153: Heavenly raging flames, the secret realm crumbles.
Inside the seven-colored barrier, Ye Chen's mind was closely linked with the entire Hundred Flowers Secret Realm. He could clearly "see" the ripples in the rules caused by every punch Wu Meng threw against the barrier. That violent Tiangang Poison Fiend was like maggots on a bone, constantly eroding and wearing away the foundation of the Secret Realm. In the originally vibrant valley, the spiritual flowers were now withering, the vegetation was dying, and even the water level of the small jade-green lake was dropping as the clear water became turbid. The Secret Realm was heading toward its demise.
Meanwhile, the unconscious Su Miaojin's aura had stabilized under the nourishment of a wisp of pure Origin that Ye Chen had deliberately guided. She had even gained a blessing in disguise as her cultivation showed signs of slight improvement, though she had yet to wake up.
"I can't wait any longer," Ye Chen thought rapidly. Passive defense would only lead to the constant consumption of the Secret Realm's Origin, and ultimately, death would be inescapable. He had to actively create a variable!
He sank his mind into a deep connection with the Secret Realm's Origin. No longer merely guiding life force to heal Su Miaojin, he began attempting to mobilize the residual guardian power scattered throughout the Secret Realm that had not yet been completely contaminated by Wu Meng's Poison Art, as well as those vegetation Spiritual Veins buried deep underground that were on the verge of exhaustion.
This was an extremely delicate and dangerous process. The Secret Realm's Origin was not his own power; forcibly mobilizing it was like a child swinging a giant hammer. With the slightest carelessness, the first thing to backfire would be himself. But at this moment, he had no other choice.
"Buzz..."
Inperceptible vibrations began to emanate from all parts of the Secret Realm. The withered vines moved without wind, the remaining petals emitted a final glow, and a dull wail rose from deep underground. An oppressive and tragic aura permeated the Secret Realm.
Outside the barrier, Wu Meng gathered his full strength once more and threw a punch! The pitch-black fist qi transformed into a hideous Ghost Head with bared fangs, savagely biting into the seven-colored barrier!
"Crack!"
This time, what the barrier produced was no longer ripples, but a clear sound of shattering! A long, thin crack spread across the seven-colored light screen like a bolt of lightning!
"Haha! It's finally breaking!" A look of wild joy and cruelty appeared in Wu Meng's eyes. "Little brat, let's see where else you can hide!"
The two Elders at the Peak Ninth Level of Disha Realm behind him were also greatly invigorated. They both activated their Poison Arts, preparing to rush in the moment the barrier shattered to capture Ye Chen and seize the nine-orifice immortal lotus and the treasures.
However, just as the cracks in the barrier were spreading, and just at the moment when Wu Meng's old power had been spent and his new power had yet to be generated—
A sudden change occurred!
"Rumble—!!"
The entire Hundred Flowers Secret Realm suddenly shook violently! It didn't come from Wu Meng's attack, but from the Secret Realm itself!
At the edge of the Secret Realm, the towering mountain walls collapsed with a bang. Countless giant rocks that had been eroded by the poison fiend and had long since lost their spirituality carried mud and sand with them, pouring down like a flood toward the core area where Wu Meng and the others were! This was not a simple landslide; within the rocks and mud, the last remaining Vegetation Essence of the Secret Realm, forcibly stimulated by Ye Chen, was faintly mixed in. It formed pale green shackles filled with the will of a desperate counterattack, attempting to bind their movements!
Simultaneously, the ground beneath Wu Meng's feet suddenly split into bottomless chasms. Dark green poisonous miasma erupted from underground, but this miasma was not aimed at Ye Chen. Instead, under the guidance of some invisible force, it acted as if it had a life of its own, turning back to entwine Wu Meng and the others! This was the filth that the Secret Realm had accumulated for countless years, now being forcibly stirred and redirected by Ye Chen using his Chaos Intent!
"Bastard! You dare to manipulate the power of the Secret Realm to strike back!" Wu Meng was both shocked and furious; he hadn't expected Ye Chen to be able to go this far! This was simply an ant trying to shake a tree! Yet at this moment, he was truly caught off guard by this sudden backlash originating from the entire Secret Realm. The crumbling rocks, the entangling Vegetation Essence, and the backfiring poisonous miasma might not cause him fatal injuries, but they effectively interfered with his movements and delayed the gathering of his next attack!
Now!
Inside the seven-colored barrier, a sharp light burst from Ye Chen's eyes! He had been waiting for this exact moment when Wu Meng was briefly pinned down!
"Chaos Guixu—One Sword Severs Worlds!"
He poured all the Chaos Gang Qi he could currently mobilize, even going as far as to once again draw upon a trace of the chaos ancestral talisman's Origin, into the guixu sword! He did not attack Wu Meng; that would have been like an egg hitting a stone. His target was the crack in the barrier that Wu Meng had just punched and was now spreading!
A sword light, condensed to the extreme and so gray it seemed not to exist in the current world, silently pierced out from inside the barrier, accurately striking the source of that crack!
"Sizzle—!"
Like a red-hot iron searing into snow, the speed at which the crack spread suddenly accelerated, and its direction shifted! It was no longer a natural shattering; instead, it was guided by this sword strike to tear open a long, narrow, unstable gap in a direction away from where Su Miaojin was lying unconscious!
