The moment he saw the three figures suddenly inflate into balls, Zheng Xiu thought, ’This is bad.’

He wasn’t born yesterday.

The trio’s bizarre forms made it obvious: they were about to explode.

Spurred on by a warning from his [Intuition], Zheng Xiu frantically told Yue Yan and Dou Xie to get into the exit tunnel, fast.

Dou Xie messed up again. He’d been completely useless the entire time, and now he tripped and fell on the spot.

Yue Yan reacted in a flash. The Silver Needle hadn’t even left her lips as a silk thread shot out, forcibly dragging Dou Xie into the exit.

"Crap! I’m almost out of thread!"

With that, Yue Yan unintentionally revealed the Restriction of her Path.

She could only use as much thread as she carried with her.

Normally, she kept rolls of thread hidden close to her body.

Now, it was all gone.

Dou Xie, face to the ground and back to the sky, bounced along as he was dragged to the exit, letting out a gratifyingly pathetic scream.

Zheng Xiu ducked into the Passage. Yue Yan was in front of him, and Dou Xie was on the ground below him.

"Where’s Feng Bei?"

A chill ran through Zheng Xiu as he whipped his head around.

He saw Feng Bei standing in the narrow exit, her gaze meeting his own surprised look.

Feng Bei’s hands were bare. She raised a finger to her lips and smiled faintly. "It’s alright. Close your eyes."

At first, Zheng Xiu’s instinct was to rush forward.

His mind instantly flooded with all sorts of melodramatic clichés.

The heroine sacrificing herself for the hero, that sort of thing.

But on second thought, something felt off.

’Zheng Er is only ten. How would he know so many romance tropes?’

He looked at Feng Bei again.

Her smile wasn’t that of someone about to make a sacrifice.

Zheng Xiu stopped in his tracks. He was deaf right now, completely unable to hear a thing. He could only see Feng Bei’s lips move slightly, but he didn’t know what she said. He stared, wide-eyed, waiting to see what she would do.

Strange black markings began to spread from the center of Feng Bei’s right eye, creeping across her face, down her neck, and disappearing beneath her dark, tight-fitting clothes.

The combination of fair skin and pure black markings made Feng Bei look like a white lotus blooming in Karmic Fire, her aloofness tinged with a bewitching allure.

BOOM!

The bodies of the mangled trio exploded, unleashing a terrifying shockwave.

The turbulent wind swept Feng Bei’s long hair aside, revealing the dense, twisted markings around her right eye. They looked like a black rose, its thorns and petals imprinted upon her right cheek.

"This eye... it’s ugly, isn’t it?"

Seeing the boy hadn’t closed his eyes or answered her, Feng Bei remembered he was deaf and gave a small, helpless laugh.

Feng Bei lowered her head and stood perfectly still.

In a flash.

The gale stopped abruptly, as if blocked by an invisible barrier just outside the cave.

Her hair fell, once again concealing her right eye, the Omen, and hiding her expression.

She looked down.

Feng Bei didn’t like people seeing her right eye.

She never had.

It was an ugly Omen.

The cavern behind her collapsed with a deafening roar. Feng Bei turned, her right hand closing in a loose grip, as if grasping something. For a moment, in a daze, Zheng Xiu thought he saw a proud Valkyrie holding a blade. Yes, that was it—her hand seemed to be gripping a blade that wasn’t there.

"RUMBLE—" 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

As the mountain shook violently, the force of the trio’s self-destruction collapsed the cavern. Rocks rained down continuously on the three of them.

Zheng Xiu was initially shocked by the power of the explosion, but a moment later, he understood the real reason for the collapse.

Given the Immortal Lady’s speed and diligence in digging, she had long since hollowed out what only appeared to be solid mountain walls.

The trio’s explosion was powerful, and for the already structurally weak mountain walls, it was the final straw, triggering a total collapse.

Suddenly, Zheng Xiu felt a warmth envelop him, like being submerged in invisible, tepid water.

Feng Bei looked up. An invisible barrier was expanding outward from her.

Everything was being forced away, outside the invisible barrier.

Stunned, Zheng Xiu touched his forehead and quickly made an [inspiration] check.

He had a feeling.

If he didn’t make an [inspiration] check right now, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

[You are in a state of extreme Concentration.]

Heaven took pity on him; Zheng Xiu rolled a critical success.

In Zheng Xiu’s vision, the "Ghostly Realm" surrounding Feng Bei was even denser than the one at the Immortal Maiden Temple.

At this moment, it was as if Zheng Xiu, Yue Yan, and Dou Xie were all enveloped within Feng Bei’s Ghostly Realm.

It wasn’t until Zheng Xiu activated his [Spiritual Vision] that he could see it clearly: Feng Bei’s loosely clenched right hand was indeed gripping a phantom long saber.

Its style was somewhat similar to the Horse-Cutting Saber that Feng Nantian had wielded all those years ago.

But the Slicing Saber in Feng Bei’s hand wasn’t solid. It was like a fractured beam of black light, slightly warped and intermittent, incomplete.

Behind Feng Bei, a shadow as vast as a mountain began to rise.

Grasping the phantom Slicing Saber, Feng Bei tilted her head, one eye hidden, and slashed upward.

Zheng Xiu, Yue Yan, and Dou Xie were frozen in place, stunned.

They couldn’t see things as "clearly" as Zheng Xiu.

In their eyes,

Feng Bei had only waved her hand.

