Everything happened in the blink of an eye, so fast that there wasn't even time to react. The man's cloudy eyes moved, his lips parted and closed twice, as if to say something, but nothing came out.
In just an instant, a large hole was pierced through his chest by his own shadow, visible from one side to the other, yet no blood flowed.
Ye Huohuo didn't notice this detail. After controlling her shadow to deliver the fatal blow, she happened to see the changes occurring within the Big Dipper formation.
A Cheng and his men had rushed into the Tian Shu Palace, but after half a day, there was no movement. It was likely they were trapped inside and couldn't get out anytime soon.
Less than five minutes remained until the half-hour mark, and once time was up, Ye Huohuo wouldn't be able to sustain the light portal.
Ye Huohuo was anxious, but the current situation left her in a dilemma. If she rushed into the formation to rescue them, she would have to leave this light circle. But if she left the circle, no one would be able to hold open the light portal, and even if she rescued them, she wouldn't be able to get out.
If she didn't go in to rescue them, it was highly likely that by the time the deadline arrived, they still wouldn't be out, leading to the same outcome of death. What should she do?
Ye Huohuo gritted her teeth. She had seen Li Mohan's situation earlier and was enraged. Coupled with the need to deal with the skeletal man, she had, in a moment of desperation, broken the seal halfway, which allowed her to greatly increase her power and control the shadow.
Control the shadow?
Right, ever since she had captured that man's shadow, she had learned some shadow control techniques. Although they were just superficial, only allowing her to control the shadow to perform simple actions, a person standing within the light circle didn't need many actions. As long as they had spiritual power, they could use their spiritual power to sustain the light portal.
With this thought, Ye Huohuo no longer hesitated. She used her will to control the shadow to step into the light circle, and she placed the dagger stained with her blood into the shadow's hand.
Although the shadow's owner had lost his hands, the shadow was, after all, a shadow and could arbitrarily change shape. Ye Huohuo thus controlled the shadow to conjure two hands.
She then used her shadow control technique to transfer some of her spiritual power to the shadow, calculating that it should be enough to support them until she brought everyone out.
After doing this, she paused her gaze on Li Mohan, her eyes filled with complex emotions. "If I don't make it out..." she gave a bitter smile, "you won't remember me. You don't have me in your heart at all." She muttered to herself.
Without looking back, she rushed into the formation.
As soon as Ye Huohuo entered the Big Dipper formation, she suddenly felt as if she had entered another dimension.
She hadn't expected the situation within the formation to be so completely different from how it looked from the outside.
From the outside, it looked like ordinary seven single-story houses, but upon entering the formation, these seven single-story houses had transformed into seven eighteen-story tall buildings.
Eighteen stories?
Could each building be an eighteen-layer hell? No wonder it took A Cheng and the others nearly twenty minutes to enter just one small room in the Tian Shu Palace. It turned out they had experienced an eighteen-layer hell.
Ye Huohuo ignored the other tall buildings and ran towards the first one, the Tian Shu Palace.
She had to be fast, she absolutely had to be fast.
Due to her increased magical power, Ye Huohuo could no longer be described as running; she was gliding close to the ground, her feet barely touching the earth. With a mere touch of her toes on the ground, she would slide forward a great distance.
Upon entering the building, she could ascend a floor with a light leap. Along the way, she saw the bodies of many wandering souls. This place was similar to the underworld. When wandering souls died here, just like people dying in the mortal world, their soul bodies wouldn't immediately dissipate but would linger for a period.
Looking at the soul bodies strewn across the ground, one could guess how fierce the battle had been at that time.
Ye Huohuo didn't have time to look closely. She almost stepped on these soul bodies as she flew upwards.
Soon, she reached the seventeenth floor.
Indeed, she saw A Cheng and the others.
The five subordinates who had entered with A Cheng were all ashen-faced, their bodies covered in wounds. They were supporting each other, barely able to stand. Even A Cheng was injured all over. Although none of the wounds were fatal, they had caused him to lose a lot of blood, and he looked incredibly exhausted.
They were currently cornered by a large group of wandering souls, making it difficult to break through. Everyone was barely holding on, relying on the protective shield that Fang Fang had conjured with her spiritual power.
However, Fang Fang's pink protective shield was shrinking, and its light was dimming, likely to disappear in less than two minutes.
