Chapter 629: Life Essence as Clothing

In the narrow crevice between rocks, the ghostly blue Ruo Shui spiritual energy moved like countless weaving needles finer than a strand of hair, traveling slowly yet steadily across Su Ming's body.

Lin Yu's soul body floated in midair, its ghostly blue luster flickering faintly from time to time.

Su Ming clenched his teeth. Cold sweat on his forehead had already gathered into drops the size of soybeans, rolling down his pale cheeks.

"Three inches down your left shoulder, the spiritual energy line is off by half a hair!" Lin Yu suddenly barked in a lowered voice.

Su Ming's gaze sharpened. He immediately made a fine adjustment to the direction of the Ruo Shui spiritual energy.

"Humm—"

As the final spiritual energy line sealed shut, a faint layer of pale purple radiance suddenly lit up across Su Ming's body. The life essence that had been rampaging wildly outside the crevice suddenly seemed to recognize a kindred presence. It began to converge toward Su Ming's body on its own, flowing along the formation lines on his skin to form an ever-renewing external circulation.

Su Ming slowly opened his eyes and lowered his gaze to his hands.

The skin of his body now rippled with a vibrant, living luster perfectly identical to the spirit realm jungle around him. If one closed one's eyes and perceived with divine sense, he was now nothing more than an active spiritual plant growing from a crack in the rocks.

"It's done." Su Ming let out a long, turbid breath tinged with the metallic taste of blood.

Lin Yu circled around him once, his soul body's luster brightening slightly, his tone carrying a hint of barely concealed admiration: "Not bad at all. With this layer of camouflage, as long as you don't use lethal means and let your aura leak, even a Golden Core cultivator from the Dark Current Sect, standing ten zhang away, might not be able to see through your true nature."

"Then let's go out and test it."

Su Ming did not hesitate. His hands moved swiftly through hand seals, dissolving the concealment formation and soundproofing array at the entrance of the crevice.

Without the barrier of the formations, the thick, corrupt, and cloyingly sweet air of the outside world surged in instantly. Su Ming reached up, tucked Shadow against his neck, and wrapped her within the glow of the life essence coat as well. Then, he stepped out of the crevice that had sheltered him for several hours.

The sky outside still displayed a dreamlike pale purple, ribbons of aurora-like light drifting slowly overhead.

The moment Su Ming stepped out from the rocks, a luminous liquid vine less than three feet away suddenly convulsed violently. Its tendrils, covered in fine barbs, had already raised their heads like venomous snakes, ready to capture this suddenly appearing target.

Su Ming did not retreat. Instead, he stood perfectly still, the life essence coat on his body pulsing in a steady rhythm, mimicking the "breathing" frequency of the surrounding plants.

The liquid vine's tendrils hesitated in midair. They circled halfway around Su Ming, their glowing tips flickering erratically as if struggling to discern what he was. A moment later, its cruel hunting instinct was fooled by the kindred aura radiating from the life essence coat. The tendrils slowly lowered, reattaching themselves to the rock wall, no longer treating Su Ming as prey.

"Cheep..." Shadow poked half of her little black head out from Su Ming's collar, letting out an extremely soft cry of amazement from her throat.

"Looks like this 'coat' fits quite well," Su Ming said to Lin Yu in his mind.

Lin Yu let out a derisive snort: "Don't celebrate too early. Fooling these brainless low-grade plants isn't much of an accomplishment. Keep moving. Don't just stand there like an idiot."

Su Ming nodded. Locking onto the coordinates of Greenwood Court to the east, he quickened his pace.

As he pressed deeper into the Gloomlight Forest, the scenery around him grew ever more bizarre and grotesque. There were towering trees flowing with golden liquid light, mushroom houses as large as dwellings emitting intoxicating fragrance, and bizarre root tendrils slithering through the mud like serpents.

Su Ming habitually activated his observation micro state.

When his gaze pierced through the luminous exterior of these plants and saw the spiritual energy pathways flowing beneath them, his footsteps abruptly halted.

"What's wrong?" Lin Yu noticed Su Ming's abnormality.

Su Ming did not answer immediately. His line of sight followed the root system of a light tree downward, tracing it to where it intertwined with the underground mycelium of a nearby cluster of purple-spotted mushrooms. Then, that network of mycelium, like some kind of conduit, connected to a distant patch of fluorescent swamp.

