Liuli kept her eyes tightly shut.
Tong Lingyu had judged that Liuli might be able to influence Yin Changsheng's mastery over the Fourfold Tengshe Seal, but that was merely a conjecture. She could offer no further guidance, leaving Liuli to feel her own way forward.
In a matter of moments, Liuli circulated the Treasure-Commanding Incantation, and she truly felt a connection form between herself and the spirit treasure.
This sensation was several times clearer than it had been before she attained great mastery in the Ice Soul Divine Light!
The Ice Soul Divine Light was among the premier divine abilities of the ice Dao, and the Fourfold Tengshe Seal was a spirit treasure of the exact same nature. In the unseen depths of her consciousness, Liuli seemed to sense a flutter of delight from the treasure's own dormant spirituality.
At that moment, the physical form of the Fourfold Tengshe Seal vanished from everyone's sight.
In its place, a faint, eerie blue radiance enveloped the cavern above. In this instant, even the thirteen ice mirrors of the Luoyou Divine Restriction were completely overshadowed by the light of the Fourfold Tengshe Seal.
The eerie blue light shifted incessantly, appearing ethereal as it rose and fell. It resembled flames dancing over a sea of fire, their leaping motions brimming with a dreamlike quality. To the naked eye, it looked like a cluster of desolate, beautiful cold flames, immensely pure and intoxicatingly mesmerizing.
Yet murderous intent lurked behind this beauty.
The hissing roars of Tengshe serpents echoed from within the cold flames, rising and falling in sharp, piercing shrieks that sounded as if they came from the mouths of genuine ancient mythical beasts. Carried across countless eras, the cries pierced straight into an opponent's mind, awakening an instinctive dread in anyone who heard them.
Within the swirling layers of cold flames, colossal silhouettes surfaced from time to time—now an armored, scaly tail, now an enormous serpent head whose bronze-bell eyes gleamed with savage malice. The serpents glided through the cold flames without revealing themselves for long, disappearing back into the fiery depths after a fleeting glimpse, yet each brief glimpse only intensified the horror.
Certain legends revered the Tengshe as a fire deity. Although this was no spiritual fire—not true cold flames, but a phenomenon birthed from coldness condensed to the absolute extreme, and the serpents were merely manifested by the spirit treasure—the spectacle hardly differed from myth. The sheer might of the spirit treasure was displayed without reserve!
Under the influence of the cold flames, the entire cavern sank into extreme frigidity. The frost Qi coalesced into tangible mist, turning the cavern into a boundless sea of white. Curiously, the Luoyin Blood Pool showed no signs of freezing; instead, the blood within grew all the more vivid, and the spreading threads of blood crept outward faster and faster.
*Hiss... hiss...*
The roars grew increasingly frantic.
Qin Sang's expression turned grim. A beam of sword light leaped from his fingertips. The Jinchen Sword flew out of the Qianjun Ring, its blade flashing as it hovered above Qin Sang's head, pointing directly toward Yin Changsheng. As if sensing the oppressive aura of a spirit treasure, the blade trembled faintly, letting out ripples of sword hums.
Qin Sang stole a glance at Liuli beside him. Seeing her eyes closed in deep concentration as she channeled the Treasure-Commanding Incantation—even withdrawing her Ice Soul Divine Light—he knew she would not be able to spare any attention in the short term. He knew far too little about spirit treasures and had no baseline in mind, unsure how long Liuli would need to prepare or how much she could truly affect Yin Changsheng.
Right then, an ear-splitting hiss tore through the air, and it was clearly more than one!
Simultaneously, the cold flames converged wildly inward, revealing two thick, elongated serpent silhouettes. The two Tengshe serpents were intertwined, cold flames dancing within their vicious eyes as their killing intent locked onto Qin Sang. Bathed in cold flames and taking the flames as wings, their slender bodies whipped violently.
*Whoosh!*
A bone-chilling gale swept toward them. When it struck the stone walls of the cavern, a series of dull thuds sounded, instantly coating the rock in a shimmering sheet of frost.
