Chapter 685: A Moment Between Life and Death

“They have reached the end of their lifespans, but they are not yet dead. In that sleep, a sliver of life still remains.” Qingheng spoke slowly, each word landing like a heavy hammer. “If you force the cocoons open today for a moment’s satisfaction, you will sever their final path of reincarnation. Are you helping the Lord of the Nether Abyss complete his slaughter?”

The red-haired elder trembled all over.

His raised arm slowly lowered, and in the end, the red glow in his palm faded away.

“Boom!”

Just as the twelve elders had finished awakening,

the thick layer of rock above them finally gave way to the corrosion. A massive section of black rock wall, dozens of zhang across, collapsed with a deafening crash.

An endless sea of dark purple death energy poured through the opening like floodwaters bursting through a dam, rushing wildly down toward the ancient sleeping hall.

Countless venomous howls mingled with the death energy, as if ten thousand wronged souls were struggling within it.

Su Ming’s gaze turned cold.

Without the slightest hesitation, he reached out with his left hand and seized the air.

The Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation, which he had set up in the corner earlier to purify Void Condensation Sand, was instantly cut off from all spiritual energy.

The Void Rift, which had been maintained at the size of a needle’s eye, was mercilessly sealed by the laws of heaven and earth the moment its spiritual energy support vanished.

A soft snap rang out.

Two scorch marks instantly appeared on the lifebound formation plate. Su Ming didn’t even glance at it. He put the plate away in his sleeve and slid like flowing water into the shadow of a thick root at the edge of the ancient sleeping hall.

Shadow crouched on Su Ming’s shoulder. Sensing the terrifying death energy descending from above, her usually smooth purple-gold feathers stood on end, one by one, and a low growl rumbled in her throat.

Qingheng raised his head. His clear eyes reflected the death energy raining down from above.

“We’ve been hiding for ten thousand years…” Qingheng’s voice was hoarse. “But today, it seems we can hide no longer.”

“Bang!”

A black meteor, wrapped in boundless death energy, slammed into the open ground before the ancient sleeping hall.

The sturdy wooden floor was instantly corroded, leaving a massive pit.

The black mist dispersed.

An elder of the Manifestation stage from the Dark Current Sect, holding a white bone staff, slowly emerged from the pit.

His body was covered in a thick layer of purple-black root armor, its surface bristling with barbs. Deadly poison dripped from every barb. With each step he took, the rock and wooden boards beneath his feet turned into pools of black water.

The bone-staff elder had been wearing a look of utter disdain, but when he saw the twelve figures inside the ancient hall, faintly glowing with azure light, his eyes beneath the root armor flew wide open, and he abruptly stopped.

“Qiming…”

The bone-staff elder’s voice turned shrill and distorted with shock. “So the rumors weren’t false! You… you’re still alive!”

He stared fixedly at Qingheng, shock in his eyes swiftly giving way to killing intent.

“Good! Excellent!” The bone-staff elder burst into unrestrained laughter. “If the Lord of the Nether Abyss learns of this place, he’ll come in person to seize your souls! This is a tremendous achievement!”

Faced with the bone-staff elder’s arrogant laughter, Qingheng’s expression remained completely unmoved.

He did not rush to show off his strength just because his opponent was merely an early-stage Manifestation scout. In Qingheng’s clear eyes, there was no concern for personal pride or humiliation, only absolute reason.

Qingheng lightly tapped the withered-wood staff in his hand against the ground.

“Form the array.”

Just two simple words, without a single unnecessary explanation.

The eleven elders who had just awakened did not hesitate for a moment upon hearing them.

Like a well-trained army, they crossed paths and instantly spread out around Qingheng, each taking a position beside one of the soul cocoons.

A faint but exceptionally resilient azure formation line lit up beneath each of them. Centered on Qingheng, the eleven lines intertwined and connected, ultimately forming a perfect circular array.

This was the strict order of the Qiming Royal Court in its former days. Though countless years of slumber had passed and their bodies were broken beyond repair, at a single command they remained a disciplined iron army.

