To her now, the secret realm gradually lay completely bare. Those treasure trees and spirit flowers, shining with brilliant light and originally looking so authentic, as well as those bridges constructed from various rare materials, were nothing more than illusions when viewed through Shi Yu's eyes once more.
“So all of these are nothing but skeletal remains and rotting mud.” Sweeping her gaze across them, she looked off into the distance.
Illusions like these were everywhere throughout the secret realm, yet amidst these useless and harmful things, there were always some usable relics left behind.
Because the red fox had chosen her as its master, all sorts of surging invisible auras became visible before Shi Yu's eyes. Closing her eyes to sense them, she realized that these seemingly chaotic streams of Qi actually each followed their own specific paths. She couldn't help but feel surprised in her heart. This secret realm was actually constructed from interlocking formations...
Although her own attainments in the Dao of Formations were quite profound, the person who laid out the formations in this secret realm possessed heaven-defying cultivation. Their methods of guiding aura were not something a newly minted Foundation Establishment cultivator like Shi Yu could see through. Had the red fox not chosen her as its master, causing these streams of aura to actively reveal themselves, she likely would have remained oblivious for a long time.
Opening her eyes again, her expression turned slightly solemn as she said to the other three, “This entire area is covered by formations. Let's get out of this array first before discussing anything else.”
She added with emphasis, “Follow my lead, and don't make a single wrong step.”
Though she had the red fox's mark helping her see through the formations, navigating out of them would still take considerable effort.
Seeing her grave expression, the three nodded solemnly.
Shi Yu retrieved several array flags from the Fate-Tapping Bell and tossed them into the four cardinal directions. She formed hand seals, causing a burst of spiritual light to flash as the speed of the surrounding aura streams instantly slowed down.
She waited quietly for the gap where the streams of aura intersected to pass by her, stepping forward at that precise split second.
As she moved, Shi Yu called out, “One step to the upper left.”
Qingzhou and the other two hastily followed her lead, stepping one step to the upper left.
“One step straight ahead.”
“Two steps to the upper right.”
...
Shi Yu walked very slowly. After taking each step, she paused for a good while, waiting for the surrounding aura to flow to the exact right moment before seizing that single breath to step again. Because of this, every step was taken with extreme care.
The three followed her step by step, listening carefully to her instructions without making a single mistake. After walking like this for half an hour, the ground beneath their feet suddenly shifted.
Immediately after, a surging wave of foreign thoughts barged into their minds without warning.
It carried an indescribable sense of tragedy and desolation. All kinds of negative emotions were so thick they couldn't be dissolved, lingering over their hearts almost like tangible matter. This tangled mess of feelings instantly weighed on them with immense pressure and depression, making them want to take their own lives just to escape this mortal realm.
Shi Yu's divine soul had long been tempered by the 《Soul Tempering Art》, rendering it incomparably resilient. Furthermore, having resisted the red fox's body seizure attempts twice in this secret realm, her divine soul had been honed even further. Though these mighty, rushing waves of negative emotions engulfed her, they only dazed her for a few breaths before she let out a soft shout in her heart and shook her divine sense, sweeping those emotions clean away.
Turning her head to look, she saw Qingzhou barely managing to keep his composure, his eyelids half-closed and brows tightly furrowed. Ji Yu and Mo Tong, however, were pale-faced. Ji Yu in particular possessed the lowest cultivation and was naturally hard-pressed to resist the onslaught of emotions. Muttering incoherent fragments like “Mother” and “doggie,” his eyes went blank as he pulled a short blade from his sleeve and raised it toward his own neck.
Shi Yu flicked her finger, sending a gust of forceful Qi striking Ji Yu's wrist. Pain shot through his wrist, causing him to cry out in pain and shudder awake.
At the same time, her other palm slapped against Qingzhou's back shoulder.
Looking up in dazed confusion, young Ji Yu looked as though he had just awakened from a dream, entirely unaware of what had happened. He scratched his head and stammered, “What happened to me...?”
Lowering his head, he caught sight of the short blade Shi Yu had knocked onto the ground. Only then did he recall what had just transpired, turning pale as lingering fear gripped him.
Seeing Mo Tong being awakened by Qingzhou as well, Shi Yu quietly instructed the three, “Focus your minds and guard your Qi. You must keep your minds anchored and not let the killing array's aura invade you.”
With that, she looked ahead, speaking with a touch of admiration, “The killing arrays here are layered one within another. The person who set up these formations had astonishingly high attainments and incredible ingenuity. It is truly admirable.”
These numerous formations, which had existed since the birth of this secret realm tens of millions of years ago, differed significantly in setup logic and architecture from modern formations. They opened Shi Yu's eyes, allowing her to gain quite a few insights from them.
Seeing that she still had the heart to admire the formation master, Ji Yu couldn't help but mutter, “Sister, let's focus on getting out of this formation first.”
Shi Yu carefully discerned the surrounding aura before continuing as she had done before, leading them step by step. She occasionally tossed out a few array flags, taking steps forward and backward that seemed like pacing in circles, yet the surrounding scenery kept changing and the chaotic aura grew clearer and clearer, proving that her path was correct.
After walking like this for a full four or five hours, the surging stream of aura around them abruptly ground to a halt. In its place, a white mist so thick it could not be parted enveloped the surroundings, completely obscuring the path. Knowing they had reached the array core, Shi Yu's eyes narrowed slightly. Gathering spiritual energy into a sphere in her palm, she struck out with an imposing 《Burning Push Palm》.
The 《Burning Push Palm》 was originally merely a Tier-2 technique, hardly sophisticated. While sufficient back during the Qi Refining Realm, it fell somewhat short after stepping into Foundation Establishment.
That being said, with Shi Yu using two types of Heavenly Fire as fuel to launch this palm, its power was not inferior to a Tier-3 technique in the slightest.
Blazing flames erupted from her palm, transforming into a massive palm imprint that slammed into the array core with violent force. Heatwaves intertwined, and the moment they made contact, it seemed to shatter a patch of space. Crisp crackling sounds echoed out, and fierce winds surged at the array core!
The surrounding spiritual energy surged entirely toward this spot. The countless treasure trees, spirit plants, and rare materials formed by illusions were torn apart like cloth, collapsing inward toward this point and condensing into a massive vortex.
Affected by this vortex, the four stumbled, nearly tumbling inside. Qingzhou and Mo Tong jointly raised the Water Curtain Celestial Canopy, blue light carving out rings of water ripples in midair to temporarily withstand the power of the vortex.
Gradually, it was not just the immediate area; the entire secret realm began to churn violently. Everything seemed to pour and collapse into this single point—whether it was bridges, pavilions, halls, and towers, or land, trees, floating clouds, and the sky itself.
Due to this sudden upheaval, looking off into the distance, one could vaguely see many bewildered cultivators fleeing in panic and confusion.
Finally, all the scenery sucked in and collapsed by the array core slowly coalesced. Under Shi Yu's intense gaze, it transformed into an ancient-looking formation diagram floating half-spread and half-rolled in midair.
As this formation diagram revealed itself, the secret realm's grand landscape—originally vast and filled with countless structures—instantly transformed. It shrank by several hundred times, leaving behind only two or three clusters of palaces and pavilions alongside a few small flower gardens and bamboo groves.
Shi Yu murmured, “Only this place right now is the true 'Mighty Expert's Tomb' and 'Underground Palace Secret Realm' that outsiders speak of.”
“So all along, we were inside a scroll. All those illusions were created by this formation diagram.”
Without hesitation, she reached out and snatched the formation diagram into her hand.
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