Chapter 667: Backlash! The Dead-End Scheme Breaks

His vision pierced through soil and rock, extending all the way down to a depth of forty zhang beneath the ground.

There, a hair-raising scene unfolded within Su Ming's perception.

Within the pale-green earth vein network that originally represented vitality, massive streams of dark-purple light were now being forcibly injected. Those streams were like venomous meridians, inversely pumping the laws of decay and death in an endless flow into the very foundation of Greenwood Court's earth veins.

At the source of that dark-purple network, Su Ming clearly captured Elder Dry Leaf's unique spiritual energy fluctuations, laden with heavy twilight aura and mad desire.

"He's tampering with the earth vein's flow, trying to intercept the root veins' life force while Elder Woodheart sleeps." Su Ming opened his eyes, killing intent flashing and vanishing in an instant.

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Ming held the jade-green token and strode out of Qingyou Residence.

At this hour, the streets of Greenwood Court were nearly devoid of people. Occasionally, a patrol of spirit-race guards would hurry past, their expressions panicked like startled birds. The pressure of the ten-day deadline was crumbling this ancient tree city's psychological defenses.

Su Ming's expression remained unchanged, his steps steady. His blue-gray robe rippled faintly in the night wind, as if the surrounding panic had nothing to do with him.

The entire way was unobstructed. Relying on the highest-level guest official token, Su Ming arrived smoothly at the outskirts of the spiritual plant cultivation area.

This was an independent region encircled by enormous glowing vines. Ordinarily, this was the place in Greenwood Court with the densest concentration of life force, but at this moment, even a layman could detect a faint stench of rot permeating the air.

Two spirit-race guards stationed at the entrance saw Su Ming and immediately raised their wooden staves to block his path.

"Guest Official Su, Elder Dry Leaf has ordered that the cultivation area's formations are unstable and no one may enter." The guard's voice trembled slightly, clearly having received a death-order.

Su Ming wasted no words. He directly presented the jade-green token in his hand and said flatly, "By order of Elder Woodheart, a blockage has appeared in the earth veins beneath the cultivation area. I am commanded to carry out repairs immediately. If the timing is missed, can you two bear the responsibility?"

When the two guards saw the token flickering with Elder Woodheart's unique aura, they trembled from head to toe and hastily stepped aside, not daring to offer another word of obstruction.

Su Ming stepped into the cultivation area.

All was silent around him. The spiritual plants that ordinarily emitted soft radiance now mostly drooped their leaves, their vitality withered.

Su Ming walked to a massive dead tree that required three people to encircle, the very place where he had laid down monitoring formation lines a few days ago.

"Master, help me watch the surroundings. Don't let Dry Leaf notice ahead of time." Su Ming whispered in his Consciousness Sea.

"Rest assured, your teacher's divine sense has already sealed off this entire area of a hundred zhang." Lin Yu's Soul Body had long been standing at the ready.

Su Ming crouched down, placing both hands on the soil around the dead tree.

Since Elder Woodheart had said to "clean it up as much as possible," then naturally he would prepare a "grand gift" for Elder Dry Leaf.

He did not directly destroy the massive life-devouring fungal filament network underground, because doing so would instantly alert Dry Leaf. What he needed to do was use the "multi-layered virtual flow circuits" he had left on the outer defensive nodes two days prior to set up a lethal trap at this critical juncture.

The tips of Su Ming's fingers glowed with a faint blue light. His Ruo Shui spiritual energy, like countless invisible silk threads, seeped downward through the gaps in the soil.

He rapidly calculated in his mind.

Elder Dry Leaf was currently inversely injecting the laws of decay, his spiritual energy in an extremely tense and outputting state. So long as he remained in this state, if the external defensive formations suddenly "malfunctioned," causing a massive surge of pure life-force backlash to slam into his fungal filament network along the earth veins without any buffer...

It would be like forcibly shoving an iceberg into a pipe that was currently spewing fire.

Explosion and backlash would be inevitable.

Su Ming's hands shifted rapidly, inscribing one hidden rune after another beneath the soil. These runes had no offensive power. Their sole purpose was to create an instantaneous "spiritual energy vacuum" at this node, thereby guiding the distant life-force backlash to strike Elder Dry Leaf's location with pinpoint accuracy.

