423: Ant

Su Han snapped his head up, looking at the pillar of light.

The pool water had been completely drained, leaving the pool bed parched.

The sticky stone walls and the grisly skeletons at the bottom of the pool had lost the moisture of the liquid. Under the blinding yet cold illumination of the light pillar, they took on a greasy, unclean texture, like a massive, festering wound exposed to the sun.

Those piles of ghastly white bones were now, as if controlled by invisible nematodes, emitting a dense, clicking sound.

They writhed, squeezed, and deformed even more frantically, as if billions of maggots were churning within the corpses.

They were not attacking; it was more like a pilgrimage. All the joints and all the hollow eye sockets were twisting and struggling, facing the figure slowly rising in the center of the light pillar.

That body, identical to Bi Yao's.

That "body" was initially like an exquisite jade carving, pale to the point of transparency, where the shadows of wriggling bone shards could be seen beneath.

But the moment Su Han's gaze focused on it, a trace of ominous blood-red began to spread beneath her ice-white skin, like clear water dripping into thick cinnabar, spreading rapidly.

Beneath the skin, countless tiny capillaries seemed to swell and fill in an instant, constructing the meridians and vessels that only a living person would have.

The long hair, dry as straw, actually regained its jet-black luster in the invisible flow of Qi, strands moving without wind, drifting softly within the pillar of light.

The pillar of light itself was also mutating.

The pure light shooting straight to the dome began to turn turbid, mixed with wisps of dark red, like fresh blood dripping into clear water.

The edges of the light were no longer stable, showing irregular ripples and distortions, as if an unbearable weight was brewing and about to erupt from within.

The "Bi Yao" pinned beneath Su Han suddenly erupted with even more terrifying struggles.

An inhuman roar rolled from the depths of her throat; the ancient will that had been temporarily suppressed regained the upper hand.

Dark red patterns roamed wildly across her snow-white skin like living creatures, no longer confined to her collarbone, but crawling all over her cheeks, neck, and the backs of the hands that gripped Su Han's arms.

Her strength was unimaginably great; she suddenly arched her waist, nearly flipping Su Han over.

"Get lost! Ant!"

She hissed, her voice overlapping the original coldness of Bi Yao with that inhuman majesty like an echo from the abyss, becoming even more eerie and terrifying.

Her fingernails—those ten fingertips that had been neatly trimmed—were now, at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning pitch-black, sharp, and hardened, like poison-quenched steel needles.

She suddenly raised her hand, no longer releasing the light of a Spell, but bringing with it a foul wind as she viciously clawed at Su Han's head!

The sharp tips even tore through the air, emitting a short, ripping sound.

Su Han was horrified, relying entirely on the instincts honed through years on the edge of life and death to suddenly tilt his head and dodge.

"Rip!"

The sharp fingernails narrowly grazed his cheekbone, tearing through skin and flesh, leaving three stinging, bloody marks.

He could feel the cold, sinister power attached to the nails seeping into the wound, and a viscous, numbing sensation spread rapidly.

He ignored the pain and used all his strength to twist her wrist back down again.

His knee pressed firmly against her waist and abdomen, his entire weight bearing down, as if suppressing a furious, ancient Vicious Beast.

Sweat mixed with the blood on his face, streaming into the corners of his eyes and blurring his vision.

But he didn't dare to blink, staring intently at the face of "Bi Yao," which was distorted by anger and the surge of power.

In the deepest part of those pupils, which were completely occupied by dark red and resembled burning lava, a faint, fragmented struggle of pain flashed by, like starlight sinking into a deep pool, vanishing in an instant.

But that was enough to prove that Bi Yao was still there!

"Pool water..."

The last fragmented cry for help from Bi Yao echoed rapidly in Su Han's mind.

"Pool water! Does it refer to the bottom of the pool? What is at the bottom of that parched pool?"

He struggled to shift his gaze back to the center of the light pillar.

Just during this short, intense struggle, a change had already occurred!

The mirror image rising from the pool bottom was slowly, ever so slowly, stepping its bare feet onto the peak of the bone pile—

Those bones that had been writhing frantically just a moment ago all froze and solidified the instant the mirror image's feet landed, as if instantly turning into the humblest foundation, willingly supporting the newborn god or demon.

(End of chapter)