By the time Helan Zhao returned, both Yuan Shu and Helan Ying had disappeared, leaving only the empty cavern before him.
“Shushu!”
The moment he saw the formation around the massive stone cavern that had split open inside the cave, his expression changed drastically. He tossed aside the fish in his hand and hurried forward.
The only response was the layered echo reverberating through the cavern.
……
Yuan Shu now had an additional strand of black spiritual power wrapped tightly around each wrist and ankle.
Whenever she entertained even the slightest thought of escape, the moment she moved more than three steps away from Helan Ying, the strands of spiritual power would yank her back.
They also suppressed Yuan Shu’s spiritual power. Whenever they tightened, the spiritual energy within her body became sluggish, leaving her completely unable to resist.
After struggling a few times without success, Yuan Shu gave up and allowed Helan Ying to hold her around the waist as they traveled.
Helan Ying glanced at her. Seeing that her expression was calm and that she was not putting up the fierce resistance he had expected, he was somewhat surprised.
“Those who recognize the situation are wise, Sister. You truly are an interesting woman!”
There was a hint of pleasure in Helan Ying’s voice. Combined with his naturally pleasant timbre, it sounded particularly alluring.
“Likewise. Just as you knew you couldn’t defeat me before and pretended to cooperate,” Yuan Shu retorted.
A soft laugh came from beside her ear. Helan Ying reached out and stroked Yuan Shu’s fair, delicate cheek before speaking quietly.
“Then I hope you’ll remain this sensible. It will save me the trouble of laying a hand on you. That would be unpleasant for both of us.”
With that, Helan Ying brought her down in another cavern.
“We’re here. Behave yourself and wait over there.”
He released Yuan Shu and walked toward the center of the cavern.
Yuan Shu neither agreed nor disagreed. Her gaze followed the direction he had taken, and her brows lifted slightly.
In the middle of this unfamiliar cavern was another formation of meteoric-iron chains.
It was exactly the same as the one in the cavern where she had first encountered Helan Ying!
Only, the meteoric-iron chains here had already been destroyed. They lay broken into several pieces, carelessly discarded on the ground.
Helan Ying waved his hand with practiced ease. A black hole appeared in the ground at the center of the chain formation.
When Helan Ying raised his hand and summoned it, wisps of golden energy seeped out from within and gathered entirely in his palm.
Yuan Shu had witnessed this scene once before, when she had left the underground cavern where she had been living.
After roughly fifteen minutes, Helan Ying returned. He put an arm around Yuan Shu and once again swept into the passage leading to the cavern beside them.
They had not gone far when a third chain formation came into view.
Helan Ying repeated the same process, opening the black hole beneath the formation and absorbing the golden energy inside.
If Yuan Shu’s guess was correct, this golden energy was the core of the chain formations’ power.
The newly emerged Earth Demon Sha had been unable to absorb it, which was why Helan Ying had left it behind until now, when he had recovered his strength and could absorb it piece by piece.
Yuan Shu keenly sensed that his strength had advanced yet another step.
Wind howled around them as Helan Ying held Yuan Shu by the waist and sped through the caverns.
He was moving so quickly that Yuan Shu could only reach up and wrap her arms around his neck.
Helan Ying glanced at her without saying anything and simply focused on increasing his speed.
“Hehuan, don’t you think these three formations look familiar?” Yuan Shu called out in her sea of consciousness.
Inside her sea of consciousness, the Hehuan Divine Tree twisted its branches. After pondering for a moment, it spoke.
“Shushu, now that you mention it, those chain formations just now do look familiar. They seem to be that Three-Eyed something-or-other…”
“The Three-Eyed Hidden-Spirit Formation!”
Before the Hehuan Divine Tree could finish, Yuan Shu supplied the answer.
“It’s an ancient remnant formation that uses a human, a demon, and a sha as its three eyes. It was specifically designed to conceal the fluctuations of massive spatial powers.”
