Chapter 79
Chapter 79: The Ling Long Illusion Realm
The disciples of the True One Yuan Sect loosely treated Ji Fei Guang as their leader.
On the Star-Inquiry Sect side, the one who stepped forward was a young woman whose presence quieted the air. The Star-Inquiry disciples stood behind her without a sound, waiting for her to speak.
She looked about 20, dressed in snow-white robes, a cape of red and silver draped over one shoulder. A glowing Star Runes mark rested on her forehead. Her face wasn’t delicately pretty like Ji Xuan Yin’s, but it carried a stern steadiness that made people trust her without realizing it.
Xuan Yun An smiled at Ji Fei Guang. “Fellow Cultivator Ji, then our two sects’ disciples will act together.”
“Let me go first and set the example.”
The mark on her forehead flashed. She lifted two fingers to it, and a stream of pure silver spiritual sense—bright as starlight—surged toward the Bronze Gate.
Ji Fei Guang snorted softly and drove his own spiritual sense forward as well, slamming it into the gate.
With those two moving, no one hesitated. One after another, cultivators sent their spiritual sense outward, each using their own method.
Shao Heng calmed her breathing, drew on the spiritual sense within her sea of consciousness, and sent it forward.
The moment her spiritual sense touched the Bronze Gate, it was like a mud ox sinking into the sea. It vanished—swallowed whole. She couldn’t feel it at all, only the drain as she poured in more.
There were 47 people present. Most were late or peak First Realm cultivators. Their spiritual sense was far beyond ordinary cultivators—yet even with everyone working together, the Bronze Gate only trembled faintly.
Shao Heng felt roughly a tenth of her spiritual sense drain away. Now she understood why they needed so many people.
If a single First Realm cultivator tried alone, no matter how gifted, they could exhaust their spiritual sense to emptiness and still never open this gate.
Time dragged. Faces paled. Pills appeared—swallowed fast, forced down to keep people from being completely drained before the gate opened. Entering the Ling Long Illusion Realm with an empty sea of consciousness would be suicide.
Shao Heng took out two Nourishing Spirit Pills and swallowed them.
They were rare—nothing like the common pills sold on the market. She’d taken them from the storage ring of that rich boy, Lu Tian Xiang.
The medicine was excellent. Within a few breaths, cool clarity flowed through her sea of consciousness, refreshing her mind.
By then, the Bronze Gate was more than half open.
They held on.
A deep creak sounded, like a mountain shifting.
The Bronze Gate swung wide.
Behind it, round spheres like bubbles glowed with dazzling colors, linked together and constantly shifting positions. Each bubble was enormous. Seventy-two of them were packed tight, forming a shifting mass that blocked the path ahead.
“This is the Ling Long Illusion Realm,” Ji Fei Guang called out.
His eyes flicked to Jiang Yun Jiang beside him. He exchanged looks with the other three—then, with Ji Xuan Yin, the five of them rushed into one of the bubbles.
Shao Heng’s gaze sharpened.
All five wore red-gold twisted bracelets on their wrists—the Heart-Link Bracelet Ji Xuan Yin had mentioned, capable of keeping them connected inside illusions.
If they activated it together, they could enter the same illusion, warn each other, and pass more smoothly.
Shao Heng withdrew her attention.
The Nourishing Spirit Pills were already working. Her spiritual sense wasn’t at its absolute peak, but it was strong—steady, clear, and deep.
She took one breath, stepped forward, and dove into another bubble.
In an instant, the world spun.
Her mind went blank for a heartbeat.
Then it slammed back into place.
Black and red filled her vision. At first she couldn’t make out details—only the howl of a chilling wind, and the screaming of evil ghosts that clawed at her bones.
As her eyes adjusted, she saw a single-plank bridge ahead. Below it churned dark red lava. Ugly corpses and hungry ghosts struggled within it, their mouths gaping, their hands stretching. Sharp claws grabbed at the plank, making it sway violently, as if it would snap at any moment.
Shao Heng didn’t stop.
She stepped onto the bridge.
Heat rose from the lava, but cold wind slammed over her skin. Hot and cold kept switching, sharp enough to feel real, so real she couldn’t sense any falseness at all.
