547: Chapter 547 Xinghui breaks the situation

The fourth day.

The pill room was as heavy as a solidified block of lead.

Qing Yang's withered body was rooted in front of the Pill Furnace like an old tree root, his hands occasionally flicking as he precisely channeled crimson spiritual energy into the fire aperture. His Daoist robe was soaked with sweat, which had then crystallized into salt frost.

Su Ming sat cross-legged on a prayer mat, the water membrane on his body's surface already as thin as glass, and the water level of his spiritual energy lake was dropping rapidly. Ying huddled by his boot, its feathers disheveled and its golden pupils reflecting irritation.

"Master, the phase difference has grown larger." Su Ming sketched two wavy lines in his Sea of Consciousness. "On the third day, it was one-third of a half-breath; now it's one-half. The Earth Fire is breaking free from suppression."

Lin Yu's soul body flickered with light: "This old man is using the Spirit Sealing Pulse-Stabilizing Art, using Divine Sense to bridle the Earth Fire. But the Earth Fire Vein is connected to the main magma vein; human power has its limits. Once the phase difference exceeds one breath, the Pill Liquid will be torn to shreds by the two frequencies. At best, the medicinal effects will be lost; at worst, the furnace will explode, and the mountainside of Danding Peak will be leveled."

Su Ming covertly touched the great teleportation talisman bestowed by Master Xuan Heng deep within his Storage Pouch, his fingertips brushing over several broken items scavenged from the Iron Wall Pass scrap warehouse.

"I can't retreat."

The fifth day. The temperature in the pill room began to fluctuate subtly. The heat was abruptly interspersed with a bone-chilling cold, like icy needles pricking the skin.

Qing Yang's breathing became heavy, the frequency of his finger movements doubled, and the veins on his forehead bulged like gnarled tree roots.

"He can't hold it down anymore," Lin Yu sighed softly.

In the "Micro-Observation" vision, the red wavy line representing the Earth Fire's pulsation was brutally breaking through Qing Yang's Divine Sense control network, and the green wavy line representing the Pill Liquid's echo began to show faint distortions and burrs. The phase difference was steadily approaching the death threshold.

Late at night, the humming of the Pill Furnace became sharp, like countless tiny insects scratching the metal walls. Ying half-spread its wings, its feathers tensing. Su Ming reached out and stroked its back: "Don't move."

His gaze fell on the white jade rack in the corner. Out of twenty-three auxiliary materials, eighteen had already been added. Among the remaining five jade boxes, a crimson one carved with intricate Spirit-Locking Array Patterns contained Crimson Sun Root—an extreme Yang substance used in the final stage to stimulate the medicinal properties of the phoenix nirvana branch.

"If the Earth Fire pulsation becomes completely chaotic and the cold-heat balance is broken, will the suppressed extreme Yin Qi of the nine nether mysterious lotus take the opportunity to strike back?" Su Ming analyzed calmly. "There is a natural attraction between extreme cold and extreme Yang. The residual Yin Qi in the Pill Furnace might penetrate the Formation's seal and attract the extreme Yang materials outside."

Lin Yu's soul body suddenly brightened: "Medicinal resonance?"

Before he finished speaking, a faint "clack" came from the corner. The lid of the jade box containing the Crimson Sun Root abruptly popped open by a crack the width of a hair. A faint but heart-stoppingly blue cold flame seeped out silently like an eerie ghost.

The sixth day.

That wisp of blue-green cold flame had no temperature, yet it carried an extreme cold that could freeze the Soul. As it crawled down the edge of the jade box, thick black ice immediately formed on the surface of the white jade rack.

A burnt smell permeated the air—not the smell of burning wood, but the burnt scent of Law produced after pure spiritual energy was torn and distorted.

Qing Yang's eyes snapped open, his bloodshot eyes bulging.

"Medicinal resonance!" he shouted shrilly, his withered body lunging forward. "Mysterious Ice Pulse-Stabilization!"

A thick torrent of icy blue spiritual energy slammed into the fire aperture, attempting to use an extreme cold technique to suppress the chaotic Earth Fire pulsation.

"Sizzle—"

Ice blue collided with orange-red, but the Earth Fire was like an enraged Vicious Beast, swallowing the technique and surging back violently. Qing Yang spat out a mouthful of blood.

The first Fire Control Art: ineffective.

At the same time, the jade box lid was completely overturned. A fist-sized, mutated cold flame burning with a piercing blue-green light rose into the air, spreading frantically along the floor toward the Pill Furnace. Wherever it passed, the bluestone floor tiles were either burned to ash or frozen into ice shards.

One breath ago, the pill room felt like an ice cellar; the next breath, a terrifying heatwave crashed down. Extreme cold and extreme heat swept through in a frantic alternating frequency. Su Ming felt his internal organs wailing under the tearing of the temperatures. The Ruoshui Art was pushed to its limit, and the spiritual energy in his Dantian drained away like a flood. Ying screamed on the prayer mat, its feathers falling out in large patches, so Su Ming tucked it into his sleeve.

