Chapter 630: The Glowlight Marsh

"BOOM!!!"

The monster's massive, fang-covered maw, carrying the terrifying power of peak Foundation Establishment, slammed hard into a house-sized Purple-Spotted Mushroom.

The mushroom's cap was torn apart in an instant.

"HISS!"

The mushroom cluster reacted like a hornet's nest that had been poked, unleashing an extremely piercing, high-frequency shriek. Beneath the caps of countless Purple-Spotted Mushrooms, dense clusters of tiny mouths split open, spraying deep purple corrosive venom like a torrential downpour, drenching the monster from head to tail.

"Hiss, hiss, hiss..."

The venom landed on the monster's dark brown hide, instantly producing thick, pungent white smoke as its hardened spikes were rapidly eaten away.

The monster writhed in agony, its fang-filled maw madly tearing at the surrounding mushrooms, ripping up large patches of mycelium by the roots. The two sides immediately plunged into the most primitive, most brutal melee imaginable.

And the instigator of this conflict, Su Ming, had long since taken his position in the shadows over thirty meters away.

"Water Concealment."

Su Ming flicked his fingers, and a layer of dark blue ripples spread across his body surface, perfectly merging with his Life Essence cloak and blending his form completely into the shadows of the surrounding light trees. He was completely unscathed, his breathing rhythm not even slightly disturbed.

"You're getting more and more skilled at this trick of killing with a borrowed blade." Lin Yu let out a complex snort from within the Consciousness Sea, watching the carnage. "If this old man had possessed your shamelessness back in the day, I wouldn't have..."

Lin Yu's voice suddenly cut off, and the glow on his soul body dimmed sharply for an instant.

"Master?" Su Ming noticed the shift in his mood.

"It's nothing. Just remembered some moldy old troubles from the past." Lin Yu quickly steadied his emotions and let out a cold snort. "Well done. Not a single drop of spiritual energy wasted. Let's go. While they're tearing each other apart, we need to get out of this area fast."

Su Ming didn't press further. He nodded and turned, continuing his stealthy advance eastward.

After that little interlude, Su Ming's vigilance was raised to the maximum. He no longer relied solely on his eyes and divine sense; instead, he kept his half-baked "formation vision" active at all times, constantly observing any anomalies in the flow of Life Essence beneath the ground.

In this manner, he continued his stealthy journey through the Gloomlight Forest for roughly another two hours.

As he pushed steadily eastward, subtle changes began to appear in the surrounding environment.

"Stop." Su Ming halted behind a light tree, his brow furrowed slightly.

He reached out and gently parted a hanging sap vine in front of him.

"What's wrong?" Lin Yu asked.

"Master, look at this cut on the vine." Su Ming pointed to an extremely clean, even mark at the vine's end. "This was severed by a sharp blade. The cut is smooth. This isn't the mark of a spirit beast's bite."

He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding light trees. "And these light trees. Earlier, at the outer edges of the Gloomlight Forest, the trees grew randomly, tangling with each other in competition for the light above. But the trees near here all follow a strange, orderly rhythm."

Su Ming closed his eyes and rapidly mapped out the distribution of the light trees in this area within his Consciousness Sea.

Lin Yu's soul body drifted out from the Xuantian ring, a glimmer of sharpness flashing through his ethereal eyes.

"It seems we're not far from the place in Qingyan's memories." Lin Yu said in a low voice. "This method of sorting out the natural laws and turning them to one's own use fits the style of those old tree spirits from the Neutralist faction among the spirit races."

"The border outpost of Greenwood Court should be right ahead."

Su Ming took a deep breath, re-checked the Life Essence cloak covering his body, and only after confirming that no trace of human aura was leaking did he quicken his pace.

Passing through that trimmed grove of light trees, the view ahead suddenly opened up.

A vast marshland, radiating a faint interwoven glow of blue and green, stretched out before Su Ming. A thin layer of mist floated across the swamp's surface, and occasionally, several enormous luminous water lilies bloomed silently upon the water.

"The Glowlight Marsh." Su Ming cross-referenced the intelligence in his mind with Qingyan's memories. "Once I cross this marsh, I'll be in the true territory of Greenwood Court."

However, just as Su Ming prepared to step into the marsh, his foot froze mid-air.

His pupils contracted sharply, his gaze locked onto a stretch of empty space several dozen zhang above the swamp ahead.

To the naked eye, there was nothing but drifting mist. But under Su Ming's "observation micro state" formation vision, the spatial laws there exhibited an extremely unsettling, subtle distortion.

Like a calm lake's surface hiding a deadly vortex beneath.

"Back."

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Ming retreated like a weightless falling leaf, gliding a full five zhang backward before quickly concealing himself in the shadow of a massive light tree.

"What's going on?" Lin Yu's soul body also sensed Su Ming's tension.

"There's a formation ahead." Su Ming's voice was lowered to the barest whisper, as if afraid of waking some slumbering demon. "It's not a natural energy cycle. It's man-made. Extremely vicious. Extremely well-hidden."

Su Ming closed his eyes and carefully extended a single thread of his divine sense, not to touch the formation, but to perceive the discontinuities in the laws of life force around that distorted space.

"Twelve hidden spatial anchor points... The laws of life force here have been forcibly reversed... The killing intent is sealed within, not a trace leaking out."

Su Ming's eyes snapped open, a flicker of shock and sudden realization passing through them.

"Master, this isn't a Neutralist defensive formation." Su Ming said. "This is the work of the Dark Current Sect!"

"One of the Dark Current Sect's murderous formations? It's built like a cracked sieve." Lin Yu commented mercilessly. "Let's go. Circle around it. Don't meddle in other people's business."

"Wait."

Su Ming suddenly raised his hand, stopping Lin Yu mid-sentence.

From the distant sky, a crisp, urgent bird call suddenly rang out.

A stream of pale golden light was skimming across the mist above the marsh at tremendous speed.

Su Ming focused his gaze. It was a spirit beast of extraordinary bearing. Its body was shaped like a crane, but its wings were formed entirely from pure condensed light, trailing long streams of radiance behind it as it flew.

"A Lightwing Crane." Lin Yu named it, his tone turning slightly grave. "That's no wild spirit beast. That's an extremely rare companion beast among the spirit races, one that only high-ranking spirit race generals can tame."

Su Ming's gaze followed the Lightwing Crane.

Its flight path was pointing directly toward that hidden distorted space!

"It hasn't detected the murderous formation." Su Ming made his assessment.

The moment Su Ming's words fell.

"BUZZ!"

The previously calm air above the marsh suddenly erupted with a blinding flash of pale purple light.

All twelve hidden anchor points in the void lit up simultaneously, and dozens of pale purple chains formed from dense murderous aura shot out like venomous snakes emerging from their dens, tearing through the space's disguise in an instant and binding the speeding Lightwing Crane from all directions!

"SCREECH!!!"

The Lightwing Crane let out a miserable cry. Those pale purple chains didn't just restrict its movements; they pierced deep into its light-formed wings like so many straws, frantically draining the laws of life force from its body.

In the blink of an eye, the glow on the Lightwing Crane dimmed. It struggled desperately, but that only accelerated the loss of its life force.

"A vicious linked life-draining formation." Lin Yu watched coldly. "That bird's done for. Within three breaths, it'll be sucked dry as a husk."