In a flash, both serpents vanished into thin air.
Through the Heavenly Eye Butterfly, Qin Sang saw their spectral forms riding the fire, hurtling toward him at shocking speed. Though each serpent was smaller than the one Tong Lingyu had summoned, Qin Sang felt a crushing sense of crisis.
"Two of them!"
Qin Sang's pupils constricted, his gaze turning solemn. He had a premonition that if he tried to withstand them head-on using the Seven Po Killing Array, even if he managed to survive, Liuli would perish without a doubt.
He made a split-second decision!
Lightning flared behind Qin Sang's back as his phoenix wings unfurled wide. His arm quickly swept around Liuli's supple waist. With no leisure to register her softness, he turned into a bolt of lightning and burst forward.
The instant Qin Sang executed his Thunder Escape, the void warped, and the heads of the two Tengshe serpents lunged out, their jaws packed with fangs.
At that razor-thin margin, Liuli's eyelids trembled ever so slightly.
A flicker of confusion suddenly crossed the eyes of one serpent. Its head stiffened, and its movement lagged by half a beat. The other serpent, however, remained unaffected. Vicious and bloodthirsty, it gaped its maw wide and snapped furiously at the lightning bolt into which Qin Sang's escape light had transformed.
*Bang!*
*Crack!*
The lightning flickered between bright and dark before breaking out of the void.
A moment later, Qin Sang reappeared on the opposite side of the cavern. When his feet touched down, he stumbled slightly, nearly crashing into the rock wall. His face was pale, his eyes laced with shock as he inspected the astral shield around himself. Merely being grazed by the serpent had cracked the shield of the Ruyi Orb.
"Heh heh, not a bad movement technique..."
Yin Changsheng's mocking laughter echoed from the ice coffin. Having missed the strike, he was not angered; instead, his tone carried the sadistic pleasure of playing with his prey.
At this point, Qin Sang could finally confirm that Yin Changsheng's mind had indeed been corrupted by evil arts. A formidable figure of his caliber would never entertain such frivolous thoughts—much less make them so blatant—at the critical juncture when his long-laid scheme was on the verge of fruition.
Even so, this did not improve their present predicament.
*Whoosh!*
A sharp chill assaulted Qin Sang as he saw the two Tengshe serpents manifest out of thin air on either side of them, cutting off their retreat to the left and right. Cold gales surged violently through the cavern. The two serpents glared menacingly as waves of cold flames roiled, condensing boundless frigidity toward Qin Sang's position.
An intangible pressure bore down upon him. Knowing things were grim, Qin Sang's expression changed drastically. Just as he was about to move, one of the serpents suddenly threw its head back and let out a piercing screech, its entire body convulsing in disorientation.
*It worked!*
Delight sparked in Qin Sang's heart. Glancing down, he saw that Liuli's face was flushed and her breathing ragged. Without a second thought, he immediately fled with her in his arms.
"Courting death!"
Yin Changsheng tried to regain control, but found himself unable to shake off Liuli's interference right away. He immediately drove the other serpent to pursue them.
With Liuli's disruption, the Fourfold Tengshe Seal's power was significantly reduced, yet it remained terrifying. Meanwhile, Qin Sang noticed another issue: as time passed, the cavern's temperature continued to plummet under the spirit treasure's influence, as though the very air were freezing solid. Had Liuli not been contesting it, it would not take more than a brief moment before he was sealed in ice, severely restrained!
*Hiss... hiss...*
The serpent's hisses sounded from behind him.
With no time for detailed thought, Qin Sang silently spurred his sword incantation. The Jinchen Sword trembled and reversed in midair, unleashing a blinding arc of sword light. Simultaneously, it multiplied into tens of thousands of stars before vanishing into thin air, manifesting the Seven Po Killing Array once more.
At this moment, the illusory domain here became entirely distinct from the surroundings. The murky white frost Qi was driven back by the sword array, giving way to profound darkness as invisible sword threads swam outward, surging rapidly toward the Tengshe.
