Chapter 625: The Void, Closer Than We Think

"Hum..."

The dim Golden Core trembled slightly the moment it came into contact with that thread of energy.

There was no rejection, no explosion.

The Golden Core was like a shriveled sponge, greedily absorbing that thread of energy. The originally dull, grayish surface immediately took on a faint sheen of luster.

Though it was only a single thread, it was like sweet rain after a long drought.

Su Ming let out a long breath of turbid air, his tense body finally relaxing completely. He opened his eyes, looking at the faintly glowing point of light still slowly rotating above his palm, and the corner of his mouth curved into a tired but gratified smile.

Shadow, seeing Su Ming relax, shook her head as well, then flopped back down onto the ground, wrapping herself tightly in her wings.

"Master, the path is open." Su Ming said softly in his Consciousness Sea.

Inside the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu's Soul Body also plopped down cross-legged in the void, the faint blue glow dimming slightly.

"I nearly got scared into a heart attack by you, even though I don't have a heart right now." Lin Yu said in a disgruntled tone.

Su Ming didn't respond. He wasn't one to greedily push his luck. After successfully converting that thread of energy, he decisively cut off the influx of external Life Essence and withdrew that wisp of soul power back into the ring's surface.

"Can't continue?" Lin Yu asked, a little surprised at the sight.

"Can't." Su Ming shook his head, quickly doing the math in his mind. "Master, although this path is open, the efficiency is far too low."

He pointed at his Dantian. "Just now, to convert that single thread of Life Essence, I consumed thirty percent of my Ruo Shui spiritual energy just to maintain those three layers of filtering. In other words, invest thirty percent, and only produce one thread. If I forcefully continue absorbing right now, my spiritual energy won't increase—it'll hit rock bottom in an instant."

Lin Yu stroked his illusory chin inside the ring. "Spending more than you take in? So all this effort just now was wasted?"

"My soul power isn't an endless pit." Lin Yu rolled his eyes in annoyance. "The moment this thing starts running, it constantly consumes the soul power imprints I project externally. I just had a good meal, sure, but I can't withstand you draining me non-stop for twelve hours a day. Do you take me for a water purifier filter?"

"At most two hours." Lin Yu's voice brooked no negotiation. "Beyond that, my Soul Body will start leaking laws from overconsumption. If that happens, I'll be in trouble right along with you."

Su Ming leaned against the cold, damp rock wall, listening to Lin Yu's grumpy warning, a bitter smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

Outside the crack, the faint purple aurora still drifted slowly across the sky dome, occasionally interrupted by the low, guttural roars of unknown alien beasts. The sound waves rattled the rock walls, shaking down fine particles of dust.

"Two hours... that really is too short." Su Ming calculated silently in his mind, a hint of gravity flashing through his eyes.

If he continued staying in this rocky crevice, the concealment array on the periphery would keep draining his remaining spiritual energy without pause.

Although the turtle-up tactic had temporarily kept him safe from the probing of those bloodthirsty plants and alien beasts outside, this was nothing short of a slow death.

Once his spiritual energy was completely depleted and the aura-hiding formation broke, his body—radiating the pure, unmistakable scent of human flesh and blood—would become the most conspicuous piece of meat in this entire spiritual jungle.

The worst-case scenario would be being devoured alive by that giant Purple-Spotted Mushroom creature or something even more horrifying.

If he forcibly removed the formation and fought desperately to explore outward, searching for settlements of this spiritual world's native inhabitants, he might just find a thread of survival.

But with his current Golden Core spiritual energy at less than fifteen percent, plus the festering wound on his left shoulder and the cut on his right arm deep enough to show bone, he'd be instant kill fodder for any spirit beast equivalent to a human Foundation Establishment cultivator. Launching out recklessly right now carried far more risk than reward—absolutely not an option.

Su Ming's left thumb unconsciously rubbed the edge of his storage pouch. He didn't dare use the Grand Teleportation Talisman. The spatial laws here were chaotic; teleporting blindly could easily get him stuck in a spatial fault and shredded to pieces. The Soul-Stabilizing Talisman could only keep his soul intact for three breaths, doing nothing for his spiritual energy depletion. His lifebound formation plate was sturdy, but it required massive amounts of spiritual energy to drive—a gluttonous devourer of power. And the Border Defense True Seal had already consumed half of its origin when he forcefully opened the World Gate; now it was dead silent, not even having the strength left to activate.

"What's left..." Su Ming's brow furrowed deeper and deeper as his mind raced, trying to find a way out of this deadlock using every formation rune and resource at his disposal.

Suddenly, his fingers stopped abruptly. His breath caught.

"Master." Su Ming opened his eyes, his voice cutting through the dark, narrow crevice with startling clarity. "I just remembered something."

A faint light flickered across the surface of the Xuantian ring as Lin Yu's Soul Body slowly materialized. His illusory brow arched slightly, and he let out a cold snort. "At a time like this, you're still keeping me in suspense? What life-extending trick did you think of? Let me say this first—if you're planning to use me as bait, don't even think about it."

Su Ming didn't answer immediately. Instead, he flipped his left hand and pulled a few pieces of faintly silver-glowing rubble from his storage pouch, along with a small pinch of dark-red sand wrapped tightly in oil paper.

It was the Void Stone Powder and the Soul Stabilizing Sand.

"The Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation?" Lin Yu's gaze landed on the materials, his Soul Body's glow faltering for a moment before he let out a barely concealed scoff. "Disciple, are you telling me that poisonous mushroom scrambled your brains? You know exactly how that broken formation performs in the human realm. The Void spiritual energy it draws out in a single activation is pathetically meager—not even as good as a Second-Rank Spirit Gathering Array. You're relying on that thing to fill up your shriveled-up Golden Core?" (P.S. The Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation was originally used to draw in pure spiritual energy. Void Source Substance, or soul essence, cannot be perceived by a cultivator's divine sense at all—only a Soul Body or special talent can detect it.)

"That's the human realm." Su Ming raised his head, his gaze burning intensely as he locked eyes with Lin Yu, his speech slightly faster than usual. "Master, you said it yourself earlier—the spatial laws of the spirit realm are completely different from the human realm. This place is saturated with violent life laws, which means the spirit realm is an extremely active, even violently volatile domain."

As he spoke, Su Ming picked up a dry twig and rapidly drew two circles on the dusty ground.

"If you compare the human realm's spatial barrier to a thick iron shield, then the Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation in the human realm is like using a rusty embroidery needle to poke at that iron shield—naturally, only a tiny breeze can leak through." Su Ming jabbed the twig hard at one of the circles, poking a small hole through it.

Then, his twig moved to the second circle, which was covered in messy, crisscrossing wavy lines.

"But the spirit realm is different. The laws here are wild and exclusionary, constantly clashing and churning violently against the surrounding Void. Years upon years of this constant attrition means the spatial barrier here is absolutely much thinner than the human realm's! You could even say, the Void is much closer to us here."