The Truth-Piercing Spirit Eye Was Scorched

Cold Xuan stepped half a pace out of the shadows, his left cheek crawling with blue-purple veins, his once handsome face now wrinkled like crumpled rice paper.

“Senior Brother Shen’s pastry is indeed sweet,” Cold Xuan said, flicking crumbs floating atop the blood with his fingertips. Those fist-sized seeds suddenly cracked open, revealing white, maggot-like roots. “A pity they’re destined to become nourishment for the corpse rot vines.”

Gao Yao’s sword tassels moved as if stirred by a breeze, though the air was still. She hurled three ice-soul nails toward the ceiling. “The formation’s eye is in the southeast corner!”

Before she finished speaking, the entire basement flipped upside down.

In the moment of weightlessness, Shen Yi grasped Gao Yao’s belt; the two barely hung onto the inverted beams above. Below them, the blood pool surged with dense vines, each barbed with jagged, human-tooth-like thorns.

Cold Xuan paced atop the floating seeds, a half-length white bone flute sliding from his sleeve. “You think a few Star Pattern Orchids can defeat me?” The tone he blew scraped against the ear like fingernails on pottery, causing the vines to instantly grow three inches longer.

Shen Yi’s jade pendant at his waist suddenly heated up; a system alert echoed inside his spiritual sea: [Warning! The Devouring Spirit Arum’s mature form is forming.]

“Keep going!” Gao Yao abruptly tore the red cord from her neck, slapping the dangling Ice Marrow Pearl into Shen Yi’s palm.

The moment the pearl touched the poisonous fog of the arum, it transformed into two fish-shaped ice blades.

Seizing the momentum, Shen Yi spun and slashed, severing a vine, but the cut end spewed ink-green sap that immediately corroded holes like a honeycomb in the fabric of his sleeve.

Cold Xuan’s laughter came with a stench of blood and wind. “Senior Sister Gao, you’re willing to sacrifice even your betrothal token?” He deliberately raised the pitch of his flute, and the three seeds suspended in the blood pool suddenly exploded, their sprouting vines weaving into a cage-like prison.

Gao Yao staggered, swinging her sword to block. The old wounds on her shoulder burst open, blood spreading like red plum blossoms on her white robes.

Shen Yi felt the spiritual energy in his dantian rupture like a punctured water balloon; his system interface flickered with garbled code.

Gritting his teeth, he stuck the last three Calm Heart talismans to the soles of his boots and, using the talismans’ lingering power, kicked toward Cold Xuan’s face.

Suddenly, a blood-colored web sprang from Cold Xuan’s sleeve, each strand embedded with writhing seeds.

“Watch out for the Devouring Spirit Gu!” Gao Yao’s warning came too late.

Shen Yi’s right hand was slashed by the edge of the web, and instantly, rice-sized black dots burrowed into the wound.

The system emitted a sharp buzzing: [Detected spiritual contamination. Planting space freeze countdown: thirty breaths.]

Taking advantage, Cold Xuan manipulated the vines to entangle Gao Yao’s ankle, pressing the bone flute to her throat. “Senior Brother Shen, care to guess which breaks first—the flute shattered by her ice spirit root, or my gu worms that devour her Golden Core?”

Shen Yi looked at the blood trickling from Gao Yao’s mouth and suddenly recalled the strange expression of the Nascent Soul judge who had pressed a brocade box into his arms during the Spirit Plant Competition awards ceremony.

The old man had whispered, “On a full moon night, water it with Yellow Springs water.” At that moment, the image of the golden-patterned jade box flashed through Shen Yi’s spiritual sea.

The cracking sound of the inverted beams grated on his nerves, and bubbles began to froth in the blood pool below.

Cold Xuan’s expression changed drastically; the previously docile vines twisted wildly, some even wrapping around his own ankles.

Seizing the chance, Shen Yi scattered the Star Pattern Orchid pollen hidden in his sleeve. The pale golden dust, when meeting the scent of blood, ignited into a faint blue flame in the air.

“You actually used... Zuyu Grass to modify the Star Pattern Orchid?” Cold Xuan’s scream mingled with the tearing sounds of the vines.

The entire basement trembled violently as a pressure surpassing the Qi Refining stage seeped from beneath. Shen Yi’s system interface blacked out completely.

A metallic taste flooded Shen Yi’s tongue, and the ghostly image of the jade box in his spiritual sea suddenly solidified.

Using the brief interval while entangled vines loosened, he bit his tongue fiercely, mixing the blood with spiritual energy and splattering it precisely onto the system backpack interface. The gilded brocade box finally popped open.

“The old fellow really left a backup plan,” Shen Yi murmured, prying open the jade box with his bloodied thumb. Inside were three crescent-shaped seeds, pulsing with azure light.

