Chapter 342 - The Void Domain and the Returning Expert

Chapter 342: Chapter 342 - The Void Domain and the Returning Expert

The change was quieter than the lightning.

That made it more unsettling.

Space around Shen Youran began to move.

At first, the distortion was barely visible.

The air near her shoulders bent strangely. The stone beneath her seemed farther away than it actually was.

A moment later, the entire center of the tribulation ground twisted.

Su Bai felt pressure sweep across him.

His eyes narrowed.

The formation barriers remained in the same place, yet the distance between them seemed to stretch and contract depending on where he looked.

Shen Youran disappeared behind a fold in space for half a breath before appearing again only several steps from where she had been sitting.

She had never moved.

One of the Ancestors outside spoke quietly.

"The Void Domain Trial."

Su Bai turned his attention fully toward Shen Youran.

The second stage did not attack through lightning.

It attacked through space itself.

The region surrounding Shen Youran gradually separated from ordinary spatial stability.

Invisible forces compressed her body from one direction while pulling from another.

The pressure changed without warning.

One moment her shoulders were being forced downward.

The next, the space around her waist stretched enough to place strain directly on flesh and meridians.

The worst part was that the pressure reached deeper than the body.

Her soul and cultivation foundation were being dragged into the same distorted environment.

Shen Youran’s expression remained unchanged.

She had experienced this once before.

Her old memories immediately supplied the rhythm.

She stabilized her breathing and allowed the Heartless Sutra to circulate.

The completed method maintained its strange natural stillness while the surrounding Void tried to pull her foundation in different directions.

The first distortion passed.

The second was stronger.

A spatial fold swept across her body.

Her outline briefly appeared in three slightly different places, then the images collapsed back together.

Su Bai stared.

If the first stage taught the body to survive contact with the Void, the second forced the entire cultivator to remain coherent inside it.

Body, soul, and cultivation. All of them had to remain anchored as ordinary space lost its reliability.

Shen Youran knew exactly what she needed to do.

But that did not make it easy.

Her current foundation was nothing like the one she had used during her first Void-Shattering breakthrough.

The old instincts remained, but the pathways answering those instincts had changed completely.

The Heartless Sutra circulated faster.

Shen Youran adjusted.

A violent spatial compression descended.

Blood appeared at the corner of her lips.

Her posture did not change.

Another distortion followed.

This one pulled at her soul.

The completed Heartless Sutra responded.

The stillness inside Shen Youran expanded again.

The emotional impressions the method had begun restoring remained present, yet none interfered with her control.

For the first time, the reconstructed path was being tested under pressure far beyond anything Su Bai had simulated.

It held.

Outside the formation, Ji Ruyue watched without blinking.

Su Bai remained seated near the edge for several more breaths.

The Void pressure reaching him was weaker than what surrounded Shen Youran, but it was still enough for the Myriad-Calamity Vajra Body to react.

His bones seemed to compress.

A moment later, the pressure shifted and pulled at his flesh from another direction.

The Vajra Body recorded both.

Su Bai’s eyes brightened again.

This was almost better than the lightning.

He allowed the pressure to act on him briefly, studying the sensation while his foundation remained safely outside the true center of the Void Domain.

The adaptation deepened.

Su Bai could already feel subtle improvements in how his body responded to spatial compression and tearing.

He considered remaining longer, then his gaze moved toward Shen Youran.

She sat alone at the center of the warped space.

The Void Domain was gradually becoming denser around her.

’This stage belonged to her.’

Su Bai had already delivered what she needed.

He had tested the Void Lightning.

He had confirmed how the heavens reacted when he weakened the Null State.

His Myriad-Calamity Vajra Body had gained a completely new category of spatial adaptation.

Remaining inside simply because he could squeeze out a little more benefit was beginning to feel excessive.

Su Bai stood.

A spatial pressure wave struck him as he did.

His body trembled before stabilizing.

He smiled faintly.

’Enough.’

He moved toward the edge of the tribulation area.

Huo Yan immediately opened a passage through the formation.

Su Bai crossed it and returned to the others.

Lu Canghai looked him over from head to toe.

"You finished?"

"For now."

Lu Canghai’s eyes narrowed at those final two words.

Su Bai pretended not to notice.

One of the Ancestors studied him.

"The heavens reacted to you earlier."

Su Bai’s expression became innocent.

"The heavens seem a little too sensitive lately."

The Ancestor stared at him.

Su Bai maintained the expression.

The attention of the group returned to Shen Youran.

Inside the Void Domain, space had become increasingly unstable.

The ground beneath her could barely be seen through the distortion.

At times, Shen Youran appeared close enough to touch.

A blink later, she seemed hundreds of steps away.

Her actual body had never moved.

The Void Domain was altering the meaning of distance around her.

Shen Youran continued circulating the Heartless Sutra.

Her experience became increasingly obvious.

Whenever space compressed, she allowed her foundation to contract without losing stability.

When it stretched, she maintained the connection between body and soul rather than fighting the distortion blindly.

The younger elders watching from outside gradually understood why someone undergoing a second Void-Shattering tribulation could look so calm.

Shen Youran already knew what mistakes not to make.

An Ancestor narrowed his eyes.

"The trial is stronger than her first."

Li Xuanzong looked toward him.

"You remember it?"

"Of course."

The Ancestor’s attention remained on Shen Youran.

"Her current foundation is drawing a stronger response."

No one looked particularly surprised after hearing that.

Inside the distorted region, Shen Youran sensed the same thing.

The Void Domain continued tightening.

Her body endured. Her soul remained anchored. Her cultivation foundation held.

Gradually, something else began to happen.

She stopped merely resisting the surrounding Void.

Her spiritual perception started moving with it.

The old familiarity returned.

She remembered this stage.

The purpose of the Void Domain was never simply to survive being crushed by unstable space.

A future Void-Shattering cultivator needed to recognize the Void within those distortions and establish a relationship with it.

Shen Youran allowed her perception to follow one of the folds.

For an instant, the ordinary world seemed to thin.

Beyond it was something vast and dark.

It’s not emptiness, but space beyond familiar space.

Her perception touched it.

The Void answered.

The surrounding distortion trembled.

Outside, several senior figures straightened.

Su Bai immediately noticed.

Shen Youran was no longer being thrown around by the Void Domain in the same way.

The spatial distortions still surrounded her, but their movements were beginning to match her breathing.

The second stage was approaching completion.

Shen Youran opened her eyes.

Her gaze remained calm as the warped space around her gradually collapsed inward.

The final distortions compressed into a thin dark boundary surrounding her body.

Su Bai felt the pressure change again.

The Ancestors became serious.

Lu Canghai folded his arms.

Huo Yan stopped worrying about his formations long enough to look upward.

The Void Domain had finished testing whether Shen Youran could remain stable inside unstable space.

Now came the part that would decide whether she truly returned to her former realm.

The dark boundary around her tightened. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Shen Youran raised one hand.

The space directly before her resisted.

She pressed against it.

A thin crack appeared.

For the first time since the breakthrough began, Shen Youran’s expression sharpened.

The third stage had arrived.

She had survived the Void Lightning.

She had stabilized herself within the Void Domain.

Now she had to shatter the boundary and establish a stable connection to the Void with the cultivation foundation she had rebuilt from the beginning.

Above Radiant Sky Sect, the tribulation clouds became completely silent.

Everyone watching understood the same thing.

The most important part of Shen Youran’s second Void-Shattering breakthrough was finally beginning.