"These rigid spirit-race formation masters probably never dreamed that formations could be used this way." Su Ming watched the last rune disappear into the soil, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

With all preparations complete, Su Ming stood up and dusted the soil from his hands.

Everything was ready, all that was needed was the east wind.

......

The night was thick as ink. The spiritual plant cultivation area was filled with a rotting stench that made one want to retch. The light trees that originally emitted soft fluorescence now resembled gravely ill elders, their leaves yellowed and wilting.

Su Ming crouched before a massive dead tree that required three people to encircle, the hem of his blue-gray robe stained with bits of soil. His hands hovered above the ground, his fingertips faintly emanating a faint blue halo that flowed like rippling water.

"Master, how are the underground movements?" Su Ming asked softly in his Consciousness Sea, his expression calm as an ancient well, showing not the slightest tension of someone about to trigger a massive earth vein catastrophe.

Within the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu's Soul Body hovered in midair, the dark-gold lines on its surface pulsing rhythmically like breathing. His illusory eyes stared fixedly at the ground beneath Su Ming's feet as he snorted coldly, "That old tree bark Dry Leaf is pushing harder. The injection rate of decay laws is thirty percent faster than before. Seems the Lord of the Nether Abyss's ten-day ultimatum didn't just corner Woodheart, it also pushed this old thing to desperation. He wants to drain the root veins into an empty shell before Woodheart fully awakens."

Su Ming's mouth curved into a barely perceptible arc.

At this very moment, forty zhang beneath the ground.

Elder Dry Leaf's true body, a Heavenly Serenity Wood with gnarled roots and gray-black bark, was concealed within a massive cavity in the soil. His human-form avatar sat cross-legged atop the tree crown of his true body, a sickly fervor emanating from his deeply wrinkled old face.

"Soon, very soon..." Elder Dry Leaf's shriveled lips opened and closed ceaselessly, his hoarse voice echoing through the soil.

His hands were like dried bones, wildly forming one intricate hand seal after another. With each seal, dense, concentrated dark-purple decay laws, like greedy leeches, forcibly pierced along his true body's roots into Greenwood Court's vast and boundless life-force earth veins.

Dry Leaf could feel his lifespan rapidly draining away as his true body withered. That deathly fear that gnawed at his marrow every moment nearly drove him insane. Woodheart was old, and Greenwood Court, this broken ship, was destined to sink beneath the Dark Current Sect's assault. He did not want to be buried with it! The Lord of the Nether Abyss had promised him that so long as he cut off Woodheart's life-force return flow, he would receive a chance to rebuild his vitality within the murderous aura of the Abandoned Lands. That was his only hope for survival.

"Hm?" A flicker of surprise suddenly crossed Elder Dry Leaf's muddy old eyes, immediately replaced by wild joy.

He discovered that the earth vein node that originally had encountered layer upon layer of resistance and was extremely difficult to penetrate had now revealed a bizarre "defensive gap." The laws of life there seemed to have been temporarily emptied by some force, forming a perfect opening.

"Heaven truly helps me! Woodheart's control has indeed deteriorated to this extent!" Elder Dry Leaf was overjoyed, without the slightest suspicion. He directly channeled his long-accumulated, massive decay laws through that gap like a burst dam!

On the surface, Su Ming sensed the mad fluctuations transmitted from beneath the soil and slowly rose to his feet.

On his shoulder, Shadow was restlessly flapping its wings that shimmered with purple-gold light. It preened its feathers with its sharp beak, its purple-gold pupils fixed on the ground, low cheeps rising from its throat, clearly expressing extreme disgust at the revoltingly foul decay aura underground.

Su Ming raised a hand and soothingly stroked Shadow's back feathers, then said calmly in his Consciousness Sea, "Now is the time. The net has tightened; it's time to cut the rope."

With a mere thought from him.

The "multi-layered virtual flow circuits" that Su Ming had quietly buried in the outer defensive formations were, in that instant, completely activated!

That seemingly empty "spiritual energy vacuum," after enduring Elder Dry Leaf's unreserved injection of decay laws, was like a spring stretched to its absolute limit. Su Ming's Ruo Shui spiritual energy serving as the clasp was instantly withdrawn.