135: Chapter 135 Heart Burning with Dan Fire

Liu Ruxu had appeared behind her at some point, her plain cyan dress snapping in the chaotic currents of spiritual energy. Her eyes, usually filled with a touch of languid indifference, were now as sharp as blades.

Before Qin Ruowei could even turn around, she felt a gentle yet irresistible force push her away from the main seat.

Liu Ruxu sat down. Without even glancing at the glaring alarms on the light screen, she plunged her slender, fair fingers without hesitation into the ten deep, cold auxiliary control slots on either side of the Formation Plate.

"Ssss—"

Those ports were not designed for flesh and blood.

The violent spiritual energy within the Formation Plate instantly found a vent. The sharp edges of the slots sliced into her fingertips, and blood welled out in profusion.

However, her blood did not drip down. Instead, it was drawn by a powerful suction force, rapidly spreading and flowing along the long-dimmed rune grooves on the surface of the Formation Plate.

The crimson blood, like the finest cinnabar, relit the complex runes representing the core of the Formation in an instant.

The entire Tingfeng Pavilion shook violently. The light screen of the protective mountain Formation, which had been on the verge of collapse, seemed to have been injected with a shot of adrenaline, becoming dense and thick again at a visible rate, thickening by a full three inches!

The price was that Liu Ruxu's face, usually adorned with a faint smile, was now as pale as paper.

She bit her lower lip tightly, and a trace of blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. Even more horrifying were the two thin trails of blood slowly seeping from the corners of her eyes, like tear stains of weeping blood.

This was a sign that her Divine Sense and life force were being frantically overdrawn and burned by the Formation!

"Madwoman!" Qin Ruowei cried out involuntarily. She tried to step forward to pull Liu Ruxu away, but was firmly blocked by an invisible force from the Formation.

Liu Ruxu ignored her, staring fixedly at the light screen. Her voice was hoarse but carried a resolute ferocity: "Hold on! Buy time for the Matriarch!"

Almost at the same time Liu Ruxu sacrificed her blood to the Formation, at an inconspicuous node of the Formation base on the south side of the grand array...

"Quick! Replace this 'Li Fire Stone', its spiritual essence is almost worn out!" A young girl of only sixteen or seventeen was sternly commanding several Family Cultivators.

Her name was Zhu Waner, one of Lin Chen's many grandchildren. Due to her dual Metal and Earth Spiritual Roots, she had been assigned to the Formation Hall as an apprentice.

A Cultivator had just struggled to pry open the cracked Li Fire Stone and was preparing to replace it with a new one when Zhu Waner's eyes narrowed, and she shoved him away.

"Don't touch it!"

Everyone followed her gaze and saw a nearly transparent, hair-thin poison needle deeply embedded in the bottom of the base groove where the Li Fire Stone had been placed.

Had Zhu Waner not been extremely sensitive to fluctuations in spiritual energy and detected a trace of cold aura that did not belong to the Formation, no one would have discovered this deadly trap.

It was too concealed, carrying not a hint of spiritual energy fluctuation; on a chaotic battlefield, it was simply a perfect death warrant.

Once a new Spirit Stone was placed on it, the virulent poison contained within the needle would instantly contaminate the entire node along the spiritual energy pathways, potentially triggering a chain explosion.

This was the underhanded move of Cave Master Yue Ji from Huanyue Cave!

"It's the 'Spirit-Dissolving Needle'!" Zhu Waner recognized this vicious object; it was Cave Master Yue Ji's signature Magical Artifact, capable of dissolving spiritual energy and corroding flesh and blood.

At this moment, with strong enemies attacking from the outside and a traitorous Formation Master on the inside, there was simply no time to summon an Alchemist to deal with it.

Every moment of delay would cause the breach in the Formation to widen.

Zhu Waner glanced not far away at her uncle, Lin Haoyu, who was currently with Tie Xin and Yun Shang, trapped outside the Formation and filled with anxiety.

