Chapter 81
Chapter 81: A Flaw in Her Dao Heart
Above the clouds, Meng Ling Zhi and Feng Shao Hu stood dazed and glass-eyed, bodies moving as if locked in battle.
Their weapons rose and fell against emptiness, their faces tight with fear and fury.
Jiang Yun Jiang watched them for a breath, then looked away.
The Ling Long Illusion Realm honed the Dao heart. That was the point of it. She hadn’t used her divine ability to brute-force an exit; she had forced her way through on her own.
When she returned to herself, Ji Fei Guang and Ji Xuan Yin were already watching her. Jiang Yun Jiang answered with an apologetic smile, as if embarrassed by her slowness.
Heart-Bewitching Eye was a divine ability, different from immortal arts. Its potential ran deeper—subtler—entirely dependent on how its owner used it. No one else could truly judge its limits.
Each layer of illusion grew harder than the last. Jiang Yun Jiang controlled things with care, weakening the power she displayed bit by bit until, by the sixty-seventh layer, Heart-Bewitching Eye seemed almost useless.
Ji Fei Guang woke more than a dozen breaths earlier than she did. His gaze at her was complicated, but disappointment outweighed suspicion.
Her apologetic smile held no cracks. The small spark of doubt in his eyes cooled and faded.
Ji Xuan Yin and Ji Fei Guang were about to activate their Heart-Link Bracelets to drag the other two out, both of them inwardly displeased.
Anyone could smile and speak politely while carrying dead weight through a trial. Resentment still grew in the dark.
If their masters hadn’t been close, the Ji siblings would never have chosen to travel with Meng Ling Zhi and Feng Shao Hu.
Then Feng Shao Hu suddenly went mad.
Spiritual power surged through him as he swung his longsword wildly, eyes empty, expression twisted. Meng Ling Zhi was too close—too slow—and took a blade straight through her right arm.
Blood sprayed.
As long as the illusion’s power remained, Meng Ling Zhi couldn’t wake. No one knew what she was seeing, but the pain only drove her deeper. With a hoarse cry, she summoned a spear and met Feng Shao Hu’s sword with sparks snapping.
The two of them clashed without pause, trapped in the same false world, tearing at each other like beasts.
A plan flashed through Jiang Yun Jiang’s mind.
She didn’t let it show.
Instead, she poured power into the Heart-Link Bracelet even faster, voice sharp with urgency. “Senior Brother Ji, Senior Sister Ji—quickly. We have to wake them!”
She darted in, trying to avoid the fight.
But a spear’s sharp force, released from Meng Ling Zhi’s wild thrust, shot straight toward her.
Jiang Yun Jiang raised a defensive art on instinct. The gap in cultivation was too wide. Her guard shattered in an instant.
She threw up her hand—
Bang!
The impact slammed into her. Pain tore through her arm, and at the same moment, the Heart-Link Bracelet shattered with a crisp, ugly crack.
…
Shao Heng stepped onto the last stair.
The 180,000th step.
Even knowing it was all illusion, the pain and exhaustion were too real. The moment her foot landed, something inside her loosened, as if a knot had finally been cut.
Seventy-two layers.
She had cleared them all.
The illusions broke like bubbles. She felt the yellow sprout in her qi sea again, vivid as spring after a long winter. Spiritual power surged through her meridians, washing away swelling aches, while moonlight flooded her sea of consciousness, sharpening her mind to a clean edge.
“My spiritual sense…” Shao Heng exhaled, steadying herself. “It’s grown a lot.”
If she shut in for a few days, the Spirit-Refining Art might be enough to split into sixteen threads.
She rested only long enough to stop her hands from shaking.
Then a soft voice sounded behind her. “A fellow cultivator from the One Yuan Sect?”
Shao Heng turned.
A woman strode over with easy confidence. It was Xuan Yun An of the Star-Inquiry Sect.
Xuan Yun An’s cloak hung over one shoulder, its red patterns fierce as flame. She looked Shao Heng up and down, then grinned. “I was congratulating myself, but you got here first. I truly admire you.”
“Fellow Cultivator Xuan, you’re too modest,” Shao Heng said. “We arrived only a step apart.”
She glanced past Xuan Yun An, toward the distant haze. “Besides… someone may have cleared it even earlier than me.”
Xuan Yun An lifted her chin toward the clouds. “Out of the forty-some people who came in, everyone else is still trapped in the illusion bubbles. Besides the two of us.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Looks like the third trial will be a fight between us.”
She smiled at Shao Heng, sharp and bright. “I thought that arrogant Ji Fei Guang actually had some skill. Who knew you’d be the one to get ahead? That means you trampled him underfoot.”
“Xuan Yun An,” she added. “And you?”
“Shao Heng.”
The two women met each other’s gaze and saw the same hard determination there. Almost in unison, they smiled—and leaped.
They entered the light gate for the third trial at the same moment.
The world spun.
Shao Heng tumbled into a strange place.
All around her stood enormous mirrors. Eight formed a circle, and beyond that, ring after ring, each reflecting her face back at her from endless angles.
When Shao Heng shifted even slightly, every reflection shifted with her, like a living kaleidoscope.
A voice spoke—not aloud, but inside her skull.
“Who are you? Where did you come from? Where do you want to go?”
Cliché questions. Shao Heng didn’t care, yet the sound still left her briefly dazed, as if her thoughts had been stirred.
“I am myself,” she said calmly. “I came from where I came, and I’m going where I’m going.”
“Should I call you Shao Heng? Or Lu Shao Heng?”
Shao Heng’s smile didn’t falter, but her instincts flared.
“I’d rather be called Shao Heng,” she said. “But if you insist on the surname, call me Lu Shao Heng. It makes no difference.”
Inside, alarms were already ringing.
She was almost certain the earlier illusions had been shaped from her memories. Did this inheritance ground read what was inside her mind?
And if it could… did it know about the Gray Cocoon?
The thought sent a flash of panic through her chest.
Shao Heng forced it down.
The Gray Cocoon had slipped past a full-force search by Yin Liu, a Seventh Realm cultivator at the peak of her power. No matter how profound the master of this inheritance ground had once been, she was dead and gone. And this place had been opened hundreds of times, worn down by the long years, drained each time disciples stepped onto the moon.
It could not be stronger than Yin Liu.
“You want the inheritance?” the voice asked.
“If I didn’t, why would I be here?”
There was a pause, as if something considered her.
“Look at the mirrors around you. What kind of person are you?”
Shao Heng studied herself in the countless reflections, then nodded as if impressed.
“At first glance, I’m stunning. Look closer and you’ll see I’m a once-in-a-generation genius too—truly the bearing of an immortal.”
“Is that so?” The voice turned colder. “I can examine all your memories. You think passing seventy-two layers of the Ling Long Illusion Realm means your will is unbreakable? That you’re flawless?”
Shao Heng didn’t answer. She watched the mirrors.
The reflections changed.
It was her—and not her.
Each mirror showed a different age, a different scene, a different choice.
“Your state of mind has a massive flaw,” the voice said. “You once swore you would never regret, that you would always move forward. But do you truly have no regrets?”
“You’re lying to yourself.”