*Boom!*
The initial arc of sword light was shattered on impact. Roaring, the Tengshe charged straight into the sword array. In that instant, the power of the sword array collided thunderously with the might of the spirit treasure.
Inexhaustible sword threads wove into dense nets, slicing toward the serpent with razor sharpness and astonishing speed. Yet the Tengshe remained ferocious. Refusing to yield, it merged into the cold flames, rolling forward like an encroaching tide to obliterate net after net of sword threads. The residual shockwaves rippled outward, battering the ancient restrictions and shaking the cavern continuously.
Halting his Thunder Escape, Qin Sang stared fixedly at the center of the clash. Calming the turbulent breath in his chest, he poured everything into driving the sword array without hesitation. Under such a dreadful impact, the sword array teetered precariously, yet it did not collapse outright.
Though the Seven Po Killing Array was no match for the Fourfold Tengshe Seal, it could now put up a resistance!
Thwarted by the killing array, the serpent let out an enraged roar. It abruptly halted its advance, rearing its head high as its monstrous eyes locked onto Qin Sang with savage malice. Gaping its mouth wide, it drew all the surrounding cold flames inward toward its throat.
Seeing this, alarm bells rang loudly in Qin Sang's mind.
The serpent's actions were lightning-fast. The cold flames swiftly condensed into an enormous fireball in its maw. Then, its body dissipated with the wind, merging with the cold flames before shooting forth amidst a furious roar!
*Sizzle!*
The sphere of cold flame plowed straight into the Seven Po Killing Array. The moment the sword threads touched the flames, they melted away. To his astonishment, the cold flame forcibly bored a path through the sword array, rocketing straight toward Qin Sang. Fortunately, the sword array had not been entirely powerless; it had drained much of the cold flame's power and slowed its advance.
Without hesitation, Qin Sang pulled Liuli close and flashed away from the spot.
*Rumble!*
Frosty mist billowed in all directions. As though an earth dragon were turning over, the cavern shook violently. The ground was blasted into a deep crater blanketed in thick icicles, while the scattered cold flames gathered in the pit at visible speed, reconstructing the outline of the Tengshe.
Qin Sang reappeared a short distance away, the Jinchen Sword hovering closely beside its master. Its physical body was undamaged. Taking a deep breath, Qin Sang summoned the sword array once again, setting it in front of him on high alert.
*If Liuli can continuously tie up the spirit treasure, I truly can hold on,* Qin Sang thought.
Liuli's breathing grew increasingly labored, yet her True Essence was not depleting rapidly, making it impossible to gauge her condition directly. Her struggle with Yin Changsheng over the spirit treasure seemed to be taking place on an entirely different plane. Qin Sang simply did not know how long Liuli could hold out against an opponent two realms above her.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the Tengshe struck again. Qin Sang adroitly wielded the sword array to tangle with the serpent, weaving about the cavern.
Seeing that he could not bring Qin Sang down in short order, Yin Changsheng finally grew impatient and let out an angry grunt.
What sounded like an ordinary grunt fell upon Qin Sang's ears like a sudden clap of thunder, causing his expression to change. Faintly sensing an uncanny danger, he did not hesitate to cast his divine sense outward, forming a thick divine sense barrier before Liuli.
The instant the barrier took shape, the space in front of Liuli warped, and a transparent spike materialized out of nowhere. The fluctuations radiating from this spike were starkly different from those of Daoist arts or divine abilities—it was a pure oscillation of divine sense, arriving in the blink of an eye, formless and intangible, near-impossible to guard against.
Had Qin Sang not reacted promptly, Liuli's origin soul would have been grievously wounded on the spot.
*A divine sense attack secret technique!* A sharp gleam flashed across Qin Sang's eyes.
His divine sense far surpassed that of cultivators of the same realm, but he lacked such specialized secret techniques, preventing him from unleashing overwhelming lethality with it. Had he tried to invent one himself, lacking even a reference, it would inevitably cost him vast amounts of time and energy. As expected of a great cultivator in the late Nascent Soul stage, Yin Changsheng had virtually no weaknesses and was proficient even in divine sense secret arts.