Vengeful ghosts leapt up without warning. Clawed hands clamped around Shao Heng’s ankles, yanking with vicious strength, trying to drag her into the lava. Pain bloomed—claws piercing flesh, tearing.
Shao Heng lowered her gaze and reached instinctively for spiritual power—
Nothing.
She couldn’t sense the yellow sprout inside her. Her cultivation was sealed.
Fine.
She sprang upward. In midair, she kicked her legs wide, snapping the ghosts off her ankles with sheer force.
Back in the Mortal Realm, she’d studied martial manuals. She’d simply lacked strength then, her body untempered.
Now her flesh had been refined by cultivation. Each movement carried brutal power.
Even if she couldn’t use spiritual power, did she really need it to handle a few small ghosts?
Shao Heng landed firmly on the plank and leapt forward again, clearing a long stretch. Ghosts roared as they lunged from the lava to bite her. She kicked them away one by one—cracking skulls, spraying gore, sending broken bodies tumbling back into the red.
“You think you’re worthy of blocking my road?” Her voice cut through the wind, cold as a blade.
“So this illusion tests fear,” she muttered, eyes narrowed. “Ghosts. Horror.”
Shao Heng wasn’t some fearless hero. There were plenty of things she feared. As a child, crawling bugs made her skin crawl. Ghost stories gave her nightmares. Pain could still make her cry.
But once she knew what she wanted—
Then no matter how many horrors stood in her way, even if she trembled, even if she wanted to sob, she would still stomp them into pulp and walk forward.
—
Ji Fei Guang’s team had entered a different world entirely.
They stood in a pure white space with no edges, no sky, no ground—only endless pale light. They were separated, each stranded in their own pocket of distance, yet each of them was surrounded by five or six, seven or eight naked men and women.
Some were elegant and otherworldly, some dazzlingly beautiful, some cold and heroic. All were stunning in ways that snagged the eye and dragged at the mind.
Bodies pressed close. Warmth. Fragrance. Soft laughter at the ear.
No matter how they shoved, they couldn’t throw them off. Fingers traced along skin. Lips hovered. Teasing whispers slid into their thoughts like hooks.
In this illusion, joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure—the seven emotions and six desires—were magnified until they drowned everything else.
Even cultivators who believed their Dao hearts were steady felt their minds waver for an instant.
When three muscular, handsome naked men wrapped themselves around Jiang Yun Jiang, her pale violet pupils flared with sudden light.
“Men?” Her lips curled.
The desire in the air surged, trying to sink claws into her.
Jiang Yun Jiang laughed softly, disdainful. “When I reach a higher realm, I can keep a thousand or eight hundred furnace partners, sing with them every day, and never repeat the same year. Who could say a thing?”
Her eyes turned cold. “You’re worthless trash.”
She activated the Heart-Bewitching Eye.
Violet light flashed.
The naked men vanished like smoke.
Jiang Yun Jiang lifted her right hand. On her wrist, the red-gold Heart-Link Bracelet gleamed.
Her illusion had shattered. Now she could see the others—still trapped, faces strained, bodies tense against the pull.
Ji Xuan Yin and Ji Fei Guang still looked upright, only being dragged downward by the illusion’s force.
But Feng Shao Hu and Meng Ling Zhi already wore dazed expressions, their eyes unfocused, their resistance fraying.
Jiang Yun Jiang couldn’t help letting out a mocking laugh.
“Even resisting lust is this hard.” Her gaze sharpened. “No wonder Ji Fei Guang had to drag me into his team.”
“And even though he relies on my innate ability and wants me here,” she murmured, “he still had others pass me the news about ascending the moon. He didn’t want me to realize how important I am—so he could control me.”
Even after forcing Shao Heng away, Ji Fei Guang’s arrogance still grated on her.
Jiang Yun Jiang extended the index finger of her left hand and tapped the bracelet lightly.
Bone-white spiritual power flowed into it, spreading across the surface in a crawling line of patterns—faint, but unmistakable.
A tiger’s head began to take shape.
“Once the White Tiger killing seal finishes forming,” she whispered, voice soft as a knife, “and it shreds the internal Dao-trace restrictions inside this broken bracelet… who will care whether you live or die?”