507: Chapter 507 The True Seal is Stimulated

The Array Patterns on the stone wall were still glowing—thousands upon thousands of them, dense and tightly packed, covering every inch of the stone wall's surface like a burning Spider Web.

The light from those Array Patterns was a bit dimmer than before, slowly fading away, extinguishing one by one.

Lin Yu pulled his right hand out from the stone wall.

Su Ming did not know how long Master had spent inside the stone wall.

To him, from the moment Lin Yu's hand merged into the stone wall until now, probably only about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea had passed.

But Ying was curled up into a ball on his shoulder, its feathers all pressed tightly against its body, its golden eyes staring fixedly at the stone wall.

Lin Yu floated in front of the stone wall, motionless.

His soul body was... different from before.

Su Ming could not say where it was different.

The form had not changed—it was still that thin, elderly appearance, wearing grey-white Daoist robes, hair tied up, with a peaceful expression.

The degree of solidity was also about the same as before, but something had changed.

Su Ming opened his mouth, about to speak.

His chest suddenly felt warm for a moment.

Su Ming looked down.

The border guarding true seal lit up.

That square seal, which had been submerged in his Dantian, emerged from beneath the skin of his chest.

First, it was a blurry outline, and then the patterns gradually became clear.

Finally—it flew out.

Su Ming's pupils suddenly contracted.

The border guarding true seal floated out from his chest.

It hovered in front of Su Ming, at a distance of about one foot.

It rotated slowly.

The border guarding true seal was not large—it was still the same size as when he received it at Iron Wall Pass.

But as it hovered in the air right now, it looked more... heavy than ever before.

A visual sense of heaviness, as if this small square seal contained the weight of an entire mountain range.

The patterns on the surface of the seal began to flicker.

Su Ming reached out his hand, attempting to touch the border guarding true seal.

His fingers passed right through it.

"Don't move."

Lin Yu's voice came from behind him.

Su Ming withdrew his hand.

He stood frozen in place, looking at that border guarding true seal.

Then—the entire Secret Realm suddenly became quiet.

The wind stopped.

Only at this moment did Su Ming realize that there had always been wind in the Ancient Path.

A very light wind, so light that one would not normally notice it at all.

But now that it had stopped, that "sense of absence" was instead exceptionally obvious.

The fog stopped.

Those thin mists that had been slowly flowing through the forest solidified in mid-air.

They did not dissipate; they truly stopped.

The shape of every wisp of mist was frozen in its original place, like a painting.

The Array Patterns under the stone slabs also stopped.

Su Ming could feel it—those fluctuations of spiritual power that had been running ceaselessly beneath his feet since the first day he entered the Secret Realm, those "buzzing" sounds that he had grown so accustomed to that he had almost forgotten them as background noise—all stopped.

It was unbelievably quiet.

It was so quiet that Su Ming could hear the sound of blood flowing in his own blood vessels.

He could hear the faint sound of every feather cutting through the air when Ying flapped its wings to maintain its hover in mid-air.

The light of the border guarding true seal changed.

From flickering—it changed to spreading.

The first circle of light ripples spread out, like a pebble thrown into a pool of water, sending out a very gentle ripple.

The first circle of light ripples spread out and swept across the stone wall in front.

The moment the light ripples swept over the Array Patterns on the stone wall that were fading away, they suddenly brightened.

It was extremely brief—only a flash—and then they dimmed again.

But Su Ming clearly saw that, in that flash, the Array Patterns on the stone wall seemed to... tremble.

The second circle of light ripples spread out.

This circle was larger than the first.

It passed over the stone wall, swept across the stone path behind him, and swept across the nearest ancient tree by the roadside.

When the light ripples swept over the Array Patterns on the bark of the ancient tree that had been dormant for who knows how many years, they also brightened.

Then they dimmed.

But this time, Su Ming saw something even more subtle—as the Array Patterns on the bark were dimming, something was being "drawn" out from the lines.

Extremely thin and faint threads of light, as fine as silk spun by a spider, emerged from the ends of the bark's Array Patterns and floated towards the border guarding true seal along the trajectory of the light ripples.

One thread.

Two threads.

Three threads.

Very few.

So few that Su Ming almost thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

The third circle of light ripples spread out.

The fourth.

The fifth.

The light ripples were larger and traveled further with each circle.

Each time it swept over an ancient tree, the Array Patterns on the tree would brighten and dim, then spit out a few threads of extremely thin light.

Each time it swept over a stone slab, the lines beneath the slab would tremble, and threads of light would likewise be drawn out.

Those threads of light floated back along the trajectory of the ripples, thread by thread, like streams merging into a river, and finally all drifted towards the border guarding true seal hovering in front of Su Ming's chest.

The light of the border guarding true seal was brightening.

It was not a piercing brightness.

It was that kind of... substantial brightness.

Like oil being refilled in a lamp; the wick did not get bigger, but the flame became steadier and deeper.

Su Ming stood in place.

He could not speak.

It was not that he did not want to speak—it was as if his vocal cords were being gripped by something.

Not truly gripped, but his body had instinctively made the judgment that "no sound should be made at this moment."

Just like standing in front of a giant pendulum; at the moment just before it is about to strike, everyone would hold their breath.

Ying slowly descended from mid-air.

It did not land back on Su Ming's shoulder, but instead curled into the crook of his neck.

Its body curled into the smallest ball, wings tightly tucked, head buried under Su Ming's collar.

Motionless.

The light ripples were still spreading.

Su Ming did not know how far it had already spread.

He only knew that as the ripples spread outwards circle by circle, the surrounding ancient trees were dimming.

Not the color dimming.

It was the luster.

Those Array Patterns that had accumulated on the bark for hundreds, thousands of years, after being swept over again and again by the light ripples, were losing their luster.

The border guarding true seal floated towards the stone wall while spreading ripples.

It moved very slowly.

The border guarding true seal floated to the front of the stone wall.

It stopped.

Then the entire stone wall began to glow.

That light was exactly the same as the light of the border guarding true seal—the same color, the same rhythm, the same flickering like breathing.

The two beams of light flowed between the stone wall and the border guarding true seal, gradually merging into one.

Su Ming felt as if he were watching a silent conversation.

It was as if—they were originally two parts of the same thing.

Su Ming stood in place watching all of this.

The light on the stone wall and the light on the border guarding true seal intertwined, forming a scene in front of him that he could not understand at all, yet felt was exceptionally beautiful.

Those lights were not chaotic—they flowed, intersected, separated, and merged in an orderly manner, like two rivers that had been separated for a long time finally merging again.

He did not know how long this process lasted.

Perhaps a cup of tea.

Perhaps an hour.

The last circle of light ripples spread out.

Su Ming could not say how far it spread.

But he could feel—after this ripple swept by, the entire Secret Realm dimmed a little.

Su Ming felt as if the entire Secret Realm was missing something, but he did not know what was missing.