Fortunately, Qin Sang had been on guard against this all along, keeping an eye on Liuli while directing the sword array. He knew she was the vulnerability Yin Changsheng would never overlook.
The spike was blocked by Qin Sang's divine sense barrier. Pulling Liuli close, Qin Sang leapt backward.
Oddly enough, no pain came from his divine sense. Though his divine sense was potent, such a crude defensive tactic was surely inferior to Yin Changsheng's specialized technique.
Just then, an abrupt change occurred.
A fine, transparent needle suddenly appeared at Qin Sang's glabella, flashing out of sight in an instant.
Yin Changsheng's true target had been Qin Sang all along!
Even so, had Qin Sang chosen not to protect Liuli, the spike would have seamlessly shifted from illusory to real, gravely injuring her. No matter which choice Qin Sang made, one of them was bound to suffer.
*Thud!*
Qin Sang's body swayed. A stifled groan escaped his lips as wisps of blood seeped from all seven facial apertures. His eyes turned bloodshot, and his breathing grew ragged.
This reaction was, of course, Qin Sang's deliberate feint. No matter how formidable Yin Changsheng's divine sense secret technique was, it was impossible to harm his origin soul. Through all his years of cultivation, Qin Sang had become exceedingly practiced in such deceit, an actor of exceptional caliber.
The jade Buddha must never be exposed; it might very well be their key to turning defeat into victory.
With that in mind, Qin Sang had been doing his utmost to hold on from the very beginning. Even when faced with several brushes with death, he had forcefully restrained the urge to summon his external incarnation or the Sun Sacred Tree. Yin Changsheng exerted far too much pressure, leaving him without an opening to strike back!
Throughout the battle, Qin Sang split his focus, coordinating with the Heavenly Eye Butterfly to inspect the ancient restrictions. What he desired most was naturally to escape the cavern. However, his analysis revealed that the cavern's ceiling was not only sealed by ancient restrictions, but also by the thirteen ice mirrors formed by the Luoyou Divine Restriction.
A dual barrier.
Yin Changsheng would undoubtedly do everything in his power to stop them from fleeing. Qin Sang could breach at most one layer before falling into a passive trap.
As matters stood, he could either follow Tong Lingyu's counsel and stall for as long as possible—though with Yin Changsheng's unfathomable depth, Qin Sang worried other variables might arise—or strike at the Luoyin Blood Pool or Yin Changsheng himself. Yin Changsheng's mental state was unstable; destroying the Luoyin Blood Pool and shattering his hopes of Deity Transformation would provoke crazed retaliation, making him far more dangerous, but it would also expose flaws.
Yet such an opportunity was not easy to come by. Yin Changsheng had not taken a single step away from the Luoyin Blood Pool.
Tong Lingyu and Luo Yun had already disappeared, dragged by the ice platform into the depths of the blood pool, their ultimate fate unknown.
Qin Sang noticed that despite how fierce the fighting had been, the blood within the Luoyin Blood Pool had not rippled once; some force was certainly protecting it. Yet no matter how Qin Sang searched, he could find no clear defensive spirit formation. He vaguely sensed that the aura of the Luoyin Blood Pool was directly linked to Yin Changsheng himself. If Yin Changsheng was the formation's core, matters would be exceedingly troublesome.
*Step, step, step...*
Qin Sang staggered back repeatedly.
The Jinchen Sword trembled, and a flaw opened in the sword array. Qin Sang's eyes widened in a furious glare, as though he were relying on sheer, unyielding willpower to resist the trauma to his origin soul, barely keeping the sword array from collapsing as he fought off the charging Tengshe.
Suspecting nothing, Yin Changsheng threw his head back and laughed uproariously. Having struck suddenly while Qin Sang was managing his sword array and luring him into protecting Liuli, Yin Changsheng saw no possibility that his strike could have failed.
Chapter 1494