Cold Xuan’s rotting corpse vines had already wrapped around Shen Yi’s ankles. When their poisonous thorns pierced his pants, a crisp metallic clang rang out—the seven hundred jin of refined black iron accumulated in his system backpack had automatically formed greaves.

Suddenly, Gao Yao thrust the ice blades into the ground, frost spreading along the sword’s hilt into crystalline chains. “Give me three breaths!” She bit her bleeding fingertip and traced intricate runes in the air.

The moment Cold Xuan’s bone flute struck the ice wall, Shen Yi had already infused all his spiritual energy into the crescent seeds.

The freezing countdown of the planting space flashed crimson in his spiritual sea, yet Shen Yi caught the familiar scent of Zuyu Grass—the trump card he had buried in the cellar seven days ago.

The crescent seeds suddenly swelled into silver vines over ten feet tall, their starry-edged leaves sparking tiny fires as they collided with the demonic aura in the basement.

“You’re insane! The Yellow Springs Yin-Yang Vine will drain your spiritual root!” Cold Xuan’s roar trembled with fear.

Shen Yi’s Broken Delusion Spiritual Eye finally discerned the core of the writhing seeds—they all contained half of a cultivator’s Golden Core.

At that moment, Gao Yao’s ice chains wrapped three formation eyes, and the inverted basement swiftly returned to its original orientation.

Seizing the opportunity, Shen Yi smashed the Yellow Springs vine into the blood pool, which boiled as the black water faded.

The system interface flickered blue with a reboot signal. He heard a long-missed prompt: [Detected ancient spirit seed. Hidden achievement ‘Shennong Reincarnate’ triggered. Temporary unlock of Nascent Soul-level spiritual energy pool.]

Cold Xuan’s face cracked and peeled away, revealing countless gu worms writhing beneath. “You think... ah!” The silver vine suddenly bloomed twin flowers; the one on the left spewed Yellow Springs water, while the right blossomed with starlight.

The gu worms that devoured spiritual energy dissolved upon contact with water. Seizing the moment, Gao Yao hurled an ice-soul nail that pierced Cold Xuan’s scapula.

“Beware the backlash!” Shen Yi grabbed Gao Yao, rolling to the corner.

Cold Xuan’s body swelled as if filled with fireflies. As the Yellow Springs vine’s roots sank into his dantian, the basement echoed with the mournful wails of thousands of restless souls.

Covering Gao Yao’s ears, Shen Yi watched as shattered Golden Core phantoms bowed to Cold Xuan—revealing themselves as missing rogue cultivators from past Spirit Plant Competitions.

When the last trace of black mist was absorbed by the silver vine, only an empty azure robe floated above the blood pool.

Shen Yi’s system interface popped up a rainbow-colored barrage: [Cross-level kill reward: Shennong’s Medicinal Hoe (evolvable) x1; Shennong’s Herbal Scripture (fragment) x1.]

“Your hand...” Gao Yao suddenly grasped his bleeding wrist.

Only then did Shen Yi notice the gu worms remaining in the wound melting away. The system annotation changed to [Acquired Devouring Spirit Gu resistance +10].

As the girl’s ice spiritual energy coursed through her meridians, the Star Pattern Orchid in Shen Yi’s arms unexpectedly bore twin fruits.

Noisy footsteps echoed from outside. The voice of the Spirit Plant Master carried spiritual pressure: “Young friends inside, do you require my assistance to clean up?”

Shen Yi hurriedly withdrew the Yellow Springs vine into the jade box. As the elder pushed open the door, Shen Yi stumbled, leaning on Gao Yao’s shoulder. “Senior, we might need ten jin of Tianshan Snow Lotus for medical expenses...”

Three days later, the colorful ribbons left on the award stage still fluttered in the breeze.

Shen Yi toyed with the newly obtained medicinal hoe, stealing a glance at Gao Yao weaving a flower crown for Ya’er.

The little girl suddenly shouted, holding up a candied hawthorn skewer, “Big Brother Shen, the clouds are bleeding!”

At that instant, as Shen Yi looked up, the sunset suddenly tore open as if rent by some force.

Within the rolling black clouds, scales and claws flickered faintly. The Yellow Springs vine seed in his arms began to glow hot.

Gao Yao’s Ice Marrow Pearl hovered on its own midair, and all cultivators’ life instruments in attendance started humming.

“It’s going to change...” The Spirit Plant Master pressed a packet of seeds into Shen Yi’s hand. “This Thunderstrike Wood—remember to plant it in the southeast corner.” As the elder turned away, Shen Yi clearly saw a half purple curse mark on the back of his neck—exactly matching the totem of the rotting corpse vines controlled by Cold Xuan.

At the moment lanterns lit one by one in the night market, a drop of viscous ink-colored rain struck Shen Yi’s hand. The corroding white smoke that rose traced a blurred ghostly face.