"Master, look at this forest." Su Ming's voice carried a note of gravity. "These plants aren't growing naturally."

"No kidding. Every plant and tree in the spirit realm has spiritual nature. They naturally know how to seek good fortune and avoid harm," Lin Yu replied casually.

"No, what I mean is..." Su Ming crouched down, his finger pointing vaguely at several glowing veins on the ground. "The light trees are responsible for absorbing the purple aurora light from the sky, converting it into yang-attributed life essence. The mushroom houses grow in the shadow of the light trees, absorbing the impurities the trees expel, converting them into yin-attributed poisonous miasma. And the liquid vines are like the spiritual energy circuits of a formation, neutralizing these two types of life essence and delivering them to the underground water veins of the entire forest."

Su Ming raised his head, a fanatical yet reverent gleam flashing in his eyes, the mark of a true formation master: "This isn't simple ecological symbiosis. This is a formation. A massive natural energy circulation array formed by hundreds of millions of glowing plants, fungi, and water veins! Everything is a formation. So this is what it means."

Lin Yu's soul body hovered in midair, silent for a full five breaths. Then, his ghostly blue luster dimmed slightly.

"A natural grand formation..." Lin Yu's voice dropped low, as if recalling some distant memory. "This spirit realm actually turned such a method into instinct."

Su Ming was about to speak when Shadow, tucked at his neck, suddenly bristled every black feather on her body and let out an extremely piercing "cheep!"

At the same time, the ground beneath Su Ming's feet trembled violently.

"Underground!" Lin Yu barked out.

Su Ming did not even bother looking down. He kicked off the ground with both legs, his entire body blasting backward three zhang.

"Boom!"

At the very spot where he had been standing, the hard-packed earth was ripped apart in an instant. A massive creature, as large as a giant python, its body covered in hard barbs of dark brown, burst forth from the ground.

Its front end was nothing but a single gaping maw split open like an abyss, lined with rows of deathly pale wooden fangs. A nauseating wave of rancid air, mixed with a wild life law aura, slammed straight into Su Ming's face.

"Peak Foundation Establishment strength!" Lin Yu quickly delivered the assessment.

The dark brown monster's attack had missed. Its enormous body twisted violently in midair, and its fang-filled maw let out a piercing shriek. It hadn't seen through Su Ming's life essence coat, but it had sensed that this "strange plant" had invaded its territory.

It did not treat Su Ming as prey. It treated him as a rival encroaching on its domain.

"Whoosh—"

The monster's colossal body descended with devastating force, like a massive battering ram, slamming down toward Su Ming.

"Fight head-on?" Lin Yu asked within the consciousness sea.

"Did I hit my head on a door?" Su Ming's gaze was ice-cold, his footwork completely unperturbed.

In this danger-ridden spirit realm, although his Ruo Shui spiritual energy had recovered to seventy percent, every single drop had to be spent with meticulous calculation. Clashing head-on with this pain-immune, relentlessly tenacious native plant monster was the most foolish choice possible.

"Run!"

Su Ming's toes brushed the ground. He pushed the flexible body movement of the Like Water Art to its absolute limit. Instead of retreating, he moved forward, sliding along the edge of the monster's descending body. At the same time, he forced a wisp of Ruo Shui spiritual energy to the tip of his finger and flicked it precisely at one of the most sensitive barbs on the monster's flank.

The strike was light, but it enraged the creature tremendously.

The monster let out an even more savage shriek. Its massive body veered sharply, chasing after Su Ming like a shadow clinging to bone.

Su Ming controlled his speed with perfect precision, always maintaining a distance of less than one zhang from the monster, dancing on the edge of a blade.

Ten zhang. Fifteen zhang. Twenty zhang.

Ahead, a cluster of purple-spotted mushrooms, each as large as a dwelling and reeking of thick, cloying sweetness, appeared in his line of sight.

"Now!" Lin Yu shouted.

Su Ming's eyes turned cold. When he was less than three feet from the mushroom cluster, he stomped both feet hard on the ground.

He did not use any offensive technique. Instead, he used Ruo Shui spiritual energy to form an extremely slick film of spiritual energy beneath his feet. The monster's charging force came howling in like a gale. Borrowing that terrifying momentum, Su Ming's body, light as a falling leaf, twisted at an impossible ninety-degree angle in midair and slid directly past the edge of the mushroom cluster.

And the rampaging monster, in that split second, was completely incapable of redirecting its massive body.