At this critical moment, Ye Huohuo arrived.
A golden light suddenly erupted, like a light bomb exploding in the dim space, illuminating the entire floor instantly. The wandering souls surrounding A Cheng and the others were instantly annihilated by this intense light, not even having the chance to leave behind their soul bodies.
The seven people simultaneously covered their eyes. After a while, they slowly opened their eyes and were all shocked to see Ye Huohuo.
"How did you get in here? Who is guarding the formation outside?" Fang Fang asked urgently. She didn't want to be trapped in this broken place for the rest of her life. Although she was a魅 (mei - a type of spirit or phantom) and didn't mind the Yin energy here, she preferred people to wandering souls.
Ye Huohuo had just unleashed a powerful move, and her breath was still unstable. Panting, she pointed upstairs, "I've made arrangements outside. Let's deal with the main business first; there's no time."
With that, she was the first to rush up to the eighteenth floor.
"Wait a moment!..." Before Fang Fang could finish speaking, Ye Huohuo had already leaped to the eighteenth floor with a touch of her toes.
"You're really asking for death! You are too badly injured, don't go up. Hold onto those heads and wait for us!" Fang Fang instructed A Cheng and the others before closely following them.
As soon as Ye Huohuo reached the eighteenth floor, she suddenly began to float.
What was going on? Had this formation not only altered the spatial objects but also eliminated gravity?
She couldn't bother with that. The most important thing now was to quickly find the corpse that was refining souls and break this Tian Shu Palace.
Floating in the air, she looked around and soon spotted a large sphere. Inside, there was actually the body of a child.
It was too far to see clearly. Ye Huohuo swam towards the large sphere as if swimming in water and looked inside carefully. It was the body of a boy about five or six years old.
The child's corpse seemed alive, perhaps nourished by the Yin energy, with no sign of death. Its small face was still rosy.
Ye Huohuo sighed. These people were truly inhuman. How could they bring themselves to harm such a young child?
Ye Huohuo reached out and touched the outside of the large sphere. It was soft, feeling much like touching a balloon.
She poked it a few times with her fingertips. The outer layer felt like a balloon, but the material was much sturdier than a balloon. Her fingers even started to hurt from poking, but it still wouldn't break.
She checked the time. Less than three minutes remained until the light portal closed.
Anxious, she no longer cared about whether it looked good or was clean. She grabbed a piece of the sphere's skin and bit down on it. She bit and pulled with her sharp teeth, like chewing on a tough piece of beef tendon, and managed to bite a hole in it.
Then, she extended her fingers into the hole, one, two... eight fingers went in. With a pull from both hands, she tore open a large opening in the sphere's skin.
The gas trapped inside suddenly rushed out.
Ye Huohuo tilted her head, instinctively dodging the gas. It was the gas sealing the corpse, so it must have been smelly, possibly even toxic. But to her surprise, the gas that blew out carried a faint, fresh scent, the kind of fragrant scent of plants and trees that emerges when the first rays of morning sunlight warm the fresh grass.
Ye Huohuo only smelled a little of it, and it felt as if she were in a vast forest, smelling the clean fragrance released by the first morning grass warmed by the sun.
In a daze, she felt a bit dizzy and suddenly had a strong urge to crawl inside the large sphere.
Just then, her backside suddenly ached. She had been shot there with an arrow earlier, and when it was pulled out, Fang Fang had said it almost took a piece of flesh with it. Therefore, this pain pierced her to the core.
"Ouch! Who is it?" Ye Huohuo shivered and instantly sobered up.
Turning her head to look behind her, her nose almost bumped into Fang Fang's nose, startling her and making her quickly dodge backward.
Close call! If she had been any closer, she and Fang Fang would have been lip to lip.
But Fang Fang didn't show the expected aversion. Instead, the corner of her lips curved into a slight smile, but this smile…
Ye Huohuo didn't feel the usual charm she expected; instead, it had a rather cool aura. This was... a bit strange!
She blinked, suppressing that peculiar thought, "Did you just poke my wound?"
Fang Fang rolled her eyes at her. "I just saved you! You almost fell for it, you idiot!"
After speaking, she pointed into the sphere. Ye Huohuo looked inside, and her eyes widened…