At first glance, a shiver from the depths of the soul swept through.

Clearly, there were no piles of skeletons, no clusters of bones, no crashing seas of blood—only a dense blackness, smooth and viscous as ink.

Yet fear remained fear.

It was as if, in ancient times, one had stepped into an endless night and could never return.

The entire valley came to a halt; even the brilliant crimson sea of other shore flowers dimmed into insignificance.

The rounded darkness loomed before him, consuming the entirety of Yin Weiyin's vision.

Fear surged forth, piercing the skin, invading the depths of his Heart Lake.

And it was at that very moment,

across the Heart Lake, an unseen, mustard-seed-like ignorance erupted in brilliance!

It was the agony of the Longevity Bridge collapsing, the deepest fear Yin Weiyin had ever experienced.

The ignorance stood tall like a godly statue, devouring all fear that came crashing in!

A bead of cold sweat dripped from his brow. Yin Weiyin snapped back to his senses, his fingertips belatedly trembling with a chill.

Upon revisiting the chaos, it no longer seemed so terrifying.

The female crown murmured one thought:

"Not as good as Chen Zunming."

Just as in life, the most horrifying things may not be darkness, nor ghosts, nor even ferocious beasts, but the shadowy image of a rat from childhood—the squeaking, gnawing sound—tearing through your shoes!

Only after a long while did Chen Yi and Dong Guifei come to their senses.

Facing the colossal form within the stone door's crevice, Dong Guifei's face drained of color.

"Qianhu… is… is there… a way?"

She instinctively asked. The potency of the Yuchun Ointment had just begun to take effect.

Chen Yi, however, had no time to respond. Relying on experience, his mind raced:

"Reverse the array, alternate the life and death gates, and seal that door again!"

Then, Chen Yi turned his gaze to Yin Weiyin.

The female crown immediately understood his intention. She had already located the death gate of the array, at this point channeling Primordial Qi through her vital apertures to desperately reverse the formation.

In the study of arrays and talismans, Taihua Mountain has long been a prestigious name in cultivation.

Rumble!

The stone door carved with the Ghost Capturing Map groaned heavily, smoke and dust cascading downward. The chaos sensed their intentions and relentlessly assaulted the seal.

Yet the seal, despite barely trembling, remained steadfast and unbroken.

The chaos opened wide its mouth.

Raising one's eyes, it was not a crimson maw of blood, but an unfathomable pitch-black—deeper than the abyss.

"Roar!"

It let out a thunderous howl.

The sound echoed through the valley, a turbulent wave smashing like heavy hammers—blow after blow until the valley crumbled, the earth ruptured into devastation!

Massive fissures began to emerge. Chen Yi darted forward, shielding Yin Weiyin, only to see hundreds, thousands of similar cracks appear. The once-gentle valley shattered into countless cliffs within an instant.

A place deeper than the Underworld was unveiled.

The 18 levels of hell!

A torrent of ten thousand ghosts surged forth. Amid the eerie blue-green gloom, soul phantoms wailed mournfully as bone-chilling winds lashed at the living, eroding them to mere frames.

Pale claws stretched outward in frantic desperation; it was a split dragon, its body halved, clawing its way up the cliff, lunging toward Chen Yi.

Chen Yi leapt forward, wielding the Hou Kang Sword, and the radiant Shariputra burst into brilliance, instantly sinking into combat with the ghostly dragon.

The dragon's tail swept horizontally like a colossal mountain.

The Yinzai Sword was unleashed, slow at first, then swift, carried by winds like a phoenix's cry.

The sword's gusts raged; the sweeping dragon tail was shredded apart.

The halved dragon let out a pained howl, retreating toward the abyss of hell.

Yet countless spirits and demons continued their desperate climb!

At the same time, Dong Guifei slew three feral ghosts and dashed over, sending a secret transmission:

"What should we do now?!"

Chen Yi watched the array's patterns gradually change; it seemed as though prolonged delay would fully invert the formation:

"Don't retreat yet, we're almost there."