The red-haired elder stood at the formation core in the front on the left, fury blazing in his eyes. He stared at the arrogant bone-staff elder, his teeth grinding audibly.

“Elder!” Veins bulged across the red-haired elder’s body. He practically roared his plea. “Let me go kill that foul-mouthed bastard first!”

Qingheng did not turn around. The staff in his hand remained steady.

“Chiyan.” Qingheng’s voice was calm, yet it silenced all the commotion. “With your broken body and scant remaining lifespan, you can give everything you have only three times.”

Qingheng’s gaze locked coldly onto the bone-staff elder ahead. “Don’t waste your precious first strike on two worthless scouts. Save your life for the Lord of the Nether Abyss.”

His words were like a basin of ice water. They not only extinguished Chiyan’s impulse, but also settled the hearts of every elder present.

At those words, the bone-staff elder’s face darkened at once.

“You decrepit old relic! You’re on the verge of death, yet you still dare to spout such nonsense!”

He roared and swung the white bone staff in his hand forward.

A mass of pure black deathfire gushed from the skull’s eye sockets at the top of the staff. The flames gave off not the slightest warmth, yet carried a chill cold enough to freeze the soul. They transformed into a black fire serpent and lunged straight for one of the outermost chains of vitality supporting the soul cocoons.

He was clever. Knowing that the twelve old men would be difficult to deal with once they formed their array, he planned to destroy the chains connecting the sleeping soul cocoons first, throwing them into disarray.

The mass of pure black deathfire transformed into a hideous fire serpent. Its fangs, utterly devoid of warmth, sank straight toward the outermost chain of vitality sustaining the sleeping soul cocoons.

Hidden in the shadow of the black rock, Su Ming’s pupils contracted sharply. In a thousandth of an instant, he weighed his options.

If the deathfire burned through the chain and the soul cocoon fell, a gap would inevitably appear in the ancient sleeping hall’s array. Then death energy at the Manifestation level would flood this underground area like water bursting through a dam. With his late Golden Core cultivation, not even his whole corpse would remain. That was a grave danger.

But if he could protect the chain and keep the ancient sleeping hall’s defenses intact, he could remain hidden beneath the shelter of these ten-thousand-year-old monsters and search for an opening to escape while the waters were muddied. That was a great opportunity.

As for his trump cards, his lifebound formation plate had already been wedged into a gap in the thickest banyan root beside him, while he had also planted a profoundly hidden Ruo Shui circuit in advance at the entrance to the third underground river passage.

Su Ming did not hesitate in the slightest. Like a withered leaf blown by the wind, he drifted backward, instantly retreating to the dead angle at the very edge of the ancient sleeping hall.

Deep inside the Xuantian ring, a layer of dim light abruptly shone across Lin Yu’s Soul Body. He did not speak. He simply drifted back and forth twice inside the ring, his frantic urge to bolt in his disciple’s place coming through clearly in the ripples of his soul power.

This disciple of mine, usually calculating so loudly you’d think the heavens could hear him, somehow has the nerve to provoke a Manifestation-stage monster at a moment like this, when his life is on the line! Does he think that deathfire is ordinary firewood in a mortal stove?

Su Ming’s hands drew afterimages through the air. His ten fingers plucked at the space like the strings of a zither as he used his lifebound formation plate to set up the array.

“Turn!”

A blinding blue light burst from the formation plate.

Just as the deathfire serpent’s poisonous fangs were about to bite through the chain of vitality, the previously calm rock beneath it suddenly split apart. A stream of Ruo Shui spiritual energy, compressed to the utmost, surged skyward like a waterfall flowing backward.

The stream did not meet the deathfire head-on. Instead, it scraped sharply against the serpent’s belly from a tricky angle.

The water-curtain circuit abruptly reversed. Harnessing the force of the water’s whirlpool, it changed the fire serpent’s attack trajectory at just the right moment.