She could not let her uncle and the clansmen outside down.

Amidst the shocked gazes of the crowd, Zhu Waner did not use any Magical Artifact. Instead, she extended her fair, tender right hand, grasped the transparent poison needle without hesitation, and yanked it out!

"Puff!"

With a soft sound, the poison needle was successfully extracted.

However, Zhu Waner's entire palm turned a bizarre, pitch-black color at a visible rate. A piercing, heart-wrenching pain caused her whole body to tremble violently, and cold sweat instantly soaked her clothes.

Yet, she didn't even have time to stifle a groan. With her left hand, she grabbed a spare Li Fire Stone, precisely embedded it into the base groove, and then used her numb, blackened hand to press the Spirit Stone firmly into place!

"Hum—"

The spiritual energy pathway was reconnected, and this precarious Formation node was forcefully held together.

After doing all this, Zhu Waner's vision went black, and she nearly collapsed to the ground, only to be held tightly by the clansmen beside her.

Just as the Lin Family was tenaciously resisting this catastrophe with their own flesh and blood, a mass of crimson clouds broke through the sky outside Black Wind Valley at an astonishing speed.

Standing atop the clouds was an old man wearing an Eight-Trigrams Alchemy Robe, with crane-like hair and a youthful face. Alchemy fire swirled around him, exuding a rich medicinal fragrance and a scorching aura.

"It is Master Yaochen of the Danxia Sect!" someone in the crowd watching from the periphery recognized the old man's identity and exclaimed.

Master Yaochen was a highly respected Alchemy Grandmaster in the Southern Region, known alongside the medical expert Sun Simiao as one of the "Twin Sages of Alchemy and Medicine." He rarely stepped into the mortal world; why would he come here?

Master Yaochen ignored the crowd's discussions. Riding his Alchemy Fire Cloud, he descended directly outside the Lin Family's grand array, his gaze immediately falling upon the patch of dead, grayish-white ground under Lin Haoyu's feet that had been corroded by the crystal.

He didn't even greet anyone. With a flicker of his figure, he appeared before Lin Haoyu, and with a flick of his finger, the black crystal that Lin Haoyu had dropped on the ground flew into his hand.

The old man brought the crystal to his nose and closed his eyes to sniff it gently. The next moment, he opened his eyes wide, a blaze of unprecedented brilliance and fury erupting within them.

"What a True Blood Temple! How dare you!"

Master Yaochen's voice was like a booming bell, resounding through the heavens: "I, in the name of an Elder of the Danxia Sect, declare here that this object contains a trace of incredibly pure... Devilish Qi of an Outer Realm Heavenly Demon!"

"What?!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire crowd was in an uproar.

An Outer Realm Heavenly Demon—that was something that only appeared in legends, the common enemy of all Cultivators!

Could the True Blood Temple actually be connected to a Heavenly Demon?

Before the crowd could recover from their shock, another figure with an immortal bearing drifted down—it was the medical expert Sun Simiao.

He had clearly arrived together with Master Yaochen.

He immediately spotted Zhu Waner, who was being supported by her clansmen with her blackened palm.

Sun Simiao stepped in front of Zhu Waner, glanced at her pitch-black palm, and without a word, took a one-inch-long silver needle from his medicine chest and gently inserted it into the "Laogong Point" in the center of her palm.

He twisted the silver needle and withdrew it after a moment.

A shocking scene unfolded: on the tip of the originally clean silver needle, a wisp of viscous, ink-like black Qi appeared, identical in origin to the black crystal in Master Yaochen's hand!

"It's the 'Spirit-Dissolving Poison' that shares the same origin as the Heavenly Demon aura!" Sun Simiao's expression also became incredibly grave.

Inside the Formation core, Su Qingyao saw everything clearly.

She knew that the Lin Family's last hope lay in this very moment!

She did not hesitate any longer.

She stood up abruptly and waved her hand. An ancient bronze Pill Furnace roared out, hovering above the light pool of the Formation core.