Dong Guifei appeared hesitant.

From his peripheral vision, Chen Yi observed the flicker of blush on her face, and coldly remarked:

"Do you want the antidote?

Rest assured, even if the chaos emerges early, I'll keep both of us safe."

Dong Guifei, after some hesitation, finally nodded:

"Alright."

With her words, she turned to battle the specters.

Chen Yi did the same, maneuvering closely near Yin Weiyin.

Around the female crown, seven talismans burned brightly with true fire, all crafted from premium yellow paper, suppressing the array's core.

Gradually, the array began reversing.

The chaos bellowed again!

Boom!

The commotion sounded like thunder crashing from the skies.

This time, however, there were no scenes of collapsing mountains and earth.

A gray-white mist surged like tidal waves, turning the entire sky into a monochrome haze—like being enveloped in primeval creation before heaven and earth separated, with nothing visible except infinite chaos!

Chen Yi barely had time to grasp the implication of the roar.

Yet from the distance came the startled exclamation of the Mad Scripture Master:

"No, my cultivation!"

As the words reached them, Chen Yi felt it too.

Quickly wielding his sword at the forefront,

the mist flooded into his vital apertures, Primordial Qi becoming sluggish, True Qi flowing slowly, and his once adamantine physique softening over time.

The relentless ghosts, on the other hand, began to grow—ever smaller spirits growing robust!

The once ferocious, sprawling ghost dragon now shrunk into the form of a tiny insect.

The heavens and earth were reversed!

The mighty turned weak, and the weak became mighty.

Mountain peaks crumbled, ghostly spirits roared and raged. Looking down, it was as if an endless sea churned into monstrous waves carried by fierce winds.

The countless ghosts drew closer and closer, while Chen Yi's cultivation steadily declined.

His vital apertures clogged, his meridians constricted...

The cultivation techniques he had mastered faltered when needed. His movements were but feeble approximations—a child swinging a sword, his mind envisioning one form, reality producing another.

The previously minute Golden Core sank deep into the Heart Lake; the cavern dwindled, the lake shrinking into a mere pond.

Whether Daoist practices or martial arts, his realms plummeted one after another!

Chen Yi's face paled subtly.

It felt as though he had reached a dead end...

Until he heard a voice behind him:

"Huh, why am I at Nascent Soul Realm?"

......…

For Chen Qianhu of Great Yin, prone to frequent consumption of others' cultivation, his realm had fallen rapidly—from Golden Core to Core Formation—and his once Fourth-Rank martial prowess declined to merely Sixth or Seventh-Rank.

Yet for the female crown, continually depleted by Chen Yi,

this moment resembled divine enlightenment—ascending into daylight.

Having been harvested down to Foundation Establishment Realm mere days ago, despite Chen Yi later granting her three pieces of True Yuan, even after complete refinement, it was no more than the early stage of Core Formation.

Furthermore, the earlier bestowed True Yuan remained partially unrefined.

Now, seated within the formation and directly facing the roar of reversed heavens and earth,

The seven talismans burned with True Fire, radiating brilliance.

The previously fractured Longevity Bridge seemed invisibly mended.

Far surpassing the past.

Within her Heart Lake, radiant golden light erupted. A perfectly round Golden Core emerged, akin to the moon rising upon the sea, bearing nine etched patterns.

Ignorance yielded beneath its brilliance.

And stewarding the Golden Core was a figure, clothed simply in white robes—it was Yin Weiyin's Nascent Soul.

Yin Weiyin was about to display a look of joy, yet her Heart Lake stilled as she composed herself.

As tranquil as calm waters, void of ripples.

Recalling her moments of thrilled surprise,

she then shook her head gently, sighing softly:

"Is it truly worth mentioning?"

The flowing robe fluttered like clouds dispersing and reuniting.

Looking down, ghosts swarmed in frenzy, fiends and spirits bursting forth from the Underworld's depths, surging as though swallowing the entirety of the eight cardinal directions!