"The Pill Liquid is alternating between cold and heat too quickly; it's going to solidify!" Lin Yu cried out. "Once it solidifies, the spiritual energy will have nowhere to vent and will explode the furnace immediately!"

The color drained from Qing Yang's face as his hands rapidly switched through four different Fire Control Arts. Crimson, green, dark yellow, and ghostly blue light pillars entwined the Pill Furnace like chains, attempting to use the Five Elements' mutual restriction to rebuild balance.

However, with a brutal surge of the Earth Fire pulsation, the four techniques collapsed one after another. The flesh on Qing Yang's fingers cracked inch by inch, revealing pale bone shards. The veins on his forehead burst, and blood flowed down his cheeks.

Five Fire Control Arts: all failed.

The blue-green cold flame had already spread to the base of the Pill Furnace, only half a foot away from licking the outer wall and triggering a catastrophic explosion.

Lin Yu sighed deeply: "Prepare the great teleportation talisman. When this kind of natural pulsation goes out of control, unless a powerhouse forcibly suppresses the entire earth vein, we can only wait for death."

Su Ming did not reach for the Talisman. The ghostly light of "Micro-Observation" in his eyes was pushed to an overloaded state, and bloody tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.

"No..."

"There's another trump card. The Earth Fire is out of control because the fluctuations are violent and the frequency is chaotic; any suppression or guidance will suffer backlash. Since it can't be suppressed, find something more stable, pure, and absolutely unaffected to forcibly cut off its contact with the Pill Liquid at the bottom of the furnace!"

Su Ming's brain worked at maximum capacity. He remembered the steady and peaceful energy on the Star Gazing Cliff during the night of the full moon, and he also thought of that piece of scrap metal that had accompanied him for two years in the scrap warehouse, which he had stroked countless times.

At the final moment when Qing Yang was almost in despair and prepared to burn his Golden Core to throw himself at the Pill Furnace, Su Ming spoke calmly:

"Use starlight."

Qing Yang's bloodshot eyes glared fixedly at Su Ming, his cracked lips trembling: "What nonsense! This is thirty zhang underground in the depths of a fire vein, surrounded by tens of thousands of years of Spirit-Severing Rock! How can you draw in starlight?!"

Before he finished speaking, Su Ming withdrew his right hand from the Storage Pouch.

In his palm lay a palm-sized metal fragment covered in dark brown rust—the star-patterned steel fragment he had found in the Iron Wall Pass scrap warehouse. Countless hours of stroking and studying it over two years now became the only hope to break the deadlock.

Su Ming did not stand up. His remaining spiritual energy surged into his fingertips, precisely sketching three intricate lines on the surface of the fragment.

"Star Guiding Pattern, activate."

"Buzz—"

A clear sword-like chime rang out. The surface of the fragment erupted with a brilliant silver-white light, not dazzling, but carrying a heart-stopping absolute tranquility. The light condensed into a pillar as thick as a baby's arm, shooting straight toward the ceiling of the pill room.

That was starlight—not drawn from the sky, but the pure astral Origin that the star-patterned steel had slowly absorbed and stored in its deepest material over the long years.

The light pillar flowed upward along the tiny earth vein nodes inside the rock, refracting into a dazzling spot of light on the ceiling, then stabbed down like a sharp sword into the base of the Pill Furnace, precisely cutting into the final half-inch gap between the blue-green cold flame and the furnace wall.

A miracle happened quietly.

Starlight had no extreme cold or heat; its only characteristic was "constancy"—the absolute stability that remained unchanged through millions of years of Universe changes.

When this tiny light pillar was placed under the furnace, the emerald Pill Liquid on the verge of solidification abruptly stopped its dangerous fluctuations and resumed its slow, mysterious rotation.

The blue-green cold flame writhed frantically but, as if hitting a transparent wall, could not advance an inch.

The angry curse stuck in Qing Yang's throat was completely swallowed back. His bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at that silver-white light pillar, his withered face twitching violently.

A crazy idea that perfectly hit the mark.

Qing Yang took a deep breath and formed hand seals again. This time, he no longer tried to "suppress," but instead sent out a soft green spiritual energy, subtly guiding it along the chaotic Earth Fire pulsation.

"Go with the flow, guide the spirit back to its Origin!"

His fire control rhythm began to perfectly synchronize with the starlight's pulsation. A strange, stable balance was re-established.

However, the crisis was not yet over. The star-patterned steel was under the dual pressure of the external high temperature and the internal starlight eruption.

"Crack."

Spider Web-like cracks abruptly appeared on the edges of the fragment.

This thing was about to give out.