Diqiu Jian fell to his knee as every single one of his cauldrons dimmed! To say nothing of his normal cores, even his star cores were a flickering mess!

Shu!

Without warning, a shadow of a figure that no one expected shot past everyone heading towards Diqiu Jian!

****

Diqiu Jian was in no position to resist anyone’s attacks at the moment. He was so scared of the somatic essence he sensed in the boy’s body that he executed an attack that left him in a powerless state.

No one could cultivate both somatic essence and spiritual qi. That was an unbreakable rule of the world. There has been no shortage of people who tried to cultivate their body to a level where they thought it strong enough to handle the strain, only to end up as Nuclear Gandhi’s pinnacle design when they tried to cultivate spiritual qi.

Yet, here he was, facing off against a child who couldn’t be more than eleven years old, who somehow managed to manhandle this indisputable rule and make it his bi…

His first thought upon figuring out that things involving this child were far from simple was to flee from here and advise his clan accordingly. However, when he thought about it, it was risky to leave him here.

After all, Long Di could up and disappear and that would leave a potential danger for his clan. So he had to eliminate this future threat!

This was what led him to launch such a reckless attack. It might be draining, but it was virtually guaranteed that Long Di would be killed. Sure, he would be powerless after, but the only others present were a bunch of children who, at best, were in the Cauldron Forging realm. Such basic disciples wouldn’t be able to kill him.

It’s not like they had divine abilities at their disposal, right?

-_-

But what could he say now!?

The figure appeared before him with an icy expression. The veil she wore billowed in the wind, further bolstering her features of an ethereal fairy.

“Shen Ling!”

Feng Yu and the others shouted in shock when they realized who it was that made a move!

That’s right, it was Shen Ling charged over to face Diqiu Jian. The Nitu demon stared at her face, which displayed a peerless beauty. Her black eyes each held a dot of light.

When she started to cultivate the Abyss Scripture, all the shallow enlightenments that she gained in the past were wiped away. This was why the number of ‘stars’ that were in her eyes was reduced to such an abysmal number.

As a matter of fact, that single ‘star’ she held represented the enlightenment she gained from Long Di after he offhandedly commented that to accompany him, she needs to look at the obvious tropes that are quite literally staring at her in the face and just bring it up.

Of course, she didn’t take it the same way that Long Di mentioned it. In her head, he was telling her that she needed to peer at the world and its obvious nature from the point of view of a transcendent. After that, by some weird stroke of madness, this level of enlightenment was something that even the Abyss Scripture considered worthy of her to retain after it reset her abyssal nature.

Diqiu Jian felt this as he stared at her, despite her beauty, she felt… empty. As if she was a deep pit from which he could never escape should he fall into her.

As he realized this, his eyes widened in shock, “Y-You’re an A-”

A soft voice devoid of emotion echoed out, cutting him off, “Abyss Scripture, first verse, Peer into the abyss.”

D-D-Dum!!

Her cauldrons erupted into being without warning. They were pitch black, a slight reminder of what Long Di used to possess before his cauldrons transformed. The difference being that Long Di’s black cauldrons gave off a feeling of immovability, as if they could prop up the heavens if need be. They were both heavy and unshakeable.

However, Shen Ling’s cauldrons sported a blackness of a different kind. It was deep and unfathomable. The rays of the sun that shone on them highlighted none of their features. Any and all light that came into contact with them was immediately swallowed up, encapsulating them in an air of mystery even though they were present before everyone.

Both of her eyes turned into pools of inky black as the dot of light in each of her eyes dimmed into nothingness.

The Nitu demon knelt there transfixed, his own eyes mirrored hers as they became inky black as well.

They both stayed there, unmoving and silent as if they were at peace with the world.

No one said anything, no one did anything. They were all too mesmerized by the scene before them.

“Ah…”

A gasp came from the Nitu demon, breaking the eerie tranquility that descended on the plains.

His expression changed into one of fear. He was afraid of what he saw, of what he couldn’t see.

Shen Ling, on the other hand, appeared at peace. She was as carefree as could be as a gentle smile could be seen on her peerless face. The veil still masked much of her features from everyone, but her beauty was beyond that at the moment.

Shing!

A flash of light came and went before a head flew into the air!

It was Shen Ling holding a sword that she appropriated without anyone knowing.

“I-Isn’t that m-my…” Feng Yu mumbled a bit before her words trailed into silence.

Thud!

The headless body of the Nitu demon fell to the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust. The sound shook everyone from their stupor as they looked at Shen Ling with a touch of fear. Feng Yu, Tie Lang, and Jia Yan were much better off as they saw something similar during their altercation with the bandits.

Shen Ling, however, didn’t pay attention to this. She bent down in an urbane manner as she relieved the Nitu demon of his storage ring. She somehow made robbing a corpse look like the most elegant act that one would feel honored to find themselves doing.

She then turned to look at Long Di, who had seen much better days. Her cauldrons quietly receded as her eyes changed back to normal.

Long Di’s consciousness was long on the edge. Though it wasn’t completed, the Terra Seize that was cast on him was successful in draining away a portion of his existence. As a result, he was exhausted in a way that he never thought he could feel.

After seeing that Shen Ling was fine, his guard slightly relaxed, and this robbed him of his consciousness completely.

Yet he didn’t find the ground. Instead, his head landed on two soft marshmallows. An act that brought a blush on the face of the one who held him.

Who else could it be but Shen Ling? She stared at Long Di’s sleeping face in her arms and with a strange gaze. The single dot of light that reappeared in her eyes was twinkling without end as she did this.

As if to give her respect for some unknown reason, everyone remained silent and stared at the duo.

At the moment, Shen Ling was using one of the divine abilities of the Abyss Ghost race, the Auspice Gaze. This was the ability that allowed her to vaguely predict the future.

Before when she used this ability, she was only able to use a fraction of its true potential. All she was able to see was what she described as clouds of negative or positive energy that hung over different people or places.

However, after cultivating the Abyss Scripture, her abilities took a giant leap forward. As if the fog that blocked her from knowing who she truly was, was slowly being dispersed.

The fog or mist of energy that everyone had around grew thinner, appearing like cloud-like snakes, and there seemed to be different colors. She had no idea what these colors meant exactly, but she knew the feeling she got from them.

At the moment, the trail of energy she saw twirling around Long Di was a pale yellow. Her feeling of this color was not so bad, so she sighed in relief.

There was a secret that she now knew about Long Di that she feared to tell him about. Ever since the day of the shaking of the entire continent, the aura that surrounded Long Di turned black with cracks of dark red around it for the duration of the event.

It correlated with the feeling of fear that she saw on his face for the first time. The feeling that she got from that colour was terrifying and as such, she struggled to know what these colours meant, but to no avail. She could only wait and continue in her cultivation to slowly unravel these secrets.

Additionally, there was another ghostly trail that she not only saw around herself but also around Long Di from time to time. It was different from the snake-like auras she saw around the others.

It gave her an inexplicable feeling of calm whenever she espied it. She already decided in her heart to follow Long Di. She believed that by following him, she would be able to discover more about herself. She also wished to help him as just the gift of the Abyss Scripture alone was something that she would never be able to repay him.

She ended the Auspice Gaze and took up Long Di in her arms in a princess carry.

Before she got too far, an oppressive aura violently shook the surroundings. The Super Donkeys were in a frenzy as Feng Yu struggled to keep them in control.

When Yaomu Shou felt this aura, her eyes narrowed as she looked up to the skies, “Uncle Yan, what is the meaning of this!?”