Menacing aura weighed heavily, sweeping through the six realms.

The female crown breathed deeply; True Fire intensified, stirring winds of its own accord.

The clear wind differed starkly from the Underworld's murky air.

This was the pure breath of a cultivator.

One gives birth to two, two give birth to three, three give birth to all things.

The wind danced across shattered peaks and collapsed cliffs, past the remnants of the Judge, sweeping the swaying mountain of other shore flowers, transforming vivid crimson petals into pure white lotus blossoms.

Finally, the breeze brushed against Chen Yi's hair.

When he turned his head, he saw Yin Weiyin raising a sword-finger, pointing at the heavens.

A great wind billowed!

Chen Yi's eyes widened slightly.

With that single upward motion of her finger, Yin Weiyin…

rose with the wind.

Sailing straight up nine thousand miles!

............…

The clear wind transformed into a raging gale, hissing through with phoenix cries, rustling between the strands of the female crown's hair, lifting her head to meet the pitch-black dome of the Underworld's sky.

She took one step forward; the world beneath her shrank into insignificance, as small as ants; she herself became ethereal as though ascending, clouds gathering at her feet.

And at the original place, spectral blue souls congregated—it was precisely Yin Weiyin's Nascent Soul.

The Nascent Soul exited its vessel, reversed the array, while her true form ascended nine thousand miles high, raising her gaze to the boundless dome of the Underworld. Beneath her, endless layers of clouds converged, overlooking the valley's turbulent wind entirely.

Yin Weiyin uttered no triumphant cry nor an impassioned declaration but carried a serene smile, imbued with tranquility.

Much like ascending to immortality within an ancient palace.

The spectacle of ten thousand ghosts swarming now seemed merely a faint white string from her vantage.

Yin Weiyin raised her sword.

She had once claimed that when she became immortal, she would certainly slay demons and exorcise spirits.

Now, though not yet immortal,

to rid the world of evil spirits,

why not live freely?

One sword swept down, carrying with it the valley's blustering winds, transforming into countless torrents of sword energy howling through!

Hundreds of fiends were torn apart by the sword wind, thousands of spirits were crushed, tens of thousands of ghostly entities were forced to prostrate, unable to move an inch!

She recalled the days of her youth, captivated by the stories captured in paintings of Immortals clutching lotus blossoms, ethereal and breathtaking. When a single drop of dew fell from the lotus, it was said one could attain eternal life. Back then, she was utterly entranced, waiting by the lakeside every day for the morning dew upon the lotus, refusing to return even at her parents' coaxing without having seen the dew.

"Nectar and elixir from dew; the wondrous essence of divine water and Golden Pills,"

Time seemed to fly by swiftly; those youthful passions faded as she matured, emerging as the graceful princess she was meant to be. The once-vivid painted dreams blurred into obscured clouds, dissipating in moments as though growing up meant abandoning dreams. Yet one day, she witnessed celestial cranes circling the skies, her master Yu Zhen Immortal arriving at the Prince Mansion—suddenly realizing she was destined for immortality.

"This encounter with the True Immortal,"

Floating beyond mortal reach, Yin Weiyin breathed out amidst the sea of clouds, catching those words, then followed with another sword strike,

"Transcending into my heavenly residence."

The lamentations of ten thousand ghosts echoed, and the valley, now in ruins, seemed like her solitary stage. She stood high above, untouched by it, with only her sword slicing through it—her Peach Wood Sword resembling the Magic Sword wielded by a Sword Immortal.

She remembered a day she visited Taihua Mountain, witnessing its pure charm and gifted terrain. The mountains stretched endlessly like the sea; standing atop the heights, she marveled at the vast expanse during twilight, the golden hue of the forest bathing the landscape in her memories. Back then, a mere youth, she watched Taoists soaring through the clouds, wishing for the day she too would ascend ethereal heights.

The female crown chuckled softly, amused.

Now beneath her feet lay boundless clouds.

"Behold, behold, wandering freely among the drifting seas of clouds!"

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