae probed continuously through the air, seemingly searching for that tantalizing scent of flesh and blood from before.

It crawled along, finally stopping about a zhang away from the crack where Su Ming was hiding.

"Crack... crack..."

The beetle's serrated mouthparts opened and closed continuously, producing a grating sound that set teeth on edge. Its pair of crimson compound eyes stared fixedly at that seemingly unremarkable patch of shadow at the crack's entrance.

Inside the formation, Su Ming had even stopped breathing.

He had pushed the Like Water Art to its absolute limit, his heartbeat reduced to a death-like state of merely one beat per incense stick's burn.

Shadow lay pressed to the ground, every muscle in its body tensed to the breaking point. If that beetle dared to step even half a step into the formation, it would pounce without a moment's hesitation, using those golden-edged blade wings to sever the opponent's throat.

One person, one bird, engaged in a silent standoff with the unknown monster outside in the darkness.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Ten breaths.

That barbed beetle seemed to have found nothing. It turned around irritably twice, and eventually, attracted by the spore fragrance emanating from another glowing plant in the distance, it moved its jointed legs and slowly crawled away into the distance.

Su Ming still did not move.

Because he didn't know how much longer Lin Yu's refining would take.

Time seemed to freeze within the dark crack.

One hour passed silently in the deathly stillness.

Within the Xuantian ring.

The last wisp of cyan light dispersed completely within the ethereal blue soul fire, transforming into pure soul power that merged into Lin Yu's phantom form.

Lin Yu slowly opened his eyes.

His Soul Body, which had been somewhat illusory and translucent, now exhibited a texture nearly approaching solidity. The ethereal blue luster flowing across his Soul Body's surface was deeper by more than one level compared to before the refining, seemingly capable of drawing one's gaze into its depths.

Having absorbed the pure soul power refined by time from Qingyan's remnant soul, though his realm had not yet broken through, the solidity of his Soul Body had increased by a full measure.

"Hah..."

Lin Yu slowly exhaled a breath of soul qi, a barely perceptible hint of surprise flickering in his eyes.

This absorption process had gone ten times more smoothly than even his most optimistic expectations.

There had been no meaningful resistance, no memory backflow or backlash.

"This spy's brain really is something else." Lin Yu mocked inwardly.

He now understood why devouring the Wailing Woman Lantern had been so painful back then. What was inside the Wailing Woman Lantern was a resentful soul, heavy with grievance and extremely aggressive. Swallowing it was like swallowing a ball of fire covered in barbs, requiring slow digestion in the stomach.

Qingyan's memories, on the other hand, were more like a massive "storage jade slip."

This might be related to Qingyan's life story. He was a spy, living his entire life behind a mask. He had to maintain absolute rationality at all times, burying his true emotions deep within himself. This long-term suppression meant that the memory fragments he left behind after death, though heavy with information, were surprisingly "docile."

"Lived his whole life like an emotionless tool, and even his posthumous memories are easier to chew than others." Lin Yu let out a cold laugh, his Soul Body spinning lightly in mid-air. "Too bad, all those secrets you cared about most in your life, everything that needed to be told, is now in my hands."