This sword strike was not meant to break the barrier, but to... create a directional exit! An exit leading out of the Secret Realm, or at least away from Wu Meng!
"Miaojin, wake up!"
At the same time, Ye Chen transformed his Divine Sense into a thunderclap that exploded within Su Miaojin's Sea of Consciousness!
Su Miaojin's delicate body trembled, and she suddenly opened her eyes. What met her gaze was the scene of the world collapsing, as well as Wu Meng's hideous figure in the distance. She understood what was happening in an instant.
"Go!"
Ye Chen's voice rang in her ear, brook no argument. A gentle yet powerful thrusting force enveloped her, who had not yet fully recovered, sending her toward that forcibly torn unstable gap like an arrow leaving a bowstring!
"Thinking of running? You're both staying here!"
Wu Meng finally shook off the surrounding interference and became absolutely furious at the sight! How could he allow the cooked duck to fly away? Especially that boy who possessed the Poison-Warding Treasure! He abandoned his attack on the barrier and transformed into a black streak of light, his speed reaching the extreme as he lunged toward the gap. A demonic claw covered in pitch-black scales snatched through the air toward the fleeing Su Miaojin, and even further through the gap to capture Ye Chen inside the barrier!
How terrifying was an angry strike from the Tiangang Realm? Everywhere the claw wind passed, space itself seemed to freeze. Su Miaojin felt like a fly trapped in amber, unable to move, and despair once again surfaced in her eyes.
Inside the barrier, Ye Chen's face turned pale. Most of his power had been used to control the Secret Realm's counterattack and tear open the gap. Facing this claw strike from Wu Meng across the distance, he was now unable to evade or block it!
Seeing that both were about to be captured—
A look of ruthlessness flashed in Ye Chen's eyes! He suddenly severed most of his connection with the Secret Realm's Origin and poured all his remaining power, along with a burning surge of energy from the chaos ancestral talisman, into the guixu sword. He aimed not at the gap to attack, but... slashed at the phantom Spiritual Veins that were the primary connections between the Secret Realm's Origin and the outside world!
"Sever!"
"Boom—!!!!!"
An explosion resounded as if the world were beginning anew!
Losing Ye Chen's delicate guidance and having its core Spiritual Vein connections forcibly severed, the Hundred Flowers Secret Realm, which was already on the verge of collapse, could no longer maintain stability and began a total, cataclysmic disintegration!
Space shattered like a mirror, tectonic plates shifted and overturned, and terrifying spatial turbulence raged out from the cracks! The seven-colored barrier was the first to give way, exploding with a bang! The small island in the center of the lake was instantly swallowed by a spatial rift! That mass of emerald Secret Realm Origin emitted a mournful cry as its light dimmed sharply, and along with the nine-orifice immortal lotus above it, it was swept into the violent spatial turbulence and vanished.
Self-destruction of the Secret Realm! This was Ye Chen's final and only means to stop Wu Meng and create a slim chance of survival for Su Miaojin!
"No!! My immortal lotus!!" Wu Meng let out a roar of extreme heartache. His certain-to-win claw strike was also forcibly interrupted and disrupted by the destructive energy and spatial turbulence generated by this sudden collapse of the Secret Realm!
Su Miaojin's figure, just an instant before being swallowed by a spatial rift, was swept by a chaotic air current into another unstable spatial crack that had just opened, and she vanished instantly.
And Ye Chen, who bore the brunt of it, was completely submerged by the most violent Origin explosion energy and spatial turbulence after delivering that sword strike! The Chaos Domain flickered violently, the guixu sword let out a wail, and he felt as if his Physical Body and Soul were about to be torn to shreds!
In the instant before his consciousness plunged completely into darkness, he seemed to see a faint, gentle white light that was out of place with the surrounding destruction, flashing past in the turbulence... After an unknown amount of time, the storm of destruction gradually subsided.
Where the Hundred Flowers Secret Realm once stood, there remained only a massive, void-like crater filled with spatial cracks and raging energy aftershocks. Wu Meng's face was ashen as he hovered in mid-air, his robes somewhat torn and his aura slightly disordered; he had clearly been affected by the collapse just now. The two Elders he had brought were in even worse shape, with one of them having lost an arm.
The Secret Realm was destroyed, the immortal lotus was gone, and the boy with the treasure and the remnant of the Hundred Flower Valley were both missing, their lives uncertain—most likely buried in the spatial turbulence.
"Ye! Chen!" Wu Meng squeezed these two words through his teeth, his towering killing intent causing the surrounding temperature to drop suddenly. "Even if you are dead, this seat will find your remnant Soul and torture it for a thousand years! Let's go!"
He flicked his sleeve and departed as a black rainbow, filled with rage and resentment.
This once vibrant Secret Realm was completely transformed into a dead land, leaving only the traces of destruction to tell the tale of the Soul-stirring struggle that had just occurred.
And in an infinitely distant place, in a desolate valley filled with jagged rocks and air permeated with thin Devilish Qi, a tiny spatial crack quietly appeared. Immediately afterward, a blood-covered, unconscious figure fell from it, crashing heavily onto the hard rock. It was Ye Chen.
The light of the guixu sword in his hand was dim as it stood stuck in the nearby rubble. Within his Qi Sea, the chaos ancestral talisman emitted a faint glimmer, protecting his last trace of life force.