“Helan Ying is the human, the Earth Demon Sha is the sha, and there was also a demon who was killed. The three of them should originally have been sealed within three separate chain formations.”
“Because the Earth Demon Sha’s power began to awaken, the formations fluctuated, giving it the opportunity to seize control of Helan Ying’s body and kill that demon.”
“And this should have happened only within the past few years.” Yuan Shu recalled that Helan Zhao had said the Heavenly Dragon Prince disappeared five years ago.
He might have accidentally fallen into these caverns beneath the Falling Immortal Sect, where the formation had drawn him in and made him one of its formation eyes.
The Earth Demon Sha had likewise awakened because of the Heavenly Dragon Prince’s arrival. After preparing for so many years, it had finally found the opportunity to emerge not long ago.
“Conceal the fluctuations of massive spatial powers? Are you saying there’s a large, unknown space within the Falling Immortal Sect?” the Hehuan Divine Tree asked in surprise.
“It’s only a guess,” Yuan Shu replied before changing the subject. “But it’s probably true!”
At that, Yuan Shu and the Hehuan Divine Tree exchanged a glance within her sea of consciousness, their eyes gradually darkening.
Could this be the true objective of Li Xie and the other demons, as well as the Mo Yi Earth Demon Sha Clan?
Were the people of the Falling Immortal Sect aware of this?
……
After recovering his strength, Helan Ying was even able to ignore the ten-day spirit-binding formation that had previously trapped Yuan Shu.
He tore through the formation’s barrier of spiritual power with ease and swept toward the depths beneath the earth with Yuan Shu in tow.
Yuan Shu saw him raise one hand and form a seal with a single hand. The instant a golden mark appeared in his palm, a wave of energy spread outward like ripples on water.
A moment later, Helan Ying seemed to have determined the location he was searching for. He gathered his strength and struck upward, breaking through the cavern ceiling.
Then he brought Yuan Shu through the opening and into the cavern above.
Only after they landed did Helan Ying release his hold on Yuan Shu. He raised his hand and sent out several streams of spiritual power.
Dark-gray spiritual energy descended onto the ground, tracing out a complicated circular formation.
Once the formation took shape, he swept into its center and sat down.
The tiny golden seal in his palm transformed into threads of golden light that sank into the formation’s patterns. In an instant, waves of ink-gold energy began to surge through the lines.
Then a familiar force of vitality was suddenly drawn down from the cavern ceiling.
Vast, powerful, dense, and brimming with life!
Yuan Shu abruptly raised her head and saw strands of patterns resembling green veins descending from above Helan Ying’s head. They formed a translucent green sphere of light that enveloped his entire body.
The familiar power made Yuan Shu’s eyes widen in shock.
This was… the subterranean spirit vein!
Above this cavern was actually the Falling Immortal Sect’s subterranean spirit vein?
Yuan Shu was horrified. Acting on instinct, she tried to leap upward, but the black strands of spiritual power wrapped around all four of her limbs suddenly tightened and violently dragged her back down.
“Ah!”
A sharp pain shot through the places where the strands were wrapped, making her grimace.
From within the sphere of green-veined light, Helan Ying’s voice drifted out faintly.
“If you don’t want to bring suffering upon yourself, stay put and stop moving around.”
Yuan Shu frowned and glanced at the black strands of spiritual power wound tightly around her wrists. She could only find a place to sit for the time being.
It was clear that Helan Ying was absorbing the spiritual power of the subterranean spirit vein, and the Spirit Devouring Formation he was using was extraordinarily overbearing.
By all rights, the subterranean spirit vein had already developed intelligence. It should never have allowed someone else to absorb its spiritual power so freely.
Yet for some unknown reason, the spirit vein did not resist. It was even actively burrowing into the Spirit Devouring Formation!
Yuan Shu watched with a frown. Suddenly, something nudged the tip of her lowered finger.
She looked down and saw a strand of spirit-vein power, condensed into a vine and glowing with a faint green light, carefully winding itself around her fingertip.
