Chapter 680: The Impatient Save the Most Formation Materials

Near the First Main Root.

“Hold the entrance!”

Elder Panshi’s eyes blazed with fury. His half-petrified, burly body suddenly grew taller, and the earthy-yellow radiance of life-force around him burned like the sun. He planted both feet before the only passage leading to the main root and thrust both fists upward.

A massive basalt shield ten zhang thick formed out of thin air, attempting to block the three figures.

However, the leading Dark Current elder merely waved his white bone staff. A black crescent formed entirely from death energy cleaved the giant shield in two.

“Pfft!” Elder Panshi threw his head back and spat out a mouthful of blood. Deep, bone-revealing cracks covered his fists, and crimson blood trickled along the patterns in the rock. Yet he did not retreat even a step, holding his ground in the middle of the passage.

Su Ming seemed to have merged with the black rock, lying silently in the shadows along the underground river’s edge.

Under the blue glow of his observation micro vision, everything before him seemed to slow down.

He weighed his options rapidly.

Retreat? He could escape using the Underground River Water Escape and might survive, but if Greenwood Court fell, he would lose his refuge in the unfamiliar spirit realm, leaving him no chance of surviving the Dark Current Sect’s pursuit.

Stay? Under the pressure of the Manifestation Realm, the slightest misstep could cost him his life and cultivation.

But he still had his trump cards. The water curtains on his lifebound formation plate were ready, and his escape route through the underground river was open at any time. More importantly, he possessed information the enemy absolutely did not know: those three hidden streams of death energy were not meant to clash head-on. They were waiting for the tide of life-force to reach a weak point.

He turned his wrist, silently flipping his lifebound formation plate over in his palm.

As a trace of Ruo Shui spiritual energy flowed from his fingertip, a towering stone platform dozens of zhang from the passage suddenly gave off a subtle yet incomparably pure fluctuation, resembling the “core of the root veins.”

The fluctuation perfectly mimicked the frequency of life-force converging in the main root.

Above, among the three Dark Current elders, the one on the far right, who wielded twin blades and had the most impatient temper, suddenly brightened.

“Foolish tree, you actually left your core exposed!”

The cultivator let out a savage laugh. Without hesitation, he abandoned Elder Panshi and turned into a streak of dark purple light, changing his original sneaking route as he drove a blade fiercely into the towering stone platform.

“Crack!”

There was no sensation of the root veins breaking as expected. The seemingly indestructible stone platform was struck by an external force, and the Phantom Flow Circuit supporting it inside collapsed instantly.

The entire platform, along with dozens of zhang of earth veins around it, caved inward with a roar, forming a gigantic funnel-shaped trap. The raging turbulence of the earth veins instantly surged backward, sucking the impatient elder into its grasp.

“Damn it! It’s a trap!” The elder roared in fury and alarm, trying to pull himself free, but endless quicksand and the formation’s backlash tangled around him.

Lying on the black rock, Su Ming watched the elder struggle in the trap and said in a voice as calm as water, “The impatient save the most formation materials.”

Lin Yu coughed from inside the ring. The light of his Soul Body flickered, and he lowered his voice. “Disciple, that line of yours has quite a bit of my old style in it. Laying an ambush without batting an eye, that’s the essence of the Way of Survival.”

Shadow poked half her head out of Su Ming’s sleeve. Her purple-gold eyes were full of eager anticipation, but Su Ming mercilessly pressed her back with one finger.

But the crisis was not over.

The other two Dark Current elders noticed their companion had been trapped and paused for only a breath. The hidden needles of death energy had already found the point where the tide of life-force was ebbing, and were just about to stab viciously into the root marrow of the First Main Root.

“Master, do it!” Su Ming barked.

He reached behind him and took out six pieces of gray-brown Void Condensation Sand, scattering them into the six positions of his lifebound formation plate.

Lin Yu did not hesitate. His soul power poured down along Su Ming’s meridians, shielding his Spiritual Platform.

This time, Su Ming forcibly compressed the opening of the Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation until it was no bigger than a pinhole.

He was not drawing vast quantities of Void spiritual energy to replenish himself, nor was he seeking any golden Source Substance. All he wanted was the “invisible pressure” produced when that region of the Void was torn open.

“Vmmm!”

A faint pressure, yet one bearing the absolute authority of a higher law, quietly descended through the formation core.

The three dark blue lines of water that had been coursing along the main root were abruptly pressed down by this force, as though an invisible giant hand had pinned them firmly against the root’s surface.

The tide of life-force, which had been receding after its earlier surge, ground to a halt for half a breath.

Half a breath.

At this level of combat, that half a breath was a chasm.

The three barbs of death energy struck down hard, but landed right in the void before the tide of life-force could turn back. They pierced straight through the outer layers of rock, never touching the root marrow in the slightest.

“How is this possible?!” The leading Dark Current elder cried out in disbelief.

The point he had calculated so carefully had somehow shifted?

“Deflect it!” Lin Yu barked.

Su Ming’s hands danced like butterflies among flowers, as Ruo Shui spiritual energy surged wildly through the formation plate. After withstanding the aftershock of the death energy, the layer of water curtains formed a slanted, smooth arc.

The aftershock of the Dark Current’s death energy slid sharply across the water curtains, losing its target. It could only rush through the cracks in the earth veins like a headless fly, plunging deeper underground.

And that direction led straight to Withered Wood Cliff.

“It worked.” A trace of resolve flashed across Su Ming’s pale face.

He knew that once that remnant malice touched the edge of the seal, it would be like the sharpest needle stabbing hard into the gradually awakening seal.

After a moment of utter silence,

“Thump!”

A muffled beat, as if from the very heart of the earth, slowly emerged from the deepest part of Withered Wood Cliff.

The sound was not loud, yet it carried a strange power that pierced the soul.

Even the earth-shaking clash above between Elder Woodheart and the Lord of the Nether Abyss could not drown out this stirring, like an ancient being awakening for the first time.

Deep beneath Withered Wood Cliff, ancient roots buried under countless heavy layers of rock for thousands of years suddenly split open without warning, revealing a gigantic fissure.

Instead of the rotten death energy surging out as one might expect, a dim yet incomparably pure green radiance appeared. It flowed slowly through the gaps in the root veins like running water, giving off an ancient life-force that calmed the mind.

Among the crisscrossing roots, dozens of enormous soul cocoons shaped like willow leaves floated motionlessly.

“That’s…”

At the other end of the underground river, Elder Qingluo had just suppressed a wave of baleful energy that had tried to seep in through the waterways and hurried over.

When her gaze pierced the fissures in the earth veins and she saw what lay in the depths of Withered Wood Cliff, her usually ice-cold face instantly turned deathly pale.

The vine whip clenched in her hand went taut of its own accord. Her knuckles turned bluish-white from gripping it too hard.

“Qiming’s ancient slumber…” Elder Qingluo’s lips trembled slightly, her voice so dry it sounded as if she had swallowed a mouthful of sand.

Elder Panshi had just forced back the Dark Current elder who had tried to approach. Now he, too, noticed the disturbance at Withered Wood Cliff. He turned his head, his rocklike face full of anxiety and unease.

“Those old monsters from the Qiming Sect… they’re really still alive!” Elder Panshi clenched both fists, earthy-yellow life-force surging wildly around him.

Just then,

A fine crack suddenly appeared on the surface of the largest leaf-shaped soul cocoon, which floated at the center of the deepest part of Withered Wood Cliff.

A strand of divine sense, ancient and weary beyond measure, quietly seeped out through the crack.