Inside the Pill Furnace, a mass of golden medicinal liquid was slowly rotating. The immense vitality and Soul Power contained within it were almost condensing into form—it was the "Nine-Turn Soul-Returning Pill," which had exhausted countless rare medicinal ingredients of the Lin Family and was about to be completed!

This was the supreme precious pill she had prepared for her husband, Lin Chen, capable of stabilizing the Golden Core Realm and repairing the Divine Soul.

But now, she could no longer care about that.

"With my alchemical heart, I cast a bulwark for my clan!"

Su Qingyao's cold, clear voice resounded through the Formation core space, filled with endless determination.

She raised her hand and, using all her spiritual energy, slapped her palm hard against the life-bound Pill Furnace that had followed her her entire life!

"Clang—!"

A mournful cry rang out.

The Pill Furnace shattered with a roar, and that incomparably precious golden medicinal liquid poured down into the Formation core's light pool below like a golden rainstorm!

"Boom!"

In that instant, the entire light screen of the protective mountain Formation was completely dyed with a dazzling, brilliant pale gold.

A vast, pure power containing endless vitality surged upward, and Venerable Xueli's mountain-like Divine Sense pressure was forcefully pushed back by this layer of golden light!

However, inside the Formation core, Su Qingyao was struck as if by lightning and suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

The blood was no longer crimson but a charred black, the result of the Alchemy fire backlash scorching her Divine Soul!

Her aura instantly withered to the extreme.

"Junior, you are courting death!"

Venerable Xueli in the distance clearly had not expected Su Qingyao to be so resolute. In his rage, his pressure became even more intense.

Just at this moment, Master Yaochen snorted coldly and suddenly crushed a Projection Jade Slip.

Hum—

A massive light screen suddenly unfolded above the battlefield.

The scene in the light screen was exactly the deep part of the Secret Realm that Lin Haoyu had entered previously—that massive bronze door!

The image was incredibly clear. Everyone saw dozens of Cultivators dressed in the attire of the True Blood Temple frantically arranging an array of black crystals identical to the one in Master Yaochen's hand in front of the bronze door!

They seemed to be performing some evil ritual, attempting to summon that terrifying Mo Yuan Qi from behind the door!

The evidence was irrefutable!

"So... the True Blood Temple has been plotting to release a Heavenly Demon all along!"

"They want to destroy the entire Southern Region!"

The watching Cultivators were in an uproar. Their eyes, when looking at Venerable Xueli, shifted from their previous awe to anger and fear.

"Noisy!"

Venerable Xueli was completely enraged. He no longer cared about his reputation; if he could not raze the Lin Family today, his True Blood Temple would surely become the target of public criticism!

He struck ruthlessly. A massive blood palm, condensed from monstrous blood Qi, blotted out the sky. Carrying a terrifying momentum that could crush everything, it slammed heavily onto the golden light screen of the Lin Family's grand array!

"Boom—Crack!"

Amidst the earth-shattering roar, the golden light screen, which had just been reinforced by the power of the Nine-Turn Soul-Returning Pill, was forcefully blasted with spiderweb-like cracks by this palm!

The cracks spread frantically in all directions from the center of the palm print, and it looked as though they were about to touch the core of the Formation!

Inside the Formation core, Su Qingyao's vision went black, and she lost consciousness completely.

In Tingfeng Pavilion, blood spilled from all seven orifices of Liu Ruxu, and she collapsed onto the Formation Plate.

The Lin Family was in imminent danger!

Just at the moment before the cracks were about to spread to the entire light screen and the Formation was about to collapse completely—

"Thump!"

A second, even more violent and muffled roar than the previous one came again from the deepest part of the ground beneath Black Wind Valley!

This time, it was no longer an invisible fluctuation.

Everyone present clearly felt that the ground beneath their feet, along with the incredibly hard Spirit Stones serving as the Formation bases, jumped violently along with it!