The mountain above their heads had instantly disintegrated into dust, which shot toward the heavens in a violent, stormy plume.

Around the four of them were now four sheer walls, as smooth as mirrors.

Water trickled down from crevices in the cliffs, forming little waterfalls.

With a single slash, Feng Bei had leveled the entire mountain!!

The astounded Zheng Xiu received a notification.

[You have successfully killed the Immortal Lady.]

[You know that once you leave this place, there will be no turning back.]

[No turning back.]

Lines of text formed a save prompt before Zheng Xiu’s eyes.

’Is it over?’

It wasn’t just Zheng Xiu; Yue Yan and Dou Xie were dumbfounded, too.

It was... over? Just like that?

With a single wave of her hand, Feng Bei had blocked the trio’s explosion, sliced through a mountain, and killed the Immortal Lady. The clouds had parted, and the moon was bright.

Parted clouds, bright moon?

"Not good!"

Yue Yan looked up the sheer rock face. Black currents of air were converging, twisted shadows that were part Human, part beast, all flowing toward midair to gradually form a massive vortex.

A black vortex in the black night. Though they were the same color, in the eyes of Yue Yan and Dou Xie, the distinction was shockingly clear, instantly recognizable.

[You are being polluted by the Filthy Land.]

[You are being polluted by the Filthy Land.]

The Dice appeared on its own, spinning frantically beside Zheng Xiu.

Zheng Xiu suddenly cried out in pain, clutching his eyes.

Blood was streaming from his eyes.

"Yue Yan, knock him out."

Feng Bei knew Zheng Xiu was deaf at the moment, so she calmly instructed Yue Yan, "The Magic they cast before they died deliberately destroyed the insect eggs in the cave. The Human Souls that have gathered here over the years are enough to open a Passage to the Darkness."

Yue Yan couldn’t make out Feng Bei’s expression.

But she knew that Feng Bei never joked.

"Besides," Feng Bei said calmly, "that Immortal Lady, as a Divine-Tuning Witch, performed Invoking Gods. She summoned that... thing... from the Darkness into the Common World."

’The Darkness?’

’So that’s the Darkness?’

Yue Yan was reeling with shock, but she quickly lowered her head, not daring to look again.

ZING.

At this moment, Zheng Xiu was caught between agony and ecstasy.

As he continued to stare at the Darkness, his [inspiration]’s Experience Level was skyrocketing.

But this was accompanied by repeated [Will] checks.

And because he was bravely facing the Darkness head-on, his [Will] was also gaining a massive amount of experience. His courage had even earned him a +1 to Will.

It would go up, then down. If Zheng Xiu’s mental calculations were correct, his Incarnation’s actual [Will] was constantly fluctuating around eight.

It was like he was caught in a glitch.

Teetering on the brink of Madness but never quite falling, stuck in limbo—it was a perfect description of Zheng Xiu’s current state.

In truth, the Dice rolls were inextricably linked to [Destiny].

If it were the [Zheng Shan] Incarnation standing here, his low Destiny would undoubtedly cause his [Will] to plummet, but his base [Will] was high enough that he could have withstood it.

The [Evil Child], however, was the opposite. His [Will] was not high—barely average—but he possessed the "Fortunate People’s Celestial Appearance" [Destiny]. His rolls were better than Zheng Shan’s, which was why the Evil Child’s current [Will] was just barely holding up.

He was in agony and ecstasy.

A rapidly increasing Experience Level inevitably led to a breakthrough.

[inspiration has increased, reaching the Masterful realm.]

Zheng Xiu clutched his eyes. They were in excruciating pain, and his vision was a blur.

Seeing Zheng Xiu in such agony, Yue Yan yelled, "HI-YAH!", and brought a knife-hand chop down on his neck.

"THUD!"

Young Master Zheng didn’t pass out. He just groaned.

Yue Yan pursed her lips. With a deadpan expression, she silently raised her hand and chopped the other side of his neck.

"THUD!"

Young Master Zheng’s bloodshot eyes glared at Yue Yan. "Are you crazy? What are you hitting me for?"

Yue Yan was floored.

’Are you really fucking ten years old?’

She didn’t know that the circulatory system in Zheng Xiu’s body was different from a normal person’s. The pressure point strike that worked on others was almost useless on his Incarnation.

Feng Bei no longer had time to pay them any mind.

The writhing vortex suddenly transformed into a pitch-black mirror surface, as if an invisible hand had pressed down and smoothed away all its turbulence in an instant.

The mirror surface hung in the air, absorbing all light.

Like a giant black hole.

A colossal Insect Scythe, easily a hundred meters long, pierced through the mirror surface and extended into their world.

As the way to the Darkness opened,

the agonized Zheng Xiu at their side began to act even stranger.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Zheng Xiu clutched his chest. ’It’s over,’ he thought grimly.

Drawn in by the Darkness, the Caged Sparrow felt like it was about to burst forth at any moment!

And Feng Bei was right here.

’Once the Caged Sparrow appears and possesses me, I’ll look exactly like Zheng Shan did when he charged out of the Darkness twenty years ago. There’s no way I can talk my way out of that!’

’The secret that I’m actually my own father is about to be exposed!’

Master Zheng’s mind was racing with distracting thoughts.

Yue Yan and Dou Xie were terrified as the Insect Scythe reached out.

But they had no idea that the boy beside them, clutching his chest in agony, was trapped in a completely different kind of crisis.