Chapter 686 The Nether Abyss! A Remnant Lineage of the Qiming Royal Court Lies Beneath Withered Wood Cliff!

The fire python was dragged along by the water curtains, plunging uncontrollably into a vast, vacant root chamber to the side.

That root chamber was the place where Elder Dry Leaf had tried to tamper with the earth veins earlier, and Su Ming had cleared it of its accumulated vitality. Though its main root was gone, the vast afterglow of vitality that had built up there over the past thousand years still lingered.

When the deathfire, carrying the absolute laws of decay, slammed into that ocean of vitality,

“Rumble!”

A terrifying crash that made everyone’s hearts seem to stop exploded a hundred zhang underground.

The ultimate clash between vitality and deathfire transformed into a dazzling gray-white sphere of light. The instant it expanded, the hard rock walls within dozens of zhang shattered like weathered sand, swept away in an unstoppable blast.

The raging shock wave, mixed with flying stones, formed a small underground storm that forcibly drove back the bone-staff elder’s next attack by half a step.

“You insignificant insect, you’re asking for death!”

A voice, icy to the extreme, pierced through the roar of the explosion.

The other Manifestation Realm cultivator accompanying the bone-staff elder, the Dark Current Sect’s Root Armor Elder, fixed his venomous eyes, hidden beneath his purple-black wooden armor, on the corner where the formation plate’s light flickered.

He saw through Su Ming’s trifling Golden Core cultivation, and a cruel sneer tugged at his lips.

Without gathering any power beforehand, Root Armor Elder simply raised his enormous palm, covered in densely packed poisonous spikes, and pressed it down from afar toward Su Ming, across more than a hundred zhang of open space.

Space let out a strained wail beneath that single press.

A purple-black palm print as large as a pavilion, carrying the laws of deathly stillness that sealed off every avenue of retreat, descended like a mountain. Before it even reached him, the protective water membrane around Su Ming began to crack inch by inch, and even the air he breathed was sucked into a vacuum.

Su Ming’s face turned deathly pale. He was just about to crush the last teleportation circuit on the formation plate.

“Don’t harm our clan’s guest official!”

With a sharp, ringing shout, a dark green figure burst from the smoke at the side like a flood dragon emerging from the sea.

Elder Qingluo’s figure twisted through an impossible angle in midair. The vine whip in her hand swelled against the wind, transforming into dozens of thick, thorn-covered vines that wrapped around the wrist of Root Armor Elder’s pressing hand.

The wood-element vitality in the vines ground fiercely against the death energy in Root Armor Elder’s armor, making an ear-grating hissing sound. An unnatural flush appeared on Elder Qingluo’s cool, beautiful face. She was clearly forcing herself to endure the law backlash of a Manifestation Realm cultivator.

At the same time, Elder Panshi’s iron-tower-like body crashed down in front of Su Ming.

“Rise!”

He slammed both fists heavily against the black rock. Earthen-yellow light surged into the sky. Three immensely thick basalt walls rose like city ramparts, blocking the lingering force of the purple-black palm print.

“Crack, crack…”

Spiderweb-like fissures rapidly spread across the walls’ surfaces. Clearly, they would not hold for more than a few breaths.

Both of them knew that with their Soul Nurturing stage cultivation, opposing someone at the Manifestation stage was like an insect trying to stop a chariot. All they could buy was half a breath.

“Go!” Elder Panshi roared like muffled thunder without even turning his head.

Su Ming wasted no words. Taking advantage of that half breath of cover, his body instantly transformed into a pool of deep-blue water and seeped into a crack in the earth. He fled frantically along the root network he had already identified, retreating until he reached an absolute blind spot completely enclosed by Banyan’s main root. Only then did he gather his form again.

Shadow poked her head out from his collar. Her purple-gold pupils were full of lingering fear, and she let out a very soft “cheep.”

The instant Su Ming had steadied himself, terrifying sounds that made his soul feel as if it were being torn apart came once more from above, where the thick layers of earth had blocked the sky.

“Riiip!”

It was the sound of pure laws being torn apart by force.

The thousand-year-old true body of Elder Woodheart, vast enough to blot out the sky, had not ceased its clash at a distance with the Lord of the Nether Abyss. If anything, their confrontation had grown even more intense. Vast amounts of soil mixed with golden tree sap crashed down from the ceiling. The underground space looked as if doomsday had arrived, shaking so violently that even standing became difficult.

Inside the ancient sleeping hall.

Qingheng slowly raised his emaciated hand into the air.

At his gesture, the shriveled skin of the eleven damaged elders standing behind him lit up at the same time with dazzling blue formation lines.

These formation lines were not carved onto the surface of their bodies. They were branded directly into the depths of their souls.

Eleven faint soul flames, all from the same lineage, gathered in Qingheng’s palm along the formation lines.

In the void above the ancient sleeping hall, drawn by the soul flames, a broken royal seal slowly emerged.

No one knew what material the seal was made from. Only half of its ruined body remained, its surface covered in marks left by blades and axes. Yet the instant it appeared, an ancient royal authority that commanded all trees and made all things submit swept across the entire base of Withered Wood Cliff.

The bone-staff elder’s face, already darkened by Su Ming’s escape, changed completely when he saw the broken royal seal.

The arrogance and mockery in his eyes vanished without a trace, replaced by extreme terror that rose from the depths of his soul.

“The Qiming Royal Court’s clan-protecting seal…”

Without the slightest hesitation, his skeletal fingers crushed a black jade pendant hanging on his chest.

A beam of black light, dense to the extreme, ignored the chaotic clash of laws above and shot straight toward the purple moon high in the heavens.

“Lord of the Nether Abyss, hear me!”

The bone-staff elder’s voice was as shrill as a night owl, filled with unrestrained panic. “A remnant lineage of the Qiming Royal Court lies beneath Withered Wood Cliff! Not just one person, at least a dozen old relics still survive!”

The bone-staff elder’s shrill scream still echoed beneath the ancient sleeping hall’s ceiling, and the black light of the communication talisman had only just vanished into the layers of earth.

A sudden change occurred.

Outside the ancient sleeping hall, in the rocky passage that Elder Qingluo and Elder Panshi had already cleared together, the death energy in the air grew viscous without warning. It was as if a corpse swamp from the depths of hell had flooded into the mortal world. Even a single breath made the organs feel a stinging pain, as though they were being corroded.

“Boom!”

A dull, thunderous crash.

The several-zhang-thick rock wall at the passage entrance was blasted to dust by a force of overwhelming brutality.

Amid the rain of shattered stone and black fog, a figure stepped into the depths of Withered Wood Cliff.