Chapter 698: Guest Official Su, This Death Energy Is Dug In Deep!

Qingheng watched Su Ming carefully put away the jade leaf. There was neither wild delight nor impatience in his expression, and a trace of approval flickered faintly in his eyes.

The old man turned around. His gaze pierced the battered breach in the ancient sleeping hall, looking toward the vast, crisscrossing root veins outside and the ghastly purple death energy that had yet to fully dissipate on the horizon.

His figure seemed to stoop even further in that moment.

“Go,” Qingheng said quietly. “Although the Lord of the Nether Abyss has retreated, given his nature, he will never let this go. My Qiming remnant bloodline has been exposed at this critical juncture, and this place has become the eye of the storm. It is not suitable to stay here for long.”

He paused. His tone carried a hint of icy dismissal, yet also the concern of an elder. “The subsequent struggle for power within the spirit races and the fate of their people have nothing to do with a junior of the human race like you. If Greenwood Court wins, that old tree spirit Woodheart will make proper arrangements for this ancient sleeping hall and the remaining twenty-four soul cocoons. The longer you stay here, the more you will become a constraint on Woodheart and the Qiming bloodline.”

Su Ming understood the deeper meaning behind his words.

After all, he was an outsider. Before, with a great battle imminent, everyone could fight side by side. But now that the powerful enemy had temporarily withdrawn and the spirit races were reshuffling their internal interests, a human Golden Core cultivator who knew profound formations and many secrets of the Royal Court would only make the elders of every faction feel ill at ease if he continued staying in the core forbidden areas.

Leaving of his own accord and giving everyone enough room to feel secure was the wisest choice.

“This junior understands.” Su Ming bowed.

Qingheng gently closed his eyes. The green soul flame on his body visibly dimmed.

He reached into his robes, took out a green leaf imprint no bigger than a fingernail, and tossed it to Su Ming.

“Take it. This is a scattered imprint of the token I once held in the Royal Court’s outer ring. With this imprint, you can prove that you helped protect the Qiming soul cocoons. In the future, when you travel through the outskirts of Greenwood Court or want to borrow a passage to leave the spirit realm, some guards who see this imprint may spare you a great deal of unnecessary questioning.”

Su Ming accepted the green leaf imprint with both hands. It felt warm to the touch, and the ancient aura of the Royal Court faintly coursed through it.

He said no more empty words of thanks. He simply tucked the green leaf imprint safely away, then turned to face Qingheng and the thirty-six weather-beaten stone platforms and gave the elder a deep bow.

Above the ancient hall, a drop of golden tree sap that had hung suspended for a long time suddenly fell with a soft plop.

It did not strike the cold, hard stone platform. Instead, it landed precisely on Qingheng’s withered right shoulder, instantly turning into a dense surge of vitality that seeped into the old man’s desiccated body.

Su Ming did not linger. He turned and strode out of the ancient sleeping hall.

......

Once he had left the oppressive atmosphere of the ancient sleeping hall, the outside world, though still scarred by the brutal battle, filled with the fresh fragrance of grass and trees. At last, he could breathe out the stale air caught in his chest.

The entirety of Greenwood Court was now caught up in an extremely delicate flurry of activity.

After Elder Woodheart’s spear had pierced the leaden clouds of death energy overhead, the spirit realm’s distinctive pale purple sky had been revealed. But the disaster underground had only just begun.

Before the battle, the laws of deathly stillness forcibly activated by the Lord of the Nether Abyss, along with the death energy frantically poured in by the three Manifestation Realm cultivators of the Dark Current, had badly corroded nearly forty percent of the root vein network around the outskirts of Greenwood Court.

Dark purple waves of murderous aura rampaged through the earth vein channels like venomous snakes. If the death energy could not be thoroughly cleared within three days, then even if the powerful enemies had been repelled, the entire root network of the ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan would collapse completely from widespread necrosis.

Su Ming had just returned to the vicinity of the abandoned root chamber on the outskirts when he ran into Elder Genxu and Ye Qing, who were as anxious as ants on a hot pan.

Elder Woodheart’s origin power had suffered severe damage, and after the battle he had fallen into a deep silence. He had only sent down an indistinct thought, tacitly permitting Su Ming to help clear the earth veins after the battle.

“Guest Official Su!” The moment Elder Genxu saw Su Ming, his already withered face filled with anxiety. “You’re finally out! The six main root chambers in the northeast have been blocked by deathly corruption. Our spirit race formation cultivators tried to force their way through with vitality, but all that vitality was polluted by the deathly corruption and turned into poison! If this continues, we really won’t be able to save that stretch of earth veins!”

Su Ming remained calm and nodded slightly. “Elder, don’t worry. Death energy is fierce and sinister. Meeting it head-on with vitality is no different from trying to put out a fire with kindling. Take me to see.”

He did not refuse, but neither did he act as though he intended to handle everything alone.

The essence of the Way of Survival lay in concealment and drawing on others’ strength. If he revealed his heaven-defying abilities and cleared all the death energy by himself now, he might enjoy a moment of glory, but in the eyes of a mighty being, that would make him the greatest uncontrollable threat.

Half an hour later, Su Ming led Ye Qing, Elder Genxu, and seven or eight spirit race formation cultivators, their faces weary and doubtful, deep underground to the place where the death energy had accumulated, fifty zhang below the surface.

Inside the narrow root chamber, dark purple waves of murderous aura clung in viscous layers to the surface of the luminous banyan’s “blood vessels,” the root marrow. Several spirit race formation cultivators tried to use the plants’ Life Essence to envelop it, but the murderous aura instantly retaliated, forcing them to retreat with purple faces.

“Guest Official Su, this death energy is dug in deep. We can’t even probe it with our divine sense. What should we do?” one young spirit race formation cultivator asked, unable to hold back.

Su Ming stood at the edge of the cliff, observing the flow of the waves of murderous aura from above.

His fingers twitched slightly. His lifebound formation plate quietly began to operate inside his sleeve, and the Observation of the Minute displayed the complex fluid pressure differences underground in his Consciousness Sea.

“Trace the veins, divert the flow, and seal the corruption,” Su Ming said, his voice unhurried. “Divide the three tasks and assign everyone a role. Those tracing the veins should use wood-attributed sensing to determine how deeply the death energy is embedded. Those diverting the flow should work with my water channels to cut a slanted trench along the edge. Those sealing the corruption should prepare the cleansing stones and stand by at the mouth of the trench.”

Su Ming turned toward the spirit race formation cultivators and patiently began teaching them the steps of the process he had worked out.

He took on the “guiding” stage, which demanded the most spiritual energy and the greatest precision, while assigning the digging and support work, which required physical effort and manpower, to the spirit race.

This not only greatly reduced his own expenditure of spiritual energy, but also let the spirit race formation cultivators feel involved, so they would not suspect that a human was secretly coveting the secrets of their root veins.

“Listen to Guest Official Su! Follow the steps!” Elder Genxu shouted.

Once everything was ready, Su Ming stepped forward and stood at the mouth of the trench, where the waves of murderous aura were most ferocious.

He formed hand seals, and the Like Water Art surged into motion within his body.

“Whoosh!”

A film of Like Water spiritual energy, thin as a cicada’s wing yet incomparably resilient, flowed from Su Ming’s fingertips and spread over the surface of the root marrow.

“Guide!” Su Ming said softly.